A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

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

XXV

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

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

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

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

‘How’s that? Have you seen him?’

‘Yes.’

‘What has happened to him? A fit?’

‘No; nothing has happened.’

‘How is it you didn’t bring him?’

‘He’s pulling his house to pieces.’

‘What?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘And his daughters – what of them?’

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

‘And is Sletkin there?’

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

‘And Martin Petrovitch is standing on the roof?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XXVI

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

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

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

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

He ran off toward the house.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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