Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (357 page)

Fyodor rummaged Akim’s pockets and felt him all over while the old man stood motionless, with his head drooping on his breast as though he were dead.

“Here’s a knife,” said Fyodor, taking an old kitchen knife out of the front of Akim’s coat.

“Aha, my fine gentleman, so that’s what you were after,” cried Naum. “Lads, you are witnesses ... here he wanted to murder me and set fire to the house.... Lock him up for the night in the cellar, he can’t get out of that.... I’ll keep watch all night myself and to - morrow as soon as it is light we will take him to the police captain ... and you are witnesses, do you hear!”

Akim was thrust into the cellar and the door was slammed.... Naum set two men to watch it and did not go to bed himself.

Meanwhile, Yefrem’s wife having convinced herself that her uninvited guest had gone, set about her cooking though it was hardly daylight.... It was a holiday. She squatted down before the stove to get a hot ember and saw that someone had scraped out the hot ashes before her; then she wanted her knife and searched for it in vain; then of her four cooking pots one was missing. Yefrem’s wife had the reputation of being a woman with brains, and justly so. She stood and pondered, then went to the lumber room, to her husband. It was not easy to wake him -
 
- and still more difficult to explain to him why he was being awakened.... To all that she said to him Yefrem made the same answer.

“He’s gone away -
 
- well, God bless him.... What business is it of mine? He’s taken our knife and our pot -
 
- well, God bless him, what has it to do with me?”

At last, however, he got up and after listening attentively to his wife came to the conclusion that it was a bad business, that something must be done.

“Yes,” his wife repeated, “it is a bad business; maybe he will be doing mischief in his despair.... I saw last night that he was not asleep but was just lying on the stove; it would be as well for you to go and see, Yefrem Alexandritch.”

“I tell you what, Ulyana Fyodorovna,” Yefrem began, “I’ll go myself to the inn now, and you be so kind, mother, as to give me just a drop to sober me.”

Ulyana hesitated.

“Well,” she decided at last, “I’ll give you the vodka, Yefrem Alexandritch; but mind now, none of your pranks.”

“Don’t you worry, Ulyana Fyodorovna.”

And fortifying himself with a glass, Yefrem made his way to the inn.

It was only just getting light when he rode up to the inn but, already a cart and a horse were standing at the gate and one of Naum’s labourers was sitting on the box holding the reins.

“Where are you off to?” asked Yefrem.

“To the town,” the man answered reluctantly.

“What for?”

The man simply shrugged his shoulders and did not answer. Yefrem jumped off his horse and went into the house. In the entry he came upon Naum, fully dressed and with his cap on.

“I congratulate the new owner on his new abode,” said Yefrem, who knew him. “Where are you off to so early?”

“Yes, you have something to congratulate me on,” Naum answered grimly. “On the very first day the house has almost been burnt down.”

Yefrem started. “How so?”

“Oh, a kind soul turned up who tried to set fire to it. Luckily I caught him in the act; now I am taking him to the town.”

“Was it Akim, I wonder?” Yefrem asked slowly.

“How did you know? Akim. He came at night with a burning log in a pot and got into the yard and was setting fire to it ... all my men are witnesses. Would you like to see him? It’s time for us to take him, by the way.”

“My good Naum Ivanitch,” Yefrem began, “let him go, don’t ruin the old man altogether. Don’t take that sin upon your soul, Naum Ivanitch. Only think -
 
- the man was in despair -
 
- he didn’t know what he was doing.”

“Give over that nonsense,” Naum cut him short. “What! Am I likely to let him go! Why, he’d set fire to the house to - morrow if I did.”

“He wouldn’t, Naum Ivanitch, believe me. Believe me you will be easier yourself for it -
 
- you know there will be questions asked, a trial -
 
- you can see that for yourself.”

“Well, what if there is a trial? I have no reason to be afraid of it.”

“My good Naum Ivanitch, one must be afraid of a trial.”

“Oh, that’s enough. I see you are drunk already, and to - day a saint’s day, too!”

Yefrem all at once, quite unexpectedly, burst into tears.

“I am drunk but I am speaking the truth,” he muttered. “And for the sake of the holiday you ought to forgive him.”

“Well, come along, you sniveller.”

And Naum went out on to the steps.

“Forgive him, for Avdotya Arefyevna’s sake,” said Yefrem following him on to the steps.

Naum went to the cellar and flung the door wide open. With timid curiosity Yefrem craned his neck from behind Naum and with difficulty made out the figure of Akim in the corner of the cellar. The once well - to - do innkeeper, respected all over the neighbourhood, was sitting on straw with his hands tied behind him like a criminal. Hearing a noise he raised his head.... It seemed as though he had grown fearfully thin in those last few days, especially during the previous night -
 
- his sunken eyes could hardly be seen under his high, waxen - yellow forehead, his parched lips looked dark ... his whole face was changed and wore a strange expression -
 
- savage and frightened.

“Get up and come along,” said Naum.

Akim got up and stepped over the threshold.

“Akim Semyonitch!” Yefrem wailed, “you’ve brought ruin on yourself, my dear!”

Akim glanced at him without speaking.

“If I had known why you asked for vodka I would not have given it to you, I really would not. I believe I would have drunk it all myself! Eh, Naum Ivanitch,” he added clutching at Naum’s arm, “have mercy upon him, let him go!”

“What next!” Naum replied with a grin. “Well, come along,” he added addressing Akim again. “What are you waiting for?”

“Naum Ivanitch,” Akim began.

“What is it?”

“Naum Ivanitch,” Akim repeated, “listen: I am to blame; I wanted to settle my accounts with you myself; but God must be the judge between us. You have taken everything from me, you know yourself, everything I had. Now you can ruin me, only I tell you this: if you let me go now, then -
 
- so be it -
 
- take possession of everything! I agree and wish you all success. I promise you as before God, if you let me go you will not regret it. God be with you.”

Akim shut his eyes and ceased speaking.

“A likely story!” retorted Naum, “as though one could believe you!”

“But, by God, you can,” said Yefrem, “you really can. I’d stake my life on Akim Semyonitch’s good faith -
 
- I really would.”

“Nonsense,” cried Naum. “Come along.”

Akim looked at him.

“As you think best, Naum Ivanitch. It’s for you to decide. But you are laying a great burden on your soul. Well, if you are in such a hurry, let us start.”

Naum in his turn looked keenly at Akim.

“After all,” he thought to himself, “hadn’t I better let him go? Or people will never have done pestering me about him. Avdotya will give me no peace.” While Naum was reflecting, no one uttered a word. The labourer in the cart who could see it all through the gate did nothing but toss his head and flick the horse’s sides with the reins. The two other labourers stood on the steps and they too were silent.

“Well, listen, old man,” Naum began, “when I let you go and tell these fellows” (he motioned with his head towards the labourers) “not to talk, shall we be quits -
 
- do you understand me -
 
- quits ... eh?”

“I tell you, you can have it all.”

“You won’t consider me in your debt?”

“You won’t be in my debt, I shall not be in yours.”

Naum was silent again.

“And will you swear it?”

“Yes, as God is holy,” answered Akim.

“Well, I know I shall regret it,” said Naum, “but there, come what may! Give me your hands.”

Akim turned his back to him; Naum began untying him.

“Now, mind, old man,” he added as he pulled the cord off his wrists, “remember, I have spared you, mind that!”

“Naum Ivanitch, my dear,” faltered Yefrem, “the Lord will have mercy upon you!”

Akim freed his chilled and swollen hands and was moving towards the gate.

Naum suddenly “showed the Jew” as the saying is -
 
- he must have regretted that he had let Akim off.

“You’ve sworn now, mind!” he shouted after him. Akim turned, and looking round the yard, said mournfully, “Possess it all, so be it forever! ... Good - bye.”

And he went slowly out into the road accompanied by Yefrem. Naum ordered the horse to be unharnessed and with a wave of his hand went back into the house.

“Where are you off to, Akim Semyonitch? Aren’t you coming back to me?” cried Yefrem, seeing that Akim was hurrying to the right out of the high road.

“No, Yefremushka, thank you,” answered Akim. “I am going to see what my wife is doing.”

“You can see afterwards.... But now we ought to celebrate the occasion.”

“No, thank you, Yefrem.... I’ve had enough. Good - bye.”

And Akim walked off without looking round.

“Well! ‘I’ve had enough’!” the puzzled sacristan pronounced. “And I pledged my word for him! Well, I never expected this,” he added, with vexation, “after I had pledged my word for him, too!”

He remembered that he had not thought to take his knife and his pot and went back to the inn.... Naum ordered his things to be given to him but never even thought of offering him a drink. He returned home thoroughly annoyed and thoroughly sober.

“Well?” his wife inquired, “found?”

“Found what?” answered Yefrem, “to be sure I’ve found it: here is your pot.”

“Akim?” asked his wife with especial emphasis.

Yefrem nodded his head.

“Yes. But he is a nice one! I pledged my word for him; if it had not been for me he’d be lying in prison, and he never offered me a drop! Ulyana Fyodorovna, you at least might show me consideration and give me a glass!”

But Ulyana Fyodorovna did not show him consideration and drove him out of her sight.

Meanwhile, Akim was walking with slow steps along the road to Lizaveta Prohorovna’s house. He could not yet fully grasp his position; he was trembling all over like a man who had just escaped from a certain death. He seemed unable to believe in his freedom. In dull bewilderment he gazed at the fields, at the sky, at the larks quivering in the warm air. From the time he had woken up on the previous morning at Yefrem’s he had not slept, though he had lain on the stove without moving; at first he had wanted to drown in vodka the insufferable pain of humiliation, the misery of frenzied and impotent anger ... but the vodka had not been able to stupefy him completely; his anger became overpowering and he began to think how to punish the man who had wronged him.... He thought of no one but Naum; the idea of Lizaveta Prohorovna never entered his head and on Avdotya he mentally turned his back. By the evening his thirst for revenge had grown to a frenzy, and the good - natured and weak man waited with feverish impatience for the approach of night and ran, like a wolf to its prey, to destroy his old home.... But then he had been caught ... locked up.... The night had followed. What had he not thought over during that cruel night! It is difficult to put into words all that a man passes through at such moments, all the tortures that he endures; more difficult because those tortures are dumb and inarticulate in the man himself.... Towards morning, before Naum and Yefrem had come to the door, Akim had begun to feel as it were more at ease. Everything is lost, he thought, everything is scattered and gone ... and he dismissed it all. If he had been naturally bad - hearted he might at that moment have become a criminal; but evil was not natural to Akim. Under the shock of undeserved and unexpected misfortune, in the delirium of despair he had brought himself to crime; it had shaken him to the depths of his being and, failing, had left in him nothing but intense weariness.... Feeling his guilt in his mind he mentally tore himself from all things earthly and began praying, bitterly but fervently. At first he prayed in a whisper, then perhaps by accident he uttered a loud “Oh, God!” and tears gushed from his eyes.... For a long time he wept and at last grew quieter.... His thoughts would probably have changed if he had had to pay the penalty of his attempted crime ... but now he had suddenly been set free ... and he was walking to see his wife, feeling only half alive, utterly crushed but calm.