Sketches from a Hunter's Album (43 page)
Read Sketches from a Hunter's Album Online
Authors: Ivan Turgenev
That this wretched animal wasn't Malek Adel, that there wasn't the least resemblance between it and Malek Adel, that anyone with the least know-how should've seen it at the first glance and that he, Panteley Chertopkhanov, had been deceived in the grossest possible way â no! he'd deliberately, intentionally fooled himself and let such confusion come upon him â about all of this now there couldn't be the slightest doubt! Chertopkhanov walked to and fro in his room, turning on his heels at each wall in exactly the same way like an animal in a cage. His self-esteem suffered unendurably. But it wasn't only the pain of wounded pride that tore at him, a kind of desperation possessed him, malice choked him and a thirst for vengeance sprang up within him. But against whom? Who should be avenged? The Jew, Jaffe, Masha, the deacon, the thieving Cossack, all his neighbours, the entire world, finally himself? He was out of his mind. His final card had lost! (He liked that comparison.) And he was once again the most worthless, the most despised of men, a general laughing-stock, a right hayseed, an out-and-out fool and an object of derision â and of all people for that deacon! He imagined, he clearly imagined to himself how that bloody bundle of lies'd start telling stories about how there was this grey horse and this silly old landowner⦠Oh, hell and damnation! Vainly Chertopkhanov tried to staunch his outflow of bitter anger. He tried vainly to assure himself that this so-called horse, even though it wasn't Malek Adel, was anyhow not too bad and could go on serving him for many years yet⦠He then and there rejected such a thought ferociously, as if it contained yet a further slight to
that
Malek Adel before which, in any case, he felt guilty⦠And with good reason! Like a blind fool, like a real oaf, he'd compared this shitty creature, this wretched horse of his to him, to Malek Adel! And as for the service this wretched animal
might still give him, would he ever deign to ride it again? No way! Never! Fit for a Tartar, for dog food â that's all it was worth! Yes, that'd be the best thing!
Chertopkhanov tramped to and fro in his room for a couple of hours and more.
âPerfishka!' he commanded suddenly. âIn here this minute! Bring me half a bucket of vodka! D'you hear? Half a bucket and quick about it! I want the vodka standing here on my table this minute.'
The vodka wasn't long in appearing on Panteley Yeremeich's table, and he began drinking.
Had someone seen Chertopkhanov then, had someone been witness to the gloomy moroseness with which he emptied glass after glass, that person would certainly have felt fear despite himself. Night came on. A small tallow candle burned faintly on the table. Chertopkhanov stopped scuttling from corner to corner and sat all red in the face with glazed eyes which he would continually lower to the floor or raise in stubborn stares at the dark window. He'd get up, pour himself more vodka, drink it, again sit down, again fix his eyes on one point and not move an inch, except that his breathing became more frequent and his face got even redder. It was as if he were gradually reaching a decision which appalled even him, but to which he was gradually growing used. One and the same thought inevitably and remorselessly grew closer and closer, one and the same image appeared ever clearer and clearer ahead, while in his heart, under the molten pressure of heavy drunkenness, the aggravation produced by anger was already yielding to a feeling of cruelty and an evil grin played on his lipsâ¦
âWell, the time's come!' he declared in a kind of business-like, almost bored tone of voice. âI must cool it now!'
He drank back a last glass of vodka, got a pistol out from under his bed (the very pistol with which he'd shot at Masha), loaded it, placed several caps in his pocket âjust in case' and set off for the stables.
The nightwatchman was just about to rush at him when he started opening the door, but he shouted at him: âIt's me! Can't you see? Be off!' The man retreated a little to one side. âGo back to sleep!'
Chertopkhanov shouted at him again. âThere's nothing here for you to guard! Such a wonderful sight, such a treasure indeed!' He went into the stables. Malek Adel, the false Malek Adel, was lying in the straw. Chertopkhanov nudged him with his foot, announcing: âGet up, you old crow, you!' Then he untied the halter from the manger, took off the blanket and threw it on the ground and, rudely turning the obedient horse in its stall, led it out into the yard and from the yard into the field, to the extreme astonishment of the nightwatchman who couldn't for the life of him understand where the master was setting off for at night with an unbridled horse. It goes without saying that he was too frightened to ask him and simply followed him with his eyes until he disappeared beyond a turn in the road leading to a neighbouring forest.
Chertopkhanov strode along with big steps without stopping and without looking round. Malek Adel (we'll call him that right to the end) followed obediently behind him. The night was fairly bright. Chertopkhanov could make out the jagged outline of the forest which was as black ahead of him as a solid splodge. In the grip of the night's chill he'd certainly have grown drunker as a result of all the vodka if it hadn't been for a different and much stronger intoxication that had possession of him. His head was heavy and the blood boomed loudly in his throat and ears, but he strode on firmly and knew where he was going.
He'd decided to kill Malek Adel. All day he'd spent thinking about that and nothing else. Now he'd decided!
He strode on this business not so much calmly as with self-assurance, irreversibly, like a man submitting to a sense of duty. To him this âmatter' seemed extremely âsimple': in destroying the imposter he'd at one stroke be calling it quits with âthe lot' â he'd be punishing himself for his stupidity and justifying himself before his real friend and demonstrating to the whole world (Chertopkhanov was very much concerned about âthe whole world') that you couldn't play jokes on him. But chiefly: he'd destroy himself along with this imposter, because what would there be left to live for? How all this came to be in his head and why it seemed to him so simple would be
hard to explain, although not completely impossible: humiliated, alone, without any human soul close to him, without a brass farthing, and, what's more, with his blood ignited by drink, he was in a state close to madness, and there's no doubt that in the silliest acts of deranged people there is, in their eyes, their own kind of logic and even authority. Of his own authority Chertopkhanov was in any case completely certain. He did not waver but hurried to carry out the sentence on the guilty party without having any clear idea who he was calling guilty. Truth to tell, he gave little thought to what he was intending to do. âI've got to finish it, got to,' he repeated to himself, bluntly and sternly, âI've just got to finish it!'
And the guiltless guilty party jogged along behind his back at a servile trot⦠But there was no pity in Chertopkhanov's heart.
Not far from the edge of the forest where he led his horse there was a small ravine half overgrown with oak trees. Chertopkhanov descended into it. Malek Adel stumbled and nearly fell on him.
âSo you want to crush me, you damned animal!' shrieked Chertopkhanov and, literally as if he were defending himself, whipped the pistol out of his pocket.
He felt no bitterness but only that particular wooden feeling which, so they say, seizes hold of a man before the commission of a crime. But the sound of his own voice frightened him because it sounded so wild under the canopy of dark branches, in the rotten and fetid rawness of the wooded ravine. What's more, in response to his shriek some large bird suddenly started fluttering in a tree-top above his head. Chertopkhanov shuddered. It was just as if he'd alerted a witness to his deed â but where exactly? In, of all places, this back-of-beyond where he shouldn't have come across a single living soulâ¦
âBe off, you devil, to all four corners of the earth!' he muttered through his teeth and, letting go Malek Adel's halter, struck him hard on the shoulder with the butt of his pistol. Malek Adel immediately turned back, scrambled up out of the ravine and ran off. But the sound of his hoofs couldn't be heard for long. A wind that had sprung up blurred and smoothed out every sound.
In his turn Chertopkhanov slowly climbed out of the ravine, came
to the edge of the forest and set off on the road home. He was dissatisfied with himself. The heaviness which he'd felt in his head and heart was spreading to all his limbs. He walked along angry, gloomy, dissatisfied and hungry just as if someone had done him an injury or seized his catch from him, taken away his foodâ¦
A suicide who has been prevented from committing suicide knows such feelings.
Suddenly something struck him from behind, between the shoulders. He glanced round and saw Malek Adel standing in the middle of the road. He'd followed behind his master and he'd touched him with his muzzle. He'd let it be known that he was thereâ¦
âAh!' shouted Chertopkhanov. âIt's you, you've come for your own death! So be it!'
In the twinkling of an eye he whipped out his pistol, cocked it, pressed the barrel to Malek Adel's forehead and fired.
The poor horse shied away to one side, reared up on its hind legs, jumped ten or so paces back and suddenly collapsed heavily and started wheezing, going into convulsions on the ground.
Chertopkhanov covered both ears with his hands and ran off. His knees were bending under him. The drunkenness and the anger and the unquestioning self-assurance â all had vanished at a stroke. There remained only a feeling of shame and outrage â and an awareness, a clear awareness, that on this occasion he'd done for himself as well.
About six weeks later the servant-boy Perfishka considered it his duty to stop the local constable as he rode past the Unsleepy Hollow estate.
âWhaddya want?' asked the guardian of the law.
âPlease, your 'onour, come an' see us,' answered the servant-boy with a low bow. âIt seems like Panteley Yeremeich's gettin' ready to die. That's what I'm âfraid it is.'
âWhat's that? Ready to die?' cross-examined the constable.
âYes, sir. First he was all day drinkin' vodka, an' now he's laid down in 'is bed, an' very thin he is. I don't think he's able to understand anything now. Not a word from 'im.'
The constable got down from his cart.
âLeastways, have you been to fetch the priest? Has your master made his confession? Has he received communion?'
âNo, sir.'
The constable frowned.
âHow can that be, boy? Surely that can't be right, eh? Or perhaps you're not knowing that for that⦠there's a grave responsibility, isn't there?'
âYes, I asked 'im the day before yesterday and yesterday I asked,' agreed the chastened servant-boy, âwouldn't he want me, I asked, Panteley Yeremeich, wouldn't he want me to go for the priest. “Shut up, you fool,” he said. “Don't stick your nose in where it's not wanted!” An' today, as soon as I started tellin' 'im something he just looked at me an' twitched his whiskers.'
âAnd did he drink a lot of vodka?'
âGallons! Your 'onour, please be good enough to go an' see 'im in âis room.'
âWell, lead the way!' exclaimed the constable and followed behind Perfishka.
An astonishing sight greeted him.
In the back room of the house, dank and dark, lying on a threadbare bed covered with a horse cloth and with a tattered old felt cloak for a pillow was Chertopkhanov, no longer looking pale but yellowish-green like a corpse, with sunken eyes under lustrous eyelids and a sharpened but still reddish nose over dishevelled whiskers. He lay there dressed in his invariable old-fashioned caftan with the cartridge pleats on the chest and in wide blue Circassian trousers. The conical Persian hat with the upper part covered in raspberry-coloured cloth covered his forehead right down to his eyebrows. In one hand Chertopkhanov held his hunting crop, in the other an embroidered tobacco pouch, Masha's last gift to him. On a table next to the bed stood an empty vodka bottle. But at the head of the bed, fastened to the wall with large pins, could be seen two water-colours. One, so far as one could tell, depicted a stout man with a guitar in his hands â presumably Nedopyuskin. The other depicted a galloping horseman⦠The horse resembled those fairy-tale animals which children draw on walls and fences, but the assiduously shaded dapplings on the horse's coat and the cartridges on the rider's chest, the sharp toes to his boots and the enormous whiskers left no room for doubt: it
was a picture that strove to show Panteley Yeremeich riding Malek Adel.
The astonished constable didn't know what to do. A deathly silence reigned in the room. âYes, he's already dead,' he thought and in a loud voice he said:
âPanteley Yeremeich! Eh, Panteley Yeremeich!'
Something quite unusual happened at that moment. Chertopkhanov's eyes slowly opened, the lightless pupils moved first from right to left, then from left to right and fixed on the visitor and saw him. Something flared momentarily in their murky pallor, the semblance of a gaze appeared in them, the already blue lips gradually parted and there emerged a husky voice, literally a voice from the grave:
âThe hereditary nobleman Panteley Chertopkhanov is dying. Who can stand in his way? He owes no one anything and asks for nothing⦠Leave him be, good people! Go away!'
The hand holding the riding crop made an attempt to raise itself, but in vain. The lips again came together and the eyes closed. And once again Chertopkhanov lay on his hard bed, flat on his back with his heels together.
âLet me know when he dies,' whispered the constable to Perfishka as he went out of the room, âand I suggest it's the right time now to send for the priest. One's got to observe the right procedures and see he receives the last rites.'
Perfishka went for the priest that very day. And the next morning it fell to his lot to let the constable know that Panteley Yeremeich had died that night.
When he was buried, his coffin was accompanied by two mourners, the servant-boy Perfishka and Moshel Leiba. News of Chertopkhanov's death had reached the Jew somehow or other and he did not let pass the need to acknowledge his last debt to his benefactor.