A family of noblemen

by Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov

Hours on end were spent in such talk, but no remedy was found. The preliminary condition was that you either had to call a curse down on yourself, or sell your soul to the devil. There was no help. Stepan Vladimirych had to go on living under his mother's rule, the only relief coming in the small voluntary contributions that he raised from the village officials in the form of tobacco, tea, and sugar. His fare consisted mainly of what remained from his mother's table, and as Arina Petrovna was moderate to the point of avarice, his board was meagre, to say the least; which was all the more painful because ever since vodka had become unattainable, his appetite had grown considerably keener. All day long hunger gnawed at him, and his sole preoccupation was how to fill his stomach. He awaited the hour when his mother would retire for a rest, then sneaked into the kitchen and looked into the servants' quarters, snatching a bit here, a bit there. Sometimes he would sit at his open window watching for passers-by. If one of the serfs came along, he stopped him and levied toll in the form of an egg, a curd-cake, and the like.

At the first meeting between mother and son, Arina Petrovna briefly explained the whole program of his life.

"Live here," she said. "Here is a shelter for you in the counting-house. Your meals you will get from my table. In other matters you will have to put up with things as they are. There were never any dainties in the house, and I shan't change my ways for your sake. Your brothers will soon arrive. Whatever they will decide about you, I shall carry out. I shall take no sin upon my soul. Let them dispose of your fate."

He looked forward to his brothers' arrival with impatience. Not that he reflected on the influence their arrival might have on his existence, as he had evidently decided that the matter was not worth his thought. The only thing that interested him was whether Pavel would bring him tobacco and how much.

"Maybe he'll hand me over some coin, too," he mused. "Porfishka the Bloodsucker, he won't, but Pavel ... I'll say to him: 'Brother, give a soldier some cash for wine.' He'll give me some. He's sure to."

He did not notice the passage of the days, nor did he feel the weight of his absolute idleness. The only time he was lonesome was in the evenings, because the constable left at eight, and Arina Petrovna did not allow her son any candles, on the ground that one can walk to and fro without light. He soon became accustomed to the dark and even began to love it, for in the darkness his imagination had free play and carried him far, far away from the dreary place which was his home. In those hours only one thing disturbed him. He had a dull pain in the chest and his heart palpitated queerly, especially when he went to bed. Sometimes he jumped out of bed and ran about the room, clutching the left side of his chest.

"I wish I would die," he thought at such moments. "But, no, I shan't die. But maybe I shall."

One morning when the village clerk with an air of mystery reported that his brothers had arrived the night before, he shuddered and grew pale. Something childlike suddenly awoke in him. He felt like running to the house to see how his brothers were dressed, and find out what beds had been prepared for them, and whether they had travelling cases like one he had seen a militia captain carrying, and hear how they would talk to mother, and spy out what would be served at dinner. In short, a desire once more arose in him to return to life, which so persistently rejected him, to fall at "dear mamma's" knees, and obtain her pardon. Then perhaps he would eat the fatted calf and be merry.

The house was still quiet, but he had already visited, the kitchen and found out that the following courses had been ordered for dinner: soup with fresh cabbage, also some soup left over from yesterday, cured meat served with cutlets of chopped meat for entree, fried mutton chops and four snipes for the roast, and raspberry pie with cream for dessert.

"Yesterday's soup, cured meat, and the chops—that, brother, is for me," he said to the cook. "There will be no pie for me, I guess."