The Diary of a Superfluous Man by Ivan Turgenev (best interesting books to read TXT) 📕

rather queer way. One rainy evening, Kolosov was returning home from shooting, and had reached the gate of the city, when suddenly, at no great distance from the highroad, he heard groans, interspersed with curses. He had a gun; without thinking long, he made straight for the sound, and found a man lying on the ground with a dislocated ankle. This man was Mr. Sidorenko. With great difficulty he got him home, handed him over to the care of his frightened sister and his daughter, and ran for the doctor.... Meantime it was nearly morning; Kolosov was almost dropping with fatigue. With the permission of Matrona Semyonovna, he lay down on the sofa in the parlour, and slept till eight o'clock. On waking up he would at once have gone home; but they kept him and gave him some tea. In the night he had twice succeeded in catching a glimpse of the pale face of Varvara Ivanovna; he had not particularly noticed her, but in the morning she made a decidedly agreeable impression on him. Matrona Semyonovna garrulously praised and thanked Kolosov; Varvara sat silent, pouring out the tea, glanced at him now and then, and with timid shame-faced attentiveness handed him first a cup of tea, then the cream, then the sugar-basin. Meanwhile the lieutenant waked up, loudly called for his pipe, and after a short pause bawled: 'Sister! hi, sister!' Matrona Semyonovna went to his bedroom. 'What about that...what the devil's his name? is he gone?' 'No, I'm still here,' answered Kolosov, going up to the door; 'are you better now?' 'Yes,' answered the lieutenant; 'come in here, my good sir.' Kolosov went in. Sidorenko looked at him, and reluctantly observed: 'Well, thanks; come sometimes and see me--what's your name? who the devil's to know?' 'Kolosov,' answered Andrei. 'Well, well, come and see us; but it's no use your sticking on here now, I daresay they're expecting you at home.' Kolosov retreated, said good-bye to Matrona Semyonovna, bowed to Varvara Ivanovna, and returned home. From that day he began to visit Ivan Semyonitch, at first at long intervals, then more and more frequently. The summer came on; he would sometimes take his gun, put on his knapsack, and set off as if he were going shooting. He would go to the retired lieutenant's, and stay on there till evening.

Varvara Ivanovna's father had served twenty-five years in the army, had saved a small sum of money, and bought himself a few acres of land a mile and a half from Moscow. He could scarcely read and write; but in spite of his external clumsiness and coarseness, he was shrewd and cunning, and even, on occasion, capable of sharp practice, like many Little Russians. He was a fearful egoist, obstinate as an ox, and in general exceedingly impolite, especially with strangers; I even detected in him something like a contempt for the whole human race. He indulged himself in every caprice, like a spoilt child; would know no one, and lived for his own pleasure. We were once somehow or other talking about marriages with him; 'Marriage ... marriage,' said he; 'whom the devil would I let my daughter marry? Eh? what should I do it for? for her husband to knock her about as I used to my wife? Besides, whom should I be left with?' Such was the retired lieutenant, Ivan Semyonitch. Kolosov used to go and see him, not on his account, of course, but for the sake of his daughter. One fine evening, Andrei was sitting in the garden with her, chatting about something; Ivan Semyonitch went up to him, looked sullenly at Varia, and called Andrei away. 'Listen, my dear fellow,' he said to him; 'you find it good fun, I see, gossiping with my only child, but I'm dull in my old age; bring some one with you, or I've nobody to deal a card to; d'ye hear? I shan't give admittance to you by yourself.' The next day Kolosov turned up with Gavrilov, and poor Sevastian Sevastianovitch had for a whole autumn and winter been playing cards in the evenings with the retired lieutenant; that worthy treated him without ceremony, as it is called--in other words, fearfully rudely. You now probably realise why it was that, after Gavrilov's death, Kolosov took me with him to Ivan Semyonitch's. As he communicated all these details, Kolosov added, 'I love Varia, she is the dearest girl; she liked you.'

I have forgotten, I fancy, to make known to you that up to that time I had been afraid of women and avoided them, though I would sometimes, in solitude, spend whole hours in dreaming of tender interviews, of love, of mutual love, and so on. Varvara Ivanovna was the first girl with whom I was forced to talk, by necessity--by necessity it really was. Varia was an ordinary girl, and yet there are very few such girls in holy Russia. You will ask me--why so? Because I never noticed in her anything strained, unnatural, affected; because she was a simple, candid, rather melancholy creature, because one could never call her 'a young lady.' I liked her soft smile; I liked her simple-hearted, ringing little voice, her light and mirthful laugh, her attentive though by no means 'profound' glances. The child promised nothing; but you could not help admiring her, as you admire the sudden, soft cry of the oriole at evening, in the lofty, dark birch-wood. I must confess that at the present time I should pass by such a creature with some indifference; I've no taste now for solitary evening strolls, and orioles; but in those days ...

I've no doubt, gentlemen, that, like all well-educated persons, you have been in love at least once in the course of your life, and have learnt from your own experience how love springs up and develops in the human heart, and therefore I'm not going to enlarge too much on what took place with me at that time. Kolosov and I used to go pretty often to Ivan Semyonitch's; and though those damned cards often drove me to utter despair, still, in the mere proximity of the woman one loves (I had fallen in love with Varia) there is a sort of strange, sweet, tormenting joy. I made no effort to suppress this growing feeling; besides, by the time I had at last brought myself to call the emotion by its true name, it was already too strong.... I cherished my love in silence, and jealously and shyly concealed it. I myself enjoyed this agonising ferment of silent passion. My sufferings did not rob me of my sleep, nor of my appetite; but for whole days together I was conscious of that peculiar physical sensation in my breast which is a symptom of the presence of love. I am incapable of depicting the conflict of various sensations which took place within me when, for example, Kolosov came in from the garden with Varia, and her whole face was aglow with ecstatic devotion, exhaustion from excess of bliss.... She so completely lived in his life, was so completely taken up with him, that unconsciously she adopted his ways, looked as he looked, laughed as he laughed.... I can imagine the moments she passed with Andrei, the raptures she owed to him.... While he ... Kolosov did not lose his freedom; in her absence he did not, I suppose, even think of her; he was still the same unconcerned, gay, and happy fellow we had always known him.

And, as I have already told you, we used, Kolosov and I, to go pretty often to Ivan Semyonitch's. Sometimes, when he was out of humour, the retired lieutenant did not make me sit down to cards; on such occasions, he would shrink into a corner in silence, scowling and looking crossly at every one. The first time I was delighted at his letting me off so easily; but afterwards I would sometimes begin myself begging him to sit down to whist, the part of third person was so insupportable! I was so unpleasantly in Kolosov's and Varia's way, though they did assure each other that there was no need to mind me!...

Meanwhile time went on.... They were happy.... I have no great fondness for describing other people's happiness. But then I began to notice that Varia's childish ecstasy had gradually given way to a more womanly, more restless feeling. I began to surmise that the new song was being sung to the old tune--that is, that Kolosov was...little by little...cooling. This discovery, I must own, delighted me; I did not feel, I must confess, the slightest indignation against Andrei.

The intervals between our visits became longer and longer.... Varia began to meet us with tear-stained eyes. Reproaches were heard ... Sometimes I asked Kolosov with affected indifference, 'Well, shall we go to Ivan Semyonitch's to-day?' ... He looked coldly at me, and answered quietly, 'No, we're not going.' I sometimes fancied that he smiled slily when he spoke to me of Varia.... I failed generally to fill Gavrilov's place with him.... Gavrilov was a thousand times more good-natured and foolish than I.

Now allow me a slight digression.... When I spoke of my university comrades, I did not mention a certain Mr. Shtchitov. He was five-and-thirty; he had been a student for ten years already. I can see even now his rather long pale face, his little brown eyes, his long hawk nose crooked at the end, his thin sarcastic lips, his solemn upstanding shock of hair, and his chin that lost itself complacently in the wide striped cravat of the colour of a raven's wing, the shirt front with bronze buttons, the open blue frock-coat and striped waistcoat.... I can hear his unpleasantly jarring laugh.... He went everywhere, was conspicuous at all possible kinds of 'dancing classes.' ... I remember I could not listen to his cynical stories without a peculiar shudder.... Kolosov once compared him to an unswept Russian refreshment bar ... a horrible comparison! And with all that, there was a lot of intelligence, common sense, observation, and wit in the man.... He sometimes impressed us by some saying so apt, so true and cutting, that we were all involuntarily reduced to silence and looked at him with amazement. But, to be sure, it is just the same to a Russian whether he has uttered an absurdity or a clever thing. Shtchitov was especially dreaded by those self-conscious, dreamy, and not particularly gifted youths who spend whole days in painfully hatching a dozen trashy lines of verse and reading them in sing-song to their 'friends,' and who despise every sort of positive science. One such he simply drove out of Moscow, by continually repeating to him two of his own lines. Yet all the while Shtchitov himself did nothing and learnt nothing.... But that's all in the natural order of things. Well, Shtchitov, God only knows why, began jeering at my romantic attachment to Kolosov. The first time, with noble indignation, I told him to go to the devil; the second time, with chilly contempt, I informed him that he was not capable of judging of our friendship--but I did not send him away; and when, on taking leave of me, he observed that without Kolosov's permission I didn't even dare to praise him, I felt annoyed; Shtchitov's last words sank into my heart.--For more than a fortnight I had not seen Varia.... Pride, love, a vague anticipation, a number of different feelings were astir within me ... with a wave of the hand and a fearful sinking at my heart, I set off alone to Ivan Semyonitch's.

I don't know how I made my way to the familiar little house; I remember I sat down several times by the road to rest, not from fatigue, but from emotion. I went into the passage, and had