Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories

Knock, Knock, Knock and Other
Stories [with accents]

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Title: Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories
Author: Ivan Turgenev
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The Novels Of Ivan Turgenev
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK And Other Stories
Translated From The Russian By Constance Garnett
* * * * *
CONTENTS:
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
THE INN
LIEUTENANT YERGUNOV'S STORY
THE DOG
THE WATCH
* * * * *
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
A STUDY
I
We all settled down in a circle and our good friend Alexandr
Vassilyevitch Ridel (his surname was German but he was Russian to
the marrow of his bones) began as follows:
I am going to tell you a story, friends, of something that happened to
me in the 'thirties ... forty years ago as you see. I will be brief--and
don't you interrupt me.
I was living at the time in Petersburg and had only just left the
University. My brother was a lieutenant in the horse-guard artillery. His
battery was stationed at Krasnoe Selo--it was summer time. My brother
lodged not at Krasnoe Selo itself but in one of the neighbouring

villages; I stayed with him more than once and made the acquaintance
of all his comrades. He was living in a fairly decent cottage, together
with another officer of his battery, whose name was Ilya Stepanitch
Tyeglev. I became particularly friendly with him.
Marlinsky is out of date now--no one reads him--and even his name is
jeered at; but in the 'thirties his fame was above everyone's--and in the
opinion of the young people of the day Pushkin could not hold candle
to him. He not only enjoyed the reputation of being the foremost
Russian writer; but--something much more difficult and more rarely
met with--he did to some extent leave his mark on his generation. One
came across heroes _à la_ Marlinsky everywhere, especially in the
provinces and especially among infantry and artillery men; they talked
and corresponded in his language; behaved with gloomy reserve in
society--"with tempest in the soul and flame in the blood" like
Lieutenant Byelosov in the "Frigate Hope." Women's hearts were
"devoured" by them. The adjective applied to them in those days was
"fatal." The type, as we all know, survived for many years, to the days
of Petchorin. [Footnote: The leading character in Lermontov's A Hero
of Our Time.--_Translator's Note_.] All sorts of elements were mingled
in that type. Byronism, romanticism, reminiscences of the French
Revolution, of the Dekabrists--and the worship of Napoleon; faith in
destiny, in one's star, in strength of will; pose and fine phrases--and a
miserable sense of the emptiness of life; uneasy pangs of petty
vanity--and genuine strength and daring; generous impulses--and
defective education, ignorance; aristocratic airs--and delight in trivial
foppery.... But enough of these general reflections. I promised to tell
you the story.
II
Lieutenant Tyeglev belonged precisely to the class of those "fatal"
individuals, though he did not possess the exterior commonly
associated with them; he was not, for instance, in the least like
Lermontov's "fatalist." He was a man of medium height, fairly solid
and round-shouldered, with fair, almost white eyebrows and eyelashes;
he had a round, fresh, rosy-cheeked face, a turn-up nose, a low
forehead with the hair growing thick over the temples, and full,
well-shaped, always immobile lips: he never laughed, never even
smiled. Only when he was tired and out of heart he showed his square

teeth, white as sugar. The same artificial immobility was imprinted on
all his features: had it not been for that, they