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 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 BY ©tVAN TURGENEYV 
 
 
 
 LITTUER LEATHER LIBRARY 
 CORPORATION NEW YORK 
 

 
KASSYAN OF FAIR 
 SPRINGS 
 
 I was returning from hunting in a jolting lit- 
 tle trap, and overcome by the stifling heat of 
 a cloudy summer day (it is well known that 
 the heat is often-more insupportable on such 
 days than in bright days, especially when 
 there is no wind), I dozed and was shaken 
 about, resigning myself with sullen fortitude 
 to being persecuted by the fine white dust 
 which was incessantly raised from the beaten 
 road by the warped and creaking wheels, 
 when suddenly my attention was aroused by 
 the extraordinary uneasiness and agitated 
 movements of my coachman, who had till that 
 instant been more soundly dozing than I. He 
 began tugging at the reins, moved uneasily 
 on the box, and started shouting to the 
 horses, staring all the while in one direction. 
 I looked round. We were driving through 
 a wide ploughed plain; low hills, also 
 ploughed over, ran in gently sloping, swell- 
 ing waves over it; the eye took in some five 
 miles of deserted country; in the distance 
 
4 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 the round-scolloped tree-tops of some small 
 birch copses were the only objects to break 
 the almost straight line of the horizon. Nar- 
 row paths ran over the fields, disappeared 
 into the hollows, and wound round the hillocks. 
 On one of these paths, which happened to 
 run into our road five hundred paces ahead 
 of us, I made out a kind of procession. At 
 this my coachman was looking. 
 
 It was a funeral. In front, in a little cart 
 harnessed with one horse, and advancing at a 
 walking pace, came the priest; beside him 
 sat the deacon driving; behind the cart four 
 peasants, bareheaded, carried the coffin, cov- 
 ered with a white cloth; two women followed 
 the coffin. The shrill wailing voice of one of 
 them suddenly reached my ears; I listened; 
 she was intoning a dirge. Very dismal sound- 
 ed this chanted, monotonous, hopelessly-sor- 
 rowful lament among the empty fields. The 
 coachman whipped up the horses; he wanted 
 to get in front of this procession. To meet 
 a corpse on the road is a bad omen. And he 
 did succeed in galloping ahead beyond this 
 path before the funeral had had time to turn 
 out of it into the high-road; but we had 
 hardly got a hundred paces beyond this point, 
 when suddenly our trap jolted violently, | 
 
 “ 
 
 | 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 5 
 
 heeled on one side, and all but overturned. 
 The coachman pulled up the galloping horses, 
 and spat with a gesture of his hand, 
 
 “What is it?” I asked. 
 
 My coachman got down without speaking 
 or hurrying himself, 
 
 “But what is it?” 
 
 “The axle is broken... it caught fire,” he 
 replied gloomily, and he suddenly arranged 
 the collar on the off-side horse with such in- 
 dignation that it was almost pushed over, but 
 it stood its ground, snorted, shook itself, and 
 tranquilly began to scratch its foreleg below 
 the knee with its teeth. 
 
 I got out and stood for some time on the 
 road, a prey to a vague and unpleasant feel- 
 ing of helplessness. ‘The right wheel was 
 almost completely bent in under the trap, and 
 it seemed to turn its centre-piece upwards in 
 dumb despair. 
 
 “What are we to do now?” I said at last. 
 
 “That’s what’s the cause of it!” said my 
 coachman, pointing with his whip to the 
 funeral procession, which had just turned 
 into the highroad and was approaching us. 
 “{ have always noticed that,” he went on; 
 HES a true Sein a corpse’—yes, in- 
 
 eed.” 
 
6 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 And again he began worrying the off-side 
 horse, who, seeing his ill-humour, resolved to 
 remain perfectly quiet, and contented itself 
 with discreetly switching its tail now and 
 then. I walked up and down a little while, 
 and then stopped again before the wheel. 
 
 Meanwhile the funeral had come up to us, 
 Quietly turning off the road on to the grass, 
 the mournful procession moved slowly past 
 us. My coachman and I took off our caps, 
 saluted the priest, and exchanged glances 
 with the bearers. They moved with difficulty 
 under their burden, their broad chests stand- 
 ing out under the strain. Of the two women 
 who followed the coffin, one was very old and 
 pale; her set face, terribly distorted as it 
 was by grief, still kept an expression of grave 
 and severe dignity. She walked in silence, 
 from time to time lifting her wasted hand 
 to her thin drawn lips. ‘The other, a young 
 woman of five-and-twenty, had her eyes red 
 and moist and her whole face swollen with 
 weeping; as she passed us she ceased wail- 
 ing, and hid her face in her sleeve... . 
 But when the funeral had got round us and 
 turned again into the road, her piteous, heart- 
 piercing lament began again. My coachman 
 followed the measured swaying of the coffin 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 7 
 
 with his eyes in silence. Then he turned to 
 me. 
 
 “It’s Martin, the carpenter, they’re bury- 
 ing,” he said; “Martin of Ryaby.” 
 
 “How do you know?” 
 
 ~“T know by the women. The old one is his 
 mother, and the young one’s his wife.” 
 
 “Has he been ill, then?” 
 
 “Yes .. . fever. The day before yester- 
 day the overseer sent for the doctor, but they 
 did not find the doctor at-home. He was a 
 good carpenter; he drank a bit, but he was a 
 good carpenter. See how upset his good 
 woman is. . . . But, there; women’s tears 
 don’t cost much, we know. Women’s tears 
 are only water . . . yes, indeed.” 
 
 And he bent down, crept under the side- 
 horse’s trace, and seized the wooden yoke 
 that passes over the horses’ heads with both 
 hands. 
 
 “Any way,” I observed, “what are we going 
 to do?” 
 
 My coachman just supported himself with 
 his knees on the shaft-horse’s shoulder, twice 
 gave the back-strap a shake, and straightened 
 the pad; then he crept out of the side-horse’s © 
 trace again, and giving it a blow on the nose 
 as he passed, went up to the wheel. He went 
 
8 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 up to it, and, never. taking his eyes off it, 
 slowly took out of the skirts of his coat a 
 box, slowly pulled open its lid by a strap, 
 slowly thrust into it his two fat fingers (which 
 pretty well filled it up), rolled and rolled 
 up some snuff, and creasing up his nose in 
 anticipation, helped himself to it several times 
 in succession, accompanying the snuff-taking 
 every time by a prolonged sneezing. Then, his 
 streaming eyes blinking faintly, he relapsed 
 into profound meditation, 
 
 “Well?” I said at last. 
 
 My coachman thrust his box carefully into 
 his pocket, brought his hat forward on to his 
 brows without the aid of his hand by a move- 
 ment of his head, and gloomily got up on the 
 box. 
 
 “What are you doing?” I asked him, some- 
 what bewildered. 
 
 “Pray be seated,” he replied calmly, en | 
 ing up the reins. 
 
 “But how can we go on?” 
 
 “We will go on now.” 
 
 “But the axle.” 
 
 “Pray be seated.” 
 
 “But the axle is broken.” 
 
 “It is broken; but we will get to the settle 
 ment . a « at a walking pace, of course. 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 9 
 
 Over here, beyond the copse, on the right, is 
 a settlement; they call it Yudino.” 
 
 “And do you think we can get there?” 
 
 My coachman did not vouchsafe me a reply. 
 * “T had better walk,” I said. 
 
 “As you like...” And he flourished his 
 whip. The horses started. 
 ’ We did succeed in getting to the settle- 
 ment, though the right front wheel was almost 
 off, and turned in a very strange way. On 
 one hillock it almost flew off, but my coach- 
 man shouted in a voice of exasperation, and 
 we descended it in safety. 
 - Yudino settlement consisted of six little 
 low-pitched huts, the walls of which had 
 already begun to warp out of the perpendicu- 
 lar, though they had certainly not been long 
 built; the back-yards of some of the huts 
 were not even fenced in with a hedge. As we 
 drove into this settlement we did not meet 
 a single living soul; there were no hens even 
 to be seen in the street, and no dogs, but one 
 black crop-tailed cur, which at our approach 
 leaped hurriedly out of a perfectly dry and 
 empty trough, to which it must have been 
 driven by thirst, and at once, without barking, 
 ‘rushed headlong under a gate. I went up to, 
 the first hut, opened the door into the outer 
 
10 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 room, and called for the master of the house. 
 No one answered me. I called once more; the 
 hungry mewing of a cat sounded behind the 
 other door. I pushed it open with my foot; 
 a thin cat ran up and down near me, her 
 green eyes glittering in the dark. I put my 
 head into the room and looked round; it was 
 empty, dark, and smoky. I returned to the 
 yard, and there was no one there either... . 
 A calf lowed behind the paling; a lame grey 
 goose waddled a little away. I passed on to 
 the second hut. Not a soul in the second hut 
 either. I went into the yard... . 
 
 In the very middle of the yard, in the glar- 
 ing sunlight, there lay, with his face on the 
 ground and a cloak thrown over his head, 
 a boy, as it seemed to me. In a thatched 
 shed a few paces from him a thin little nag 
 with broken harness was standing near a 
 wretched little cart. The sunshine falling in 
 streaks through the narrow cracks in the 
 dilapidated roof, striped his shaggy, reddish- 
 brown coat in small bands of light. Above, 
 in the high bird-house, starlings were chat- 
 tering and looking down inquisitively from 
 their airy home. I went up to the sleeping 
 figure and began to awaken him. 
 
 He lifted his head, saw me, and at once 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 11 
 
 jumped up on to his feet. . . . “What? what 
 do you want? what is it?” he muttered, half 
 asleep. 
 
 I did not answer him at once; I was so 
 much impressed by his appearance. 
 
 Picture to yourself a little creature of fifty 
 years old, with a little round wrinkled face, 
 a sharp nose, little, scarcely visible, brown 
 eyes, and thick curly black hair, which stood 
 out on his tiny head like the cap on the top 
 of a mushroom. His whole person was ex- 
 cessively thin and weakly, and it is abso- 
 lutely impossible to translate into words the 
 extraordinary strangeness of his expression. 
 
 “What do you want?” he asked me again. 
 I explained to him what was the matter; he 
 listened, slowly blinking, without taking his 
 eyes off me. 
 
 “So cannot we get a new axle?” I said 
 finally; “I will gladly pay for it.” 
 
 “But who are you? Hunters, eh?” he 
 isked, scanning me from head to foot. 
 
 “Hunters.” 
 
 “You shoot the fowls of heaven, I suppose? 
 , . « the wild things of the woods? .. . 
 And is it not a sin to kill God’s birds, to shed 
 che innocent blood?” 
 
 _ The strange old man spoke in a very drawl- 
 
12 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 ing tone. The sound of his voice also aston- 
 ished me. ‘There was none of the weakness 
 of age to be heard in it; it was marvellously 
 sweet, young and almost "feminine in its man 
 ness. 
 
 “I have no axle,” he added after a brief 
 silence. “That thing will not suit you.” He 
 
 ointed to his cart. “You have, I expect, a 
 arge trap.” : 
 
 “But can I get one in the village?” 
 
 “Not much of a village here! . . . No one 
 has an axle here. . . . And there is no one 
 at home either ; they are all at work. You 
 must go on,” he announced suddenly; and ne 
 lay down again on the ground. 
 
 I had not at all expected this conclusion. 
 
 “Listen, old man,” I said, touching him on 
 the shoulder; “do me a kindness, help me.” 
 
 “Go on, in God’s name! I am tired; I have 
 driven into the town,” he said, and drew his 
 cloak over his head. 
 
 “But pray do me a kindness,” I bald, me | 
 - » » I will pay fora 
 
 “T don’t want your money.” 
 
 “But please, old man.” 
 
 He half raised himself and sat up, cross- 
 ing his little legs. 
 
 “I could take you perhaps to the clearing. 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 13 
 
 Some merchants have bought the forest here 
 —God be their judge! They are cutting 
 down the forest, and they have built a count- 
 ing-house there—God be their judge! You 
 might order an axle of them there, or buy 
 one ready made.” 
 
 “Splendid!” I cried delighted; “splendid! 
 let us go.” i 
 
 “An oak axle, a good one,” he continued, 
 not getting up from his place. 
 
 “And is it far to this clearing?” | 
 
 “Three miles.” 
 
 “Come, then! we can drive there in your 
 trap.” 
 
 OS BO. wa 
 
 “Come, let us go,” I said; “let us go, old 
 man! ‘The coachman is waiting for us in 
 the road.” 
 
 The old man rose unwillingly and followed 
 me into the street. We found my coachman 
 in an irritable frame of mind; he had tried 
 to water his horses, but the water in the well, 
 it appeared, was scanty in quantity and bad 
 in taste, and water is the first consideration 
 with coachmen. . . . However, he grinned 
 at the sight of the old man, nodded his head 
 and cried: “Hallo! Kassyanushka! good 
 health to you!” 
 
14 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 “Good health to you, Erofay, upright man!” 
 replied Kassyan in a dejected voice. 
 
 I at once made known his suggestion to 
 the coachman; Erofay expressed his approval 
 of it and drove into the yard. While he was 
 busy deliberately unharnessing the horses, the 
 old man stood leaning with his shoulders 
 against the gate, and looking disconsolately 
 first at him and then atme. He seemed in some 
 uncertainty of mind; he was not very pleased, 
 as it seemed to me, at our sudden visit. 
 
 “So they have transported you too?” Erofay 
 asked him suddenly, lifting the wooden arch 
 of the harness. 
 
 “Ves, 39 
 
 “Ugh!” said my coachman between his 
 teeth. “You know Martin the carpenter. 
 
 . Of course, you know Martin of Ryaby?” 
 
 " Yes. ” 
 
 “Weil, he is dead. We have just met his 
 coffin.” Kassyan shuddered. 
 
 “Dead?” he said, and his head sank de- 
 jectedly. 
 
 “Yes, he is dead. Why didn’t you cure 
 him, eh? You know they say you cure folks; 
 you’re a doctor.” 
 
 My coachman was apparently laughing and 
 jeering at the old man. 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 15 
 
 “And is this your trap, pray?” he added, 
 with a shrug of his shoulders in its direction. 
 
 “Yes.” 
 
 “Well, a trap . . . a fine trap!” he re- 
 peated, and taking it by the shafts almost 
 turned it completely upside down. “A trap! 
 - . » But what will you drive in it to the 
 clearing? . . . You can’t harness our horses 
 in these shafts; our horses are all too big.” 
 
 “J don’t know,” replied Kassyan, “what 
 you are going to drive; that beast perhaps,” 
 he added with a sigh. 
 
 “That?” broke in Erofay, and going up to 
 Kassyan’s nag, he tapped it disparagingly on 
 the back with the third finger of his right 
 hand. “See,” he added. contemptuously, “it’s 
 asleep, the scarecrow!” 
 
 I asked Erofay to harness it as quickly as 
 he could. I wanted to drive myself with 
 Kassyan to the clearing; grouse are fond of 
 such places. When the little cart was quite 
 -ready, and I, together with my dog, had been 
 installed in the warped wicker body of it, and 
 Kassyan huddled up into a little ball, with 
 still the same dejected expression on his face, 
 had taken his seat in front, Erofay came up 
 to me and whispered with an air of mystery: 
 
 “You did well, your honour, to drive with 
 
16 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 him. He is such a queer fellow; he’s cracked, 
 you know, and his nickname is the Flea. 
 I don’t know how you managed to make him 
 out. 
 
 I tried to say to Erofay that so far Kass- 
 yan had seemed to me a very sensible man; 
 but my coachman continued at once in the 
 same voice: 
 
 “But you keep a look-out where he is wari 
 ing you to. And, your honour, be pleased to 
 choose the axle yourself ; be pleased to choose 
 a sound one. . . . Well, Flea,’ he added 
 aloud, “could I get a bit of bread in your 
 house?” 
 
 “Look about; you may find some,” answered 
 Kassyan. He pulled the reins and we rolled 
 away. 
 
 His little horse, to my genuine astonish- 
 ment, did not go badly. Kassyan preserved 
 an obstinate silence the whole way, and made 
 abrupt and unwilling answers to my questions, — 
 We quickly reached the clearing, and then 
 made our way to the counting-house, a lofty 
 cottage, standing by itself over a small gully, 
 which had been dammed up and converted 
 into a pool. In this counting-house I found 
 two young merchants’ clerks, with snow-white 
 teeth, sweet and soft eyes, sweet and subtle 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 17 
 
 words, and sweet and wily smiles. I bought 
 an axle of them and returned to the clearing. 
 I thought that Kassyan would stay with the 
 horse and await my return; but he suddenly 
 came up to me. 
 
 “Are you going to shoot birds, eh?” he 
 
 " §aids 
 
 “Yes, if I come across any.” 
 
 “YT will come with you.. . . Can I?” 
 
 “Certainly, certainly.” 
 
 So we went together. The land cleared was 
 about a mile in length. I must confess I 
 watched Kassyan more than my dogs. He 
 had been aptly called “Flea.” His little black 
 uncovered head (though his hair, indeed, was 
 as good a covering as any cap) seemed to 
 - flash hither and thither among the bushes. 
 He walked extraordinarily swiftly, and 
 seemed always hopping up and down as he 
 moved; he was for ever stooping down to 
 _ pick herbs of some kind, thrusting them into 
 his bosom, muttering to himself, and con- 
 stantly looking at me and my dog with such 
 a strange searching gaze. Among low bushes 
 and in clearings there are often little grey 
 birds which constantly flit from tree to tree, 
 and which whistle as they dart away. Kass- 
 yan mimicked them, answered their calls; a 
 
18@ KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 young quail flew from between his feet, chir- 
 ruping, and he chirruped in imitation of him; 
 a lark began to fly down above him, moving 
 his wings and singing melodiously: Kassyan 
 joined in his song. He did not speak to me 
 ata sok 
 
 The weather was glorious, even more so 
 than before; but the heat was no less. Over 
 the clear sky the high thin clouds were hardly 
 stirred, yellowish-white, like snow lying late 
 in spring, flat and drawn out like rolled-up 
 sails. Slowly but perceptibly their fringed 
 edges, soft and fluffy as cotton-wool, changed 
 at every moment; they were melting away, 
 even these clouds, and no shadow fell from 
 them. I strolled about the clearing for a 
 long while with Kassyan. Young shoots, 
 which had not yet had time to grow more 
 than a yard high, surrounded the low black- 
 ened stumps with their smooth slender stems; 
 and spongy funguses with grey edges—the 
 same of which they make tinder—clung to 
 these; strawberry plants flung their rosy ten- 
 drils over them; mushrooms squatted close in 
 groups. The feet were constantly caught and 
 entangled in the long grass, that was parched 
 in the scorching sun; the eyes were dazzled 
 on all sides by the glaring metallic glitter 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 19 
 
 on the young reddish leaves of the trees; on 
 all sides were the variegated blue clusters of 
 vetch, the golden cups of bloodwort, and the 
 half-lilac, half-yellow blossoms of the heart’s- 
 ease. In some places near the disused paths, 
 on which the tracks of wheels were marked 
 by streaks on the fine bright grass, rose piles 
 of wood, blackened by wind and rain, laid in 
 yard-lengths; there was a faint shadow cast 
 from them in slanting oblongs; there was no 
 other shade anywhere. A light breeze rose, 
 then sank again; suddenly it would blow 
 straight in the face and seem to be rising; 
 everything would begin to rustle merrily, to 
 nod, to shake around one; the supple tops of 
 the ferns bow down gracefully, and one re- 
 joices in it, but at once it dies away again, 
 and all is at rest once more. Only the grass- 
 hoppers chirrup in chorus with frenzied 
 energy, and wearisome is this unceasing, 
 sharp dry sound. It is in keeping with the 
 persistent heat of mid-day; it seems akin to 
 it, as though evoked by it out of the glowing 
 earth. 
 
 Without having started one single covey we 
 at last reached another clearing. ‘There the 
 aspentrees had only lately been felled, and 
 lay stretched mournfully on the ground, 
 
20 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 crushing the grass and small undergrowth 
 below them: on some the leaves were still 
 green, though they were already dead, and 
 hung limply from the motionless branches; on 
 others they were crumpled and dried up. 
 Fresh golden-white chips lay in heaps round 
 the stumps that were covered with bright 
 drops; a peculiar, very pleasant, pungent 
 odour rose from them. Farther away, nearer 
 the wood, sounded the dull blows of the axe, 
 and from time to time, bowing and spreading 
 wide its arms, a bushy tree fell slowly and 
 majestically to the ground. 
 
 For a long time I did not come upon a 
 single bird; at last a corncrake flew out of a 
 thick clump of young oak across the worm- 
 wood springing up round it. I fired; it 
 turned over in the air and fell. At the sound 
 of the shot, Kassyan quickly covered his eyes 
 with his hand, and he did not stir till I had 
 reloaded the gun and picked up the bird. 
 When I had moved farther on, he went up 
 to the place where the wounded bird had 
 fallen, bent down to the grass, on which some 
 _ drops of blood were sprinkled, shook his head, 
 and looked in dismay at me. . . . I heard 
 him afterwards whispering: “A sin! .. . Ah, 
 yes, it’s a sin!” ) 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS sa 
 
 The heat forced us at last to go into the 
 wood. I flung myself down under a high 
 nut-bush, over which a slender young maple 
 gracefully stretched its light branches. Kass- 
 yan sat down on the thick trunk of a felled 
 birch-tree. I looked at him. The leaves 
 faintly stirred overhead, and their thin green- 
 ish shadows crept softly to and fro over his 
 feeble body, muffled in a dark coat, and over 
 his little face. He did not lift his head. 
 Bored by his silence, I lay on my back and 
 began to admire the tranquil play of the 
 tangled foliage on the background of the 
 bright, far away sky. A marvellously sweet 
 occupation it is to lie on one’s back in a wood 
 and gaze upwards! You may fancy you are 
 looking into a bottomless sea; that it stretches 
 wide below you; that the trees are not rising 
 out of the earth, but, like the roots of gigan- 
 tic weeds, are dropping—falling straight 
 down into those glassy, limpid depths; the 
 leaves on the trees are at one moment trans- 
 parent as emeralds, the next, they condense 
 into golden, almost black green, Somewhere, 
 afar off, at the end of a slender twig, a sin- 
 gle leaf hangs motionless against the blue 
 patch of transparent sky, and beside it an- 
 other trembles with the motion of a fish on 
 
22 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 the line, as though moving of its own will, 
 not shaken by the wind. Round white clouds 
 float calmly across, and calmly pass away like 
 submarine islands; and suddenly, all this 
 ocean, this shining ether, these branches and 
 leaves steeped in sunlight—all is rippling, 
 quivering in fleeting brilliance, and a fresh 
 trembling whisper awakens like the tiny, in- 
 cessant plash of suddenly stirred eddies. One 
 does net move—one looks, and no word can 
 tell what peace, what joy, what sweetness 
 reigns in the heart. One looks: the deep, 
 pure blue stirs on one’s lips a smile, innocent 
 as itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, 
 as it were, with them, happy memories pass 
 in slow procession over the soul, and still one 
 fancies one’s gaze goes deeper and deeper, 
 and draws one with it up into that peaceful, 
 shining immensity, and that one cannot 
 be brought back from that height, that 
 GEDLN. 6)» % 
 
 “Master, master!” cried Kassyan suddenly 
 in his musical voice. 
 
 I raised myself in surprise: up till then 
 he had scarcely replied to my questions, 
 ang now he suddenly addressed me of him- 
 self. 
 
 “What is it?” I asked. 
 
-KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 22 
 
 “What did you kill the bird for?” he be- 
 gan, looking me straight in the face. 
 
 “What for? Corncrake is game; one can 
 eat it.” ¥ 
 
 “That was not what you killed it for, mas- 
 ter, as though you were going to eat it! You 
 killed it for amusement.” 
 
 “Well, you yourself, I suppose, ate geese 
 or chickens?” 
 
 “Those birds are provided by God for man, 
 but the corncrake is a wild bird of the woods: 
 and not he alone; many they are, the wild 
 things of the woods and the fields, and the 
 wild things of the rivers and marshes and 
 moors, flying on high or creeping below; and 
 a sin it is to slay them: let them live their 
 allotted life upon the earth. But for man 
 another food has been provided; his food is 
 _ other, and other his sustenance: bread, the 
 good gift of God, and the water of heaven, 
 and the tame beasts that have come down to 
 us from our fathers of old.” 
 
 I looked in astonishment at Kassyan. His 
 words flowed freely; he did not hesitate for 
 a word; he spoke with quiet inspiration and 
 gentle dignity, sometimes closing his eyes. 
 
 “So is it sinful, then, to kil! fish, accord- 
 ing to you?” I asked. 
 
24° KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 “Fishes have cold blood,” he replied with 
 conviction. “The fish is a dumb creature; it 
 knows neither fear nor rejoicing. The fish 
 is a voiceless creature. ‘The fish does not feel; 
 the blood in it is not living. . . . Blood,” he 
 continued, after a pause, “blood is a holy 
 thing! God’s sun does not look upon blood; 
 it is hidden away from the light . . . it is 
 a great sin to bring blood into the light of 
 day; a great sin and horror, . .. Ah, a 
 great sin!” 
 
 He sighed, and his head drooped forward. 
 I looked, I confess, in absolute amazement at 
 the strange old man. His language did not 
 sound like the language of a peasant; the. 
 common people do not speak like that, nor 
 those who aim at fine speaking. His speech 
 was meditative, grave, and curious. , .. I 
 had never heard anything like it. 
 
 “Tell me, please, Kassyan,” I began, with- 
 out taking my eyes off his slightly flushed 
 face, “what is your occupation?” 
 
 He did not answer my question at once. 
 His eyes strayed uneasily for an instant. 
 
 “T live as the Lord commands,” he brought 
 out at last; “and as for occupation—no, I 
 have no occupation. I’ve never been very 
 clever from a child: I work when I can: ’'m 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 28 
 
 not much of a workman—how should I be? 
 I have no health; my hands are awkward. In 
 the spring I catch nightingales.” 
 
 “You catch nightingales? . . . But didn’t 
 you tell me that we must not touch any of 
 the wild things of the woods and the fields, 
 and so on?” 
 
 “We must not kill them, of a certainty; 
 death will take its own without that. Look 
 at Martin the carpenter; Martin lived, and 
 his wife was not long, but he died; his wife 
 now grieves for her husband, for her little 
 children. . . . Neither for man nor beast is 
 there any charm against death. Death does 
 not hasten, nor is there any escaping it; but 
 we must not aid death. . . . And I do not 
 kill nightingales—God forbid! I do not catch 
 them to harm them, to spoil their lives, but 
 for the pleasure of men, for their comfort 
 and delight.” 
 
 “Do you go to Kursk to catch them?” 
 
 “Yes, I go to Kursk, and farther too, at 
 times. I pass nights in the marshes, or at 
 the edge of the forests; I am alone at night 
 in the fields, in the thickets; there the curlews 
 call and the hares squeak and the wild ducks 
 lift up their voices. . . . I note them at even- 
 ing; at morning I give ear to them; at day- 
 
#6 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 break I cast my net over the bushes. . . 
 There are nightingales that sing so pitifully 
 sweet . . . yea, pitifully.” 
 
 “And do you sell them?” 
 
 “T give them to good people.” 
 
 “And what are you doing now?” 
 
 “What am I doing?” 
 
 “Yes, how are you employed?” 
 
 The old man was silent for a little. 
 
 “T am not employed at all. . ..ITama 
 poor workman. But I can read and write.” 
 
 “You can read?” 
 
 “Yes, I can read and write. I learnt, by 
 the help of God and good people.” 
 
 “Have you a family?” 
 
 “No, not a family.” 
 
 “How so? . . . Are they dead, then?” 
 
 “No, but . . . I have never been lucky in 
 life. But all that is in God’s hands; we are 
 all in God’s hands; and a man should be 
 righteous—that is all! Upright before God, 
 that is it.” 
 
 “And you have no kindred?” 
 
 SLOS ips. Well. take 
 *, The old man was confused. 
 
 “Tell me, please,’ I began: “I heard my 
 coachman ask you why you did not cure 
 Martin? You cure disease?” 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 27 
 
 “Your coachman is a righteous man,” Kass- 
 yan answered thoughtfully. “I too am not 
 without sin. They call me a doctor... . Me 
 a doctor, indeed! And who can heal the sick? 
 That is all a gift from God. But there are 
 
 . yes, there are herbs, and there are flow- 
 ers; they are of use, of a certainty. There is 
 plantain, for instance, a herb good for man; 
 there is bud-marigold too; it is not sinful to 
 speak of them: they are holy herbs of God. 
 Then there are others not so; and they may 
 be of use, but it’s a sin; and to speak of them 
 is a sin. Still, with prayer, may be... . 
 And doubtless there are such words. . . 
 But who has faith, shall be saved,” he added, 
 dropping his voice. 
 
 “You did not give Martin anything?” I 
 asked. 
 
 “T heard of it too late,” replied the old 
 man. “But what of it! Each man’s destiny 
 is written from his birth. The carpenter 
 Martin was not to live; he was not to live 
 ‘upon the earth: that was what it was. No, 
 when a man is not to live on the earth, him 
 the sunshine does not warm like anether, and 
 him the bread does not nourish and make 
 strong; it is as though something is drawing 
 him away. . . . Yes: God rest his soul!” 
 
28 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 “Have you been settled long amongst us?” 
 I asked him after a short pause. 
 
 Kassyan started. 
 
 “No, not long; four years. In the old 
 master’s time we always lived in our old 
 ‘houses, but the trustees transported us. Our 
 ‘old master was a kind heart, a man of peace 
 -—the Kingdom of Heaven be his! The trus- 
 ‘tees doubtless judged righteously.” 
 
 “And where did you live before?” 
 
 “At Fair Springs.” 
 
 “Ts it far from here?” 
 
 “A hundred miles.” 
 
 “Well, were you better off there?” 
 
 “Yes . . . yes, there there was open coun- 
 
 try, with rivers; it was our home: here we- 
 
 are cramped and parched up. . . . Here we 
 are strangers. ‘There at home, at Fair 
 Springs, you could get up on to a hill—and 
 ah, my God, what a sight you could see! 
 Streams and plains and forests, and there was 
 a church, and then came plains beyond. You 
 could see far, very far. Yes, how far you 
 could look—you could look and look, ah, 
 yes! Here, doubtless, the soil is better; it is 
 clay—good fat clay, as the peasants say; 
 for me the corn growg well enough every- 
 where.” | 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 29 
 
 “Confess then, old man; you would like 
 ., to visit your birth-place again?” 
 
 “Yes, I should like to see it. Still, all 
 places are good. I am a man without kin, 
 without neighbours. And, after all, do you 
 gain much, pray, by staying at home? But, 
 behold! as you walk, and as you walk,” he 
 went on, raising his voice, “the heart grows 
 lighter, of a truth. And the sun shines upon 
 you, and you are in the sight of God, and the 
 singing comes more tunefully. Here, you 
 look—what herb is growing; you look on it— 
 you pick it. Here water runs, perhaps— 
 spring water, a source of pure holy water; 
 so you drink of it—you look on it too. The 
 birds of heaven sing. . . . And beyond Kursk 
 come the steppes, that steppes-country: ah, 
 what a marvel, what a delight for man! what 
 freedom, what a blessing of God! And they 
 go on, folks tell, even to the warm seas where 
 dwells the sweet-voiced bird, the Hamayune, 
 and from the trees the leaves fall not, neither 
 in autumn nor in winter, and apples grow of 
 gold, on silver branches, and every man lives 
 in uprightness and content. And I would go 
 even there. . . . Have I journeyed so little 
 already! I have been to Romyon and to 
 Simbirsk the fair city, and even to Moscow 
 
30 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 of the golden domes; I have been to Oka 
 the good nurse, and to Tsna the dove, and to~ 
 our mother Volga, and many folks, coh 
 Christians have I seen, and noble cities I 
 have visited. . . . Well, I would go thither 
 ie L VeR eg and more too. . . and I am 
 not the only one, I a poor sinner . . . many 
 other Christians go in bast-shoes, roaming 
 over the world, seeking truth, yea! . .. For 
 what is there at home? No righteousness in 
 man—it’s that.” 
 
 These last words Kassyan uttered quickly, 
 almost unintelligibly; then he said something 
 more which I could not catch at all, and such 
 a strange expression passed over his face that 
 I involuntarily recalled the epithet “cracked.” 
 He looked down, cleared his throat, and 
 seemed to come to himself again. 
 
 “What sunshine!” he murmured in a Jow | 
 
 voice. “It is a blessing, oh, Lord! What 
 warmth in the woods!” 
 
 He gave a movement of the shoulders and 
 fell into silence. With a vague look round 
 him he began softly to sing. I could not catch 
 all the words of his slow chant; JI heard the 
 following: 
 
 “They call me Kassyan, 
 But my nickname’s the Flea.” 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 31 
 
 “Oh!” I thought, “so he improvises.” Sud- 
 enly he started and ceased singing, looking 
 intently at a thick part of the wood. I 
 turned and saw a little peasant girl, about 
 seven years old, in a blue frock, with a 
 checked handkerchief over her head, and a 
 woven bark-basket in her little bare sun- 
 burnt hand. She had certainly not expected 
 to meet us; she had, as they say, “stumbled 
 upon” us, and she stood motionless in a shady 
 recess among the thick foliage of the nut- 
 trees, looking dismayed at me with her black 
 eyes. I had scarcely time to catch a glimpse 
 of her; she dived behind a tree. 
 “Annushka! Annushka! come here, don’t 
 be afraid!” cried the old man caressingly. 
 “I’m afraid,” came her shrill voice. 
 “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid; come to 
 me.” 
 - Annushka left her hiding place in silence, 
 walked softly round—her little childish feet 
 scarcely sounded on the thick grass—and 
 came out of the bushes near the old man. 
 She was not a child of seven, as I had fancied 
 at first, from her diminutive stature, but a 
 girl of thirteen or fourteen. Her whole per- 
 son was small and thin, but very neat and 
 graceful, and her pretty little face was strik- 
 
32 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 ingly like Kassyan’s own, though he was cer- 
 tainly not handsome. There were the same 
 thin features, and the same strange expres- . 
 sion, shy and confiding, melancholy and 
 shrewd, and her gestures were the same. . . 
 
 Kassyan kept his eyes fixed on her; she took 
 her stand at his side. 
 
 “Well, have you picked any mushrooms?” 
 he asked. 
 
 “Yes,” she answered with a shy smile. 
 
 “Did you find many?” 
 
 “Yes.” (She stole a swift look at him and 
 smiled again.) 
 
 “Are they white ones?” 
 
 “Ves.” 
 
 “Show me, show me. . . . (She slipped the 
 basket off her arm and half-lifted the big 
 burdock leaf which covered up the mush- 
 rooms.) “Ah!” said Kassyan, bending down 
 over the basket; “what splendid ones! Well 
 done, Annushka!” 
 
 “She’s your daughter, Kassyan, isn’t she?” 
 ! asked. (Annushka’s face flushed faint- 
 Fe) o, well, a relative,” replied Kassyan with 
 affected indifference. “Come, Annushka, run 
 along,” he added at. once, “run along, and 
 God be with you! And take care.” 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS = 33 
 
 “But why should she go on foot?” I inter- 
 rupted. “We could take her with us.” 
 
 ’  Annushka blushed like a poppy, grasped 
 the handle of her basket with both hands, 
 and looked in trepidation at the old man. 
 
 “No, she will get there all right,” he an- 
 “swered in the same languid and indifferent 
 voice. “Why not? . . . She will get there. 
 
 . Run along.” 
 
 Annushka went rapidly away into the for- 
 est. Kassyan looked after her, then looked 
 down and smiled to himself. In this pro- 
 longed smile, in the few words he had spoken 
 to Annushka, and in the very sound of his 
 voice when he spoke to her, there was an 
 intense, indescribable love and tenderness. 
 He looked again in the direction she had 
 gone, again smiled to himself, and, passing 
 his hand across his face, he nodded his head 
 several times. 
 
 “Why did you send her away so soon?” I 
 asked him. “I would have bought her mush- 
 rooms.” 
 
 “Well, you can buy them there at home 
 just the same, sir, if you like,” he answered, 
 for the first time using the formal “sir” in 
 addressing me. 
 
 “She’s very pretty, your girl.” 
 
34 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 “No .. . only so-so,” he answered, with - 
 seeming reluctance, and from that instant 
 he relapsed into the same uncommunicative 
 mood as at first. i 
 
 Seeing that all my efforts to make him talk . 
 again were fruitless, I went off into the clear- 
 ing. Meantime the heat had somewhat - 
 abated; but my ill-success, or, as they say 
 among us, my “ill-luck,’ continued, and I 
 returned to the settlement with nothing but 
 one corncrake and the new axle. Just as we 
 were driving into the yard, Kassyan sud- 
 denly turned to me. : 
 
 “Master, master,” he began, “do you know 
 I have done you a wrong; it was I cast a 
 spell to keep all the game off.” 
 
 “How so?” 
 
 “Oh, I can do that. Here you have a well- 
 trained dog and a good one, but he could do 
 nothing. When you think of it, what are 
 men? what are they? MHere’s a beast; what 
 have they made of him?” 
 
 It would have been useless for me to try to . 
 convince Kassyan of the impossibility of ” 
 “casting a spell” on game, and so I made him 
 no reply. Meantime we had turned into the 
 
 ard. 
 
 : Annushka was not in the hut: she had had > 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 35 
 
 time to get there before us, and to leave her 
 basket of mushrooms. LErofay fitted in the 
 new axle, first exposing it to a severe and 
 most unjust criticism; and an hour later I 
 set off, leaving a small sum of money with 
 Kassyan, which at first he was unwilling to 
 accept, but afterwards, after a moment’s 
 thought, holding it in his hand, he put it in 
 his bosom. In the course of this hour he 
 nad scarcely uttered a single word; he stood 
 as before, leaning against the gate. He made 
 n0 reply to the reproaches of my coachman, 
 and took leave very coldly of me. 
 
 Directly I turned round, I could see that 
 ny worthy Erofay was in a gloomy frame of 
 nind. . . . To be sure, he had found nothing 
 70 eat in the country; the only water for 
 uis horses was bad. We drove off. With 
 lissatisfaction expressed even in the back of 
 1is head, he sat on the box, burning to begin 
 0 talk to me. While waiting for me to begin 
 yy some question, he confined himself to a 
 ow muttering in an undertone, and some 
 ‘ather caustic instructions to the horses. “A 
 rillage,” he muttered; “call that a village? 
 You ask for a drop of kvas—not a drop of 
 vas even. . . . Ah, Lord! . . . And the 
 vater—simply filth!’ (He spat loudly.) 
 
36 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 “Not a cucumber, nor kvas, nor nothing... « 
 Now, then!” he added aloud, turning to the 
 right trace-horse; “I know you, you humbug.” 
 (And he gave him a cut with the whip.) 
 “That horse has learnt to shirk his work en- 
 tirely, and yet he was a willing beast once. 
 Now, then—look alive!” 
 
 “Tell me, please, Erofay,” I began, “what 
 sort of a man is Kassyan?” 
 
 Erofay did not answer me at once: he was, 
 in general, a reflective and deliberate fellow; 
 but I could see directly that my question was 
 soothing and cheering to him. 
 
 “The Flea?” he said at last, gathering up 
 the reins; “he’s a queer fellow; yes, a crazy 
 chap; such a queer fellow, you wouldn’t find 
 another like him in a hurry. You know, for 
 example, he’s for all the world like our roan 
 horse here; he gets out of everything—out 
 of work, that’s to say. But, then, what sort 
 of workman could he be? . . . He’s hardly 
 body enough to keep his soul in . . . but 
 still, of course. . . . He’s been like that 
 from a child up, you know. At first he fol- 
 lowed his uncle’s business as a carrier—there 
 were three of them in the business; but then 
 he got tired of it, you know—he threw it up, 
 He began to live at home, but he could not 
 
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS = 37 
 
 keep at home long; he’s so restless—a regular 
 flea, in fact. He happened, by good luck, 
 to have a good master—he didn’t worry him. 
 Well, so ever since he has been wandering 
 about like a lost sheep. And then, he’s so 
 strange; there no understanding him. Some- 
 times he'll be as silent as a post, and then 
 he'll begin talking, and God knows what he’ll 
 say! Is that good manners, pray? He’s an 
 absurd fellow, that he is. But he sings well, 
 for all that.” 
 
 “And does he cure people, really?” 
 
 “Cure people! . . . Well, how should he? 
 A fine sort of doctor! ‘Though he did cure 
 me of the king’s evil, I must own. . . . But 
 how can he? He’s a stupid fellow, that’s 
 what he is,” he added, after a moment’s 
 pause. 
 
 “Have you known him long?” 
 
 “A Jong while. I was his neighbour at 
 Sitchovka up at Fair Springs.” 
 
 “And what of that girl—who met us in the 
 wood, Annushka—what relation is she to 
 him ?” . 
 
 Erofay looked at me over his shoulder, and 
 grinned all over his face. 
 
 “He, he! . . . yes, they are relations. She 
 is an orphan; she has no mother, and it’s not 
 
38 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 
 
 even known who her mother was. But she 
 must be a relation; she’s too much like him. 
 . . . Anyway, she lives with him. She’s a 
 smart girl, there’s no denying; a good girl; 
 and as for the old man, she’s simply the apple 
 of his eye; she’s a good girl. And, do you 
 know, you wouldn’t believe it, but do you 
 know, he’s managed to teach Annushka to 
 read? Well, well! that’s quite like him; he’s 
 such an extraordinary fellow, such a change- 
 able fellow; there’s no reckoning on him, 
 really. . . . Eh! eh! eh!” My coachman 
 suddenly interrupted himself, and stopping 
 the horses, he bent over on one side and be- 
 gan sniffing. “Isn’t there a smell of burn- 
 ing? Yes! Why, that new axle, I do de- 
 clare! . . . I thought I’'d greased it... 
 We must get on to some water; why, here is 
 a puddle, just right.” 
 
 And Erofay slowly got off his seat, untied 
 the pail, went to the pool, and coming back, 
 listened with a certain satisfaction to the hiss- 
 ing of the box of the wheel as the water sud- 
 denly touched it. . . . Six times during some 
 eight miles he had to pour water on the 
 smouldering axle, and it was quite evening 
 when we got home at last. 
 
 
 
MUMU 
 
 In one of the outlying streets of Moscow, in 
 a grey house with white columns and a bal- 
 cony, warped all askew, there was once liv- 
 ing a lady, a widow, surrounded by a numer- 
 ous household of serfs. Her sons were in 
 the government service at Petersburg; her 
 daughters were married; she went out very 
 little, and in solitude lived through the last 
 years of her miserly and dreary old age. 
 Her day, a joyless and gloomy day, had long 
 been over; but the evening of her life was 
 blacker than night. 
 
 Of all her servants, the most remarkable 
 personage was the porter, Gerasim, a man 
 full twelve inches over the normal height, of 
 heroic build, and deaf and dumb from his 
 birth. The lady, his owner, had brought him 
 up from the village where he lived alone in a 
 little hut, apart from his brothers, and was 
 ‘reckoned about the most punctual of her 
 peasants in the payment of the seignorial 
 dues. Endowed with extraordinary strength, 
 
40 MUMU 
 
 he did the work of four men; work flew 
 apace under his hands, and it was a pleasant 
 sight to see him when he was ploughing, while, 
 with his huge palms pressing hard upon the 
 plough, he seemed alone, unaided by his poor 
 horse, to cleave the yielding bosom of the 
 earth, or when, about St. Peter’s Day, he 
 plied his scythe with a furious energy that 
 might have mown a young birch copse up by 
 the roots, or swiftly and untiringly wielded 
 a flail over two yards long; while the hard 
 oblong muscles of his shoulders rose and fell 
 like a lever. His perpetual silence lent a 
 solemn dignity to his unwearying labour. He 
 was a splendid peasant, and, except for his 
 affliction, any girl would have been glad to 
 marry him.... But now they had taken 
 Gerasim to Moscow, bought him boots, had 
 him made a full-skirted coat for summer, a 
 sheepskin for winter, put into his hand a 
 broom and a spade, and appointed him por- 
 ter. 
 
 At first he intensely disliked his new mode 
 of life. From his childhood he had been 
 used to field labour, to village life. Shut off 
 by his affliction from the society of men, he 
 had grown up, dumb and mighty, as a tree 
 grows on a fruitful soil. When he was trans- 
 
MUMU . 41 
 
 ported to the town, he could not understand 
 what was being done with him; he was mis- 
 erable and stupefied, with the stupefaction 
 of some strong young bull, taken straight 
 from the meadow, where the rich grass stood 
 up to his belly, taken and put in the truck 
 of a railway train, and there, while smoke 
 and sparks and gusts of steam puff out upon 
 the sturdy beast, he is whirled onwards, 
 whirled along with loud roar and whistle, 
 whither—God knows! What Gerasim had to 
 do in his new duties seemed a mere trifle to 
 him after his hard toil as a peasant; in half- 
 an-hour, all his work was done, and he would 
 once more stand stock-still in the middle of 
 the courtyard, staring open-mouthed at all 
 the passers-by, as though trying to wrest 
 from them the explanation of his perplexing 
 position; or he would suddenly go off into 
 some corner, and flinging a long way off the 
 broom or the spade, throw himself on his 
 face on the ground, and lie for hours to- 
 gether without stirring, like a caged beast. 
 But man gets used to anything, and Gerasim 
 got used at last to living in town. He had 
 little work to do; his whole duty consisted 
 in keeping the courtyard clean, bringing in a 
 barrel of water twice a day, splitting and 
 
42 MUMU 
 
 dragging in wood for the kitchen and the 
 house, keeping out strangers, and watching at 
 night. And it must be said he did his duty 
 zealously. In his courtyard there was never 
 a shaving lying about, never a speck of dust; 
 if sometimes, in the muddy season, the 
 wretched nag, put under his charge for fetch- 
 ing water, got stuck in the road, he would 
 simply give it a shove with his shoulder, and 
 set not only the cart but the horse itself 
 moving. If he set to chopping wood, the 
 axe fairly rang like glass, and chips and 
 chunks flew in all directions. And as for 
 strangers, after he had one night caught two 
 thieves and knocked their heads together— 
 knocked them so that there was not the 
 slightest need to take them to the police- 
 station afterwards—every one in the neigh- 
 bourhood began to feel a great respect for 
 him; even those who came in the day-time, by 
 no means robbers, but simply unknown per- 
 sons, at the sight of the terrible porter 
 waved and shouted to him as though he could 
 hear their shouts. With all the rest of the 
 servants, Gerasim was on terms, hardly 
 friendly—they were afraid of him—but fa- 
 miliar; he regarded them as his fellows. They 
 explained themselves to him by signs, and he 
 
MUMU 43 
 
 understood them, and exactly carried out all 
 orders, but knew his own rights too, and 
 soon no one dared to take his seat at the 
 table. Gerasim was altogether of a strict 
 and serious temper, he liked order in every- 
 thing; even the cocks did not dare to fight 
 in his presence, or woe betide them! directly 
 he caught sight of them, he would seize them 
 by the legs, swing them ten times round in 
 the air like a wheel, and throw them in dif- 
 ferent directions. There were geese, too, 
 kept in the yard; but the goose, as is well 
 known, is a dignified and reasonable bird; 
 Gerasim felt a respect for them, looked after 
 them, and fed them; he was himself not un- 
 like a gander of the steppes. He was as- 
 Signed a little garret over the kitchen; he 
 arranged it himself to his own liking, made 
 a bedstead in it of oak boards on four stumps 
 of wood for legs—a truly Titanic bedstead; 
 one might have put a ton or two on it—it 
 would not have bent under the load; under 
 the bed was a solid chest; in a corner stood a 
 little table of the same strong kind, and near 
 the table a three-legged stool, so solid and 
 squat that Gerasim himself would sometimes 
 pick it up and drop it again with a smile of 
 delight. The garret was locked up by means 
 
Ad, MUMU 
 
 of a padlock that looked like a kalatch or 
 basket-shaped loaf, only black; the key of 
 this padlock Gerasim always carried about 
 him in his girdle. He did not like people to 
 come to his garret. 
 
 So passed a year, at the end of which a 
 little incident befell Gerasim. 
 
 The old lady, in whose service he lived as 
 porter, adhered in everything to the ancient 
 ways, and kept a large number of servants. 
 In her house were not only laundresses, 
 sempstresses, carpenters, tailors and _ tailor- 
 esses, there was even a _ harness-maker—he 
 was reckoned as a veterinary surgeon, too,— 
 and a doctor for the servants; there was 
 a household doctor for the mistress; there was, 
 lastly, a shoemaker, by name Kapiton Kli- 
 mov, a sad drunkard. Klimov regarded him- 
 self as an injured creature, whose merits 
 were unappreciated, a cultivated man from 
 Petersburg, who ought not to be living in 
 Moscow without occupation—in the wilds, so 
 to speak; and if he drank, as he himself 
 expressed it emphatically, with a blow on 
 his chest, it was sorrow drove him to it. So 
 one day his mistress had a conversation about 
 him with her head steward, Gavrila, a man 
 whom, judging solely from his little yellow 
 
MUMU Ad 
 
 eyes and nose like a duck’s beak, fate itself, 
 it seemed, had marked out as a person in 
 authority. The lady expressed her regret at 
 the corruption of the morals of Kapiton, who 
 had, only the evening before, been picked up 
 somewhere in the street. 
 
 “Now, Gavrila,” she observed, all of a 
 sudden, “now, if we were to marry him, what 
 do you think, perhaps he would be steadier?” 
 
 “Why not marry him, indeed, ’m? He 
 could be married, ’m,” answered Gavrila, 
 “and it would be a very good thing, to be 
 sure, ’m.” i 
 
 “Yes; only who is to marry him?” 
 
 “Ay, ’m. But that’s at your pleasure, ’m. 
 He may, any way, so to say, be wanted for 
 something; he can’t be turned adrift alto- 
 gether.” 
 
 “IT fancy he likes Tatiana.” 
 
 Gavrila was on the point of making some 
 reply, but he shut his lips tightly. 
 
 “Yes! ...let him marry Tatiana,” the 
 lady decided, taking a pinch of snuff com- 
 placently. “Do you hear?” 
 
 “Yes, ‘m,’ Gavrila articulated, and he 
 withdrew. 
 
 Returning to his own room (it was in a 
 little lodge, and was-almost filled up with 
 
46 MUMU 
 
 metal-bound trunks), Gavrila first sent his 
 wife away, and then sat down at the window 
 and pondered, His mistress’s unexpected ar- 
 rangement had clearly put him in a diffi- 
 culty. At last he got up and sent to call 
 Kapiton. Kapiton made his appearance. ... 
 But before reporting their conversation to 
 the reader, we consider it not out of place to 
 relate in few words who was this Tatiana, 
 whom it was to be Kapiton’s lot to marry, 
 and why the great lady’s order had disturbed 
 the steward. 
 
 Tatiana, one of the laundresses referred 
 to above (as a trained and skilful laundress 
 she was in charge of the fine linen only), was 
 a woman of twenty-eight, thin, fair-haired, 
 with moles on her left cheek. Moles on the 
 left cheek are regarded as of evil omen in 
 Russia—a token of unhappy life.... Tati- 
 ana could not boast of her good luck. From 
 her earliest youth she had been badly treated; 
 she had done the work of two, and had never 
 known affection; she had been poorly clothed 
 and had received the smallest wages. Rela- 
 tions she had practically none; an uncle she 
 had once had, a butler, left behind in the 
 country as useless, and other uncles of hers 
 were peasants—that was all. At one time 
 
MUMU 47 
 
 she had passed for a beauty, but her good 
 looks were very soon over. In disposition, 
 she was very meek, or, rather, scared; to- 
 wards herself, she felt perfect indifference; 
 of others, she stood in mortal dread; she 
 thought of nothing but how to get her work 
 done in good time, never talked to any one, 
 and trembled at the very name of her mis- 
 tress, though the latter scarcely knew her 
 by sight. When Gerasim was brought from 
 the country, she was ready to die with fear 
 on seeing his huge figure, tried all she could 
 to avoid meeting him, even dropped her eye- 
 lids when sometimes she chanced to run past 
 him, hurrying from the house to the laundry. 
 Gerasim at first paid no special attention to 
 her, then he used to smile when she came his 
 way, then he began even to stare admiringly 
 at her, and at last he never took his eyes 
 off her. She took his fancy, whether by the 
 mild expression of her face or the timidity 
 of her movements, who can tell? So one 
 day she was stealing across the yard, with 
 a starched dressing-jacket of her mistress’s 
 carefully poised on her outspread fingers 
 
 .. some one suddenly grasped her vigor- 
 ously by the elbow; she turned round and 
 fairly screamed; behind her stood Gerasim. 
 
48 MUMU 
 
 With a foolish smile, making inarticulate ca- 
 ressing grunts, he held out to her a ginger- 
 bread cock with gold tinsel on his tail and 
 wings. She was about to refuse it, but he 
 thrust it forcibly into her hand, shook his 
 head, walked away, and turning round, once 
 more grunted something very affectionately 
 to her. From that day forward he gave her 
 no peace; wherever she went, he was on the 
 spot at ence, coming to meet her, smiling, 
 grunting, waving his hands; all at once he 
 would pull a ribbon out of the bosom of his 
 smock and put it in her hand, or would 
 sweep the dust out of her way. The poor 
 girl simply did not know how to behave or 
 what to do. Soon the whole household knew 
 of the dumb porter’s wiles; jeers, jokes, sly 
 hints were showered upon Tatiana. At Ge- 
 rasim, however, it was not every one who- 
 would dare to scoff; he did not like jokes; 
 indeed, in his presence, she, too, was left in 
 peace. Whether she liked it or not, the girl 
 found herself to be under his protection. 
 Like all deaf-mutes, he was very suspicious, 
 and very readily perceived when they were 
 laughing at him or at her. One day, at din- 
 ner, the wardrobe-keeper, Tatiana’s superior, 
 fell to nagging, as it is called, at her, and 
 
MUMU 49 
 
 brought the poor thing to such a state that 
 she did not know where to look, and was al- 
 most crying with vexation. Gerasim got up 
 all of a sudden, stretched out his gigantic 
 hand, laid it on the wardrobe-maid’s head, 
 and looked into her face -with such grim 
 ferocity that her head positively flopped upon 
 the table. Every one was still. Gerasim 
 took up his spoon again and went on with 
 ‘his cabbage-soup. “Look at him, the dumb 
 ‘devil, the wood-demon!” they all muttered 
 in under-tones, while the wardrobe-maid got 
 up and went out into the maids’ room. An- 
 other time, noticing that Kapiton—the same 
 Kapiton who was the subject of the conver- 
 sation reported above—was gossiping some- 
 what too attentively with Tatiana, Gerasim 
 beckoned him to him, led him into the cart- 
 shed, and taking up a shaft that was stand- 
 _ ing in a corner by one end, lightly, but most 
 significantly, menaced him with it. Since 
 then no one addressed a word to Tatiana. 
 And all this cost him nothing. It is true 
 the wardrobe-maid, as soon as she reached 
 the maids’ room, promptly fell into a faint- 
 ing-fit, and behaved altogether so skilfully 
 that Gerasim’s rough action reached his mis- 
 tress’s knowledge the same day. But the 
 
50 MUMU 
 
 eapricious old lady only laughed, and sey- 
 eral times, to the great offence of the ward- 
 robe-maid, forced her to repeat “how he 
 bent your head down with his heavy hand,” 
 and next day she sent Gerasim a rouble. She 
 looked on him with favour as a strong and 
 faithful watchman. Gerasim stood in consid- 
 erable awe of her, but, all the same, he had 
 hopes of her favour, and was preparing to 
 go to her with a petition for leave to marry 
 Tatiana. He was only waiting for a new 
 coat, promised him by the steward, to pre-- 
 sent a proper appearance before his mis- 
 tress, when this same mistress suddenly took 
 it into her head to marry Tatiana to Kapi- 
 ton. 
 
 The reader will now readily understand 
 the perturbation of mind that overtook the 
 steward Gavrila after his conversation with 
 his mistress. “My lady,” he thought, as he 
 sat at the window, “favours Gerasim, to be 
 sure”—(Gavrila was well aware of this, and 
 that was why he himself looked on him with 
 an indulgent eye)—“still he is a speechless 
 creature. I could not, indeed, put it before 
 the mistress that Gerasim’s courting Tatiana. 
 But, after all, it’s true enough; he’s a queer 
 sort of husband. But on the other hand, that 
 
MUMU 51 
 
 devil, God forgive me, has only got to find 
 out they’re marrying Tatiana to Kapiton, 
 he'll smash up everything in the house, ’pon 
 my soul! ‘There’s no reasoning with him; 
 why, he’s such a devil, God forgive my sins, 
 there’s no getting over him no how... ’pon 
 my soul!” 
 
 Kapiton’s entrance broke the thread of 
 Gavrila’s reflections. The dissipated shoe- 
 maker came in, his hands behind him, and 
 lounging carelessly against a projecting an- 
 gle of the wall, near the door, crossed his 
 right foot in front of his left, and tossed his 
 head, as much as to say, “What do you 
 want?” 
 
 Gavrila looked at Kapiton, and drummed 
 with his fingers on the window-frame. Kapi- 
 ton merely screwed up his leaden eyes a lit- 
 tle, but he did not look down, he even grinned 
 slightly, and passed his hand over his whit- 
 ish locks which were sticking up in all direc- 
 tions. “Well, here I am. What is it?” 
 
 “You’re a pretty fellow,” said Gavrila, and 
 paused. “A pretty fellow you are, there’s 
 no denying!” 
 
 Kapiton only twitched his little shoulders. 
 “Are you any better, pray?” he thought to 
 himself, 
 
52 MUMU 
 
 “Just look at yourself, now, look at your- 
 self,’ Gavrila went on reproachfully; “now, 
 what ever do you look like?” 
 
 Kapiton serenely surveyed his shabby tat- 
 tered coat, and his patched trousers, and 
 with specia] attention stared at his burst 
 boots, especially the one on the tip-toe of 
 which his right foot so gracefully poised, and 
 he fixed his eyes again on the steward. 
 
 “Well?” 
 
 “Well?” repeated Gavrila. “Well? And 
 then you say well? You look like old Nick 
 himself, God forgive my saying so, that’s 
 what you look like.” 
 
 Kapiton blinked rapidly. 
 
 “Go on abusing me, go on, if you like, 
 Gavrila Andreitch,’ he thought to himself 
 again. 
 
 “Here you’ve been drunk again,” Gavrila 
 began, “drunk again, haven’t you? Eh? 
 Come, answer me!” 
 
 “Owing to the weakness of my health, I 
 have exposed myself to spirituous beverages, 
 certainly,” replied Kapiton. 
 
 “Owing to the weakness of your health! 
 ... They Jet you off too easy, that’s what 
 it is; and you’ve been apprenticed in Peters- 
 teure. 2, Much you learned in your ap- 
 
MUMU 53 
 
 prenticeship! You simply eat your bread in 
 idleness.” 
 
 “In that matter, Gavrila Andreitch, there 
 is one to judge me, the Lord God Himself, 
 and no one else. He also knows what man- 
 ner of man [ be in this world, and whether 
 I eat my bread in idleness. And as concern- 
 ing your contention regarding drunkenness, 
 in that matter, too, I am not to blame, but 
 rather a friend; he led me into temptation, 
 but was diplomatic and got away, while 
 Linn? 
 
 “While you were left, like a goose, in the 
 street. Ah, you’re a dissolute fellow! But 
 that’s not the point,” the steward went on, 
 “ve something to tell you. Our lady...” 
 here he paused a minute, “it’s our lady’s 
 pleasure that you should be married. Do 
 you hear? She imagines you may be steadier 
 when you’re married. Do you understand?” 
 
 “To be sure I do.” 
 
 “Well, then. For my part I think it would 
 be better to give you a good hiding. But 
 there—it’s her business. Well? are you 
 agreeable?” 
 
 Kapiton grinned. 
 
 “Matrimony is an excellent thing for any 
 
54 ~MUMU 
 
 ene, Gavrila Andreitch; and, as far as I am 
 concerned, I shall be quite agreeable.” 
 
 “Very well, then,” replied Gavrila, while 
 he reflected to himself: “there’s no denying 
 the man expresses himself very properly. 
 Only there’s one thing,” he pursued aloud: 
 “the wife our lady’s picked out for you is 
 an unlucky choice.” 
 
 “Why, who is she, permit me to inquire?” 
 
 “Tatiana.” 
 
 “Tatiana?” 
 
 And Kapiton opened his eyes, and moved 
 a little away from the wall. 
 
 “Well, what are you in such a taking for? 
 . .. Isn’t she to your taste, hey?” 
 
 “Not to my taste, do you say, Gavrila An- 
 dreitch? She’s right enough, a hard-working 
 steady girl.... But you know very well 
 ourself, Gavrila Andreitch, why that fel- 
 ow, that wild man of the woods, that mon- 
 ster of the steppes, he’s after her, you 
 EHOW. Vee” 
 
 “IT know, mate, I know all about it,” the 
 butler cut him short in a tone of annoyance: 
 “but there, you see.. .” 
 
 “But upon my soul, Gavrila Andreitch! 
 why, he'll kill me, by God, he will, he’ll crush 
 me like some fly; why, he’s got a fist—why, 
 
MUMU 55 
 
 you kindly look yourself what a fist he’s gots 
 why, he’s simply got a fist like Minin Pozhar- 
 sky’s. You see he’s deaf, he beats and does 
 not hear how he’s beating! He swings. his 
 great fists, as if he’s asleep. And there’s no 
 possibility of pacifying him; and for why? 
 Why, because, as you know yourself, Gavrila 
 Andreitch, he’s deaf, and what’s more, has 
 no more wit than the heel of my foot. Why, 
 he’s a sort of beast, a heathen idol, Gavrila 
 Andreitch, and worse ...a block of wood; 
 what have I done that I should have to suffer 
 from him now? Sure it is, it’s all over with 
 me now; I’ve knocked about, I’ve had enough 
 to put up with, I’ve been battered like an 
 earthenware pot, but still I’m a man, after 
 all, and not a worthless pot.” 
 
 “T know, I know, don’t go talking 
 AWAY: 0 a, 
 
 “Lord, my God!” the shoemaker continued 
 warmly, “when is the end? when, O Lord! 
 A poor wretch I am, a poor wretch whose 
 sufferings are endless! What a life, what a 
 life mine’s been, come to think of it! In 
 my young days, I was beaten by a German 
 I was ’prentice to; in the prime of life beat- 
 en by my own countrymen, and last of all, 
 
56 MUMU 
 
 in ripe years, see what I have been brought 
 tases” 
 
 “Ugh, you flabby soul!” said Gavrila 
 Andreitch, “Why do you make so many 
 words about it?” 
 
 “Why, do you say, Gavrila Andreitch? It’s 
 not a beating I’m afraid of, Gavrila An- 
 dreitch. A gentleman may chastise me in 
 private, but give me a civil word before folks, 
 and I’m a man still; but see now, whom I’ve 
 to do with... .” 
 ~ “Come, get along,” Gavrila interposed im- 
 patiently. Kapiton turned away and stag- 
 gered off. 
 
 “But, if it were not for him,” the steward 
 shouted after him, “you would consent for 
 your part?” 
 
 “I signify my acquiescence,” retorted Kap- 
 iton as he disappeared. 
 
 His fine language did not desert him, even 
 in the most trying positions. 
 
 The steward walked several times up and 
 down the room. 
 
 “Well, call. Tatiana now,” he said at last. 
 
 A few instants later, Tatiana had come up 
 almost noiselessly, and was standing in the 
 doorway. 
 
MUMU ; 37 
 
 “What are your orders, Gavrila An- 
 dreitch?” she said in a soft voice. 
 
 The steward looked at her intently. 
 
 “Well, Taniusha,” he said, “would you like 
 to be married? Our lady has chosen a hus- 
 band for you.” 
 
 “Yes, Gavrila Andreitch. And whom has 
 she deigned to name as a husband for me?” 
 she added falteringly. 
 
 “Kapiton, the shoemaker.” 
 
 “Yes, sir.” 
 
 “He’s a feather-brained fellow, that’s cer- 
 tain. But its just for that the mistress 
 reckons upon you.” 
 
 “Yes, sir.” 
 
 “There’s one difficulty ... you know the 
 _ deaf man, Gerasim, he’s courting you, you 
 see. How did you come to bewitch such a 
 bear? But you see, he'll kill you, very like, 
 he’s such a bear... 
 
 “He'll kill me, Georrilis Andreitch, he’ll kill 
 me, and no mistake.” ; 
 
 “Kill you. ... Well, we shall see about 
 that. What do you mean by saying he'll 
 kill you? Has he any right to kill you? tell 
 me yourself.” 
 
 “JT don’t know, Gavrila Andreitch, about 
 his having any right or not.” 
 
58 MUMU 
 
 “What a woman! why, you’ve made him no 
 promise, I suppose... .” 
 
 “What are you pleased to ask of me?” 
 
 The steward was silent for a little, think- 
 ing, “Youre a meek soul! Well, that’s 
 right,’ he said aloud; “well have another 
 talk with you later, now you can go, Taniu- 
 sha; I see you’re not unruly, certainly.” 
 
 Tatiana turned, steadied herself a little 
 against the doorpost, and went away. 
 
 “And, perhaps, our lady will forget all 
 about this wedding by to-morrow,” thought 
 the steward; “and here am I worrying my- 
 self for nothing! As for that insolent fel- 
 low, we must tie him down, if it comes to 
 that, we must let the police know... .” “Us- 
 tinya Fyedorovna!” he shouted in a loud 
 voice to his wife, “heat the samovar, my good 
 soul....” All that day Tatiana hardly 
 went out of the laundry. At first she had 
 started crying, then she wiped away her tears, 
 and set to work as before. Kapiton stayed 
 till late at night at the ginshop with a friend 
 of his, a man of gloomy appearance, to whom 
 he related in detail how he used to live in 
 Petersburg with a gentleman, who would 
 have been all right, except he was a bit too 
 strict, and he had a slight weakness besides, 
 
MUMU 59 
 
 he was too fond of drink; and, as to the fair 
 sex, he didn’t stick at anything. His gloomy 
 companion merely said yes; but when Kapi- 
 ton announced at last that, in a certain 
 event, he would have to lay hands on himself 
 to-morrow, his gloomy companion remarked 
 that it was bedtime. And they parted in 
 surly silence. 
 
 Meanwhile, the stewarca’s anticipations 
 were not fulfilled. The old lady was so much 
 taken up with the idea of Kapiton’s wedding, 
 that. even in the night she talked of nothing 
 else to one of her companions, who was kept 
 in her house solely to entertain her in case of 
 sleeplessness, and, like a night cabman, slept 
 in the day. When Gavrila came to her after 
 morning: tea with his report, her first ques- 
 tion was: “And, how about our wedding—is 
 it getting on all right?’ He replied, of 
 course, that it was getting on first rate, and 
 that Kapiton would appear before her to 
 pay his reverence to her that day. The old 
 lady was not quite well; she did not give 
 ‘much time to business. The steward went 
 back to his own room, and called a council. 
 The matter certainly called for serious con- 
 sideration. Tatiana would make no diffi- 
 culty, of course; but Kapiton had declared 
 
60 MUMU 
 
 in the hearing of all that he had but one 
 head to lose, not two or three. ... Gerasim 
 turned rapid sullen looks on every one, would 
 not budge from the steps of the maids’ quar- 
 ters, and seemed to guess that some mischief 
 was being hatched against him. They met 
 together. Among them was an old sideboard 
 waiter, nicknamed Uncle Tail, to whom eve 
 
 one looked respectfully for counsel, though 
 all they got out of him was, “Here’s a pretty 
 pass! to be sure, to be sure, to be sure!” 
 As a preliminary measure of security, to pro- 
 vide against contingencies, they locked Kap- 
 iton up in the lumber-room where the filter 
 was kept; then considered the question with 
 the gravest deliberation. It would, to be 
 sure, be easy to have recourse to force. But 
 Heaven save us! there would be an uproar, 
 the mistress would be put out—it would be 
 awful! What should they do? They thought 
 and thought, and at last thought out a solu- 
 tion. It had many a time been observed 
 that Gerasim could not bear drunkards... . 
 As he sat at the gates, he would always turn 
 away with disgust when some one passed by 
 intoxicated, with unsteady steps and his cap 
 on one side of his ear. They resolved that 
 Tatiana should be instructed to pretend to 
 
MUMU 61 
 
 be tipsy, and should pass by Gerasim stag- 
 gering and reeling about. The poor girl re- 
 fused for a long while to agree to this, but 
 they persuaded her at last; she saw, too, that 
 it was the only possible way of getting rid 
 of her adorer. She went out. Kapiton was 
 released from the lumber-room; for, after 
 all, he had an interest in the affair. Gerasim 
 was sitting on the curb-stone at the gates, 
 scraping the ground with a spade. ... From 
 behind every corner, from behind every win- 
 dow-blind, the others were watching him... . 
 The trick succeeded beyond all expectations. 
 On seeing Tatiana, at first, he nodded as 
 usual, making caressing, inarticulate sounds; 
 then he looked carefully at her, dropped his 
 spade, jumped up, went up to her, brought 
 his face close to her face. ... In her fright 
 she staggered more than ever, and shut her 
 eyes... . He took her by the arm, whirled 
 her right across the yard, and going into the 
 room where the council had been sitting, 
 pushed her straight at Kapiton. Tatiana 
 fairly swooned away... . Gerasim stood, 
 looked at her, waved his hand, laughed, and 
 went off, stepping heavily, to his garret.... 
 For the next twenty-four hours, he did not 
 come out of it. The postillion Antipka said 
 
62 MUMU 
 
 afterwards that he saw Gerasim through a 
 crack in the wall, sitting on his bedstead, 
 his face in his hand. From time to time he 
 uttered soft regular sounds; he was wailing 
 a dirge, that is, swaying backwards and for- 
 wards with his eyes shut, and shaking his 
 head as drivers or bargemen do when they 
 chant their melancholy songs. Antipka could 
 not bear it, and he came away from the 
 crack. When Gerasim came out of the gar- 
 ret next day, no particular change could be 
 observed in him. He only seemed, as it were, 
 more morose, and took not the slightest no- 
 tice of Tatiana or Kapiton. The same eve- 
 ning, they both had to appear before their 
 mistress with geese under their arms, and in 
 a week’s time they were married. Even on 
 the day of the wedding Gerasim showed no 
 change of any sort in ‘his behaviour. Only, 
 he came back from the river without water, 
 
 he had somehow broken the barrel on the |. 
 
 road; and at night, in the stable, he washed 
 and rubbed down his horse so vigorously, that 
 it swayed like a blade of grass in the wind, 
 and staggered from one leg to the other ~ 
 under his fists of iron. 
 
 All this had taken place in the spring. 
 Another year passed by, during which Kapi- 
 
MUMU 63 
 
 ton became a hopeless drunkard, and as be- 
 ing absolutely of no use for anything, was 
 sent away with the store waggons to a dis- 
 tant village with his wife. On the day of his 
 departure, he put a very good face on it at 
 first, and declared that he would always be 
 at home, send him where they would, even 
 to the other end of the world; but later on 
 he lost heart, began grumbling that he was 
 being taken to uneducated people, and col- 
 lapsed so completely at last that he could 
 not even put his own hat on. Some charita~ 
 ble soul stuck it on his forehead, set the 
 peak straight in front, and thrust it on with 
 a slap from above. When everything was 
 quite ready, and the peasants already held 
 the reins in their hands, and were only wait- 
 ing for the words “With God’s blessing!” to 
 start, Gerasim came out of his garret, went 
 up to Tatiana, and gave her as a parting 
 present a red cotton handkerchief he had 
 bought for her a year ago. ‘Tatiana, who 
 had up to that instant borne all the revolt- 
 ing details of her life with great indiffer- 
 ence, could not control herself upon that; 
 she burst into tears, and-as she took her seat 
 in the cart, she kissed Gerasim three times 
 like a good Christian. He meant to accom- 
 
64 MUMU 
 
 pany her as far as the town-barrier, and did 
 walk beside her cart for a while, but he 
 stopped suddenly at the Crimean ford, waved 
 his hand, and walked away along the river- 
 side. 
 
 It was getting towards evening. He 
 walked slowly, watching the water. All of a 
 sudden he fancied something was floundering 
 in the mud close to the bank. He stooped 
 over, and saw a little white-and-black puppy, 
 who, in spite of all its efforts, could not get 
 out of the water; it was struggling, slipping 
 back, and trembling all over its thin wet little 
 body. Gerasim looked at the unlucky little 
 dog, picked it up with one hand, put it into 
 the bosom of his coat, and hurried with long 
 steps homewards. He went into his garret, 
 put the rescued puppy on his bed, covered it 
 with his thick overcoat, ran first to the stable 
 for straw, and then to the kitchen for a cup 
 of milk. Carefully folding back the overcoat, 
 and spreading out the straw, he set the milk 
 on the bedstead. The poor little puppy was 
 not more than three weeks old, its eyes’ were 
 only just open—one eye still seemed rather 
 larger than the other; it did not know how to 
 lap out of a cup, and did nothing but shiver 
 and blink. Gerasim took hold of its head 
 
MUMU 65 
 
 softly with two fingers, and dipped its little 
 nose into the milk. The pup suddenly began 
 lapping greedily, sniffing, shaking itself, and 
 choking. Gerasim watched and watched it, 
 and all at once he laughed outright... . All 
 night long he was waiting on it, keeping it 
 covered, and rubbing it dry. He fell asleep 
 himself at last, and slept quietly and happily 
 by its side. 
 
 No mother could have looked after her 
 baby as Gerasim looked after his little nurs- 
 ling. At first, she—for the pup turned out 
 to be a bitch—was very weak, feeble, and | 
 ugly, but by degrees she grew stronger and 
 improved in looks, and thanks to the unflag- 
 ging care of her preserver, in eight months’ 
 time she was transformed into a very pretty 
 dog of the spaniel breed, with long ears, a 
 bushy spiral tail, and large expressive eyes. 
 She was devotedly attached to Gerasim, and 
 was never a yard from his side; she always 
 followed him. about wagging her tail. He 
 had even given her a name—the dumb know 
 that their inarticulate noises call the atten- 
 tion of others. He called her Mumu. All 
 the servants in the house liked her, and called 
 her Mumu, too. She was very intelligent, 
 she was friendly with every one, but was only 
 
66 MUMU 
 
 fond of Gerasim. Gerasim, on his side, loved 
 her passionately, and he did not like it when 
 other people stroked her; whether he was 
 afraid for her, or jealous—God knows! She 
 used to wake him in the morning, pulling at 
 his coat; she used to take the reins in her 
 mouth, and bring him up the old horse that 
 carried the water, with whom she was on very 
 friendly terms. With a face of great impor- 
 tance, she used to go with him to the river; 
 she used to watch his brooms and spades, and 
 never allowed any one to go into his garret. 
 He cut a little hole in his door on purpose 
 for her, and she seemed to feel that only in 
 Gerasim’s garret she was completely mistress 
 and at home; and directly she went in, she 
 used to jump with a satisfied air upon the 
 bed. At night she did not sleep at all, but 
 she never barked without sufficient cause, 
 like some stupid house-dog, who, sitting on 
 its hind-legs, blinking, with its nose in the 
 air, barks simply from dulness, at the stars, 
 usually three times in succession. No! 
 Mumu’s delicate little voice was never raised 
 without good reason; either some stranger 
 was passing close to the fence, or there was 
 some suspicious sound or rustle somewhere. 
 ..- In fact, she was an excellent watch-dog. 
 
MUMU 67 
 
 It is true that there was another dog in the 
 
 ard, a tawny old dog with brown spots, 
 -ealled Wolf, but he was never, even at night, 
 let off the chain; and, indeed, he was so 
 decrepit that he did not even wish for free- 
 dom. He used to lie curled up in his ken- 
 nel, and only rarely uttered a sleepy, almost 
 noiseless bark, which broke off at once, as 
 though he were himself aware of its useless- 
 ness. Mumu never went into the mistress’s 
 house; and when Gerasim carried wood into 
 the rooms, she always stayed behind, impa- 
 tiently waiting for him at the steps, pricking 
 up her ears and turning her head to right 
 and to left at the slightest creak of the 
 door. ... 
 
 So passed another year. Gerasim went on 
 performing his duties as house-porter, and 
 was very well content with his lot, when 
 suddenly an unexpected incident occurred. 
 . - . One fine summer day the old lady was 
 walking up and down the drawing-room with 
 her dependants. She was in high spirits; she 
 laughed and made jokes. Her servile com- 
 panions laughed and joked too, but they did 
 not feel particularly mirthful; the household 
 did not much like it, when their mistress was 
 in a lively mood, for, to begin with, she ex- 
 
68 MUMU 
 
 pected from every one prompt and complete 
 participation in her merriment, and was furi-' 
 ous if any one showed a face that did not 
 beam with delight, and secondly, these out- 
 bursts never lasted long with her, and were 
 usually followed by a sour and gloomy mood. 
 That day she had got up in a lucky hour; at 
 cards she took the four knaves, which means 
 the fulfilment of one’s wishes (she used to 
 try her fortune on the cards every morn- 
 ing), and her tea struck her as particularly 
 delicious, for which her maid was rewarded 
 by words of praise, and by twopence in 
 money. With a sweet smile on her wrinkled 
 lips, the lady walked about the drawing-room 
 and went up to the window. A flower-garden 
 had been laid out before the window, and 
 in the very middle bed, under a rose-bush, 
 lay Mumu busily gnawing a bone. The lady 
 caught sight of her. 
 
 “Mercy on us!” she cried suddenly; “what 
 dog is that?” 
 
 The companion, addressed by the old lady, 
 hesitated, poor thing, in that wretched state 
 of uneasiness which is common in any per- 
 son in a dependent position who doesn’t know 
 very well what significance to give to the ex- 
 clamation of a superior. 
 
MUMU 69 
 
 “IT d...d... don’t know,” she faltered: 
 “I fancy it’s the dumb man’s dog.” : 
 
 “Mercy!” the lady cut her short: “but it’s 
 a charming little dog! order it to be brought 
 in. Has he had it long? Hfow is it I’ve never 
 seen it before? ... Order it to be brought 
 in.” 
 
 The companion fiew at once into the hall. 
 
 “Boy, boy!” she shouted: “bring Mumu in 
 at once! She’s in the flower-garden.” 
 
 “Her name’s Mumu then,” observed the 
 lady: “a very nice name.” 
 
 “Oh, very, indeed!” chimed in the com- 
 panion. “Make haste, Stepan!” 
 
 Stepan, a _ sturdily-built young fellow, 
 whose duties were those of a footman, rushed 
 headlong into the flower-garden, and tried 
 to capture Mumu, but she cleverly slipped 
 from his fingers, and with her tail in the air, 
 fled full speed to Gerasim, who was at that 
 instant in the kitchen, knocking out and 
 cleaning a barrel, turning it upside down in 
 his hands like a child’s drum. Stepan ran 
 after her, and tried to catch her just at 
 ‘her master’s feet; but the sensible dog would 
 not let a stranger touch her, and with a 
 ound, she got away. Gerasim looked on with 
 i smile at all this ado; at last, Stepan got 
 
70 MUMU 
 
 up, much amazed, and hurriedly explained to 
 him by signs that the mistress wanted the 
 dog brought in to her. Gerasim was a little 
 astonished; he called Mumu, however, picked 
 her up, and handed her over to Stepan. 
 Stepan carried her into the drawing-room, 
 and put her down on the parquette floor. The 
 old lady began calling the dog to her in a 
 coaxing voice. Mumu, who had never in her 
 life been in such magnificent apartments, was 
 very much frightened, and made a rush for 
 the door, but, being driven back by the ob- 
 sequious Stepan, she began trembling, and 
 huddled close up against the wall. 
 
 “Mumu, Mumu, come to me, come to your 
 mistress,” said the lady; “come, silly thing 
 
 . don’t be afraid.” 
 
 “Come, Mumu, come to the mistress,” re- 
 peated the companions. “Come along!” : 
 
 But Mumu looked round her uneasily, and 
 did not stir. 
 
 “Bring her something to eat,” said the old 
 lady. “How stupid she is! she won’t come to 
 her mistress. What’s she afraid of?” 
 
 “She’s not used to your honour yet,” ven- 
 tured one of the companions in a timid and 
 conciliatory voice. 
 
 Stepan brought in a saucer of milk, and 
 
MUMU 71 
 
 set it down before Mumu, but Mumu would 
 not even sniff at the milk, and still shivered, 
 and looked round as before. 
 
 “Ah, what a silly you are!” said the lady, 
 and going up to her, she stooped down, and 
 was about to stroke her, but Mumu turned 
 her head abruptly, and showed her teeth. 
 The lady hurriedly drew back her hand.... 
 
 A momentary silence followed. Mumu gave 
 a faint whine, as though she would complain 
 and apologise. ... The old lady moved back, 
 scowling. The dog’s sudden movement had 
 frightened her. 
 
 “Ah!” shrieked all the companions at once, 
 “she’s not bitten you, has she? Heaven for- 
 bid! (Mumu had never bitten any one in her 
 life.) Ah! ah!” 
 
 “Take her away,” said the old lady in a 
 changed voice. ‘Wretched little dog! What 
 a spiteful creature!” 
 
 And, turning round deliberately, she went 
 towards her boudoir. Her companions looked 
 timidly at one another, and were about to 
 follow her, but she stopped, stared coldly at 
 them, and said, “What’s that for, pray? I’ve 
 not called you,” and went out. 
 
 The companions waved their hands to 
 Stepan in despair. He picked up Mumu, 
 
72 MUMU 
 
 and flung her promptly outside the door, just 
 at Gerasim’s feet, and half-an-hour later a 
 profound. stillness reigned in the house, and 
 the old lady sat on her sofa looking blacker 
 than a thundercloud. 
 
 What trifles, if you think of it, will some- 
 times disturb any one! 
 
 Till evening the lady was out of humour; 
 she did not talk to any one, did not play 
 cards, and passed a bad night. She fancied 
 the eau-de-Cologne they gave her was not 
 the same as she usually had, and that her pil- 
 low smelt of soap, and she made the ward- 
 robe-maid smell all the bed linen—in fact she 
 was very upset and cross altogether. Next 
 morning she ordered Gavrila to be summoned 
 an hour earlier than usual. 
 
 “Tell me, please,” she began, directly the 
 latter, not without some inward trepidation, 
 crossed the threshold of her boudoir, “what 
 dog was that barking all night in our yard? 
 It wouldn’t let me sleep!” 
 
 ‘SA dog, ’m.'.. what dog, ’m... may be, 
 the dumb man’s dog, ’m,” he brought out in 
 a rather unsteady voice. 
 
 “¥ don’t know whether it was the dumb 
 man’s or whose, but it wouldn’t let me sleep. 
 And I wonder what we have such a lot of 
 
MUMU 78 
 
 dogs for! I wish to know. We have a yard 
 dog, haven’t we?” : 
 
 “Oh, yes, ’m, we have, ’m. Wolf, ’m.” 
 
 “Well, why more, what do we want more 
 dogs for? It’s simply introducing disorder. 
 There’s no one in control in the house—that’s 
 what it is. And what does the dumb man 
 want with a dog? Who gave him leave to 
 keep dogs in my yard? Yesterday I went to 
 the windows and there it was lying in the 
 flower-garden; it had dragged in some nasti- 
 ness it was gnawing, and my roses are planted 
 there.’ 4:30" 
 
 The lady ceased. 
 
 “Let her be gone from to-day ... do you 
 hear?” 
 
 “y ‘es, *m.”? 
 
 “To-day. Now go. I will send for you 
 later for the report.” 
 
 Gavrila went away. 
 
 As he went through the drawing-room, the 
 steward by way of maintaining order moved 
 a bell from one table to another; he stealthily 
 blew his duck-like nose in the hall, and went 
 into the outer-hall. In the outer-hall, on a 
 locker was Stepan asleep in the attitude of a 
 slain warrior in a battalion picture, his bare 
 legs thrust out below the coat which served 
 
74 MUMU 
 
 him for a blanket. The steward gave him a 
 shove, and whispered some instructions to 
 him, to which Stepan responded with some- 
 thing between a yawn and a laugh. The 
 steward went away, and Stepan got up, put 
 on his coat and his boots, went out and stood 
 on the steps. Five minutes had not passed 
 before Gerasim made his appearance with a 
 huge bundle of hewn logs on his back, ac- 
 companied by the inseparable Mumu. (The 
 lady had given orders that her bedroom and 
 boudoir should be heated at times even in 
 the summer.) Gerasim turned sideways be- 
 fore the door, shoved it open with his shoul- 
 der, and staggered into the house with his 
 load. Mumu, as usual, stayed behind to wait 
 for him. Then Stepan, seizing his chance, 
 suddenly pounced on her, like a kite on a 
 chicken, held her down to the ground, gath- 
 ered her up in his arms, and without even 
 utting on his cap, ran out of the yard with 
 er, got into the first fly he met, and gal- 
 loped off to a market-place. There he soon 
 found a purchaser, to whom he sold her for 
 a shilling, on condition that he would keep 
 her for at least a week tied up; then he re- 
 turned at once. But before he got home, he 
 got off the fly, and going right round the 
 
MUMU 75 
 
 yard, jumped over the fence into the yard 
 from a back street. He was afraid to go in 
 at the gate for fear of meeting Gerasim. 
 
 His anxiety was unnecessary, however; 
 Gerasim was no longer in the yard. On 
 coming out of the house he had at once 
 missed Mumu. He never remembered her 
 failing to wait for his return, and began run- 
 ning up and down, looking for her, and call- 
 ing her in his own way. ... He rushed up 
 to his garret, up to the hay-loft, ran out into 
 the street, this way and that.... She was 
 lost! He turned to the other serfs, with the 
 most despairing signs, questioned them about 
 her, pointing to her height from the ground, 
 describing her with his hands. ... Some of 
 them really did not know what had become of 
 Mumu, and merely shook their heads, others 
 did know, and smiled to him for all response, 
 while the steward assumed an important air, 
 and began scolding the coachman. Then 
 Gerasim ran right away out of the yard. 
 
 It was dark by the time he came back. 
 From his worn-out look, his unsteady walk, 
 and his dusty clothes, it might be surmised 
 that he had been running over half Moscow. 
 He stood still opposite the windows of the 
 mistress’s house, took a searching look at the 
 
76 MUMU 
 
 steps where a group of house-serfs were 
 crowded together, turned away, and uttered 
 once more his inarticulate “Mumu.” Mumu 
 did not answer. He went away. Every one 
 looked after him, but no one smiled or said a 
 word, and the inquisitive postillion Antipka 
 reported next morning in the kitchen that 
 the dumb man had been groaning all night. 
 All the next day Gerasim did not show him- 
 self, so that they were obliged to send the 
 coachman Potap for water instead of him, at 
 which the coachman Potap was anything but 
 pleased. The lady asked Gavrila if her or- 
 ders had been carried out. Gavrila replied 
 that they had. The next morning Gerasim 
 came out of his garret, and went about his 
 work. He came in to his dinner, ate it, and 
 went out again, without a greeting to any 
 one. His face, which had always been life- 
 less, as with all deaf-mutes, seemed now to 
 be turned to stone. After dinner he went 
 out of the yard again, but not for long; he 
 came back, and went straight up to the hay- 
 loft. Night came on, a clear moonlight night. 
 Gerasim lay breathing heavily, and inces- 
 santly turning from side to side. Suddenly 
 he felt something pull at the skirt of his 
 coat. He started, but did not raise his head, 
 
MUMU 17 
 
 and even shut his eyes tighter. But. again 
 there was a pull, stronger than before; he 
 jumped up... before him, with an end of 
 string round her neck, was Mumu, twisting 
 and turning. <A prolonged cry of delight 
 broke from his speechless breast; he caught 
 up Mumu, and hugged her tight in his arms, 
 she licked his nose and eyes, and beard and 
 moustache, all in one instant. ... He stood 
 a little, thought a minute, crept cautiously 
 down from the hay-loft, looked round, and 
 having satisfied himself that no one could see 
 him, made his way successfully to his gar- 
 ret. Gerasim had guessed before that his 
 dog had not got lost by her own doing, that 
 she must have been taken away by the mis- 
 tress’s orders; the servants had explained to 
 him by signs that his Mumu had snapped at 
 her, and he determined to take his own meas- 
 ures. First he fed Mumu with a bit of 
 bread, fondled her, and put her to bed, then 
 he fell to meditating, and spent the whole 
 night long in meditating how he could best 
 conceal her. At last he decided to leave her 
 all day in the garret, and only to come in 
 now and then to see her, and to take her out 
 at night. The hole in the door he stopped up 
 effectually with his old overcoat, and almost 
 
78 MUMU 
 
 before it was light he was already in the 
 yard, as though nothing had happened, even 
 —innocent guile!—the same expression of 
 melancholy on his face. It did not even oc- 
 cur to the poor deaf man that Mumu would 
 betray herself by her whining; in reality, 
 every one in the house was soon aware that 
 the dumb man’s dog had come back, and was 
 locked up in his garret, but from sympathy 
 with him and with her, and partly, perhaps, 
 from dread of him, they did not let him know 
 that they had found out his secret. The 
 steward scratched his head, and gave a de- 
 spairing wave of his hand, as much as to say, 
 “Well, well, God have mercy on him! If 
 only it doesn’t come to the mistress’s ears!” 
 But the dumb man had never shown such 
 energy as on that day; he cleaned and scraped 
 the whole courtyard, pulled up every single 
 weed with his own hand, tugged up every 
 stake in the fence of the flower-garden, to 
 satisfy himself that they were strong enough, 
 and unaided drove them in again; in fact, he 
 toiled and laboured so that even the old lady 
 noticed his zeal. Twice in the course of the 
 day Gerasim went stealthily in to see his 
 prisoner; when night came on, he lay down 
 to sleep with her in the garret, not in the 
 
MUMU 7 
 
 hay-loft, and only at two o’clock in the night 
 he went out to take her a turn in the fresh 
 air. After. walking about the courtyard a 
 good while with her, he was just turning 
 back, when suddenly a rustle was heard be- 
 hind the fence on the side of the back street. 
 Mumu pricked up her ears, growled—went up 
 to the fence, sniffed, and gave vent to a loud 
 shrill bark. Some drunkard had thought fit 
 to take refuge under the fence for the night. 
 At that very time the old lady had just 
 fallen asleep after a prolonged fit of “nervous 
 agitation”; these fits of agitation always over- 
 took her after too hearty a supper. The sud- 
 den bark waked her up: her heart palpitated, 
 and she felt faint. “Girls, girls!” she 
 moaned. “Girls!” The terrified maids. ran 
 into her bedroom. “Oh, oh, I am dying!” 
 she said, flinging her arms about in her agi- 
 tation. “Again, that dog again! ... Oh, send 
 for the doctor. They mean to be the death 
 of me.... The dog, the dog again! Oh!” 
 And she let her head fall back, which always 
 signified a swoon. They rushed for the doc- 
 tor, that is, for the household pepens Har- 
 iton. This doctor, whose whole qualification 
 consisted in wearing soft-soled boots, knew 
 how to feel the pulse delicately. He used to 
 
80 MUMU 
 
 sleep fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, 
 but the rest of the time he was always sigh- 
 ing, and continually dosing the old lady with 
 cherrybay drops. This doctor ran up at once, 
 fumigated the room with burnt feathers, and 
 when the old lady opened her eyes, promptly 
 offered her a wineglass of the hallowed drops 
 on a silver tray. The old lady took them, 
 but began again at once in a tearful voice 
 BaP: of the dog, of Gavrila, and of 
 her fate, declaring that she was a poor old 
 woman, and that every one had forsaken her, 
 no one pitied her, every one wished her dead. 
 Meanwhile the luckless Mumu had gone on 
 barking, while Gerasim tried in vain to call 
 her away from the fence. “There... there 
 . again,” groaned the old lady, and: once 
 more she turned up the whites of her eyes. 
 The doctor whispered to a maid, she rushed 
 into the outer-hall, and shook Stepan, he ran 
 to wake Gavrila, Gavrila in a fury ordered 
 the whole household to get up. 
 Gerasim turned round, saw lights and shad- 
 ows moving in the windows, and with an in- 
 stinct of coming trouble in his heart, put 
 Mumu under his arm, ran into his garret, and 
 locked himself in. A few minutes later five 
 men were banging at his door, but feeling 
 
MUMU 81 
 
 the resistance of the bolt, they stopped. 
 Gavrila ran up in a fearful state of mind, and 
 ordered them all to wait there and watch till 
 morning. Then he flew off himself to the 
 maids’ quarter, and through an old com- 
 panion, Liubov Liubimoyna, with whose as- 
 sistance he used to steal tea, sugar, and 
 other groceries and to falsify the accounts, 
 sent word to the mistress that the dog had 
 unhappily run back from somewhere, but 
 that to-morrow she should be killed, and 
 would the mistress be so gracious as not to 
 be angry and to overlook it. The old lady 
 would probably not have been so soon ap- 
 peased, but the doctor had in his haste given 
 her fully forty drops instead of twelve. The 
 strong dose of narcotic acted; in a quarter 
 of an hour the old lady was in a sound and 
 peaceful sleep; while Gerasim was lying with 
 a white face on his bed, holding Mumu’s 
 mouth tightly shut. 
 
 Next morning the lady woke up rather late. 
 Gavrila was waiting till she should be awake, 
 to give the order for a final assault on 
 Gerasim’s stronghold, while he prepared him- 
 self to face a fearful storm. But the storm 
 did not come off. The old lady lay in bed 
 
82 MUMU 
 
 and sent for the eldest of her dependent 
 companions. 
 
 “Liubov Liubimovna,” she began in a sub- 
 dued weak voice—she was fond of playing 
 the part of an oppressed and forsaken vic- 
 tim; needless to say, every one in the house 
 was made extremely uncomfortable at such 
 times—“Liubov Liubimovna, you see my posi- 
 tion; go, my love, to Gavrila Andreitch, and 
 talk to him a little. Can he really prize some 
 wretched cur above the repose—the very life 
 —of his mistress? I could not bear to think 
 so,” she added, with an expression of deep 
 feeling. “Go, my love; be so good as to go 
 to Gavrila Andreitch for me.” 
 
 Liubov Liubimovna went to Gavrila’s room. 
 What conversation passed between them is 
 not known, but a short time after, a whole 
 crowd of people was moving across the yard 
 in the direction of Gerasim’s garret. Gavrila 
 walked in front, holding his cap on with his 
 hand, though there was no wind. The foot- 
 men and cooks were close behind him; Uncle 
 Tail was looking out of a window, giving in- 
 structions, that is to say, simply waving his 
 hands. At the rear there was a crowd of 
 small boys skipping and hopping along; half 
 of them were eutsiders who had run up. On 
 
MUMU 83 
 
 the narrow staircase leading to the garret 
 sat one guard; at the door were standing two 
 more with sticks. They began to mount the 
 stairs, which they entirely blocked up. Ga- 
 vrila went up to the door, knocked with his 
 fist, shouting, “Open the door!” 
 
 A stifled bark was audible, but there was 
 no answer. 
 
 “Open the door, I tell you,” he repeated. 
 
 “But, Gavrila Andreitch,” Stepan observed 
 from below, “he’s deaf, you know—he doesn’t 
 hear.” 
 
 They all laughed. 
 
 “What are we to do?” Gavrila rejoined 
 from above. 
 
 “Why, there’s a hole there in the door,” 
 answered Stepan, “so you shake the stick in 
 there.” 
 
 Gavrila bent down. 
 
 “He’s stuffed it up with a coat or some- 
 thing.” 
 
 “Well, you just push the coat in.” 
 
 At this moment a smothered bark was 
 heard again. 
 
 “See, see—she speaks for herself,” was re- 
 marked in the crowd, and again they laughed. 
 
 Gayrila scratched his ear. 
 
84 MUMU 
 
 “No, mate,” he responded at last, “you can 
 poke the coat in yourself, if you like.” 
 
 SAll right,, let me.” 4% 
 
 And Stepan scrambled up, took the stick, 
 pushed in the coat, and began waving the 
 stick about in the opening, saying, “Come out, 
 come out!” as he did so. He was still wav- 
 ing the stick, when suddenly the door of 
 the garret was flung open; all the crowd flew 
 pell-mell down the stairs instantly, Gavrila 
 first of all. Uncle Tail locked the window. 
 
 “Come, come, come,” shouted Gavrila from 
 the yard, “mind what yow’re about.” 
 
 Gerasim stood without stirring in his door- 
 way. The crowd gathered at the foot of the 
 stairs. Gerasim, with his arms akimbo, looked 
 down at all these poor creatures in German 
 coats; in his red peasant’s shirt he looked 
 like a giant before them. Gavrila took a 
 step forward. 
 
 “Mind, mate,” said he, “don’t be insolent.” 
 
 And he began to explain to him by signs 
 that the mistress insists on having his dog; 
 that he must hand it over at once, or it would 
 be the worse for him. 
 
 Gerasim looked at him, pointed to the dog, 
 made a motion with his hand round his neck, 
 as though he were pulling a noose tight, and 
 
MUMU 785 
 
 glanced with a face of inquiry at the steward. 
 
 “Yes, yes,’ the latter assented, nodding; 
 “ves, just so.” 
 
 Gerasim dropped his eyes, then all of a 
 sudden roused himself and pointed to Mumu, 
 who was all the while standing beside him, in- 
 nocently wagging her tail and pricking up 
 her ears inquisitively. Then he repeated the 
 strangling action round his neck and signifi- 
 cantly struck himself on the breast, as though 
 announcing he would take upon himself the 
 task of killing Mumu. 
 
 “But you'll deceive us,” Gavrila waved back 
 in response. 
 
 Gerasim looked at him, smiled scornfully, 
 struck himself again on the breast, and 
 slammed-to the door. 
 
 They all looked at one another in silence. 
 
 “What does that mean?” Gavrila began. 
 “He’s locked himself in.” 
 
 “Let him be, Gavrila Andreitch,” Stepan 
 advised, “he'll do it if he’s promised. He’s 
 like that, you know....If he makes a 
 promise, it’s a certain thing. He’s not like 
 us others in that. The truth’s the truth with 
 him. Yes, indeed.” 
 
 “Yes,” they all repeated, nodding their 
 heads, “yes—that’s so—yes.” 
 
86 MUMU 
 
 Uncle Tail opened his window, and he too 
 said, “Yes.” 
 
 “Well, may be, we shall see,” responded 
 Gavrila; “any way, we won't take off the 
 guard. Here you, Eroshka!” he added, ad- 
 dressing a poor fellow in a yellow nankeen 
 coat, who considered himself to be a gar- 
 dener, “what have you to do? ‘Take a stick 
 and sit here, and if anything happens, run 
 to me at once!” 
 
 Eroshka took a stick, and sat down on the 
 bottom stair. The crowd dispersed, all ex- 
 cept. a few inquisitive small boys, while Ga- 
 vrila went home and sent word through Liu- 
 bov Liubimovna to the mistress, that every- 
 thing had been done, while he sent a postillion 
 for a policeman in case of need. The old 
 lady tied a knot in her handkerchief, sprink- 
 led some eau-de-Cologne on it, sniffed at it, 
 end rubbed her temples with it, drank some 
 tea, and, being still under the influence of the 
 cherrybay drops, fell asleep again. 
 
 An hour after all this hubbub the garret 
 doco~ opened, and Gerasim showed himself. 
 He had on his best coat; he was leading 
 Mumu by a string. Eroshka moved aside and 
 let him pass. Gerasim went to the gates. All 
 the small boys in the yard stared at him in 
 
MUMU 87 
 silence. He did not even turn round; he on!y 
 
 put his cap on in the street. Gavrila sent 
 the same Eroshka to follow him and keep 
 watch on him as a spy. Eroshka, seeing from . 
 a distance that he had gone into a cookshop 
 with his dog, waited for him to come out 
 again. 
 
 Gerasim was well known at the cookshop, 
 and his signs were understood. He asked for 
 cabbage soup with meat in it, and sat down 
 with his arms on the table. Mumu stood 
 beside his chair, looking calmly at him with 
 her intelligent eyes. Her coat was glossy; 
 one could see she had just been combed down. 
 They brought Gerasim the soup. He crum- 
 bled some bread into it, cut the meat up 
 small, and put the plate on the ground. 
 Mumu began eating in her usual refined way, 
 her little muzzle daintily held so as scarcely 
 to touch her food. Gerasim gazed a long 
 while at her; two big tears suddenly rolled 
 from his eyes; one fell on the dog’s brow, the 
 other into the soup. He shaded his face with 
 his hand. Mumu ate up half the plateful, 
 and came away from it, licking her lips. Ge- 
 rasim got>-up, paid for the soup, and went 
 out, followed by the rather perplexed glances 
 of the waiter. Eroshka, seeing Gerasim, hid 
 
88 MUMU 
 
 round a corner, and letting him get in front, 
 followed him again. 
 
 Gerasim walked without haste, still hold- 
 ing Mumu by a string. When he got to the 
 corner of the street, he stood still as though 
 reflecting, and suddenly set off with rapid 
 steps to the Crimean Ford. On the way he 
 went into the yard of a house, where a lodge 
 was being built, and carried away two bricks 
 under his arm. At the Crimean Ford, he 
 turned along the bank, went to a place where 
 there were two little rowing-boats fastened 
 to stakes (he had noticed them there before), 
 and jumped into one of them with Mumu. 
 A lame old man came out of a shed in the 
 corner of a kitchen-garden and shouted after 
 him; but Gerasim only nodded, and began 
 rowing so vigorously, though against stream, 
 that in an instant he had darted two hundred 
 yards away. The old man stood for a while, 
 scratched his back first with the left and then 
 with the right hand, and went back hobbling 
 to the shed. 
 
 Gerasim rowed on and on. Moscow was 
 soon left behind. Meadows stretched each 
 side of the bank, market gardens, fields, and 
 copses; peasants’ huts began to make their 
 appearance. There was the fragrance of ‘the 
 
MUMU 89 
 
 country. He threw down his oars, bent his 
 head down to Mumu, who was sitting facing 
 him on a dry cross seat—the bottom of the 
 boat was full of water—and stayed motion- 
 less, his mighty hands clasped upon her back, 
 while the boat was graduaily carried back by 
 ‘the current towards the town. At last Ge- 
 rasim drew himself up hurriedly, with a sort 
 of sick anger in his face, he tied up the bricks 
 he had taken with string, made a running 
 noose, put it round Mumu’s neck, lifted her 
 up over the river, and for the last time 
 looked at her. ... She watched him confid- 
 ingly and without any fear, faintly wagging 
 her tail. He turned away, frowned, and 
 wrung his hands. ... Gerasim heard noth- 
 ing, neither the quick shrill whine of Mumu 
 as she fell, nor the heavy splash of the water; 
 for him the noisiest day was soundless and 
 silent as even the stillest night is not silent 
 to us. When he opened his eyes again, little 
 wavelets were hurrying over the river, chas- 
 ing one another; as before they broke against 
 the boat’s side, and only far away behind 
 wide circles moved widening to the bank. 
 
 Directly Gerasim had vanished from Frosh- 
 ka’s sight, the Jatter returned home and re- 
 ported what he had seen. 
 
90 MUMU 
 
 “Well, then,” observed Stepan, “he'll drown 
 her. Now we can feel easy about it. If he 
 once promises a thing... .” 
 
 No one saw Gerasim during the day. He 
 did not have dinner at home. Evening came 
 on; they were all gathered together to sup- 
 per, except him. 
 
 “What a strange creature that Gerasim 
 is!” piped a fat laundrymaid; “fancy, upset- 
 ting himself like that over a dog.... Upon 
 my word!” 
 
 “But Gerasim has been here,” Stepan cried 
 all at once, scraping up his porridge with a 
 spoon. 
 
 “How? when?” 
 
 “Why, a couple of hours ago. Yes, indeed! 
 I ran against him at the gate; he was going 
 out again from here; he was coming out of 
 the yard. I tried to ask him about his dog, 
 but he wasn’t in the best of humours, I could 
 see. Well, he gave me a shove; I suppose he 
 only meant to put me out of his way, as if 
 he’d say, ‘Let me go, do!’ but he fetched me 
 such a crack on my neck, so seriously, that— 
 oh! oh!’ And Stepan, who could not help 
 laughing, shrugged up and rubbed the back of 
 his head. “Yes,” he added; “he has got a 
 
MOMU 91 
 
 fist; it’s something like a fist, there’s no de- 
 nying that!” 
 
 They all laughed at Stepan, and after sup- 
 per they separated to go to bed. 
 
 Meanwhile, at that very time, a gigantic 
 figure with a bag on his shoulders and a stick 
 in his hand, was eagerly and _ persistently 
 stepping out along the T highroad. It 
 was Gerasim. He was hurrying on without 
 looking round; hurrying homewards, to his 
 own village, to his own country. After 
 drowning poor Mumu, he had run back to 
 his garret, hurriedly packed a few things 
 together in an old horsecloth, tied it up in a 
 bundle, tossed it on his shoulder, and so was 
 ready. He had noticed the road carefully 
 when he was brought to Moscow; the village 
 his mistress had taken him from lay only 
 about twenty miles off the highroad. He 
 walked along it with a sort of invincible pur- 
 pose, a desperate and at the same time joyous 
 determination. He walked, his shoulders 
 thrown back and his chest expanded; his eyes 
 were fixed greedily straight before him. He 
 eine as though his old mother were wait- 
 
 for him at home, as though she were 
 a ling him to her after long wanderings in 
 strange parts, among strangers. The summer 
 
 
 
92 MUMU 
 
 night, that was just drawing in, was still 
 and warm; on one side, where the sun had 
 set, the horizon was still light and faintly 
 flushed with the last glow of the vanished 
 day; on the other side a blue-grey twilight 
 had already risen up. The night was coming 
 up from that quarter. Quails were in hun- 
 dreds around; corncrakes were calling to one 
 another in the thickets. ... Gerasim could 
 not hear them; he could not hear the delicate 
 night-whispering of the trees, by which his 
 strong legs carried him, but he smelt the fa- 
 miliar scent of the ripening rye, which was 
 wafted from the dark fields; he felt the wind, 
 flying to meet him—the wind from home— 
 beat caressingly upon his face, and play with 
 his hair and his beard. He saw before him 
 the whitening road homewards, straight as an 
 arrow. He saw in the sky stars innumerable, 
 lighting up his way, and stepped out, strong 
 and bold as a lion, so that when the rising 
 sun shed its moist rosy light upon the still 
 fresh and unwearied traveller, already thirty 
 miles lay between him and Moscow. 
 
 In a couple of days he was at home, in his 
 little hut, to the great astonishment of the 
 soldier’s wife who had been put in there. 
 After praying before the holy pictures, he 
 
MUMU J3 
 
 set off at once to the village elder. ‘ihe vil- 
 lage elder was at first surprised; but the hay- 
 cutting had just begun; Gerasim was a first- 
 rate mower, and they put a scythe into his 
 hand on the spot, and he went to mow in his 
 ola way, mowing so that the peasants were 
 fairly astounded as they watched his wide 
 sweeping strokes and the heaps he raked to- 
 gether. ... 
 
 In Moscow the day after Gerasim’s flight 
 they missed him. They went to his garret, 
 rummaged about in it, and spoke to Gavrila. 
 He came, looked, shrugged his shoulders, and 
 decided that the dumb man had either run 
 away or had drowned himself with his stupid 
 wk They gave information tc the police, 
 
 informed the lady. The old lady was 
 furious, burst into tears, gave orders that he 
 was to be found whatever happened, declared 
 she had never ordered the deg to be de- 
 stroyed, and, in fact, gave Gavrila such a 
 rating that he could do nothing all day but 
 shake his head and murmur, “Well!” until 
 Uncle Tail checked him at last, sympathetical- 
 ly echoing “We-ell!” At last the news came 
 from the country of Gerasim’s being there. 
 The old lady was somewhat pacified; at first 
 “she issued a mandate for him to be brought 
 
94 MUMU 
 
 back without delay to Moscow; afterwards, 
 however, she declared that such an ungrateful 
 creature was absolutely of no use to her. 
 Soon after this she died herself; and her - 
 heirs had no thought to spare for Gerasim; 
 they let their mother’s other servants redeem 
 their freedom on payment of an annual rent. 
 And Gerasim is living still, a lonely man in | 
 his lonely hut; he is strong and healthy as 
 before, and does the work of four men as be- 
 fore, and as before is serious and steady. 
 But his neighbours have observed that ever 
 since his return from Moscow he has quite 
 given up the society of women; he will not 
 even look at them, and does not keep even a 
 single dog. “It’s his good luck, though,” the 
 peasants reason; “that he can get on without 
 female folk; and as for a dog—what need has 
 he of a dog? you wouldn’t get a thief to go 
 into his yard for any money!” Such is the 
 fame of the dumb man’s Titanic strength. 
 
 THE END 
 

 

 

 
gD 
 
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 ’ 
 
 AE: 
 
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