A family of noblemen

by Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov

The girls insisted on one thing, on shaking the dust of Pogorelka from their feet. And finally, after some hesitating and postponing to please grandmother, they left.

The Pogorelka manor-house was now steeped in a forlorn quiet. Self-centered as Arina Petrovna was by nature, yet the proximity of human breath had its calming effect even upon her. For the first time, perhaps, she felt that something had torn itself away from her being, and the freedom with which she herself was now confronted was so boundless that all she saw was empty space. To hide the void from her eyes, she ordered the state-rooms and the attic where the orphans had lived to be nailed up.

"Incidentally, there will be less firewood burned," she said to herself.

She retained only two rooms, in one of which a large ikon case with images was stowed away. The other was a combined bedroom, study and dining-room. For the sake of economy she dismissed her retinue of servants, retaining only her housekeeper Afimyushka, an old, broken-down woman, and Markovna, one-eyed, the soldier's wife, who did the cooking and washing.

All these precautions, however, were of little help. The sensation of emptiness was not slow to penetrate into the two rooms that were meant to be guarded from it. Helpless solitude and dreary idleness were the two enemies Arina Petrovna now confronted. And she was to be bound to these two enemies the rest of her days. Physical and mental disintegration were not slow to follow in the wake of loneliness and idleness, and the less the resistance, the crueller, the more destructive its work.

Days dragged on in the oppressive monotony peculiar to rural life when there are no comforts or there is no executive work to be done, and there is no material for mental occupation. In addition to the external causes at work to take the management of household affairs away from her, was an inner aversion that Arina Petrovna now felt to the petty cares and bustle coming at the sunset of her life. Perhaps she would have overcome her repugnance had she had an aim in view to justify her efforts, but that very aim was wanting. Everybody was sick and weary of her, and she was sick and weary of everybody and everything. Her feverish activity of old suddenly yielded to idleness, and idleness little by little corrupted her will and induced propensities of which Arina Petrovna could never have dreamed only a few months ago.

The strong, reserved woman, whom no one would have thought of calling old, turned into a wreck of her former self. There was neither past nor future for her, but only the immediate moment to live through. The greater part of the day she dozed, sitting in an easy-chair by the table, on which ill-smelling cards were arranged. She would doze for hours on end. Then her body would shudder convulsively, she would wake up, look out of the window, and for a long time stare into the distance, without a single conscious thought.

Pogorelka was a dreary manor-house. It stood all alone, without orchard or shade, or the least indication of comfort. There was not even a flower garden in front of the house. It was a one-story structure, squat, weather-beaten, all black with age. Back of it were the many out-buildings, also half worn-out, and all around was one vast stretch of fields—fields without end. Not even the glimpse of forest anywhere on the horizon. But from her very childhood Arina Petrovna had hardly ever left the country, and this monotonous landscape did not seem dreary to her. It even appealed to her heart and awakened remnants of emotion still glowing within her. The best part of her being lived in these naked fields, and her gaze sought them instinctively.

She stared at the expanse of fields; she stared at the drenched hamlets making black specks on the landscape; she stared at the white churches of the rural parishes; she stared at the motley spots that the cloud shadows formed on the plains; she stared at the peasant unknown to her who walked along the ploughed furrows, and she thought him slow and stiff. While staring, she had no conscious thoughts, or, rather, her thoughts were so fragmentary and disconnected that they could not stay with any one thing for even a short time. She just gazed, gazed till senile slumber again hummed dully in her ears, and the fields, the churches, the hamlets and the peasant in the distance became wrapped in mist.

At times, apparently, she recollected something; but the memories of the past came incoherently, in fragments. Her attention could not concentrate on one point. It jumped from one remote memory to another. Yet sometimes she would be struck by something singular, not joy—her past was very scant in joys—but some grievance, some abuse, bitter and unbearable. Then sudden anger would flare up, anguish would creep into her heart, and tears come to her eyes. She would weep grievously, painfully, the weeping of piteous old age, when tears flow as if under the load of a nightmare. But even while her tears were flowing, her mind unconsciously continued to work in its usual way, and her thoughts drifted imperceptibly away from the cause of her mood, so that in a few minutes the old woman was wondering what had been the matter with her.