However, it is high time for me to turn away from all this,—it was time long ago! May this burden fall from my soul along with my life! I wish for the last time, if only for a moment, to enjoy that good, gentle feeling which is diffused within me like a tranquil light as soon as I call you to mind. Your image is now doubly dear to me.... Along with it there surges up before me the image of my native land, and I waft to it and to you my last greeting. Live on, live long and happily, and remember one thing: whether you remain in that remote nook of the steppes, where you sometimes find things so painful, but where I should so like to spend my last day, or whether you shall enter upon another career, remember: life fails to disappoint him alone who does not meditate upon it, and, demanding nothing from it, calmly accepts its sparse gifts, and calmly makes use of them. Go forward, while you can: but when your feet fail you,—sit down near the road, and gaze at the passers-by without vexation and without envy: for they will not go far! I have said this to you before, but death will teach any man whomsoever; moreover, who shall say what is life, what is truth? Remember who it was that gave no answer to this question.... Farewell, Márya Alexándrovna; farewell for the last time, and bear no ill will to poor—
THE REGION OF DEAD CALM
(1854)
I
IN a fairly-large recently-whitewashed chamber of a wing of the manor-house in the village of Sásovo, *** county, T*** Government, a young man in a paletot was sitting at a small, warped table, looking over accounts. Two stearine candles, in silver travelling-candlesticks, were burning in front of him; in one corner, on the wall-bench, stood an open bottle-case, in another a servant was setting up an iron bed. On the other side of a low partition a samovár was murmuring and hissing; a dog was nestling about on some hay which had just been brought in. In the doorway stood a peasant-man in a new overcoat girt with a red belt, with a large beard, and an intelligent face—the overseer, judging by all the tokens. He was gazing attentively at the seated young man.
Against one wall stood a very aged, tiny piano; beside it an equally-ancient chest of drawers with holes in place of the locks; between the windows a small, dim mirror was visible; on the partition-wall hung an old portrait, which was almost completely peeled off, representing a woman with powdered hair, in a robe ronde, and with a black ribbon about her slender neck. Judging from the very perceptible sagging of the ceiling, and the slope of the floor, which was full of cracks, the little wing into which we have conducted the reader had existed for a very long time. No one lived in it permanently; it was put to use when the owners came. The young man who was sitting at the table was the owner of the village of Sásovo. He had arrived only on the previous day from his principal estate, situated a hundred versts[11] distant, and was preparing to depart on the morrow, after completing the inspection of the farming, listening to the demands of the peasants, and verifying all the documents.
“Well, that will do,”—he said, raising his head;—“I am tired. Thou mayest go now,”—he added, turning to the overseer;—“and come very early to-morrow morning, and notify the peasants at daybreak that they are to present themselves in assembly,—dost hear me?”
“I obey.”