Petrovitch

“ You are, Peter Petrovitch. Time has defeated you.”
“No,” he insisted. “I have waited twenty years——”
“And after twenty years, you come back to what? Michael Kirsakoff and his daughter hiding from his Cossacks! The old governor, worse off than peasants, with death lurking at the door! The general of the Czar’s army, in flight and hiding like one of his own escapes in the old days! What sweeter vengeance would you ask, Peter Petrovitch?” ”

“ At last Ivan and Yefim were obliged to depart—Ivan to his work in the city, the priest to one of the numerous services of his Church.
Then for the first time Petrovitch knew himself indeed alone. To darkness he was accustomed now, but the strange unwonted stillness "ached round him like a strong disease and new." No kindred voice would break the silence ever again upon earth. Such had been his deliberate choice, and he must bear it. But his strong heart sank lower and lower yet, even to the very depths—those deepest depths of all, which only strong hearts know how to sound. ”

“ Having taken a pinch of snuff, Petrovitch held up the cloak, and inspected it against the light, and again shook his head once more. After which he again lifted the general-adorned lid with its bit of pasted paper, and having stuffed his nose with snuff, closed and put away the snuff-box, and said finally, “No, it is impossible to mend it; it’s a wretched garment!”
Akakiy Akakievitch’s heart sank at these words.
“Why is it impossible, Petrovitch?” he said, almost in the pleading voice of a child; “all that ails it is, that it is worn on the shoulders. ”

“ My country, O God, my country!"
"But our cause is just," said Ivan. "Surely every Russian will fight to the death."
"This, indeed, will be a death-struggle," Petrovitch resumed. "Do you not understand? It is all the world against holy Russia—all the world, except England and Spain: England, far away, safe within her God-given rampart of crested foam; Spain already bleeding beneath the talons of the vulture. Russia, Russia only, stands upright, and refuses, as Pope Yefim expresses it, to bow the knee to the Baal, or rather to the Moloch of France. ”

“ Ivan Petrovitch was saying. "Still it is rather hard upon me to be chained to desk and ledger because I am the eldest son, while sons, nephews, and grandsons are doing their duty."
"Thou too wilt be doing thine," the old man returned. "What if it be a harder one? Is it thy part, or mine, to choose?—But hush! are not the footsteps that I hear those of my lord's grandson?"
Ivan came forward, and the usual greetings were exchanged, though on his side in a tone of embarrassment, which did not escape the quick ear of Petrovitch. ”

“ The aged face quivered with suppressed emotion, yet Petrovitch drew his hand away. "You cannot love me, Prince Ivan Pojarsky," he said, "if you love not the land of your fathers."
"The land of my fathers!" repeated Ivan in surprise. "What can you mean?"
"Stand up, Prince Ivan," continued the old man, still speaking with sternness; "the posture of a suppliant does not become you. Do you think it is anything to me that you have lost a few thousand roubles at play? Do you think that if you needed my whole fortune I would heave a sigh or shed a tear as I gave it into your hands? ”

“ Alexandr Petrovitch had the gift of divining the nature of the Russian, and knew in what language to speak to him. No boy ever left his presence downcast; on the contrary, even after the sternest reprimand he felt buoyed up and eager to efface his nasty or mischievous action. The mass of his pupils were on the surface so full of mischief, so lively and free and easy in their manners, that one might have taken them for a disorderly gang under no control, but one would have been mistaken; the authority of one man was too powerful in that gang. ”

“ And the Turkins? Ivan Petrovitch has grown no older; he is not changed in the least, and still makes jokes and tells anecdotes as of old. Vera Iosifovna still reads her novels aloud to her visitors with eagerness and touching simplicity. And Kitten plays the piano for four hours every day. She has grown visibly older, is constantly ailing, and every autumn goes to the Crimea with her mother. When Ivan Petrovitch sees them off at the station, he wipes his tears as the train starts, and shouts:
"Good-bye, if you please." ”

“ But I cannot believe that this young man intends to harm us. He is a Russian, true enough, but have you lost faith in all of our people? And this Peter Petrovitch appears to be kind and gentle. You and Slipitsky think in the old ways—only the old thoughts of violence and death. This man has been to America and he may not be an enemy at all. But if it is true that he is seeking you out for evil, then we must be sure of that before we do anything against him. ”

“ But, Prince Ivan, I am talking wildly, perhaps idly and sinfully. Forget what I have said. After all, Alexander Paulovitch is the Lord's anointed."
"And you know that, since last April, he has been in the field with his army—where he ought to be."
"Where he ought not to be!" thundered Petrovitch angrily. "What we ask from our Czar is not the cheap courage of the recruit, whose one virtue is to stand and be shot at, but the far higher courage to think, to decide, to act for fifty millions of men. ”

“ Thereupon Akakiy Akakievitch handed over the ten-kopek piece. “Thank you, sir; I will drink your good health,” said Petrovitch: “but as for the cloak, don’t trouble yourself about it; it is good for nothing. I will make you a capital new one, so let us settle about it now.”
Akakiy Akakievitch was still for mending it; but Petrovitch would not hear of it, and said, “I shall certainly have to make you a new one, and you may depend upon it that I shall do my best. It may even be, as the fashion goes, that the collar can be fastened by silver hooks under a flap.” ”

“ Hospitality is a plant that nourishes luxuriantly in Russian soil, and seems to find the smoky atmosphere of the izba as congenial as the clearer air of the palace. It was with great difficulty that Petrovitch could fix his departure for the next day but one; but a single day of rest for himself and of preparation for Ivan was all that the starost's importunities could obtain from him, since he knew his father's anxiety about the result of his mission. ”

“ In town he dined, went for a walk in the gardens, then Ivan Petrovitch's invitation came into his mind, as it were of itself, and he decided to call on the Turkins and see what sort of people they were.
"How do you do, if you please?" said Ivan Petrovitch, meeting him on the steps. "Delighted, delighted to see such an agreeable visitor. Come along; I will introduce you to my better half. I tell him, Verotchka," he went on, as he presented the doctor to his wife—"I tell him that he has no human right to sit at home in a hospital; he ought to devote his leisure to society. ”

“ The financier smiled.
“May I call you M. V——?” he asked. “His majesty has told me who you are.”
“Were you surprised by that?” I returned with sarcasm.
Petrovitch fairly laughed.
“I hear you have been denouncing me to Nicholas,” he said lightly. “Can’t I persuade you to let our poor little Czar alone. I assure you it is a waste of breath on your part, and you will only worry a well-meaning young man who has no head for business.”
This was plain speaking. It argued no ordinary confidence on the part of the intriguer to speak in such a fashion of the Autocrat of All the Russias. ”

“ Ivan Petrovitch, however, took him by the hand, saying to those who were pressing around them, "Stand back, brothers and sisters; no one should speak to the little lord until he has been presented to our father." ”

“ It all depends on Pyotr Petrovitch who will let us know when he has had time to look round him in Petersburg. To suit his own arrangements he is anxious to have the ceremony as soon as possible, even before the fast of Our Lady, if it could be managed, or if that is too soon to be ready, immediately after. Oh, with what happiness I shall press you to my heart! Dounia is all excitement at the joyful thought of seeing you, she said one day in joke that she would be ready to marry Pyotr Petrovitch for that alone. She is an angel! ”

“ This large household had all the necessaries of life in abundance, and many of its luxuries, though only such as the old Muscovite manners and traditions fully sanctioned. For Petrovitch was an autocrat in his own house, though usually a just and generous one. Woe to the son or grandson of his who should presume to50 “deface the image of God” by shaving his beard, to exchange his caftan for a French paletôt, or to lose his roubles and peril his soul at the fashionable game of loto! ”

“ And beware, dear Rodya, when he comes to Petersburg, as he shortly will do, beware of judging him too hastily and severely, as your way is, if there is anything you do not like in him at first sight. I give you this warning, although I feel sure that he will make a favourable impression upon you. Moreover, in order to understand any man one must be deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas, which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards. And Pyotr Petrovitch, judging by many indications, is a thoroughly estimable man. ”

“ Some of his fellow-plotters in the Russian capital imagined that he had fled to Germany to escape the penalty of his treason. In Germany, on the other hand, I afterward learned, he was supposed to have been sent to Siberia by order of the Czar.
For weeks the “Disappearance of M. Petrovitch” was the general topic of discussion in the newspapers and in private circles; but no one came near guessing the truth.
[Pg 236]
There was one person who must have divined from the first what had happened. But she held her tongue. ”

“ It’s a thoroughly bad job. You’d better, when the cold winter weather comes on, make [Pg 34] yourself some gaiters out of it, because stockings are not warm. The Germans invented them in order to make more money.” Petrovitch loved, on all occasions, to have a fling at the Germans. “But it is plain you must have a new cloak.”
At the word “new,” all grew dark before Akakiy Akakievitch’s eyes and everything in the room began to whirl round. The only thing he saw clearly was the general with the paper face on the lid of Petrovitch’s snuff-box. “A new one?” ”

“ “Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like,” Porfiry Petrovitch began again, “but I can’t resist. Allow me one little question (I know I am troubling you) . There is just one little notion I want to express, simply that I may not forget it.” ”

“ How thoroughly he knew the peculiarities of the Russian of his day! How well he understood boys! How capable he was of drawing them out! Not a practical joker in the school but, after perpetrating a prank, would voluntarily approach his preceptor and make to him free confession. True, the preceptor would put a stern face upon the matter, yet the culprit would depart with head held higher, not lower, than before, since in Alexander Petrovitch there was something which heartened—something which seemed to say to a delinquent: “Forward you! Rise to your feet again, even though you have fallen!” ”

“ The black and white posts, said to have been a pet fancy of that miserable pedant, Paul Petrovitch, that offend the eye everywhere in Russia; the elegant houses with white-washed walls and red or green roofs; the gorgeous churches with tall tapering spires; and the wide streets, with nobody in them, are all taken in at the first glance through the gateway, and establish it beyond doubt that we are really in the territory of the Czars.
With little trouble we found out Mr. Pfaffius, Commissary of the Frontier, an office established in lieu of the governorship which had been abolished. ”

“ 'A man's capable of understanding anything—how the æther vibrates, and what's going on in the sun—but how any other man can blow his nose differently from him, that he's incapable of understanding.'
'What, is that an epigram?' observed Pavel Petrovitch inquiringly, and he walked away. ”

“ “Practicality is a difficult thing to find; it does not drop down from heaven. And for the last two hundred years we have been divorced from all practical life. Ideas, if you like, are fermenting,” he said to Pyotr Petrovitch, “and desire for good exists, though it’s in a childish form, and honesty you may find, although there are crowds of brigands. Anyway, there’s no practicality. Practicality goes well shod.” ”

“ Ivan Petrovitch talks in a loud bass voice and never laughs, while there is no making this fellow out, he pipes like a bird and keeps laughing.' You go near, you look, it really is Ivan Petrovitch! 'Aha!' you think to yourself. ... However, we will return to the characters of our story.
Tchitchikov, as we have seen already, had made up his mind not to stand on ceremony at all, and so, taking the cup of tea in his hand and pouring some home-made wine into it, he spoke as follows:
'You have a nice little village, ma'am. ”

“ The peasant men and women stayed outside. There remained two beggar women, sitting in one corner, whispering together and occasionally glancing at Ivan Petrovitch with an evident desire to wish his health and talk with him, and two lackeys, his own lackey, in livery, and the Chernuishefs', who had come with the old lady. These two were also whispering together with great animation when Ivan Petrovitch came out from behind the altar, and as soon as they saw him they stopped talking. ”

“ Those who passed through the course were few in number, but those few were strong men, were like men who had been through fire. In the service they kept their footing even in the most precarious position when many others, cleverer perhaps than they, could not hold out, but gave up the service on account of the most trivial annoyances, or without being aware of it got into the hands of rogues and bribe-takers. But Alexandr Petrovitch's pupils did not merely hold on steadily but, trained in the knowledge of man and nature, exerted a lofty influence, even upon the corrupt and the depraved. ”