Sketches From a Hunter's Album

  I wondered to myself in astonishment at the distance the legend of Joan of Arc had travelled and the form it had taken, and after a brief silence I asked Lukeria how old she was.

  ‘Twenty-eight… or twenty-nine. I’m not thirty yet. What’s the good of counting them, the years, I mean! I’ll tell you something else…’

  Lukeria suddenly coughed huskily and gave a groan.

  ‘You are talking a great deal,’ I remarked to her, ‘and it could be bad for you.’

  ‘That’s true,’ she whispered, hardly audible. ‘Our little talk’s got to end, no matter what happens! Now that you’ll be going I’ll be quiet as long as I wish. I’ve unburdened my heart to the full…’

  I began to take leave of her, repeating my promise to send her the medicine and imploring her again to give careful thought to my question whether there was anything that she needed.

  ‘I don’t need anything, I’m quite content, praise God,’ she uttered with the greatest of effort, but moved by my concern. ‘God grant everyone good health! And you, master, tell your mother that, because the peasants here are poor, she should take a little less in rent from them! They haven’t enough land, there isn’t an abundance of anything… They’d give thanks to God for you if you did that… But I don’t need a thing – I’m quite content.’

  I gave Lukeria my word that I would fulfil her request and was already on the way to the door when she called to me again.

  ‘Remember, master,’ she said, and something wondrous glimmered in her eyes and on her lips, ‘what long tresses I had? Remember, they reached right down to my knees! For a long time I couldn’t make up my mind… Such long hair!… But how could I comb it out? In my state, after all!… So I cut it all off… Yes, that’s what I did… Well, master, forgive me! I can’t go on any more…’

  That very day, before setting out for the hunt, I had a talk about Lukeria with the farm overseer. I learned from him that she was known in the village as the ‘Living Relic’ and that, in this regard, there had never been any trouble from her; never a murmur was to be heard from her, never a word of complaint. ‘She herself asks for nothing, but, quite to the contrary, is thankful for everything; a quiet one, if ever there was a quiet one, that’s for sure. Struck down by God, most likely for her sins,’ the overseer concluded, ‘but we don’t go into that. And as, for instance, for passing judgement on her – no, we don’t pass judgement. Let her alone!’

  A few weeks later I learned that Lukeria had died. Her death had come for her, as she thought – ‘after Saint Peter’s Day’. There were rumours that on the day of her death she heard a bell ringing all the time, although from Alekseyevka to the church is a matter of three miles or more and it was not a Sunday. Lukeria, however, said that the ringing did not come from the church, but ‘from above’. Probably she did not dare to say that it came from heaven.

  CLATTER OF WHEELS

  ‘WHAT I want to tell you,’ said Yermolay, coming

  into the hut – while I, for my part, had only just had dinner and stretched myself on a little travelling bed to rest for a short while after a fairly successful, but tiring, grouse shoot (it was some time in mid-July and the prevailing heat was awful) – ‘What I want to tell you is that all our shot’s used up.’

  I jumped up from the bed.

  ‘The shot’s all used up! That’s impossible! Surely we brought with us from the village by any reckoning about thirty pounds of it! We had a whole sackful!’

  ‘Right. And it was a large sack, enough for two weeks. Who knows what’s happened to it! Maybe the sack got a hole in it, but whatever it was, the fact is there’s no shot left – ten more charges and that’ll be it.’

  ‘Well, what on earth are we going to do now? The best places are ahead – they’ve promised us six coveys for tomorrow…’

  ‘Send me into Tula. It’s not far from here – only about thirty miles. I’ll fly like the wind and bring you back, if you like, a whole ton of shot.’

  ‘All right, but when’ll you be able to go?’

  ‘Right now. Why delay? ’Cept there’s only one thing – we’ll have to hire some horses.’

  ‘Hire some horses! What’s wrong with our own?’

  ‘We can’t use ours. The shaft-horse’s gone lame… Something awful.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Just the other day. The driver took him off to be shod. So he was shod. But the blacksmith must’ve been poor at his job. Now the horse can’t even stand on his leg. It’s a front leg. He carries it lifted up, like he was a dog.’

  ‘What’s been done about it? At least he’s been unshod, hasn’t he?’

  ‘No, he’s still the same, but it’s high time he was unshod. I reckon a nail’s been driven into the fleshy part.’

  I ordered the driver to be brought to me. It transpired that Yermolay had been telling the truth: the shaft-horse could not in fact stand on its leg. I at once arranged for the horse to be unshod and placed on damp clay.

  ‘What about it now? Will you order horses to be hired for going to Tula?’ Yermolay badgered me.

  ‘Do you really think it’s possible to hire horses in this back of beyond?’ I cried out in a fit of vexation.

  The village where we had found ourselves was out of the way and dead; all its inhabitants seemed to be poverty-stricken and it was only with difficulty that we had come across even so much as a hut with a chimney, let alone one that was in the least spacious.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Yermolay answered with his usual imperturbability. ‘It’s true what you’ve said about this village, and yet in this very place there was once a peasant living – the cleverest man, he was! Rich, too! He had nine horses. He himself is dead and it’s now his eldest son who looks after everything. As a person he’s a real fool, but still he hasn’t yet managed to get rid of all his father’s property. From him we’ll be able to fit ourselves out with horses. You give the order and I’ll bring him along. They say his brothers are real bright lads, but he’s still their boss.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Because he’s the eldest! That means the younger ones’ve got to kowtow!’ At this point Yermolay expressed himself strongly and unprintably about younger brothers in general. ‘I’ll bring him along. He’s a bit simple. You should be able to make a deal with a man like that, eh?’

  While Yermolay was fetching this ‘simple’ man, the thought occurred to me: wouldn’t it be better if I went into Tula myself? Firstly, schooled by experience, I had learnt to put little faith in Yermolay: I had sent him into town once to make some purchases, he promising to do everything he was told in the course of a single day – and he had disappeared for a whole week, drunk away all the money and returned on foot, whereas he had gone there in a racing buggy. Secondly, there was a horse-dealer I knew in Tula, and I could buy a horse from him in place of the lame shaft-horse.

  ‘That’s decided then,’ I thought. ‘I’ll go myself and I can sleep on the way – which is the blessing of having a comfortable carriage.’

  ‘I’ve brought him!’ Yermolay exclaimed a quarter of an hour later as he tumbled into the hut. He was followed by a tall peasant in a white shirt, blue trousers and blue bast shoes, with a head of tousled fair hair and a myopic look, a light-coloured and wedge-shaped little beard, a long puffy nose and a gapingly open mouth. He looked exactly like a simpleton.

  ‘Here he is,’ Yermolay said. ‘He’s got horses and he’s agreed to help.’

  ‘It’s like this, see, I…’ the peasant stammered in a hoarse voice shaking his wispy locks and running his fingers along the band of the hat which he held in his hand. ‘I, you see…’

  ‘What is your name?’ I asked.

  The peasant lowered his head and literally started to ponder the question.

  ‘What’s my name?’

  ‘Yes, what name have you?’

  ‘My name will be Filofey.’

  ‘Well, that’s it, then, my good friend Filofey – I’ve heard that you have horses.
Bring along three of them, if you would, and we’ll harness them to my carriage – it’s a light one – and you can take me into Tula. It’s a moonlit night tonight, bright and fresh for travelling. What’s the road like in your parts?’

  ‘The road? Not bad. It’ll be about fifteen mile to the main road – no more’n that. There’s one little part where it’s bad, but that’s nothing really.’

  ‘What’s this bad part?’

  ‘It’s where we’ll be needin’ to cross a river.’

  ‘Does this mean you yourself’ll be going into Tula?’ inquired Yermolay.

  ‘Yes, I’ll be going myself.’

  ‘Well!’ declared my trusty servant, and gave a shake of the head. ‘Well, well, well!’ he repeated, spat and left the hut.

  A journey into Tula obviously no longer offered any attractions for him; it had become an empty matter of no interest.

  ‘Do you know the road well?’ I asked, addressing myself to Filofey.

  ‘For sure I know the road! Only I, you see, beggin’ your pardon, I can’t go… seein’ as it’s so sudden-like…’

  It transpired that Yermolay, in hiring Filofey, had declared to him that he had no doubt that he, the fool, would be paid – and that would be all! Filofey, although a fool, in Yermolay’s estimation, had not been satisfied by this declaration in itself. He began by demanding from me fifty roubles in notes – an enormous sum; I offered him ten roubles – a small sum. We set about bargaining; Filofey was stubborn to start with, then he began to give way, albeit slowly. Yermolay, who had come in for a moment, began to assure me that ‘This fool’ (‘See how fond he is of that word!’ Filofey remarked under his breath) ‘this fool has no idea of the value of money,’ and incidentally reminded me how twenty years ago a coaching inn which had been established by my mother at a busy point at the intersection of two main roads had proved a complete failure because the ancient house-serf who had been put in charge of it literally did not know the value of money, but valued the coins according to number – that is to say, he would, for instance, give a silver quarter for half a dozen five-copeck coppers and swear strongly into the bargain.

  ‘Damn you, Filofey, you’re a right Filofey, you are!’ Yermolay exclaimed finally and, going out, slammed the door angrily behind him.

  Filofey did not answer him, as if acknowledging that it was certainly no easy matter to be called Filofey, that a man could even be held blameworthy for having such a name, although the real blame lay with the priest at his christening who had not been properly paid for his services.

  Eventually, however, we agreed on twenty roubles. He went off to get the horses and an hour later brought five of them for me to choose from. The horses turned out to be suitable, although they had tangled manes and tails and large bellies stretched tight as drums. Filofey was accompanied by two of his brothers, who were quite unlike him. Small of stature, dark-eyed and sharp-nosed, they did indeed produce the impression of being ‘bright lads’, talking a great deal and at great speed – ‘Shooting their mouths off’, as Yermolay expressed it – but they still deferred to the eldest.

  They pulled the carriage out from under the lean-to and for a whole hour and a half fussed round it with the horses. At one moment they would loosen the shaft fastenings, at the next they would do them up as tight as could be! Both the brothers insisted on harnessing a roan as shaft-horse because ‘that un’d run mighty fine downhill’, but Filofey decided on a shaggy horse and that was the horse they finally harnessed in the shafts.

  The carriage was stuffed with hay and the collar from the lame shaft-horse was pushed under the seat – in case it became necessary to drive the horse into Tula in exchange for a newly purchased one. Filofey, having managed to dash home and return dressed up in his father’s long, white, loose-fitting coat, tall hat and blackened boots, climbed solemnly up on to the box. I sat down, noting that my watch showed the time as a quarter to eleven. Yermolay did not even say goodbye to me, but took it upon himself to beat his dog Valetka. Filofey gave a jerk of the reins, called out: ‘Gee up, there, my pretties!’ in the most high-pitched of voices – his brothers jumped up on either side of us and lashed the underbellies of the outer horses – and the carriage started away, turning through the gate into the street. The shaggy horse would have turned back into the courtyard if left to its own devices, but Filofey admonished it with a few blows of the whip; and soon we had sped briskly out of the village and were travelling along a fairly smooth road between thick lines of nut trees.

  The night was quiet and splendid, perfect for a journey. A wind would rustle occasionally in the bushes, set the branches quivering and then die away. Motionless, silvery clouds were visible here and there in the sky. The moon floated high up and bathed the countryside in its clear rays. I stretched myself out on the hay and was on the point of dozing when I suddenly remembered the ‘bad part’ and roused myself.

  ‘Hey there, Filofey. Is it far to the ford?’

  ‘To the ford? It’ll be about five miles.’

  ‘Five miles,’ I thought. ‘In that case it’ll be an hour before we get there and I can have a sleep in the meantime.’

  ‘D’you know the road well, Filofey?’ I asked again.

  ‘And why shouldn’t I know her well – the road, I mean? It’s not the first time I’ve been along here…’

  He added something else, but I had already stopped listening. I was asleep.

  I was awakened not by my own intention of waking up in an hour’s time, but by some kind of unfamiliar, though faint, splishings and sploshings right beside my very ear. I raised my head.

  What on earth had happened? I was lying in the carriage as before, but all around it, and barely more than a foot below its edge, a flat area of water, illuminated by the moon, was fragmented and crisscrossed by tiny, distinct ripples. I looked toward the front and there was Filofey sitting on the box, his head fallen forward, his back bent, solemn as an idol, and further ahead still, above gurgling water, I could see the bent line of the shaft and the horses’ heads and backs. And everything was so still, so soundless, as if it were in an enchanted kingdom, a dream, a fairy-tale sleep. Fantastic! Then I looked towards the back from under the hood of the carriage. We were indeed in the very middle of a river, with the bank a good thirty paces from us!

  ‘Filofey!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘What d’you want?’ he answered.

  ‘How can you say “What d’you want?” For heaven’s sake, where are we?’

  ‘In the river.’

  ‘I can see we’re in the river. And any minute now we’ll drown. So you’re crossing by the ford, are you? Eh? Filofey, you’re sleeping. Answer me!’

  ‘I made a wee mistake,’ my driver announced, ‘and went a little to one side, you know, took the wrong way, sad to tell, but we’ll have to do some waiting now.’

  ‘Why’ve we got to do some waiting? What’re we going to wait for?’

  ‘Let the shaggy horse look around ’isself, ‘cause where ’e turns is where we’ll be going.’

  I raised myself on the hay. The head of the shaft-horse was motionless above the water. All that could be seen by the bright light of the moon was one of his ears moving slightly backwards and forwards.

  ‘And he’s asleep as well, that shaggy horse of yours!’

  ‘No,’ answered Filofey. ‘What he’s doing now is sniffing the water.’

  And everything again fell quiet, with only the water giving faint splashings. I also froze into immobility. The moonlight, the night, the river and ourselves in the middle of it…

  ‘What’s that hissing?’ I asked Filofey.

  ‘That? It’s ducklings in the reeds… or maybe it’s snakes.’

  Suddenly, the shaft-horse began shaking its head, pricked up its ears, started snorting and fussing.

  ‘Gee up, gee-gee-gee!’ Filofey unexpectedly howled at the top of his voice, rose up and began wielding his whip. The carriage at once jolted from the place where it had been standing and thrust
itself forward against the flow of the river. It went a short way, jerking and wobbling. To start with, it seemed to me that we were sinking, going in deeper, but after two or three jolts and slips, the surface of the water appeared suddenly to grow lower. It went farther and farther down and the carriage rose out of it. Then the wheels appeared and the horses’ tails and then, raising large, powerful splashes of water that exploded in the moon’s dull white brilliance like flashing sheaves of diamonds – no, not of diamonds but of sapphires – the horses all pulling happily together drew us out on to the muddy bank and followed the road uphill, stepping out in irregular strides on their glittering, wet legs.

  ‘What,’ it occurred to me, ‘will Filofey say now: You see, I was right! or something on those lines?’ But he said nothing. For that reason I did not consider it necessary to blame him for carelessness and, bedding down in the hay, attempted once again to go to sleep.

  But I couldn’t sleep – not because I wasn’t tired from hunting, not because the alarm which I had experienced had driven away my sleepiness – simply due to the extremely beautiful regions through which our route took us. These were free-ranging, expansive, well-watered grassy meadowlands with a host of small pastures, miniature lakes, streams and large ponds overgrown at each end with willows, absolutely Russian, places dear to the heart of the Russian people, like the places to which the legendary warriors of our old folk sagas used to travel to shoot white swans and grey-hued ducks. The smooth road unwound behind us like a yellowish ribbon, the horses were going at an easy pace and I couldn’t close my eyes for joy at my surroundings. And everything flowed past so softly and surely under the friendly moon. Even Filofey was affected by the scene.