“What’s that about? Eh? Who?”
And when it so happens that at some neighboring table there is talk of the Turkins, he asks:
“Which Turkins do you mean? The ones whose daughter plays the piano?”
That is all that can be said about him.
And the Turkins? Ivan Petrovich has not aged, has not changed at all, is still witty and tells jokes as before; Vera Iosifovna reads her novels to guests as eagerly as before, with heartfelt simplicity. And Kotik plays the piano for four hours every day. She has aged noticeably, is frequently unwell, and goes to the Crimea every autumn with her mother. Seeing them off at the station, Ivan Petrovich, as the train departs, wipes his tears and calls out:
“Goodbye if you please!”
And waves his handkerchief.
1898
THE NEW DACHA
I
Two miles from the village of Obruchanovo an enormous bridge was being built. From the village, which stood high on a steep bank, its latticed framework could be seen, and in foggy weather, and on quiet winter days, when its thin iron rafters and all the scaffolding around were covered with hoarfrost, it presented a picturesque and even fantastic sight. The engineer Kucherov, the builder of the bridge, a stout, broad-shouldered, bearded man in a soft, crumpled cap, sometimes drove through the village in a racing droshky or a carriage; sometimes on holidays vagabonds who worked on the bridge turned up; they begged for alms, laughed at the peasant women, and occasionally made off with things. But that happened rarely. Ordinarily the days passed quietly and peacefully, as if there were no building at all, and only in the evening, when bonfires were lit by the bridge, did the wind bring the faint sound of the tramps singing. And sometimes during the day a mournful metallic sound was heard: dong…dong…dong…
One day the engineer Kucherov’s wife came to visit. She liked the banks of the river and the magnificent view over the green valley with its hamlets, churches, flocks, and she started asking her husband to buy a small plot of land and build a dacha there. The husband obeyed. They bought fifty acres of land, and on the high bank, in a clearing, where the Obruchanovo cows used to graze, they built a beautiful two-story house with a terrace, balconies, a tower and a spire, on which a flag was raised on Sundays—built it in only three months, and then all winter planted big trees, and when spring came and everything around turned green, there were already allées in the new estate, a gardener and two workmen in white aprons were digging near the house, a little fountain spouted, and a mirror globe shone so brightly that it was painful to look at. And this estate already had a name: the New Dacha.
On a clear, warm morning at the end of May, two horses were brought to Rodion Petrov, the Obruchanovo blacksmith, to be re-shod. They were from the New Dacha. The horses were white as snow, sleek, well-fed, and strikingly resembled each other.
“Perfect swans!” Rodion exclaimed, looking at them in awe.
His wife Stepanida, his children and grandchildren came outside to look. A crowd gradually gathered. The Lychkovs came, father and son, both beardless from birth, with swollen faces and hatless. Kozov also came, a tall, skinny old man with a long, narrow beard and a stick with a crook; he kept winking his sly eyes and smiling mockingly, as if he knew something.
“It’s only that they’re white, otherwise what?” he said. “Feed mine oats and they’ll be just as smooth. Hitch ’em to a plow and whip ’em…”
The coachman only glanced at him with scorn and did not say a word. And later, while the fire was heating up in the smithy, the coachman stood talking and smoking cigarettes. The peasants learned many details from him: his masters were rich; earlier, before her marriage, the mistress, Elena Ivanovna, had lived in Moscow as a poor governess; she was kind, compassionate, and liked to help the poor. On the new estate, he went on telling them, there will be no plowing, no sowing, they will live only for their own pleasure, only so as to breathe the clean air. When he finished and led the horses back, he was followed by a crowd of boys, dogs barked, and Kozov, following them with his eyes, winked mockingly.
“So-o-ome landowners!” he said. “They build a house, buy horses, but they’ve probably got nothing to eat. So-o-ome landowners!”
Kozov began somehow at once to hate the new estate, and the white horses, and the well-fed, handsome coachman. He himself was a single man, a widower; his life was boring (he was prevented from working by some illness which he called now a hoornia, now worms); he received money for subsistence from his son, who worked in a pastry shop in Kharkov, and from early morning till evening he wandered idly along the riverbank or around the village, and if he saw, for instance, a peasant carrying a log or fishing, he would say: “That log’s deadwood, rotten,” or “Fish don’t bite in such weather.” During a dry spell, he would say there would be no rain before the frost, and when it rained, he would say now everything in the fields was going to rot and perish. And all the while he kept winking, as if he knew something.
On the estate in the evenings they burned Bengal lights and set off fireworks, and a boat with red lamps went sailing past Obruchanovo. One morning the engineer’s wife, Elena Ivanovna, came to the village with her little daughter in a carriage with yellow wheels, drawn by a pair of dark bay ponies; both mother and daughter were wearing straw hats with broad brims bent down to their ears.
This was just the time of the dung carting, and the blacksmith Rodion, a tall, gaunt old man, hatless, barefoot, with a fork on his shoulder, stood by his filthy, ugly cart, looking at the ponies in bewilderment, and his face showed clearly that he had never seen such small horses before.
“It’s Kucherov’s woman!” people whispered all around. “Look, it’s Kucherov’s woman!”
Elena Ivanovna kept glancing at the cottages as if she were choosing, then stopped the horses by the poorest cottage, where there were so many children’s heads in the windows—blond, dark, red. Stepanida, Rodion’s wife, a stout old woman, ran out of the cottage, the kerchief slipped from her gray head, she looked at the carriage against the sun, and her face smiled and winced as if she were blind.
“This is for your children,” Elena Ivanovna said and handed her three roubles.
Stepanida suddenly burst into tears and bowed to the ground. Rodion also dropped down, displaying his broad, tanned bald spot and almost snagging his wife’s side with his fork. Elena Ivanovna became embarrassed and drove away.
II
The Lychkovs, father and son, caught two workhorses, one pony, and a broad-muzzled Aalhaus bull calf on their meadow, and together with red-headed Volodka, the son of the blacksmith Rodion, led them to the village. They called the headman, took witnesses, and went to look at the damage.
“All right, let ’em!” said Kozov, winking. “Go o-o-on! Let ’em squirm a bit now, these engineers! They think there’s no justice? All right! Send for the police, draw up a report!…”
“Draw up a report!” Volodka repeated.
“I don’t want to leave it like this!” Lychkov the son was shouting, shouting louder and louder, and that seemed to make his beardless face swell even more. “It’s some new fashion! If you let them, they’ll trample down all the meadows! They’ve got no full right to bully people! There are no serfs now!”
“There are no serfs now!” Volodka repeated.
“We lived without a bridge,” Lychkov the father said sullenly, “we didn’t ask for it, what do we need a bridge for? We don’t want it!”
“Brothers, good Orthodox people! We can’t leave it like this!”
“All right, go o-o-on!” Kozov winked. “Let ’em squirm a bit now! So-o-ome landowners!”
They headed back to the village, and all the while they walked, Lychkov the son beat himself on the chest with his fist and shouted, and Volodka also shouted, repeating his words. And in the village, meanwhile, a whole crowd had gathered around the thoroughbred bull calf and the horses. The bull calf was embarrassed and looked from under his brow, but suddenly he lowered his muzzle to the ground and ran, kicking up his hind legs. Kozov got frightened and waved his stick at him, and they all burst out laughing. Then they locked up the beasts and began to wait.