A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

‘Only, will you be able to manage her, my good sir?’ she asked him one day.

Zhitkov smiled complacently.

‘Upon my word, Natalia Nikolaevna! I used to keep a whole regiment in order; they were tame enough in my hands; and what’s this? A trumpery business!’

‘A regiment’s one thing, sir, but a well-bred girl, a wife, is a very different matter,’ my mother observed with displeasure.

‘Upon my word, ma’am! Natalia Nikolaevna!’ Zhitkov cried again, ‘that we’re quite able to understand. In one word: a young lady, a delicate person!’

‘Well!’ my mother decided at length, ‘Evlampia won’t let herself be trampled upon.’

X

One day – it was the month of June, and evening was coming on – a servant announced the arrival of Martin Petrovitch. My mother was surprised: we had not seen him for over a week, but he had never visited us so late before. ‘Something has happened!’ she exclaimed in an undertone. The face of Martin Petrovitch, when he rolled into the room and at once sank into a chair near the door, wore such an unusual expression, it was so preoccupied and positively pale, that my mother involuntarily repeated her exclamation aloud. Martin Petrovitch fixed his little eyes upon her, was silent for a space, sighed heavily, was silent again, and articulated at last that he had come about something … which … was of a kind, that on account of…

Muttering these disconnected words, he suddenly got up and went out.

My mother rang, ordered the footman, who appeared, to overtake Martin Petrovitch at once and bring him back without fail, but the latter had already had time to get into his droshky and drive away.

Next morning my mother, who was astonished and even alarmed, as much by Martin Petrovitch’s strange behaviour as by the extraordinary expression of his face, was on the point of sending a special messenger to him, when he made his appearance. This time he seemed more composed.

‘Tell me, my good friend, tell me,’ cried my mother, directly she saw him, ‘what ever has happened to you? I thought yesterday, upon my word I did… “Mercy on us!” I thought, “Hasn’t our old friend gone right off his head?”’

‘I’ve not gone off my head, madam,’ answered Martin Petrovitch; ‘I’m not that sort of man. But I want to consult with you.’

‘What about?’

‘I’m only in doubt, whether it will be agreeable to you in this same contingency – ’

‘Speak away, speak away, my good sir, but more simply. Don’t alarm me! What’s this same contingency? Speak more plainly. Or is it your melancholy come upon you again?’

Harlov scowled. ‘No, it’s not melancholy – that comes upon me in the new moon; but allow me to ask you, madam, what do you think about death?’

My mother was taken aback. ‘About what?’

‘About death. Can death spare any one whatever in this world?’

‘What have you got in your head, my good friend? Who of us is immortal? For all you’re born a giant, even to you there’ll be an end in time.’

‘There will! oh, there will!’ Harlov assented and he looked downcast. ‘I’ve had a vision come to me in my dreams,’ he brought out at last.

‘What are you saying?’ my mother interrupted him.

‘A vision in my dreams,’ he repeated – ‘I’m a seer of visions, you know!’

‘You!’

‘I. Didn’t you know it?’ Harlov sighed. ‘Well, so… Over a week ago, madam, I lay down, on the very last day of eating meat before St. Peter’s fast-day; I lay down after dinner to rest a bit, well, and so I fell asleep, and dreamed a raven colt ran into the room to me. And this colt began sporting about and grinning. Black as a beetle was the raven colt.’ Harlov ceased.

‘Well?’ said my mother.

‘And all of a sudden this same colt turns round, and gives me a kick in the left elbow, right in the funny bone… I waked up; my arm would not move nor my leg either. Well, thinks I, it’s paralysis; however, I worked them up and down, and got them to move again; only there were shooting pains in the joints a long time, and there are still. When I open my hand, the pains shoot through the joints.’

‘Why, Martin Petrovitch, you must have lain upon your arm somehow and crushed it.’

‘No, madam; pray, don’t talk like that! It was an intimation … referring to my death, I mean.’

‘Well, upon my word,’ my mother was beginning.

‘An intimation. Prepare thyself, man, as ’twere to say. And therefore, madam, here is what I have to announce to you, without a moment’s delay. Not wishing,’ Harlov suddenly began shouting, ‘that the same death should come upon me, the servant of God, unawares, I have planned in my own mind this: to divide – now during my lifetime – my estate between my two daughters, Anna and Evlampia, according as God Almighty directs me – ’ Martin Petrovitch stopped, groaned, and added, ‘without a moment’s delay.’

‘Well, that would be a good idea,’ observed my mother; ‘though I think you have no need to be in a hurry.’

‘And seeing that herein I desire,’ Harlov continued, raising his voice still higher, ‘to be observant of all due order and legality, so I humbly beg your young son, Dmitri Semyonovitch – I would not venture, madam, to trouble you – I beg the said Dmitri Semyonovitch, your son, and I claim of my kinsman, Bitchkov, as a plain duty, to assist at the ratification of the formal act and transference of possession to my two daughters – Anna, married, and Evlampia, spinster. Which act will be drawn up in readiness the day after to-morrow at twelve o’clock, at my own place, Eskovo, also called Kozulkino, in the presence of the ruling authorities and functionaries, who are thereto invited.’

Martin Petrovitch with difficulty reached the end of this speech, which he had obviously learnt by heart, and which was interspersed with frequent sighs… He seemed to have no breath left in his chest; his pale face was crimson again, and he several times wiped the sweat off it.

‘So you’ve already composed the deed dividing your property?’ my mother queried. ‘When did you manage that?’

‘I managed it … oh! Neither eating, nor drinking – ’

‘Did you write it yourself?’

‘Volodka … oh! helped.’

‘And have you forwarded a petition?’

‘I have, and the chamber has sanctioned it, and notice has been given to the district court, and the temporary division of the local court has … oh!.. been notified to be present.’

My mother laughed. ‘I see, Martin Petrovitch, you’ve made every arrangement already – and how quickly. You’ve not spared money, I should say?’

‘No, indeed, madam.’

‘Well, well. And you say you want to consult with me. Well, my little Dmitri can go; and I’ll send Souvenir with him, and speak to Kvitsinsky… But you haven’t invited Gavrila Fedulitch?’

‘Gavrila Fedulitch – Mr. Zhitkov – has had notice … from me also. As a betrothed, it was only fitting.’

Martin Petrovitch had obviously exhausted all the resources of his eloquence. Besides, it always seemed to me that he did not look altogether favourably on the match my mother had made for his daughter; possibly, he had expected a more advantageous marriage for his darling Evlampia.

He got up from his chair, and made a scrape with his foot. ‘Thank you for your consent.’

‘Where are you off to?’ asked my mother. ‘Stay a bit; I’ll order some lunch to be served you.’

‘Much obliged,’ responded Harlov. ‘But I cannot… Oh! I must get home.’

He backed and was about to move sideways, as his habit was, through the door.

‘Stop, stop a minute,’ my mother went on, ‘can you possibly mean to make over the whole of your property without reserve to your daughters?’