Nikitin

“ Amongst these was the alliance of Nikitin and Andrey Vassilievitch. Friendship it could not be called. Nikitin, although apparently he was kindly to the little man, yielded him no intimacy. It seemed to us a very one-sided business, depending partly upon Andrey Vassilievitch's continual assertions that Nikitin was "his oldest friend and the closest friend of his wife," that "Nikitin was one of the [115] most remarkable men in the world," that "only his intimate friends could know how remarkable he was" ”

“ I was surprised at Trenchard's interest; I had thought him so wrapt in his own especial affair that nothing outside it could occupy him. But he continued:
"He knew the tall doctor—Nikitin—before, didn't he?"
"Yes.... Nikitin knew his wife."
"Oh, I see.... Nikitin seems to despise him—I think he despises all of us."
"Oh no. That's only his manner. Many Russians look as though they were despising their neighbours when, as a matter of fact, they're really despising themselves. They're very fond of despising themselves: their contempt allows them to do what they want to." ”

“ Nikitin lived nearly half a mile from the Shelestoys’ in a flat of eight rooms at the rent of three hundred roubles a year, which he shared with his colleague Ippolit Ippolititch, a teacher of geography and history. When Nikitin went in this Ippolit Ippolititch, a snub-nosed, middle-aged man with a reddish beard, with a coarse, good-natured, unintellectual face like a workman’s, was sitting at the table correcting his pupils’ maps. ”

“ Among them the army doctor in high boots, and the conductor of the band, waiting for the musicians. The doctor must have taken Nikitin for a student, for he asked: “Have you come for the summer holidays?”
“No, I am here permanently,” answered Nikitin. “I am a teacher at the school.”
“You don’t say so?” said the doctor, with surprise. “So young and already a teacher?”
“Young, indeed! My goodness, I’m twenty-six!
“You have a beard and moustache, but yet one would never guess you were more than twenty-two or twenty-three. How young-looking you are!”
“What a beast!” thought Nikitin. ”

“ His condition became improved and by 1859 he had amassed a capital of two thousand roubles, with which he opened a book-shop, hoping to enlighten the darkness of his country. To this ideal he gave all his strength and his money. In 1860 Nikitin went to Petersburg and Moscow to establish connections with the leading publishing houses; from which no small literary acquaintance arose. In the Spring of 1861 he suffered from a throat trouble which developed into bronchial tuberculosis of which he died on October 16, 1861. ”

“ Nikitin was much more sympathetic.
"You seem very fond of Nikitin," I said.
"We are friends ... we have been friends for many years. My wife was very fond of him. I am a lonely man, Ivan Andreievitch, since the death of my wife, and [74] to be with any one who knew her is a great happiness ... yes, a great happiness."
"And Semyonov?" I asked.
"I have nothing to say against Alexei Petrovitch," he answered stiffly.
When later I joined the others at the cottage higher up the road taken by the doctors of the Division, I discovered Trenchard in an ecstasy of happiness. ”

“ But Nikitin was thinking that it would be nice to take a holiday and go to Moscow, and stay at his old lodgings there. In the next room they were drinking coffee and talking of Captain Polyansky, while he tried not to listen and wrote in his diary: “Where am I, my God? I am surrounded by vulgarity and vulgarity. Wearisome, insignificant people, pots of sour cream, jugs of milk, cockroaches, stupid women. . . . There is nothing more terrible, mortifying, and distressing than vulgarity. I must escape from here, I must escape today, or I shall go out of my mind!” ”

“ That's very pleasant to know."
"What I mean—" said Trenchard, blushing and stammering. "What ... that is—"
"I agree with Mr.," suddenly said Nikitin, who had been dreamily watching the blue forest. "War does bring out the best in the human character—always."
Semyonov turned smilingly to him. "Yes, Vladimir Stepanovitch, we know your illusions. Forgive me for [216] insisting that they are illusions. I would not disturb your romantic happiness for the world."
"You can't disturb me, Alexei Petrovitch," Nikitin answered sleepily. "What a hot morning!" ”

“ From the first, as I have said on an earlier page, his relationship to Andrey Vassilievitch had puzzled me. If Nikitin were not of the common race of men, most assuredly was Andrey Vassilievitch of the most ordinary in the world. He was a little man of a type in no way distinctively Russian—a type very common in England, in America, in France, in Germany. He was, one would have said, of the world worldly, a man who, with a sharp business brain, had acquired for himself houses, lands, food, servants, acquaintances. ”

“ Like water behind glass, like music behind a screen, Nikitin's voice comes back to me—dim but so close, mysterious but so intimate. Ah, the questions that I would ask him now if only I might have those morning hours over again!
"You're a solemn man altogether, Durward. Perhaps all Englishmen seem so to us, and it may be only your tranquillity, so unlike our moods and nerves by which we kill ourselves dead before we're half way through life.... ”

“ I said. "He told Nikitin that we ought to go to-night. Nikitin asked him whether the [302] Division had plenty of wagons and Krylov admitted that there weren't nearly enough. He agreed that it would make a lot of difference if we could keep this place going until to-morrow night—all the same he advised us to leave."
"We'll stay until some one orders us to go," said Semyonov. "It will make a difference to a hundred men or more probably. If they do start firing on to this place we can get the men off in the wagons in time."
"And what if the wagons have left for Mittövo?" ”

“ She doesn’t bite. She is a good dog.”
Som was a tall black dog with long legs and a tail as hard as a stick. At dinner and tea he usually moved about under the table, and thumped on people’s boots and on the legs of the table with his tail. He was a good-natured, stupid dog, but Nikitin could not endure him because he had the habit of putting his head on people’s knees at dinner and messing their trousers with saliva. Nikitin had more than once tried to hit him on his head with a knife-handle, to flip him on the nose, had abused him, had complained of him, but nothing saved his trousers. ”

“ Returning home from the cemetery much moved, Nikitin got out his diary from the table and wrote:
“We have just consigned to the tomb Ippolit Ippolititch Ryzhitsky. Peace to your ashes, modest worker! Masha, Varya, and all the women at the funeral, wept from genuine feeling, perhaps because they knew this uninteresting, humble man had never been loved by a woman. I wanted to say a warm word at my colleague’s grave, but I was warned that this might displease the director, as he did not like our poor friend. I believe that this is the first day since my marriage that my heart has been heavy.” ”

“ Ippolit Ippolititch was standing before the sofa, and throwing back his head, was putting on his cravat.
“Get up; it’s time for school,” he said. “You shouldn’t sleep in your clothes; it spoils your clothes. You should sleep in your bed, undressed.”
And as usual he began slowly and emphatically saying what everybody knew.
Nikitin’s first lesson was on Russian language in the second class. When at nine o’clock punctually he went into the classroom, he saw written on the blackboard two large letters—M. S. That, no doubt, meant Masha Shelestov. ”

“ He was speaking Russian very fast and I did not discover his complaint. There was something comic in the sight of his small body towering to a perfect tempest of rage, his plump hands gesticulating and always his eyes, anxious and self-important, doing their best to look after his dignity. Nikitin explained to me that he had been urging Andrey Vassilievitch to return to Mittövo with the wagons. "There's no need," he said, "for us all to stay. It's only taking unnecessary risks—and somebody should take charge of the wagons." ”

“ I am not sure whether I may speak of Nikitin as my friend. I believe that no one in our Otriad save Trenchard could make, with truth, this claim. But for his own reasons or, perhaps, for no reason at all, he chose me on two [108] occasions as his confidant, and of these two occasions I can recall every detail.
We returned that night from S—— to find that the whole Otriad had settled in the village of M——, where I myself had been the night before. We were all living in an empty deserted farmhouse, with a yard, a big orchard, wide barns and a wild overrun garden. ”

“ Nikitin whispered to me. "I must find the Colonel. The sanitars will come and fetch you when I've settled the spot for our bandaging."
Nikitin disappeared and I was quite alone. I felt terribly desolate. I stood back against the gate of the villa watching soldiers hurry by, seeing high mysterious hedges, the roofs of houses, a line of lighted sky, the tops of trees, all these things rising and falling as the glare in the heavens rose and fell. There was sometimes a terrible noise and sometimes an equally terrible stillness. Somewhere in the darkness a man was groaning, "Oh! ”

“ Andrey Vassilievitch, on his side with much nervousness and self-importance, told me that he thought that Nikitin was suffering from overwork and needed a complete rest. "You know, Ivan Andreievitch, he is really not at all well; I sleep in the same room. He talks in his sleep, fancies that he sees things ... ”

“ They were divided in their opinions. Wolf was in favour of altering the decision. Bay, when he had understood the case, took up the same side with fervour, vividly presenting the scene at the court to his companions as he clearly saw it himself. Nikitin, who always was on the side of severity and formality, took up the other side. All depended on Skovorodnikoff`s vote, and he voted for rejecting the appeal, because Nekhludoff`s determination to marry the woman on moral grounds was extremely repugnant to him. ”

“ The journal with which he had been connected being now suppressed, he became connected with another for two years. In December, 1877, he died, widely mourned and called "the singer of Russian folk song."
IVAN SSAWITSCH NIKITIN was born October 3, 1824, at Woronesh. Though his life was poor in external circumstances, it was all the richer within. His best biography is his own work, "From the Diary of a Seminarist." His life opened under rather auspicious influences, for his father owned a candle factory and was so prosperous that his business amounted yearly to a hundred thousand roubles. ”

“ What I wish to have done I must do for myself. No matter; after all it was I myself who promised to find for the Terrible Tsar a bride who is ruddier than the sun, fairer than the moon, and whiter than snow." Nikita leapt from his horse, put his heroic hand to the paling and a full length of it lay upon the ground. Through the opening thus made the company rode boldly forward. On the green lawn before the great door of the castle they quietly set up their white gold-embroidered tents, ate a good meal, and then, lying down, slept soundly. But Nikita did not enter one of the tents. ”

“ His pointed spear was in his hand, and in a moment his anger suggested to him that he could easily punish Nikitich for his fault. But he put aside the idea with disgust, for he was a hero and a gentleman. "I shall win no honour," he said to himself, "if I kill a sleeping man who is no better than a dead one." Then he reflected for a few moments, smiled gently, went out of the pavilion and mounted not his own horse but the good steed of Nikitich. ”

“ But very soon, and indeed sooner than that, I will settle with you.”
“Hold the wicked old witch, Timothy,” cried Nikita, and the blind man caught her in his arms and squeezed her very hard. Then Nikita seized [286] her by the hair, and she was ready enough to make all kinds of promises to win her freedom.
“We want nothing,” said Nikita, who had still more ideas in his head, “but your whistle and healing and living water. I have the whistle already, and if you will give us the water, you shall go free once more into the white world.”
“That I can, and will since I must,” said the Baba-Yaga. ”

“ What had Nikander done to her to make her run away? What cruel thing had he said? But there was no time even to be angry. Theria must be found and that quickly before the Persians should arrive. Eëtíon looked at Nikander, begging for a boon.
“If I might help to find her,” he ventured; “but let me go my own way while you go another. We must search everywhere at once.”
Nikander read his unspoken fear. Women must not be abroad when the Persians were in the country. There was not an instant to lose.
“Nikander, I am presumptuous to give advice,” said Eëtíon. ”

“ NIKON [Nikita Minin] (1605-1681) , 6th patriarch of Moscow, Russian reformer and statesman, son of a peasant farmer named Mina, was born on the 7th of May 1605 in the village of Valmanovo, 90 versts from Nizhny Novgorod. Misery pursued the child from his cradle, and prematurely hardened a character not naturally soft; he ran away from home to save his life from an inhuman stepmother. But he gave promise betimes of the energy and thoroughness which were to distinguish him throughout life, and contrived to teach himself reading and writing. ”

“ But if he finds he is an infidel he shall challenge him to mortal combat.”
Then Nikitich sprang to his nimble feet, saddled and mounted his good steed, and rode forth to the place where a great river met the dark-grey sea. As he looked along the straight road he saw a rider before him who sat upon his horse with the assurance of youth and victory. His black steed was full of mettle and fresh from the untamed steppe. At each leap he covered a furlong, and the marks which the hoofs of his horse made upon the bosom of moist Mother Earth were as large as a ram or a full-grown sheep. ”