“They are scarce, but there are,” Paklin replied.
XIX
Fomishka and Fimishka, otherwise Foma Lavrentievitch and Efimia Pavlovna Subotchev, belonged to one of the oldest and purest branches of the Russian nobility, and were considered to be the oldest inhabitants in the town of S. They married when very young and settled, a long time ago, in the little wooden ancestral house at the very end of the town. Time seemed to have stood still for them, and nothing “modern” ever crossed the boundaries of their “oasis.” Their means were not great, but their peasants supplied them several times a year with all the live stock and provisions they needed, just as in the days of serfdom, and their bailiff appeared once a year with the rents and a couple of woodcocks, supposed to have been shot in the master’s forests, of which, in reality, not a trace remained. They regaled him with tea at the drawing-room door, made him a present of a sheep-skin cap, a pair of green leather mittens, and sent him away with a blessing.
The Subotchevs’ house was filled with domestics and menials just as in days gone by. The old man-servant Kalliopitch, clad in a jacket of extraordinarily stout cloth with a stand-up collar and small steel buttons, announced, in a sing-song voice, “Dinner is on the table,” and stood dozing behind his mistress’s chair as in days of old. The sideboard was under his charge, and so were all the groceries and pickles. To the question, had he not heard of the emancipation, he invariably replied: “How can one take notice of every idle piece of gossip? To be sure the Turks were emancipated, but such a dreadful thing had not happened to him, thank the Lord!” A girl, Pufka, was kept in the house for entertainment, and the old nurse Vassilievna used to come in during dinner with a dark kerchief on her head, and would relate all the news in her deep voice—about Napoleon, about the war of 1812, about Antichrist and white niggers—or else, her chin propped on her hand, with a most woeful expression on her face, she would tell of a dream she had had, explaining what it meant, or perhaps how she had last read her fortune at cards. The Subotchevs’ house was different from all other houses in the town. It was built entirely of oak, with perfectly square windows, the double casements for winter use were never removed all the year round. It contained numerous little ante-rooms, garrets, closets, and box-rooms, little landings with balustrades, little statues on carved wooden pillars, and all kinds of back passages and sculleries. There was a hedge right in front and a garden at the back, in which there was a perfect nest of out-buildings: store rooms and cold-store rooms, barns, cellars and ice-cellars; not that there were many goods stored in them—some of them, in fact, were in an extremely delapidated condition—but they had been there in olden days and were consequently allowed to remain.
The Subotchevs had only two ancient shaggy saddle horses, one of which, called the Immovable, had turned grey from old age. They were harnessed several times a month to an extraordinary carriage, known to the whole town, which bore a faint resemblance to a terrestrial globe with a quarter of it cut away in front, and was upholstered inside with some foreign, yellowish stuff, covered with a pattern of huge dots, looking for all the world like warts. The last yard of this stuff must have been woven in Utrecht or Lyons in the time of the Empress Elisabeth! The Subotchev’s coachman, too, was old—an ancient, ancient old man with a constant smell of tar and cart-oil about him. His beard began just below the eyes, while the eyebrows fell in little cascades to meet it. He was called Perfishka, and was extremely slow in his movements. It took him at least five minutes to take a pinch of snuff, two minutes to fasten the whip in his girdle, and two whole hours to harness the Immovable alone. If when out driving in their carriage the Subotchevs were ever compelled to go the least bit up or down hill, they would become quite terrified, would cling to the straps, and both cry aloud, “Oh Lord ... give ... the horses ... the horses ... the strength of Samson ... and make us ... as light as a feather!”
The Subotchevs were regarded by everyone in the town as very eccentric, almost mad, and indeed they too felt that they were not in keeping with modern times. This, however, did not grieve them very much, and they quietly continued to follow the manner of life in which they had been born and bred and married. One custom of that time, however, did not cling to them; from their earliest childhood they had never punished any of their servants. If one of them turned out to be a thief or a drunkard, then they bore with him for a long time, as one bears with bad weather, and when their patience was quite exhausted they would get rid of him by passing him on to someone else. “Let others bear with him a little,” they would say. But any such misfortune rarely happened to them, so rarely that it became an epoch in their lives. They would say, for instance, “Oh, it was long ago; it happened when we had that impudent Aldoshka with us,” or “When grandfather’s fur cap with the fox’s tail was stolen!” Such caps were still to be found at the Subotchevs’. Another distinguishing characteristic of the old world was missing in them; neither Fomishka nor Fimishka were very religious. Fomishka was even a follower of Voltaire, while Fimishka had a mortal dread of the clergy and believed them to be possessed of the evil eye. “As soon as a priest comes into my house the cream turns sour!” she used to say. They rarely went to church and fasted in the Catholic fashion, that is, ate eggs, butter, and milk. This was known in the town and did not, of course, add to their reputation. But their kindness conquered everybody; and although the Subotchevs were laughed at and called cranks and blessed ones, still they were respected by everyone. No one cared to visit them, however, but they were little concerned about this, too. They were never dull when in each other’s company, were never apart, and never desired any other society.
Neither Fomishka nor Fimishka had ever been ill, and if one or the other ever felt the slightest indisposition they would both drink some concoction made of lime-flower, rub warm oil on their stomachs, or drop hot candle grease on the soles of their feet and the little ailment would soon pass over. They spent their days exactly alike. They got up late, drank chocolate in tiny cups shaped like small mortars (tea, they declared, came into fashion after their time), and sat opposite one another chatting (they were never at a loss for a subject of conversation!), or read out of Pleasant Recreations, The World’s Mirror, or Aonides, or turned over the leaves of an old album, bound in red morocco, with gilt edges. This album had once belonged, as the inscription showed, to a certain Madame Barbe de Kabyline. How and why it had come into their possession they did not know. It contained several French and a great many Russian poems and prose extracts, of which the following reflections on Cicero form a fair example—
“The disposition in which Cicero undertook the office of quaestor may be gathered from the following: Calling upon the gods to testify to the purity of his sentiments in every rank with which he had hitherto been honoured, he considered himself bound by the most sacred bonds to the fulfilment of this one, and denied himself the indulgence, not only of such pleasures as are forbidden by law, but refrained even from such light amusements which are considered indispensable by all.” Below was written, “Composed in Siberia in hunger and cold.” An equally good specimen was a poem entitled “Tirsis”, which ran like this—
The universe is steeped in calm,
The delightful sparkling dew
Soothing nature like a balm
Gives to her, her life anew.
Tersis alone with aching heart,
Is torn by sadness and dismay,
When dear Aneta doth depart
What is there to make him gay?
And the impromptu composition of a certain captain who had visited the place in the year 1790, dated May 6th—