“I’ll kill you!” he once shrieked suddenly, conscious of a vague uneasiness caused by our presence, and at this we scattered like a flock of startled birds.
It sometimes happened that rain fell on him sleeping thus, dust covered him, and several times in the autumn he was literally buried in snow. If he did not die an untimely death, he without doubt owed this to the care which other unfortunates like himself took of his pitiful person. Especially did he owe his life to the jolly Turkevich, who would search him out, pull him up, set him on his feet, and take him away with him.
Turkevich belonged to the class of people, who, as he himself expressed it, do not spit in their own porridge, and while the Professor and Lavrovski were passive sufferers, he presented the appearance of a person who was happy and fortunate in many ways. To begin with, he had suddenly announced that he was a general without asking the assent of any one, and demanded that the townsfolk should call him by that honourable title. As no one dared to question his right to it, Turkevich very soon became imbued with a belief in his own greatness. He always stalked along very majestically, knitting his brows severely, and displaying a perfect readiness to break any one’s jaw, which last act he evidently considered the special prerogative of a general. If his care free brain was ever visited for a moment by doubts on the score of his title, he would catch the first man he saw on the street and sternly ask him:
“Who am I, eh?”
“General Turkevich!” the man would answer meekly, feeling himself in an awkward position, whereupon Turkevich would slowly release him and proudly twirl his whiskers.
“Ex-actly!”
And as he had, beside all this, a very special way of twirling his beetling moustache and an inexhaustible fund of quaint sayings and witticisms, it was not surprising that he was constantly surrounded by a crowd of lively listeners. Even the doors of the best restaurants, where the landholders of the country assembled to play billiards, were open to him. To tell the truth, however, it not infrequently happened that General Turkevich would come flying out of them with the alacrity of a man who is being shoved rather unceremoniously from behind. But these incidents, which he explained by the lack of respect the landholders had for wit, had no effect upon Turkevich’s general frame of mind. A state of happy self-confidence and continual intoxication—that was his normal condition.
In this last circumstance lay the second key to his felicity; one glass of vodka was enough to keep him fuddled for a day. This fact people explained by the immense quantity which Turkevich had already drunk, and which was said to have converted his blood into a solution of vodka. All that was necessary now was for the General to bring this solution to a proper strength, for it to ripple and rush through his veins, painting the world for him with rainbow tints.
If, on the other hand, for one reason or another, the General could not procure a glass of vodka for a day or two, he would suffer the most excruciating torture. First he would fall into a fit of melancholy and low spirits. All knew that at these times the terrible General was more helpless than a child, and many hastened to wreak vengeance upon him then for insults received. They would beat him and spit upon him and cover him with mud, while he would not even try to run away from the disgrace, but would bellow at the top of his lungs while the tears streamed in torrents down his long, drooping moustache. The poor wretch would turn to every one, imploring them to kill him; saying that, anyhow, he was doomed to die a dog’s death in a fence corner. At that every one would stand aside, for there was something in the voice and face of the General at those times which sent even his most determined enemies away as fast as their legs could carry them. They could not bear to see the face, to hear the voice of a man who, for an instant, was conscious of the appalling tragedy of his lot.
Then another change would come over the General and he would grow terrible to look at. His eyes would flash feverishly, his cheeks would cave in, his short hair would bristle on his head, he would go off into a kind of frenzy, and, rising to his feet, would stalk triumphantly through the streets, beating his breast and announcing to every one in a loud voice: