The diary of a superfluous man, and other stories

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

"Yes!.... let him woo Tatyána,"—the mistress announced her decision, as she took a pinch of snuff with satisfaction:—"dost hear me?"

"I obey, ma'am,"—enunciated Gavríla, and withdrew.

On returning to his chamber (it was situated in a wing, and was almost completely filled with wrought-iron coffers), Gavríla first sent away his wife, and then seated himself by the window, and became engrossed in meditation. The mistress's sudden command had evidently dazed him. At last he rose, and ordered Kapíton to be called. Kapíton presented himself.... But before we repeat their conversation to the reader, we consider it not superfluous to state, in a few words, who this Tatyána was, whom Kapíton was to marry, and why his mistress's command had disconcerted the major-domo.

Tatyána, who, as we have said above, served as laundress (but, in her quality of expert and well-trained laundress, she was given only the delicate linen), was a woman of eight-and-twenty, small, thin, fair-haired, with moles on her left cheek. Moles on the left cheek are regarded as a bad sign in Russia—as the presage of an unhappy life.... Tatyána could not boast of her luck. From early youth she had been ill-treated; she had worked for two, and had never received any caresses; she was badly clothed; she received the very smallest of wages; she had practically no relatives; an old butler in the village who had been discharged for uselessness was her uncle, and her other uncles were common peasants,—that is all. At one time she had been a beauty, but her beauty soon left her. She was of extremely meek, or, to put it more accurately, frightened disposition, felt the most complete indifference for herself, and was deadly afraid of other people. Her sole thought was as to how she might finish her work by the appointed time. She never talked with any one, and she trembled at the mere mention of the mistress's name, although she hardly knew her by sight.

When Gerásim was brought from the country, she almost swooned with terror at the sight of his huge form, used all possible efforts to avoid meeting him, and even screwed up her eyes when she was obliged to run past him, as she scurried from the house to the laundry. At first, Gerásim paid no special attention to her, then he began to laugh when she crossed his path; then he began to gaze at her with pleasure, and at last he never took his eyes from her. Whether he had taken a liking to her because of her gentle expression of countenance, or of the timidity of her movements—God knows! And behold, one day, as she was making her way across the courtyard, cautiously elevating on her outspread fingers a starched wrapper belonging to her mistress ... some one suddenly grasped her by the elbow; she turned round and fairly screamed aloud: behind her stood Gerásim. Laughing stupidly, and bellowing affectionately, he was offering her a gingerbread cock with gold tinsel on its tail and wings. She tried to refuse it, but he thrust it forcibly straight into her hand, nodded his head, walked away, and, turning round, bellowed once more something of a very friendly nature to her. From that day forth he gave her no peace; wherever she went, he immediately came to meet her, smiled, bellowed, waved his hands, suddenly drew a ribbon from his breast and thrust it into her hand, and cleaned the dust away in front of her with his broom.

The poor girl simply did not know how to take it or what to do. The whole household speedily found out about the pranks of the dumb yard-porter; jeers, jests, stinging remarks showered down on Tatyána. But none of them could bring himself to ridicule Gerásim; the latter was not fond of jests; and they let her alone in his presence. Willy-nilly the girl became his protégée. Like all deaf and dumb people, he was very perspicacious, and understood perfectly well when they were laughing at him or at her. One day, at dinner, the keeper of the linen, Tatyána's chief, undertook, as the saying is, to banter her, and carried it to such a pitch that the latter, poor creature, did not know where to look, and almost wept with vexation. Gerásim suddenly rose half-way, stretched out his enormous hand, laid it on the head of the keeper of the linen, and glared into her face with such ferocity that the latter fairly bent over the table. All fell silent. Gerásim picked up his spoon again, and went on eating his cabbage-soup. "Just see that dumb devil, that forest fiend!" all muttered under their breaths, and the keeper of the linen rose and went off to the maids' room. On another occasion, observing that Kapíton—that same Kapíton of whom we have just been speaking—was chatting in rather too friendly a manner with Tatyána, Gerásim beckoned the man to him, led him away to the carriage-house, and seizing by its end a shaft which was standing in the corner, he menaced him slightly but significantly with it. From that time forth no one dared to address a word to Tatyána. And all this ran smoothly in his hands. No sooner had the linen-keeper, it is true, run into the maids' hall than she fell down in a swoon, and altogether behaved in such an artful manner, that on that very same day she brought to the knowledge of the mistress Gerásim's rude behaviour; but the capricious old lady merely laughed several times, to the extreme offence of her linen-keeper, made her repeat, "What didst thou say? Did he bend thee down with his heavy hand?" and on the following day sent a silver ruble to Gerásim. She favoured him as a faithful and powerful watchman. Gerásim held her in decided awe, but, nevertheless, he trusted in her graciousness, and was making ready to betake himself to her with the request that she would permit him to marry Tatyána. He was only waiting for the new kaftan promised him by the major-domo, in order that he might present himself before his mistress in decent shape, when suddenly this same mistress took into her head the idea of marrying Tatyána to Kapíton.

The reader will now be able readily to understand the cause of the perturbation which seized upon Gavríla, the major-domo, after his conversation with his mistress. "The mistress,"—he thought, as he sat by the window,—"of course, favours Gerásim" (this was well known to Gavríla, and therefore he also showed indulgence to him); "still, he is a dumb brute. I can't inform the mistress that Gerásim is courting Tatyána. And, after all, 't is just; what sort of a husband is he? And, on the other hand, Lord forgive! for just as soon as that forest fiend finds out that Tatyána is to be married to Kapíton, he 'll smash everything in the house, by Heaven he will! For you can't reason with him—you can't prevail upon him, the devil that he is, in any way whatsoever—sinful man that I am to have said so wicked a thing .... that 's so!"....

The appearance of Kapíton broke the thread of Gavríla's meditations. The giddy-pated shoemaker entered, threw his hands behind him, and, leaning up against a projecting corner of the wall near the door, in a free-and-easy way he stuck his right leg crosswise in front of the left and shook his head, as much as to say: "Here I am. What 's your will?"

Gavríla looked at Kapíton and began to drum on the jamb of the window with his fingers. Kapíton merely narrowed his leaden eyes a bit, but did not lower them, even smiled slightly and passed his hand over his whitish hair, which stood out in disarray in all directions, as much as to say: "Well, yes, 't is I. What are you staring for?"

"Good,"—said Gavríla, and paused for a space.