The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (21 page)

“Ah!
Ivan Fyodorovich!” cried the fat Grigory Grigorievich, who was walking about the yard in a frock coat but with no tie, waistcoat, or suspenders.
However, even this outfit seemed to burden his corpulent girth, because he was sweating profusely.
“Why, you said you’d just greet your aunt and come straight over, and then you didn’t!” After which words, Ivan Fyodorovich’s lips met with the same familiar pillows.

“It’s mostly the cares of the estate … I’ve come for a moment, sir, on business, as a matter of fact …”

“For a moment?
Now, that won’t do.
Hey, boy!” cried the fat host, and the same boy in the Cossack blouse ran out from the kitchen.
“Tell Kasian to lock the gates at once, do you hear, lock them tight!
And unharness the gentleman’s horses this minute!
Please go in, it’s so hot here my shirt’s soaking wet.”

Ivan Fyodorovich, having gone in, resolved not to lose any time, and, despite his timidity, to attack resolutely.

“My aunt had the honor … she told me that a deed of gift from the late Stepan Kuzmich …”

It’s hard to describe what a disagreeable look these words produced on the vast face of Grigory Grigorievich.

“By God, I can’t hear a thing!” he replied.
“I must tell you, I once had a cockroach sitting in my left ear.
Those cursed Russians
breed cockroaches everywhere in their cottages.
No pen can describe what a torment it was.
Tickle, tickle, tickle.
An old woman helped me with the simplest remedy …”

“I wanted to say …” Ivan Fyodorovich ventured to interrupt, seeing that Grigory Grigorievich deliberately meant to divert their talk to other things, “that the late Stepan Kuzmich’s will mentions, so to speak, a deed of gift … according to which, sir, there is owing to me …”

“I know, it’s your aunt who’s managed to talk you up.
It’s a lie, by God, a lie!
My uncle never made any deed of gift.
True, there’s mention of some deed in the will, but where is it?
No one has produced it.
I’m telling you this because I sincerely wish you well.
By God, it’s a lie!”

Ivan Fyodorovich fell silent, considering that, indeed, it may only have been his aunt’s imagination.

“And here comes mama with my sisters!” said Grigory Grigorievich, “which means dinner is ready.
Come along!” Whereupon he dragged Ivan Fyodorovich by the arm to a room with a table on which vodka and appetizers stood.

At the same time a little old lady came in, short, a veritable coffee pot in a bonnet, with two young ladies, one fair and one dark.
Ivan Fyodorovich, being a well-bred cavalier, went up to kiss the old lady’s hand first, and then the hands of the two young ladies.

“This is our neighbor, mama, Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka!” said Grigory Grigorievich.

The old lady looked intently at Ivan Fyodorovich, or perhaps it only seemed that she did.
Anyhow, she was kindness itself.
It seemed all she wanted was to ask Ivan Fyodorovich how many cucumbers they had pickled for the winter.

“Did you drink some vodka?” the little old lady asked.

“Mama, you must not have had enough sleep,” said Grigory Grigorievich.
“Who asks a guest whether he’s had a drink?
Just keep offering, and whether we’ve drunk or not is our business.
Ivan Fyodorovich, if you please, centaury or caraway flavored, which do you prefer?
What are you doing standing there, Ivan Ivanovich?” Grigory Grigorievich said, turning around, and Ivan Fyodorovich
saw Ivan Ivanovich approaching the vodka in a long-skirted frock coat with an enormous standing collar that covered the nape of his neck completely, so that his head sat in the collar as in a britzka.

Ivan Ivanovich approached the vodka, rubbed his hands, examined the glass well, filled it, held it up to the light, poured all the vodka from the glass into his mouth without swallowing it, rinsed his mouth well with it, after which he swallowed it and, downing some bread with salted mushrooms, turned to Ivan Fyodorovich:

“Do I have the honor of speaking with Mr.
Shponka, Ivan Fyodorovich?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Ivan Fyodorovich.

“You’ve changed considerably, if I may say so, since the time when I first knew you.
Yes, indeed,” Ivan Ivanovich went on, “I remember you just so high!” Saying which, he held his hand two feet from the floor.
“Your late papa, God rest his soul, was a rare man.
His melons and watermelons were such as you won’t find anywhere nowadays.
Here, for instance,” he went on, drawing him aside, “they’ll serve you melons at table.
What sort of melons are they?
You don’t even want to look at them!
Would you believe it, my dear sir, he had watermelons,” he said with a mysterious look, spreading his arms as if he wanted to put them around a stout tree, “by God, like that!”

“Let’s go to the table!” said Grigory Grigorievich, taking Ivan Fyodorovich by the arm.

Everyone went to the dining room.
Grigory Grigorievich sat in his usual place at the head of the table, covering himself with an enormous napkin and looking like the heroes that barbers portray on their signboards.
Ivan Fyodorovich, blushing, sat in the place assigned to him, across from the two young ladies; and Ivan Ivanovich did not fail to place himself next to him, heartily rejoicing that he had someone with whom to share his knowledge.

“You shouldn’t have taken the pope’s nose, Ivan Fyodorovich!
It’s a turkey!” said the little old lady, addressing Ivan Fyodorovich, who at that moment was being offered a platter by a rustic waiter in a gray tailcoat with a black patch.
“Take the back!”

“Mama!
no one asked you to interfere!” said Grigory Grigorievich.
“You may be sure our guest knows what to take himself!
Take a wing, Ivan Fyodorovich, the other one, with the gizzard!
Why did you take so little?
Take the thigh!
You with the platter, what are you gawking at?
Beg!
On your knees, scoundrel!
Say at once: ‘Ivan Fyodorovich!
Take the thigh!’ ”

“Ivan Fyodorovich, take the thigh!” the waiter with the platter bellowed, kneeling down.

“Hm, what sort of turkey is this?” Ivan Ivanovich said in a low voice, with a disdainful look, turning to his neighbor.
“This isn’t how turkey ought to be!
You should see my turkeys!
I assure you, one of mine has more fat on it than a dozen of these.
Would you believe it, my dear sir, when they walk in the yard it’s even disgusting to look at them, they’re so fat!…”

“You’re lying, Ivan Ivanovich!” said Grigory Grigorievich, who had listened in on his speech.

“I’ll tell you,” Ivan Ivanovich went on talking to his neighbor in the same way, pretending not to have heard Grigory Grigorievich’s words, “last year, when I sent them to Gadyach, I was paid fifty kopecks apiece.
And even so I didn’t want to sell.”

“You’re lying, I tell you, Ivan Ivanovich!” Grigory Grigorievich said more loudly, stressing each syllable for better clarity.

But Ivan Ivanovich, pretending it had nothing to do with him, went on in the same way, only much more softly.

“Precisely so, my dear sir, I didn’t want to sell.
Not a single landowner in Gadyach had …”

“Ivan Ivanovich!
you’re just stupid and nothing more,” Grigory Grigorievich said loudly.
“Ivan Fyodorovich knows it all better than you do and is surely not going to believe you.”

Here Ivan Ivanovich became thoroughly offended, fell silent, and started packing away the turkey, even though it was not as fat as those that were disgusting to look at.

The noise of knives, spoons, and plates replaced the conversation for a time; but loudest of all was Grigory Grigorievich’s sucking out of a lamb’s marrowbone.

“Have you read,” Ivan Ivanovich asked of Ivan Fyodorovich after a certain silence, sticking his head out of his britzka, “
Korobeinikov’s
Journey to the Holy Places
?
⁸
A true delight for heart and soul!
They don’t publish such books anymore.
Most regretful, I didn’t notice the year.”

Ivan Fyodorovich, hearing that the matter concerned a book, began assiduously serving himself sauce.

“It’s truly surprising, my dear sir, when you think that a simple tradesman passed through all those places.
Nearly two thousand miles, my dear sir!
Nearly two thousand miles!
Truly, the Lord himself granted him to visit Palestine and Jerusalem.”

“So you say,” said Ivan Fyodorovich, who had already heard a lot about Jerusalem from his orderly, “that he was also in Jerusalem?…”

“What are you talking about, Ivan Fyodorovich?” Grigory Grigorievich spoke from the other end of the table.

“I, that is, had occasion to observe that there are such remote countries in the world!” said Ivan Fyodorovich, heartily pleased to have uttered so long and difficult a sentence.

“Don’t believe him, Ivan Fyodorovich!” said Grigory Grigorievich, not hearing very well.
“It’s all lies!”

Meanwhile dinner was over.
Grigory Grigorievich went to his room, as usual, to have a little snooze; and the guests followed the old hostess and the young ladies to the living room, where the same table on which they had left the vodka when they went to dinner was, as if by some metamorphosis, covered with little dishes of various sorts of proserves and platters with watermelons, cherries, and melons.

Grigory Grigorievich’s absence could be noticed in everything.
The hostess became more talkative and revealed, on her own, without being asked, a lot of secrets about the making of fruit jellies and the drying of pears.
Even the young ladies began to talk; but the fair one, who seemed six years younger than her sister and looked as if she was about twenty-five, was more taciturn.

But Ivan Ivanovich spoke and acted most of all.
Being sure that no one would throw him off or confuse him now, he talked about cucumbers, and about planting potatoes, and about what sensible people there had been in olden times—a far cry from those of the present day!—and about how the further it went, the smarter it got, attaining to the invention of the most clever things.
In short,
this was one of those people who take the greatest pleasure in being occupied with soul-delighting conversation, and will talk about anything that can be talked about.
If the conversation touched on important and pious subjects, Ivan Ivanovich sighed after every word, nodding his head slightly; if on estate management, he stuck his head out of his britzka and made such faces that, just looking at them, one could learn how to make pear kvass, how big were the melons he was talking about, and how fat the geese that ran in his yard.

Finally, in the evening, Ivan Fyodorovich managed with great difficulty to say good-bye; and, despite his tractability and their attempts to force him to stay the night, he held to his intention to leave, and left.

V
T
HE
A
UNT’S
N
EW
P
LOT

“Well, so, did you coax the deed out of the old villain?” With this question Ivan Fyodorovich was met by his aunt, who had been waiting impatiently for him on the porch for several hours already and finally, unable to help herself, had run out the gate.

“No, auntie!” Ivan Fyodorovich said, getting out of the cart, “Grigory Grigorievich hasn’t got any deed.”

“And you believed him!
He’s lying, curse him!
There’ll come a day, really, when I go and beat him up with my own hands.
Oh, I’ll get him to lose some of his fat!
However, I must talk with our court clerk first, to see whether we can’t claim it through the court … But that’s not the point now.
Well, was the dinner good?”

“Very … yes, auntie, quite.”

“Well, so, what were the courses, tell me?
The old woman knows how to run her kitchen, I know that.”

“Cottage cheese cakes with sour cream, auntie.
Stuffed pigeons with sauce …”

“And turkey with plums?” asked the aunt, being herself a great expert at preparing that dish.

“Turkey, too!… Quite beautiful young ladies they are, Grigory Grigorievich’s sisters, especially the fair one!”

“Ah!” the aunt said and looked intently at Ivan Fyodorovich, who blushed and dropped his eyes.
A new thought quickly flashed in her head.
“Well, so?” she asked curiously and keenly, “what kind of eyebrows does she have?”

It will do no harm to note that, in feminine beauty, the aunt always gave first place to the eyebrows.

“Her eyebrows, auntie, are absolutely like you described yourself as having when you were young.
And little freckles all over her face.”

“Ah!” said the aunt, pleased with Ivan Fyodorovich’s observation, though he had had no intention of paying her a compliment by it.
“And what kind of dress did she have on?—though in any case it’s hard now to find such sturdy fabrics as, for instance, this housecoat I’m wearing is made of.
But that’s not the point.
Well, so, did you talk with her about anything?”

“You mean, that is … me, auntie?
Perhaps you’re already thinking …”

“And why not?
what’s so remarkable?
it’s God’s will!
Maybe it’s your destiny that you and she live as a couple.”

“I don’t know how you can say that, auntie.
It proves that you don’t know me at all …”

“Well, now he’s offended!” said the aunt.
“He’s still a young lad,” she thought to herself, “doesn’t know a thing!
They should be brought together, let them get acquainted!”

Here the aunt went to have a look in the kitchen and left Ivan Fyodorovich.
But from then on she thought only of seeing her nephew married soon and of fussing over little grandchildren.
Nothing but wedding preparations were piling up in her head, and it could be noticed that though she now bustled over everything much more than before, all the same things went rather worse than better.
Often, while cooking some pastry, which she generally never entrusted to the cook, she would forget herself and, imagining a little grandson standing by her and asking for cake, would absentmindedly hold out the best piece to him in her hand,
while the yard dog, taking advantage of it, would snatch the tasty morsel and bring her out of her reverie with his loud chomping, for which he would always get beaten with the poker.
She even neglected her favorite occupations and stopped going hunting, especially after she shot a crow instead of a partridge, something that had never happened to her before.