A Sportsmans Sketches, vol 2 | Page 2

marvelling at her.... Indeed, a woman who lives all the year round in the country and does not talk scandal, nor whine, nor curtsey, is never flurried, nor depressed, nor in a flutter of curiosity, is a real marvel! She usually wears a grey taffetas gown and a white cap with lilac streamers; she is fond of good cheer, but not to excess; all the preserving, pickling, and salting she leaves to her housekeeper. 'What does she do all day long?' you will ask.... 'Does she read?' No, she doesn't read, and, to tell the truth, books are not written for her.... If there are no visitors with her, Tatyana Borissovna sits by herself at the window knitting a stocking in winter; in summer time she is in the garden, planting and watering her flowers, playing for hours together with her cats, or feeding her doves.... She does not take much part in the management of her estate. But if a visitor pays her a call--some young neighbour whom she likes--Tatyana Borissovna is all life directly; she makes him sit down, pours him out some tea, listens to his chat, laughs, sometimes pats his cheek, but says little herself; in trouble or sorrow she comforts and gives good advice. How many people have confided their family secrets and the griefs of their hearts to her, and have wept over her hands! At times she sits opposite her visitor, leaning lightly on her elbow, and looks with such sympathy into his face, smiles so affectionately, that he cannot help feeling: 'What a dear, good woman you are, Tatyana Borissovna! Let me tell you what is in my heart.' One feels happy and warm in her small, snug rooms; in her house it is always, so to speak, fine weather. Tatyana Borissovna is a wonderful woman, but no one wonders at her; her sound good sense, her breadth and firmness, her warm sympathy in the joys and sorrows of others--in a word, all her qualities are so innate in her; they are no trouble, no effort to her.... One cannot fancy her otherwise, and so one feels no need to thank her. She is particularly fond of watching the pranks and follies of young people; she folds her hands over her bosom, throws back her head, puckers up her eyes, and sits smiling at them, then all of a sudden she heaves a sigh, and says, 'Ah, my children, my children!'... Sometimes one longs to go up to her, take hold of her hands and say: 'Let me tell you, Tatyana Borissovna, you don't know your own value; for all your simplicity and lack of learning, you're an extraordinary creature!' Her very name has a sweet familiar ring; one is glad to utter it; it calls up a kindly smile at once. How often, for instance, have I chanced to ask a peasant: 'Tell me, my friend, how am I to get to Gratchevka?' let us say. 'Well, sir, you go on first to Vyazovoe, and from there to Tatyana Borissovna's, and from Tatyana Borissovna's any one will show you the way.' And at the name of Tatyana Borissovna the peasant wags his head in quite a special way. Her household is small, in accordance with her means. The house, the laundry, the stores and the kitchen, are in the charge of the housekeeper, Agafya, once her nurse, a good-natured, tearful, toothless creature; she has under her two stalwart girls with stout crimson cheeks like Antonovsky apples. The duties of valet, steward, and waiter are filled by Policarp, an extraordinary old man of seventy, a queer fellow, full of erudition, once a violinist and worshipper of Viotti, with a personal hostility to Napoleon, or, as he calls him, Bonaparty, and a passion for nightingales. He always keeps five or six of the latter in his room; in early spring he will sit for whole days together by the cage, waiting for the first trill, and when he hears it, he covers his face with his hands, and moans, 'Oh, piteous, piteous!' and sheds tears in floods. Policarp has, to help him, his grandson Vasya, a curly-headed, sharp-eyed boy of twelve; Policarp adores him, and grumbles at him from morning till night. He undertakes his education too. 'Vasya,' he says, 'say Bonaparty was a scoundrel.' 'And what'll you give me, granddad?' 'What'll I give you?... I'll give you nothing.... Why, what are you? Aren't you a Russian?' 'I'm a Mtchanin, granddad; I was born in Mtchensk.' 'Oh, silly dunce! but where is Mtchensk?' 'How can I tell?' 'Mtchensk's in Russia, silly!' 'Well, what then, if it is in Russia?' 'What then? Why, his Highness the late Prince Mihalo Ilarionovitch Golenishtchev-Kutuzov-Smolensky, with God's aid, graciously drove Bonaparty out of the Russian territories. It's on