The diary of a superfluous man, and other stories

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

"What? When?"

"Why, a couple of hours ago. Certainly he has! I met him at the gate; he has gone away from here again; he went out of the courtyard. I wanted to ask him about his dog, but he evidently was out of sorts. Well, and he jostled me; it must have been done by accident, he only wanted to get me out of the way; as much as to say: 'Don't bother me!'—but he gave me such a dig in the spine, that óï, óï, óï!"—And Stepán shrugged his shoulders with an involuntary grimace, and rubbed the nape of his neck.—"Yes,"—he added;—"his hand is an apt one, there 's no denying that!"

All laughed at Stepán and, after supper, dispersed to their beds.

And in the meantime, on that same night, on the T*** highway, a giant was marching onward diligently and unremittingly, with a sack on his shoulders, and a long staff in his hands. It was Gerásim. He was hurrying on, without looking behind him, hurrying home, to his own house in the country, to his native place. After drowning poor Mumú, he had hastened to his little den, had briskly put together a few articles of clothing in an old horse-cloth, had tied it up with a knot, slung it across his shoulder, and taken himself off. He had noted well the road when he had been brought to Moscow; the village from which his mistress had taken him lay at most five-and-twenty versts from the highway. He walked along it with a certain invincible hardihood, with despairing, yet joyful firmness. He strode onward, his breast expanded broadly; his eyes were bent eagerly straight ahead. He hastened onward as though his aged mother were waiting for him in his native place, as though she had summoned him to her after long wanderings in foreign lands, among strange peoples... The summer night, which had only just descended, was warm and tranquil; on the one hand, in the direction where the sun had gone down, the rim of the sky was still white, with a crimson gleam from the last reflection of the vanished day,—on the other hand, the blue-grey gloom was rising. Night had come thence. Hundreds of quail were whistling all around, corn-crakes were vying with each other in their calls.... Gerásim could not hear them, he could not hear even the delicate nocturnal rustling of the trees past which he was bearing his mighty feet, but he discerned the familiar scent of the ripening rye, which was exhaled from the dark fields; he felt the breeze wafting to meet him,—the breeze from his native place,—beating on his face, playing with his hair and beard; he beheld in front of him the road homeward, gleaming white, straight as an arrow; he beheld in the sky innumerable stars, which illuminated his path, and like a lion he stepped out powerfully and alertly, so that when the rising sun lighted up with its moistly-crimson rays the gallant fellow who had just been driven to extremities, three-and-thirty versts already lay between him and Moscow....

At the end of two days he was at home in his own little cottage, to the great amazement of the soldier's wife who had removed thither. After praying before the holy pictures, he immediately betook himself to the overseer. The overseer was astounded at first; but the haying was only just beginning. Gerásim, being a capital workman, immediately had a scythe put into his hand—and he went off to mow as of yore, to mow in such fashion that the peasants simply sweated through and through as they watched his swings and strokes....

But in Moscow, on the day following Gerásim's flight, they discovered it. They went into his room, ransacked it, and told Gavríla. The latter came, made an inspection, shrugged his shoulders, and decided that the dumb man had either run away or drowned himself along with his stupid dog. The police were informed, and the matter was reported to the mistress. The mistress flew into a rage, fell to weeping, ordered him to be hunted up at any cost, asserted that she had never ordered the dog to be made away with, and, at last, so berated Gavríla, that the latter did nothing all day but shake his head and add: "Well!" until Uncle Tail brought him to his senses by saying to him: "We-ell!" At last news came from the village of Gerásim's arrival there. The mistress calmed down somewhat; at first she was minded to issue an order demanding his immediate return to Moscow, but afterward she announced that she wanted nothing to do with so ungrateful a man. Moreover, she died herself soon after, and her heirs had other things to think about besides Gerásim; and they dismissed the rest of their mother's serfs on quit-rent.

And Gerásim is living yet, poor, wretched fellow, in his lonely hut; he is healthy and powerful as of yore, and, as of yore, he does the work of four men, and, as of yore, he is staid and dignified. But the neighbours have noticed that ever since his return from Moscow he has entirely ceased to have anything to do with women, he does not even look at them, and he keeps not a single dog on his premises.—"However,"—say the peasants,—"'t is lucky for him that he needs no woman; and as for a dog—what should he do with a dog? you could n't drag a thief into his yard with a noose!" Such is the fame of the dumb man's heroic strength.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] June 29 (O. S.)—July 13 (N. S.).—Translator.