The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories by Ivan Turgenev

Author:Ivan Turgenev [Turgenev, Ivan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aeterna Classics
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

II

Seven years had passed by. I don't think it necessary to relate all that happened to me during that period. I moved restlessly about over Russia, and made my way into the remotest wilds, and thank God I did! The wilds are not so much to be dreaded as some people suppose, and in the most hidden places, under the fallen twigs and rotting leaves in the very heart of the forest, spring up flowers of sweet fragrance.

One day in spring, as I was passing on some official duties through a small town in one of the outlying provinces of Eastern Russia, through the dim little window of my coach I saw standing before a shop in the square a man whose face struck me as exceedingly familiar. I looked attentively at the man, and to my great delight recognised him as Elisei, Pasinkov's servant.

I at once told the driver to stop, jumped out of the coach, and went up to Elisei.

'Hullo, friend!' I began, with difficulty concealing my excitement; 'are you here with your master?'

'Yes, I'm with my master,' he responded slowly, and then suddenly cried out: 'Why, sir, is it you? I didn't know you.'

'Are you here with Yakov Ivanitch?'

'Yes, sir, with him, to be sure … whom else would I be with?'

'Take me to him quickly.'

'To be sure! to be sure! This way, please, this way … we're stopping here at the tavern.' Elisei led me across the square, incessantly repeating—'Well, now, won't Yakov Ivanitch be pleased!'

This man, of Kalmuck extraction, and hideous, even savage appearance, but the kindest-hearted creature and by no means a fool, was passionately devoted to Pasinkov, and had been his servant for ten years.

'Is Yakov Ivanitch quite well?' I asked him.

Elisei turned his dusky, yellow little face to me.

'Ah, sir, he's in a poor way … in a poor way, sir! You won't know his honour…. He's not long for this world, I'm afraid. That's how it is we've stopped here, or we had been going on to Odessa for his health.'

'Where do you come from?'

'From Siberia, sir.'

'From Siberia?'

'Yes, sir. Yakov Ivanitch was sent to a post out there. It was there his honour got his wound.'

'Do you mean to say he went into the military service?'

'Oh no, sir. He served in the civil service.'

'What a strange thing!' I thought.

Meanwhile we had reached the tavern, and Elisei ran on in front to announce me. During the first years of our separation, Pasinkov and I had written to each other pretty often, but his last letter had reached me four years before, and since then I had heard nothing of him.

'Please come up, sir!' Elisei shouted to me from the staircase; 'Yakov

Ivanitch is very anxious to see you.'

I ran hurriedly up the tottering stairs, went into a dark little room—and my heart sank…. On a narrow bed, under a fur cloak, pale as a corpse, lay Pasinkov, and he was stretching out to me a bare, wasted hand.

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