Thank God, you don't go hungry or naked. What else do you want?
If you are lonesome, don't fret. This is nothing but a village, my boy.
We have no entertainments or halls, we sit in our nooks and we hardly know how to while away the time.
I, myself, would be glad to dance now and then or sing a song, but you look out upon the road and you lose the desire to go even to church in such weather."
Arina Petrovna paused, hoping that Simple Simon would give utterance to at least some sounds, but he was as dumb as a stone.
She was beginning to work up a temper, but restrained herself.
"And if you were discontented with anything, if perhaps you lacked food or linen, could you not explain it frankly to your mother?
Could you not say, 'Mamma, darling, won't you have some liver or curd-cakes prepared for me?' Do you think your mother would have refused you?
Or if you wanted a drop of vodka, goodness, I wouldn't have begrudged you a glass or two.
To think of it, you were not ashamed to beg from a serf, while it was difficult for you to say a word to your own mother."
But her flattering words were of no avail. Simple Simon remained impervious to either emotion (Arina Petrovna had hoped he would kiss her hand) or repentance. In fact, he seemed to have heard nothing.
From that time on he never spoke a single word.
All day long he walked up and down his room, his brows knit and his lips moving, apparently never growing tired.
At times he halted as if wishing to say something, but he could not find the words.
He had not lost the capacity for thinking, but impressions left so slight a trace on his brain that he could not hold them for any appreciable length of time.
Consequently his failure to find the necessary words did not even make him impatient.
Arina Petrovna, for her part, thought he would surely set the house on fire.
"He does not say a word all day long," she repeated. "Still he must be thinking of something, the blockhead! I am sure he'll set the house on fire one of these days."
But the blockhead did not think of anything at all.
He was deeply immersed in absolute darkness, in which there was no room either for reality or the illusory world of imagination.
His brain did work, but in a void, disconnected from either the past, the present, or the future.
It was as though he was completely wrapt up in a black cloud and all he did was to scan it, to watch its imaginary fluctuations, and, at times, to make a feeble attempt at resisting its sinister sway.
The whole physical and spiritual world dwindled down to that enigmatic cloud.
In December of the same year, Porfiry Vladimirych received the following letter from his mother:
"Yesterday morning God visited us with a new ordeal. My son and your brother, Stepan, breathed his last.
The very evening before he had been quite well and even took his supper, but in the morning he was found dead in bed. Such is the brevity of this earthly life!
And what is most grievous to a mother's heart is that he left this world of vanity for the realm of the unknown without the last communion.
"May this be a warning to us all. He who sets at naught the ties of kinship must always await such an end.
Failures in this life, untimely death, and everlasting torments in the life to come, all these evils spring from the one source.
For, however learned and exalted we may be, if we do not honor our parents, our learning and eminence will be turned into nothingness.
Such are the precepts which every one inhabiting this world must commit to his mind. Besides, slaves should revere their masters.
"Notwithstanding this, all honors were duly given to him who had departed into life eternal, as becomes my son.
The pall was ordered from Moscow, and the burial ceremonies were solemnly presided over by the Father archimandrite.
And according to the Christian custom, I am having memorial services performed daily.
I mourn the loss of my son, but I do not complain, nor do I advise you, my children, to do so.
For who knows? We may be mourning and complaining here while his soul may be rejoicing in Heaven." _____
BOOK II AS BECOMES GOOD KINSFOLK _____ CHAPTER I
A hot midday in July; the Dubrovino manor-house all deserted.
Workers and idlers alike resting in the shade.
Under the canopy of a huge willow-tree in the front yard the dogs, too, were lying stretched out, and you could hear the sound of their jaws when they drowsily snapped at the flies.
Even the trees drooped motionless, as if exhausted.
All the windows in the manor-house and the servants' quarters were flung wide open.
The heat seemed to surge in sweltering waves and the soil covered with short, singed grass was ablaze. The atmosphere was a blinding haze touched into gold, so that one could scarcely distinguish things in the distance.
The manor-house, once painted gray and now faded into white, the small flower garden in front of the house, the birch grove, separated from the farm by the road, the pond, the village and the corn field, which touched the outskirts of the village, all were immersed in the dazzling torrent.
The fragrance of blossoming linden trees mingled with the noxious emanations of the cattle shed.
There was not a breath of air, not a sound.
Only from the kitchen there came the grating of knives being sharpened, which foretold the inevitable hash and beef cutlets for dinner.
Inside the house reigned noiseless confusion.
An old lady and two young girls were sitting in the dining room, forgetful of their crocheting, which lay on the table. They were waiting with intense anxiety.
In the maids' room two women were busied preparing mustard plasters and poultices, and the rhythmic tinkling of the spoons pierced the silence like the chirping of a cricket.