The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories | Page 5

Ivan S. Turgenev
fruitless
exercise. Well now, tell me, if you please, to whom and for what is
such a man of use? Why did this happen to me? what was the reason of
this trivial fretting at myself?--who knows? who can tell?
I remember I was driving once from Moscow in the diligence. It was a
good road, but the driver, though he had four horses harnessed abreast,

hitched on another, alongside of them. Such an unfortunate, utterly
useless, fifth horse--fastened somehow on to the front of the shaft by a
short stout cord, which mercilessly cuts his shoulder, forces him to go
with the most unnatural action, and gives his whole body the shape of a
comma--always arouses my deepest pity. I remarked to the driver that I
thought we might on this occasion have got on without the fifth horse....
He was silent a moment, shook his head, lashed the horse a dozen times
across his thin back and under his distended belly, and with a grin
responded: 'Ay, to be sure; why do we drag him along with us? What
the devil's he for?' And here am I too dragged along. But, thank
goodness, the station is not far off.
Superfluous.... I promised to show the justice of my opinion, and I will
carry out my promise. I don't think it necessary to mention the thousand
trifles, everyday incidents and events, which would, however, in the
eyes of any thinking man, serve as irrefutable evidence in my
support--I mean, in support of my contention. I had better begin
straight away with one rather important incident, after which probably
there will be no doubt left of the accuracy of the term superfluous. I
repeat: I do not intend to indulge in minute details, but I cannot pass
over in silence one rather serious and significant fact, that is, the
strange behaviour of my friends (I too used to have friends) whenever I
met them, or even called on them. They used to seem ill at ease; as they
came to meet me, they would give a not quite natural smile, look, not
into my eyes nor at my feet, as some people do, but rather at my cheeks,
articulate hurriedly, 'Ah! how are you, Tchulkaturin!' (such is the
surname fate has burdened me with) or 'Ah! here's Tchulkaturin!' turn
away at once and positively remain stockstill for a little while after, as
though trying to recollect something. I used to notice all this, as I am
not devoid of penetration and the faculty of observation; on the whole I
am not a fool; I sometimes even have ideas come into my head that are
amusing, not absolutely commonplace. But as I am a superfluous man
with a padlock on my inner self, it is very painful for me to express my
idea, the more so as I know beforehand that I shall express it badly. It
positively sometimes strikes me as extraordinary the way people
manage to talk, and so simply and freely.... It's marvellous, really, when
you think of it. Though, to tell the truth, I too, in spite of my padlock,

sometimes have an itch to talk. But I did actually utter words only in
my youth; in riper years I almost always pulled myself up. I would
murmur to myself: 'Come, we'd better hold our tongue.' And I was still.
We are all good hands at being silent; our women especially are great
in that line. Many an exalted Russian young lady keeps silent so
strenuously that the spectacle is calculated to produce a faint shudder
and cold sweat even in any one prepared to face it. But that's not the
point, and it's not for me to criticise others. I proceed to my promised
narrative.
A few years back, owing to a combination of circumstances, very
insignificant in themselves, but very important for me, it was my lot to
spend six months in the district town O----. This town is all built on a
slope, and very uncomfortably built, too. There are reckoned to be
about eight hundred inhabitants in it, of exceptional poverty; the houses
are hardly worthy of the name; in the chief street, by way of an apology
for a pavement, there are here and there some huge white slabs of
rough-hewn limestone, in consequence of which even carts drive round
it instead of through it. In the very middle of an astoundingly dirty
square rises a diminutive yellowish edifice with black holes in it, and in
these holes sit men in big caps making a pretence of buying and selling.
In this place there is an extraordinarily high striped post sticking up
into the air, and near the post, in the interests of public order, by
command of the authorities, there is kept a
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