Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read this ebook for free! No credit card needed, absolutely nothing to pay.
Words: 71777 in 37 pages
This is an ebook sharing website. You can read the uploaded ebooks for free here. No credit cards needed, nothing to pay. If you want to own a digital copy of the ebook, or want to read offline with your favorite ebook-reader, then you can choose to buy and download the ebook.
A DESPERATE CHARACTER A STRANGE STORY PUNIN AND BABURIN OLD PORTRAITS THE BRIGADIER PYETUSHKOV
A DESPERATE CHARACTER
... We were a party of eight in the room, and we were talking of contemporary affairs and men.
'I don't understand these men!' observed A.: 'they're such desperate fellows.... Really desperate.... There has never been anything like it before.'
'Yes, there has,' put in P., a man getting on in years, with grey hair, born some time in the twenties of this century: 'there were desperate characters in former days too, only they were not like the desperate fellows of to-day. Of the poet Yazikov some one has said that he had enthusiasm, but not applied to anything--an enthusiasm without an object. So it was with those people--their desperateness was without an object. But there, if you'll allow me, I'll tell you the story of my nephew, or rather cousin, Misha Poltyev. It may serve as an example of the desperate characters of those days.
He came into God's world, I remember, in 1828, at his father's native place and property, in one of the sleepiest corners of a sleepy province of the steppes. Misha's father, Andrei Nikolaevitch Poltyev, I remember well to this day. He was a genuine old-world landowner, a God-fearing, sedate man, fairly--for those days--well educated, just a little cracked, to tell the truth--and, moreover, he suffered from epilepsy.... That too is an old-world, gentlemanly complaint.... Andrei Nikolaevitch's fits were, however, slight, and generally ended in sleep and depression. He was good-hearted, and of an affable demeanour, not without a certain stateliness: I always pictured to myself the tsar Mihail Fedorovitch as like him. The whole life of Andrei Nikolaevitch was passed in the punctual fulfilment of every observance established from old days, in strict conformity with all the usages of the old orthodox holy Russian mode of life. He got up and went to bed, ate his meals, and went to his bath, rejoiced or was wroth , even smoked his pipe and played cards , not after his own fancy, not in a way of his own, but according to the custom and ordinance of his fathers--with due decorum and formality. He was tall, well built, and stout; his voice was soft and rather husky, as is so often the case with virtuous people in Russia; he was scrupulously neat in his dress and linen, and wore white cravats and full-skirted snuff-coloured coats, but his noble blood was nevertheless evident; no one could have taken him for a priest's son or a merchant! At all times, on all possible occasions, and in all possible contingencies, Andrei Nikolaevitch knew without fail what ought to be done, what was to be said, and precisely what expressions were to be used; he knew when he ought to take medicine, and just what he ought to take; what omens were to be believed and what might be disregarded ... in fact, he knew everything that ought to be done.... For as everything had been provided for and laid down by one's elders, one had only to be sure not to imagine anything of one's self.... And above all, without God's blessing not a step to be taken!--It must be confessed that a deadly dulness reigned supreme in his house, in those low-pitched, warm, dark rooms, that so often resounded with the singing of liturgies and all-night services, and had the smell of incense and Lenten dishes almost always hanging about them!
Andrei Nikolaevitch--no longer in his first youth--married a young lady of a neighbouring family, without fortune, a very nervous and sickly person, who had had a boarding-school education. She played the piano fairly, spoke boarding-school French, was easily moved to enthusiasm, and still more easily to melancholy and even tears.... She was of unbalanced character, in fact. She regarded her life as wasted, could not care for her husband, who, 'of course,' did not understand her; but she respected him, ... she put up with him; and being perfectly honest and perfectly cold, she never even dreamed of another 'affection.' Besides, she was always completely engrossed in the care, first, of her own really delicate health, secondly, of the health of her husband, whose fits always inspired in her something like superstitious horror, and lastly, of her only son, Misha, whom she brought up herself with great zeal. Andrei Nikolaevitch did not oppose his wife's looking after Misha, on the one condition of his education never over-stepping the lines laid down, once and for all, within which everything must move in his house! Thus, for instance, at Christmas-time, and at New Year, and St. Vassily's eve, it was permissible for Misha to dress up and masquerade with the servant boys--and not only permissible, but even a binding duty.... But, at any other time, God forbid! and so on, and so on.
I remember Misha at thirteen. He was a very pretty boy, with rosy little cheeks and soft lips , with prominent liquid eyes, carefully brushed and combed, caressing and modest--a regular little girl! There was only one thing about him I did not like: he rarely laughed; but when he did laugh, his teeth--large white teeth, pointed like an animal's--showed disagreeably, and the laugh itself had an abrupt, even savage, almost animal sound, and there were unpleasant gleams in his eyes. His mother was always praising him for being so obedient and well behaved, and not caring to make friends with rude boys, but always preferring feminine society. 'A mother's darling, a milksop,' his father, Andrei Nikolaevitch, would call him; 'but he's always ready to go into the house of God.... And that I am glad to see.' Only one old neighbour, who had been a police captain, once said before me, speaking of Misha, 'Mark my words, he'll be a rebel.' And this saying, I remember, surprised me very much at the time. The old police captain, it is true, used to see rebels on all sides.
'Misha! Mihail Andreevitch!' I was beginning, ... 'Is it you?'
'Call me Misha,'--he interrupted me. 'Yes, it's I, ... I, in my own person.... I have come to Moscow ... to see the world ... and show myself. And here I am, come to see you. What do you say to my horses?... Eh?' he laughed again.
Though it was seven years since I had seen Misha last, I recognised him at once. His face had remained just as youthful and as pretty as ever--there was no moustache even visible; only his cheeks looked a little swollen under his eyes, and a smell of spirits came from his lips. 'Have you been long in Moscow?' I inquired.
'I supposed you were at home in the country, looking after the place.' ...
Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg
(0)More posts by @FreeBooks
