The diary of a superfluous man, and other stories

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

Twilight was already falling when he returned. One was justified in assuming, from his exhausted aspect, from his unsteady gait, from his dusty clothing, that he had wandered over the half of Moscow. He halted in front of the mistress's windows, swept a glance over the porch on which seven house-serfs were gathered, turned away, and bellowed once more: "Mumú!"—Mumú did not respond. He went away. All stared after him, but no one smiled, no one uttered a word ... and the curious postilion, Antípka, narrated on the following morning in the kitchen, that the dumb man had moaned all night long.

All the following day Gerásim did not show himself, so that Potáp the coachman was obliged to go for water in his stead, which greatly displeased coachman Potáp. The mistress asked Gavríla whether her command had been executed. Gavríla replied that it had. The next morning Gerásim emerged from his chamber to do his work. He came to dinner, ate and went off again, without having exchanged greetings with any one. His face, which was inanimate at the best of times, as is the case with all deaf and dumb persons, now seemed to have become absolutely petrified. After dinner he again quitted the courtyard, but not for long, returned and immediately directed his steps to the hay-barn. Night came, a clear, moonlight night. Sighing heavily and incessantly tossing from side to side, Gerásim was lying there, when he suddenly felt as though something were tugging at the skirts of his garments; he trembled all over, but did not raise his head, nevertheless, and even screwed his eyes up tight; but the tugging was repeated, more energetically than before; he sprang to his feet .... before him, with a fragment of rope about her neck, Mumú was capering about. A prolonged shriek of joy burst from his speechless breast; he seized Mumú and clasped her in a close embrace; in one moment she had licked his nose, his eyes, and his beard... He stood still for a while, pondering, cautiously slipped down from the hay-mow, cast a glance round him, and having made sure that no one was watching him, he safely regained his little chamber.

Even before this Gerásim had divined that the dog had not disappeared of her own volition; that she must have been carried away by the mistress's command; for the domestics had explained to him by signs how his Mumú had snapped at her—and he decided to take precautions of his own. First he fed Mumú with some bread, caressed her, and put her to bed; then he began to consider how he might best conceal her. At last he hit upon the idea of leaving her all day in his room, and only looking in now and then to see how she was getting along, and taking her out for exercise at night. He closed the opening in his door compactly by stuffing in an old coat of his, and as soon as it was daylight he was in the courtyard, as though nothing had happened, even preserving (innocent guile!) his former dejection of countenance. It could not enter the head of the poor deaf man that Mumú would betray herself by her whining; as a matter of fact, every one in the house was speedily aware that the dumb man's dog had come back and was locked up in his room; but out of compassion for him and for her, and partly, perhaps, out of fear of him, they did not give him to understand that his secret had been discovered.

The major-domo alone scratched the back of his head and waved his hand in despair, as much as to say: "Well, I wash my hands of the matter! Perhaps the mistress will not get to know of it!" And never had the dumb man worked so zealously as on that day; he swept and scraped out the entire courtyard, he rooted up all the blades of grass to the very last one, with his own hand pulled up all the props in the garden-fence, with a view to making sure that they were sufficiently firm, and then hammered them in again,—in a word, he fussed and bustled about so, that even the mistress noticed his zeal.

Twice in the course of the day Gerásim went stealthily to his captive; and when night came, he lay down to sleep in her company, in the little room, not in the hay-barn, and only at one o'clock did he go out to take a stroll with her in the fresh air. Having walked quite a long time with her in the courtyard, he was preparing to return, when suddenly a noise resounded outside the fence in the direction of the alley. Mumú pricked up her ears, began to growl, approached the fence, sniffed, and broke forth into a loud and piercing bark. Some drunken man or other had taken it into his head to nestle down there for the night. At that very moment, the mistress had just got to sleep after a prolonged "nervous excitement"; she always had these excited fits after too hearty a supper. The sudden barking woke her; her heart began to beat violently, and to collapse.

"Maids, maids!"—she moaned.—"Maids!"

The frightened maids flew to her bedroom.

"Okh, okh, I'm dying!"—said she, throwing her hands apart in anguish.—"There's that dog again, again!... Okh, send for the doctor! They want to kill me... The dog, the dog again! Okh!"

And she flung back her head, which was intended to denote a swoon.