City Folk and Country Folk

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CITY FOLK AND COUNTRY FOLK

RU S S I A N L I BR A RY

The Russian Library at Columbia University Press publishes an expansive selection of Russian literature in English translation, concentrating on works previously unavailable in English and those ripe for new translations. Works of premodern, modern, and contemporary literature are featured, including recent writing. The series seeks to demonstrate the breadth, surprising variety, and global importance of the Russian literary tradition and includes not only novels but also short stories, plays, poetry, memoirs, creative nonfiction, and works of mixed or fluid genre.

Editorial Board: Vsevolod Bagno Dmitry Bak Rosamund Bartlett Caryl Emerson Peter B. Kaufman Mark Lipovetsky Oliver Ready Stephanie Sandler

ɷɸɷ Between Dog and Wolf by Sasha Sokolov, translated by Alexander Boguslawski Strolls with Pushkin by Andrei Sinyavsky, translated by Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy and Slava I. Yastremski Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays by Andrei Platonov, translated by Robert Chandler, Jesse Irwin, and Susan Larsen Rapture: A Novel by Iliazd, translated by Thomas J. Kitson

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Columbia University Press New York

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Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Published with the support of Read Russia, Inc., and the Institute of Literary Translation, Russia Copyright © 2017 Nora Seligman Favorov Introduction copyright © 2017 Hilde Hoogenboom All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Khvoshchinskaiଊ aଋ , Sof‫މ‬iଊ aଋ Dmitrievna, 1828-1865, author. | Favorov, Nora Seligman, translator.

Title: City folk and country folk / Sofia Khvoshchinskaya; translated by Nora Seligman Favorov.

Other titles: Gorodskie i derevenskie. English | Russian library (Columbia University Press) Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2017. | Series: Russian library | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016057704 (print) | LCCN 2016059922 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231183024 (cloth) | ISBN 9780231183031 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780231544504 (electronic) Subjects: LCSH: Country life—Russia—History—19th century— Fiction. | Gentry—Russia—Fiction.

Classification: LCC PG3447.V47 G6713 2017 (print) | LCC PG3447.V47 (ebook) | DDC 891.73/3--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016057704

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America Cover design: Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich Book design: Lisa Hamm

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments vii Introduction by Hilde Hoogenboom xi Notes on the Translation

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City Folk and Country Folk 1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I

t was Beth Holmgren (then of the University of North Carolina, now of Duke University) who first steered me in the direction of nineteenth-century Russian women writers, so it is she, first and foremost, who deserves credit for introducing me to Sofia Khvoshchinskaya. On Holmgren’s advice, I acquainted myself with all of the nineteenth-century female authors publishing (usually anonymously or under a pseudonym) prose in Russia at that time. While there was much of interest, Khovshchinskaya and this novel in particular struck me as offering the greatest possibilities for both scholarly investigation and pure reading pleasure. My first draft translation was completed with a great deal of help from native Russian speakers, primarily Dr. Rimma Garn (who, as a professor of Russian literature and culture, could offer her expertise as a professional) and my husband, Oleg Favorov (who, as a scientist with no literary credentials whatsoever, is nevertheless an exceptionally insightful interpreter of nineteenth-century prose, having spent a sizable proportion of his life with his nose in books from or about that period in Russia’s history).

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Beth Holmgren also deserves thanks for putting me in touch with Mary Zirin, a name that comes up in many of the acknowledgments written by translators of nineteenth-century Russian women.

Zirin read an early draft of my translation in parallel with the Russian (being “constitutionally incapable,” as she wrote, of sticking to the spot-check she had planned) and somehow managed to sound extremely encouraging about the quality of the translation despite making dozens upon dozens of corrections. Paul Debreczeny, one of my graduate school professors at the University of North Carolina who, alas, did not live to see this work published, also made extremely helpful corrections and comments. A unique contribution to the project was made by Karen Rosneck, translator and scholar of Sofia’s better known sister, Nadezhda. As someone working on a translation nobody was waiting for by an author nobody had heard of, I found Rosneck’s enthusiasm, encouragement, and advice to be invaluable.

Useful input was offered by dear family friend and retired Brooklyn College English professor Dick Miller. A few other friends—Gail Murrow, Dan Ryder, Lynne Seligman—also read early drafts of City Folk and Country Folk and wrote up thoughtful and insightful comments. I was heartened by their assurances that the novel would be of interest to a broad audience. The more mature version of my translation represented in this book reflects recent help. My dear friend Elana Pick, English-to-Russian translator and interpreter extraordinaire, helped out with questions about nuances of the Russian. I was fortunate to have two close friends and colleagues whose abilities as writers and translators of Russian I greatly respect—Lydia Razran Stone and Laura Wolfson—compare my translation to the original Russian, catch a few errors and infelicities, and make a number of

suggestions that, I believe, have resulted in a much improved final product. Finally, I would like to thank Read Russia, Russia’s Institute of Literary Translation, and the editorial board, editors, production staff, and backers of Columbia University Press’s Russian Library for making this publication possible—and Christine Dunbar, in particular, for her support and assistance.

Acknowledgments

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INTRODUCTION

I

n the 1860s, unbeknownst to Russian readers, at the same time as they were reading Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, Russia had its own trio of writing sisters. Like the Brontës, the Khvoshchinskaya sisters wrote under male pseudonyms, endured hardships, and lived in the provinces, in the city of Ryazan, about 120 miles southwest of Moscow.1 The Brontë sisters became well known not long after their deaths, thanks to Elizabeth Gaskell’s myth-making Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857), written at the request of their family to protect their reputations. The story of the Khvoshchinskaya sisters remains to be told.2 This silence is a familiar situation for women writers, but the sisters bear some of the responsibility. Nadezhda (1822–1889), Sofia (1824–1865), and Praskovia (1828–1916) refused requests to print their names and biographies, although writers and editors knew who they were and encouraged them to write under their own names to promote their works. After Nadezhda’s death, despite having given her word to remain silent, Praskovia wrote a brief “family chronicle” for Nadezhda’s collected works in 1892, in a riposte to critics who portrayed the sisters as leading a gloomy life as they supported

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their greedy family. Praskovia explained that they used pseudonyms because provincial society was suspicious of women writers, and in the capital St. Petersburg, “there were few women writers and they hid behind pseudonyms and their labor was considered improper, not feminine.� Praskovia did not explain what did not need to be explained to readers at the time, namely that these were important considerations for the Khvoshchinskaya sisters and their family because they were nobles. Indeed, most Russian writers, the characters they created, and the readers who enjoyed their works were from the nobility. This fundamental fact is essential to understanding their lives, their works, and the comedy of manners in City Folk and Country Folk.

The Khvoshchinskys were a large old noble family that dated back to 1615 and the reign of the first Romanov, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, who gave them land in recognition of their military service. Their father, Dmitry Kesarevich Khvoshchinsky, served as an officer and then retired to marry Yulia Vikentyevna Drobyshevskaya-Rubets.

With the help of his family, he bought an estate with a distillery and turned his attention to distributing alcohol and breeding horses. The family, however, lost their estate, livelihood, and reputation when Khvoshchinsky was falsely accused of embezzlement. The fourteenyear case was resolved in 1845, and he was then able to join the civil service as a land surveyor for the treasury. Nadezhda worked as his clerk, managing the office and copying plans (like her heroine in the novel Ursa Major). In 1850, Nadezhda switched from publishing poetry to novels, and later criticism, dramas, sketches, and translations to support their extended family, which included the three sisters (a fourth sister had died in 1838), a brother, and their father’s five spinster sisters (who appear in fictionalized form in various works).

Later their brother married, and his wife and two sons, who would be the family’s only descendants, lived with them while he served as a military officer. After their father’s sudden death in 1856, Nadezhda convinced Sofia not to take a job as the director of a gymnasium (an elite high school) in Samara but to remain at home and publish her writing.3 In 1862, Nadezhda compared their division of labor within the family to branches of government: “Sofia is reflection and counsel. Pasha is executive power. I am the treasury.”4 Central to their story is the extraordinary intellectual, creative, and emotional bond between Sofia and Nadezhda, who was regularly compared to George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, and George Sand.5 After a brief career of nine years that showed her equally considerable talents and promise, Sofia died young, while Nadezhda’s writing career spanned nearly five decades (1842–1889). She remains the most important nineteenth-century Russian writer that most Russians have never heard of. Praskovia wrote two tales and four short stories (1864–1865, 1879) that were republished twice as a collection, In the City and in the Country (1881, 1885).

Before Sofia died in 1865 at age 41 from abdominal tuberculosis, she informed Nadezhda that she did not want her works to be republished. Of her two novels, ten novellas, and seven published sketches (1857-65), City Folk and Country Folk, which was included in a Soviet anthology in 1987, is her only work to be republished since her death.

An article about her work by the radical critic Dmitry Pisarev was not published. A single rogue obituary for Sofia appeared in The Illustrated Gazette, published by Vladimir Zotov, their supporter and (unfortunately overly intrusive) editor of Nadezhda’s poetry.6 The obituary revealed the true identities of both Sofia and Nadezhda behind their respective pseudonyms, Iv. Vesenev and V. Krestovsky. With the death Introduction

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of her soulmate, Nadezhda despaired: “I could be alive for Sofia, enjoy myself together with her, seek out people for her sake. Without her, I cannot live, there is no gaiety, I don’t know people.”7 Six weeks later, she married a twenty-seven-year old doctor, Ivan Zaionchkovsky (1838-72), moved to St. Petersburg, began writing for the newspaper The Voice, and stopped writing novels for two years. But by 1870, with Ursa Major, Nadezhda was the most well-respected and well-paid novelist after Turgenev and Tolstoy in the “thick” journals where most Russian literature was initially published in serial form.8 In 1876, Ivan Kramskoi painted her portrait in the series commissioned by Pavel Tretyakov of Russia’s most important cultural figures, which included Tolstoy, Ivan Goncharov, and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. To this day it is in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

Like the Brontë sisters, as children Sofia and Nadezhda were inseparable, and they were constantly working on family literary projects.

With Nadezhda as editor, they created a weekly journal, “The Little Star,” for their father. They also liked to stage dramatic scenes. Like their mother, who was educated at the home of a wealthy relative, the daughters were well educated, initially at home, in Russian, literature, Latin, and drawing. Thanks to a wealthy uncle, Sofia attended the St. Catherine Institute for Young Noblewomen in Moscow from 1835 to 1843, and did not see her family during that time, as was customary.

She graduated with an education in Russian, French, German, and English, and as the best student, received a gold medal that entitled her to an official position as teacher or the right to run a private school, known as a pension. This same uncle invited Nadezhda to Moscow for a year, where she studied French, Italian, and music. She also learned German and continued to read and translate from these languages for the rest of her life. Back home, in Sofia’s absence, Nadezhda took

up with a family friend her age, with whom she wrote poetry, tales, and three novels in the spirit of Walter Scott and Casimir Delavigne’s Marino Faliero, which they first translated from French.

When Sofia returned home in 1843, Nadezhda already had begun to publish her poetry through their contacts in Moscow. Sofia wrote “The Cemetery,” an imitation of Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”9 When a friend, Princess Alexandra Shchetinina (later the second wife of Alexander Pushkin’s editor and publisher Petr Pletnev) asked whether she was going to publish her writing, Sofia replied (in French) that, “there is nothing more terrible than to see your own words, your own thoughts published in a book, read by the whole world, judged by the whole world, criticized, and never does one see the faults of one’s pen so well as when one sees it leaving a bookstore, still smelling of the odor of printer’s ink. No, there is no road steeper, rougher to travel than that of the poor poet, and I have one under my eyes now, who is an acquaintance of mine.” In 1845, Sofia wrote her that she and Nadezhda were painting an eighteenth-century landscape of a hunting scene with forty dogs from the era of Louis XV; Nadezhda added that Sofia needed models for her painting.10 The family archive, discovered in a relative’s home in Ryazan in 1979, contains caricatures of all the wellknown men writers, most likely by Nadezhda.11 Beginning in 1852, once Nadezhda had begun to publish fiction, she traveled to Moscow and St. Petersburg to meet her editor Andrei Kraevsky at the liberal and later radical journal Notes of the Fatherland, which was her publishing home until it was closed by the censors in 1884. From 1857, once Sofia had launched her career as well at Notes of the Fatherland, they went together and separately nearly every year to Moscow and for several months at a time to Introduction

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St. Petersburg, staying with relatives and later renting rooms. There they met with editors, who encouraged them to move to St. Petersburg, and with writers, including Nadezhda’s friend the conservative poet Nikolai Shcherbina. They went to concerts and to the theater, and had access to the Hermitage Museum and the Imperial Academy of Arts to draw and paint. Their friend Alexandra Karrik, a feminist and the wife of the British photographer William Carrick, described Sofia as a small, thin blonde and as nearsighted; on first acquaintance, she appeared to be a cold society woman.

In 1858, Sofia quickly became friends with the painter Alexander Ivanov, who had returned from Italy to exhibit his famous painting The Apparition of Christ Before the People at the Academy; she even agreed to go to Italy with him as his student.12 However, he died that same year and she visited him several times during his illness. Sofia painted his portrait, which Kraevsky sold for her to the industrialist and collector Vasily Kokorev for his gallery in Moscow, the first public collection of Russian art.13 Through Zotov and Kraevsky, she sought commissions among the aristocracy. In 1859, Sofia traveled to Europe, to Germany, Switzerland, Paris, and perhaps England; the paper of four letters to Kraevsky is embossed with a crown and the name of the city of Bath.14 In August 1860, she took a painting to St. Petersburg in the hope that it would be selected for the Academy exhibition.15 In 1861, Sofia wrote to Kraevsky, “We are reading many journals. What an abundance of women writers there is at the present time.”16 That same year, as journals proliferated and fought for readers, Nadezhda reported that, “There are journals, that is, their editors, some of whom have sometimes never even seen me, who love me greatly: all are proposing to me. This year I have forgotten how many I have refused.”17 Among those she

refused were the Dostoevskys (for the journal Time) and another celebrated female author, Evgeniia Tur. Life as women writers agreed with the sisters because their careers coincided with the end of the Crimean War and the great reforms of the reign of Alexander II (1855–1881). He ended Nicholas I’s three decades of repression, which had long throttled literary publication and had become even stricter after the European revolutions of 1848. In addition to reforms in the judiciary, administration, military, and education, in 1861, the serfs were emancipated.

Less censorship led to a period of glasnost with fewer restrictions on publications. The Russian literary market finally began to expand to meet the demand of an increasingly literate population that wanted to read Russian literature in addition to the mostly French, English, and German literature—both in translation and in the original—that Russians had long been reading. In Russia, in 1830, there were around 260 productive writers, with about 300 by 1855, and 700 by 1880. As there were more writers, the number of women writers increased disproportionately, from 3.5 percent of productive writers in 1830, to 10.4 percent in 1855, and 16.1 percent in 1880.18 The enormous changes in noble life brought by Alexander II’s reforms, viewed from the perspective of the provinces, provide the setting for City Folk and Country Folk and Sofia’s other works.

With more newspapers, journals, and books, professional writers like the Khvoshchinskaya sisters could begin to earn a living by publishing in greater quantity. Dostoevsky, a poor businessman, relied on his brother and then his wife, who was also his stenographer, to handle publishing, while Tolstoy was adept at the business of literature, and his wife, who was also his copyist, learned from Dostoevsky’s wife how to make money self-publishing.19 As in England in the eighteenth Introduction

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century, Russian publishers realized that biographies helped sell books. Both men published fictionalized autobiographies. Unfortunately, the Khvoshchinskayas, who did all their writing and copying themselves, were not businesswomen. Forced to rely on others to handle their publications, they remained poor.20 City Folk and Country Folk depicts a slightly glamorous pseudoautobiographical portrait of the two writing sisters as the Malinnikovs, who are thirty and thirty-five years old (Sofia and Nadezhda were thirty-eight and forty). They own a poor local estate but spend most of their time in St. Petersburg, where they write for journals and publish books under pseudonyms. Their father supplemented the meager earnings from their estate with a civil service job in town and when he transferred to St. Petersburg, the sisters audited classes with their brother at St. Petersburg University. (Their own brother had attended the Polotsky Cadet School.) Women auditors were common from 1855 to 1863, when officials ended the practice, leading to protests. St. Petersburg and Moscow Universities, which were mostly limited to those nobles who could afford the annual fifty ruble fees, were the norm for Herzen, Turgenev, and other men writers. After 1863, women, mostly noblewomen, began going abroad to university. Indeed, by 1873, of the over 300 Russians studying at the University of Zurich, 104 were women.21 Like the Khvoshchinskaya sisters, the Malinnikovs translate from French and German to make money, love books, and know other writers. Poor, they return to the country after eight years (like Sofia after she graduated), where nature amazes them; they work all the time, except for going to the theater, and will remain spinsters. This fictional autobiography of the sisters is given in the disapproving account of a traditional mother, who represents local opinion. She and other neighbors are afraid of

being portrayed in the Malinnikovs’ fiction, as the Khvoshchinskaya sisters’ neighbors were in Ryazan.

With the occasional exception of Nadezhda and a few others, women novelists have been mostly written out of Russian literary history in English.22 In 1891, the bibliographers Prince Nikolai Golitsyn and Sergei Ponomarev recorded over 1,900 women who participated as writers, translators, and publishers in all subjects and aspects of the Russian literary market.23 This is about half of the number found in nineteenth-century English literature, long recognized for its women writers.24 The current Russian bio-bibliographic dictionary of nineteenth-century writers will include over 3,500 writers, with approximately 12 percent women.25 These women completely disappeared in the twentieth century as the Bolsheviks nationalized the works of fifty-seven writers, all men, for publication in greater quantities than Soviet literature.

The People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narkompros) issued lists of forbidden “bourgeois,” “religious-moral,” “historically idealized,” “mystical,” “humorous,” and “adventure” novels and authors that included various women writers.26 Without the Russian critical editions that foster research on their male colleagues, nineteenthcentury women writers lie buried in literary history, in research libraries and archives. At the same time, many continue to believe in the nineteenth-century Romantic ideal of genius as the measure of a nation’s greatness and promote only a chosen few men.27 ɷɸɷ City Folk and Country Folk is a panorama of provincial noble estates set in the summer of 1862 during the beginning of the emancipation of Introduction

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the serfs. Like the novels of Nadezhda, her rival Nadezhda Sokhanskaya, Alexander Pushkin, Evgeniia Tur, Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Leo Tolstoy, and many others, all of Sofia’s works touch on different aspects of the lives of the nobility, whether they are abroad in Europe or in St. Petersburg and Moscow or on their provincial estates, which were settled with the serfs that provided the money to support their lifestyles. Indeed, Pushkin, Sokhanskaya, Turgenev, and Tolstoy were among the one hundred thousand nobles who, together with the state, owned approximately fifty out of the sixtynine million people (70 percent) who were serfs.28 By comparison, the United States had four million slaves in a total population of thirty million.

The serious side of City Folk and Country Folk requires an understanding of who Nastasya Ivanovna Chulkova, her relative Anna Ilinishna Bobova, and her neighbors Erast Sergeyevich Ovcharov and Katerina Petrovna Repekhova-Dolgovskaya are and the situation they all find themselves in. The comedy turns on the fact that everyone depends on Nastasya’s well-run estate, traditional Russian hospitality, and Christian virtue for shelter, food, loans, and kindness. Although they are all poor and indebted, they are so blinded by their relative noble wealth and status that none of them feels any gratitude toward Nastasya. Nor does she feel deserving of thanks, until her daughter Olenka reminds her of her good deeds and their neighbors’ hypocrisy.

Nastasya takes heart by telling herself that she too is a noble; in fact, like the Khoshchinskaya sisters, she is from an ancient noble family.

The Russian service nobility was unusual in a number of important ways. In 1722, Peter the Great instituted the Table of Ranks for military, court, and civil service, a system designed to expand and professionalize the military and administration of the Russian

empire that existed until 1917. Although the Russian nobility was only 1.5 percent of the population, it was Europe’s largest, with around 750,000 nobles in the 1860s, compared to, for example, 5,500 noble landowning families in England around 1850, and in 1914, 250,000 nobles in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.29 Service to the state and emperor was initially obligatory for twenty-five years, and after 1762, no longer required. Nevertheless, like Sofia’s father and brother, and like most writers, nobles still served, however briefly, to gain rank and status, which was independent of noble titles.30 In City Folk and Country Folk, Erast graduates from Moscow University, with rank, and takes a civil service job in name only in the governor’s chancellery. Non-nobles could advance to personal and hereditary nobility as officers and civil servants. Women had the rank of fathers and then husbands, but could have their own rank through the court and later as teachers and doctors. Finally, nobility derived not from economic class, but from an elaborate system of legal privileges.31 Hereditary noble privileges for women as well as men included the right to own land with serfs (until 1861), preference in service and the right not to serve (after 1762, suspended between 1796 and 1801), freedom from corporal punishment (until 1863, suspended between 1796 and 1801), exemption from poll tax (until 1883), and the right to be judged by peers and to travel abroad (with permission).32 After 1848, for example, Nicholas I recalled Alexander Herzen from abroad (he refused to return) and no longer allowed nobles to travel easily to Europe. Erast regularly travels abroad in a noble lifestyle that Sofia also parodied in How People Admire Nature (1959), which she wrote upon her return from Europe. Russians’ excitement in traveling abroad reflected a noble privilege that they once again enjoyed after the death of Nicholas I in 1855.

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The instability of a system where non-nobles could become nobles and privileges could be suspended, as they were under Paul I (who reigned from 1796 to 1801), put an emphasis on ancestry and refined, educated behavior, especially knowledge of foreign languages, to show status. In the theater of noble status, ancient noble lineage was especially visible through the titles of prince and princess, which could no longer be bestowed after 1722. In City Folk and Country Folk, Anna, the sanctimonious cousin, is blinded to Nastasya’s virtue by her own sense of self importance, which she derives from her past relations with princesses and bishops.

In nineteenth-century Russian noble culture and literature, estate management becomes an important alternative form of national service for noblemen, while absentee landowners are viewed as derelict in their duties to the peasants and Russia by failing to oversee invariably corrupt stewards and peasant commune leaders. As estates became the new literary stages of noble culture, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Goncharov and others aligned love and estate management. Women writers such as Sofia, Nadezhda, and Evgeniia Tur became more interested than men writers in noblewomen as landowners and in the mĂŠsalliance, love that transcends class boundaries.33 Most nobles were relatively poor; among those who owned land with serfs, also known as souls, fewer than twenty-five serfs (only men were counted) meant owners worked with their serfs, while those with fifty or one hundred serfs, like Nastasya in City Folk and Country Folk, lived modestly; those with five hundred serfs, like Erast, were comfortable; and those, like Turgenev, who owned five thousand serfs, were among the 3 percent who owned 40 percent of serfs. Three-quarters of estates had fewer than one hundred serfs

(which added up to 20 percent of the total number of serfs owned by nobles), and therefore order in the countryside rested on the country folk, like Nastasya, who could not afford to live elsewhere.34 Most serfs were mortgaged. Nastasya, unlike Erast, manages a wellordered estate. Like his parents, who lived beyond their means in their Russian version of the European lifestyle, Erast is an absentee landowner living in St. Petersburg, Europe’s third largest city after London and Paris, and in Europe, while his estate declines. These are the city folk. He takes refuge in and transforms Nastasya’s new bathhouse into an elaborately theatrical study for himself as a noble writer, who does not write for money but because he has something to say. In an earlier tale by Sofia, “Lyskovo Village” (1859), Maria Petrovna Karpova learns to write in the process of trying to save her Edenic estate of twenty-five souls in a one-hundred-year lawsuit; the estate later goes to ruin to provide pocket money to an absentee landowner.35 In their letters, Sofia and Nadezhda often mention reading and talking about the peasants, which is reflected in their fiction. The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 was very different from the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation in the United States that proclaimed slaves “henceforward shall be free.” Russian peasants remained legally tied to the land, for which they paid the government redemption payments of (very) approximately 150 percent of the value of the land for forty-nine years, while the government advanced the money to the nobility and erased noble debts. Redemption payments were generally less than the initial “temporary obligations” referred to in the novel’s first paragraph. This led some landowners to delay conversion to permanent agreements on land for two decades. These injustices led to peasant disturbances, a radicalized Introduction

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intelligentsia, and the populist and revolutionary movements. Payments finally ended and peasants gained freedom of movement after the Revolution of 1905.36 City Folk and Country Folk also alludes to these problems in the description of the Toporischevs’ estate, where the villages were burned three times (by the peasants). Erast does not make any agreement with his restless serfs because he little understands the details, and delays are to his advantage. Nastasya, on the other hand, tries to discuss their adjacent land holdings.

Meanwhile, he writes and lectures her on finances and property, unable to recognize her expertise.

In 1861, Sofia published a short, anonymous biography of Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev (1749–1802), whom she portrayed as an extraordinary, incorruptible statesman whose progressive arguments against serfdom could only now be considered. Radishchev was exiled to Siberia after his exposé of serfdom, A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow (1789). Published despite having been rejected by the censors in 1859, Sofia’s article led to the closure of Illustration, edited by Zotov, even though several articles had recently appeared about this forbidden writer.37 City Folk and Country Folk opens with praise for the humble provincial civil servants who, like Nastasya, have a direct responsibility to deliver justice to the peasants. Later, in her popular Ursa Major, set during the Crimean War, Nadezhda used Radishchev as a model for an exemplar of noble civil service, Nikolai Stepanych Bagriansky, provincial director of the Chamber of Government Property, responsible for 150,000 government serfs and recruitment of serf militias.

In one of the most extraordinary scenes in Russian literature, Nastasya, faced with an insurrection of her house serfs, dares to go to their kitchen, where she successfully reasons with them and treats

them humanely. Sofia translated John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859), which laid out a program for liberal government with the greatest freedom for the individual from government control. Without naming Russia, he exempts backward societies, arguing that “despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians.”

Rousseau and others had long considered Russian autocracy despotic. Mill argues that liberal government can only be attained when mankind is “capable of being improved by free and equal discussion” and has “attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion.”38 Through Nastasya’s enlightened persuasion of her peasants, Sofia offers a rebuttal to those who argued that Russian serfs were not ready for freedom.

Nastasya and Olenka are unusual Russian heroines in that they are emphatically not extraordinary.39 While Nastasya is traditional, Olenka is an ordinary high-spirited young woman who gets impatient with her mother and teases a potential match in an hour-long game of tag. They are also not readers, a signal trait of noble heroines since Pushkin’s Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, who reads the sentimental classics and peruses Onegin’s library for clues to his Romantic persona. In the “woman question,” the debates over women’s emancipation and education that coalesced around 1860, the Khvoshchinskaya sisters were contrarians. While they disagreed with antifeminists, they also argued with feminists. Nastasya embodies their argument against feminist women, who thought women should have education and careers at the expense of marriage and family. In letters, conversations, essays, and fiction, the sisters argued for self-sacrifice and duty to family, in opposition to the Darwinian struggle of the survival of the fittest.40 Olenka’s concern for her mother demonstrates their belief that decency and common sense are more important than Introduction

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education. In an essay, Nadezhda noted that men writers liked to portray women who read (their) novels and are educated by men.41 Olenka expresses the sisters’ views against such hypocritical feminist men writers as Erast, who appears to argue for women, while telling them they should be obedient to religious, parental, and patriarchal authority. In a striking scene, the sickly Erast grabs Olenka and kisses her, and she shoves him away: “Apparently Olenka really was stronger than he” (160). It rejects a central concern of both the French antifeminist Jules Michelet and the feminist socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon about women’s fundamental inequality to men because of their physical weakness; beginning in 1860 this and other aspects of the woman question were addressed by the radical Mikhail Mikhailov in numerous journal essays that the sisters deplored.42 Aside from talents for plot, original characters, and theatrical comedy, Sofia’s writing is undergirded by serious interests in history, philosophy, and politics, and overlaid by a gift for various voices.

The Khvoshchinsky family, like most noble Russian families, read literature aloud together, and they also celebrated the publications of their novels by reading them aloud. The sisters’ differing literary styles reflect the importance of theatricality and orality. In City Folk and Country Folk, the opening captures the tensions between the city and the country through language. The repetitions in the first sentence and elsewhere reflect a country cadence with a warm, honest folksiness that contrasts with the clichés of high society and faux intellectuals. Clichéd words from the war of ideas in Russian journals include education, ideas, struggle, development, enlightenment, self-perfection, progress, self-development, and analysis.

City Folk and Country Folk was not reviewed, but in her letters to the writer Olga Novikova, Sofia’s older sister Nadezhda commented

on her development as a writer: “We are accomplishing all the same great deeds. Sonia is producing, wait. In March, in Notes of the Fatherland, her novel, read it; I do not boast of this to you, for I am impartial—but do not boast simply because I know what the author is capable of.”43 Later that same year, Nadezhda simply wrote, “Charming,” about Sofia’s novel Domestic Idylls from a Recent Time, about the tragic consequences of a noblewoman’s love for a man from the petty bourgeoisie.44 In 1864, Nadezhda wrote, “Sofia is doing something quite splendid, serious; a creation, indeed. You cannot expect it at all soon, but know that you are waiting for something you have long not read.”45 It is not clear to which work Nadezhda, one of Russia’s great nineteenth-century novelists and critics, was referring, but there is no doubt that City Folk and Country Folk is a work of true quality and craft. It is splendid and serious, and offers a unique portrait of a crucial moment in Russian history and literature.

NOTES 1. Marina Ledkovsky, Charlotte Rosenthal, and Mary Zirin, eds., Dictionary of Russian Women Writers (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), 286–91.

2. On Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya, in English, see: N. D. Khvoshchinskaya, The Boarding-School Girl, trans. Karen Rosneck (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2000); Karen Rosneck, “Nadezhda Dmitrievna Khvoshchinskaia (V. Krestovsky),” Dictionary of Literary Biography (Detroit: Gale, 2001); Jehanne M. Gheith, Finding the Middle Ground: Krestovskii, Tur, and the Power of Ambivalence in Nineteenth-Century Russian Women’s Prose (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2004); Diana Greene, Inventing Romantic Poetry: Russian Women Poets of the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004); Karen Rosneck, Understanding Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia’s Short Story Collection “An Album: Groups and Portraits”: The Literary Innovations of a Nineteenth-Century Russian Writer (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2010).

3. Although sources give later years for their births (1824 instead of 1822 for Nadezhda, 1828 instead of 1824 for Sofia, and 1832 instead of 1828 for Praskovia), birth registries indicate that the sisters lied about their ages. P. D. Khvoshchinskaia, “Biografiia,” in

Introduction

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Introduction

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

Sobranie sochinenii V. Krestovskogo (psevdonim), vol. 1, 5 vols. (St. Petersburg: Izd. A.S. Suvorina, 1892), I–XVIII; Aleksandr Potapov, Neizrechennyi svet (Ryazan’: Novoe vremia, 1996), 52.

Letter to Olga Novikova, 8 June 1862, N. D. Khvoshchinskaia, “Ia zhivu ot pochty do pochty”: Iz perepiski Nadezhda Dmitrievny Khvoshchinskoi, ed. Arja Rosenholm and Hilde Hoogenboom, FrauenLiteraturGeschichte 14 (Fichtenwalde: F. K. Göpfert, 2001), 124.

On their relationship, see Gheith, Finding the Middle Ground, 63–68; K. K. Arsen’ev, “Sovremennyi russkii roman v ego glavnykh predstaviteliakh: Krestovskii (psevdonim),” Vestnik Evropy 1, no. 1 (1885): 331; Karen Rosneck, “Translator’s Introduction,” in The Boarding-School Girl (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2000), xiv–xv.

V. R. Zotov, “Nekrolog,” Illiustrirovannaia gazeta, August 19, 1865; Greene, Inventing Romantic Poetry.

Letter to Novikova, 30 September 1865, Khvoshchinskaia, Ia zhivu ot pochty do pochty, 160.

Deborah A. Martinsen, ed., Literary Journals in Imperial Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

S. D. Khvoshchinskaia, “Kladbishche” 1843, f. 541, op. 1, d. 43, Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI).

Letters to Alexandra Vasil’evna Pletneva, 27 November 1843, 30 June 1845, Khvoshchinskaia, Ia zhivu ot pochty do pochty, 239; S.D. Khvoshchinskaia, “Pis’ma k Pletnevoi, A.V.” l. 14, f. 234, op. 4, no. 191, Pushkin House (PD).

Potapov, Neizrechennyi svet, 59.

A. Karrik, “Iz vospominanii o N.D. Khvoshchinskoi-Zaionchkovskoi (V. Krestovskiipsevdonim),” Zhenskoe delo, no. 9, 11, 12 (1899): 5, 37–38.

Rosalind P. Gray, Russian Genre Painting in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 37–38.

Letter to Novikova, 10 August 1859, N. D. Khvoshchinskaia, “Pis’ma KhvoshchinskoiZaionchkovskoi k Novikovoi, O. A., (1858-1863)” l. 66, f. 345, op. 1, d. 850, Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI); S. D. Khvoshchinskaia, “Pis’ma Khvoshchinskoi, S. D. k Kraevskomu, A. A., (1855-1864)” ll. 10, 15, 23, 25, f. 391, n. 804, National Library of Russia (RNB). Letters are dated after her return from Europe: 22 August 1861, 5 October 1862, 6 November 1863, 2 April 1864.

Letter to Novikova, 30 August 1860, Khvoshchinskaia, “Pis’ma,” l. 66v.

Letter to Kraevsky, 22 August 1861, Khvoshchinskaia, Ia zhivu ot pochty do pochty, 61.

Letter to Novikova, 29 November 1861, Khvoshchinskaia, “Pis’ma,” l. 124.

A. I. Reitblat, Ot Bovy k Bal’montu i drugie raboty po istoricheskoi sotsiologii russkoi literatury (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009), 254.

T. G. Nikiforova, “Pis’ma A.G. Dostoevskoi k S.A. Tolstoi,” in Mir filologii (Moscow: Nasledie, 2000), 290–306.

20. Gheith, Finding the Middle Ground, 74–76.

21. Barbara Alpern Engel, Mothers & Daughters: Women of the Intelligentsia in Nineteenth-Century Russia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 127.

22. With the exception of Kahn et al., the Dictionary of Literary Biography, and Mirsky and Terras, who include the same dozen names, Russian literary histories in English ignore women’s prose. Dmitry S. Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature: From Its Beginnings to 1900, ed. Francis Whitfield (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1999); Victor Terras, ed., Handbook of Russian Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985); Caryl Emerson, Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Andrew Baruch Wachtel and Ilya Vinitsky, Russian Literature (Cambridge: Polity, 2009); Andrew Kahn et al., History of Russian Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

23. Prince N. N. Golitsyn, Bibliograficheskii slovar’ russkikh pisatel’nits, Repr. (Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der DDR, 1974).

24. Robin Alston, A Checklist of Women Writers, 1801-1900: Fiction, Verse, Drama (London: British Library, 1990).

25. P. A. Nikolaev, ed., Russkie pisateli 1800–1917: Biograficheskii slovar’, 5 vols.

(Moscow: Bol’shaia Rossiiskaia Entsiklopediia, 1989).

26. Maurice Friedberg, Russian Classics in Soviet Jackets (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 186; V.A. Soloukhin, Pri svete dnia (Moscow: no publisher, 1992), 94–97.

27. Greene, Inventing Romantic Poetry.

28. The 1857 census showed 22 million serfs held by 100,000 nobles, 23 million state serfs, and 3.3 million appanage (udelnye) serfs, totaling 49.3 million serfs in a population of 68.7 million. M. G. Mulhall, The Dictionary of Statistics, 4th ed.

(London: George Routledge and Sons, 1899), 541.

29. David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 17, 20.

30. Nikolaev, Russkie pisateli; Irina Reyfman, How Russia Learned to Write: Literature and the Imperial Table of Ranks (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016).

31. Gregory L. Freeze, “The Soslovie (Estate) Paradigm and Russian Social History,” American Historical Review 91, no. 1 (1986): 11–36.

32. Seymour Becker, Nobility and Privilege in Late Imperial Russia (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1985).

33. Michelle Lamarche Marrese, A Woman’s Kingdom: Noblewomen and the Control of Property in Russia, 1700-1861 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002).

34. David Moon, Abolition of Serfdom in Russia: 1762-1907 (New York: Longman, 2002), 17.

35. S. D. Khvoshchinskaia, “Sel’tso Lyskovo,” Otechestvennye zapiski, no. 5 (1859): 1–74.

36. Moon, Abolition of Serfdom, 105–9.

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Introduction 37. S. D. Khvoshchinskaia, “Aleksandr Nikolaevich Radishchev,” Illiustratsiia 7, no. 159 (March 2, 1861): 129–30.

38. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1986), 17.

39. Barbara Heldt, Terrible Perfection: Woman and Russian Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992).

40. Karrik, “Iz vospominanii.”

41. Rosneck, “Translator’s Introduction,” xx.

42. Richard Stites, The Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860–1930 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 38–49.

43. Letter to Novikova, 13 April 1863, Khvoshchinskaia, “Pis’ma,” l. 192.

44. Letter to Novikova, 6 September 1863, Khvoshchinskaia, Ia zhivu ot pochty do pochty, 128.

45. Letter to Novikova, 3 January 1864, Ibid., 136.

NOTES ON THE TRANSLATION

T

his translation is based on the 1863 version of Gorodskie i derevenskie (City Folk and Country Folk) that appeared in the March and April 1863 editions of Otechestvennye zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland).

Believing that this novel has the potential to appeal to lovers of nineteenth-century literature beyond the confines of Russian studies, I have opted for what I believe to be the most “user-friendly” approach to transliterating Russian names, modifying the Library of Congress system by adding the letter y before iotified vowels (the Russian letter e, for example, is, in most circumstances, pronounced ye, as in yes) and omitting all hard and soft signs.

Russians address their elders and respected adults generally by their first name and patronymic (the “Ivanovna” in Nastasya Chulkova’s name signifies that she is Ivan’s daughter, just as Erast Sergeyevich is the son of Sergei). In speech, patronymics tend to drop a syllable, which is why Erast Ovcharov is Erast Sergeyevich to the narrator and Erast Sergeyich in direct speech.

The French in the original has been preserved and translations are provided in footnotes. Footnotes have also been used to provide historical context and explanations of Russian culture.

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Notes on the Translation

The Russian language is prodigious in its ability to change the forms of names to reflect familiarity and shades of emotion. Nicknames appearing in the original Russian have been reproduced in the English (as when Anna Ilinishna uses the sugary “Aksinyushka” for Aksinya Mikhailovna, the household cook, as part of a campaign to win Nastasya Ivanovna’s servants over to her side). Because of the confusion this may cause readers unfamiliar with the niceties of the Russian language, we offer the following list of names and their variants that come up over the course of the novel.

Names with Multiple Mentions in City Folk and Country Folk Aksinya Mikhailovna, Aksinyushka: Nastasya Ivanovna’s cook, a former serf.

Anna Ilinishna Bobova, Cousin: Nastasya Ivanovna’s second cousin.

Annette: daughter of Katerina Petrovna.

Erast Sergeyevich Ovcharov, Erast Sergeyich: a nobleman whose estate, Beryozovka, is near Nastasya Ivanovna’s. He spends most of his time in Moscow or Western Europe.

Father Porphyry, Porphyry Ivanich: Snetki’s village priest.

Ivan Terentyevich Chulkov, Ivan Terentych: Nastasya Ivanovna’s deceased father.

Katerina Petrovna Repekhova-Dolgovskaya: a Moscow noblewoman who owns an estate near Nastasya Ivanovna’s.

Malanya Kuzminishna Chulkova: Nastasya Ivanovna’s deceased mother.

Nastasya Ivanovna Chulkova: the owner of an estate in the village of Snetki and mother of Olenka.

Nikolai Demyanovich Chulkov, Nikolai Demyanych: Nastasya Ivanovna’s deceased husband.

Olenka, Olga Nikolayevna Chulkova, Olya: Nastasya Ivanovna’s seventeen-year-old daughter.

Palashka: a maid in Nastasya Ivanovna’s household serving Anna Ilinishna.

Pavel Yefimovich, Pavel Yefimich: Nastasya Ivanovna’s cousin.

Princess Paltseva, Princess Maria Sergeyevna: Anna Ilinishna Bobova’s benefactor.

Semyon Ivanovich, Semyon Ivanich, Simon, Syomka: Katerina Petrovna’s “protégé.”

Yegor Petrovich, George: son of Katerina Petrovna.

Yermolai Stepanovich, Yermolai Stepanych: Nastasya Ivanovna’s “elderly coachman.”

Notes on the Translation

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CITY FOLK AND COUNTRY FOLK

PART I

01

N

astasya Ivanovna Chulkova, a fifty-five-year-old widow and the mistress of fifty souls, who were by then working on her Snetki estate under temporary obligation, might have called last summer the most remarkable summer of her life and described it as such in her memoirs, if only she had kept memoirs.1 First, above her, through the very air of her home, new currents of education had blown through in a gust, that same education that is wafting from every corner of our native land; second, her home had been the site of a struggle between old and new ideas, and Nastasya Ivanovna had taken part in this struggle and, without realizing it, had even achieved a victory; and third, to her own amazement and the envy of the ladies of the neighboring small estates, she had come within a hair’s breadth of developing into an enlightened woman herself. And can you imagine? Not only did the ingrate fail to rejoice, she called the whole affair a calamity.

1. City Folk and Country Folk takes place in 1862, one year after the Emancipation Manifesto liberating the serfs. The ensuing reforms required landowners and peasants to agree which lands the former would make available for purchase to the latter. Until this arrangement was finalized, peasants were considered “temporarily obligated� and continued to pay their landowners (in money or in kind) whatever they had been paying as serfs.

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City Folk and Country Folk

Nastasya Ivanovna did not appreciate the value of the enlightenment that had been generously placed into her hands, just as she did not appreciate the value of Saxon porcelain, naively preferring teacups produced in Gzhel,2 and was unable to understand the taste for truffles, which she had eaten only once in her life, privately concluding that the mushrooms of Snetki’s grove were far superior. She did not admit her unsophisticated tastes to just anyone, but, humble and frank, in the presence of people with whom she felt at ease, she repented these sins. Nobody forced her—she confessed them freely.

Surely this suggests that she was capable of self-improvement. It is therefore a shame that fate did not earlier, before the events of last summer, send Nastasya Ivanovna someone who could have prepared her for these events, who could have warned her, for instance, that proclaiming a fight for one’s convictions to be a calamity and a punishment from God is far more shameful than blurting out a preference for local mushrooms over truffles. Then Nastasya Ivanovna would not have suffered such a total loss of esteem in the eyes of those lamenting her native district’s poor moral development. They are truly weary of leading a movement the rear of which is standing stock-still.

Indeed both her native district and Nastasya Ivanovna herself were making little headway down the road of progress, despite being quite close to the provincial capital, a mere twenty versts3 down the highway from Snetki. This was no backwoods. Nastasya Ivanovna made frequent trips to town, where she had relatives among the low-ranking civil servants. They knew better than their 2. Gzhel is a town outside of Moscow famous for its blue-and-white ceramic tableware.

3. A verst is a traditional Russian unit of measurement that gave way to the kilometer, its rough equivalent, beginning in the 1920s.

high-ranking superiors what was happening in government offices: all the new directives, all the administrative changes. As the ones who carried out orders, strict or otherwise, it was they, the hound dogs of the operation, who first and most often peered into the dark corners inevitably touched by investigations, trials, verdicts, or changes in the way of life. They were better able than their superiors to observe how new joys and misfortunes, new gains and losses, echoed through the firmly set life of town and country. Neither domestic rejoicing nor cursing were held in check in the presence of these obscure and impecunious men. It is little wonder, therefore, that they knew and told many anecdotes—pages torn from real life, pages hidden from the observer of exalted rank, pages that at times got to the crux of the matter better than thousands of ink-laden documents and other papers.

Nastasya Ivanovna was constantly hearing such anecdotes and occasioned anecdotes herself, both during her married life and as a widow, being someone, as the mistress of an estate, who had been through good times and bad, lawsuits, disputes with neighbors, land surveys, serf conscription and the raising of wartime militias, fires, investigations involving the district police and dead bodies, years of good harvest and bad, and, finally, emancipation.4 Nastasya Ivanovna herself knew and told many anecdotes, but she related them as simple fact, no more. She did not delve deeply into them, did not derive their moral significance. In other words, she did not engage in the work that, they say, leads to enlightenment. It can be stated with 4. All landowners were routinely required to send some percentage of their young male serfs to serve twenty-five years in the military. Additionally, militias were organized at the provincial level in time of war. Nastasya Ivanovna would have been involved in the response to Nicholas I’s 1855 manifesto requiring the organization of men of all classes or estates—not only the peasantry—into temporary militias to be sent to the front during the Crimean War.

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City Folk and Country Folk

certainty that not the slightest penetration and desire to analyze had yet been awakened in this woman, the representative of an ancient line of the nobility.

Her mother and father were not given to analysis either. Ivan Terentyevich and Malanya Kuzminishna were masters of their land, farmers of their land, and, in the truest sense, lovers of their land. They lived and died without setting foot in the provincial capital. Only once were they uprooted from Snetki’s soil: their flight at the first sight of a Frenchman took them to a neighboring province for a month.5 Nastasya Ivanovna was born and raised in Snetki. Here, she married and was widowed by her Nikolai Demyanovich, her parents’ choice and the heir to ten souls. He ran the estate extraordinarily well and possessed one of the gentlest souls in all the world. Here, after the untimely deaths of eight infants, after much anticipation, Nastasya Ivanovna’s daughter, Olenka, was born, survived, and grew up.

But Olenka had turned seventeen this past year; in other words, she had come of age in our time, that is, a time both euphoric and restless, and not one to be spent sitting around a place like Snetki.

Nastasya Ivanovna saw that such a time had come, although she did not try to think through what was special about it. Instinctively, to the best of her abilities, she kept an eye on what was happening. She expanded their circle of acquaintances among the neighbors and began to make frequent trips to town. She even made a point of traveling the twenty versts to town with Olenka on Sundays, when there

5. This is clearly a reference to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. Nowhere in the novel are we given the name of the province where it takes place, but surely Khvoshchinskaya was primarily inspired by her native Ryazan Province, which the Grande Armée never, in fact, reached.

was music on the boulevard. She dressed her daughter up like a doll, taught her what she could, prayed to God for her, loved her relatives and friends, sympathized with the suffering of her fellow man, and thought that was enough.

But last summer certain people showed her that that was not nearly enough.

Last summer a visitor came to stay with Nastasya Ivanovna.

Erast Sergeyevich Ovcharov did not travel abroad last year to take the waters, as was his annual custom. He remained in Russia despite the fact that Moscow physicians found his rheumatism had intensified and despite the orders of the foreign physicians with whom he corresponded that he return to take the waters.

Erast Sergeyevich insisted that in view of the agricultural reforms, however precious one’s health might be, this was no time to be away from home. Furthermore, he was short of funds after a winter in Moscow, and credit . . . credit, as everyone knows, had started to dry up all over Russia. Ovcharov decided that he would spend the summer on his estate. In order not to waste a season of great potential benefit to his health and to make what little use he could of our abominable climate, Ovcharov intended to drink whey while living in the country.

His estate, Beryozovka, was only two versts from Nastasya Ivanovna’s. He had not looked in on his property for many years, and upon arriving he discovered that he could not possibly live there. The manor house had long since been sold and carted off to town. There would have been room in the steward’s house, but not peace from his half-dozen children. He could have rented one of the huts, but the peasants, despite having lived contentedly since days of yore, were not very well housed. Ovcharov had thought that City Folk and Country Folk

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having calves, cows, and other farm animals nearby would perhaps benefit his weak lungs, but his sense of cleanliness rebelled against this idea. In the end, he was at a loss. He spent the first night in his Viennese carriage, but the light rain and cold that by dawn had chilled him to the bone (it was early May) plunged him into a state of dread: he recalled his rheumatism. Upon rising in the morning, despite the magnificent spring sunshine, he dressed himself in flannels and a shaggy coat. He had made up his mind to leave for the provincial capital and complain to anyone who would listen that it was fate and not his own fault if he was unable to fulfill his decided desire to take part in the reforms that were getting underway.

Suddenly, all this changed. While his man was busy readying the horses and the steward’s wife made chicken broth for his breakfast, Ovcharov went for a walk. After a night of shivering it was essential that he warm up with some exercise in the sun. Within half an hour he had traversed the Beryozovka pasture and continued down a small road into a hollow beyond it. Three versts farther this rural road joined the old main road near where it intersected the provincial highway. After crossing the hollow, the wayfarer was no longer on his own land. Here was the border with Snetki. Its rye extended up the near side of a small hill, beyond which, after about a verst, the road entered the Snetki woods and curled behind the estates’ threshing barns.

Ovcharov was soon approaching these barns and did not yet feel fatigue.

“How near!” he mused. And suddenly a fortuitous thought struck him. Perhaps he could find shelter here rather than go to town? If the owners were away, he could rent the manor house . . .

Beryozovka was a mere stone’s throw away, it made no difference

where he drank his whey, and he would be able to settle into comfortable lodgings.

His fancy nearly whispered the notion that it would be as easy as renting a chalet in Interlaken, but Ovcharov was still sufficiently Russian that this dream vanished instantly. In another minute he offered up even more resounding proof of his Russianness by pronouncing out loud and even joyously: “Hey, I know this village!”

Of course he knew it. He had spent time there twenty years earlier, toward the end of his school days. Back then, his parents had lived at Beryozovka for two years and brought their son there from Moscow for his vacations. He had spent even more time in Snetki when he was younger and less aware: he had lived next door in Beryozovka until he turned eight. But how much water had flowed under the bridge since then! And in recent years such a multitude of German, French, and various other villages had flashed before his eyes through train windows, it was hardly surprising that he had forgotten the village of Snetki and its residents.

A minute later, however, he had even recalled these residents. In his time, three landowning families had lived there: the Toporishchevs, the Malinnikovs and a third family . . . Ovcharov could not remember their name, although this was the only family with which he had been acquainted. He recalled visiting them with his mother as a child, and their hosts had treated these visits as an exceptional indulgence. He and his mother had been served generous portions of sweet jam, while the hosts ate nothing but treacle. They were simple people, and he seemed to remember them as being kind, but all of them were rather old. After these early visits he did not see them again. And why would they be given a second thought by a City Folk and Country Folk

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City Folk and Country Folk

seventeen-year-old schoolboy, an only son and heir to five-hundred souls, a boy who dreamed of nothing better than a vacation of running through woods and meadows with a gun and a hunting dog?

He had not become acquainted with the Malinnikovs, whose estate was small, because he had been instructed not to do so.

That family included daughters who were coming of age—not badlooking—and a son, also a schoolboy, who was being educated in the provincial capital. This was not considered suitable society for him. He knew about the Toporishchevs because they had fights that could be heard for miles around, and once a member of the family had given him some small shot when the two met while out hunting.

Later he had been in the area as a grown man but had not looked in on the Snetki estates.

Ovcharov recalled these insignificant details as he walked toward the village. It could hardly be described as picturesque. Peasant huts, set far apart from one another, were strewn across the hill in a disorderly manner, shaded only by the occasional willow. The past spring had been dry and cold, giving everything a look of squalor.

The grass that grew in the ditches and around the wattle fences was wilted and sparse; the leaves on the trees were unhealthy. Ovcharov kicked the earth contemptuously with the tip of his boot as he surveyed the site. The cluster of houses was devoid of life. He walked past one of the manor houses built right on the road. The house, its windows boarded up, was gray and utterly lopsided. Of course, it had once been surrounded by outbuildings, but now it sat amid wasteland; only crumbling brick rectangles, overgrown with wormwood and nettles, hinted at the foundations of past structures. Beyond the outbuildings there must have been an orchard, because a few untended gooseberry bushes were growing in long, crisscrossing

rows interspersed with stumps radiating stunted shoots of apple and cherry trees, also untended.

“How loathsome!” thought Ovcharov, looking over this stretch of the Snetki landscape, which was ugly indeed. “Where else—why, you could travel the length and breadth of Europe—would you find such disorder? But we do value property, do we not? At least we talk as if we do. Oh, what a people, a wise little people. I must say!”

A few steps farther, however, he was consoled. To the right, an orchard appeared, surrounded by a new wattle fence and tall young willows—the best defense against blizzards and winds. Beyond the willows, fruit trees were growing in profusion. Off in the distance he saw the red-painted plank roof of the manor house with two white chimneys protruding from the attic. The orchard sloped gently toward a stream that skirted the settlement on the far side of the manor house and from there flowed toward Beryozovka. Beyond the stream stretched a fair-sized water meadow shared by the villages— their real wealth. To the left, on a hillock, straight across from the orchard, stood the Snetki church, an unattractive stone building in the style of the twenties. At the sight of the church and the orchard Ovcharov immediately recollected where he was. This was the estate of the people who had fed him sweet jam. His memories were suddenly imbued with a feeling of tenderness. Ovcharov experienced something akin to joy at the thought that there was someone living in the house and that it was not shrouded in an aura of neglect. Of course this feeling was fleeting and weak. He was too preoccupied by his lack of lodgings. But suddenly his face lit up.

“And why not here?” he thought.

Now that he had fully recalled his surroundings, he set off down a road that ran along the edge of the orchard to the stream, where City Folk and Country Folk

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it turned sharply and led straight to the manor house. Ovcharov’s memory even told him that across from the house there should be a bridge, a wretched little bridge made of brushwood and straw that was installed very late, toward summer, when heavy loads needed to be taken across. Until then, anyone who wished to cross the stream had to ford it.

Ovcharov was still pondering how Europe would judge our bridges and roads when a building at the orchard’s edge caught his eye. It was new, and the sun was shining brightly on its fresh log walls. Work was apparently still underway inside, since planks and a pile of wood chips lay nearby and the fence had been removed to allow wagons through. Two openings had been cut and filled with sturdy sash windows. After glancing inside, Ovcharov realized that this was a bathhouse under construction.

“This is just the place I need,” he thought and let out a laugh.

“Lodging and table d’hôte—in a bathhouse! Marvelous! Well, what else can one do in the middle of nowhere?”

Annoyed at himself, at the entire natural world, and at the tiredness that he was beginning to feel in his legs, Ovcharov sat down on the end of some planks that had been warmed by the sun and, having positioned his back to best benefit from the sun’s rays, he closed his eyes, planning to rest for about ten minutes and then return home.

He was in the sourest of moods and filled with the most condemnatory thoughts about his native land, especially his native province.

Little did he know what a pleasant surprise was lying in wait for him.

Nastasya Ivanovna Chulkova (inasmuch as this was her house, her orchard, and her bathhouse) had already been tracking the movements of her uninvited guest for half an hour. She even knew who he was and had been receiving reports about him for some

time now: since the day before, the very day of Ovcharov’s arrival at Beryozovka, the misfortunes of her young neighbor had been known to her, along with his intended length of stay and the fact that he did not seem to have any intention of marrying. This news had been delivered by Aksinya Mikhailovna, cook and true friend to her mistress, who had gone to get some fever medicine from the wife of Beryozovka’s steward. As soon as she heard it, Nastasya Ivanovna wasted no time in sharing this news with Olenka, who was sewing in her room up in the attic. It was unclear just why Nastasya Ivanovna was so excited. In the middle of nowhere, in the steppe, where new faces are rare, this would have been understandable, but for the proprietor of Snetki new faces were nothing extraordinary. Be that as it may, she was excited.

Now, she became even more excited when, looking down through Olenka’s window, she saw that Erast Sergeyevich was already strolling around her village. Of course, she was not so vain as to imagine that he had hastened to call on her as soon as he arrived. Ovcharov had been in the area several times before and had never considered a visit necessary. Having had only a glimpse of Erast Sergeyevich all those years, and that in the provincial capital, Nastasya Ivanovna could only guess at the identity of her visitor based on the fact that he had come from the direction of Beryozovka and was wearing some kind of special coat, probably foreign. She reasoned that Erast Sergeyevich must have some business at Snetki and that this business must be with her—who else could he possibly have business with here? The evidence was clear: he had walked to her house and seated himself on her planks.

Nastasya Ivanovna began to rush from room to room, hurriedly trying to come up with the best way to receive her guest. After City Folk and Country Folk

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ordering that coffee be made, she called up to Olenka’s room that she should put on her crinoline, for it had taken Nastasya Ivanovna only an instant to conclude that this was, after all, an eligible bachelor, albeit an unattainable one, his having been in Paris and everywhere else—but don’t wonders happen every day? After yelling to Olenka that she should wait in the parlor, Nastasya Ivanovna decided that it would be better, after all, to meet Ovcharov in advance, and she ran out into the orchard.

Hearing a rustling behind him, Ovcharov turned to see a stout lady with a round face covered by a healthy flush. She had dimples and blue eyes (which were bulging from anxiety and excitement) and was of such youthful appearance that one might have thought her forty. There are such women, unattractive from youth but especially healthy, who possess an extraordinary resistance to the aging process. Nastasya Ivanovna had barely a trace of gray in her blond hair which, sparse and heavily pomaded, was simply twisted into a bun and held in place by a comb, with no mobcap to cover it.

She was wearing an old-fashioned black mantilla with fringes and a colorful woolen blouse, but without sleeves, collar, or a belt, since in the country such details make little difference, especially for an old woman. Quite out of breath, Nastasya Ivanovna gasped excitedly before she could get out a word.

“Where the deuce did she come from?” he wondered, having promptly risen for a polite bow.

“My dear, Erast Sergeyevich, what a joy it is to see you!” Nastasya Ivanovna began, before becoming flustered.

Ovcharov approached her, hat in hand. He was probing his memory but failing to retrieve the necessary information. What on earth was her name and what was she so happy about? Still unable

to recall her name, he came right up to Nastasya Ivanovna, who was beaming.

“Please excuse me,” Ovcharov began in a state of perplexity, “I have not been here for some time . . .”

“Oh, my dear, why should you remember everyone? I carried you when you were a child! Do you remember Chulkov, Nikolai Demyanych? And my father and mother, Ivan Terentych and Malanya Kuzminishna? I’m . . . Nastasya Ivanovna Chulkova.”

“Well, heavens above!” Ovcharov exclaimed, smiling and indeed recalling her.

“Actually, a nice woman,” he thought to himself. “How happy she is to see me!”

“You must excuse me, please, such a terrible memory I have, as much as I’ve roamed the earth.”

Nastasya Ivanovna was beginning to lose her resolve: should she or should she not invite him in? She hardly recognized him. Looking him over, she felt something akin to pity and only asked him what had brought him to Snetki.

Ovcharov related his predicament and bluntly explained that he had been out for a walk and had sat down to rest by her bathhouse.

“And why not do us the kindness of coming up to the house to rest?”

“Certainly one must submit to such old-fashioned devotion,” Ovcharov thought, and replied with the politeness of a man of excellent breeding.

“Only if it will be no trouble.”

“My dear, I’m so happy you’ve come,” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed and immediately led Ovcharov along a path through the apple and cherry trees toward the house’s entrance some distance away.

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“Your dear father and mother, may they rest in peace . . . What splendid people they were,” she said along the way. “It made no difference that we—well, after all, who are we?—but they never scorned us. Just to think that they are no longer with us and you, my dear, roam the earth like a real orphan, always in some foreign parts—it grieves me, it truly does. These days good people just don’t stay put, they don’t live in the country, keeping as far away as they can get.”

Nastasya Ivanovna again grew flustered.

“People like me, you mean,” Ovcharov broke in, smiling and rather cheerful. He was beginning to like this gentry woman. “You’re right—I’m a solitary wanderer, and not a terribly responsible one at that. Here I’ve let my own home go to rack and ruin and now I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.”

“How can that be, oh, how can that be?” Nastasya Ivanovna shook her head mournfully.

They arrived at the house. Upon entering the foyer, Ovcharov noted that it was clean, whitewashed, and orderly. Unlike ninetenths of rural entrées, it was not bedecked with servants’ clothing and rags or cluttered with buckets, brooms, boot trees, or other rubbish. This cleanliness made a pleasant impression on Ovcharov, who rightly concluded that the rest of the house and Nastasya Ivanovna’s entire estate were kept in similar order. Without fear or distaste he laid his coat on the bench and courteously declined the assistance of the serving girl, who was swarthy, but naturally so, and who was eagerly attempting to remove his galoshes. The serving girl was wearing a faded cotton dress but was not barefoot. This also made a pleasant impression on Ovcharov.

“Our little house is still the same, if you recall it, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna said, leading him down the hall and into

the parlor. “But it’s become painfully roomy,” she added, sighing.

“There’s been so much dying—Papa, Mama, my late husband. There are days Olenka and I wander the house and can’t even find each other. And here is my Olenka.”

A young woman rose slightly from the couch and nodded to Ovcharov in greeting. She was tall and slender and wore a colorful hooped skirt and a Russian peasant shirt trimmed in red calico— and was quite good-looking. That was Ovcharov’s first impression at a distance of ten paces. When he approached her more closely, she seemed less appealing. She was fresh as a daisy, but bore a resemblance to her mother, and the expression on her face was of the most ordinary sort. This face and her attire, a mixture of pure rural simplicity and provincial fashion, were distasteful to Ovcharov. From the young woman, he cast his gaze over the room. It also contained a mixture of the old and the new. The old was unattractive; the new was ugly. To the old furniture, which was leather and hard as rock, with slender armrests and legs made of some sort of yellow wood, Nastasya Ivanovna had added two soft chintz easy chairs, purchased secondhand, with a rosebush pattern on the backs, so lopsided that it was impossible to sit in them. Above the couch hung portraits of well-known personages, painted lithographs with black backgrounds and with tinsel instead of paint on the epaulets and aiguillettes. The year of the coronation, provincial tradesmen had brought a multitude of such portraits from Moscow as the latest fashion, and Nastasya Ivanovna had bought them for Olenka.6 On the opposite wall hung photographic portraits of her and Olga. A scoundrel of a traveling photographer had charged an arm and a leg, taken pictures that 6. Alexander II was crowned in 1855.

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were out of focus and produced little likeness to their subjects, made a few careless alterations by hand, and on top of everything else even managed to give Nastasya Ivanovna a tongue lashing for something or other. However, Nastasya Ivanovna herself bore some of the blame. This was her first encounter with photography and, afraid she might blink, she held her eyes so wide open that she looked stunned.

On a little table beneath the mother’s portrait, a small, colorful vase held wax flowers, terribly garish, with verdigris leaves.

“My God! Potichomania in a salon of the lower gentry!”7 thought Ovcharov as he took a seat by the little table.

Olenka sat down across from him and, judging by the expression on her face, she did not seem terribly well-disposed toward this visitor. Nastasya Ivanovna also seated herself, but was at a loss how to revive the conversation.

“It seems that you are the only landowner living here?” Ovcharov inquired.

“The only one, Erast Sergeyich. And what is our landowning life these days? The whole thing has gone topsy-turvy, it’s the truth.

I just can’t figure out what I’m supposed to be doing. And I doubt I’ll ever figure it out. Anyway, what kind of landowners are we? Still, for lack of anyone else, I suppose we’ll have to do!”

Nastasya Ivanovna broke out laughing.

“But aren’t you a true landowner, Nastasya Ivanovna?” Ovcharov asked, smiling.

“I wouldn’t say so, Erast Sergeyich. Nothing special—just a simple person, glad that I have you here in my parlor. After all,

7. Potichomania: A taste for porcelain knickknacks (from the French potiche), Chinese or Japanese porcelain vases.

I see how people live in the city, and here, I’ve visited rich folk.

They’re not like me! You haven’t been brought up the way we were, and what’s more, you don’t remember my dear father and mother, Erast Sergeyich. They were quite different people from what I am.

They too had fifty souls, but were much more respectable. And my Nikolai Demyanych? I think you’ve never met a kinder man—and he was always more respectable than I was. I don’t really know how to be a woman of refinement, it’s true. And all I want is to just preserve for Olenka . . .”

She did not notice that Olenka blushed slightly and turned away.

However, Ovcharov noticed, and to prevent the landowner, who was brimming with emotion, from inadvertently giving away family secrets, he steered the conversation in a different direction.

“Whose boarded-up house is that I passed?”

“Ah, the Toporishchevs, don’t you remember? Such a troubled lot they were. And what horrors we had to put up with! The village burned three times because of them. The old woman was touched in the head, and the husband was a drunkard. From time to time they’d go at each other and their Tereshka would come running to my Nikolai Demyanych begging him to pull them apart, for the love of God! How was my Nikolai Demyanych to cope with that? He would scold them, appeal to their better judgment, throw up his hands, and leave. They brought the estate to the edge of ruin, but kept being saved by some stroke of luck. Their rich relatives in Kazan twice rescued them from auction. And their son turned out just as bad. He was given a post in the civil court, but still hung around here. A real troublemaker. And can you believe it, Erast Sergeyich? He used to shoot my pigs, if you’ll excuse me for saying so!”

Nastasya Ivanovna lowered her voice, and Olenka again blushed.

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“And he came, I would venture to guess, to a most un-Christian end. A terribly disrespectful son to his parents, he was. He’d go to town and there—if it wasn’t billiards it was cards. And he won, too. And with these winnings in hand did he thank God and get out of there? They may have been ill-gotten gains, but still . . . Not him! Champagne by the cartload! One time they even brought my Nikolai Demyanych home in a sled more dead than alive, slurring his words . . . I was beside myself! Well, soon after that incident the father had a seizure and died on the spot. Next, the old woman went clean out of her mind and ended her days in a lunatic asylum. And five years before all this, the son fell in with an officer who was passing through and went off to Poland. He came back about a year and a half later with a wife and child. Such a young one the Polish girl was, nothing much to look at, a stupid little thing with not a word of Russian—I could barely look at her without laughing! Another year and they had another child. And the things she put up with, Lord!

He beat her and beat her and stole everything that she’d come with, barely a handkerchief was left, and there was nothing to swaddle the children in. Not a single letter did she get from her parts, though she wrote and wrote.

“She kept trying to come up with some way to rid herself of the scoundrel. And she was jealous, too—you know how Polish girls are.

She even got it into her head—the fool—to be jealous of me. Before that, Nikolai Demyanych and I helped her as best we could—you know, we ourselves aren’t rich—but after that I had had enough. We stopped seeing one another. Well, last fall or so we heard that that brigand had gathered up the whole family and taken them to the fair in Kiev. There, he abandoned his wife. For his part, he joined the actors; but we heard they threw him out. Then he robbed a shop with

some swindlers and disappeared without a trace. The Polish girl too, as rumor has it, came to a bad end: there were regiments stationed there, well, officers. . . . Maybe she got remarried, maybe not. Thank God, the children . . . Turned out they had a kindly grandfather, and he took them back with him to Poland. The estate was taken under trusteeship. By the time the trustees had finished settling accounts, barely a shingle was left for the children. God only knows what will become of them.”

Nastasya Ivanovna sighed.

“Olenka, you should see to the coffee,” she said.

The coffee appeared and, as Ovcharov noticed, it was served neatly and properly. The hostess plied him with refreshments; Ovcharov declined and almost had to wave Nastasya Ivanovna away like a fly.

This obtrusive hospitality was very un-European, but the distress with which Nastasya Ivanovna heard his refusals touched him.

“Why won’t you let me feed you, my dear?” she implored. “It’s been so long since I’ve had the chance! In the past you didn’t hurt my feelings so.”

“That was when I was a boy and was able to eat a lot, Nastasya Ivanovna, but now it’s not good for me,” Ovcharov demurred, and suddenly the thought of his rheumatism brought a look of anxiety to his face. The healthy years of his youth and the various circumstances of that time flashed before his eyes and he asked: “There were some other landowners here; I seem to remember meeting them as a schoolboy.”

“Well, of course! There’s an estate beyond the church; you can’t see it from here. The Malinnikovs. They don’t live here either, they just stop in every now and then, rarely. They became one of those writers.”

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Nastasya Ivanovna suddenly spoke in such a conspiratorial whisper that Ovcharov was not able to understand her.

“One of what writers?” he asked, suppressing a smile.

“Those writers. They live in Petersburg and write books,” Nastasya Ivanovna lowered her voice even further.

“Les demoiselles Malinnikov were here last year and wrote a description of our governor’s wife,” Olenka added loudly and with a hint of sarcasm.

“Malinnikov . . . Malinnikov . . .” Ovcharov muttered, trying to recall the name, “I don’t know. I believe I know everyone in literature.

Must not be of any consequence. . . . Malinnikov . . . Although, to tell the truth, lately I’m a bit behind the times on all that, on all those . . .” he concluded in a mutter, reluctant to discuss the topic with his current company.

“They write for journals,” Olenka said, looking off to the side.

“What extreme differences we’re beginning to see growing out of one and the same provincial soil!” Ovcharov commented, looking around and then out the window. “Snetki literati! Now that’s a surprise!”

“It was poverty that drove them to it, Erast Sergeyich. Their little estate is one of the worst. Their father racked his brain and then took a position in the governor’s office. The whole family moved to town.

Then he was transferred to Petersburg. At the time their son was finishing up his studies at St. Petersburg University. How the dear man made do those six years God only knows. When they moved there, the father and daughters, they themselves started up . . . Well, I’m not quite sure how to put it. . . . You tell, Olenka.”

“Les demoiselles Malinnikov took up their studies again,” Olenka said reluctantly and with a note of mockery. “Their brother brought

them with him to his classes. They were always mad about books.

They became acquainted with various writers. The two of them translate from French and German and make money that way. Both of them write novels but don’t sign them with their own names . . . but, Mama, what can I say about them? We’re barely acquainted.

Mademoiselles Malinnikov—one is thirty, the other thirty-five years old—and they are both writers.”

“And at this point, they won’t be getting married,” Nastasya Ivanovna lamented.

“Why not, Nastasya Ivanovna?” Ovcharov asked, noting that his hostess’s verdict had less to do with the ages of Mademoiselles Malinnikov than their vocation.

“It’s a frightening thing to take up with one of those smart ones, Erast Sergeyich. At least I know that around here none of the landowners would have them. Of course, intelligence is a fine thing, but all the same it’s frightening. And then they’ll write some critique.

Perhaps some schoolteacher . . . well, and anyway, they haven’t a penny to their name. Oh, they are poor! Last summer when they were here from Petersburg they told us about it. All the livelong day they write—a whole summer will go by and they haven’t had time to take a walk. Their only pleasure, they say, is the theater.”

“And that—from the gallery,” Olenka interjected.

“How I laughed when they first got here! They hadn’t been to the country for eight years. Everything amazed them, my little doves, as if they were children. ‘Ooh, and nightingales sing here; ooh, and cows by the stream; ooh! And red currents on the bush, peas in pods! We haven’t seen these things for a hundred years, we’d forgotten it all! Ooh, you fortunate woman, Nastasya Ivanovna!’ It was both funny and sad. They even cried. The elder one had become so City Folk and Country Folk

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thin. They were dressed city fashion, in style. I feel so sorry for the young ladies: they’re bound to be spinsters.”

“They seem to be having a fine time, Mama,” Olenka commented.

“Everyone was very attentive to them here; it’s their affair if they don’t want to take advantage of it. The governor’s wife even invited them. Why didn’t they go? There was some kind of reading there.”

“Is the governor’s wife a patron of the literary arts?” Ovcharov asked Olenka.

“I don’t know. She arranges various events. But not many go. Only her own group, and half the town doesn’t get along with them.”

“Why don’t they get along?”

Olenka launched into a story about a ball at which there was a scene over some gossip. She, of course, was not at this ball, because she is not acquainted with the governor’s wife—the denizens of Snetki have not yet attained such an honor—but some girls were there from among Olenka’s acquaintances. Ovcharov listened absentmindedly and with a rather sour face. The sour face was attributable to the story being told, and the absentmindedness was provoked by the thought that he had yet to find himself a place to stay. He stroked his beard, not noticing the tender pity with which Nastasya Ivanovna was looking at him out of the corner of her eye. Ovcharov would have been very surprised if Nastasya Ivanovna had spoken her thoughts out loud: she found him to be most unattractive.

She recalled what a handsome schoolboy he had been and, later, how he had looked as a young landowner coming to the provincial capital for elections. Ovcharov had been, as they say, the very picture of health, and now he struck Nastasya Ivanovna as being in worse shape than she. He was of modest height, stooped, and had a sunken chest; his long face had sunken cheeks and thin lips; he had thick

sideburns and very sparse hair on his forehead, as well as bony hands with almost transparent skin, and eyes that were a bit dull, although they appeared to be very large due to the thin skin of the eyelids and pale forehead. Nastasya Ivanovna was not aware that many find a certain beauty in this sort of semi-decrepitude, as the loss of freshness in a man attends the formation of what is called une physionomie. She failed to realize how highly this was valued and how highly Ovcharov himself valued it. Ovcharov believed that he had une physionomie de penseur8 and would not have exchanged it for any other.

He even had a habit of leaning forward with his hands on his knees as he sat or using his hands to support his chin. His figure made the most gloomy impression on this country woman.

“Heaven save Olenka from such a feeble husband,” Nastasya Ivanovna thought. “He has one foot in the grave.” She then sighed so loudly that she finally attracted Ovcharov’s attention.

“Why are you looking at me like that, Nastasya Ivanovna?” he asked, smiling.

“Well, what can I say, Erast Sergeyich? I can’t get over it—how sickly, and you must forgive me—what an old man you look like.

That’s not how it used to be! And your dear departed father was far stronger than you. And we’re all old! If only you would do something about your health while you’re here. You don’t seem to be taking care of yourself, are you?”

“What do you mean, I’m not taking care of myself!” Ovcharov responded, suddenly becoming animated and with a certain pride.

“What respectable man doesn’t look after his health? This is something very important to me. I spare nothing when it comes to my 8. French: The countenance of a thinker.

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health. Every year I take the waters and bathe in the sea. I consult with all of Europe’s most eminent experts; I have many close friends among them. It’s a shame that one meets charlatans just after money from time to time. I brought one into society, and can you imagine?

After I’d taken exemplary care of myself for an entire half year the scoundrel ruined my health in a single day. You cannot conceive how ill I have been and what I’ve been through for the sake of my health!”

“I can imagine, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied in perplexed awe.

“I do take care of my health,” Ovcharov continued even more emphatically. “The question of health is no laughing matter. In the countryside, unfortunately, they don’t yet understand how important it is—you will excuse me for saying so. Here it’s nothing to let a disease develop or to call for the physician once a year and even— why bother with a true physician?—just call the local healer woman.

In my opinion this just shows a poor attitude toward science and a lack of self-respect.”

“Of course we are a stupid people,” Nastasya conceded humbly.

“And what kind of illnesses do we have here in the country? All good-for-nothing; we don’t have the more refined illnesses here. In town, if you look around, well, there they do have them. And thank God we’re in good health, Erast Sergeyich. But what good does it do to be thin as a rail? Better not to bring yourself to that. I hear that you’ve been ill for a while. It must be ten years since we heard about it. You were spending your winters in Moscow. They say it was fashionable among the well-to-do to go sledding down hills, and you went sledding. You’re sledding along, sledding along and it goes without saying you need something to warm you up: you have a nice little drink—not much, of course—but it’s all so unhealthy. They say

that once you and a young lady flipped over—sled and all—and that you bruised your side and almost broke your leg: they carried you home unconscious. So since then, they say, you’ve had such awful rheumatism, Erast Sergeyich.”

“Perhaps there is some truth to that,” Ovcharov replied, not terribly well-disposed toward his hostess’s naive tale. “The sins of youth; who wasn’t a fool back then? And it was the most foolish of times.

But that’s all nonsense. It’s life itself that’s ruined me, Nastasya Ivanovna, that’s the point. Life, and thought, and the search for betterment for myself and for others—you have no idea what that takes out of one. That’s the point.”

“Of course that’s how it is, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied, without the faintest idea what her guest was talking about.

Ovcharov fell silent, stared into space, and absentmindedly clapped his hands together. Quiet presided over the room. Olenka yawned.

Ovcharov paused a moment, deep in thought. Suddenly he said: “I have a favor to ask of you, Nastasya Ivanovna.”

“What sort of favor? Please do, Erast Sergeyich. Your father and mother . . . I loved them so . . . Ask me anything, anything I can do.”

“I’m only afraid of imposing on you. However, I’ll leave that to you to speak up as your conscience dictates. I don’t want to move to town, fresh air is essential to me, and at Beryozovka there’s no place for me. I noticed you’re building a bathhouse. If it were possible for me to take up residence there for the summer . . .”

Nastasya Ivanovna was somewhat taken aback.

“In the bathhouse? Erast Sergeyich, is that really possible? Hardly a peaceful sort of lodging. Now, if you could live in my house, but as fate would have it . . .”

Nastasya Ivanovna suddenly lowered her voice.

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“. . . as fate would have it, I have a houseguest. There is no room.”

“Oh, no,” Ovcharov interrupted. “I tell you in all frankness that I cherish my freedom. That would inconvenience both of us. If the bathhouse were available, I would rent it from you.”

“Rent? How could you, Erast Sergeyich? That even hurts my feelings,” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, blushing.

“Why on earth? Please!”

“To take money for such a trifle . . . I’ve never heard of such a thing. What price could be set for such quarters . . . I wouldn’t be able to come up with one. No, please, Erast Sergeyich.”

“If that’s how it is, I take back my request,” he replied coldly.

Nastasya Ivanovna was crestfallen. Ovcharov continued: “Order is necessary in all things, Nastasya Ivanovna. Germans understand this, but we Russians haven’t appreciated it. Why should you pass up an opportunity for gain, and why should I accept gifts or sacrifices from you? That’s nothing but Russia’s outdated lack of moral discipline—simple disorder. If I live on your property, there is no question but that I will pay you for everything. It would be better if you just told me whether or not I can live in your bathhouse.”

Nastasya Ivanovna was utterly perplexed. Olenka’s grin expressed something between mockery and mirth.

“The bathhouse, I’ll admit, is new. The shelving, thank God, isn’t in yet. The doors and hinges are ready—they just need to be hung.

It is, if you please, rather spacious—I myself don’t know why I built it so large—but how can you live there, Erast Sergeyich?”

Nastasya Ivanovna spoke these words with such sorrow and distress, it was as if she was asking herself whether it might somehow be possible to instantly transform the bathhouse into an elegant mansion.

“That’s wonderful, if the bathhouse will serve,” Ovcharov responded. “So be it. We Russian gentlemen must be able to adapt to any situation. We ourselves are to blame. I’ve brought my house to ruin and am paying the price. Well, now, another condition and favor: I’m sickly and adhere to a strict diet. All I need is chicken broth, a piece of white bread, a chicken cutlet for lunch, and a cup of tea in the morning—there you have my entire day. Might I hope that this can all be prepared in your kitchen and that you’ll supervise the cook?”

Nastasya Ivanovna beamed. “Really, Erast Sergeyich, that goes without saying. For my part, I can claim without boasting: none of the neighbors can match us in cooking and here, cleanliness rules.

You should at least try the coffee. And Aksinya Mikhailovna bakes marvelous white bread, and I myself . . .”

“Fine, fine, we’ll see. However, with your permission, I will send my man; he’ll show the cook how to prepare my food. I’m a bit fastidious. I will pay your cook, of course, and for all provisions.”

Nastasya Ivanovna turned away.

“Without fail,” Ovcharov continued with exuberant firmness.

“Whatever is lacking or, perhaps, of poor quality—after all, if you’ll excuse me, I know that we are fated to eat in the country—well, my man will purchase in town; I’ll send him.”

“How will you find space for your man, Erast Sergeyich?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked dejectedly. “It will be too crowded in the bathhouse.

I’ll give him my late husband’s, Nikolai Demyanych’s, study. . . . But he won’t hear you calling from the house—it’s too far.”

“I won’t be bringing him here at all; I’ll leave him at Beryozovka,” Ovcharov replied, smirking at the notion of Nikolai Demyanovich’s study. “First of all, I’ve become accustomed to getting by on my own: I don’t need to be waited on over the course of the day.

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Second, I cannot abide the sight of manservants busying themselves with nonsense: that’s nothing but antiquated Russian lordliness and I, thank God, grew unaccustomed to such things during my travels. My man will come from Beryozovka before I get up in the morning; I’ll tell him what I need—and that will be that. The walk will do him good: the exercise will prevent him from becoming lazy. He’ll be spoiled if he stays in your house—telling stories or sleeping endlessly; he’ll lose all his polish. No, he’ll be no good after that. In general, skilled city help is strongly tainted by country life.”

“That’s as you please, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna consented. “If the need arises and you will permit it, my own servants will attend you, too.”

Ovcharov smiled. “Thank you. Now, the most important and central reason for my decision to spend the summer in your bathhouse, in a word: whey. I must drink whey.”

“Whey?” the startled Nastasya Ivanovna replied. “What can be said of it? I have cows, and there will be plenty of that slop.”

“Slop?” Ovcharov exclaimed. “Slop cannot be drunk. First of all, the kind of cows you have determines the quality of the whey—then we can decide what is and isn’t slop. Of course, you can concoct slop out of anything.”

He became agitated. The promise of the curative powers of Snetki seemed about to fade like a dream.

“Whey?” Nastasya Ivanovna repeated, wide-eyed. “We just have the ordinary kind.”

“No, madam, I have no need for the ordinary kind.”

“Well, what kind, my dear man?”

Nastasya Ivanovna, herself, became agitated. “Please explain, Erast Sergeyich. Perhaps, God will provide. Well, don’t we have any

whey around? I’ll show you, you’ll take a look. I think there is some, I think I saw it . . . Olenka, ask Aksinya Mikhailovna if she’s already poured off that slop . . . or, what to call it? Go, Olenka.”

Olenka went off with a laugh.

“I don’t put it in my mouth, but you teach me about it, Erast Sergeyich.”

Ovcharov began to explain to her in great detail how the previous summer two physicians in Schwalbach had recommended a treatment that was only available in Switzerland, because that was where the best whey was found; how he’d wanted to stay at an inn on the Handeck but left after consulting his physicians by post because the milk there turned out to be too harsh; how, finally, after lengthy search, he’d settled on Mount Rigi, where the whey turned out to be smooth, and he was highly satisfied with both his choice of locale and the society there. While he was speaking, Olenka returned, laughing, in the company of Aksinya Mikhailovna. The old woman stood in the doorway holding a pot of whey.

“Here it is,” Nastasya Ivanovna announced.

“Come and let me have a look, good woman,” Ovcharov beckoned.

Olenka stood grinning. Nastasya Ivanovna also kept quiet in anticipation. Ovcharov brought his face close to the pot, studied it, smelled it, and took a lick. For a moment, you could hear a pin drop.

In the end, Ovcharov apparently did not find any significant difference between the wheys of Switzerland and Snetki. He raised his head and pronounced: “Yes, perhaps . . . This will suffice, it’ll do.”

“How could it not do, Erast Sergeyich!” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, breathing a sigh of relief. “After all, I don’t feed my cows chaff. Thank God, I have a water meadow; our Snetki and Beryozovka meadows are the best in the district. The cows may not, City Folk and Country Folk

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unfortunately, be Swiss—I’ve never had that sort. Five years ago, after the cattle plague, I barely recovered; I had to get new cattle.

Maria Osipovna had a cow born of a Circassian cow, so I bought that cow’s heifer. . . . Well, it’s a shame that the whey is from a Circassian cow rather than a Swiss one.”

“It’s of no consequence,” Ovcharov muttered, reassuring her and becoming a bit flustered himself. “I will oversee the whey myself. So now, let us decide. First of all, what will you charge for the whey?”

Nastasya Ivanovna was all but dumbfounded.

“Even for the whey, you want to pay, Erast Sergeyich?”

“As I said: for everything,” Ovcharov insisted, shrugging his shoulders.

“What on earth would I charge for a thing like that? I can’t imagine.”

“If you would please trouble yourself to calculate it.”

“Erast Sergeyich, please don’t befuddle me.”

“How so, if you please?”

Nastasya Ivanovna fell silent for a moment.

“Erast Sergeyich,” she said in a voice not quite her own, “you are hurting my feelings. I’m an old woman, I knew you when you were small, and my Nikolai Demyanych did, too. . . . Your mother and you would come to call—it was such a treat for me. . . . And now you see fit to set terms with me over every little crust, over some accursed whey! Am I really such a miser, such a money-grubber? That’s hurtful, hurtful, Erast Sergeyich. I cannot. I simply cannot calculate what price to put on all this.”

“In that case I will not be lodging with you, Nastasya Ivanovna,” Erast Sergeyevich responded and reached for his hat.

Nastasya Ivanovna lowered her eyes and remained seated. She was greatly distressed. Ovcharov noticed this.

“But it would be better,” he said, “if we could behave like intelligent people. The money goes without saying, and your feelings also go without saying. The two need not get in each other’s way.

Write me your terms and I will abide by them, and we will remain dear friends without quarrel or dispute. Otherwise I will not be able to live here; otherwise I will be forced to leave. Well, now, would you really rather refuse me when I could spend the summer to my benefit?”

“However you see fit; pay, if it pleases you,” Nastasya Ivanovna relented.

“Well, it’s about time. Please be so kind as to calculate the price.”

Nastasya Ivanovna laughed.

“I’ll calculate it, I’ll calculate it, dear man, but not now; let me think. It’ll take time to add up such mind-boggling sums and figures!

And you should settle in.”

“This very day. Only I must ask that the terms and conditions be formulated today, without delay.”

“Fine, fine . . . But, how can it be—in a bathhouse—Erast Sergeyich?”

“Well?”

Nastasya Ivanovna fell silent. Deep in thought, she studied the walls around her.

“I’d rather have you in the house.”

“I’ve already told you . . .”

“I’d rather have you in the house,” she continued, not listening, “but I have a houseguest. And even that wouldn’t matter, there would be plenty of room for a good man, but she’s the sort of guest . . .”

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Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. Ovcharov recalled that this was not the first time his hostess had guardedly mentioned a houseguest. He found this somewhat intriguing. As his future at Snetki was now assured and the tiredness brought on by his walk had yet to pass, he decided to extend his stay a few minutes and find out who this mysterious houseguest might be.

“Perhaps you have a sick relative staying with you?” he asked.

“A relative, yes, but not just any relative, my dear man,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied and suddenly bent all the way down to Ovcharov’s ear. “A holy one. Here a week already.”

“Who is this ‘holy one’?”

“Anna Ilinishna Bobova. She’s my second cousin. In all my life I had only twice laid eyes on her: the year Olenka was born, when Nikolai Demyanych and I went to Moscow, and the year of his passing, when I visited the Trinity St. Sergius Monastery. Anna Ilinishna is a woman who . . . she was twelve when her mother and father died, and she lived with her benefactress, Princess Paltseva—did you hear about her in Moscow? Rather, she wasn’t exactly her benefactress, as Anna Ilinishna had some money from her parents. The princess took her in because she liked to have the house full of people making a fuss over her. A pious woman, but spiteful!—may she rest in peace. They even talk about her here in our town. You must have heard of her?”

“Who hasn’t? She was renowned in Moscow for her piety, her dinners, and her gossiping.”

“Oh, she was a difficult woman, they say. Cousin was her favorite.

Well, the princess died, and Cousin was passed on to her daughter, the widowed Princess Maria Sergeyevna. There is a great friendship between them. Cousin never leaves her side. But now—all of

a sudden—they’ve parted ways. The young princess was getting ready for a trip abroad and before leaving went to her village—she has an estate in our province. She will leave from her estate and go abroad directly. But Cousin traveled with her as far as the provincial capital and from there to my house. She’ll be staying with me until the princess returns and takes her back. Two or three months she’ll be living here.”

“In other words, you invited her. Or was it a surprise for you?”

Ovcharov asked, since he thought he had detected a sigh at the end of this explanation.

“A surprise,” she replied, slightly embarrassed. “I’m terribly happy and Olenka, too . . .”

“Well, Mama, speak for yourself,” Olenka interrupted her, casting a glance at the closed door that led to the guest’s bedroom. Nastasya Ivanovna shook her head at her daughter.

“I’m terribly happy,” Nastasya Ivanovna repeated. “Cousin is a remarkable woman.”

“Holy, you said?”

Olenka let out a laugh and again looked at the door.

“Just because Auntie brought suitcases full of icons, rosary beads, and communion bread from all sorts of bishops and archbishops with her . . .”

“Olenka!” her mother interrupted pleadingly.

“Why should I be silent? Erast Sergeyich will see for himself once he’s lived here a bit. Auntie is very delicate, and she had quite an arrival.

She appeared with all her worldly goods and without asking Mama, without sending word from town—not even a note. Mama didn’t even recognize her . . . ‘I will be living with you for as long as I need to.’

How do you like that? Such a blessing she’s bestowed on her relatives!”

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“Olenka!” Nastasya Ivanovna repeated in alarm.

“And the best thing, Erast Sergeyich,” Olenka continued, addressing him with sudden familiarity and flushing with annoyance, “the best thing is that she took up residence in my room. Mama commanded me to give up my room for her. She immediately sent for Porphyry Ivanich, our priest, to sanctify the room and sprinkle all the corners with holy water. Just as if a devil had been living there—truly!”

“Stop it, Olenka,” her mother screamed at her in a burst of anger.

“What will Erast Sergeyich think of you? And what sinfulness! You just remember all the things Anna Ilinishna has been honored to see, what passions she’s experienced in her travels! Oh, youth, youth!

Always judging things this way. You forgive her, Erast Sergeyich.

Cousin is a most admirable woman. I’m barely worthy to look at her.

She’s been to the Holy Sepulchre and all our grandest cloisters. She has an entire box full . . .”

Nastasya Ivanovna suddenly lowered her voice. “. . . an entire box full of letters. Five archbishops write to her and holy fathers, too, and she even has a memento from one anchorite— he gave her a stone to remember him by.”

“Ah! That is no trifle,” Ovcharov remarked with comic earnestness, softly clapping his hands.

“Of course, it’s no trifle. And what hasn’t Cousin experienced in this life! Lord, Lord! Let me tell you all about it.”

A cough sounded from behind the bedroom door. Nastasya Ivanovna suddenly lost her train of thought, pricked up her ears, and stopped short. Ovcharov quickly took hold of his hat.

“That, it seems, is Auntie, wishing to come out; and it looks as if you’ve taken fright, Erast Sergeyich,” Olenka said with a laugh.

At that moment, she was not at all unattractive.

“What do you mean, taken fright?” Ovcharov asked, laughing, although he really had gotten up from his seat, if not out of fright, at least out of a desire to depart before the appearance of a new face.

“Why have you decided that I’m such a coward or such a sinner that I’m afraid to look upon holiness?”

“I’m not exactly certain yet, but that’s how it looks to me,” Olenka responded, reciprocating his flirtatious tone.

The door squeaked and another cough followed.

“Farewell, my young landlady—after all, from this day forward you will be my landlady, won’t you? We’ll be friends, won’t we?”

He extended his hand to Olenka who shook it very adroitly.

“Well, of course you’ll be friends,” Nastasya Ivanovna intervened, a bit flustered and for some reason making no attempt to detain her guest, whom she had intended to keep in her parlor much longer.

“May God grant us warm friendship, most esteemed Erast Sergeyich, and between you and Olenka, as well. That is God’s will, and I myself am so glad, and what could be better . . .”

“Farewell,” Ovcharov repeated, and before Nastasya Ivanovna could catch up with him, he had already made it to the servants’ foyer, thrown on his coat, and departed with the haste and gait of a man who has jumped aboard many a train just as the final whistle was sounding.

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he moment he left, eleven o’clock chimed in Nastasya Ivanovna’s parlor and her houseguest emerged, at first cautiously, quietly opening her bedroom door just a crack.

“Good morning, Cousin. Did you sleep well?” Nastasya Ivanovna inquired as she walked up to kiss her. Olenka also gave her a kiss, but only after studying her aunt from head to toe without any attempt to hide her scrutiny. Anna Ilinishna nodded at her and, with a hint of distaste, touched her thin lips to the fresh young lips of her relative.

Anna Ilinishna was a forty-three-year-old spinster, exceptionally withered and yellow. Her hair—gray, but thoroughly blackened with pomade—was meticulously gathered under a fashionable hairnet with a bow in the form of a butterfly just above the forehead. Her floral cambric dress, to which an expensive collar had been added, was freshly ironed. Worn modestly, without crinoline or anything around the waist, it cheerlessly outlined her gaunt chest and scrawny back. Probably in an effort to make up for the excessive simplicity of her attire, she had fastened her collar with a brooch right at the throat. Olenka’s attention was particularly drawn to both the brooch, which was adorned with a mosaic parrot, and the butterfly bow on

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her forehead. After she sat down, her gaze continued to dart between the butterfly and the parrot.

“Did you sleep well?” Nastasya Ivanovna repeated, as Anna Ilinishna had already taken her seat in silence and begun crocheting a small wool rug she had brought with her.

“As always, thank you. Palashka is so thrilled with her new soles, she makes a clatter that will wake you, like it or not. I’ve only just finished my coffee. They brought it to me after they served you. Have you already been out tending to the estate? Or are you planning to go someplace with Olga Nikolayevna?”

She spoke these words with her small, languid eyes fixed on Olenka’s broad crinoline.

“What gave you that idea?” Olenka asked.

“Your attire.”

“I felt like putting it on, so I did,” Olenka replied, purposely rustling her crinoline and spreading her dress still wider over her chair.

“Excuse me. It was forward of me to ask.”

“No, we haven’t been anywhere,” Nastasya Ivanovna broke in.

“There was no time. We had a visitor.”

“You don’t say? An early visit.”

Nastasya Ivanovna breathed a sigh of relief.

“You didn’t hear?” she asked hurriedly, deathly afraid that Anna Ilinishna had caught the end of their conversation. “I thought we might have disturbed you. We were rather loud.”

“I was unaware that you had a guest. How would I know who comes to visit you? No one informed me.”

Olenka looked at her inquisitively. Nastasya Ivanovna was again gripped by fear.

“Please excuse me if no one informed you, Cousin. I’m glad to acquaint you with any worthy person because you are my dear guest.

But I thought, since you didn’t come out, that must mean you were still praying to God.” Anna Ilinishna grinned. “God has yet to grant me the strength for such feats,” she said, impatiently hooking a loose stitch with her needle. “I cannot stand in prayer for a full five hours. Even Father Feofan Sarovsky can’t quite manage that, let alone me. I was awakened at six, and now it’s eleven.”

Nastasya Ivanovna calmed down. Quiet again reigned in the room.

“Erast Sergeyich was visiting, Ovcharov,” Nastasya Ivanovna resumed the conversation.

Her guest continued crocheting.

“Ovcharov—we took a walk to his Beryozovka. The one who’s always traveling abroad, Cousin.”

Her guest kept crocheting.

“He winters in Moscow. A Moscow resident, you could say.”

“I know that skinny-legs,” Anna Ilinishna blurted out, putting aside her anger. “He was always darkening our doorway at Maria Sergeyevna’s. And how ugly he’s become, when I had a look. He’s going bald—pshaw!”

Olenka started.

“How do you know he’s going bald?” she exclaimed. “You must have seen him today.”

“I saw him through the keyhole,” Anna Ilinishna replied, unperturbed.

“Why, then, did you say when you came out that you didn’t know we had a visitor?” Olenka persisted, even rising from her seat.

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“Why should I speak first about a guest if my hosts don’t tell me themselves. I think that’s a simple matter of hospitality; and if I am to be pushed into the background in someone else’s home, who am I to object?”

“We talked for quite a while,” Nastasya Ivanovna interjected, terrified at the thought that her cousin might have heard everything.

“Olga Nikolayevna! Why are you twiddling your thumbs, sitting around idly?” she abruptly pounced on her daughter, as if she were to blame for her anxieties. “We were talking, Cousin. And we talked about you.”

Nastasya Ivanovna spoke these words resolutely. She suddenly decided to meet the danger head on, calculating that if her cousin had heard everything there was nothing to be done, but if she had not been able to make out what was said from behind the closed door, then Nastasya Ivanovna would demean herself—that is, lie— for Olenka’s sake.

“Interesting, what might you have said about me?” Anna Ilinishna mused enigmatically.

“Oh, not much: that you had visited holy places and how nice that is.”

“I should say it’s nice. Only a heathen would need to be told that that’s nice. It’s true, you didn’t tell him much.”

“Well, it doesn’t feel right to praise one’s own relatives too much, Cousin,” Nastasya Ivanovna remarked. “Of course, I could have told him about the good deeds you’ve done all over Moscow, and the cripples and everything . . . but I was afraid. Given your Christian humility, that might be unpleasant for you.”

“I thank you with all my heart. If I had been babbling about myself, that would be one thing, but it seems God permits others

to herald the good. In any event, you did very well not to say much about me.”

“Why is that, Anna Ilinishna?”

“You just shouldn’t.”

“But, why?”

Tortured confusion was reflected on Nastasya Ivanovna’s face.

She was at a complete loss. Olenka bided her time.

“Because he’s an unbeliever,” Anna Ilinishna calmly stated and busied herself with her needlework.

“Truly? But doesn’t he—is he really? But, how could anyone know that?”

“For you it would be difficult, but I know what I’m talking about.”

“But how can one know that?”

“His beard alone is enough,” Anna Ilinishna muttered as if talking to herself and jerking her head in the direction of Ovcharov’s departure.

Complete silence followed. The only sound was Nastasya Ivanovna’s cautious sigh.

“And most important, he’s an ignoramus,” Anna Ilinishna pronounced abruptly, breaking the silence, but then pausing again for some time.

“As if I don’t know his sort,” she blurted, glancing at her speechless hostesses with an angry laugh, extremely animated. “I don’t think there’s another like him in all Moscow—and he knows my biography! He was good enough to wait for you to deign to tell it.

Yes, I think all the world knows what powers God has granted me; about my experiences with hypnotism, and about my clairvoyance; and all the most eminent physicians wrote about it in Paris! I’ve seen through better than the likes of him, and I don’t even know how City Folk and Country Folk

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I do it. I’ve been known to strike fear into worthier men. And he, you see, doesn’t remember me! Here you are, graciously explaining who on earth Anna Ilinishna is! Ah—what a memory, I’ve never seen anything like it! Enough. There’s nothing to be done if you prefer one guest over another. I’ve done what I could. I told you about my anguish, about my dreams—and even talking about these things strains the health. Of course, I made this sacrifice because we are family. It is upsetting to see how little it’s valued.”

Anna Ilinishna fell back into her easy chair and began energetically hooking her needlework.

“Cousin,” Nastasya Ivanovna spoke up timidly. “You’re not angry with me over something, are you?”

“What are you talking about? The thought never crossed my mind.”

“Your voice just now . . .”

“I was speaking of Ovcharov, and if you think some of it applies to you—that’s not my fault. There’s no reason to be annoyed with me.

And if you’ve got anything on your conscience, I think the Lord will give you the good sense to consider it.”

“Cousin, I don’t know anything,” Nastasya Ivanovna said, “and may God grant that nothing should come between us. Please allow me . . .”

And without waiting for permission, she stood up and gave Anna Ilinishna a heartfelt hug. Her cousin did not stop her. Olenka turned toward the window and quietly shrugged her shoulders.

“I may be a sinner, but I hold no grudge,” Anna Ilinishna added after the hug, unwinding her ball of yarn.

“May God grant it,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied, touched. “And Erast Sergeyich is sure to redeem himself in your eyes. You don’t know yet: he will be living here.”

“I heard.”

Olenka started to ask something, but stopped short.

“He wants to rent the bathhouse for the summer; there’s no place for him at Beryozovka. I have agreed.”

“The bathhouse?” Anna Ilinishna repeated, drawing out the word, her face taking on a strange expression. “I congratulate you.”

“You think . . . it’s too small?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked meekly.

“I don’t think anything, nothing at all. I’m merely congratulating you.”

“I don’t understand,” Nastasya Ivanovna began, even more confused than she had been by the storm that had just passed and noticing the rather significant fluttering of the bow on Anna Ilinishna’s hairnet.

“You don’t understand? I thought that old people would not forget such things. It turns out I was wrong. I’m ashamed to have to teach you. Who always lives in bathhouses?”

“What do you mean, who? Nobody lives there,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied, astonished.

“No one, in your opinion?”

“No one, Cousin. Truly, I don’t understand.”

“And where does the devil reside?” Anna Ilinishna asked with a certain enjoyment, putting down her needlework.

Nastasya Ivanovna laughed cheerfully.

“Oh, you’re joking, Cousin! Who would believe such a thing?

You yourself don’t believe it. God is everywhere. And the Lord is with you! You’ve made me laugh, my dear. What a surprise!”

“As you please. But believers know that it’s no dwelling for men and that it’s not built to be one. Infants understand. It’s well known that some wish to gratify ‘him.’ I don’t interfere. I’m just telling you.

It’s none of my business.”

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“But I can’t just refuse Erast Sergeyich over something so silly,” Nastasya Ivanovna remarked timidly, a little bewildered.

“I’m staying out of it; I’m staying out of it,” Anna Ilinishna interrupted her, waving her hands. “Do as you see fit. It’s in my nature to want to prevent evil—that’s all.”

Nastasya Ivanovna grew quiet.

“I wonder if an icon should be hung there,” Anna Ilinishna said a moment later, having resumed her crocheting.

“I’ll hang one myself,” Nastasya Ivanovna asserted firmly.

Her cousin glanced at her, and silence again descended over the room. Anna Ilinishna seemed to be pondering something as she continued to crochet energetically. In a moment her face began to change; the creases around her eyes, which had taken on a sly expression, became more compressed. Nastasya Ivanovna, who had already calmed down, walked over to the window, leaned her entire plump figure out of it, and looked toward the flowerbed. Her favorite brood hen had gotten in there and was digging around the last of her peonies yet to flower.

“Shoo!” Nastasya Ivanovna scolded her gently, “Shoo!”

Clapping at the chicken, she almost completely forgot her troubles.

“I would be interested in knowing one more thing,” she heard her guest’s voice behind her. The question, it seemed, was not directed at anyone in particular—neither mother nor daughter. Olenka did not react. She was sitting and tugging at a thread on the border of her red calico and quietly humming to herself.

“What would you like to know, Cousin?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked, turning around. The storm, it seemed, had not yet blown over.

“When Erast Sergeyich departs your Sokolniki1—that is, leaves your bathhouse—will you finish building it?”

“Of course I will, Cousin, I’ll finish it. The benches will just need to be ordered.”

“And you . . . you will use it?”

“Yes. We’ll start heating it this autumn.”

“And that after . . . after a man?” Anna Ilinishna exclaimed in horror.

Nastasya Ivanovna blushed.

“Well, Cousin,” she said, trying to quiet her pounding heart. “I don’t understand you at all. What do you mean by that? I’m probably just slow-witted. Help me understand.”

“That’s not my place,” Anna Ilinishna responded humbly and rose from her seat.

“Where are you going?”

“To my room. My nerves are unsettled.”

Anna Ilinishna took some sort of vial from her pocket.

“Do you at least understand,” she asked, standing in her doorway and sniffing her vial, “do you at least understand that you mustn’t say a word to anyone about where you have a gentleman living? That it’s indecent? Do you understand?”

She closed the door behind her.

For several minutes mother and daughter sat in silence. Olenka was overcome by laughter, which she muffled with both hands over her mouth. Nastasya Ivanovna was contemplating her situation.

1. Sokolniki is a park in Moscow on territory that served as royal hunting grounds starting in the seventeenth century.

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She was left with the strong suspicion that her cousin had heard everything, and to this woe, another had been added.

“What a mess you’ve made, Olenka!” she began in a whisper.

“What? It’s nothing. She didn’t hear anything.”

“You think so? Reassure me.”

“Enough, Mama.”

“God only knows why you two haven’t gotten along from the very first day. It pains me. And aren’t you ashamed of yourself? She’s never been angry like that before. It’s not as if we’ve been inattentive, have we? Do you know what she’s so angry about?”

“What she’s angry about? She’s angry that you didn’t call her to entertain Erast Sergeyich, to play hostess in your place. You think she’s really so pious? She’s an old flirt, my Auntie—that’s all there is to it.”

“Olenka, have you no fear of God? Where did you come up with such a thing?”

“I saw through her from the first. She’s envious because I’m seventeen and she’s fifty. Holy! Then why did she bring all those powders and corsets and supports with her? I’ve seen them.”

“Oh, be quiet,” Nastasya Ivanovna interrupted her, pacing the room. “This is upsetting. I can’t make sense of it. And about Erast Sergeyich. Did you hear—indecent?”

“Listen to nonsense if you like.”

“But what if she’s actually right? I, like a ninny, in the heat of the moment, got excited and didn’t understand what I was doing. Don’t look out the window, listen. Well, what will the neighbors say? I’m a widow, you are a young thing . . . a young man . . . Olenka?”

“You’re worried about the neighbors? Which ones, if I may ask?”

Olenka responded, making a disdainful face. “Here in the country

there isn’t a soul, and the others—I don’t want anything to do with them. They’re nothing but ignoramuses. I only pay attention to city folk. But in the city—no one would see it that way. Just look, just listen what goes on in the city.”

“Well, if that’s the way it is, then it’s fine,” muttered Nastasya Ivanovna distractedly, but her heart was heavy. “I’m old, Olenka, and it’s time you started doing the thinking for both of us. You’ve got to help get me out of this trouble. As things stand now, you’re only getting me into it.”

“I won’t, I won’t; just don’t demand a show of affection toward Auntie. And if you want my advice: don’t talk anymore today about Erast Sergeyich. Instead ask Auntie to show you her wardrobe, make a fuss over it—everything will be just fine. Please, don’t let anyone— not Auntie or anyone else—get the better of you. Don’t we know our own minds? Can’t we live as we please? It’s tiresome.”

“Just behave yourself, and give me a kiss, Olenka,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied, taking hold of her daughter’s head with both hands and sighing. “Oh, the whole morning’s gone by and we haven’t accomplished a thing!”

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ecause he employed energetic measures, Erast Sergeyevich settled in very quickly. From his steward’s house, where he spent the first half of the day poring over various accounts, he sent a man on horseback to Snetki with a note to the lady of the house requesting her terms. The man waited. Never before had poor Nastasya Ivanovna’s mind been so taxed as it was that morning. She cloistered herself in Olenka’s attic where, together with her daughter and in secret from Anna Ilinishna, she tried to come up with prices. Nastasya Ivanovna could not find a way to reconcile with her own selflessness. After being consulted a hundred times, Olenka was finally fed up.

“Just charge that man-of-the-world five hundred in silver,” Olenka pronounced, throwing herself on her bed, where she began to unravel and redo her disheveled braid.

“That’s what you get when you ask a goat for advice!” her mother exclaimed as she walked out with her mathematical scribblings.

She sent off the terms, even though she had not yet settled on a price for the whey. Because this price was missing and some others were suspiciously low, the man was forced to return again, and then

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again. Finally, at Nastasya Ivanovna’s request, Ovcharov wrote out a prix fixe for the therapeutic nutriment—one that was quite proper and reflected neither magnanimous sacrifice nor undue burden on his finances. Toward evening another horse appeared in Snetki, this time pulling a droshky loaded with Ovcharov’s possessions. At first glance, there was not much to them, but how surprised the uninitiated would be to see that “not much.” Ovcharov’s many visits to Europe’s industrial exhibitions had paid off, and his enthusiasm for the ingenuity of the New World had served him particularly well.

He took advantage of anything that met the tourist’s needs, and this fleeting visitor to his native land, knowing what life in Rus is like, had brought along valuable resources. While he may not have possessed a coat that could be transformed, at its owner’s command, into a rowboat, a mattress, a pillow, an umbrella, or perhaps even a hat, he certainly came close.

By the following morning the bathhouse was unrecognizable.

The floor had been covered with American oilcloth, English rugs, and the fluffy pelt of some sort of wild animal. An English tapestry depicting a perfectly lifelike deer adorned one wall, along with various hunting accessories; beneath the tapestry stood a collapsible bed. Arranged around the bed were a collapsible table and chair and a tall writing stand, all of it sturdy, comfortable, refined, and elegant, every item breveté and garanti,1 every item having earned an exhibition medal. A magnificent trunk stood proudly in the corner bearing the venerable mark of railway labels from every European line and traces of foreign and native dirt. This trunk was some sort of magician. A hundred items emerged from it, and each of these 1. French: Patented and with a warranty.

multiplied itself a hundredfold: the finest linens and outer garments, a variety of accoutrements designed to warm and protect (all recommended by hygiene experts), a toiletries case equipped with a mirror, a silverware case, steam cookers, a lamp, candlesticks, and finally, from a special compartment, pamphlets and books. There was another bale of books still waiting to be unpacked.

Ovcharov’s sprightly servant left for the provincial capital at dawn.

He returned with an iron stove, a large leather easy chair, green taffeta curtains for the windows, and a large quantity of canvas. The servant had brought along two workmen. The stove was installed in an instant, and the bathhouse walls were covered with canvas. When the sun burst through the window and green-and-white curtains onto the clean canvas—and onto the English steel, the colorful rugs, the bronze, the lamps, and the inkwell, onto the blanket of crimson silk, and, finally, onto two photographic portraits that had appeared on the wall—it was a sight to behold. Ovcharov himself arrived to take a look and was satisfied. He then ordered that work begin on the final refurbishment, and as quickly as possible, so that everything would be ready by the following day: a canopy was added to the bathhouse. It was needed to provide a place to rest after bathing and to work when the baking sun made the bathhouse uncomfortably warm. He had asked Nastasya Ivanovna’s permission to make this addition to his accommodations in one of his notes the day before.

No sooner had the canopy been ordered than it was already in place, and Ovcharov moved in.

He arrived on foot and carrying his briefcase, which he did not entrust into servants’ hands, and placed it on his writing stand. This briefcase had been fashioned from magnificent leather by Paris’s finest craftsman, but was ancient, scratched, and ink-stained in many City Folk and Country Folk

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spots, the casualty of time—a venerable briefcase. This is where Ovcharov kept all his writing.

After his many exertions and three sleepless nights, it was a pleasure to rest. Ovcharov relished being in bed. Sleep, however, did not come, not because of the unfamiliarity of his surroundings—he had experienced thousands of different living quarters in his life—but from the sort of fatigue that often drives away sleep rather than promoting it. He lay there thinking, and little by little the proximity of his native fields aroused in him recollections of the distant past, of the first years of his youth.

Back then, Beryozovka and the Ovcharovs’ Moscow household were run in what they thought of as the European way, provoking the envy of the poor and smirks from the sons of the truly wealthy.

Behind the scenes there was squalor, and the idea that might makes right held full sway. In the salon, old-fashioned hospitality had been replaced by dîners fixes 2 and caricatures of maîtres d’hôtel. In the country, landowners with twenty to forty souls reacted with reverential dismay. This is what many naive people called “Europe.”

Ovcharov felt a sense of disgust when he recalled his home life and his own inability to grasp its ridiculousness. His mother spent much of her time at cards, and played high-stakes games with skill and luck rarely found in a woman. The card play attracted many high-ranking and distinguished men to their Moscow home, according the Ovcharovs a certain prestige. In the country, cards brought all the neighbors without exception into their home, which gave the Ovcharovs a reputation for kindness and unpretentiousness, especially as they fed their guests well. Food was his father’s primary 2. French: Dinners at a regularly scheduled time.

interest. After a short time in government service, he began devoting himself to accommodating the whims of his stomach. He immersed himself in the breeding of flavorful animals, consumed them with relish, and as a result developed a reputation as an experienced husbandman. At one time, without batting an eye, he nearly ate himself out of an entire village and was only saved from the auction block by his wife’s winnings. He was completely submissive to his wife, but caroused on the side under an impenetrable shroud of secrecy, protected by the friends he had acquired with his lavish dinners. His indiscretions rarely came out. There were no family quarrels, and, for the most part, only their common interest in culinary affairs brought the spouses together for intimate conversation.

Ovcharov entered the university. This was a time when students were very much the vogue in Moscow and the university enjoyed tremendous prestige and took pride in its representatives—this was a time when, as a wealthy student, Ovcharov led a life of the greatest variety. From the garret of a toiling comrade to the study of a princely comrade; from a ball at the governor-general’s, to hot rum punch drunk sitting on a student greatcoat—Ovcharov was everywhere, and everywhere he was equally welcome. The breadth of his parents’ social circle contributed to the variety of his own.

The Ovcharovs’ acquaintances numbered in the hundreds, and these hundreds each afforded him hundreds more, so by the time Ovcharov left the university he could claim to know all of Moscow.

His mother and father passed away shortly thereafter. Ovcharov remained in Moscow, took a position in the governor’s chancellery, and proceeded to look in there once a year. Well provided for and unfettered, he stepped out into the wide world to experience all it had to offer.

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And it cannot be said that he saw and experienced little. Rides and walks through Moscow, picnics, fireworks, elegant balls, smallscale costume balls, modest balls given by the bourgeoisie, masquerades, theaters, clubs, taverns, riding parties, concerts for the nobility, concerts for non-nobles, gypsies, merchant weddings, aristocratic weddings, charity bazaars, family dinners, bachelor dinners, pilgrimages to fashionable churches and monasteries, and visits— visits to everyone from high-ranking men and women of the clergy, senators, various His and Her Highnesses, right down to his deafand-dumb great-aunt who lived behind Devichi Field—parties and pre-party gatherings of the family sort, of the intimate sort, or the artistic sort, evening gatherings of learned men, circles devoted to excessive eating and drinking, English-style hunting, Hegelianism, and Slavophilism, edifying circles presided over by the patronesses of various societies, and, finally and especially, the ladies’ literary and poetry circles of those years—all this, Ovcharov experienced.

Throughout Moscow—from Rogozhskaya to Dorogomilovskaya— everyone who knew Ovcharov proclaimed him a fine fellow. He earned this appellation through his deference to the ladies, amenability, tidiness, indefatigability, and his enthusiasm for all of society’s amusements, along with his customary readiness to expound on absolutely anything and equal readiness to listen to absolutely anything. But whatever society Ovcharov appeared in throughout his wandering life, he was never anything more than a fine fellow.

Nowhere did he leave a strong impression; he was easily liked and easily forgotten. With women, in love and hate, he played only an incidental role; among serious people his presence brought on a slight sense of boredom; and through his entire life he had failed to attain a single devoted friend.

Of course Ovcharov (just like all us sinners endowed, for better or worse, with a degree of blindness) never noticed how little people valued him. And now, as his colorful past flashed before his mind’s eye, he pronounced, almost out loud and cheerfully clasping his hands behind his head, “What an extraordinary life! And what richness of character, to be able to sample it all!”

The thought that his life had now become even more extraordinary and his nature even richer further raised his spirits. He had long since, with the passage of time, begun to gradually abandon former tastes and pursuits; many he had repudiated, condemned, and even denounced—denounced, without taking into account either his youth or the spirit of the times. Such was the judgment he rendered against his frenzied affair with the Viennese dancer, Fanny Elsler, from whom he nearly contracted consumption; the boyar costumes he wore at aristocratic balls; the visits to Ivan Yakovlevich, which he made to please several pious ladies; his ecstasy over the verse of certain Russian poetesses and his own lines written in their albums— and there was much, much more that he denounced.3 It was even hard for him to accept that he had done these things—what in the world could have possessed him? He only thanked heaven that in the past he had denied himself nothing and could approach his mature years able to assign every manifestation of life its true worth.

This realization, ever-present in the back of Ovcharov’s mind, now came to the forefront, giving his repose particular sweetness.

He then recalled how he had finally developed, focused his attention, acquired fortitude, become more serious, refined his circle of acquaintances, and determined his vocation. He began to write 3. Fanny Elsler was a Viennese ballet dancer who toured Moscow in the 1840s. Ivan Yakovlevich Koreisha (1783–1861) was a yurodovy, or “holy fool,” renowned for his psychic powers.

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novels, sketches, theatrical reviews, dramas, comedies, bits of verse tales, and short satirical pieces. This work took time away from visits, and his desire to share his work with others further limited his social circle. Everything he wrote was read in salons where literature was valued. Nothing was burned as worthless.

Looking back on the early days of his literary career, Ovcharov felt a sense of satisfaction. Of course he found much of what he had written to be extremely naive, but the overall picture pleased him even now. One half of these works had appeared in print; he held onto the other half, which had been returned by the editors because of concerns over censorship. Knowing by heart every word he had written, Ovcharov had come to the conclusion that, in all probability, he really had wanted to use his pen to castigate the prevailing order during those difficult years and spoke the bitter truth about it almost unconsciously, not thinking; he even discussed the Moscow drama troupe of 1854–1855 in his theatrical notices. Then he recalled the arrival of our time of “social awakening” and reflected with pride on the fact that he, for one, had already been “awake.” The era found him full of vigor and ahead of the times, his mental efforts having endowed him with knowledge of his surroundings and ample strength. From this time forward he began to travel abroad; from this time forward he considered himself a fully enlightened man. He was highly satisfied with his travels. Visits to all of Europe’s universities and academies, parliamentary debates, assemblies of the most diverse groups, meetings of manufacturers, meetings of artists, and even Hamburg’s roulette tables and the Bal Mabille—Ovcharov drank it all in, like a tourist, not permitting himself a moment’s rest.4 4. In 1844, two brothers, Victor and August Mabille, established an open-air dance hall near the Champs-Elysées in Paris. Known as the Bal Mabille or Jardin Mabille, it used lanterns, tinted glass globes, gas lighting, and elaborate landscaping to create a magical atmosphere.

By then, he was no longer drawn to bad influences and, like a sage, gave into temptation with prudent moderation. Moreover, he had long since damaged his health and was eager to mend it. It was then that Ovcharov decided that the time was ripe and he was prepared to be useful—whether he was regarding his native land from afar or making one of his periodic visits to it. He began by undertaking serious labor and applying himself to practical endeavors.

And now, as he rested, the thought of this labor, a thought that rarely left Ovcharov, suddenly stirred in his mind. He thought, came up with many ideas, and finally fell into a kind of semi-slumber.

Only toward morning did he fall deeply asleep.

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n his seclusion, Ovcharov led the most active of lives. Upon rising he bathed in the stream, lay in the sun, and drank his whey before setting off on foot for Beryozovka, where he assiduously surveyed the workings of his estate and talked with the steward and the peasants, to whom he explained the Emancipation Edict. His explanations were extremely far-ranging and this, especially as he mixed in poetic elements one moment and political ones the next, naturally called forth doubts and confusion in the minds of Ovcharov’s listeners. Confusion, in turn, taxing the brain, gave rise to stubbornness, and this stubbornness forced Ovcharov to seek new moral fortitude within himself. He labored on, orating, becoming agitated, and exhausting himself. By the week’s end, nothing about Beryozovka’s future organization had been settled. At mealtime Ovcharov set off on horseback for Snetki (for his dacha, that is), had his soup, and lay down on the hot sand at the stream’s edge or under his canopy, depending on the weather. There he rested, but never permitted himself to fall asleep. The evening was again given over to walking and reading. The lamp was lit, but not for long, since

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Ovcharov, because of his health, was in bed by ten o’clock. All week long no one troubled him. There was nothing to prevent him from being perfectly satisfied. Only little peasant boys, in their characteristic ignorance, visited the place where the gentleman was sunbathing and gawked at him a bit; but even they, after a few seconds, threw off their little shirts and jumped into the water, diving and thrashing about, oblivious to the fact that some lordly globetrotter was resting on the shore. The ladies of the house exhibited a lack of curiosity that was truly out of character for provincial Russians, especially in the countryside: throughout the week Ovcharov saw them on only two occasions and at a distance of a quarter verst, the length of the orchard that separated the bathhouse and the manor house. Only Olenka had once approached a bit closer, but immediately turned and beat a hasty retreat through the cherry trees.

“Olga Nikolayevna!” Ovcharov had called out. “Why don’t you come down here into the sun? It’s warmer here.”

“My face will sunburn. I don’t want to.”

“A tan is a healthy thing. And after all, you’re wearing a hat.”

“This is a Tudor hat. Tudors don’t cover anything. Such a silly fashion. And it’s too far to go and get my Garibaldi hat. Farewell.”

Ovcharov did not inquire after Nastasya Ivanovna, nor did he repeat his invitation. The young woman left.

That evening, feeling an unexpected surge of health and strength, Ovcharov immersed himself in the work he so loved. He had begun an article for Nord about the state of finance in Russia. It had been started long ago and interrupted for lack of time and essential information; now it needed a good deal of thought. Ovcharov rubbed his hands together; carefully retrieved sheets of paper from his briefcase;

took out a magnificent porte-plume1 and a magnificent steel nib, testing its supple tip with his long fingernail; dipped the nib in ink; and fell deep into thought. He thought for a long time. His pen had long since dried, been dipped a second time, and dried again. This sequence was repeated many times over the course of two hours, two hours that may have passed imperceptibly for the rest of the world, but were very much perceived by Ovcharov. Upset and angry, he rose from his chair, paced a bit, then tossed the pages back into his briefcase and hurriedly took out others. Finally his pen was flying across the paper. But this was no longer the article for Nord. Ovcharov started by addressing an envelope to the editorial office of . . . in St. Petersburg. He was writing to a friend of his who worked at the journal.

“There’s nothing to be done about it if they’ve all lost their senses there,” he muttered, dipping his pen. “At least I’ll make some progress on my sketches.”

That evening he wrote many things, among them the following, which he intended to copy over before posting.

My dear friend, had I been able to engage in something more useful, you would not be receiving this letter from me, or rather, these sketches. But good people have tied my hands, preventing me from spending my time productively, for which, of course, I will thank them in my own way when we meet again. I would hardly say that your editors have shown my sketches the courtesy they deserve. Where are the ones I sent three months ago? I have not seen them in print. When will they appear? Hurry them along and 1. A porte-plume is the handle (often wooden or bone) to which a writing nib is attached.

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let me know in the next post. I’m sending you the enclosed sketches en gros, in rough form, whatever enters my head, wherever my thoughts wander, whatever flashes before my eyes. Arrange them into an article and basta. Working and reworking the style would be an utter waste of my time. The essentials are all here—what more is needed? I humbly ask, however, that you do this without changing it, so it comes out as my voice, not someone else’s. I will not abide abbreviation, ornamentation or other such things. Give it a slightly literary form and otherwise, don’t touch it. I hope that you will not abuse my trust. Call the article “In the Backwoods.”

I am, in fact, living in the backwoods, and what’s more, in a bathhouse. At first glance this circumstance may seem of little significance, but upon closer examination it takes on an entirely new light. For a man who has been known to find fault with the comforts afforded by the Hôtel de Louvre to live in a bathhouse— moreover on the estate of a woman of the rural gentry typifying all that this implies—is, you know, a feat! I take pride in it. It is evidence of moral fortitude and self-denial, because half the reason for this sacrifice is the benefit my mere presence brings to my surroundings. Let our progressives pause to consider this and, following my example, they will no longer turn up their noses at the thought of secluding themselves in the middle of nowhere.

The time has come when an obsolete and blind society must meet us, the vanguard, us, the physicians, at every turn, unexpectedly, au coin de la rue,2 so to speak. Benefit to society—that is our watchword; and we must insist on this benefit, sternly insist. And from those who know the most, the most will be demanded.

2. French: On the street corner.

Some say that we may be taking on more than we can handle.

They are cowards and nothing more. It is simply remarkable! We Russian reformers can’t seem to take ourselves au sérieux, and although we know our worth, we still suffer from lack of trust in ourselves. Hypocritical humility, nothing more. Some Western loudmouth, not worth our boots, is celebrated—and we celebrate him—while on the subject of our own worth—not a word. Of late, in particular, we have become ridiculously humble. When will we start to believe in ourselves, my friends?

I am not a proud little boy and by now, at the age of forty, I will say loudly and without hypocrisy: I want to be appreciated. I recommend the same to you. My sense of self-worth is such that I consider my rigorous adherence to a strict treatment regimen and my unflagging attention to health to be as much for others as for myself.

The lives of the foremost representatives of our generation, a category in which I feel justified including myself, should be valued.

It is no laughing matter that the best Russians have somehow gotten into the habit of dying young. Let that fate not befall us. Let us express ourselves, and in order to express ourselves we will need long life and good health. The recent past has made us all bilious, affected our livers. Let us use all available means to heal ourselves, let us cling to life and not allow chronic disease to eat away at the roots of our best tribe.

I am not a pedant, and I can sense that whatever I want to pass on to my lesser brother will be accepted sincerely. The peasant can sense that I love him. Let him take my teachings on faith. Such faith is a fine thing. Those who lag behind must be urged forward. And if we want to urge them forward, bring them up to our level, then we can’t wait for them to want this, for them to give us their consent.

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Lord only knows how long we’d be waiting. When will they start thinking about life—the life that has yet to begin? No, no, now is the time! Let them take us on faith! Otherwise we’ll be waiting another hundred years. We’ve already squandered more than our fair share of hundreds of years!

When I look back on these centuries and all the work, or rather muddle, that they were kind enough to bequeath to us, I see that I can be nothing other than what I am at the present moment. I give myself completely to the quest.

What else could I be? After a rich and most wayward life I have suddenly become focused. For many years I have been putting myself and all that I’ve observed to the test. Now the time has come.

We must literally throw ourselves in all directions at once, be everywhere at once. The future must be watched over and protected at all times wherever the decay is worse or wherever fresh, unexpected shoots have sprouted. We must work!

And what a multifarious age we live in! What a clash of views, interests, habits, tastes—the old and the new, the ugly and the elegant, the intelligent and the stupid, the illiterate and the enlightened are coming into contact in every corner of our beloved fatherland!

Even here, I am discussing topics of world import while just a few steps away my landlady is racking her brains over what sort of treacle to buy for the preserves. Russian finances and treacle—our Rus in a nutshell!

A comical people, no denying it! They peek out from under the shroud of their old-world estate so meekly that when you reach for the ruler or the rod, you are overcome by such tender feelings you hesitate to apply them.

The life of a lower-gentry estate bustles around me, and nothing escapes my gaze. The provincial capital is twenty versts from the village where I live. I can see that its proximity has had a corrupting effect on the tenor of estate life here. It lacks, so to speak, that purity of ignorance that one encounters in the steppe; here one sees a luster applied by the hand of a talentless provincial apprentice.

But whether or not this is corruption remains to be seen. I am searching, examining, and do not yet know. Before me a young lady of the countryside is wearing some sort of Garibaldi hat on her head, purchased from Madame Mukhina, a purveyor of things foreign in Kazan. It’s the fashion. Of course, a Russian braid over the shoulder would be more fitting. But, perhaps, as a result of wearing a Garibaldi hat, the young lady will somehow find out who Garibaldi is.

One thing is certain: the country will kill the city. Ceci tuera cela.3 Today I made this prediction to my steward and peasants, with whom I spend up to ten hours a day in conversation. They understand little, but their common sense is amazing. Once new institutions are strengthened, then we will see. But we’re not cowards, and I thirst for nothing more than to “live to see the day,” as the saying goes. Although it is still early to speak of that.

It is time, however, that we—those of rank, the decrepit aristocrats—realized that we won’t be around much longer. Very soon, we will die off. I’ll put it bluntly: there is no need for the upper crust to go on. Such are the times: we are no longer in fashion and, even if we were, it’s ruinous to support an absurd fashion.

3. French: This will kill that: a statement made by Claude Frollo, archdeacon of NotreDame, in Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Frollo is referring to a book produced by the recently invented printing press, which he predicts will prove to be a more powerful force than the edifice of the church.

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We’ve dissipated our fortunes and take a certain pleasure in borrowing money and then squandering it down to the last kopek.

Evidence that we are done for can be found in our noble estates, in my own birthright. Neglected, decrepit, one hundred times destined for auction, the mansions of our nobility remind me of other corpses—the aristocratic castles overlooking the Rhine. Life has slipped away from there to the towns and villages. And we, if we want to survive, must slip away too, albeit to less picturesque destinations. We will exchange our noble mansions for semi-bourgeois refuges. And there we’ll live out our lives, but no longer as noblemen.

But the little people, the owners of small estates, they will endure.

Their time has come, as is only just. And for the peasants, even more so. But, oddly, neither the lower gentry nor the peasantry senses their coming primacy. They must be made to understand, and I am ready to help them.

Contemplating the coming demise of some and emergence of others, the thinker pauses, stunned, and wonders, “How should we guide the inexperienced, and where do we look for guidance ourselves?”

In all aspects of life, give me the middle ground, give me the middle opinion between two extremes. I am searching for it and will find it, if I haven’t yet put my finger on it. This is another reason I am pleased with myself.

The quest, the quest—it is a noble undertaking. Blessed is he who devotes all his strength to it. . . .

Do not laugh, but I was just reminded of a rather prosaic circumstance—reminded because it is linked to my quest. Most likely if you, my friends, look at yourselves, you will find the same circumstance, and we will be proud together, because it is worthy of pride.

My reflections led me to a question: How did I manage to lose my village in Tver?

This small part of my patrimony was sold long ago, and the proceeds from the sale are long gone. I thought and thought and finally was mollified. The entire village was lost during those years when I was toiling away in Heidelberg and later, when I devoted myself to seeking rapport with our great teachers and martyrs. The village melted away in a quest for social good.

Will those who replace us and whom we are now teaching be so selfless? For instance, when (if ever) will my landlady attain such awareness? She is a good woman and probably allows herself to be taken advantage of by cripples and beggars, but, of course, won’t spend a kopek on educating herself.

Will we teach them not to revere property, even to despise it for a good cause? This question is vital at a time when love of property has reached new heights. How can we urgently demonstrate the legitimate boundaries of this love? This is the question I put to all our current reformers for thorough discussion.

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hile Ovcharov was contemplating Nastasya Ivanovna’s moral reeducation, writing about it, and then copying his ideas out in final form, Nastasya Ivanovna herself was living through many an anxious day.

She was tormented by doubts as she pondered whether or not it would be permissible for her to visit her guest. Would he allow it, or not? As she saw it, it was her job to get him settled in, personally oversee arrangements for him, and look in on him at least once a day to make sure that Erast Sergeyevich was alive and well, that her dear guest was not in need of anything. But she could not bring herself to do it. Many times she was on the verge of going to see him, but did not go. Nastasya Ivanovna was gripped by a sort of terror, either a terror of breaching the rules of propriety or perhaps of Ovcharov himself, so foreign and sophisticated—God only knows what she was so afraid of, but she stayed away. After gingerly broaching the subject with Olenka every morning—that, really, it was her duty to go, and so forth—Nastasya Ivanovna would fall into a dejected state of confusion for the remainder of the day. In the kitchen, she grumbled and even raised her voice. In the past, she had also raised

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her voice plenty of times, but never in anger. The cause of this ill temper was Erast Sergeyevich’s dinner and the unfortunate whey.

The whey kept Nastasya Ivanovna awake nights. Only on those days when it seemed to her that all the boiling, straining, and purifying had gone without a hitch did Nastasya Ivanovna’s mood improve.

Erast Sergeyevich’s steam kettle and magnificent table linen were a true source of torment. How were they being cleaned, how were they being handled, and was Aksinya Mikhailovna giving them her very closest attention, and wouldn’t it be better after all to keep them in her own room? One morning she was deeply chagrined after the soup returned from the bathhouse untouched. Nastasya Ivanovna had the courage to ask his servant why, but received in answer only the laconic, “It was not desired.” She and Olenka sampled the soup once, sampled it twice, and then another twenty times, but found nothing to render it worthy of rejection. Olenka, truth be told, sampled it more out of playfulness. Spitting out the final spoonful and giggling, she said to her mother, who was close to tears: “Maybe he has a stomachache, and that’s why he’s not eating. You certainly know how to find things to worry about! Well, if you want, I’ll ask Fedka. . . .”

“Oh, Olenka! Don’t speak with him! You mustn’t.”

Nastasya Ivanovna was terrified of Fedka, or rather, the decorous Fyodor Fyodorovich, who wore a short frock coat and gloves and had reddish side whiskers and a curly, blond tuft of hair on the top of his head. Fyodor Fyodorovich was under orders to speak as little as possible. Nastasya Ivanovna had understood this from her first conversation with Ovcharov, and strange as it may have been, she lacked the courage to engage him in conversation, despite a strong desire to do so. In addition to his enforced silence, Fyodor Fyodorovich gave

both Nastasya Ivanovna and her household many other grounds for fear. Such a proud and elegant servant had never been seen in Snetki, or even in the provincial capital. Every morning and evening, after completing his journey from Beryozovka to Snetki on foot, he made such a grand entrance into Nastasya Ivanovna’s servants’ quarters and issued such curt orders that the servants hastened to bow to him, even though their bows were never reciprocated. As he walked away down the garden path carrying a napkin-covered tray to his master, the servants followed his progress with reverent curiosity.

Fyodor Fyodorovich was worthy of curiosity. First of all, he was a Russified Petersburg German who had retained his native language; second, before entering Ovcharov’s service he had been employed as a waiter on a steamship, where, even in choppy waters, he could carry a glass of vodka without spilling a single drop; and third, he had dealt face-to-face with the steamship’s first-class passengers, even en négligé. Naturally, this was all very impressive. Fyodor Fyodorovich told the Snetki servants all about himself. In Nastasya Ivanovna’s presence he held himself in check, in compliance with his master’s orders (although he was deeply insulted at having to watch what he said in front of the likes of her). Among her servants, however, he was free with his tongue. Having endured more than enough silence during his walk from Beryozovka, upon arriving he rather imposingly launched into his life story and an account of all the wonders he had seen. The Snetki folk listened—and fed the ravenous traveler abundantly. Little by little Fyodor Fyodorovich was tamed; little by little the Snetki servants lost their fear; and little by little they began to regard Fyodor Fyodorovich with a hint of mockery (not overt, of course). This was because Fyodor Fyodorovich revealed a bit too much about himself. He let slip that life on the steamer had been City Folk and Country Folk

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drudgery, that his present life was no bed of roses, that Erast Sergeyevich was an out-and-out tyrant and a miser to boot, that he had been thrown off the steamer because of certain indiscretions, and that he would be leaving this place, without fail would be leaving, as soon as he was able to get the last two months’ wages out of his master. Naturally, the servants passed all this along to Olenka and Nastasya Ivanovna.

“Enough drivel, you numbskulls, for the love of God,” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, horrified that the gossip might get back to Erast Sergeyevich.

Her torment doubled. Indeed it tripled once she realized what was happening under her own roof. By fretting over the tea, the whey, the meals, the comfort, the getting-up, the turning-in, the bathing, the walking, and all the other vital functions of her dear guest— fretting loudly minute-by-minute in her parlor, right in front of Anna Ilinishna—Nastasya Ivanovna had brought misfortune upon herself.

There was no logical reason why Nastasya Ivanovna’s fretting should have caused this misfortune, but cause it it did. Nastasya Ivanovna began humbly taking her bitter medicine.

06

I

nnocent and suspecting nothing, Ovcharov meanwhile continued to take walks to Beryozovka and sit at home, where for several days he remained oblivious to what was happening at the manor house on his account. Had he bothered to notice it, the expression on his servant’s face would have been enough to indicate that life in the Chulkova household was abnormally agitated. Whatever may have been going on there, Ovcharov adhered to a principle of non-interference and asked no questions. He was beginning to find that peace and rural isolation benefitted him greatly, both as someone in poor health and as an active public figure, and in his most recent sketches sent off to St. Petersburg he went on at great length recommending a period of isolation for all active public figures.

But suddenly one morning Ovcharov awoke with thoughts of quite a different nature. The sunshine was magnificent, and coolness wafted from the stream; the sweet scent of the flowering apple trees and the lilacs, which were at the peak of their bloom, reached him from the orchard. Ovcharov got out of bed feeling particularly healthy, dressed a bit more stylishly than usual, and even took an

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extra look in the mirror before he sat down to work. Work, however, was not to be. Ovcharov’s eyes were not on the paper, but on some distant point in the garden.

There, Olenka was strolling. She had risen early, dressed in a fresh pink frock, and gone out into the garden. For some reason she had firmly resolved that that very morning she would make her way to Ovcharov’s residence.

“That troublemaker has turned our household upside down, and he doesn’t even show his face,” she said to herself.

Upon seeing her, Ovcharov hurriedly threw down his pen and went outside. Somehow, the sight of this fresh young girl had a particularly pleasant effect on him. His head was suddenly filled with some completely forgotten notions.

“Good day to you, Olga Nikolayevna!” he shouted from a distance. “Unpardonable, simply unpardonable! I don’t know how to earn your forgiveness.”

“What for? Good day.”

Olenka approached him. Ovcharov squeezed and twice shook her right hand. She dropped her left one, wishing to hide it; it held some printed pages.

“What is it that you’re apologizing for?” she asked, feigning surprise.

“For pity’s sake! I’ve been living here, and it’s as if I haven’t even noticed how I’ve constrained you. Since I’ve been here you and your mother haven’t come out into the garden. That’s hardly normal here in the country. I should have asked you not to feel constrained.

In fact, I haven’t seen your mother in a long time. Is she well, your mother?”

Olenka burst out laughing.

“Thank you. We are all well. Of course, we could have died ten times over before you . . . But you also, probably, didn’t want to burden us with your attention,” she concluded sarcastically.

“My behavior’s been unpardonable, but don’t scold me. That’s part of it: I truly didn’t want to foist myself on you. I am a dull and sickly guest, Olga Nikolayevna.”

“That would be for us to decide. You are always so afraid of imposing, or at least you pretend to be. Anyway—as you please.”

Olenka turned away, angry, and wanted to walk off.

“How have you been occupying yourself? What has Mama been up to?” Ovcharov inquired, walking behind her, even stepping on her dress in his eagerness to detain the young woman.

“Mama?” Olenka wanted to speak her mind. “Mama? She’s all worn out, thanks to you.”

“What do you mean, ‘Thanks to me?’ ” “Is everything just right for you, is it quiet enough for you? If you would’ve just come and said something—but not a word.”

“How distressing that is,” Ovcharov interrupted her, upset. “But it seemed to me that as long as I said nothing, that would be enough to indicate that I was satisfied with everything. Please do me the favor of reassuring your mother; actually, I’ll come myself . . .”

“That’s marvelous. Just marvelous!”

“Why are you laughing?”

“Marvelous. I’ll tell her, I’ll reassure her. There’s all kinds of talk at our house. For instance, you send your linens to town to be laundered.” She cast a glance at his blindingly white shirt. “A few days ago you didn’t eat your soup.”

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I was ill. I’m fastidious, Olga Nikolayevna, it’s true, but . . . but I can also be indulgent.”

Having spoken these words, Ovcharov for some reason gave his frock coat a tug and then looked at Olenka’s rosy complexion.

“You promised to honor me with your friendship.”

“As if you wanted it.”

“How can I assure you that I do want it? Now, if you were kind, you would do me the honor of taking a walk around the garden with me.”

“Ah, what a way you have of putting things! Very flattering,” Olenka remarked simpering slightly, but pleased. “Which way should we go?” As she spoke she moved in the direction of his “dacha.”

“You’ve been reading?”

Ovcharov offered his arm. Olenka took it, hiding a giggle.

“I was reading. Just nonsense,” she replied, waving the sheets of paper in the air.

Ovcharov glanced at them. It was several issues of The Spark.1 “The day before yesterday Mama and I went into town. Klim Pavlovich, an official there, gave them to me. People say that our governor and his wife are described in here somewhere. I looked, but there isn’t anything: I couldn’t even find what issue they were in.”

“Do you like to read?”

Olenka frowned.

“Well, we take some journals,” she said, sounding bored. Evidently, the conversation was moving in a direction not to her taste.

“It’s terribly tiresome reading them. You can’t even understand the stories. How can you live here? Aren’t you afraid?”

They were approaching the bathhouse.

1. The Spark (Iskra in Russian) was a satirical political journal published from 1859 to 1873.

“No, there’s nothing to be afraid of here,” Ovcharov replied, for some reason squeezing Olenka’s hand.

“Oh! How stylish your place is!” she cried, leaning her elbows on the windowsill and peering inside with childlike curiosity. “Although I have seen rugs and furniture better than these. And the books, so many books! Who are the portraits of?”

“That is . . . They also wrote many tiresome books, Olga Nikolayevna.”

“And you spend all your time writing?”

“A bit. Enough to bore you. But why are we standing here? Do me the honor, please come in.”

“What! Well, I would, perhaps, sit on the porch. Have you lost your mind? ‘Please come in,’ indeed!”

“Why do you say that? An Englishwoman would have come in.”

“Oh, you and your Englishwomen!”

“Nevertheless . . .”

“No, no! Not for anything in the world!” Olenka exclaimed, covering her ears and sitting down on the porch steps.

“As you wish. It is a rule of mine never to make anyone feel ill at ease. You can relax. I would consider it a crime to force even one of my convictions on you.”

“What are you talking about? What do you mean, force?”

“The point is that you, yourself, as you follow your own course of development, will arrive at other convictions, another view of propriety and impropriety, many things . . .”

“Well, really!” Olenka exclaimed, looking toward the house. “To sit in a man’s study! Why, Auntie alone would come up with all sorts of gossip. Even without that she’s looking this way. Over there.”

“What Auntie?”

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Olenka stared at him wide-eyed. “You’ve forgotten?”

“Ah, yes! Man!” Ovcharov called toward the door. “Bring a rug and some chairs here. You see: I’m treating you like a distinguished lady. I have had some fine acquaintances . . .”

“I thank you,” Olenka replied, holding herself in check, but quite piqued.

Ovcharov noticed this and hurried to inquire politely, “Well, what about this aunt? You must forgive me, Olga Nikolayevna. I have seen so many faces, at the moment my memory is failing me.”

“Well, you probably haven’t seen another face like this,” she replied, softening. “Then again, when you were at our house she didn’t come out of her room. She says that she knows you.”

“Me?” “Yes, she saw you at Princess Maria Sergeyevna’s. She lives with her.”

“It’s possible,” Ovcharov replied absentmindedly.

“Well, you may not remember her, but because of you and Anna Ilinishna we’ve had a lot of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I’m not going to say, but I have figured out a thing or two. It’s all your fault. Oh, she’s nasty! Do us a kindness: be charming with Auntie. Or rather, never mind—she’ll walk around with her nose in the air. But how she hates your manservant! It’s just awful.”

“Has he really dared to be impudent?”

“No. She just hates him. And she hates me, and absolutely everyone . . .”

Olenka burst out laughing.

It all began to come back to Ovcharov. He did indeed recall Anna Ilinishna, and, along with her, hundreds upon hundreds of Moscow

ladies: distinguished noblewomen, less distinguished noblewomen, and hangers-on. There was a time when he was caught up in this feminine chaos, when he knew every last bit of womenfolk’s gossip, took part in the gossip mongering, and shared gossip with pleasure. Now, frequent trips abroad and changes within those Moscow circles had left Ovcharov quite out of touch with this tumult. He realized this with a sense of regret. It occurred to him that he had deprived himself of a rich resource for the study of social mores. He grew melancholy and fell silent.

Olenka, meanwhile, was looking off into the distance and making faces at an imaginary Anna Ilinishna. Finally, Ovcharov noticed what she was doing. He watched her for a moment and decided that she was actually not at all bad looking.

“Oh, those aunties!” he exclaimed with cheerful familiarity. “But where exactly does my guilt lie? Please explain. We are, after all, friends?”

“Not yet, and I won’t say,” Olenka countered flirtatiously.

“Well, I want to be your friend no matter what, which is why I’m giving you some advice, although I consider it the height of ignominy to interfere in family affairs or even to be witness to anything of that sort. You see, I even avoid spending time at your house. But you, Olga Nikolayevna, have earned my affection . . .”

“So what’s your advice?” Olenka interrupted, plucking a thin blade of grass and flirtatiously tapping his fingers with it.

“It’s meant to be, shall we say, entre les deux yeux,”2 Ovcharov said, leaning in close to her cheek. “Look neither to your elders nor to your relations, if they are not to your liking. You are young, therefore you are right.”

2. French: Between two eyes; here, just between you and me.

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“You don’t say? That’s an excellent thing!”

“That’s the way it is. Youth is wisdom. Old rags with their decaying morality must respect it. Pay them no mind and do as you please.

Well, what do you think? A good little piece of advice?” he concluded, leaning still closer.

“Excellent!”

“So, allow me to kiss your hand.”

“If you please.”

Olenka extended her hand and, looking off into the distance, calmly yawned. Ovcharov looked up at her as he completed the kiss, but he had already lost some of the enthusiasm with which he had requested it. He leaned back in his chair, put his hand behind his head in an expression of weariness, and pronounced in a tone that was half casual, half didactic: “You see how I seek rapport. Youth, backwardness, ignorance, closed-mindedness—whatever the case may be. I have pledged to disdain nothing, to shrink from nothing, because I know that I can be of some good. You wind up sacrificing all peace and quiet—that’s just the way it is. You know: I’m rich and would be able to live in comfort in any city in Europe. Do you know that?”

Olenka did not understand what point he was making and did not reply.

“You choose not to answer? Then, be so kind, at least, as to tell me what sorts of conflicts could have arisen in your home on my account?” Ovcharov continued, suddenly upset and sounding a bit threatening. “I’m not familiar with local mores. What seems polite in Europe may be unacceptable in Snetki—how would I know?

Enlighten me. I repeat: I force neither my tastes nor my person on

anyone. That’s simply foolish. If I have proven to be some sort of bone of contention between your aunt and your mother . . .”

He let out a laugh. “. . . then I’ll settle accounts with Nastasya Ivanovna tomorrow and be on my way.”

“As if that would comfort Mama!” Olenka exclaimed, baffled by his angry tone. “And aren’t you ashamed of yourself? What childishness! And from someone who’s studied abroad. Nothing happened.

I made it all up. Stay where you are, do your writing, and don’t you dare upset Mama. She herself has no idea why she loves you so . . .

But, what an amazing frock coat you have on. I’ve been admiring it.

What kind of material is that?”

She unceremoniously bent her head toward his sleeve.

“All joking aside,” Ovcharov persisted, softening and modestly withdrawing his arm, “you must tell me what happened.”

“I already told you. Nothing happened. It’s just that ever since the day you arrived Auntie’s been pouting and is angry at everyone and nobody can figure out what it’s all about. I don’t even try, but poor Mama. ‘I’m in the way, my presence is unpleasant for you’—that’s all.

Before you came she never said anything like that—nothing of the sort! But I think I’ve guessed why she’s acting this way.”

“Why?” “She’s in love with you.”

“Then let her suffer!” Ovcharov exclaimed, laughing, but deeply insulted.

“You . . . What’s the matter?” Olenka asked, sensing the change in his mood. “After all, it’s not you who are in love, but her. Of course the idea of such a worldly gentleman and a priggish old maid is

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completely ridiculous. Although Anna Ilinishna claims that better than your sort have fallen in love with her. Why are you so insulted?”

“I’m nothing of the sort, what are you talking about? Although, of course, it’s all in your head.”

“In any event,” Olenka interrupted, unperturbed, “Anna Ilinishna is pouting. She gets up in the morning, endlessly bows and prays, picks fights with Palashka, comes to tea looking the martyr, eats for four, and then immediately grabs her embroidery or some holy book. The book might be upside down for all she cares. Mama tries her best to indulge her, ‘What’s the matter, Cousin dear, oh, what is the matter?’ And all Auntie can come up with is, ‘Countess suchand-such was terribly kind to me; Princess such-and-such has a silver tea service . . .’ always with plenty of gibes and insinuations. It’s not our fault if we’re not countesses! And our roots go deeper than many a count’s. It’s not as if we’re some army family, like Mashenka and Katenka Barabanov’s.3 “Two days ago we went into town to try to appease her. She moaned and groaned about going, but in the end, she climbed into the tarantass4 and took the best spot. The whole way she complained about her nerves and having to ride around in such a pitiable basket—it is, of course, embarrassing: I always ask to take the long way around when we go to Uncle Pavel Yefimich’s—not the main street. We took Auntie to the shops. Mama bought her a barege crinoline for her dress—beautiful, very stylish: our local aristocrats 3. Olenka uses the term Ober-ofitser (from the German Oberoffizier). The implication is that the Barabanovs, unlike the Chulkovs, are members of the hereditary nobility because of a promotion within the army, not because of ancient noble lineage.

4. A tarantass is a four-wheeled, springless, horse-drawn traveling carriage widely used in Russia in the nineteenth century. The covered interior generally has no benches and passengers sit on straw, hence Olenka’s “pitiable basket.”

wear them. Auntie was all flushed with excitement but barely said thank you! What a sort she is! She probably has heaps of money, but do you think she’d ever give Mama anything? In the evening we took her to the town gardens. We couldn’t get out the door for three hours, because Auntie kept trying to cover some blemish on her forehead with powder. Of course, no one so much as glanced at her. I, on the other hand, had a fine time! And what I overheard there about a certain lady!”

“You enjoy gossip, Olga Nikolayevna?”

“I do. Why not?”

“No reason. It’s a harmless, feminine pursuit.”

“As a matter of fact I enjoy it very much. As far as listening goes, I’m always ready to listen, but I myself never tell tales. The next day we took Auntie to mass at the cathedral. What a show of emotion she put on there! But she still managed to gawk at people. After the service I look and there’s Auntie flying toward the bishop. She was making good use of her fists and shouting to the policeman there, ‘Escort me, I’m so-and-so . . .’ I nearly died of embarrassment.

However, she made it and began talking to him, almost in tears.

I didn’t know where to hide. I’m surprised he was able to talk with such an idiot . . .”

“I will stop you right there,” Ovcharov pronounced suddenly and with great earnestness, putting his hand on hers. “You must excuse me, but this is only the second time we’ve met, and it is the second time I’ve heard you speak rather flippantly about religious personages. Is that really a good thing? Something that may be permissible for me, for instance, a grown man and a holder of different ideas— I’ll put it more plainly: a nonbeliever—is not suitable for a woman.

Reason and judgment are our domain—while yours is humble faith.

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It’s unbecoming in a woman. You have no respect for the representatives of your faith . . .”

“God only knows what you’re talking about!” Olenka exclaimed, perplexed. “What do you mean, I have no respect? What are you talking about, you can and we can’t? I don’t follow you.”

“Now don’t pretend. I’m sorry if I’ve wounded your pride, but I’m simply being honest. And I will also say, at the risk of provoking your anger: you are a rigorist. Your auntie has her weaknesses; she likes religious personages, she’s a bit nervous, and so forth. You must take into account her upbringing, her situation—you must explain all these things to yourself. Every individual must be approached with care, there’s always a great deal that must be forgiven. In general, we should be merciful toward the weaknesses of others, so that others will be merciful toward ours.”

“Erast Sergeyich,” Olenka said after listening attentively and breaking into laughter. “You were just saying something quite different, not long ago at all. It seems something has ruffled you. Admit it.

You’ve been cross ever since I said that Auntie was in love with you.

Isn’t that it?”

Ovcharov became flustered.

“You are a child,” he said, trying to disguise his annoyance by kissing her hand. “In general, you don’t understand much, and yourself even less. And you don’t want to delve deeply into anything.

Youth and laziness. And I, myself, by raising these serious questions at the wrong time, was being pedantic. It would be better if you just told me more about your auntie. What else happened in town?”

“Auntie! Well, defend her if you please. After the mass, right there on the portico, she involved me in an awful scene.”

“A scene?”

“It was over a certain man! Oh, what have I said!”

Olenka jumped out of her chair and covered her face, which now matched the color of her pink dress.

“No, no, Olga Nikolayevna! This is something I cannot let you get away with! You must tell me what happened,” Ovcharov demanded, holding onto the young woman.

“Well, it’s nothing really,” Olenka replied, looking with some disdain at his thin, pale figure and outstretched arms. “I’m in love with a certain officer of the Grenadiers, and he’s in love with me. He approached me on the portico and Auntie pounced.”

“No doubt he’s a handsome fellow with a mustache and curls?”

Ovcharov asked, retaking his seat and casually swinging his leg.

“Why are you teasing me? Well, yes . . . he’s handsome. As if I’d give anyone ugly a second look!”

Ovcharov was silent for a moment.

“You are a wonderful child, Olga Nikolayevna,” he remarked after a minute. “Enjoy yourself, frolic, and fall in love. You don’t know how gratifying it is for a man who has lived, for a man who loves youth, to observe this. I look at you, and, truly, it’s as if I’m growing healthier.”

“You don’t say? I’m very glad, Erast Sergeyich.”

“But, after all, I know,” he continued, screwing up his eyes and shaking his finger at her, “I know, my little coquette, that none of this will last, that tomorrow another officer will catch your eye, and the day after tomorrow a third . . .”

“Well, yes; well, maybe . . .”

“That’s all very nice. Don’t try to deny it, don’t blush—that’s all delightful,” Ovcharov exclaimed. “Until . . . until,” he concluded gravely, “your mind and passion will come into their own and guide City Folk and Country Folk

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you to a real man—not a puppet—a man truly worthy of your feelings and sacrifice.”

Having said this, he sat back in his chair so elegantly, with such modest dignity, that Olenka was speechless. She became uncomfortable. Erast Sergeyevich really did seem to her so foreign, so above her. Until now this idea had not entered her head. She said nothing and even wanted to escape.

“And we old men . . .” Ovcharov continued, having noticed the effect he had produced, “all that’s left for us is to look on from the little corners where we labor, to give what advice we can, to write books for you. That is our lot.”

“Do you write much?” Olenka asked, suddenly struck by the idea that it had been silly to carry on such a silly conversation up to this point.

“No, not much. I already told you. I’m not a very productive writer. Good writing does not come easily, Olga Nikolayevna. It’s endless toil, although for me . . . But I haven’t yet asked where you were educated?”

“I was taught by some elderly noblewomen. They live in the convent, in town. Back then, Mama and I rented an apartment every winter. After that I spent about two years at a boarding school, also winters. And in the summers—there’s a landowner, a woman with children and governesses, who comes from Moscow.

I was taken there for schooling. It’s been a year, thank God, since I stopped going.”

Olenka recounted all this sheepishly and with annoyance.

“So you finished your course of education at the age of fifteen?”

“Yes.” “And you’ve no intention of furthering your education?”

“Why should I?” Olenka began, not knowing what else to say.

She became even more annoyed and bored. Ovcharov finally decided that he had tormented her enough.

“Studying’s truly tiresome, isn’t it?” he said, laughing.

“I can’t stand it!” Olenka exclaimed.

“That’s because the teaching is ridiculous. There’s no point in listening. You’d be better off not remembering what you’ve learned, there’s no need.”

“I don’t remember it in any event.”

“That’s just fine. Don’t let it embarrass you. To some extent—ne prenez pas au pied de la lettre5—I respect ignorance. At times it does more good than wisdom. I see in it the presence of fresh, untouched forces, understanding derived directly from nature. Don’t be embarrassed. I’m not saying this just to make you feel better. I will prove it to you now. Yesterday I wrote something about education; read it.

But do me the kindness of giving up your Whistles, your Jokers—the sort of rubbish you’re now holding. You’ll develop bad taste. Wait a moment, I’ll give you something.”

He stood up and went to get his briefcase.

“Here, if you please. This one is about foreign schools . . . about our schools . . . Have you ever read anything of mine in the press?

I will give you something some time. Here’s where it is.”

“Show me. What is it?” Olenka asked.

She placed the briefcase on her lap and her eyes started to dart up and down the page without pausing. She was interested in Ovcharov’s handwriting, which was very expansive, with whimsical flourishes and wild blots where his pen tip must have broken.

5. French: Don’t take this literally.

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“My, what handwriting!” she blurted out.

“Yes. It has been said in jest that it looks like the handwriting of the Lord Chancellor. Can you make it out?”

As he asked this, Ovcharov looked off to the side in a manner suggesting he did not wish to interfere and traced the pattern on the rug with his boot. Olenka was not reading and was about to return the briefcase when the word “Garibaldi” leapt out at her. This, she read.

These were the very comments Ovcharov had written about her hat.

“What didn’t you like about my hat? And, first of all, it was from Moscow, not Kazan,” Olenka pronounced haughtily, turning red.

“What didn’t I like? Read the entire thing.”

“I don’t want to. I can’t make head or tail of your learnedness.

Take it, please.”

“As you wish.”

Ovcharov took the briefcase with the air of a man who had been forced to put up with worse foolishness in this world. He was annoyed, but when Olenka rose to leave he became even more annoyed.

“If I spoke ill of your hat,” he said, suddenly changing his tone, “there was a reason for it.”

“And what was that?”

“I thought . . . I thought—why, on such a lovely little head . . .”

“What nonsense!”

“Yes. Why on such a lovely little head, shouldn’t there be a Parisian hat.”

“A nice try!”

“I assure you, I mean it!” Ovcharov exclaimed with such sincerity that Olenka was quite vanquished. “So you are not angry?”

“About what?”

“About everything. First of all, about my undertaking to educate you. I have, after all, begun your education, Olga Nikolayevna.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. But you must agree—this education is not tiresome. For your part, you simply must make use of it. And to prove that you are not angry with me and that you really do want to learn a bit, read everything I give you.”

“Perhaps.”

“And one last request.”

“Yes? It’s time for me to go home.”

“Put on your Garibaldi hat tomorrow and we’ll go out for an early walk together. Do you agree?”

“Why not? I’ll be there.”

“Perhaps your mama will not allow it, but you will persuade her.”

“No persuading will be needed. She’ll let me go with you in any event. But for now, farewell. I imagine Anna Ilinishna has feasted her eyes enough.”

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lthough Ovcharov had intended to follow the dictates of courtesy and visit Nastasya Ivanovna, in the end he did not. Most likely, he was afraid of Anna Ilinishna’s adoration or believed that the sight of her would so act on his nerves as to reverse the beneficial effects of his treatment. For her part, as soon as Nastasya Ivanovna heard from Olenka that Ovcharov was healthy and happy she set off to see him at a run, “oohed” and “aahed” over his “study,” and persuaded him that he shouldn’t feel obligated to visit them, so long as he was content. In the evening Ovcharov got down to work. His meeting with Olenka had prompted the idea of writing something about women. Soon he had thrown together the following thoughts: Most young women in our time are beginning to lose their femininity.

The women of our generation, those now in their forties, were more feminine in their day. They were inveterate dreamers, idolizers, they read Byron and George Sand—without understanding, but that didn’t matter. Their reading endowed them with an aura

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of poetry. They were poorly educated, spoke nonsense, but timidly, bashfully, like shrinking violets, not trusting themselves. All this was silly, but had its charm.

What was this womanly charm? Whatever it was, it is now disappearing.

We now find different forms of beauty in women. Something striking that incisively and forcefully catches the eye, more obtrusive than attractive. They are like luxuriant poppies or dahlias that have been bred large so as to strike the eye as soon as you enter the garden.

Which is better?

Everything is right for its own time; everything is necessary for its own time.

Today, there is much greater variety among women.

There are so-called women of virtue and so-called women of vice, there are working women and women of leisure, there are the keepers of the family hearth and those seeking divorce, there are our comrade studentessas and ethereal young noblewomen, there are sanctimonious women and camélias,1 women of faith and nonbelievers.

What should a woman be?

Let her tactfully derive the most beautiful and useful characteristic from each of these “varieties” (espèce) and include them in her own makeup. Then we will have the ideal woman.

For the time being, all types are necessary—from the divine to the profane—and not only for their negative usefulness. This is a 1. Ovcharov is referring to La dame aux camélias (1848) by Alexandre Dumas fils, which was the basis for the opera La Traviata (1853) by Guiseppe Verdi, about the love and death of a courtesan.

time of transition; for its duration, every element is needed and must be preserved.

In the end, will we need women who are nonbelievers? Will it be necessary to preserve folly in one part of the human race? If it is not preserved, what will happen to men’s essential moral superiority?

In the countryside faith still holds, but the patriarchal way of life is in sharp decline. An air of decay has penetrated here, and before long we will encounter among rural women the same phenomena we see in women in the capitals.

The old rural gentry-woman type has barely changed: moral and physical clumsiness. On the other hand, the old despotism has disappeared, and the younger generation is spreading its wings.

It spreads them clumsily, crudely, gracelessly, but spread them it does. It raises its voice and acts, to some extent, according to its own will. The second-rate shrinking violet of the past, oppressed by the parental right hand, is also being transformed into a second-rate dahlia. Still, it is a beautiful flower, bright and attractive in a flower bed. Yes, it’s true: the younger generation of women in the countryside and provincial towns is freer than it was twenty years ago.

Now is the time to show them who deserves thanks for this freedom. Perhaps they believe that they owe it to those who are in fact the bane of their existence.

Let them find out to whom they are indebted.

Our overall task is—walking hand in hand with them as equals— to raise women to a higher level of development and provide them, if possible, with the means to overtake us. This is the essential mission of our age.

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he next day, Olenka kept her promise to walk with Ovcharov. These early morning promenades were repeated several times, although it could not be said that they gave her much pleasure. She went on them largely because she had nothing else to do. The walks with Ovcharov were more a matter of curiosity than enjoyment for Olenka. The seventeen-year-old girl was amused by the anxious concern with which he approached his daily dose of whey, by the way he punctually started every morning with a report on his health and the progress of his treatment (not that anyone was asking), and finally by the punctiliousness with which he took his constitutional. They always ended their walks at the same time—never ten minutes later or earlier. Olenka found this terribly amusing. When Anna Ilinishna was not around, she mimicked Ovcharov’s every grimace for her mother, terrifying Nastasya Ivanovna with the threat that she would one day imitate him to his face. Nastasya Ivanovna had enough troubles without that. She was tormented by the question of whether or not she should allow her daughter to take walks with a man who was not a relative, but allow it she did. In the presence of Anna Ilinishna Olenka simply called

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Ovcharov an “angel,” and left it at that. Anna Ilinishna never asked about the walks. Only once, hunching down over her needlework, did she meaningfully ask: “How does it please you to occupy yourselves during these wanderings?”

“He speaks of his love for me,” Olenka replied calmly.

This, of course, was a lie, but it was true that Ovcharov undertook these walks with certain crafty little notions. Over the course of each of their rendezvous, his state of mind would change twice, almost always following the same progression. During the first half of their walk, after he was done giving her an account of his health, he became flirtatious and attentive toward his companion.

He offered her his arm, to ensure that she did not fatigue herself, his hand, whenever it was necessary to step over a rut, and on several occasions he bent down to check whether or not she had gotten her shoes wet. He adjusted the cloak on her shoulders to protect her from the morning breeze, and, finally, upon reaching the hollow that separated Snetki and Beryozovka, he always attempted to carry Olenka in his arms across the four-inch bed of a stream that used to flow there, but had by now entirely dried up. Olenka was decisive in declining these services.

“What on earth are you doing? I’m stronger than you are. If you like, it might be better for me to carry you,” she said on one occasion, with her coarse candor.

But for the most part, she reacted to Ovcharov’s solicitousness with an easy, wordless laughter that might have appeared a bit silly to an outside observer.

Once, despite all of his European courtesy, Ovcharov was unable to contain himself.

“Why are you always laughing, Olga Nikolayevna?” he asked.

Her only response was another giggle.

This behavior and the spurning of his courtesies always provoked a new state of mind. Ovcharov began to talk a lot, and, for the most part, seriously. He spoke about the charm of trust and submissiveness in a woman, about women’s work, about his high regard for the spirit of domesticity and economy in German women, about the allure of Oriental women, about the enslavement that Russian women bring upon themselves, about stagnation in rural life and about decay in the salons of St. Petersburg. Olenka listened, but not terribly attentively. The scenery was not very interesting to her either; she had seen more than enough of the countryside around Snetki and didn’t understand what in all that—in the forests, meadows, and so forth—was so remarkable. Having noticed this lack of attentiveness, evident from the fact that Olenka’s eyes were moving back and forth between Ovcharov’s eyes and his beard, which bobbed up and down as he heatedly lectured her, he again turned to pleasantries.

“When will you come inside and pay me a visit?” he asked once when they arrived at his porch.

“I already told you. Perhaps if I were to ask Mama, then maybe there might be a way.”

“If you asked . . . Do you love your mother very much?”

“It would be rather strange if I didn’t!”

“Indeed. Well, and when will your little officer come? Do you take many walks with him—having asked your mother, that is?”

“What little officer? Ah, I had already forgotten about him. He doesn’t come here . . . But what a sort you are, Erast Sergeyich, ah, what a sort!”

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She stopped, shook her head, and suddenly broke into loud laughter.

“What are you laughing at, Olga Nikolayevna?”

“One minute it’s this, and the next it’s that!”

“What?”

But Ovcharov did not pursue his question beyond that unanswered “what.” Instead he removed his hat impatiently, like a man who had reached his desired destination, took out his key, and opened the door.

“When will you finally read something, Olga Nikolayevna?” he asked, standing in the doorway. “As it is, we aren’t getting anywhere.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she replied, laughing. “Very well, I will; I will.”

“Take my sketches on women. Study them, give them some thought.”

“Well, hand them over. What’s stopping you?”

Ovcharov wordlessly entered his house and just as wordlessly brought out his briefcase.

“I should read all this, Erast Sergeyich?”

“Read it all, read nothing—as you wish! Do you really think I’m forcing you?”

Olenka laughed.

“Fine, I’ll read it,” she said. “Don’t be angry. And I will read it to Mama, too. Good day.”

Ovcharov’s writing did not fare well with the Snetki reading public. Failing to notice that her mother was not alone in the parlor, but that she was joined by Anna Ilinishna, from whom she had been capriciously protecting Ovcharov as from some hawk, Olenka rushed in and immediately exclaimed:

“He must have cooked up some marvels about us, if he’s putting it all straight into our hands.”

Her mother was sorting linen and bustling about in a preoccupied state, busy with her housework—she had a lot to do. But this did not prevent her from being extremely curious about what Erast Sergeyevich had written.

“I can see that my presence is not needed here,” Anna Ilinishna said, rising from her seat.

Olenka wanted to wink to her mother, hinting that yes—she should let Anna Ilinishna go—but Nastasya Ivanovna had already rushed over to her.

“Oh, no, please do us the kindness, Cousin dear, don’t leave. It just hasn’t been homey around here lately. Perhaps Erast Sergeyich will inspire us. Don’t leave. Read to us, Olenka, read to us.”

Anna Ilinishna sat down. Nastasya Ivanovna rested her eyes on Olenka. The first article was read, and then the second. By the time she was done, a half hour later, Nastasya Ivanovna had understood about the treacle.

“I didn’t buy any treacle,” she said, saddened almost to the point of tears and shaking her head. “How could Erast Sergeyich have imagined such a thing, really . . . But all the same, he’s such a dear.”

“It’s a wonder what a dear he is!” Olenka added, although she was very angry. “I can’t make head or tail of his scribblings, but still, he is a dear.”

“Yes. And he does a fine job of deriding you here,” Anna Ilinishna remarked quietly, pointing her crochet hook at the briefcase without looking up.

“He also mentioned sanctimonious women,” Olenka countered, straightening her back.

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“That has nothing to do with anyone here,” Anna Ilinishna replied, as if oblivious. “An unbeliever is no judge when it comes to matters of sanctimony or Christian piety. And the fact that he’s an unbeliever—that, in my opinion, has been borne out. What do you think, Nastasya Ivanovna? And he even seems proud of his lack of faith; he wrote about it. Did you hear?”

“What lack of faith? There wasn’t anything about that, Anna Ilinishna.”

“The educated understand.”

“Of course you are better educated than we are, Cousin.”

“He’s trash, your Ovcharov, and that defrocked monk of his, too, ugh!”

Anna Ilinishna started back from the window.

“Here he comes. I can’t stand the sight of him.”

“Who’s coming, Cousin?”

“That Fedka of his. He looks just like a defrocked monk I saw in Moscow. The very image.”

“Well, Auntie! That’s really too much,” Olenka exclaimed, bursting into laughter.

“You’re a ninny,” her mother angrily interceded. “Go have them bring breakfast. Go,” she repeated, poking Olenka in the back. “For God’s sake, don’t pay any attention to her, Anna Ilinishna, my dear.

It would be better if you told me, if it’s not too much trouble, who that defrocked monk was, if you don’t mind. Do me that kindness, my dear.”

“If you please,” Anna Ilinishna replied, as if reluctant. But the story was begun, peace was restored, and Nastasya Ivanovna praised heaven above.

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he next morning Olenka did not show up to walk.

Returning alone and annoyed after finding disorder at Beryozovka, Ovcharov saw that a carriage stood by the entrance to the manor house. Approximately an hour and a half later, the carriage left. Olenka appeared in the garden. She was wandering around with her customary aimlessness.

“Why didn’t you come today?” Ovcharov asked, stepping outside to join her.

Olenka walked right up to him. She was angry.

“You abuse us, and I’m expected to take walks with you?” she replied. “That’s a fine thing. What were you scribbling there?”

“Olga Nikolayevna!”

“And you hurt Mama’s feelings. Putting on a long face won’t help.”

“Olga Nikolayevna, but why do you take it personally? Such is the fate of us writers. If we say something, we lose friends, and if we don’t . . .”

“Fine, fine, that’s enough,” Olenka interrupted him, sounding weary. “Do you think I don’t know that writers are angry on purpose?

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Take the Mademoiselles Malinnikov. Everyone says they’re nice, but they’re forever angry. Well, I’ve had enough of you!”

“Yes, you have it almost right,” Ovcharov replied, “But I will explain to you the process by which . . .”

“Oh, no, please don’t! I don’t understand anything,” Olenka exclaimed, covering her ears. “I’ve got other things on my mind right now. Did you see that a lady came to visit us?”

“Yes, a carriage passed by.”

“She wants to make a match between me and some young man.

It’s all ridiculous: I won’t do it. The awful thing is that I’ll have to spend time there, and it’s deathly boring. She’s the one with the governess, the one who tutored me. I know why she’s always making a fuss over us. For five years she’s owed Mama a thousand rubles and she’s not paying her back. Mama is too nice: no sooner does she get ready to say something, than she loses her nerve. It’s stupid.

She should at least ask. Even if they get into an argument over it, we won’t be any worse off than we are now. As it is, I’m constantly having to go there. You see, I can’t turn down an invitation from a distinguished lady!”

“Your neighbor?”

“Yes. Repekhova-Dolgovskaya, Katerina Petrovna.”

“Katerina Petrovna!” Ovcharov exclaimed. “Is she really here?

Since when?”

“You know her?”

“I should say so! We’ve known each other a hundred years.”

“She’s probably a relative of yours, and here I’ve been talking . . .”

“Nothing of the sort! Katerina Petrovna . . . Yes, I remember now.

She has an estate here.”

“Yes, about fifteen versts away.”

“Has she been here long?”

“About three weeks, they say. But why on earth? . . .” Olenka seemed suddenly puzzled. “Why did she pretend she doesn’t know you?”

“She pretended not to know me?”

“Yes. Mama said that our neighbor, Erast Sergeyich, was living with us, and so on and so forth. Katerina Petrovna didn’t say anything. Yes, I definitely remember, she kept silent. Then she saw your case. Please don’t be angry, Erast Sergeyich.”

“About what?”

“She opened it, read something, and made a face.”

“I don’t understand,” Ovcharov responded, shrugging his shoulders. “You probably misheard.”

“Oh, I heard right! But maybe it’s the fashion nowadays to pretend not to know people. Katerina Petrovna pretended not to know Auntie, either, and she’s known her for a hundred years. She used to babble on about Auntie’s marvels, and today she didn’t want to see her. It’s awful! Now Mama can expect all sorts of unpleasantness.

Just imagine: Katerina Petrovna comes in; Mama, in her excitement, wants to call for Anna Ilinishna to come, but Katerina Petrovna says, ‘No, that won’t be necessary, that won’t be necessary, don’t trouble yourself.’ And then she blushed. I thought it was terribly funny.

But Auntie—just imagine—was right behind the door. What could we do?”

“I don’t understand,” Ovcharov replied, preoccupied with a matter of his own.

And this matter was, indeed, rather odd. Like Ovcharov, Katerina Petrovna Repekhova-Dolgovskaya was a dyed-in-the-wool Muscovite, and she had known him since his student days, when she had City Folk and Country Folk

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been, as they say, frisant la quarantaine.1 Then, as now, no one ever saw her husband at home. He held an honorary and purely titular position having to do with a Moscow almshouse. He lived at his club, where he passed the time at the lotto table. Katerina Petrovna was seen as an abandoned woman, but this did not make her interesting as it does many other women. Neither flirted with nor pitied, she very much wanted to be both. But she was ugly and must not have been sufficiently eloquent in lamenting her fate or sufficiently skilled at finding helpers to interest Moscow society in her woes.

She went out often and was well provided for. Thanks to her husband’s name, she was not at the bottom of the drawing-room hierarchy. But that was not enough for Katerina Petrovna. From the age of thirty, despite her efforts to the contrary, she was placed among the ranks of venerable ladies. Along with many other lackluster personalities, in obedience to fashion, she moved from circle to circle as fashion dictated, always keeping up with generally held opinions.

When the time came, she joined those eager to submit to the yoke placed on Moscow society by a new representative of the St. Petersburg authorities.2 She acknowledged the delights of this yoke, spent a fortune on the privilege of being in the presence of the powerful, sought friendship, sought, without any necessity, the most lowly of those who were close to the powerful, and fawned over the powerful to the point of indulging their every whim. She appeared to be enjoying life as much as everyone else, but this appearance belied a secret sorrow. Katerina Petrovna was tormented by frustrated pride.

1. French: Approaching her forties.

2. This is presumably a reference to Count Arseny Zakrevsky (1783–1865), who served as governor-general of Moscow from 1848 to 1859 and had a reputation as a petty tyrant and reactionary.

Katerina Petrovna could not compel people to talk about her—talk about her in any way at all. Nobody said anything about her. She was invisible. Visitors to her salon did nothing but yawn.

But suddenly her life changed dramatically. Lotto was shut down in the clubs, and one fine morning Mr. Repekhov-Dolgovsky found himself back home. He fell ill and did not eat for three days.

Katerina Petrovna surrounded him with the most tender attention and finally, for the first time in her life, there started to be a little talk about her. She was triumphant. In her mind, she had succeeded in proving that a woman like her—although she might not be capable of summoning an illicit passion—could at least restore a wayward lawful passion, which is even harder. This triumph, however, was not trouble-free. Despite the care lavished on him, Mr. RepekhovDolgovsky did not attain a healthy state of mind. He languished and was overcome by hypochondria. Finally, he reached such a state that he allowed himself to be taken away for fresh air without the slightest resistance. Katerina Petrovna took him to the country. There, over the course of three years, she gave birth to two children—the first after many years of marriage. Katerina Petrovna was inexpressibly happy.

Utterly convinced that her spouse was just as inexpressibly happy as she and desiring to tether him to the family hearth for good, she did not allow his attention to stray from their little ones for a second.

The little ones slept in their bedroom, and half the responsibilities involved in their care were assigned to Mr. Repekhov-Dolgovsky.

The entire process of feeding and caring for the babies was carried out before his eyes.

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of the children, Mr. Repekhov-Dolgovsky suddenly had a thought.

He ran off to play preferans at a neighbor’s.3 Less than a week later man and wife were living in separate worlds back in Moscow. He took up permanent residence at the card table, she, at home.

Katerina Petrovna was devastated. Looking around, she could see that everyone had forgotten her, and to live for the children alone was not enough. Katerina Petrovna thought and thought and finally, for the first time in her life, reason tactfully suggested exactly how she could ease her grief. She stoically accepted the designation “most venerable” and with incredible effort renewed her acquaintances and chose her craft. She entered the field of high-society matchmaking. In other words, she took upon herself the role of helper to ladies whose hobby it was to arrange (and, in some cases, disarrange) marriages. Katerina Petrovna was used to perform lowly errands, and she bustled about zealously, not noticing the pitiable nature of her role. At first she conducted her business rather timidly, then a bit more forcefully, until, finally, Katerina Petrovna came into her own.

She had succeeded: they were talking about her, they were asking her advice, they were even kissing her hand. And by the end of some four years, everyone knew Katerina Petrovna.

One wedding in particular promoted her ascent. Entirely on her own, she managed to get a cadet—the master of two hundred souls who had been caught up in a bit of mischief—for a hunchbacked damsel of princely family. Before the cadet realized what was happening, he was married, and Katerina Petrovna grew by 20 percent in Moscow’s esteem. Playing such a valuable role in society, being 3. Preferans was an extremely popular card game played for money among the Russian upper classes during the nineteenth century.

allowed into families to the point of intimité¸ even becoming privy to family secrets, and adding to her designation of “most venerable” the additional label of “most useful” of women, Katerina Petrovna began to live happily. Meanwhile, her children were growing and additional titles were showered on the tender mother. She was called “an enlightened woman of high moral standards.” Apparently, that was enough for her.

Ovcharov had known Katerina Petrovna through all the periods of her life. He went to visit her and even sat through her evening gatherings. Why? Lord only knows. Ovcharov never had any business with Katerina Petrovna. He did not praise her, but he went.

The fifty-year-old hostess, the growing children—the aged and the underage—the atmosphere of matchmaking all around: rather dull, one would think. Ovcharov did indeed find it dull, but he nevertheless went.

Given all this, Katerina Petrovna’s behavior now seemed all the stranger to him. It smacked of ingratitude. “People like me are not to be slighted,” he thought, and rightly so. “Or is there something else afoot here? It would be a fine fancy for someone with a face like Katerina Petrovna’s, and at her age! However, I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

As soon as Olenka left, he wrote a note. “Comment m’ordonnerez vous d’interpréter, Madame? . . .”4 But that was not quite right. “She might get ideas,” Ovcharov thought and took a new sheet of paper.

“Kind Madame, Katerina Petrovna . . .”

4. French: How would you have me interpret, Madame?

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But that too was torn up. Finally, he managed to complete a note.

Erast Sergeyevich Ovcharov most humbly requests the most venerable and kind Katerina Petrovna to explain to him why she so ungraciously saw fit to fail to remember him this morning when he had the pleasure of seeing her carriage in the village of Snetki at the home of Madame Chulkova.

E. Ovcharov.

The message was sent by courier, and on that same day Ovcharov himself prepared to go into town. The confused state of affairs at Beryozovka meant that he would have to exert himself in various offices, visit various officials, and perform many other such dreary tasks. Ovcharov set off in a state of despair at the thought that several days without whey might delay his return to health by Lord knows how long.

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hile Ovcharov was distressed by the prospect of future unpleasantness, Nastasya Ivanovna was overtaken by such misfortune in the present that, had it not been for her iron constitution and the fact that she was noblewoman of so humble a domain as the village of Snetki, physicians would surely have ordered her to undergo a three-year course of treatment.

“Mama, you won’t believe the trick they’ve played on us,” Olenka exclaimed as she flew into the parlor an hour after her meeting with Ovcharov, her face flushed with anger. “Have you heard? It’s beyond anything!”

Nastasya Ivanovna was sitting alone on the couch in the parlor like a guest, her hands folded in her lap as she gazed blankly ahead.

She herself looked beyond anything. She looked lost.

“Enough of your nonsense,” she replied quietly, under her breath.

“I’ve already got more than I can deal with.”

“What do you mean, nonsense? Listen to me.”

“Listen to what? Don’t shout, for the love of God: the doors aren’t made of stone. What should we do about Anna Ilinishna? What should we do, Olenka?”

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“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“There’s nothing you can say. I’m sitting here like a madwoman. Where have you been? You’ve missed it all. I’m all alone here losing my mind. So, this is how we’ll be living now. For a whole hour I’ve been at her door pounding like a pestle, but she won’t open.”

“What for?”

“What do you mean, what for? Ninny! Ever since Katerina Petrovna left, I can’t get a word out of her. She stuck her head out, slammed the door, and locked herself in. I tried this, I tried that. You can hear walking, rustling—but no answer. Do you hear that? Do you hear that? Cousin dear!” Nastasya Ivanovna rose for a moment.

“Cousin dear!”

“Let her stew! Where are you going?” Olenka demanded, grabbing hold of her mother’s dress.

“Good Lord! Don’t shout; she can hear everything. Let’s go—I’ll tell you what happened.”

“It doesn’t matter what happened,” Olenka persisted as the dazed Nastasya Ivanovna led the way up to her daughter’s attic bedroom.

“It’s her choice if she wants to sit there. She’s sure to come out eventually, and you’ll have plenty of time for kisses.”

“What are you talking about? She’s packing her bag—I heard her taking it out.”

“Don’t count on it! She’ll be with us for a thousand years.”

“And how could Katerina Petrovna insult her like that, and in my home? It would be another matter if she’d pretended not to know her in someone else’s house, but now it’s all on my head. How could she? Anna Ilinishna might think that I said something against her, or you . . . But as God is my witness . . .”

“No need to take oaths on my account! Oh, how funny you are, Mama. You weren’t about to break down in tears just now, were you?

No, your Anna Ilinishna won’t be going anywhere, I’m telling you!

She’ll be here for a hundred years. She has nowhere else to go. She’s been cast off on us.”

“Cast off by whom? What nonsense are you spouting?”

“Well, you needn’t listen if you don’t want to. Stop rushing about and sit down. Auntie has been cast off on us. Katerina Petrovna’s servants were just telling ours about it. Don’t look at me like that; I’m telling the truth. Katerina Petrovna saw Auntie’s Princess Maria Sergeyevna in Moscow before she left, then she also visited her here in the country. When the princess returns from abroad, she won’t be taking Auntie back. They had a quarrel when they were in Moscow, but she kept quiet about it since she didn’t know how to get rid of her. Auntie did some sort of mischief, and also there was a squabble about money. Maria Sergeyevna doesn’t want her around anymore.

That’s what Katerina Petrovna was told—that she didn’t want such a two-faced woman, an intriguer and thief, around. A thief—yes: she was sneaking money from the princess.”

“And you’re not ashamed to believe all sorts of rubbish, you sinful child?” her mother scolded.

“Have it your way.”

Olenka assumed a hurt expression, but kept glancing at Nastasya Ivanovna who, despite her objections, was quite frightened by the prospect of having Anna Ilinishna as a permanent resident in her home.

“Wouldn’t it be better if we put our heads together and came up with a way to get rid of her?” Olenka suggested, noticing her mother’s fright and smiling. “Leave it to me, I know just how . . .”

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“Oh, what are you talking about?”

“Well, that’s fine, that’s splendid! There’ll be no life for us in our own home! The two of you can have the house to yourselves, a little love nest. I’m leaving. I’ll move to town, to Uncle Pavel Yefimich’s house. I’ll take the wagon right now and leave.”

“Olenka!”

“For pity’s sake! Take a look at yourself, what they’ve done to you.

First of all, Erast Sergeyich has managed to drive you to your wits’ end all on his own.”

“None of it’s his fault.”

“Very well, it’s not his fault. Still, because of him, you’re at your wits’ end. But this one! A fine guest! Why has she been in a pique ever since Ovcharov moved in? Why? We put up with all this— lower ourselves, fawn over her—no thank you! That’s what you get for your hospitality. She slammed the door in your face in your own home—and why not? Princesses don’t want anything more to do with her, and someone has to take the blame!”

“What am I to do, Olenka?” Nastasya Ivanovna pleaded.

Her tone was so pitiable that Olenka softened. She felt sorry for her mother. But a minute later she began giggling again, and suddenly the whole affair seemed so ridiculous to her that she was overcome by laughter.

“Well, Mama, don’t you whimper,” she said, kissing Nastasya Ivanovna. “We’ll get her out of here somehow. She’ll leave of her own accord. See how she’s moaning and groaning? What kind of a life is it for her here in Snetki? Are you really suitable company for her?”

“What are you talking about? She’s refusing to come out.”

“She’ll come out. But for heaven’s sake, please don’t beg her. Hold your head high, please.”

“It’s true!” Nastasya Ivanovna replied. “What a calamity. I’ve done her no wrong! I’ve shown her nothing but affection and favors!

You can only put up with so much! I have my pride, too, if it’s come to this. Well, she can stay in there as long as she likes. I’ll show her I’m not to be trifled with . . . Oh, that Anna Ilinishna!”

“Head high, please, head high!” Olenka repeated, laughing wholeheartedly.

Nastasya Ivanovna really was infused with courage. All morning she attended to her duties with the air of someone best not crossed.

When supper was served, she did, however, knock on the door.

“Come to eat, please, Anna Ilinishna.”

“I won’t,” came a voice from within.

“If you won’t, that’s as you please. Olenka, sit down. It’s to us to offer, God has provided,” Nastasya Ivanovna pronounced, her face crimson as she ladled herself a full bowl of Lenten cabbage soup.

It was the same when tea was served in the evening, except that Nastasya Ivanovna was even prouder and her anger was closer to the boiling point. She now had Aksinya Mikhailovna knock on the door to announce tea rather than doing it herself.

“I’m a gentlewoman too,” Nastasya Ivanovna muttered, although she did wait for the response.

The response was: “I don’t want any.”

“Very well, then. We’ll see who gives way first.”

And Nastasya Ivanovna opened the samovar spigot with such energy that the teapot overflowed.

Olenka was exceptionally cheerful and loudly related all sorts of trifles with the clear intention that her cheerfulness be heard through the door. So passed teatime; and the evening, since Ovcharov was gone, was spent out of doors for the first time in a long while.

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Despite the fact that they did not promise any fruit this year, Nastasya Ivanovna was glad to gaze on her pear and apple trees, which she had not seen for some time.

“It’s sad somehow. Dear Erast Sergeyich is not around,” Nastasya Ivanovna remarked, looking over at his locked abode.

“Why do you love Erast Sergeyich so, Mama?” Olenka asked, smiling.

Nastasya Ivanovna thought for a moment.

“I just do, although he doesn’t love me.” She issued a melancholy sigh. “He’s a smart man, Olenka. And it’s also that he reminds me of my youth. And of the days when father and mother were alive, and my Nikolai Demyanych. You don’t remember your father, Olenka.

Ah, what a man he was! From the day he was born, never was a contrary word heard from him, to say nothing of foul language! I can only hope that you’ll someday be as happy as your mother was.

Today Katerina Petrovna brought up the subject of a match for you.

To tell the truth, the whole day’s been topsy-turvy. With Anna Ilinishna, the affairs of my own flesh and blood have gone right out of my head.”

“A match for me!” Olenka responded. “Probably the only reason Katerina Petrovna is going to the trouble is that he’s her protégé— what a benefactor! What do I care that her protégé has a position in the treasury office in Moscow! Does that mean I have to marry him?

That’s news to me!”

“My Lord, what a little rapscallion you are!” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed. “What a lot of chatter! Your mother can’t get a word in edgewise!”

“There’s nothing to say. I need to have another look at him.

When she brought him here last year, I barely caught a glimpse,

and you yourself said then that I was too young. What’s it to me if Katerina Petrovna set him up in our treasury office and he manages all her affairs so well? What do her affairs have to do with me?”

“Well, there you go chattering again!” Nastasya Ivanovna chided her, but not angrily. “And I can’t make head or tail of a thing you say.”

“You understand everything perfectly well and you won’t force me into anything against my will—I know that,” Olenka replied.

“And please—let’s stop talking about all these ninnies.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Nastasya Ivanovna responded meekly, and, more to the point, distractedly. Her thoughts had again strayed.

“Anna Ilinishna hasn’t eaten anything today, has she, Olenka?”

“What?”

“I should find out somehow.”

“There you go again!”

“Very well, I won’t. She doesn’t deserve it,” Nastasya Ivanovna asserted with renewed indignation.

“Rest assured, she won’t starve to death. She has an entire basket of ginger cookies. I heard her gnawing at them myself.”

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PART II

11

T

he following day in Snetki brought even more deviations from the ordinary. Again, Anna Ilinishna declined to partake of the household’s main meal or evening tea.

As hunger is no one’s friend, she did drink her own tea with her own sugar left over from the picnic hamper she used when traveling, and having assured herself that there was nothing fiendish about the servants’ food, and that it was therefore not loathsome to her soul, she humbly asked Aksinyushka—Aksinya Mikhailovna, that is—to bring her some soup from the servants’ pot, which she gulped down.

When she could hear that Nastasya Ivanovna was nowhere near, she called to the servants in a quiet and exceptionally affectionate voice through a door that opened from her room into the back hallway.

The servants came running at her call, and both the elderly Aksinya Mikhailovna and Palashka were especially accommodating toward Anna Ilinishna that day. This was not due solely to their mistress’s instructions. The household staff had evidently developed some particular regard for Anna Ilinishna. And what was even stranger, something Nastasya Ivanovna did not notice in the midst of all her worries, was that these servants, both those who were intimates in

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the household and those whose duties were limited to the estate’s fields and outbuildings, had for the past two weeks been casting disapproving looks their mistress’s way. They did their work, but there was something about the expressions on their faces that was not quite right. In particular, Nastasya Ivanovna’s friend and confidante Aksinya Mikhailovna was unrecognizable. She came only after the third summons, cast her gaze floorward, rather than looking at her mistress, and grumbled on her way out. This sullenness grew increasingly pronounced and finally Olenka, flighty as she may have been, began to notice.

“Mama, why is it that Aksinya Mikhailovna is walking around with her nose in the air lately?” she asked on the very eve of this catastrophe.

“What kind of nonsense have you dreamt up?” was her mother’s reply.

“No, Mother. Look and you’ll see for yourself.”

She was right. Nastasya Ivanovna finally did see it. That day she was proud and angry enough to make up for a lifetime of humility, and everything disagreeable jumped out at her with stark clarity.

Since morning she had been in a state of indignation over the business of Anna Ilinishna’s “own tea,” but when she heard that her guest was sharing the servants’ soup, her anger reached the boiling point.

“Well, isn’t that soup just as much mine, the landowner’s?” she loudly demanded. “When Anna Ilinishna eats it, isn’t it me she has to thank? Or does it please her to inform the whole world that I made her eat with the servants?”

“I don’t know anything about it, Ma’am,” replied Aksinya Mikhailovna, to whom these words were addressed. She had been

stopped by her mistress in the middle of the yard as she was carrying a wooden bowl of cabbage soup.

“What do you mean, you don’t know anything, Aksinya Mikhailovna? Look at who you yourself are so angry at, my dear.

What have I done to you?”

The old woman looked down at the ground.

“Would we really dare to be angry, Ma’am? We may have been freed, but we still depend on your will in everything, you being our mistress. They’ll do with us whatever you order. And it’s God’s will that we serve the other lady. We don’t have to answer to you for that.

Why would we want to offend her? She’s a righteous woman and doesn’t scorn our food.”

Having said that, the old woman muttered something more and continued on with her bowl.

“What in heaven’s name is going on?” Nastasya Ivanovna wanted to ask, but she was already alone.

“They’ve all gone off their heads!” she exclaimed as she entered her only refuge, Olenka’s attic.

“I told you, Mama. Palashka is also grumbling. This is Auntie’s doing. To me, it’s clear as crystal.”

Nastasya Ivanovna decided that she would remain indignant and not relent. Not a single word did she speak at her guest’s door that day, and she avoided the back hallway so as not to risk a chance meeting with the violator of her mental calm. The day came to an end and evening set in. Nastasya Ivanovna’s eyes had lost their luster and her cheeks were sunken.

“I can’t get it out of my head—why are they all so mad?” she said after an hour’s silence.

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She was sitting at the window. Outside, summer twilight was descending. Through the dusk she could see that a light had appeared in the kitchen and that the servants were having their dinner. Olenka was pacing the room trying to decide whether or not she should buy a gold-braid waistband with a Caucasian buckle of the sort she had seen on the young ladies in town. Nastasya Ivanovna continued sitting there a bit longer and then stood up and left the room.

“Bread and salt,” she said in greeting as she appeared at the kitchen door.1 “Please sit, please sit, don’t get up.”

“We’ve already finished,” the servants answered as they rose from the table, crossing themselves. They were all there: Aksinya Mikhailovna, Palashka, the maid, the herdswoman—both of whom were in their middle years—and the elderly coachman Yermolai with his sons Foka and Fomka, two young men who were used to perform a wide variety of tasks around the estate and who longed to take advantage of emancipation and try their luck working in the taverns of the provincial capital. Everyone stood by the bench from which they had just risen and awaited their mistress’s orders.

“I need to have a word with you, my friends,” Nastasya Ivanovna said, but then fell silent.

It really was rather strange. In her entire life, never before had Nastasya Ivanovna come to the kitchen to resolve a social issue.

Of course she herself was not aware that she had come for such a purpose, but she did sense that no one before her—not her grandfather or grandmother, nor her father or mother, nor her own

1. In Russian tradition, “bread and salt” is said by someone walking in on a meal.

The phrase is tied to a historical practice among Slavs, which persists to this day, of welcoming honored guests with actual bread and salt.

Nikolai Demyanovich, nor she herself—had ever before done what she was doing now.

“I wanted to ask you . . . You step aside,” she said, extending her arm to separate Palashka and the two young men from the rest of the group. A certain proprietary pride had awakened in Nastasya Ivanovna. She felt that to address such specimens of youthful ignorance as equals would be demeaning, and she left only those mature in years in front of her.

“I wanted to ask you,” she continued. “It seemed to me that . . .

What is it you’re unhappy about?”

She paused and waited. The servants were silent. Nastasya Ivanovna’s opening words were certainly not in the normal order of things in Snetki. In any event, the herdswoman had no idea what they referred to.

“What have you been unhappy about these past two weeks?”

Nastasya Ivanovna began, looking from face to face and waiting.

“You haven’t been downright rude, but you’ve been turning your muzzles away from me . . . I don’t mean you, Aksinya Mikhailovna.

I would never call your face a muzzle—but Yermolai Stepanych here, never mind that he’s older than his mistress, and this ninny . . .” she pointed at Palashka.

“Your mistress has come to have a talk with you. You should appreciate this,” Nastasya Ivanovna continued, even raising her voice a bit. “The times are such that masters and servants have to reason with one another. You’ve been given your say now, thanks be to God. No one’s hanging a lock on your tongue. So speak. That way we can consider the situation and sort things out. What are you angry about? What has your mistress done to you? How has she insulted you? Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve lived a peaceable life, it seems.

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Neither I nor my Nikolai Demyanych ever laid a finger on you before this emancipation, and we never saw scowls like these. So, tell me what’s the matter. Your mistress is asking.”

The servants remained silent. They seemed somewhat bewildered.

“Of course, times are such that you, in your foolishness, might be ready to set yourselves above your masters. Wherever you turn, on all the estates, your brethren are determined to run away, thinking that under emancipation they’ll gather up mountains of gold. They don’t seem to know that they themselves are good-for-nothings and that those mountains of gold are as close at hand as the fabled birds in the bush. Is it that you too have been seized by such desires?

Well, speak! You are ungrateful, ungrateful! You don’t remember the kindness your masters have shown you. Another landowner— today we’ve been given this power—would throw you out on your ear—go scatter yourselves to the four corners of the earth and beg for your bread. But we’re not doing that. Because we remember our Christian charity.”

Nastasya Ivanovna pronounced these words with particular emphasis. In truth, she had no desire to throw anyone out on his or her ear, but still . . . Again, she surveyed the assemblage and repeated her order.

“Speak.”

“If you would be so kind as to give us our passports . . .” Foka and Fomka, whom nobody had asked, piped up.

“That old song again!” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed in a sudden fit of anger. “I said that I wouldn’t; I won’t let you get into mischief.

You’ll have to wait! And your father’s against it. Or has Yermolai Stepanych himself gone off his rocker?”

“Oh no, no, Nastasya Ivanovna,” the coachman replied. “For the love of God, don’t give them their passports.”

“So what is it you’re sulking about then?”

Again there was no reply. Nastasya Ivanovna considered leaving, upset that she had needlessly compromised her dignity as a noblewoman and, in so doing, possibly diminished her credit among the servants. What stopped her was the expression on Aksinya Mikhailovna’s face. The old woman grimaced at her mistress and folded her arms under her shawl a bit more energetically than usual.

She could even have been taken for a schemer concealing something lethal in her breast.

“There is something! Speak, Aksinya Mikhailovna,” the landowner commanded.

Aksinya Mikhailovna hesitated, as if waiting for support from the others.

“So . . . there was talk among us,” she began, and then stopped.

Palashka sniggered in the corner. The maid and herdswoman looked downcast; Yermolai Stepanovich joined his hands behind his back.

“Well?” Nastasya Ivanovna pressed.

“We had a discussion, Ma’am. You’ve been mistreating the young lady something terrible.”

At first Nastasya Ivanovna failed to understand.

“What young lady?” she asked, thinking of Olenka; someday she too would have to learn to handle matters like coming to terms with the servants.

“The young lady, Anna Ilinishna,” Aksinya Mikhailovna replied.

“Good gracious!” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed.

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From the question of emancipation, she was jolted so unexpectedly into quite another realm that it took her a moment to compose her thoughts. Still, she felt greatly relieved. She now saw herself as mistress of the situation and burst out laughing.

“Aksinya Mikhailovna, my dear, cross yourself! Are you in your right mind, dear friend?” she exclaimed. “Yes and you . . . God bless you! You’ve lost all reason. Some evil spirit must have prompted you.”

“An evil spirit indeed,” Aksinya Mikhailovna muttered under her breath.

“I’ve been mistreating Anna Ilinishna? Don’t you see what Cousin’s been doing with me day in, day out? My wonderful cousin has locked herself away from me as if she’s hiding from some sort of criminal!”

“Because no other course is open to her, Ma’am,” Aksinya Mikhailovna pronounced firmly and with intensity, like someone whose heart was brimming with emotion. “Because the lady is holy, her heart grieved at what she saw around her; she had no choice but to lock herself away from you. And we know that she’s holy because she prays for us as God has commanded. Since she came to Snetki she’s been praying for us and for you so that God would have mercy.

That’s why she’s had angelic dreams for us, sinners that we are, yet people give her no respect. And you mustn’t hold it against me for saying so, Ma’am. I love you and have always wanted to show you proper respect. Since she’s glimpsed paradise, Anna Ilinishna also sees the sorts of misfortunes we will suffer under our hardheaded masters and how we, the meek, can be saved. She helps us, Ma’am.

God has enabled her to bow before all the great intercessors, but you don’t see it. What good am I? A cursed old woman, a ninny— not like you—yet I accepted her divine gift. There, standing in the

icon case, a token of Anna Ilinishna’s generosity. To my dying day I’ll remember what a lady she was and what she gave me. And you don’t see it. Because, Ma’am, you’ve been led astray. That’s why she has to lock herself in; she sees abominations. That’s how it is.”

“How astray? What kind of abominations?”

“You’ve allowed a heathen to capture your heart,” the old woman pronounced solemnly.

“Ah ha!” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed. Everything became clear to her, but she wanted to be sure. “What do you mean, ‘heathen,’ Aksinya Mikhailovna?” she asked and, unable to control herself, started to laugh.

“Now the moment of our doom has arrived! It even pleases you to laugh! As if you, Ma’am, don’t know to whom I’m referring. Lord!

The sinfulness, the sinfulness! The day has come when slaves have to instruct their masters.”

“What makes you think Erast Sergeyich is a heathen?”

“He’s evil, a heathen! Perhaps it’s not in vain that that angelic soul is now sitting and shedding tears. She told us everything. Everything, my dear, we heard everything. How he’s leading Miss Olga into sinful beliefs, and I saw her baptized with my own eyes, and how you, Ma’am, are allowing it and how you yourself will take up these sinful beliefs. We know, my dear, we know all. And how he will take this filth and spread it all around the province, because he says there’s no need for Christian people to believe in God. Enough! And who is allowing it? It’s you, Ma’am, who sees fit to permit all this. Instead of chasing away the accursed one, you are fawning over him. How will the people be able to live then? Lord in heaven! Even without this the Lord has diminished us for our sins!”

She sighed.

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“Well, Ma’am, I’ve said my piece: don’t hold it against me. The truth is the truth.”

She gave a low bow and started to walk away.

“Wait, Aksinya Mikhailovna,” Nastasya Ivanovna said, taking a seat on the bench.

“Wait.” (She drew the old woman close and seemed to be turning something over in her mind.) “When did Anna Ilinishna find the time to tell you all this about me? Tell me. I’m your mistress and I have borne it all and heard you out fully. When did Anna Ilinishna have these discussions with you?”

“What difference does it make? There were plenty of opportunities,” Aksinya Mikhailovna muttered reluctantly.

The question seemed ridiculously trivial after her accusations.

“It’s not as if the heathen just moved in. While you’re attending to the estate or going out in the fields she likes to stroll about the yard or visit us in the kitchen or come into my little room, or when it pleases her to get up in the morning or prepare for bed, or whenever we’re tidying up around her or serving tea . . . Goodness! The blessed will always find time to spread the word of God.” “Indeed she has!” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, flushing with anger. “Well, now you’ve had your say, Aksinya Mikhailovna. Now you listen to me, and you too, Yermolai Stepanych. And I’m deeply grateful that you told me everything without holding back. Now you answer me. Do I go to church?”

“You do, Ma’am,” they both responded.

“At home, do I pray to God? Do I read the Holy Scripture? Have you seen me?”

“Yes, we have.”

“Good, then. Now, in your opinion, would I, your old mistress, Chulkova, Nastasya Ivanovna, be capable of doing all that for show, so as to avoid doing penance? Do you think I could deceive God?” “No, Ma’am, you could not, and that’s not how your parents raised you,” Aksinya Mikhailovna replied.

“Good. So, it would follow that I myself am not a heathen. Now, as you see it, who would I place higher—Lord, forgive a poor sinner—the Lord God or some Erast Sergeyich?”

“Well, that would be plain as day,” replied Yermolai Stepanovich, flustered.

“Well then, how dare you believe all sorts of vile talk against your own mistress?” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, even rising from her seat. “That I would lead you into sinful beliefs . . . That I would lead my own Olenka . . . That I would bring the Lord’s wrath upon you for my sins? You dare to believe that about your mistress?”

“Ma’am . . . Ma’am,” Aksinya Mikhailovna and Yermolai Stepanovich exclaimed in one voice and rushed to kiss her hands.

“There now . . . Don’t you kiss me, I’m crying inside. It’s not your pity I want; I’m angry. I need you to believe me and not kiss my hands. That’s what I need.”

“As God is our witness, we believe you.”

Nastasya Ivanovna felt reassured. The first part of her task was complete. After a moment’s silence she began the second with a sense of determination that was almost cheerful.

“Now tell me,” she began, “I’m not a person of sinful beliefs, but Erast Sergeyich, they say, is a heathen. Should we turn him out or not?”

“Of course we should turn him out, Ma’am. And Anna Ilinishna says so.”

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“Well, we’ll leave Anna Ilinishna’s ravings out of it. But why doesn’t our Father Porphyry drive him away? After all, he probably knows better than your Anna Ilinishna who should and shouldn’t be driven away. Even the Moscow metropolitan knows Erast Sergeyich, and he doesn’t drive him away. Why not?”

“That’s not for us to know, Ma’am!”

“Well, I will tell you why. First of all, because Erast Sergeyich is not a heathen, and even if he were, it is not our earthly place to judge or analyze him. What we should do is pray for his soul, so that God will have mercy on him. No heathen will overcome our Orthodox faith, my friends. And if someone should go astray, well, it means that he wanted to go astray and it was allowed from on high. That’s the way it is.”

“All you say is true, Ma’am,” Aksinya Mikhailovna replied, sighing.

Yermolai Stepanovich sighed as well. A yawn could be heard from across the room where the young folks stood.

“Well, so where do we stand?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked cheerfully.

The discussion of religious tolerance seemed to be drawing to a conclusion. She had triumphed.

“Please forgive us,” Aksinya Mikhailovna said, and the others followed suit.

“From here on don’t go blabbing nonsense, and obey your mistress in all things,” she concluded. That was the end of it. “Time to sleep. And don’t forget the stove, may the Lord save you!”

12

M

orning is wiser than evening, as the saying goes.

Nastasya Ivanovna went to bed that evening fearless and woke up more timid than a rabbit. As dawn broke, the first thought that struck her was that her quarrel was entering its third day. Three days! When would it end?

Olenka encountered her mother so many times at Anna Ilinishna’s door making attempts to inquire, and even ask forgiveness, that she finally left for her attic refuge.

“Where are you going?” her utterly abandoned mother called after her.

“As far as possible from you.”

“Olenka, what am I to do?”

“I already told you: don’t let her get away with it.”

“There you go again!” exclaimed Nastasya Ivanovna in despair.

“Head high, head high! And now look what a mess I’ve made thanks to your thoughtful advice!”

If these wails of despair (which, incidentally, Nastasya Ivanovna kept to a whisper, so as not to “lower herself ”) reached the ears of Anna Ilinishna, she must have found them very cheering. As it was,

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quite a bit did reach her. Since the previous evening, right after the forum on religious tolerance, Anna Ilinishna had already been au courant. Palashka, to whom she had given a number of gifts—an old hairnet, some silk mittens, and part of a faded, muslin dress—told her everything.1 The picture of innocence, to the best of her understanding, Palashka related how Anna Ilinishna had been denounced and how Nastasya Ivanovna had ordered all the servants to denounce her because they were free now and that Erast Sergeyevich had been to visit the metropolitan. Anna Ilinishna listened to everything she had to say, and the picture became clear. Her defeat became clearer still in the morning when, through the window, she saw Aksinya Mikhailovna greeting her mistress in the courtyard and kissing her on the shoulder.

After seeing this, Anna Ilinishna did not ask for any food all day long.

“Did Anna Ilinishna have anything to eat today?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked that evening.

“Nothing at all, Ma’am.”

Nastasya Ivanovna sat down at the window and started to think.

A little later she left the room. She sent for the priest.

“What did you do that for, Mama?” Olenka asked.

“Maybe Father will convince her,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied as she paced the room anxiously.

Evidently, Nastasya Ivanovna did not know her guest very well.

Father Porphyry arrived. He was a man of about thirty, a childless widower with a cheerful nature and not a trace of avarice. The peasants loved him, as did everyone who knew him well. Feeling that 1. In the contemporary usage, mittens were cotton or silk fingerless gloves.

it was no longer appropriate to speak “in the old way” and so far lacking the ability to say anything new, he never delivered sermons, except those required by the rules. No sooner had “enlightenment” and “progress” begun wafting over Rus, than this man fell in love with enlightenment and progress. This love was completely sincere, although Father Porphyry was far from certain in his own mind exactly what kind of enlightenment and what kind of progress he should love and what form they should take. Since there was not much for him to do around the parish and town was not far away, he went there often. In town, he had a multitude of acquaintances among the young men who served as low-ranking officials, but lately he had been drawn to the teachers at the local gymnasium and, in general, to a more serious sort of company. His search for progressive thinkers and his discussions with them filled his heart with joy. The store of knowledge with which his seminary education had equipped him was quite modest. Father Porphyry did not let this bother him. He humbly acknowledged his own ignorance, but, dreamer that he was, he went too far: he concluded that the education the men he associated with in town had received, even the most learned among them, was utterly worthless.

These men, for their part, looked down on Father Porphyry. They even concluded that he was not very bright. Father Porphyry bore this verdict stoically. He returned to his humble abode in Snetki each time with an expression of serenity on his face, proud and satisfied that he had brought with him a few scraps of knowledge from town, a few snatches of news from the living world. He read a good deal— Russian journals, that is—copying out his favorite passages if he was reading a borrowed copy, and poor sinner that he was, if he truly loved a brochure or book, he simply failed to return it.

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Ovcharov’s arrival was of great interest to him, and if Erast Sergeyevich had not inspired in Nastasya Ivanovna such terror with his talk of “imposing” and “not imposing” on one another, her concerns about which she had shared with Father Porphyry, he would have long since attempted to gain access to this world traveler and writer to boot, someone who might even have seen the Pope in his recent time of crisis.2 A state of extraordinary harmony existed between Father Porphyry and Nastasya Ivanovna, despite the fact that in his entire life he had received only one gift from her: a belt sewn by Olenka, and that a full five years ago.

When Fomka appeared at Father Porphyry’s doorstep, the priest immediately knew why he was being summoned. In Snetki, news travels fast.

“A comedy!” he remarked as he put on his cassock. “Tell them that I’ll be right there.”

“Please help, Father,” was how Nastasya Ivanovna greeted him at her door.

Having hurriedly seated him on the couch, she hurriedly poured out her sorrows. Father Porphyry did not interrupt her. He sat tapping his fingers on the table with a smile on his face.

“You’ve summoned me in vain, Nastasya Ivanovna,” he said when she had finished. “There’s nothing I can do here.”

“Father, give her a talking to.”

“Truly, she won’t listen to me.”

“How can anyone not listen to a priest?”

2. In 1860 King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy seized all of the Papal States, leaving only Rome under the control of Pope Pius IX.

“That is, she won’t listen to me, I don’t know about someone else.

Anna Ilinishna doesn’t care for me. Haven’t you noticed? Whether it’s in your home or at church, she doesn’t talk to me. It’s perfectly clear: she’s an important lady, and we village priests are inconsequential, nonentities. Anna Ilinishna is used to Moscow. There, everyone knows, you have the clergy in all its splendor. She’s been spoiled.

Give her an aristocrat in silk and velvet. Truly. I’d even go so far as to say she doesn’t believe in the very idea of holiness in the countryside.

It’s not the right setting. Why are you shaking your head? I’m telling you the truth. Get her some prominent orator, someone high up the table of ranks—then she’ll listen.”

“My dear, where am I going to find anyone more prominent?”

Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed.

Father Porphyry broke out laughing. “It’s as you wish, but I’d say it’s better for me not to go in there. She’ll chase me away.”

“That can’t be, it can’t be! You don’t want to console me! You’re my only hope.”

“Well, then I’ll go, I’ll go.” Father Porphyry got up. “But you’ll see that it’ll all be in vain.”

Father Porphyry was speaking the absolute truth. In less than half an hour (which Nastasya Ivanovna spent at the keyhole with her heart in her mouth) Father Porphyry emerged from Anna Ilinishna’s room and carefully closed the door behind him.

“Well, I told you. It’s a lost cause,” he said, laughing. “Manage as best you can. What a backward woman! Oh, you women and your dealings! She pounced on me—what right do I have, and I’m some sort of Catholic priest, and I’m oppressing her conscience. She promised to complain to this, that, and the other. As if I didn’t know she has more friends in the church than there’s fish in the sea.”

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“What? She wants to complain about you?”

“Don’t let it upset you, it’s nothing.”

“At least sit with me a bit, Father Porphyry. Don’t hurry away.”

“I can’t,” he said, taking his hat. “My advice to you,” he added, as Nastasya Ivanovna’s face was simply too pitiable, “is that you go in there, even if you have to force your way in, and tell her, as the venerable woman that you are, that her actions do not befit a civilized lady . . .”

Father Porphyry had not yet finished his sentence when the door swung open and Anna Ilinishna entered the room. Nastasya Ivanovna looked at her and then around the room. She and her cousin were alone.

Anna Ilinishna had heard everything Father Porphyry said.

She loomed before Nastasya Ivanovna threateningly, armed to the teeth with rage.

However, Nastasya Ivanovna also instantly readied herself for battle, fortified by a sense of righteousness.

“Well, Nastasya Ivanovna, when will I cease to be persecuted in your house?” Anna Ilinishna pronounced, taking a stand in the middle of the parlor. “And you even turned your priest against me! Well, answer, when will this end?”

“I’m very glad that you’ve deigned to come out of your room, Cousin,” Nastasya Ivanovna began, fighting to maintain her composure. “I’m very glad. I haven’t the strength to go on like this. My house is not your prison; it’s insulting, I can’t express how insulting it is.

Among the neighbors and among everyone I have a reputation as . . . be so kind as to sit and tell me just what it is that I’ve done to you.”

Nastasya Ivanovna grabbed the feeble Anna Ilinishna by the hand and pushed her down into an easy chair.

“What have you done to me? What?” Anna Ilinishna exclaimed, jumping up again. “Ever since your precious Erast Sergeyich arrived, have I had even a modicum of your attention? I’m your prisoner, Nastasya Ivanovna; I’m the one being sacrificed here. You and your Olga Nikolayevna have turned everyone against me. Whom do I have to thank for the fact that Erast Sergeyich wants nothing to do with me? I couldn’t care less about him—but that’s your doing. Olga Nikolayevna runs around with him, you have your little get-togethers with him—but he won’t come to the house. Because I’m here! Am I really the plague? I have put up with everything, but there’s a limit to my patience. Katerina Petrovna comes . . . and who is it that turned Katerina Petrovna against me, if I may be permitted to ask? And after all that, can I really associate with you as if you were a woman of good society?”

“Cousin, Cousin!” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, stupefied.

“How is any of this my fault? As God is my . . . they themselves want nothing to do with you!”

Nastasya Ivanovna stopped short, but the words could not be taken back. Anna Ilinishna’s eyes flashed. The blow seemed to have gone straight to her heart.

“And who is it that incited your servants to snub me for no reason?” she demanded, but in a much weaker voice.

“My servants? Well, aren’t you the one who is leading a rebellion against me, Cousin?”

“And your daughter certainly showers her aunt with attention, your Olga Nikolayevna? Don’t you have any control over that?

Aren’t you the one allowing that?”

“Olenka! Good Lord! Don’t you realize how painful it’s been for me that you two can’t get along?”

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“Painful! Well I should hope so!”

“In the end, she has a mind of her own,” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, enraged. “I can’t whip a seventeen-year-old girl for not respecting her relative!”

“Whip whom?” Olenka asked, arriving just in time to hear this last exchange. “What do we have here, a madhouse?”

“No, be so kind, Cousin,” Nastasya Ivanovna broke in, horrified that her daughter’s appearance would add fuel to the flames, “please calm down. Believe me: you simply imagined everything. Let’s make our peace and live together in harmony. After all, you may be here to stay.”

“Who told you that? Just as soon as Princess Maria Sergeyevna returns you won’t find a trace of me here!”

“Maria Sergeyevna? But she won’t be taking you back . . .”

“What?”

Anna Ilinishna looked at her wide-eyed. It struck Nastasya Ivanovna that she had let something slip she should not have.

“What do you mean, won’t be taking me back? Who said that?”

Anna Ilinishna demanded, turning pale.

“Katerina Petrovna’s servants . . . well you, Cousin . . . perhaps it’s just—but that’s what . . . Now please calm down!”

“Well that’s just wonderful, incomparable! You’ll pay for this, Maria Sergeyevna,” Anna Ilinishna exclaimed, beside herself. “And it’s even reached here, even here they’re slandering me! I humbly thank you, Nastasya Ivanovna! Only the lowest of beings could believe such a thing!”

“Cousin, I know nothing . . .”

“Fine, marvelous, Maria Sergeyevna! That’s what I get for covering up for her all these years, running all over Moscow to help

her with her petty affairs! Fleecing me of my last kopek for her little intrigues and then dismissing me? Noble, very noble of her.

Who will protect me now? I’m a pauper—I have nothing left in the whole world!”

“Cousin, whatever I can do . . .”

“You with your pittance, hypocrite! I won’t let her get away with this. I’ll take my revenge against her all over Moscow. Let’s see who’ll shield her now? I’ll remind her of a certain day!”

“Olenka, be off with you,” Nastasya Ivanovna said.

“Why are you sending her away? Such innocence! I’m the one who’s corrupting her? Now I’ve heard everything! I humbly thank you!”

Anna Ilinishna started toward her door.

“Where are you going, Cousin?”

“Let me go!” she cried. “I won’t get out of this place. God has condemned me to live here. Now you are free to starve me to death.

Do as you wish!”

“Anna Ilinishna! Have you no fear of God?” But the lock was already being turned on the other side of the door and Nastasya Ivanovna was standing alone in her parlor pondering the vicissitudes of this vale of tears.

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rom that day forward, life in the Snetki manor house entered a new phase. Anna Ilinishna locked herself in her room once and for all. She announced to Nastasya Ivanovna that she would be boarding with her while she awaited the arrival of funds, a request for which had been sent to some acquaintances, and that her food would later be paid for in full, as would her prison cell and everything else, and that she should be fed whatever the servants ate rather than what was being served at the manorial table. With the treacherous servants themselves, so changeable in their view of things, she spoke not a word.

All of this was quite amusing to Olenka, who assumed that the present situation would not drag on forever and, most likely, would soon come to an end, but for Nastasya Ivanovna there was nothing funny about it. As her cousin found staying under her roof so repugnant, it occurred to her that it might be better to offer her money so that she could go elsewhere. This idea, however, was rejected. Anna Ilinishna might, heaven forbid, feel even more deeply insulted.

In short, Nastasya Ivanovna was at her wit’s end. There was nowhere to turn for advice. Finally, in desperation, she thought

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of Ovcharov. “He’ll help somehow; he’ll find some way to reconcile us,” she mused, and having latched on to what seemed her last hope, she began waiting for Ovcharov’s arrival with the impatience of a lover.

The thought crossed her mind that her troubles with Anna Ilinishna revolved, in part, around Ovcharov himself, so how could she discuss them with him? To talk to him or not? And what if he were to find out on his own what was happening?

Endlessly pondering these questions, the mistress of Snetki finally began to lose sleep, and not just for one night: five nights in a row passed without a wink. Finally, Ovcharov arrived.

She caught sight of his carriage standing near the bathhouse and, without pausing to think, threw on her kerchief, straightened the comb that held up her braid, and headed for the door.

“Where are you off to?” Olenka asked when the two met at the top of the steps. She was holding a note. “This is for you, from Katerina Petrovna. A messenger brought it. She says I should come right away, without fail.”

“That young man must be there, Olenka.”

“Must be.”

Olenka was upset and nibbled the corner of the note in annoyance.

“We have to go. When will we make the trip?”

“I don’t know. Erast Sergeyich is here.”

Nastasya Ivanovna became flustered.

“I just want to have a little talk with him. I’ll be right back . . .”

“You really can’t let it be, can you?” Olenka called after her.

“Well, go. The wise man will explain it all to you!”

Nastasya Ivanovna found Ovcharov angry, upset, ailing, and extremely dissatisfied with his trip. The Beryozovka steward and

several peasants, with whom he had just quarreled, were leaving the bathhouse. His valet was bringing him water and medicine.

Ovcharov barely rose from his chair when Nastasya Ivanovna entered. He was wrapped in flannel and mixing himself some sort of sedative tonic.

“What can I do for you?” he asked Nastasya Ivanovna, who immediately understood that she had come at a bad time. Everything that she had thought through and not quite thought through in preparing what she would say flew right out of her head.

“I wanted to get your advice about a problem I’m having,” she said, looking out the window at the departing peasants. “I’ll have to be resettling mine, too.”

She stopped.

“He’s got other things on his mind; he’ll have nothing to say to me,” she thought. But she was wrong.

Erast Sergeyevich had a great deal to say. Although he did not even ask Nastasya Ivanovna what her troubles were, of his own troubles—of his losses, of the stubbornness of his peasants, of their greedy and baseless demands, of the obtuseness, captiousness, and backwardness of the town administration—he spoke for an entire hour. Nastasya Ivanovna did not utter a word. In Erast Sergeyevich’s efforts she sought lessons applicable to the efforts she would soon be undertaking; in his experience she sought experience for herself.

“He has seen everything there is to see in the world,” she thought.

“Even if he can’t help me with Anna Ilinishna, maybe he can help with my peasants.”

“How would you advise me, Erast Sergeyich?” she asked when he paused to gulp down some of his tonic. “Way over there, that little piece of land along the border with your property . . .”

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“I think I’ll end up sending for workers from Prussia,” Ovcharov resumed. He then launched into an expansive exposition of his theory of agriculture, citing the opinions of foreign and domestic experts, refutations of their opinions, and the advantages and difficulties involved in introducing such innovations in Russia proper.

Nastasya Ivanovna listened with rapt attention.

Ovcharov noticed this attentiveness. Apparently it pleased him, because, little by little, the stern set of his eyes and mouth softened and his face took on a more gracious expression.

“It pleases me to see in you, a woman of a past era, a freedom from the intractability so often found in persons of your station. I thought, Nastasya Ivanovna, that you would raise a storm about my Prussian workers—declare the idea a heresy.”

“Why a heresy, Erast Sergeyich?” Nastasya Ivanovna replied meekly. Suddenly, that word brought her thoughts back to what was happening under her own roof. She became flustered.

“In general, throughout this quarter-hour discussion, I have been looking at you and me both with pleasure,” Ovcharov continued. “I have been speaking and observing at the same time. It is not boasting when I say . . . And, first of all, I despise boasting even in the most remarkable of people, and in my opinion the practice of extolling people is the most harmful sort of indulgence . . . So, I will say to you: I highly value my ability to speak to you on your own level. And another thing I will say: unfortunately, this ability to communicate is rare these days. Very few today maintain that essential link with the past, with such primitive representatives of our provinces . . .”

“Well, you’re such a smart man, Erast Sergeyich.”

“I only hope that you’ll make use of our conversations, of our lessons, otherwise . . .”

Ovcharov shook his head and became lost in thought.

“In fact I did come to you for a bit of advice,” Nastasya Ivanovna said, even giggling out of embarrassment. “So many little problems . . .

Lord above, I can’t figure out what to do. Whichever way you look at it—you think you’re doing the right thing, but it all turns out wrong.”

“Well, how can I explain the question of right and wrong?” Ovcharov replied, deep in reflection. “Everything on this earth is both useful and harmful. It all depends on how you look at something or how you put your ideas into practice.”

“I don’t want to harm anyone, Erast Sergeyich.”

“Let’s assume that’s so. I’m not talking about intention. But here, for instance, take the peasants. What a wealthy landowner might be able to do for his peasants would be impossible for a noblewoman with meager resources like yours. Indulgence, generosity, the ability to tolerate financial loss—these are only possible for the wealthy.”

“No doubt about that!” Nastasya Ivanovna replied. “You wealthy and prominent are much kinder than we . . . The likes of us! May the Lord above forgive my sins!”

“Don’t overly praise us, my dear Nastasya Ivanovna,” Ovcharov graciously remarked. “We don’t deserve it. First of all, our ancestry is by no means exalted, and we haven’t surpassed you in much. What we do have is more pride. And you shouldn’t berate yourself. If you oppressed your peasants, it was done naively, without thinking.

And furthermore, you have your needs.”

“Oh, no, no, Erast Sergeyich! He who sucks the lifeblood from others cannot be forgiven. He will face divine judgment!”

“Oh, what reasoning!” Ovcharov interjected didactically. “You know, you sound worse than the most excessive, malcontent members of the extremist party. That’s not good. If you look closely, there’s an City Folk and Country Folk

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explanation for everything. What about property, what about love of one’s own property? Isn’t that a justification? Surely you know how important it is to love your own property, to respect it? Everything depends on it, everything would fall apart without it. Without it, society would . . .”

“Well I do love Snetki; there’s no denying it!” Nastasya Ivanovna replied, laughing.

“Now, that’s better.”

“But now I have a problem. And what a favor you’d be doing me, Erast Sergeyich . . . I have to move the peasants, I have to give these nincompoops . . .”

“Peasants, nincompoops . . .” Ovcharov pronounced, placing his hands on his knees. “They’re not nincompoops, Nastasya Ivanovna, and in the end they’ll be wiser than us. Give the peasant his due. Just because we didn’t knock their teeth out, we think we’re the picture of kindness. It’s not enough. Now, learn to love the common folk, and then we’ll see. I’ll say this: the peasant is smart, smarter than we suspect. We impose our ready-made wisdom on him—it’s utter nonsense! He’ll be teaching us! As you can see, I don’t let the abominations they’ve perpetrated at my Beryozovka cloud my thinking.”

Nastasya Ivanovna did not respond.

“That’s where matters stand. And I repeat: love of the people goes without saying, but love of property also goes without saying,” Ovcharov concluded.

He got up and began to walk around the room. It was evident that he was returning to this topic as a way of bringing his speech to a close.

“I’ll go even further, Nastasya Ivanovna: if you pause to consider property, it is of such moral worth that there is no need so great as to

merit its sacrifice. Property must be handed down, like a holy relic, from generation to generation, so that everyone will have the means to engage in society, so that everyone will have something to depend on. And my advice to you would be to build up your estate as prudently, as diligently as you can, without detriment to yourself. You owe this to your daughter.”

“Of course, for Olenka . . .” Nastasya Ivanovna muttered. She was glad that the conversation was turning away from generalities and moving closer to home. They had not managed to reach an agreement on the matter of resettling the peasants, but, after all, that was not what she had come for, although an agreement would have been nice. She had come to get advice on other matters.

Suddenly, thoughts of all those other matters began to stir in her mind: Katerina Petrovna’s matchmaking efforts, the situation with Anna Ilinishna, and Erast Sergeyevich himself, the source of much of her recent anguish, and now all the advice he had just given her and her need for advice on other matters.

“Olenka . . . of course it will all go to her, everything I have.

A match is being proposed for her, Erast Sergeyich,” she stated suddenly, without quite knowing why.

“Why not? Wonderful!” Ovcharov replied. “Marriage, I’ll tell you, is generally a good thing. Our progressives inveigh against it in vain.

Marriage will endure. In recent years it’s been in decline, but—mark my word—it will stage a comeback. That’s my prediction. It’s very simple,” he paused right in front of Nastasya Ivanovna. “This is also closely linked with property. The success of our estates will depend on an assiduous, settled, rural way of life, away from the highways.

In the country, a wife and family are essential. Furthermore, whatever some may say about the narrow-mindedness of views on marriage, City Folk and Country Folk

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the propensity toward a decent, moral life is alive and well in society.

The level of public morality will rise—this is certain. It will rise quite soon, in fact.”

“Everything you say is true, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied, glancing at the clock, which was chiming. Her discussion with Erast Sergeyevich had already lasted three hours. “That’s how it is, but it’s time for me to go. I must be keeping you . . .”

“No,” he answered, yawning, “but perhaps I really should take care of some business.”

Nastasya Ivanovna rose and started toward the door. “Ah, but I didn’t tell you about the little matter I came to discuss,” she blurted, bracing herself and laughing. She was fighting a sense of dread and shame before Erast Sergeyevich.

“What, exactly, is it? Is there something I can do?”

“No, nothing . . . it’s just that there’s some unpleasantness with Cousin. She’s always angry. To tell the truth, she’s a rather malicious woman. It’s five days now since she locked herself in her room. And they say she’s holy! How can the Lord allow such things? What am I to do?”

“Let her suffer, the hypocrite!” Ovcharov pronounced, turning to his papers.

Nastasya Ivanovna looked at him.

“How can the Lord allow such things?” he mimicked her voice.

“You women are all strange creatures, it seems to me. You accept a belief on faith, and then you can’t figure out how to untangle yourselves from that belief!”

The thought crossed Nastasya Ivanovna’s mind that this might be the beginning of what Anna Ilinishna had been talking about. She sighed and opened the door a crack.

“Farewell, Erast Sergeyich,” she said. “I thank you.”

He was standing and digging through his papers. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes, it’s time.”

“I haven’t yet asked you how Olga Nikolayevna is.”

“She’s fine. We have to get ready to visit Katerina Petrovna now.

She wrote asking that Olenka come. I’m not sure yet how we’ll manage. One of our horses has gone lame.”

“Katerina Petrovna? I also just received a note from her and will be going to see her in an hour or two. Would Olga Nikolayevna care to travel there with me?”

“Well, why not?” Nastasya Ivanovna declared after a moment’s thought. “That would be wonderful. Otherwise, heaven only knows when we’d get there.”

She left, and a few minutes later Ovcharov was informed that Olenka would be ready and waiting.

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s Ovcharov was preparing to depart, he reread Katerina Petrovna’s note. Between the peasants and other pressing matters he had not had time to fully dissect its wording.

The note (written in French) was a bit cryptic.

If I was so ungracious as to fail to remember you, as you put it, Mr. Ovcharov, it was only because you seem to have arranged things so that your friends would not remember you. Please pay me a visit, and then you will be convinced of the unfailing and devoted friendship of yours truly, KPD.

“What prose! And what good is her unfailing friendship to me?”

Ovcharov thought as he put on his gloves. “No, our ladies are incorrigible. Even when they grow old and gray, they don’t stop twisting the truth. It is womankind that perpetuates falsehood, and until we reeducate women . . .”

At that moment the carriage pulled up. Looking very elegant, he took his seat and rode to Nastasya Ivanovna’s front steps. Olenka came out, also looking elegant, dressed in muslin and a tulle canezou

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with a burnous worn lightly over her shoulders.1 Nastasya Ivanovna came to see her off, thinking to herself, poor woman, that someday Olenka would ride off like this with a husband. A pair of curious eyes also peered out of Anna Ilinishna’s window. Olenka deftly accepted a helping hand from her traveling companion, and off they went.

“How is it that you’re paying Katerina Petrovna a visit?” Olenka asked. “After all, she pretended not to know you.”

“There was a misunderstanding, but it has been cleared up,” he replied.

Olenka did not pursue the subject. After exchanging a few words about the weather and how hot it was outside, the traveling companions fell silent. They remained silent for some time. Olenka had a lot on her mind. She was about to meet a prospective husband.

Her mother and she had just had their first serious discussion on the matter. In parting, Nastasya Ivanovna entreated her to take a good look, get to know him, and not be capricious—because maybe he really is a good fellow, and the previous year she had caught only a fleeting glimpse of him, and that was no way to judge someone, and Katerina Petrovna surely wouldn’t foist a good-for-nothing on her and, finally, she, Nastasya Ivanovna, would under no circumstances force Olenka into anything. Olenka promised both her mother and herself to be sensible. She suddenly recalled the comically sad 1. A canezou is a tight-fitting short jacket, more often referred to as a “spencer” in nineteenthcentury England. It is usually sleeveless, although one 1852 drawing portrays it with puffy sleeves. The following reference to a canezou is taken from Isabel F. Hapgood’s translation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables: “There was something indescribably harmonious and striking about her entire dress. She wore a gown of mauve barege, little reddish-brown buskins, whose ribbons traced an X on her fine, white, open-worked stockings, and that sort of muslin spencer, a Marseilles invention, whose name, canezou, a corruption of the words quinze aout, pronounced after the fashion of the Canebiere, signifies fine weather, heat, and midday.”

Variations on the burnous, a hooded cloak worn by North African Bedouins, were adopted in European fashion in the nineteenth century.

face her mother wore after returning from seeing Erast Sergeyevich that morning, overwhelmed by the weightiness of the wise counsel heaped upon her. For a whole hour Olenka had given her mother no peace over this wise counsel. Now, she glanced over at the source of this counsel and smiled. For some reason Ovcharov always made her smile. He was wearing a magnificent panama hat, and Olenka struggled to suppress her laughter as she watched the intermittent shadow it cast upon the road. This fashion struck her as excessively imposing. The little fool—she failed to appreciate how stylish it was.

Erast Sergeyevich made an overall impression on her as being at once sickly, imposing, comically stylish, a bit of a pinchpenny, and pompous—she could not look him in the eye with a straight face.

“Although, come to think of it,” she mused, “it wouldn’t hurt for the other girls to see me taking a little drive through town with such a gentleman. I can just see the looks on their faces. But best of all would be . . .”

And this “best of all” appeared in her mind’s eye in the form of dark whiskers and dark eyes right there by her side, shaded by an officer’s cap, instead of Ovcharov’s ponderous panama.

Ovcharov was also thinking, but may heaven forgive him the frivolity of his thoughts and the trifles that had found their way into his head! And in forgiving Ovcharov may heaven above forgive us all!

All of us possessors of a thousand souls and Viennese carriages, visitors to the homes of this and that foreign lord—all of us are capable, when we stop in on our native backwoods, of thinking the same trifling thoughts toward which Erast Sergeyevich’s mind had strayed. In brief, Erast Sergeyevich was thinking, “This girl is, of course, in love with me, since she’s never seen anyone like me before. That’s why she’s been fidgeting, giggling, and mocking me for some time now; City Folk and Country Folk

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from the very first day she’s been fidgeting and mocking, because she’s embarrassed, and for our rustics what other expression of love can there be, especially toward someone who is not quite attainable?”

He further reasoned—must we again beseech heaven’s forgiveness?—that it would be good to bring this love a little to the surface, as the setting was so convenient, it being impossible for her to flee from the carriage, unlike during their walks through the fields, where she was able to escape so nimbly. She, too, would certainly enjoy it.

Girls are such silly little cowards—they themselves don’t realize how pleasant it is when you finally confess your feelings. Then she could be given, well, whatever could be given: a tiny foretaste of love, nothing that would entail any subsequent obligations. It was good that she was so flighty, so inconstant, apparently not the sort who would compromise herself or another with foolish sighs and tears. But she would have something to remember . . . She would enjoy it; for him, too, it wouldn’t be bad.

And finally, without a thought in his head, Ovcharov glanced at her tulle canezou, no longer covered by the burnous, which had slipped from her shoulder. The thought struck him that he should put it back in place.

“Thank you, but there’s no need. How hot it is!” Olenka remarked, taking it off again.

“Coquette!” Ovcharov thought to himself.

“Olga Nikolayevna, why are you angry with me?” he suddenly asked.

“What are you talking about? I’m nothing of the sort.”

“You don’t want to talk to me.”

“Oh, enough, please,” she protested with a hint of anger. These words had reminded her of the hundreds of times Anna Ilinishna

had been addressed in similar terms, and although she tried not to let these scenes bother her, over time they had grown extremely tiresome.

This memory soured Olenka’s mood. She reflected that the summer was nearly half over, and a dreary summer it was proving to be. They had hardly been to town at all, first due to lack of funds, and second because that loathsome Anna Ilinishna had shown up to turn their household topsy-turvy. For her sake, they’d had to sit home. No one came to visit them in the country—only this distinguished gentleman was hanging about with his dietetic soup and words of wisdom.

Meanwhile, Ovcharov kept on looking at her and finally repeated his question.

Olenka flared up at him.

“What do you and I have to talk about, Erast Sergeyich?” she asked rather sharply, but holding herself in check. “You’re just asking because you have no one else to talk to. And what should I say? You see how we live. Is there really anything interesting? We’re not good society for one another, not you for me, not I for you. I like to have a jolly time, and you don’t. You’ve learned everything there is, and I don’t know a thing. What’s happening in Paris, or in Moscow—I haven’t the foggiest idea. I don’t read your books; I don’t understand them and don’t want to understand them. What else? Perhaps we should talk about Anna Ilinishna? I’d rather take her on with my own bare hands, if I had my way . . .”

Ovcharov fell back down to earth. Only the most desperate fop or madman could mistake this monologue for a dépit amoureux,2 2. French: Amorous pique.

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pronounced as it was with an expression of the most decisive firmness and sincerity.

Having heard her out, Ovcharov shrugged his shoulders. “As you wish.”

Approximately two more versts passed in silence.

“Would I at least be permitted to observe that you are bored?”

Ovcharov asked. He had changed his mind about something. It was not the same imposing panama-wearing Ovcharov who had been sitting so solemnly to her left that now looked at her as he asked this question.

“Who is there to stop you?” she replied, smiling. Her bad mood was starting to abate.

“What do you mean, who?” Ovcharov responded waggishly.

“You frightened me so just now . . . It’s true. You painted me as such a solemn and erudite scarecrow that I was just about ready to flee.

Why are you laughing? You’re having a fine time, but what about me? Poor little me. There wasn’t a serious thought in my head, no sensible thoughts whatsoever. That’s how much I wanted to talk all sorts of cheerful nonsense with you . . .”

“Is that so?” Olenka replied, shaking her head somewhat distrustfully at the schoolboy face he was managing quite elegantly and successfully.

“Yes, that’s so; that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Well, talk your nonsense.”

“I don’t dare,” he replied, playfully casting his gaze skyward.

“Well, go ahead. Whatever you want!”

“Whatever I want? No, what I would like to say . . . well, of course I wouldn’t say that,” he answered meaningly.

“And why’s that?”

He did not reply, but looked intently at Olenka.

“What’s going on here?” she thought. “I shouldn’t have been so insulting; now he won’t say anything.”

A strong sense of curiosity had awakened in her. In general, she was an extremely curious person. Ovcharov’s facial expression became more and more inscrutable. Olenka started to flirt, to pester him, and finally to rack her brains to contrive how she might cajole him. He, meanwhile, maintained his silence and only smiled.

“Oh, come now, be a dear,” she exclaimed, not able to contain herself and taking him by the arm. “Tell me. If you tell me your secret, I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking about.”

“Very well! That’s a reasonable condition. But since you’re the one who’s seen fit to pout, you should go first.”

“If you please, we can do it that way, so long as you keep your end of the bargain.”

“You think I won’t keep my end?” he exclaimed. “You’ve no idea how hard it’s been to keep my secret.”

“So that’s how it is!” Olenka replied. Suddenly, she could detect something strange in his words and in his voice. She became quiet and her flirtatiousness vanished.

“Tell me.”

“I? In all honesty, I was thinking about our fight with Anna Ilinishna and that I was going to see an unbearable lady and an even less bearable young man, whom I already can’t stand and whom they’re trying to foist on me as a match.”

“Is that all!” Ovcharov exclaimed with unusual fervor. “Nothing sweeter than that? At the age of seventeen, not a single dream on such a glorious summer day, a day just made for hiding away in City Folk and Country Folk

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this field of rye or in that grove with your beloved, so no one would see . . . Enough! You’re concealing your feelings. That’s hard to bear.”

“I told the truth,” Olenka replied, but blushing. “I’ll have to be married.”

“Marriage? To someone unbearable! Olga Nikolayevna! Come now, don’t betray yourself. At least don’t slander your own mind if perhaps . . . if what you want to hide is that you have passion and a heart. A forced marriage, a marriage based on calculations, a marriage to suit Papa and Mama, a marriage that makes no sense—that’s murder! It is quite simply the murder of your freedom. And what is marriage if not a crime, if not the murder of freedom? Do you know how you can be . . . how you must be free? Do you know?”

“Well, how?”

“As the wind,” Ovcharov concluded.

“Is that so?” Olenka replied cheerfully.

“Yes. You have your doubts, you think you would be less happy without any sort of marriage? Do you think there would be fewer men who love you?”

“I’m not thinking anything, anything at all,” Olenka replied, coquettishly covering her ears against the torrent of words. “No one loves me, no one will want to know me . . . But you tell me your little secret now.”

“My secret? Well, I’m mad about you, Olenka . . .”

Ovcharov threw himself at her and, before she was able to say a word, kissed her neck and shoulders.

Apparently Olenka really was stronger than he. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him to the other end of the carriage, quickly and without making noise or uttering a sound, so that the coachman did not even turn around.

“You’re a vile person,” she said, crimson from agitation. “The slightest move and I’ll hit you. Don’t you dare say a word to me.”

Ovcharov straightened his panama, enclosed himself more securely in his lap robe, and turned away. The only thing visible to Olenka was the chamois glove on his bony hand, which was supporting his chin. Then again, Olenka was not looking.

Approximately a quarter hour passed in this manner. In the distance, Katerina Petrovna’s estate came into view.

“Olga Nikolayevna,” Ovcharov said, suddenly turning to her. His face seemed distressed and upset. “Olga Nikolayevna, will you really not forgive my infatuation? If I didn’t like you so much . . .”

“Nonsense, nonsense!” she said. “Be quiet. Don’t you dare lie. I don’t believe a word you say.”

“Olga Nikolayevna, but how would I have dared . . .”

She turned away, but could feel that he was not taking his eyes off her. He sighed, searched for her hand, and tugged at the hem of her burnous. Thus they traveled another verst, then another half verst.

They passed over a wretched little bridge that traversed a miserable little stream; they passed through an abominable country road with unimaginably bad huts; then they finally reached a pasture, after which they had still to drive over a meager, crescent-shaped lawn to arrive at some sort of traveling case made of stone, with holes instead of windows and a steep iron roof clapped on top—Katerina Petrovna’s house.

Upon seeing all this, Olenka called up to the coachman, “If you please, my good man, on the way back let me out at the bridge. In the dark, with your Viennese carriage, a person could fall out.”

“So, you’ll go back with me?” Ovcharov hurriedly asked.

“What?”

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“I thought . . . I was afraid that you would ask Katerina Petrovna . . . So you’ve forgiven me?”

“That’s the furthest thing from my mind,” Olenka replied calmly.

“I’ll go back with you just as I came. If you touch me, I’ll jump out or beat you in front of the coachman. Ask Katerina Petrovna for help! Coward! You were afraid that I would get you involved in some scandal? What good would that do me? Why would I want to do something like that? Perhaps you think that I’ll go and complain to Mama? I can handle you myself.”

Ovcharov wanted to say something, but Katerina Petrovna’s manservant had already darted down the front steps and was opening the carriage door.

15

T

hey entered a small, sparsely furnished room that had white stucco walls and was intersected by a narrow, faded runner. Other than a shuttlecock and some sorts of ladders and sticks for gymnastics in the corner, the room contained nothing but an old piano whose music rest held a yellowed book of Rosellen’s exercises.1 It was late enough that the midday meal had already been served, and a demilune table by the door to the servants’ quarters held, as relief from the heat, a pitcher of water and a small bottle of last year’s cranberry juice, which was swarming with flies. Millions of flies were buzzing about. As the guests made their entrance, a girl of about fourteen, who had been leaning out the window to have a look at the carriage, jumped down from the sill and greeted the visitors with something between a curtsy and a bow.

She was very tall, very plain, freckled, and coiffed à l’enfant.2 Her bow drew attention to the enormous fringes that had formed from the fraying of the pantalettes she wore beneath her faded muslin skirt 1. Henri Rosellen (1811–1876) was a French pianist and composer.

2. French: With short hair “like a child,” a fashion associated with Marie Antoinette.

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and smallish crinoline, as well as her couleur chamois shoes,3 which might have been fashionable were they not worn somewhat askew.

“Bonjour, Mademoiselle Annette; bonjour, George! Une poignée de main, mon garçon,”4 Ovcharov said as he bowed to the young lady and caught sight of a boy at the end of the hall.

Mademoiselle Annette smiled at Ovcharov and silently nodded at Olenka, whose pretty dress drew her gaze. George turned to face them. He was a boy of about thirteen, pallid, stocky, and attired in old canvas, but with a watch and fashionable cravat. As he rushed to greet Ovcharov he dropped some photographs, which he had been putting back into a briefcase, on the floor.

“How are you getting along? Where is your mother?”

“Mama is in there; how do you do?” George replied, clicking his heels and breathing in the smell of Ovcharov’s shirt and vest, which emanated a subtle aroma.

Olenka walked ahead.

“And you, Mademoiselle Annette? How is life in the country?”

“Merci, Monsieur,” she answered with a grimace, watching Olenka, whom she chose not to accompany. “You are staying with the Chulkovs?”

“It’s deathly boring here,” George remarked, rubbing his hands together.

“How can that be? I would have thought there were wide-open spaces for all kinds of mischief.”

As he walked by, Ovcharov glanced at the photographs and glimpsed raised arms and legs and ballet dresses.

3. French: The color of chamois leather, yellowish brown.

4. French: A handshake, my boy.

“You recognize them, alright! Here’s Solovyova, Komarova, here’s Lyubov Petrovna. This is my collection.”

“My, already so many acquisitions?”

“I should say so!”

“I congratulate you,” Ovcharov said before proceeding into the parlor, where he caught up with Olenka.

The parlor was empty. All the furniture was covered and the coverings were billowing in the wind from the open windows. The worn runner extended through this room as well.

“Bonjour,” a voice reached them from a third room, and a woman came into view, partially blocked by two meager orange trees that stood by the terrace door. She was sewing. A sewing box and a strip of muslin she had been attacking with an embroidery needle sat on a little table before her. The woman rose slightly in greeting, showing her diminutive stature and full, short waist, squeezed tightly into a corset. Her dress was also rather short, d’après la mode économique de campagne,5 with pockets on either side for household tools. Her small, wrinkled face, which maintained an ambiguous smile equally suggestive of pleasure and displeasure, seemed all the older from the contrast with her hair. Her hair was dyed as black as satin, and the end of a scarlet ribbon flapped about it, lifted by the wind from the circle of black lace that covered the top of her head.

“How do you do, Katerina Petrovna?” There was a hint of irony in Ovcharov’s voice as he squinted at his hostess from a distance.

“Oh, Erast Sergeyich . . . and Mademoiselle Olga? And you are together?” Katerina Petrovna offered Ovcharov her hand. She stared wide-eyed at Olenka and nodded at her only after a delay.

5. French: In keeping with the practical fashion that befits country life.

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“Yes, together,” Olenka replied.

“And I thought that Nastasya Ivanovna . . . Is your mother unwell?”

“No, she is well, thank you.”

“And so, my dear Erast Sergeyich, vous voilà . . . Have a seat. Vous voilà.6 Can you imagine? I’d almost thought that you weren’t going to come at all.”

Olenka took a few steps away and sat down in the closest easy chair.

“You should have thought, on the contrary, that I would come without fail, quand même,”7 Ovcharov responded, graciously and hurriedly declining the offer of a chair that his hostess was nudging in his direction. “And your note? Will you explain it to me?”

“My respects,” a voice came from nearby.

The visitors had not noticed that someone was with Katerina Petrovna, obscured by the orange trees as he sat in the doorway leading onto the terrace. The gentleman stepped into the room and bowed.

“Who is this bureaucratic type?” Ovcharov wondered, but then, upon closer inspection, said, “Oh, excuse me. I didn’t recognize you at first.”

“Of course you recognize him! You are well acquainted, I believe,” Katerina Petrovna interceded, surprised and a bit taken aback that Ovcharov had not immediately known her guest. “It is not the first time that you’ve seen Simon in my home, and you, too, Mademoiselle Olga.”

6. French: Here you are.

7. French: Come what may.

This was true. It was all coming back to Ovcharov. Before him, twirling his watch key, stood a man of average height, thickset, ruddy-faced, and about twenty-five years of age, with small round eyes peering out from under a protruding forehead. His movements were even and mechanical, and had it not been for a trace of obstinacy in the set of the mouth, his entire figure might have expressed the fulfillment of some command. Ovcharov had only ever seen this Simon—Semyon Ivanovich, that is—at Katerina Petrovna’s.

She referred to him as “mon protégé.”8 He was dressed in broadcloth, wore bad boots, and was gloveless—all signs of poverty. There were many people of whose lives Ovcharov tried to stay abreast, and very little escaped his attention, but he had somehow failed to notice just when it was that Katerina Petrovna had taken this orphan under her wing. At large gatherings in her own drawing room, Katerina Petrovna kept Simon in the shadow, and little wonder. Among Moscow’s higher social circles he would have been indecent. Out of public view, however, Katerina Petrovna seemed to have allowed Simon great familiarity, and an experienced observer with a keen ear, catching the intonation of two or three of the most insignificant words passing between her and her protégé, would have no trouble drawing certain conclusions. However, no one in Katerina Petrovna’s immediate circle had drawn these conclusions. As far as they were concerned, this virtuous woman had become close with this orphan from the Moscow treasury office only out of compassion and as a tribute to his angelic nature. In a moment of idle fancy Ovcharov had once decided to take a closer look at the patroness and her protégé, and they had suddenly struck him as rather strange. Later, he forgot 8. French: My protégé.

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about them and turned his attention to more interesting phenomena of Moscow life.

“Of course! Simon is staying here all summer. Government service has been hard on his lungs. We will remain here to serve in the provinces.”

“You’re taking a position here?”

“Yes. And how is your health, Erast Sergeyich?” Simon inquired unceremoniously, intentionally interrupting Katerina Petrovna, who had tried to say something.

Ovcharov held forth on the subject of his whey.

“And for you, too, Simon, it would do no harm,” Katerina Petrovna broke in.

“It wouldn’t agree with my constitution,” Simon responded, barely glancing at Katerina Petrovna, and again turned to Ovcharov.

“Does this fellow call the tune around here, by any chance?”

Ovcharov wondered. As he continued to expound on his bathing regimen, tender glances were cast across the table from one side, while eyes were averted on the other. “But then again,” Ovcharov thought to himself, looking around, “it’s easy to lose your mind in the country!”

He glanced at Olenka. She was sitting with her hands in her lap looking at the walls. There was nothing much to see there beside a few old family portraits (brought from Moscow because they were not good enough for the city and their subjects were long forgotten); two pastels, supposedly by Mademoiselle Annette (Olenka had seen the governess drawing them); a few books on the étagère, primarily on the subject of childrearing; and cabinets with teacups (some gifts, some family heirlooms) and wedding-gift bonbonnières—nothing

worthy of notice. Olenka started to yawn and covered her mouth.

Katerina Petrovna, wide-eyed, caught her in the act, having turned her attention toward the girl when Ovcharov began looking at her.

“Mademoiselle Olga, wouldn’t you like to go for a walk in the garden?

Simon will accompany you. Simon, accompany Olga Nikolayevna.”

“Yes, it is warm here,” Olenka replied.

She was happy to leave. It was deathly boring there, and she thought that she would manage to slip away from the gentleman in the garden.

“Well now, Katerina Petrovna,” Ovcharov said once they were alone and his hostess had brought her chair to an intimate distance from his, “I hope that these preparations mean that I am about to hear where my fault lies.”

“Where it lies? But what kind of a life are you leading, mon cher Ovcharov? Where are you living? You know, I didn’t expect this of you. Avec ce genre de vie, ces tendances,9 you’ll be shut out of respectable circles.”

“But why?”

“Don’t interrupt me. I was so upset, so bewildered when I found out! And I’ve known a long time, since I first arrived. I couldn’t believe it. Un homme du monde10—living in some gentry woman’s bathhouse; and this gentry woman has a little minx of a daughter.

Of course, I could have counseled them, but I didn’t want to get into a quarrel, and they wouldn’t have understood. But you must agree, my dear, this all appears rather dubious. Then I cast those 9. French: With such a lifestyle, such tendencies.

10. French: A man of the world.

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thoughts aside and remembered how discriminating you are.

Et puis . . .11 We’re living in a different sort of time now. I came to the conclusion that you had chosen such seclusion with another aim in mind . . . a most contemporary aim . . . quelque chose de plus monstrueux encore . . .”12 “Oh, what horrors!” Ovcharov exclaimed, laughing.

Katerina Petrovna shrugged her shoulders, but Ovcharov kissed her hand.

“What kind of aims, my dearest Katerina Petrovna?”

“The aim of spreading . . .” and she looked over her shoulder.

“Just look how much trouble that whey has gotten me into!”

“But I still believe in you,” Katerina Petrovna continued. “I wouldn’t want, I absolutely would not want to see you as un rouge. Vous êtes des nôtres, n’est-ce pas?13 You must reassure me.”

“Well, yes, yes, of course!”

“That is what I thought. Which is why,” Katerina Petrovna concluded, “I have returned to my original theory.”

“You returned to it, after all? Mightn’t you simply dispense with theories? But then why, witnessing my downfall, didn’t you set me on the path to salvation? In other words, why didn’t you come to my illicit abode and box my ears when you were in Snetki?”

Katerina Petrovna straightened her spine.

“Why? Because I do not visit young men, Erast Sergeyich. If Simon or my husband had been with me . . .”

“Ah, very sensible,” Ovcharov muttered.

11. French: And besides.

12. French: Something even more monstrous.

13. French: A red. You are one of us, are you not?

“Of course, I am no longer a child, but I don’t know at what age it becomes permissible to . . . Then I thought my silent protest should be enough. Now I see that was not the case.”

“Why?” “Because not only did you fail to leave Snetki, but you and Olga Nikolayevna arrived here as a twosome . . . But here I’m certain— c’est si mal élevé14—I’m certain she forced herself on you.”

Ovcharov shifted in his chair and prepared to answer.

“And therefore . . . and therefore it’s a good thing I’ve done in writing to a certain person about all this.”

“To whom and about what?” Ovcharov asked sharply, studying the sly expression on her face.

Katerina Petrovna burst out laughing and clapped her hands together.

“Ah, you’re angry? Don’t be angry; I’ve already set you at odds.

Dorothée est au courant de tout . . . and all of Moscow knows about it.

Of course, I didn’t exactly say that you were unfaithful, mais que la campagne a des attraits. . . Well, and so forth.”15 “It would be surprising if you were able to set us at odds, Katerina Petrovna,” Ovcharov remarked, trying to maintain his composure.

“You old fool,” he thought to himself. “You’ll pay for your gossip mongering.”

He wanted to vent his anger, but then he reasoned, and correctly so, that Katerina Petrovna posed no danger to him. Although the feminine milieu within which Ovcharov was in the habit of conducting his liaisons may have been frivolous and susceptible to all kinds 14. French: Such a poor upbringing.

15. French: Dorothy is fully abreast; but that the countryside has its attractions.

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of nonsense, it was ruled by a certain esprit de parti16 against Katerina Petrovna. Katerina Petrovna was not their sort of gossip. Ovcharov regained his calm.

“And so, most venerable Katerina Petrovna,” he said, placing his hands on his knees and looking into her eyes, “it pleases you to bring me to my knees, that is, to my senses. Perhaps with your acumen in the area of dowries you’ve found me a bride?”

“A bride? No. But I am depriving you of the means of making a fool of yourself. Vous savez, je marie Mademoiselle Olga.”17 “Is that so?” Ovcharov replied indifferently.

“Ah, Dieu merci:18 you are not completely infatuated!”

She squeezed his hand.

“I feel that I’m performing two good deeds in one. In general, these country girls should be married as quickly as possible. The mother is stupid, there are temptations close at hand, they are constantly going into town; jugez, que peut-on attendre?19 Thank goodness I’m here to intervene. But it’s simply awful how little thanks I get. Can you imagine? I took them under my wing, performed all sorts of kindnesses for these small-time landowners—but we had some monetary dealings and now all they can think about are those cursed dealings! These people don’t understand, don’t appreciate payment in moral currency. They don’t want to see that I’m leading them away from the path of immorality . . . Immorality! Mais je vous dirai—je ne déteste rien autant que la dépravation!”20 16. French: Bias.

17. French: You know, I am arranging Mademoiselle Olga’s marriage.

18. French: Thank God. 19. French: Judge for yourself, what might one expect?

20. French: But I will tell you—there’s nothing I hate more than depravity.

Katerina Petrovna thumped her fist against her chest.

“Well, who does like it, depravity?” Ovcharov replied, smiling.

“Well, yes. Et j’y ai mis bon ordre.21 Olga Nikolayevna will be getting married.”

“And who is her husband-to-be?”

“You really don’t know? She didn’t tell you? Simon.”

“Your Simon?” Ovcharov nearly yelled.

But he did not quite get the words out. The blood rushed to Katerina Petrovna’s face.

“Simon has wanted to marry for some time,” she began and then stopped, picking up her handkerchief and blowing her nose, which did nothing to restore her complexion. “He asked me to find him a bride. Olga Nikolayevna is extremely fortunate. Simon c’est l’étoffe dont on fait les bons maris. . . .”22 “She will probably be very happy; you know him so well,” Ovcharov remarked.

“Yes,” said Katerina Petrovna and suddenly, for no apparent reason, she pulled a pincushion from her sewing box. They remained silent for a minute.

“He’s so devoted, so beholden to you,” Ovcharov commented.

Katerina Petrovna picked up the scissors.

Ovcharov also looked at the scissors. He thought what a misfortune it was, in general, to lose, all of a sudden and for no good reason, one’s contenance.23 Katerina Petrovna remained silent.

21. French: And I have put things in good order.

22. French: Simon is the stuff of which good husbands are made.

23. French: Composure.

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Ovcharov looked at her.

“And you aren’t afraid that he’ll stop loving you once he’s married?” he asked, suddenly decisive.

“What do you mean, stop loving me?”

Ovcharov looked at her again, and everything became clear to him, crystal clear. The many years spent nourishing his perspicacity with the juices of gossip had taught him a thing or two. This nourishment had served him well: he had made a discovery. He had discovered something that, perhaps, no one else among Katerina Petrovna’s intimates knew, and he secretly rejoiced at his find.

Right then, the entire picture unwound smoothly before him, like a colorful ribbon from a spool: the subtle interactions noticed by an elderly relation, the fear of this relation’s tongue, the sort of fear that so often leads to the sacrifice of life’s most cherished delights, forcing an act of selflessness that winds up benefitting another; the young man, himself, indulgently allowed into a relationship yet foolishly, ungratefully, champing at the bit. And then, perhaps, a safe way to elude the perspicacity of others, and one full of advantages and propriety: a cherished youth is provided for and young male experience is joined with a sizable female dowry, all with a grand gesture of blessing by virtuous old age.

“Very clever,” thought Ovcharov, and it all struck him as terribly funny. “But still, can it really be true?” he was on the verge of thinking as he sought out Simon in the distance and glanced at Katerina Petrovna. She was adjusting her blackened hair. “Après tout, l’on prend ce que l’on peut,”24 he concluded to himself, thinking in French out of politeness.

24. French: After all, one takes what one can get.

“Simon is so unselfish, he hasn’t even asked about the dowry,” Katerina Petrovna did finally continue. The pincushion and scissors moved this way and that in her hands. “But that Olga Nikolayevna . . .

Lord only knows . . .”

“No,” thought Ovcharov, “it’s time to be magnanimous,” and he abruptly changed the subject.

“Olga Nikolayevna—of course her upbringing, her surroundings, the household squabbles—all of that is bad for character. The presence of that Anna Ilinishna alone is enough . . .”

“Yes,” Katerina Petrovna exclaimed, suddenly animated. “I wanted to ask you, mon cher Ovcharov, to counsel them. The servants told me all about it. C’est une infamie.25 How dare they treat her that way!”

“Who? Anna Ilinishna? Does she really deserve a good word?

Ridiculous woman! The last of the salon shrews!”

“Be that as it may,” Katerina Petrovna replied, “provincial ignoramuses mustn’t dare to judge her in those terms. We may, but they may not. Otherwise we lose our standing, mon cher Ovcharov. Anna Ilinishna was admitted into our circle; the old princess took her in and treated her like one of the family. And suddenly some Nastasya Ivanovna is walking all over her! Can that really be allowed? It would be the downfall of society.”

Katerina Petrovna was worked up.

“But what can we hold it up with if it’s falling?” Ovcharov asked, smiling.

“With our dignity, naturally. We’re too quick to equate ourselves with that pauvreté campagnarde. They should know their place. Moi, je fermerai ma porte to Anna Ilinishna because of the trouble she’s 25. French: It’s a disgrace.

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caused. Princess Maria Sergeyevna kicked her out and she was right: Anna Ilinishna, whom the princess entrusted with everything, acted so gauchely, with such a lack of discretion . . . Vous connaissez donc cette pauvre princesse . . . elle est si légère! Well, and then Anna Ilinishna decided to settle accounts with her . . . Il est possible que la princesse lui ait pris son argent. But after all, Anna Ilinishna has been using the princess to feather her own nest for so many years. She must have something set aside for a rainy day. I’ll say it again: ce sont nos griefs à nous.26 But for the likes of Nastasya Ivanovna, Anna Ilinishna should be sacred. They must respect her piety, her Christian humility.”

“You really believed in her, didn’t you, Katerina Petrovna?”

“Oh, how I believed!” she cried, thumping her chest. “If it wasn’t for those stories about her . . . But I’ll tell you that even now I’m somewhat of a believer. Il y a des contradictions dans cette femme: it’s such a shame. Cette double vue étonnante qu’elle possédait! 27 And her magnetic sleep!28 Do you remember how she was once able to see all of Moscow? Do you remember the predictions she made for Prince Peter Borisovich?”

And Katerina Petrovna began to recall these things. One Moscow story was followed by another, and yet another. This world was her element. There was no denying that it was also Ovcharov’s element, as evidenced by the discovery he had just made in it, but it seemed to him that she was telling too many tales. Furthermore the room 26. French: Rural poor; Me, I will close my door to; You know the poor princess . . . she is so scatterbrained!; It is possible that the princess took her money; these are our private concerns.

27. French: She is a woman of contradictions; This astonishing second sight that she possessed.

28. The idea of “magnetic sleep” is linked to the theories of Franz Mesmer (1734–1815).

Mesmer’s pupil Marquis de Puységur (1751–1825) promoted Mesmer’s theories about “animal magnetism” and demonstrated “magnetic sleep,” a hypnotic trance induced by a “magnetizer.”

During the mid- and late-nineteenth century, such explorations of the human psyche were popular among European elites.

was hot. He gazed out into the garden, answering her in monosyllables. Meanwhile, Katerina Petrovna had moved from gossip to her other favorite subject. She spoke of her husband’s absence and of his negligence toward the children’s estate and, finally, of her children’s upbringing. This went on endlessly. Ovcharov listened to her tell how she had changed governesses and tutors and how much genius, it turns out, was evident in George, but as he listened he was thinking about something else entirely.

“What a little scapegrace,” Ovcharov mused, looking into the garden where George, sprawled out on a bench, had been swinging his legs and singing couplets from a vaudeville number for an entire hour. Mademoiselle Annette was nowhere to be seen. Olenka was wandering alone off in the distance along the tree-lined alley.

Ovcharov had noticed that she spent exactly five minutes with her intended after leaving the terrace. The intended himself was sitting alone across from George, watching his legs swing and phlegmatically smoking a cigarette.

“It’s hot,” Ovcharov remarked, looking toward the alley and stepping out onto the terrace. “You seem to be putting in a rather nice flower bed there.”

“Oh, no! When would there be the time to think about flower beds avec tous ces changements!29 I’m economizing. Are you going into the garden?”

“Yes, I’ll take a little walk, with your permission.”

“Well, I’m staying in. Un catarrhe continuel.30 So long as you’re going, ask Olga Nikolayevna to come see me.”

29. French: With all these changes!

30. French: A continual catarrh.

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Olenka did not wait to be called. Seeing that Ovcharov was walking toward her, she turned down another alley and headed for the house.

Katerina Petrovna sat her down so the two were face-to-face.

Dispensing with any sort of preamble, she launched about twodozen reproaches at the girl that were, however, so full of wisdom, they should have been received with gratitude. She pointed to Olenka’s expensive and fashionable dress and her own inexpensive barege; brought up the girl’s negligent upbringing; commented on her lack of humility and even greater lack of respect for decent people and greater still lack of modesty, as evidenced by her arrival with Ovcharov; spoke bitterly of Nastasya Ivanovna’s sad inadequacies; and concluded by stating that it was time for Olenka to go to the altar.

In connection with this last point, much was said about the kindnesses shown by Katerina Petrovna herself.

Olenka kept silent. Her ears were burning. Had Katerina Petrovna for even an instant imagined that a country girl would dare look at her that way, the look on Olenka’s face would have gotten her thrown out of the house. But Katerina Petrovna considered herself above such looks. She was utterly certain that Olenka was embarrassed and would burst into tears at any moment. Olenka steeled herself.

“If it wasn’t for Mama . . .” she thought, tearing at the border of her canezou, “if it wouldn’t frighten and upset her, I would tell you a thing or two!” No argument or defense was even offered, not even on the subject of her match.

This pleased Katerina Petrovna. Considering the business of Simon almost settled, after an hour of edification she put her anger aside a little. She began to ask Olenka detailed questions about their

fruit harvest, complained about her own orchard’s lack of success, and asked that a pood of preserves be prepared for her.31 “And tell your mother,” Katerina Petrovna said in conclusion, “that Annette and George have little prospect of sweets all summer.

I will bring them to you when the berries ripen. It’s very beneficial for children. Ask your mother to . . .”

“Lord, when will we leave this place!” Olenka thought, and even lamented that Erast Sergeyevich was nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile, Ovcharov was passing his time in the company of the children and Simon. He had barely set foot outside before George grabbed him and led him to the garden’s edge and into a scraggy little forest (everything in this village was scraggy). There they found Mademoiselle Annette, who had been keeping out of sight. She was walking along a ditch bordering a grove. Upon seeing her brother and Ovcharov, she turned away. Her eyes were red from crying.

“Mademoiselle Annette, how proud you are,” Ovcharov commented, extending his arms toward her. “You seem to be avoiding me. It’s been so long since we’ve seen one another. What is this—red eyes?”

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” she said, turning away. Ovcharov took hold of her.

“I’ll tell him,” George exclaimed, “and I’ll tell why you’ve been hiding!”

“Don’t you dare,” his sister cried.

“She’s envious that Olga Nikolayevna is well dressed. I know all about it. It’s not the first time. You don’t know what she’s like, Erast Sergeyich. What an envious one she is!”

31. A pood is a unit of weight used in Russia until 1924 equaling approximately 36 pounds.

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“Leave me alone!”

“And Mama is stingy, anyone can see that. Oh, Syomka is coming.

Watch what you say in front of him, please. He’ll tell it all to Mama.”

“Why do you need a fine dress, Mademoiselle Annette?” Ovcharov tried to comfort her. “After all, you’re still little.”

“I’m little! That’s how Mama would have it, so that people think that I’m a five-year-old,” she said, close to bursting into tears. “I can just imagine what kinds of wonders she told you about me, about all my successes, and my classes—it makes me sick. Just you wait, she’ll call me while you’re here; she’ll sit me on the floor in front of her so she can stroke my hair, oh so tenderly . . . I think you’ve seen her do it! What an unfortunate creature I am!”

“Goodness, what tantrums! Enough. Children are stood in the corner for such behavior. Enough. Oh, if only I was such a five-yearold, how much fun I would have! I would get my hair stroked!”

Annette extracted her arm from his.

“You don’t talk that way with your Olga Nikolayevna!” she exclaimed. “Go flirt with her.”

“Who told you that I flirt with her? I never talk with her.”

“No, you talk with her, and you’re ashamed to admit it. She’s mauvais genre. Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Isn’t she mauvais genre?”32 “No,” Ovcharov replied, somewhat embarrassed. “Olga Nikolayevna is a wonderful young lady, but, of course, she’s not from respectable society.”

32. French: A bad sort, not a person of quality or proper manners. In 1864, the year after City Folk and Country Folk came out, Khvoshchinskaya published a satirical essay titled “Provincial ‘bon-genre’ and ‘mauvais genre,’ ” a sympathetic exploration of the plight of ordinary provincials striving to emulate literary models and the mores of aristocratic and intellectual elites.

“Enough of her, Erast Sergeyich,” George said, tugging at his sleeve. “Why waste time on a crybaby? Let’s go have some fun with Syomka.”

Semyon Ivanovich was indeed approaching.

“I tell you, I can’t stand that man.”

“Why is that, my boy?”

“I don’t know. He’s a lummox. And he always gets grand ideas about himself. Well, Semyon Ivanich, here I come,” George announced before throwing himself at Simon with full force.

“I don’t know how to fight, I really don’t. Let me go, Yegor Petrovich,” Simon sputtered, almost falling.

“Let him go,” Ovcharov urged.

“If that’s what you want, then I’ll wrestle with you,” the boy responded.

“Oh, no, no. Please don’t touch me. I’ve got chest pains.”

Ovcharov’s face expressed horror. “Let go of Semyon Ivanich. I want to take a closer look at your lummox,” he whispered to the boy in a tone that seemed to express gratitude, probably for the fact that he was not the one roughed up.

“Semyon Ivanich, what kind of a position are you hoping to arrange? Let’s have a talk.” He drew him aside. They both sat down with their legs dangling in the ditch. Semyon Ivanovich was still panting from George’s assault. After lighting up a cigarette, he began to catch his breath.

“He always gets the better of me, Yegor Petrovich,” he said, smiling. “I’m such a weakling, and sometimes he’ll spend the whole day having fun with me like that. But he’s a fine boy. Katerina Petrovna has such splendid children. I’m extraordinarily fond of them.”

Ovcharov glanced at the vexed expression on his face.

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“But you’ll soon have to part with them. That’s a shame.”

“We won’t be parting anytime soon,” Semyon Ivanovich remarked inscrutably, and from that moment he became entirely scrutable to Erast Sergeyevich. “Katerina Petrovna intends, due to financial considerations, to settle in the country permanently. Summer and winter. Indefinitely.”

“But that’s excellent! You’ll be able to see her often. And in addition you’ll continue to benefit from her ongoing protection.”

“That is, of course, the way it is: protection. It’s true that I have another position in mind, but what can I do? We are little people, Erast Sergeyich, no matter what we do—we can’t get on without protection.”

“Naturally,” Ovcharov agreed, “a person without means cannot disdain to accept any advantages, or to sacrifice one advantage for another. Furthermore, your salary at the treasury office will be fairly modest, but it’s an honest income . . .”

And Ovcharov began to hold forth about this income. Having satisfied himself on the points of interest to him in Semyon Ivanovich’s affairs, he turned to a more serious question—to the question of society: the glaring need for various reforms, the critical state of the nation’s finances, and his own writings on this subject.

Just then, a footman appeared with an invitation to tea.

“How ungracious of you to abandon me,” Katerina Petrovna greeted them. “Une tasse de thé.”33 “I’m not able, thank you,” Ovcharov replied, glancing at the liquid the footman held before him on a tray. “And moreover . . .”

33. French: A cup of tea.

He pulled out his watch. Olenka hurriedly retrieved her gloves from her pocket.

“Then perhaps you’d care for du laitage.”34 Katerina Petrovna gestured toward her table, on which some items were arranged.

“I’m not much of a lover of delicacies, but in the country I do indulge. Please have some.”

George and Annette had long since begun helping themselves to the laitage.

“I’m not able,” Ovcharov repeated, as Simon placed a small spoonful of some bluish-whitish substance in a saucer and began crunching audibly on a piece of zwieback. “And in any event, it’s time to be off.”

“Comment, vous me quittez?35 No, have a seat.”

Katerina Petrovna squeezed his hand. “And I had forgotten: I have a favor to pass on to you.”

“How can I be of service?” Ovcharov asked absentmindedly as he watched Simon withdraw into the adjoining room with his saucer and Olenka wander out onto the terrace.

“Countess Yevpraksia Mikhailovna has written to me. She knows that we are neighbors and has asked me to tell you . . . but the poor countess, perhaps, doesn’t suspect that you can no longer be counted on . . . Après tout, vous êtes devenu un étourdi de la première sorte . . .36 I looked into your briefcase at Mademoiselle Olga’s. The things I saw there!”

34. French: Some dairy products.

35. French: What, are you leaving me?

36. French: After all, you have become a first-class blunderer.

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“What do you mean, I can’t be counted on? To do what?” Ovcharov asked, again pulling out his watch.

“What about her booklets for peasant reading? You promised her articles.”

“Oh, yes!” Ovcharov perked up. “Who said that I had forgotten?

Please write to the countess . . . I will write to her myself . . . I had a great deal of work. But I have many, many items ready for her; I just have to put them in order, to go through it. Come now! What do you mean, étourderies?37 This is a matter of the utmost importance!”

“So, you are not beyond hope? I will relay the good news. Cette chère femme!38 She and her society have gone to so much trouble, they have made so many sacrifices for that people of ours! I admit to you that I don’t involve myself in that sort of thing. Of course, I would only have to say the word, and they would invite me to take part. You can call me a bit backward if you like: je trouve que ce n’est pas là la vocation de la femme.39 Our domain is the family hearth.”

Ovcharov looked over at the terrace. Olenka was coming inside.

“And finally,” Katerina Petrovna continued, “je vais vous dire ma plus intime pensée.40 Our aristocracy is too selfless. We will teach them, and what will come of it? Horrors!”

“Nothing will happen,” Ovcharov replied.

“You’re not afraid? No, I admit to you that every day, I get up in the morning and go to bed at night . . .”

“And all in vain. I can say with certainty that nothing will happen.”

“How can you know that?”

37. French: Blunders.

38. French: That dear woman.

39. French: I find that this is not the vocation for a woman.

40. French: I’ll tell you my innermost thought.

“All you need to do is look at the order of things. It’s perfectly clear, like two times two. Someday I’ll explain it all to you.”

“Oh, if you would set my mind at ease, for the love of God. Simon, for example, cannot explain . . .”

At that very moment, Simon walked up.

“Simon, what were you telling me yesterday about house serfs?”

“It’s time to go, Erast Sergeyich,” Olenka said, taking advantage of the fact that Katerina Petrovna’s attention had been diverted. Ovcharov quickly rose.

“One moment, Olga Nikolayevna,” he said, approaching her and whispering, “How tiresome for you! And what an awful young man!”

“I have no wish to talk to you,” Olenka replied. “Let’s go.”

Ovcharov flushed and took his hat.

“Farewell, Katerina Petrovna,” he said. “It’s late and my horses are not accustomed to one another.”

Katerina Petrovna threw up her hands.

“Well, there’s no talking you out of it! But I hope it won’t be for long. Although, here . . . Un instant, mon cher . . .” She took him by the arm and led him to the entryway.

“Please, have a talk with your landlady . . . Je vois heureusement que vous n’êtes pas loin dans vos amabilités.41 After all, they should rejoice at a match like this. I hope the old woman won’t allow herself to be stubborn. See if you can speed things along.”

“We’ll see. Fine,” Ovcharov replied.

Olenka had her hat on as she came up to them. Ovcharov bowed and had already stepped out onto the front steps and was walking toward the horses.

41. French: I am glad to see that your flirtation hasn’t gone too far.

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“Good-bye, Katerina Petrovna,” Olenka said, still inside.

Katerina Petrovna gasped.

“You wish to go? Mais vous n’avez pas votre raison, ma chère. At night, the two of you, mais cela n’a pas de nom!”42 “What am I to do?” Olenka asked, crimson both from these words and in anguish at the thought of having to stay there.

“It’s very simple. I won’t let you go.”

“I didn’t bring anything, Katerina Petrovna. It didn’t occur to me.”

But Olenka could see that she was not in a position to argue. She wanted to cry, but held herself in check.

“You will stay, eh bien. On vous donnera du linge et quelque capote d’Annette.43 And Sunday . . . yes, Tuesday, Wednesday, so, Sunday, that’s the Saint’s Day for your village church?”

“Yes.” “I was planning on attending your mass that day and can take you myself. Man! Man, tell Erast Sergeyich that Olga Nikolayevna will not be going with him.”

Ovcharov was standing by the carriage when he was given this news.

“She’s not coming?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you sure?” he asked the servant.

“She’s not coming,” the answer remained the same.

Ovcharov thought for a moment, looked once more at the door, climbed into the carriage and set out.

42. French: But you’ve lost your mind, my dear; That would be unthinkable!

43. French: Fine. We’ll give you some linen and one of Annette’s cloaks.

16

H

e was furious.

“So, the little minx managed to tell on me, did she?” he mused. “Anyone can feign injured innocence. I’d wager she’s capable of throwing herself at the first fellow who comes her way! Just you wait—you think very highly of yourself, my little dove.

No, no, it’s our fault. We are too kind; we’ve imbibed too much of this spirit of democracy. We’re the ones who’ve lost our minds, getting the idea into our heads of treating you as equals. Well, these people, you have to admit they’re a force to be reckoned with. But to raise them up to our level, go out of our way for them, teach them some sense, shower them with attention, squander our affections on those rotten nobodies, half-gentry, half-bourgeoisie—smothering them would be more like it. We’re fools, selfless innocents. I just hope we set things right before it’s too late.”

Ovcharov frowned and impatiently pulled his panama down over his eyes. The horses were moving along at a good trot. The semidarkness of summer night covered the boundless space around him, shrouding land and sky alike. With the advance of night, a strong wind had begun to whip about, driving waves of dust at the carriage.

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Ovcharov unpacked the extra lap robe he kept for such occasions, wrapped it around his legs, and surveyed his surroundings.

“How revolting!” he muttered under his breath. “A fine little landscape and a fine people to go with it. Well, the peasant—he’s a law unto himself. But those others! What can we expect of them? Something new? Can you really expect anything new out of a place like this, where everything is second-rate—property, lineage, connections—a breeding ground for second-rate creatures? Mother Russia will be in fine shape when that sort of society is in charge!

“But will that ever really come to pass? What nonsense! Have we really lost all reason? Are we so few in number? We just have to come to our senses and proudly put those petty creatures in their place once and for all. Let them bend at the waist when they bow to us, a nice deep bow, and we’ll extend them our hand. Then let them try to slight us from their majestic heights.”

Ovcharov even cast a glance at the seat beside him, he so wanted to see Olenka sitting there.

Had she been there, he did not know whether he would have given her a good talking to or showered her with kisses. The farther he traveled—the clearer it became that Olenka would not be coming, would not take a seat next to him—the worse he felt.

Several times, he ripped his panama from his head and put it back on. Several times, he reached out to test the empty place by his side. He took his anger out on his gloves until little but shreds remained.

“Dunderhead!” he yelled at the coachman, jumping up and tossing aside what was left of his gloves. “You’ll break my neck!”

The road was smooth. The coachman was innocent. This was the state in which Ovcharov arrived home long after midnight.

Nastasya Ivanovna had been expecting Olenka since evening.

She heard the carriage, but it had gone past, straight to the bathhouse, and then on to Beryozovka. Ovcharov did not send word. He quickly prepared for bed and lay down to sleep without asking his valet to relay any message in the morning.

All night Ovcharov was tormented by visions of a tulle canezou.

By the time he got up in the morning, he was even angrier, but his anger was calmer, better befitting a person of breeding, especially one afflicted with poor health.

Nastasya Ivanovna also did not sleep. “Olenka must have fallen ill,” she thought and, having received no satisfactory answer from the servant who came for whey in the morning, ran down to the bathhouse. Ovcharov had gone out for a walk.

“Stay and keep watch for him, Aksinya Mikhailovna,” Nastasya Ivanovna beseeched. She was being called away to deal with household matters.

After about two hours, Ovcharov returned. The morning had refreshed him, but his eyes were gloomy. The raised collar of his coat gave him an almost menacing look.

“What do you want, my good woman?” he asked Aksinya Mikhailovna upon finding her classically poised in front of his impervious threshold.

“The mistress sent me—she’s worried that the young lady may, perchance, have taken ill.”

“Don’t worry: your young lady is in good health,” Ovcharov interrupted her, unceremoniously pushing the old woman aside and inserting his key into the lock. “She chose to remain at Katerina Petrovna’s. Have no fear, your child is alive and well,” he muttered as he stepped inside. “Hey, good woman! What’s your . . .”

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But the “good woman” was already racing up the path at full speed.

“Tell your mistress that I’ll be coming to see her myself in a moment,” Ovcharov called after her. “The child! Quite a high opinion of themselves children have these days. And who is she, after all?

Some miserable girl barely good enough for the likes of Simon!”

Ovcharov put away the book he had taken on his walk and again stepped down off the porch.

“Well, and let her marry him; it would be the best thing for her, with Mama’s blessings and the rejoicing of the populace. Let her have children and grow fat, living a life of ease here in the middle of nowhere and losing any trace of intellect she may have had! No person of substance will come near her. Let her marry her Simon, and an excellent thing it will be!”

Ovcharov took a moment to picture his conversation with Katerina Petrovna the day before. He then recalled his brilliant insight.

Suddenly, he broke out laughing. Sometimes a matter of hours is enough to cast human thoughts in a completely different light.

“How could anyone imagine the sort of nonsense I came up with yesterday?” he asked himself as he approached Nastasya Ivanovna’s front door. “And on what grounds? Is there the slightest trace of plausibility there? That’s what it means to lose one’s wits, or, more to the point, to become morally corrupted amid shiftlessness. Oh, my poor, unfortunate Katerina Petrovna! May her aged modesty find me worthy of forgiveness!”

“Good day to you, dear Erast Sergeyich,” he heard as he approached.

“Good day to you, Nastasya Ivanovna,” he replied dryly.

Nastasya Ivanovna was sad. Olenka’s absence, the total silence that reigned in the house (there were no signs of life from the

recluse)—everything cast a particular shadow over the landowner’s face. Furthermore, the purpose of Olenka’s trip had occasioned deep contemplation. Her only child, her seventeen-year-old daughter, the prospective match, her own approaching old age—what mother would not give in to the sorts of thoughts that had overcome Nastasya Ivanovna under these circumstances? It is such a simple matter, yet at the same time so complex that loving mothers from the beginning of time have been turning it over in their heads in almost the same way, crying the same vague tears. How could she part with her?

But she can’t be an old maid . . . What kind of a fellow would he turn out to be? They all seem fine before the wedding—and so on, and so forth. Any mother could fill volumes with the thoughts that keep her awake nights, bowing before the icons over and over, until . . . until one fine day the whole matter is decided before any decision has completely ripened in her mind.

“I have a certain matter to discuss with you,” Ovcharov began.

“What is it, my dear man?”

There was something odd in his manner. Nastasya Ivanovna hurriedly sat him down on the couch and positioned herself so close to him that Ovcharov recoiled. Her hands began to shake.

“What is it?” she repeated.

“Katerina Petrovna has asked me . . . although, actually, I will also speak for myself,” Ovcharov said, studying his fingernails and frowning. “Katerina Petrovna is proposing a match for your daughter.”

“She told you that?” Nastasya Ivanovna felt somewhat annoyed.

“It’s not really appropriate, the matter is still up in the air. But, be that as it may, you are fond of my Olenka. So be it. What else did Katerina Petrovna want?”

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“Well, the most important point is for you to finally decide.”

Nastasya Ivanovna was silent.

“You should decide. After all, what reason is there to drag it out? Semyon Ivanich is here, I saw him yesterday. It turns out that I’ve known him for some time. He’s a respectable fellow. He will be a deferential son-in-law, a diligent landowner, not a spendthrift.

Furthermore, Olga Nikolayevna is not the sort of woman who will allow herself to be ruled over. In a word, I see no reason for any objections on your part.”

“Did Olenka say anything to you?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked.

“No, nothing. Well?”

“If Olenka hasn’t decided, what sort of decision can I make?”

“There is a great deal you can decide,” Ovcharov replied, somewhat haughtily.

“What, my dear man? I don’t see . . . My head is in a whirl with all these problems! You advise me, you are smarter.”

“I thank you, but no great wisdom is required here. Command your daughter to give up her obstinacy, if she should decide to be obstinate.”

“Command her—how can I?” Nastasya Ivanovna replied, shaking her head even as she smiled at her guest. “May God preserve us!

I’ve known mothers to force their daughters, and then . . .”

“Is commanding really the same as forcing?” Ovcharov began to argue, but then thought better of it. “Well, yes, commanding. When it is for her own good, even if she doesn’t realize it? The exercise of maternal authority, I believe, is nothing to shrink from.”

Nastasya Ivanovna shook her head, deep in thought.

“If we do a poor job of preparing our children for life, if their heads are filled with nonsense, and we, out of weakness, out of

shortsightedness . . . Well then there’s nothing left but to take them forcibly in hand.”

Ovcharov’s tone was angry. Nastasya Ivanovna was thinking. At first she felt terribly hurt, then she concluded there must be some misunderstanding, and finally she was even struck by the idea that the entire situation was somehow comical.

“Erast Sergeyich,” she said confidentially, taking him by the sleeve.

“Don’t be angry with me, my dear.”

“What is it?”

“I just don’t see much of anything in this marriage for Olenka.”

“Do you have many other prospects in mind for your daughter?”

Ovcharov asked after a moment’s silence.

“None whatsoever, Erast Sergeyich,” she replied, perplexed.

“Is Olga Nikolayevna in love with anyone else? Hopelessly in love, that is, so that it might prevent her from considering another?”

“No, of course not.”

“Fine. Is there any hope of her deciding on another choice anytime soon? No. Do you feel that you will ever be able to count on yourself to wisely choose a husband for her? No?” There was no mistaking the fact that these questions were beginning to sound like an interrogation. Nastasya Ivanovna felt annoyance welling up inside her, annoyance she could not explain. She wanted to respond, but waited. The idea of being angry with Erast Sergeyevich saddened her.

“I can’t see what the future will bring, my dear Erast Sergeyich,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “Whatever the Lord has in store for us will come to pass.”

“Superb!” he muttered through his teeth.

“What is it?”

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“Nothing.”

“What is it?” she repeated after a minute.

“I’m surprised at you. You must excuse me,” he said, finally, slightly shrugging his shoulders. “I thought you had more sense than that. How can it be that at your age . . . How can you take such an easygoing view of the future—no preparing, no thinking, come what may?”

“So, what should I do, Erast Sergeyich?”

“I think you should listen to intelligent people. It is better to let others do your thinking for you than to be stubborn. You cannot count on yourself, or on your daughter either, so it’s better to let others take charge. Katerina Petrovna has offered to play the role of matchmaker. She’s being exceptionally kind, and I believe that this matchmaking is motivated by nothing beyond a desire to do you a good turn.”

Nastasya Ivanovna smiled. Ovcharov noticed that smile.

“It is your lack of trust in people—you will excuse me, please— in your betters, that is at the root of the trouble,” he pronounced sharply and didactically. “I’m being truthful, Nastasya Ivanovna, which is more than most people would do. Your lack of trust—you will excuse me—looks very much like envy. There’s no way around it—it’s a shortcoming of your caste. And I will conclude by saying that your Olga Nikolayevna is quite infected with this shortcoming.

Harmful spoiling: that’s what we have here, Nastasya Ivanovna. I am surprised at Katerina Petrovna! The way Olga Nikolayevna looks at her . . . I would advise you to do something about that.”

Nastasya Ivanovna remained silent. Although she kept her plump arms, folded at the waist, perfectly still, they rose and fell with her heavy breathing.

Ovcharov smoothed his hair and leaned against the back of the couch. Neither made a sound. Through the window, chickens pecked and scratched as usual. Ovcharov made a face and sighed.

It was as if the light coming through the window, the chickens outside, and his entire surroundings filled him with nervous irritation.

Nastasya Ivanovna did not say a word. Ovcharov also did not speak.

Finally, he yawned slightly and rose.

“Farewell, Nastasya Ivanovna,” he said, “I’m not in the habit of interfering in family affairs, but in this case I considered it my duty.”

“Farewell, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna murmured, rising with difficulty.

She escorted him out onto the steps. Ovcharov walked away thinking he had rarely seen such dimwittedness and lack of tact.

After coming back inside, Nastasya Ivanovna resumed her place on the couch. Soon, she began to cry. She was not a woman to take offense, but now her feelings were truly hurt. Erast Sergeyevich had taken her completely by surprise. She had not expected this from him of all people, such a smart man and one she loved with all her heart.

He had grievously offended her. He may have long considered her a fool, but envious? That made no sense whatsoever! And Olenka! It had never occurred to them to envy the more distinguished nobles!

Let them do as they please—may they prosper, since they were born smarter. But we don’t have to accept whatever husband it pleases them to send our way out of charity; we’re allowed our own say in the matter!

The tears continued to flow. Nastasya Ivanovna was heartbroken.

Discord had overtaken her home. “What a bad patch I’m in,” she thought. “Never, in all my days, has anything like this ever happened.

I think I’m doing everything right, but it turns out it’s all wrong.

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I suppose I really am an old fool! Erast Sergeyich will probably leave me now. After everything he said, how could he live under a roof like mine? He’ll probably send the accounts to be settled today.”

Nastasya Ivanovna watched expectantly all day for the valet to bring the accounts, but closer at hand she had another source of torment that was almost unbearable without Olenka by her side. She could hear Anna Ilinishna moving about, talking with Palashka— the only person with whom she deigned to interact after the perfidy of the other servants. With each meal, her guest loudly announced through the door that she would pay Nastasya Ivanovna for everything in full. Nastasya Ivanovna always rushed to the door protesting, but her protests were in vain. At night, after Nastasya Ivanovna was in bed, Anna Ilinishna would go out into the yard for a bit of fresh air. Just when this life seemed to be on the verge of becoming routine, evidence to the contrary emerged, much to Nastasya Ivanovna’s surprise and joy.

Toward evening of the second day without Olenka, Aksinya Mikhailovna crept quietly into her mistress’s room. Her expression was stern and seemed to promise some important revelation.

“Ma’am, it appears that Anna Ilinishna wants to come out,” she announced, but so quietly that Nastasya Ivanovna did not believe her ears and asked twice for this news to be repeated.

“Can it really be, Aksinya Mikhailovna?” she exclaimed.

“So it seems. On Sunday, for mass. She ordered Palashka to prepare her dress. That’s how she said it, ‘Get it ready for me for mass.’ ” “Oh, Lord in heaven, bring her to her senses!” Nastasya Ivanovna cried out, crossing herself.

“It may be a bit soon to rejoice, Ma’am.”

“There’s something else?”

“Well, Lord only knows . . . There was something funny in her voice. She’s got something up her sleeve.”

“What do you mean, something funny in her voice?”

“That’s how it was, sort of spoken to the side, with a sneer and a grin. Even the girl found it odd. And she gave orders that you were not to know, that it should all be hushed up. But that girl—she went and told us all anyway.”

“That little fool’s just seeing things! Cousin simply wants to make peace.”

“Well, as you will, Ma’am. But she’s up to something. She also asked whether many of the parish landowners come to mass, or any of your acquaintances from town.”

“And?” “And Palashka told her that plenty of them come.”

“This time I’m not expecting anyone from town and I’m not urging anyone to come, not even Cousin Pavel Yefimich,” Nastasya Ivanovna remarked. “What kind of tales is she telling? And what did Cousin say?”

“Anna Ilinishna took back the dress and got out another, not as nice, the dyed black one she wears on weekdays.”

“But said to prepare it?”

“That’s what she said.”

Nastasya Ivanovna grew pensive.

“Think what you will, Ma’am.”

“There’s nothing to think!” Nastasya Ivanovna replied calmly, although her initial elation had vanished for some reason. “Cousin is a very modest woman; perhaps she doesn’t want to stand out in public, at the pulpit . . . and in the country there’s really no need to dress up.

Even if people see her, nobody holds it against old women like us.”

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Having come to this understanding of the matter, Nastasya Ivanovna cheered up. From that moment forward she was able to think clearly again. She and Aksinya Mikhailovna turned to planning for the holiday and the visitors it might bring, a possibility she had almost forgotten amid her troubles. Having deduced on her own (since Ovcharov had offered no information on the matter) that Olenka would be coming to mass with Katerina Petrovna, she was no longer preoccupied by that question—they would be reunited soon enough. And then, once Cousin has said her prayers—may the Lord guide her!—she will start coming out into the parlor. Finally some semblance of normalcy would be restored.

Nastasya Ivanovna was suddenly overcome by such a longing for that normalcy that she approached the locked door with the intention of giving away everything that Aksinya Mikhailovna had confided in her. But then she thought better of it.

“It would probably just annoy her,” she decided. “I’ll be patient. It won’t be long now.”

That night Nastasya Ivanovna slept very little. A good night’s sleep was impossible; she was too upset about Erast Sergeyevich.

Erast Sergeyevich, meanwhile, had no idea that he was a source of grief. As a man with a sophisticated understanding of things, he believed that differences of conviction should in no way prevent him from consuming whey chez Madame and Mademoiselle Chulkova so long as he paid for it. He took his walks and his swims and in between wrote articles for the people. His mood was foul. The peasants at Beryozovka were still causing him trouble. They stubbornly resisted accepting his conditions, and, what was worse, refused to understand what he was saying. He was beside himself. The same evening that Nastasya Ivanovna regained a measure of calm,

Ovcharov seized his pen and started composing an article, which began as follows: We have spoiled the people—do not praise them. No, the people are beyond redemption. Do not try to teach them; they don’t deserve it. And they won’t learn a thing. You have to stand face-to-face with them, as I am standing, in order to understand the enormity of the sacrifice we are making, and once you understand, you’ll send all our noble undertakings to the devil.

But the article progressed no further. Ovcharov thought that, although it would pass the censors, it did not reflect the way those in charge of our journals converse among themselves. He tore up what he had written and went to bed.

He did not sleep well. Foolish thoughts overcame him. Ovcharov grew angry at the very fact that he was having foolish thoughts, and at that point sleep abandoned him entirely. Some of the thoughts entering his head involved the most trivial matters—for instance, matters like Nastasya Ivanovna. Nastasya Ivanovna apparently had her own opinion. Nastasya Ivanovna had not been sufficiently influenced by his opinion. She had been frightened, but this sort of influence is not sufficient. Could it really be that even here intense effort was required, and whose? His, Ovcharov’s.

In the morning, to the utter astonishment of his valet, he twice asked whether Olga Nikolayevna had returned.

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arly Sunday morning Olenka rode home with Katerina Petrovna.

Having taken up all the space in the carriage and squeezed her traveling companion into a corner, Katerina Petrovna was dozing. Her head was resting on Olenka’s shoulder, forcing her to sit perfectly still. Olenka could not sleep. She was uncomfortable.

Furthermore, she was bored.

Olenka was returning home in a difficult predicament and full of self-reproach. She was surprised at herself for handling her own affairs so foolishly, affairs that she—so brave, so decisive—had imagined she would settle as she saw fit and in one fell swoop.

The problem was that Katerina Petrovna was now going to see her mother believing that her betrothal to Simon was an immutable fact, notwithstanding the want of a single word on Olenka’s part to suggest that immutability. During the four days spent in Katerina Petrovna’s village, the word “marriage” was never uttered, but everything said seemed to presume that a marriage would take place. Katerina Petrovna was the one doing the talking, not Olenka. Olenka, however, had raised no objections. Having raised no objections on the

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day of her arrival with Ovcharov, she could not figure out how to raise them during the rest of her stay.

“That insufferable mother of mine,” she decided once in a fit of rage against herself. “It would be better if I didn’t love her! If it weren’t for that, I’d nip this in the bud. I don’t want to, and that’s that. Let Katerina Petrovna marry Simon herself! But no, I’d better be careful not to make trouble for Mama when she’s not around.”

Olenka did not want to admit that she herself was feeling rather cowardly. At the age of seventeen, no matter how brave or even defiant a girl of the rural nobility might be, it is not easy to do battle tête-à-tête with an aged and distinguished lady when that lady has gotten a notion firmly lodged in her head. Olenka also did not want to admit that once she was no longer tête-à-tête with Katerina Petrovna and instead under the wing of her own dear mother, she would be a great deal braver.

The time she spent in the village was both tedious and ludicrous.

She hardly saw her hosts. Mademoiselle Annette and George sometimes disappeared from morning to dusk. To improve their frail health, Katerina Petrovna granted them complete freedom. George spent the morning lying about his room, swinging his legs against the divan and singing French ditties. So much time was devoted to this activity that the heels of his boots came off. Having no other boots, he spent an entire day fighting with the valet over the repair of his heels and running all over the house with the shoe tree and awl. Toward evening, George would head for the stables or the peasant huts, licking his chops as he returned home. The servants would selflessly, albeit grudgingly, feed him from their own table, since Katerina Petrovna’s was rather meager. Mademoiselle Annette, after starting the day quarrelling with her brother and tinkling tunes from

her exercise book on the piano, would usually go out into the garden and head for the stream to fish. On occasion, she would try to start a conversation with Olenka, but her manner was so condescending that Olenka did not condescend to reply. Most of Mademoiselle Annette’s questions concerned the girls in town. Olenka intentionally described them as paragons of beauty, their frocks as paragons of fashion, and their deportment as the paragon of elegance. Piqued, Mademoiselle Annette would leave the house. Olenka also liked to go outside, taking her sewing somewhere into the tree-lined alley, where she would doze. Katerina Petrovna had ordered her to trim Annette’s pantalettes with broderie anglaise.1 Olenka cut a few slits in the buckram, completely out of proportion to the surrounding pattern, stitched them as poorly as possible, and waited for Katerina Petrovna to upbraid her. She thought that this might lead to an opportunity to quarrel with Katerina Petrovna over Simon.

No such opportunity presented itself for the simple reason that Olenka hardly ever saw either Katerina Petrovna or Simon. Morning tea was taken separately; Katerina Petrovna drank it in her room, with Simon. From there, muted conversation could be heard, at times with long pauses, as if the conversation was sluggish. Their discussions apparently included household matters, as the clicking of the abacus could be heard. Eventually Katerina Petrovna would emerge arm-in-arm with Simon and accept greetings from the children and Olenka, after which they all went their separate ways. Still arm-in-arm with Simon, Katerina Petrovna would then go out for a walk or to check on the workings of her estate. On one occasion, 1. French: English embroidery, a technique involving the use of eyelets to create elaborate, often floral, patterns, usually on white undergarments. It was extremely popular in midnineteenth-century Europe.

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a ramshackle old gig was taken out of the shed and fixed up, and in this cabriolet Katerina Petrovna and Simon rode out into the fields.

So passed the day until mealtime. Olenka counted and recounted the stripes on the parlor wallpaper and even learned to take books from the étagère of her own free will.

At mealtime the household livened up. The family was reunited and conversations were conducted. Katerina Petrovna turned her attention to the children. Apparently, in anticipation of this moment of the day, she specially prepared topics for conversation, a sort of game whereby words were offered up from which mother and children were supposed to weave moralistic adages and judicious answers. If Olenka had read our children’s magazines from fifty years ago, she would have seen come to life the pages in which some Mrs. Lidina converses with a bunch of Mashenkas and Vanichkas about the transient nature of this world. As it was, these conversations proceeded rather lethargically. Simon took no part in them.

He was silent and ate whatever fell to his share. Occasionally he would glance at Olenka, but calmly, like a man who has worked out a straightforward but profitable business transaction. From time to time he would exchange words with her about the summer heat or the delights of cold kvass.

Olenka regarded him with a mixture of amusement and pique.

“Is that ox in love with me,” she wondered, “or does he just want my fifty souls? Doesn’t he have a tongue of his own, offering me his heart and hand through his gracious patroness? When will he speak for himself? Do you, perhaps, think I’m so meek you can get me to the altar just like that?”

“Excellent kvass,” remarked Katerina Petrovna, listening in on the conversation. Her ears picked up everything going on around her.

The betrothed were sitting on either side of her. “And have you learned how to prepare it, Mademoiselle Olga?”

“No, I haven’t,” Olenka replied. In point of fact, her kvass was every bit as good as Aksinya Mikhailovna’s.

“That’s not good. You must learn. Simon loves kvass.”

“What’s that to me?” Olenka wanted to say, but kept quiet.

Another opportunity to “have it out” was missed that very afternoon. Katerina Petrovna was reading a book in her room.

Through her open door, she could see Simon silently walking back and forth, smoking a cigarette. Olenka was in a hurry to go out into the garden.

“Where is my Garibaldi hat?” she said, searching in every corner of the room. The hat was nowhere to be seen. George had made off with it, putting it on his head and setting out into the fields.

“Oh, goodness. Where is it?” she repeated.

“What seems to be the trouble, Olga Nikolayevna?” Simon asked, approaching her.

“My hat. Look for it, please.”

“I saw Yegor Petrovich with it.”

“Oh, take it from him, take it from him,” Olenka exclaimed in horror. “Since morning he’s been threatening to catch frogs in it!”

Simon made his way down the steps with Olenka running behind him. Katerina Petrovna looked out the window.

“Simon,” she called out.

Olenka turned around.

“Just a moment,” she responded.

“Simon,” Katerina Petrovna repeated. Simon, however, was far away. Olenka, after taking a few hundred steps under the baking sun, was hurrying back to the shade, trying to shield her head with City Folk and Country Folk

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her hand. An angry Katerina Petrovna was by now standing on the terrace.

“Where did you send Simon off to?”

“One moment. He’s just getting my hat.”

“But I need him. I have been calling . . .”

“He’ll be back any moment.”

“But I have been calling him for a while now. I need him. Ce n’est pas du tout poli, mademoiselle.2 You are taking him away for your trifles, when the lady of the house . . . You’ll have your chance, ma chère, to send him after your hats.”

“What do I need him for? You can have him!” Olenka wanted to say. But the warning about politesse and the majesty with which Katerina Petrovna conducted herself in her own apartments robbed her of her courage.

That evening there was a thunderstorm and the family read Journal des Demoiselles out loud. That is to say, Annette read.

George snored on the divan. Simon, not understanding French, left for the drawing room and read the 1849 edition of the provincial almanac.3 The next day even more opportunities presented themselves.

Toward evening, after spending the entire day sitting in her room with Simon, Katerina Petrovna was preparing to take a bath. Olenka encountered her hostess leaving her room with the maid and was overcome with the most ridiculous laughter. Katerina Petrovna was wearing a lace-trimmed, tight-fitting, yellowed housecoat and 2. French: This is hardly polite; young lady.

3. Beginning in the mid-1830s, many provinces of the Russian Empire published Pamiatnye knizhki (Memorial Notebooks) as references containing practical information and statistics, including about the local government, economy, nobility, agriculture, and weather patterns.

a round child’s mobcap, which was pulled tight over her ears. The distinguished noblewoman looked worse than Aksinya Mikhailovna.

Olenka imagined how lovely Katerina Petrovna would look if her hair dye started to run. This was all so funny to her that she cheered up. In this cheerful mood, looking around and seeing that she was alone except for Simon, who was walking along the garden path, she called to him.

“Semyon Ivanich! Come here.”

It was not that she was after any sort of declaration of love or confession of his feelings. She also had no desire to quarrel with him. She simply wanted to finally take a closer look at this fellow and have herself a bit of fun.

“Come here. Let’s run a bit. Let’s chase each other and see who can catch whom.”

“As you wish,” Simon replied eagerly.

She started running. Simon set out after her, his legs all a tangle, diligently panting, earnest, and crimson in the face, his arms flailing in his vain attempts to catch hold of her dress. Olenka just glanced back from time to time. “I’ll keep running, even if it kills me,” she told herself, tears of laughter cascading down her scarlet cheeks. She ran for an entire hour.

Suddenly she let out a cry and stopped short. A piece of broken glass had cut through her shoe.

“Come here, give me your hand,” she called. “I’ve hurt my foot.”

Simon came running, sat her down on the lawn, and bent down to inspect her shoe.

“You’d better take it off, Olga Nikolayevna,” he said.

“Oh no, go away, leave me be,” she said, suddenly pushing him away. “Leave me be.”

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She managed to remove the glass and, limping a little, made her way to the house. It had escaped her attention that for some time Katerina Petrovna had been observing her performance through the bedroom window, lifting a corner of the curtain that concealed her négligé bathing attire.

“Venez ici,4 Mademoiselle,” she said.

Olenka came.

“I want to give you a piece of advice,” Katerina Petrovna began, hiding the agitated expression on her face behind the mirror she was holding and a towel, which also served to muffle the irritation in her voice. “You are allowing Simon too early to . . . in a word, it simply isn’t done. Excessive tenderness, ma bien chère enfant5. . . excessive tenderness and flirtatiousness—this spoils them. Do not allow him to be so obliging yet. Later on it will lead to him becoming cold. Take a lesson in feminine wisdom from me.”

Katerina Petrovna started laughing.

“Allez,”6 she concluded, since she had dried herself with the towel all she could.

Olenka left the room. Katerina Petrovna put on her housedress.

Shortly thereafter Olenka heard Simon being summoned.

The door shut behind him. It was growing dark in the house.

Tired from running, Olenka sat down in an easy chair and started to doze. She woke to the sound of raised voices coming from behind the closed doors. Katerina Petrovna’s voice became increasingly distinct and louder, and her words came faster and faster. Olenka

4. French: Come here.

5. French: My very dear child.

6. French: Go.

stood up and went to the window. The open bedroom window was next to her own. An argument was clearly in progress.

Olenka was curious. She would have given a great deal to know what Katerina Petrovna was scolding Simon about. While she had no qualms about listening in, the words that reached her were, unfortunately, indistinct. Only from Katerina Petrovna’s tone was Olenka able to conclude that she was both asking for something and venting her anger, while Simon was merely angry. At one point she clearly heard, “You yourself know that your only choice is for me to get married,” and then, “It won’t be the same . . .” spoken by Katerina Petrovna, and finally, “I give you my word, exactly the same, but give me a little freedom,” pronounced by Simon.

Olenka listened no further. But something had struck her. Something seemed particularly vile to her. “The two of you can hang yourselves for all I care; I won’t even look at you!” she said, walking away.

The window closed.

That evening Katerina Petrovna came out into the parlor very late and was very gracious. Simon went upstairs, complaining about an aching tooth. The family gathered and read. The next day, early in the morning, Katerina Petrovna and Olenka set out for Snetki.

Sitting in the carriage and looking at her situation from all angles, Olenka pronounced herself “the stupidest of all stupid fools.”

“How could I let it go on like this, without saying a single word!

But today I’ll put an end to it! Nothing will stop me!”

As to Ovcharov, she had not given him a moment’s thought the entire four days.

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aterina Petrovna went straight to the church as soon as they arrived. The bells were already summoning the parishioners to mass. Olenka ran to the house to change her clothes. She came across her mother in the maid’s room. Dressed in colorful kanaous1 and surrounded by trays and plates with cheeses and sausages brought from town, Nastasya Ivanovna was putting on her cap. Aksinya Mikhailovna, in her holiday best, was fussing over some new teacups and spoons that had been unpacked from a chest for this occasion. In the kitchen, a giant meat pie was just about ready to come out of the oven.

“Greetings, my little friend,” Nastasya Ivanovna said as she kissed her daughter. “Say: praise the Lord!”

Nastasya Ivanovna relayed the news about Anna Ilinishna.

“It’s about time she came to her senses!” Olenka exclaimed.

“Now then, what about Katerina Petrovna? What about the young man? How have you settled the matter?”

1. Kanaous was a colorful, plain-woven textile produced in Central Asia in the nineteenth century.

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Nastasya Ivanovna was a bit flustered. She was given the balyk2 to cut as Palashka walked up with a parasol. The church bells had already stopped ringing.

“It’s not settled. I couldn’t.”

“But how can that be? Katerina Petrovna will surely bring it up today . . . Listen . . . I’m not sure our coffee’s any good. And what if Erast Sergeyich stops by? He doesn’t eat sausage.”

“He won’t stop by!” Olenka said.

“Why’s that?”

Nastasya Ivanovna stopped what she was doing.

“No reason. After all, he never visits us.”

“No, he was here while you were gone. But I don’t think he’ll be coming anymore.”

Now it was Olenka’s turn to pause and look at her mother. In a state of confusion, Nastasya Ivanovna was untying and retying her cap.

“He came . . . Well, we had a little talk. I think he’s angry with me.”

“What for?” Olenka asked, burning with curiosity. “No need to hurry so, we still have time.”

“The very next morning after he got back from Katerina Petrovna’s he came to see me. He talked about the match and went on about what a fine young man he is and so forth. Well, and he was trying to talk me into marrying you off to the fellow. And I said: What?

And force you, if you don’t want to? And we argued. And he lost his temper. And I’m so sad about it, Olya.”

Olenka was choking with anger. She had wanted to interrupt Nastasya Ivanovna several times, but held back.

2. Balyk is sturgeon that has been salted and dried.

“Fine,” was all she said. “Fine!”

Her face was scarlet.

“Fine, Erast Sergeyich! Invite him without fail, Mama. Do you hear? Without fail.”

“What’s wrong with you Olya?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me. Do you hear? Invite him. And don’t you dare not invite him . . . What are you standing there for?

The service has already begun.”

“And you?”

“I’ll be right there. Let me change my dress. My clothes are a mess,” Olenka replied. She then burst out laughing at the sight of her stupefied mother. “What are you looking so frightened about? Invite Erast Sergeyich, I tell you. I’m not going to hit him.”

And, laughing heartily, she ran up to her room.

The church was full, but there was not much of what is commonly referred to as “genteel society.” Father Porphyry’s entire flock was there, as were many members of a nearby parish whose church was being refurbished. The “ungenteel” society was as colorful as a field of poppies. Red cotton dresses, blue printed fabrics, colorful scarves, and the old women’s white kerchiefs covered every inch from the entrance to the pulpit. The crowd was quite spruced up. Ever since last year, that is, since emancipation, our peasant men, especially those living near towns, have become quite the dandies. The smell of new, freshly blacked boots, in which even some of the younger lads were stamping about, overwhelmed the smell of incense. The incense was excellent, specially scented—that’s the way Father Porphyry liked it at his holiday celebrations. He and the deep-voiced deacon who had been brought in for the occasion both wore beautiful chasubles—not bright, but of an exquisite pale blue color like City Folk and Country Folk

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a summer sky. Boys trained in church singing were warbling like nightingales, albeit quite off key. The weather was magnificent, the sun was shimmering, the church looked both solemn and festive, and the congregation was praying with fervor. Nastasya Ivanovna’s servants were standing behind their mistress, but at a respectful distance. There, in all her splendor, stood Palashka, her hair smoothed with pomade and enclosed in a tasseled hairnet given to her for her efforts by Anna Ilinishna. She wore a new pink chintz dress, a present from her mistress, and Olenka’s old crinoline. Olenka was standing near her mother. She had dressed hastily but in a way that might be described as “to the nines.” Never before had she looked so pretty, or so angry. Ovcharov was not there. Across from Olenka, by the righthand choir stall, Katerina Petrovna was kneeling on her own little rug and clutching a prayer book. Her footman stood behind his mistress holding her burnous. A newly arrived neighbor was also there, as were an elderly noblewoman, rather malicious looking, with her son, a retired officer who lost a leg in the Crimean campaign, her young daughter-in-law, and two unappealing grandchildren; a former district judge (who always spent the winter season in town among the female guardians of public morality), accompanied by his thirty-yearold daughter; a student with no family home to go to who was spending his vacation living with the area’s peasants to study their mores; and, finally, an impoverished landowner who held no government post (he had stayed sober for mass and was eagerly awaiting Nastasya Ivanovna’s pie). All of them were Nastasya Ivanovna’s acquaintances.

She was pondering how she would invite them all, whether or not that was appropriate given Katerina Petrovna’s presence, whether or not anything would be said about the match, and then, whether Erast Sergeyevich . . . But all these ruminations vanished like wisps

of smoke when she turned to look in the corner. There, almost at the very exit near the side-chapel that was heated all winter, stood Anna Ilinishna. The beating of Nastasya Ivanovna’s heart sounded an alarm. She was unable to pray. Her terror was such that she had not dared keep watch for the exact moment of Anna Ilinishna’s arrival, had not dared so as to maintain her dignity in public. Once or twice their eyes met. Olenka shook her head at her mother. There was something threatening and mysterious about Anna Ilinishna, or at least that’s how it appeared to Nastasya Ivanovna—God only knows.

Anna Ilinishna was in a tight black dress, an old black mantilla fastened right under her chin, and a white traveling cap, into which all her hair had been haphazardly stuffed. She stood quietly and meekly, unseen by those around her, regarded only by a single pair of anxious eyes. Near her the bells were ringing for the collection. Anna Ilinishna mournfully bowed her cap, like someone who could not possibly have a kopek. Only once did she stir, allowing someone to pass, but with such servility that it looked as if she wanted to melt into the wall. That someone was Ovcharov.

He had heard the call to mass just as he was getting ready for his walk. The bells had been ringing so long and the sacristan had performed such odd trills that Ovcharov noticed in spite of himself.

“Is today a holiday by any chance?” he asked the servant.

“Indeed it is. Katerina Petrovna is here, and others have come for the holiday. Nastasya Ivanovna passed by, and Olga Nikolayevna, too.”

Ovcharov was putting on his coat, but threw it aside.

“Prepare my frock coat and hat,” he said, after a moment’s thought.

In the meantime he sat down to work on his article for the people. After an hour, having crossed out most of what he’d written, he got dressed.

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The service was almost over when Ovcharov entered the church.

The altar stand had been placed before the royal doors.3 Father Porphyry was preparing to deliver the sermon.

As already mentioned, Father Porphyry did not like delivering sermons, but on saints’ days he had no choice. He had put great effort into this sermon, motivated in part by a certain innocent design.

Out he stepped. Suddenly before him, among the shaggy beards of the peasantry, one European beard and a pair of squinting eyes caught his notice. Father Porphyry took a look and became happily embarrassed. Why not admit it? Father Porphyry had had Erast Sergeyevich in mind when he composed his sermon. He would hear it, have some things to say about it, and then they would become acquainted.

He spoke with both fear and longing; he looked and thought and— poor sinner that he was!—toward the end, worked in a bit of modernity and enlightenment, something nobody expected.

Ovcharov listened to the entire sermon, but whether or not he approved was hard to tell. Mass and the following service were concluded; the crowd streamed toward the cross and then began to stream away. Ovcharov moved to the front of the church, searching for Olenka. The mistress of Snetki was there along with the visitors, waiting for the crowds to subside. He ran into Nastasya Ivanovna.

She was as white as a sheet.

“Please come over for breakfast, Erast Sergeyich. Katerina Petrovna, please come for breakfast; Father Porphyry . . .” she said, her eyes searching in the corner near the side-chapel.

Olenka was taken aside by another young lady bearing news of some officers who had caused a scene in the town’s public gardens.

3. “Royal doors” are the central doors of the iconostasis in a Russian Orthodox church.

The student left with a pair of peasants. The elderly landowner was making sure that her grandchildren took communion and bundling them into their little overcoats. Her daughter-in-law and son were discussing in whispers whether or not to linger a bit longer, as they were probably about to be invited. With the cross in one hand, Father Porphyry was giving communion with the other to the district judge over the head of Palashka, who was walking by. Ovcharov was standing right there.

“My respects, Erast Sergeyich,” Father Porphyry rushed to address him. “How is your health here? Are you healthy?”

“It’s hard to say,” Ovcharov replied.

“From what I hear, you’ve been working too hard.”

“Not very. Et votre santé,4 Madame?”

He squeezed Katerina Petrovna’s hand.

“I’m unspeakably tired,” she said. “Shall we breakfast together?”

“I don’t know.”

The crowd disappeared and the genteel society began moving away from the choir stall. Nastasya Ivanovna looked around.

Father Porphyry wanted to put the cross away. But suddenly he stopped short. The visitors also stopped short and suddenly everything was quiet.

From the depths of her corner, stepping quietly and meekly, Anna Ilinishna was approaching. She was so solemn that everyone present was dumbstruck. Silently and with eyes downcast, they moved back to clear her path to Father Porphyry.

Anna Ilinishna approached the cross. Something was certainly about to happen.

4. French: And your health?

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Suddenly Anna Ilinishna turned to Nastasya Ivanovna.

“Nastasya Ivanovna,” she pronounced in a loud voice, “forgive me for having sinned against you.”

She then bowed deeply before her.

Nastasya Ivanovna winced and turned beet red. She was speechless.

“My dear, what are you doing? What are you doing, my precious?” she spoke, utterly stunned and bending down toward Anna Ilinishna, trembling from head to foot. “Anna Ilinishna . . . for heaven’s sake! Am I really worthy? This is beyond belief!”

Nastasya Ivanovna’s vision blurred, and everything—the church, the people—began to swim.

“My dear,” she repeated. Anna Ilinishna was still bowing.

“Get some water,” Katerina Petrovna commanded. “Isn’t there a chair?” Commotion set in. The visitors gathered around. Whispering and muffled laughter could be heard. Father Porphyry made the sign of the cross over the congregation and disappeared.

“Anna Ilinishna,” Nastasya Ivanovna repeated. “I, as God is my witness . . . Get up, please be so kind . . .”

“Ovcharov, soulevez donc cette pauvre femme,”5 Katerina Petrovna pronounced, also bending down.

“Let’s go, Mama,” Olenka urged. She was beside herself. “Let’s go,” she said, tugging at her mother’s mantilla. “Let’s go!” she repeated and finally, taking her by the arm, dragged her away from the cluster of people.

They walked through the church, Olenka hurrying her mother along. Nastasya Ivanovna was utterly perplexed. Comments were 5. French: Help this poor woman up.

being made behind them and Katerina Petrovna was loudly calling after them. Despite having been invited for breakfast, Father Porphyry left for home. Those who had not been invited and were upset that they had not been invited were further chagrined at the thought that they might miss this spectacle’s conclusion. They continued standing around Anna Ilinishna, hoping to at least get something out of all this. Katerina Petrovna helped her up. Anna Ilinishna, robust, full of injured dignity, straightened her back, brought her handkerchief to her eyes and pronounced, speaking in the wake of the recently departed: “Here you have my humility! Do you see how they reconcile?

I thank you, Katerina Petrovna, and you, Erast Sergeyich. I was sure that such noble souls could never abandon me, and if my cousin saw fit to slander me . . . But as the Lord is my witness: it is not my fault that they have spurned me.”

“Vraiment cela n’a pas de nom, cette méchanceté,6 and what ignorance,” Katerina Petrovna pronounced. “Let us go, Anna Ilinishna.

Calm yourself.”

Anna Ilinishna, still covering her eyes with her handkerchief, allowed herself to be led out of the church. Ovcharov put on his gloves.

“Goodbye, Katerina Petrovna,” he said. He wanted to go home.

“What! You’re not coming with us? Oh, no, no! Come along.

I want to see you, come along.”

Ovcharov took her arm, at once eager and reluctant to join her.

The picture of him with Katerina Petrovna on one arm and Anna Ilinishna on the other struck him as rather ridiculous. Furthermore, 6. French: Truly, this malice has no name.

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Anna Ilinishna was tearfully showering words of gratitude on Katerina Petrovna and himself, Ovcharov. But the delectability of this “incident” (he had long been deprived of such spectacles) proved irresistible. And most important, he wanted to see Olenka, perhaps explain to her . . .

Olenka was crossing the pasture with her mother about thirty steps ahead of him. She was furious, her eyes welling with tears, and she was choking with anger.

“This is simply incredible! She disgraced us!” she was saying.

“Wherever you look, the whole world is laughing.”

“Olenka, I don’t understand any of it. Why did she do that? And I had no time to say anything to her before you dragged me away.

She wanted to make peace. There she is walking with Katerina Petrovna. I will go to her . . .”

“Don’t you dare!” Olenka exclaimed. “Make peace! She disgraced you, disgraced you in front of everyone you know! Now they’ll call you a villainess! What an angel! Hypocrite! Who prevented her from making her peace at home? No, she’d rather fall to her knees for everyone’s entertainment! Lord, that’s . . . how can we show our face in public after that!”

“My goodness. You must be right, Olenka,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied, suddenly filled with vigor and indignation. She even came to a halt. Her own feelings, of which she had not been conscious at the time of the catastrophe, suddenly became clear to her and boiled to the surface. “I’m a fool! You’re right. If she had really wanted, truly from the heart . . . I would have, as God is my witness, embraced her, but this—I’m disgusted with myself, the way I kept fussing, trying to please her, almost as if—Lord forgive me—I’d been led astray by the devil himself.”

“I’ll say, I’m right. They’re all . . . I don’t even want to say it! Be so good as to look over there. They’re escorting her as if she’s some sort of holy person. And your Erast Sergeyich is supporting her with his goat legs.”

She seized her mother by the shoulders and turned her around.

Indeed, Anna Ilinishna and her assistants, having overtaken mother and daughter by means of a shortcut, were already approaching the steps to the house’s front entrance.

“You see! And that’s not all—there’ll be a scolding in store for you.”

“What for? No, I thank you humbly, I will not give in.”

“We’ll see . . . Such courage! What’s that? Erast Sergeyich is trying to sneak away!”

Indeed Ovcharov, having accompanied the ladies, was starting to retreat. He was again feeling it would be somehow awkward to go inside.

“No, I’m not letting you get away!” Olenka exclaimed and set off toward him at a run.

“Erast Sergeyich,” she said. “The meat pie is on the table. This is no way to respond to an invitation. Do come in.”

“Thank you,” Ovcharov replied before entering the house.

He was a bit confused. “Is she trying to make up?” he wondered.

“Clearly, she didn’t tell either her mother or Katerina Petrovna. She must be trying to make up.” He smiled. “Oh, feminine virtue! That fuss was all for show!”

He entered the room silently, watching Olenka out of the corner of his eye. She was also silent. The look in her eye was terribly sly.

Nastasya Ivanovna soon caught up with them. The poor woman, completely out of breath, was angry that Katerina Petrovna and City Folk and Country Folk

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Anna Ilinishna had shut themselves in the latter’s room; happy that Erast Sergeyevich must not be angry, since he had come; and a bit taken aback by the fact that he wasn’t angry. Fortunately, the food was already on the table.

“Have something to eat, my dear man,” she said. Then, completely forgetting how well-mannered hostesses are supposed to behave and neglecting to offer her guest a seat, in a state of agitation and without uttering another word, she stuck a fork into the steaming pie and quickly began to hack at it.

“I’m not eating, thank you,” Ovcharov said, still standing and holding his hat.

“Ah, well, we should have tea first!”

“Give me some pie, Mama,” Olenka said before helping herself to a piece and starting to eat in silence. Her hands were also shaking.

It was quiet in the room and everything seemed awkward and out of place. Nastasya Ivanovna for some reason pushed back the decanter and moved the sausage to another table.

Finally noticing what she was doing, she pronounced, “Somehow we’re missing the holiday spirit. This isn’t what I expected. Lord only knows what’s going on here.”

“Idiocy, that’s what,” Ovcharov thought. “Our nation’s penance!

Wonderful, just wonderful!”

“Olga Nikolayevna,” he said out loud, “How was your visit to Katerina Petrovna?”

“Excellent,” she replied, looking up from her plate, her face gleeful. “Is it really possible to be bored at Katerina Petrovna’s? In any event, I’m never bored.”

“So that’s how it is!” Ovcharov realized, becoming angry. Clearly, she was up to something.

Nastasya Ivanovna, cheered to see that at least the conversation was starting to flow, ran to arrange for tea. Aksinya Mikhailovna soon brought it.

Ovcharov took a cup.

“And Katerina Petrovna?” Nastasya Ivanovna inquired.

“Hasn’t come out yet,” Olenka replied, shrugging her shoulders.

“What on earth is going on in there?” Nastasya Ivanovna turned and looked at the closed door.

“I don’t know. She must like sitting in there, offering consolation.

But I’m not going to invite her out, Mama.”

“Why should we?” Nastasya Ivanovna agreed, throwing off her cap in a fit of impatience, her face red. “I’m the hostess. A respectable woman like Katerina Petrovna must know who the hostess is here.”

“Must not be you.”

Just then, Katerina Petrovna entered the room. Someone firmly shut the door behind her.

“Vous êtes ici?” 7 she politely addressed Ovcharov. “Nastasya Ivanovna, I must say that your behavior . . . You must immediately ask the forgiveness of that poor woman.”

“For what, Katerina Petrovna?” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, throwing up her hands.

She took a few aggressive steps toward Katerina Petrovna. With no mincing of words, her anger and the feelings of bitterness and insult she had been harboring burst forth in a flood.

“Ask forgiveness for what? For her having insulted me? No, you may think as you please, but I cannot tolerate that!”

“But she bowed down before you, Nastasya Ivanovna.”

7. French: You are here?

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“I don’t believe it. You could bow down yourself and I still wouldn’t believe it! She wanted to disgrace me! I took her in . . . Lord God above! No, you’d better stop trying to persuade me.”

Katerina Petrovna looked at her with stern contempt.

“Well,” she said, “now I can believe what kind of a life she had in your house, pardon me.”

“What kind of a life? Do you pretend to know my conscience, Katerina Petrovna?”

Tears came to Nastasya Ivanovna’s eyes.

Katerina Petrovna sat down. She bore the countenance of a judge.

Ovcharov smiled and headed for the door.

“Oh, no you don’t, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna said, catching sight of that smile. “If I’m a fool, then so be it, but I’ll have my say in front of witnesses.”

“What say is it that you wish to have, Nastasya Ivanovna?”

Katerina Petrovna asked.

“Despite all my respect for you, Katerina Petrovna, you’ve got me puzzled. You are reproaching me, but if Anna Ilinishna is angry, it’s thanks to you. Who was it that refused to see her and pretended not to know her? Wasn’t it you, Katerina Petrovna? Don’t you remember? It’s since then that everything’s gone to the devil.”

“I?” Katerina Petrovna replied with dignity. “But I have my reasons. And whatever I may know about her that is reprehensible should be no concern of yours . . .”

“And I had no desire to make it my concern, and see how she’s given her thanks.”

“You could not possibly understand,” insisted Katerina Petrovna. “You should look inward. First of all, you are not capable of

understanding, and second, you have no right whatsoever to delve into our quarrels, into our circle.”

“What sort of a thing is that?” Nastasya Ivanovna, who had intently followed her every word, exclaimed. “That means, my dear Katerina Petrovna, that what’s bad for you should be just fine for us little people! What have I done to deserve such a lack of consideration?”

Katerina Petrovna stood up, a bit flustered.

“We are still very considerate,” she began.

“And as far as my feeble reasoning can figure,” Nastasya Ivanovna broke in with a bitter laugh, “you should help little people avoid what you consider bad rather than recommending it to us!”

“And I have been teaching you,” Katerina Petrovna replied, turning red, “but you have so much severity in you, such a stubbornness of the heart, I don’t know how, at your age, you can keep from blushing! And your daughter . . . It pleases you to smile, Mademoiselle Olga? Very good, good. Believe me: Princess Maria Sergeyevna, whatever falling out she may have had with your cousin, will not take this incident lightly.”

“How is that my concern?” Nastasya Ivanovna replied.

“It’s not your concern? Is it also not your concern that according to the rules of hospitality you are obligated to make allowances for . . . that Anna Ilinishna, in coming to visit you, was, in any event, doing you an honor, that she is nervous and sickly . . .”

“Heavens, she’s fit as a fiddle!”

“And finally,” Katerina Petrovna pronounced solemnly, “your stubborn behavior today, the scene you caused, sets a very dangerous example for others, even the peasants. I’ve never seen anything like it, Nastasya Ivanovna!”

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“Well, what am I to do?” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “But I will not give in, as God is my witness, I won’t give in to Anna Ilinishna!”

Ovcharov looked at her. The poor gentry woman, with her round, red face and uncorseted figure, with her kanaous dress and mantilla, which had come untied in her agitation, was a hilarious sight, but at the same time she was steadfastly firm, just one step away from being capable of scorn. Ovcharov saw this and was suddenly overcome with rancor.

“If you would allow me a word, Nastasya Ivanovna,” he said. “You really must reconcile with Anna Ilinishna.”

“The peasants!” Nastasya Ivanovna continued, barely glancing at him. “They would never say what you’re saying, Katerina Petrovna.

And I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Oh, what pride!” Ovcharov began.

She again glanced at him.

“Yes, pride!” Katerina Petrovna exclaimed. “And here Erast Sergeyich will agree with me. We cannot tolerate this. I’ll tell you one last time . . .”

“Reconcile, Nastasya Ivanovna. That’s my advice as well. It shows such a lack of humility and sets such a poor example.”

Nastasya Ivanovna looked at Ovcharov, and this time very intently.

“I thought you were joking, Erast Sergeyich,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

Ovcharov sat up straight in his chair.

“Are you really the one to talk?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Nastasya Ivanovna broke out laughing.

“Wasn’t it you who told me to ‘let the hypocrite suffer’? Oh, enough, my good man! Today you say one thing, tomorrow it’ll be something else! Leave us poor old women to our own affairs!”

Ovcharov reddened and took his hat. Katerina Petrovna shook her head at him slightly. He bowed to Olenka.

“What nonsense!” she whispered coyly. “To leave over such trifles! You should be ashamed of yourself. Everyone knows you’re a joker. Do, please, have a seat.”

She held him back by the sleeve.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Ovcharov began, furious at having lost his composure.

“Wait. I need you to wait. In a word, I’m asking you to stay.”

“As you wish.”

Katerina Petrovna was walking toward the door.

“You know,” she said, “that I’m not a woman who takes no for an answer.”

“I cannot, Katerina Petrovna. It pains me that you are angry, but I cannot.”

Ovcharov became enraged.

“I’m surprised at Katerina Petrovna! What patience!” he thought.

But he did not know that Katerina Petrovna was not in a position to carry her argument through to the end. Indeed, Katerina Petrovna seemed to be thinking better of it.

“You must come to your senses,” she said, walking away from the door. “That woman was kissing my hands just now!”

“Lord above! But they were your hands, not mine!”

“Yours? Nastasya Ivanovna!”

“But I don’t want, I don’t want her to kiss them: they’re no countess’s hands! If I could just be left in peace.”

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“Please calm her down.”

“How?” “Reconcile.”

Nastasya Ivanovna flew into a rage.

“Heavens! Take your Anna Ilinishna if she’s so dear to you!”

Katerina Petrovna opened the door.

“Katerina Petrovna,” Nastasya Ivanovna called out, almost grabbing her by the shoulders. “Forgive me. As God is my witness, I have always respected you. I may be an ignoramus, but this is not easy for me. I can’t part company like this . . . and Olenka . . .”

“Yes,” Katerina Petrovna replied, suddenly softening for some reason. “I barely recognize you, Nastasya Ivanovna. And this, after all the efforts I’ve made on your behalf!”

“I’d like to have a few words with you about those efforts, Katerina Petrovna,” Olenka spoke up, so unexpectedly that everyone turned to look at her.

For some time now her face had been burning with indignation.

Her thoughts kept returning to what she had overheard at Katerina Petrovna’s. She felt both confusion and outrage. The revulsion she now felt toward Katerina Petrovna and Ovcharov gave her the courage to speak.

“Let’s leave Anna Ilinishna out of this,” she said. “You are leaving, Katerina Petrovna, but I have something to say to you and Erast Sergeyich. I thank you for your matchmaking. I will not marry Semyon Ivanich.”

Katerina Petrovna let out a gasp. The words had come so suddenly, so boldly, so heedlessly, that she sat down in the easy chair and folded her hands in her lap.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“Nothing. I won’t marry him and that’s all.”

“But your betrothal has already been decided, hasn’t it?”

“That is, you decided it, but I had not yet,” Olenka replied, smiling.

“But you’ve lost your mind! Nastasya Ivanovna, what is going on?” Katerina Ivanovna turned threateningly toward her.

“As Olenka sees fit,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied.

“But this is the worst kind of insult! When you had agreed . . .”

“I never agreed. I said nothing. Don’t ask Mama,” Olenka continued after a moment’s silence in the room. “This is my affair. Although I know that Erast Sergeyich also took it upon himself to try to talk Mama into it. It grieves me that he troubled himself in vain.”

“I was carrying out a request,” Ovcharov began, blushing.

“If you would be so good as to tell me, what is the reason for your refusal?”

“Semyon Ivanich repels me.”

“What?” Katerina Petrovna gasped.

“Well, how can I explain it to you? He’s just awful, that’s all.”

Katerina Petrovna was dumbstruck.

“Perhaps I have bad taste or I’m a fool,” Olenka continued, “but I can’t stand the sight of him. That’s how it is sometimes. A person might be the wisest man on earth, but not everyone’s going to like him. But what am I going on about? It’s not just me—some of the smartest people don’t like him either. Erast Sergeyich, for example, also can’t stand him. Ask him.”

Ovcharov just stood there. Katerina Petrovna turned to look at him.

“Isn’t it true? Isn’t it, Erast Sergeyich?” Olenka exclaimed, walking right up to him, her eyes afire. “Say it. As an honest man, say it now: is Simon a good-for-nothing or not?”

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“Well, yes,” Ovcharov muttered. “But my personal taste . . .”

He did not finish. Lowering his gaze he met Katerina Petrovna’s eyes. They were fearsome.

Quiet settled over the room. Olenka even became timid. She herself did not understand what nerves she had struck, did not fully appreciate what she had done. She went over to her mother. Nastasya Ivanovna was neither dead nor alive. Ovcharov walked out.

“I see,” Katerina Petrovna pronounced finally, “what heights of shamelessness are possible . . . You had reached an agreement with him, Olga Nikolayevna! But I’m not so easily mocked. Everyone will find out about this. Respectable people will not cross your threshold. Very well, Nastasya Ivanovna! Very well! You’ve done a fine job looking after your daughter’s behavior!”

19

M

other and daughter were left alone.

Nastasya Ivanovna sat down on the couch without saying a word and looked around the empty room and at Olenka. Olenka was laughing, but it was an irritated laugh.

“Did you hear what she said?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked.

“I heard. What of it?”

“Nothing. God will be her judge. But it’s hard, Olenka, in old age . . . And for you, young one, I imagine, it’s hardly cheerful.”

“For me? I’m having a fine time. Good people won’t believe a word of it and the bad sort, well, let them think what they like!”

Nastasya Ivanovna hung her head. Olenka let her be. Now that her mother had spoken her piece, she was waiting for her to take a sober look at all that had happened and finally cheer up on her own.

But Nastasya Ivanovna was not taking that look.

“Oh, enough, Mama,” Olenka finally exclaimed, kissing her red and tear-stained cheeks. “What are you so gloomy about?”

“Olenka, we’re quarreling with everyone!”

Olenka laughed.

“You are funny! We did just what we needed to!”

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“What do you mean? And there’s Erast Sergeyich. You seem to have hurt his feelings somehow. It weighs on me so. In all my years of running an estate, never before has such a calamity . . .”

Olenka flared up.

“Haven’t you had enough of being preached to?” she exclaimed.

“Don’t be silly! It’s shameful. Maybe we are a couple of country fools, maybe we do need to be taught, if only there was anyone with something to teach us! As it was, we had fine teachers: two crazy old hags and a pompous fool!”

“What pompous fool, Olenka?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked, smiling weakly.

“What pompous fool? That’s easy: your Erast Sergeyich. But it’d be better if you’d eat. With so many friends over you forgot all about the food. And then we’ll think about how to get rid of Anna Ilinishna.”

The sound of Anna Ilinishna’s name restored all of Nastasya Ivanovna’s energy. She boldly deposited a sizable piece of pie on her plate, filled a glass with kvass, and crossed herself. She was finally able to think clearly.

By the end of breakfast, mother and daughter had come up with a plan. The tarantass was prepared and they set out for town. There, not without difficulty, they borrowed money from Uncle Pavel Yefimovich and a variety of acquaintances. As soon as they returned home the next day, Nastasya Ivanovna resolutely burst into Anna Ilinishna’s room and announced her desire that the latter leave her house, for which purpose she was providing a sum of money. Anna Ilinishna was free to choose any place of residence that suited her; Nastasya Ivanovna was willing to give her last kopek to support her, so long as they would not see one another. Anna Ilinishna took the

money without a word. Whether this was all she had been waiting for or she just decided on the spur of the moment what needed to be done is unclear (who can know the depths of the heart?). In any event, Anna Ilinishna began to pack her bags.

Through the locked door, Nastasya Ivanovna could hear her puttering about with Palashka.

“She just had to come here and torment me,” she commented.

But as her torment was many-sided, she immediately turned her attention to another of its facets.

“Olenka,” she said, having thought deeply on the subject, “does Erast Sergeyich really have to be turned out of the bathhouse? He doesn’t know anything; and who are we to judge?”

“Leave him alone, Mama,” Olenka replied. “It would only create more talk. If he’s got any sense, he’ll leave of his own accord.”

The following day, without saying goodbye, one source of Nastasya Ivanovna’s torment departed. Word was left that she would, of course, return the money. Incidentally, this never happened. From town Anna Ilinishna swooped like a hawk on her Princess Maria Sergeyevna, who had not yet departed for her trip abroad. Anna Ilinishna gave her princess such a talking-to that she was granted permanent residence and allotted her former quarters in the princess’s house.

“Must be that some people just need one another,” Nastasya Ivanovna remarked when news of this denouement reached her.

Erast Sergeyevich continued drinking his whey for another two weeks before he found that it was beginning to harm his health. One fine morning he disappeared. All that remained of the brilliant visitor was a note, in which he reminded Nastasya Ivanovna that their accounts had been settled in full.

City Folk and Country Folk

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City Folk and Country Folk

He left for town, from there went to Moscow, and from there, having borrowed money, went abroad. His Beryozovka (which he fulminated against under another name in one last article he managed to write)—this Beryozovka he forsook, washing his hands of it. That is, he washed his hands of it in the symbolic sense, tearing it from his heart; in the material sense, he made all the necessary arrangements, having finally drawn up his plans for future relations between him and its residents.

This year, those residents created a disturbance, provoking fear and temptation in their neighbors. Who was to blame? Many thought it was Erast Sergeyevich’s plans that were at fault, but others chalked it up to the general backwardness of the entire region, which forces the best society has to offer to abandon hearth and home.

This year, Ovcharov settled abroad permanently.

Praise for C I T Y F O L K A N D C O U N T R Y F O L K “Talk about buried treasure! The heroines of this sly, engrossing novel crackle with a verve so fresh that 1860s Russia feels close enough to touch. A brilliant reminder (as if any were needed) that women have been fighting, and triumphing over, their conditions forever. Reviving this forgotten book is a masterstroke.”—K AT E B O LI C K , author of the New York Times best-seller Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own “A single man of property comes to a country village—unsettling young and older ladies. The village is in Russia, soon after the emancipation of the serfs; Ovcharov is a hypochondriac intellectual. ‘A comical people,’ he reflects at one point, and the women and the reader must agree. Admirers of Jane Austen will delight in this charming satire.”

—RACHEL B ROW NS TE I N, author of Why Jane Austen?

Russian Library Columbia University Press New York cup.columbia.edu Printed in the U.S.A.

ISBN: 978-0-231-18302-4