The diary of a superfluous man, and other stories

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

In the meantime, Akím was proceeding with quiet strides along the road which led to Lizavéta Prókhorovna's village. He had not yet been able fully to recover himself; he was all quivering inside, like a man who has but just escaped imminent death. He seemed not to believe in his freedom. With dull amazement he stared at the fields, at the sky, at the larks which were fluttering their wings in the warm air. On the previous day, at Efrém's house, he had not slept at all since dinner, although he had lain motionless on the oven; at first he had tried to drown with liquor the intolerable pain of injury within him, the anguish of wrathful, impotent indignation .... but the liquor could not entirely overcome him; his heart waxed hot within him, and he began to meditate how he might pay off his malefactor.... He thought of Naúm alone; Lizavéta Prókhorovna did not enter his head, and from Avdótya he mentally turned away. Toward evening, the thirst for revenge had blazed up in him to the point of crime, and he, the good-natured, weak man, with feverish impatience waited for the night, and like a wolf pouncing on its prey, he rushed forth with fire in his hand to annihilate his former home... But he had been captured .... locked up.... Night came. What had not he turned over in his mind during that atrocious night! It is difficult to convey in words all the tortures which he had undergone; it is all the more difficult, because these torments even in the man himself were wordless and dumb.... Toward morning, before the arrival of Naúm and Efrém, Akím had felt somewhat easier in mind... "Everything is lost!".... he thought .... "everything is scattered to the winds!"—and he waved his hand in despair over everything.... If he had been born with an evil soul, he might have turned into a criminal at that moment; but evil was not a characteristic of Akím. Beneath the shock of the unexpected and undeserved calamity, in the reek of despair, he had made up his mind to a felonious deed; it had shaken him to the very foundations, and, having miscarried, it had left behind in him a profound weariness.... Conscious of his guilt, he wrenched his heart free from all earthly things, and began to pray bitterly but zealously. At first he prayed in a whisper, at last, accidentally, perhaps, he ejaculated almost aloud: "O Lord!"—and the tears gushed from his eyes.... Long did he weep, then calmed down at last.... His thoughts probably would have undergone a change, had he been forced to smart for his attempt of the day before ... but now he had suddenly recovered his liberty ... and, half-alive, all shattered, but calm, he was on his way to an interview with his wife.

Lizavéta Prókhorovna's manor stood a verst and a half distant from her village, on the left-hand side of the country road along which Akím was walking. At the turn which led to the manor, he was on the point of pausing .... but he marched past. He had decided first to go to his former cottage, to his old uncle.

Akím's tiny and already rickety cottage was situated almost at the extreme end of the village; Akím traversed the entire length of the street without encountering a single soul. The whole population was in church. Only one ailing old woman lifted her window to gaze after him, and a little girl, who had run out to the well with an empty bucket, gaped in wonder at him and also followed him with her eyes. The first person whom he met was precisely the uncle whom he was seeking. The old man had been sitting since early morning on the earthen bank outside the cottage under the windows, taking snuff, and warming himself in the sun; he was not quite well, and for that reason had not gone to church; he was on his way to see another ailing old man, a neighbour, when he suddenly espied Akím.... He stopped short, let the latter come up to him, and looking him in the face, he said:

"Morning, Akímushka!"

"Morning,"—replied Akím, and stepping past the old man, he entered the gate to his cottage.... In the yard stood his horses, his cow, his cart; and his chickens were roaming about there also.... He entered the cottage in silence. The old man followed him. Akím seated himself on the bench, and rested his clenched fists on it. The old man gazed compassionately at him, from his stand at the door.

"And where is my housewife?"—inquired Akím.

"Why, at the manor-house,"—replied the old man, briskly. "She is there. They have placed thy cattle here, and thy coffers, just as they were—but she is yonder. Shall I go for her?"

Akím did not reply immediately.

"Yes, go,"—he said at last.