Sketches from a Hunter's Album (50 page)

I seated myself on a bench and asked for a jug of milk and some bread. The woman set off to get the milk.

‘Who is your master?' I asked the peasant.

‘Ladygin, Yevgeny Alexandrych.'

‘Ladygin? Are we already in Kursk Province here?'

‘Kursk, of course. From Khudyshkin it's all Kursk.'

The woman entered with a jug, produced a wooden spoon that was new and had a strong smell of lamp-oil attaching to it, and pronounced:

‘Eat, my dear sir, to your heart's content,' and went out, clattering in her bast shoes. The peasant was on the point of going out behind her, but I stopped him. Little by little we started talking. Peasants for the most part are not too willing to chat with their lords and masters, particularly when things are not right with them; but I have noticed that some peasants, when things are going really badly, speak out unusually calmly and coldly to every passing ‘master' on the subject that is close to their heart, just as if they were talking about someone else's problem – save that they may occasionally shrug a shoulder or suddenly drop their eyes. From the second word the peasant uttered I guessed that Yevgeny Alexandrych's wretched peasants made a poor living.

‘So you're not satisfied with your master?' I asked.

‘We're not satisfied,' the peasant answered resolutely.

‘How so? Does he oppress you, is that it?'

‘Fagged us right out, worked us to the bone, that's what he's done.'

‘How's he done it?'

‘This is how. The Lord knows what sort of a master he is! Not even the old men in the village can remember such a master. It isn't that he's ruined the peasants; he's even reduced the quit-rent of those who pay it. But things don't go no better, God forbid. He came to us last autumn, at the Feast of the Saviour – arrived at night, he did. The next morning, just as soon as the sun'd started to show, he'd jumped out of bed and – dressed, he had, real lively – and he came running from house to house. He's a one for dashing here and there; dreadful fluttery he is, like he's got a fever shaking him. And so he went from house to house. “Fellow,” he says, “all your family is here!” An' he stands there in the very middle of the hut, not shifting at all and holding a little book in his hands, and looks all round him, he does, like a hawk. Fine eyes he's got, bright ones. An' he asks the man o' the house: “What's your name? How old are you?” Well, the peasant answers, of course, and he notes it down in his book. “And what's your wife's name? Children's names? How many horses have you? Sheep? Pigs?
Sucking-pigs? Chickens? Geese? Carts? Ploughs and harrows? Are the oats in? The rye? How much flour? Give me some of your
kvas
to try! Show me your horse-collars! Have you got boots? How many jugs? Basins? Spoons? How many sheepskin coats? How many shirts?” By God, yes, he even asked about shirts! An' he notes everything down, just like he was making an investigation. “What d'you trade in?” he asks. “D'you go into town? Often? Precisely how many times each month? Are you fond of drinking? D'you beat your wife? D'you also beat your children? What's your heart set on?” Yes, twice, by God, he asked that,' the peasant added, in response to my involuntary smile.

‘And he went round all the yards, all the huts, he did. He quite wore out Tit, the elder, and Tit even fell on to his knees in front of him and said: “Good master, have mercy on me! If I've done something wrong in your eyes, then I'd rather you ordered me to be flogged!” The next day, again before it was light, he got up and ordered all the peasants there are here to come to an assembly. So we all came. It was in the yard of his house. He came out on to the porch, greeted us and started talking. Talk, he did, talk and talk. The strange thing was we didn't understand what he was saying though he seemed to be talking Russian. “Everything,” he said, “is wrong, you're doing everything the wrong way. I'm going to lead,” he said, “in a different way, though I don't want at all to have to force you. But,” he said, “you're my peasants. You fulfil all your obligations,” he added. “If you fulfil them, fine; if you don't, I shan't leave a stone unturned.” But God knows what he wanted done!

‘ “Well,” he said, “now you've understood me. Go back to your homes. My way's going to start from tomorrow.” So we went home. We walked back to the village. We looked at each other and looked at each other – and wandered back to our huts.'

Apart from the two fragments in the Appendix, the source for these translations is I. S. Turgenev,
Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem
. izd. Akad. nauk (M.-L., 1963), Vol. IV. The ensuing notes are taken largely from this source. Also consulted for this translation has been the second edition of the
Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (v tridtsati tomakh)
, izd. ‘Nauka' (M., 1979). The fragments in the Appendix are taken from
Literaturnoe nasledstvo: iz parizhskogo arkhiva I. S. Turgeneva
, izd. ‘Nauka' (M., 1964), Kn. I, pp. 26–33.

1
.
Zhizdra
: a region of Kaluga Province (in pre-Revolutionary Russia), in which Turgenev owned seven villages containing a peasant population of more than 450 ‘souls'.

2
. corvée: unpaid labour which serfs were obligated to perform for their masters.

3
.
Akim Nakhimov
: (1783–1815), a second-rate satirist, versifier and prose-writer.

4
. Pinna: a sentimental romance by M. A. Markel (1810–76), first published in 1843.

5
. kvas: a kind of cider made from rye-bread.

1
.
Raspberry Water
: The name of the spring remains the same to this day:
Malinovaya voda
, Raspberry Water. It flows into the river Ista in the Arsenyev region of Tula
oblast
.

2
.
Saints Cosmos and Damian
: patron saints of medicine, martyred under Diocletian in AD 303.

1
.
Victory, thy trumpets sound!
: a polonaise for orchestra and choir by the composer I. A. Kozlovsky (1757–1831) to words by Derzhavin. It acquired the popularity of a national anthem in its time.

2
.
as Voltaire… hurriedly
: The words are those of Dr Pangloss in Voltaire's
Candide
(1759).

3
.
once in Turkey… half dead
: Radilov is presumably referring to the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–9 in which the Russian army suffered considerable losses from epidemics.

1
.
Krylov
: I. A. Krylov (1769–1844), Russia's only renowned writer of fables.

2
.
pre-Petrine times
: a reference to Muscovite Russia, before Peter I created St Petersburg at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

3
.
homesteading farmers like him: odnodvorets
, the description given to Ovsyanikov, was a designation given to a special group of state peasants who owned a single dwelling on a smallholding. Their social position was midway between the landowning, serf-owning nobility and the enserfed peasantry.

4
.
Orlov-Chesmensky
: Count A. G. Orlov (1737–1807), military leader and statesman, responsible for the defeat of the Turkish fleet in Chesmen Bay (1770), for which he received the honorary title of Chesmensky (of Chesmen).

5
.
coachman's caftan
: a reference to the fondness of those who were ‘Slavophile' or ultra-patriotic for wearing supposedly national costume. Turgenev always parodied such affectation, even though he was on friendly terms with some of the leading Slavophiles.

1
. gris de lin
or
bleu d'amour: a colour combination presumably involving shades of pale red and pale blue-grey.

1
.
Beautiful Lands
:
Krasivaya mech
, a tributary of the river Don and regarded as one of the most beautiful regions in European Russia.

2
.
Gamayun
: a legendary bird associated with falconry.

1
. The Wandering Jew:
Le Juif errant
, a novel by Eugène Sue, popular in the mid 1840s.

2
. Lucia: a reference to the opera of 1835 by Donizetti, in which Pauline Viardot sang the leading role during her first visit to St Petersburg in the 1843–4 season.

3
. Les Somnambules: an opera (1831) by Bellini, in which Pauline Viardot also sang.

4
.
Carême
: Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833), famous French cook, who worked for Talleyrand and later at the Russian and Austrian imperial courts.

1
.
The Temple of Contentment
: There was a picture of two old men eating a melon at Spasskoye, Turgenev's home.

2
.
Oy be offter… (and so on)
: The opening lines of a folksong first published in 1798.

3
.
two little grey 'uns… self
: a reference to grey banknotes of fifty-rouble value and white banknotes of twenty-five-rouble value.

1
.
like a boat on the waves
: a quotation from the poem ‘The Three Palms' (1839) by M. Yu. Lermontov (1814–41).

1
.
Saadi
: (?1215–91) the Persian poet, referred to by Pushkin in the last stanza of Chapter VIII of
Eugene Onegin
.

1
.
Pechora
: major river in the north-east of European Russia which flows over 1,000 miles from the Urals to the Barents Sea.

2
. Pan Tvardovsky: an opera by A. N. Verstovsky (1828), libretto by M. N. Zagoskin (1789–1852). The reference is probably to separate gypsy episodes from the opera, which enjoyed widespread popularity.

3
.
Aeneas… past misfortune
: a reference to the opening lines of Virgil's
Aeneid
, Book II.

1
.
Viotti
: J.-B. Viotti (1753–1824), Italian violinist and composer.

2
.
Bettina von Arnim
: (1785–1859), a German authoress, whom Turgenev knew during his student days in Berlin, 1838–40.

3
.
in the bosom of rural tranquillity
: a quotation from Pushkin's
Eugene Onegin
, Chapter VIII, Stanza 2.

4
. Giacobo Sannazaros: (1834) a dramatic fantasy by N. V. Kukolnik (1809–68) which for Turgenev epitomized the worst excesses of Romanticism.

5
.
And races fast… troika
: a popular song, with words by F. N. Glinka (1786–1880), a cousin of the famous composer. The composer of this song, however, is unknown.

6
.
Varlamov… more
: A. E. Varlamov (1801–51) was the composer of the second of the songs, to words by F. N. Glinka. The first was composed by N. A. Titov (1800–75) to words by M. A. Ofrosimov (1797–1868).

7
.
Be gone, you restless passions
: a song by M. I. Glinka (1803–57) entitled ‘Doubt' (1838), to words by N. V. Kukolnik.

8
.
Come, come… dearest friend
: Although author and composer are unknown, this song was popular from the 1820s onwards.

1
.
Zusha
: a tributary of the river Oka, situated about three miles from Spasskoye.

2
.
Johanna Schopenhauer
: a German novelist and the mother of Arthur Schopenhauer, the philosopher.

3
.
had supplanted them but not replaced them
: a paraphrase of a line from Chapter 1, Stanza 19 of Pushkin's
Eugene Onegin
.

4
.
Koltsov
: A. V. Koltsov (1809–42), a Russian poet, many of whose poems, written in the manner of the folk-song, have been set to music. The lines are from his poem ‘The Forest' of 1838.

5
.
What if a falcon's… denied
: quoted from the third stanza of Koltsov's ‘Dream of a Falcon' (1842).

1
.
hunting dogs
: the dogs hunted in pairs, linked together by short chains.

2
.
Moscow coffee-house
: probably Bazhanov's coffee-house, situated on Resurrection Square, now the Square of the Revolution.

3
.
Polezhaev… Mochalov
: A. I. Polezhaev (1804–38), poet of civil and political protest (with whom, by implication, Karataev identifies himself) who was persecuted by the Tsarist authorities and forced into the life of an army conscript. P. S. Mochalov (1800–48), famous actor, of serf origin, who achieved his greatest success in playing Hamlet at the height of Romanticism in Russia, during the 1830s.