Knock, Knock, Knock Page #8

"Knock, Knock, Knock" is a lesser-known work by the acclaimed Russian author Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, known for his deep insights into human nature and societal dynamics. This narrative centers around the themes of love, existential reflection, and the complexities of personal relationships within the backdrop of 19th-century Russia. Turgenev’s lyrical prose and keen psychological exploration invite readers to delve into the characters’ motivations and emotions, making it a poignant examination of life’s enduring questions.

								

loomed in the fog.

"The copse! here is the copse!" Semyon cried, delighted. "Yes,
here ... and there is the master sitting under the birch-tree....
There he is, sitting where I left him. That's he, surely enough!"

I looked intently. A man really was sitting with his back towards us,
awkwardly huddled up under the birch-tree. I hurriedly approached and
recognised Tyeglev's great-coat, recognised his figure, his head bowed
on his breast. "Tyeglev!" I cried ... but he did not answer.

"Tyeglev!" I repeated, and laid my hand on his shoulder. Then he
suddenly lurched forward, quickly and obediently, as though he were
waiting for my touch, and fell onto the grass. Semyon and I raised him
at once and turned him face upwards. It was not pale, but was lifeless
and motionless; his clenched teeth gleamed white--and his eyes,
motionless, too, and wide open, kept their habitual, drowsy and
"different" look.

"Good God!" Semyon said suddenly and showed me his hand stained
crimson with blood.... The blood was coming from under Tyeglev's
great-coat, from the left side of his chest.

He had shot himself from a small, single-barreled pistol which was
lying beside him. The faint pop I had heard was the sound made by the
fatal shot.

XVII

Tyeglev's suicide did not surprise his comrades very much. I have told
you already that, according to their ideas, as a "fatal" man he was
bound to do something extraordinary, though perhaps they had not
expected that from him. In the letter to the colonel he asked him, in
the first place, to have the name of Ilya Tyeglev removed from the
list of officers, as he had died by his own act, adding that in his
cash-box there would be found more than sufficient money to pay his
debts,--and, secondly, to forward to the important personage at that
time commanding the whole corps of guards, an unsealed letter which
was in the same envelope. This second letter, of course, we all read;
some of us took a copy of it. Tyeglev had evidently taken pains over
the composition of this letter.

"You know, Your Excellency" (so I remember the letter began), "you are
so stern and severe over the slightest negligence in uniform when a
pale, trembling officer presents himself before you; and here am I now
going to meet our universal, righteous, incorruptible Judge, the
Supreme Being, the Being of infinitely greater consequence even than
Your Excellency, and I am going to meet him in undress, in my
great-coat, and even without a cravat round my neck."

Oh, what a painful and unpleasant impression that phrase made upon me,
with every word, every letter of it, carefully written in the dead
man's childish handwriting! Was it worth while, I asked myself, to
invent such rubbish at such a moment? But Tyeglev had evidently been
pleased with the phrase: he had made use in it of the accumulation of
epithets and amplifications à la Marlinsky, at that time in
fashion. Further on he had alluded to destiny, to persecution, to his
vocation which had remained unfulfilled, to a mystery which he would
bear with him to the grave, to people who had not cared to understand
him; he had even quoted lines from some poet who had said of the crowd
that it wore life "like a dog-collar" and clung to vice "like a
burdock"--and it was not free from mistakes in spelling. To tell the
truth, this last letter of poor Tyeglev was somewhat vulgar; and I can
fancy the contemptuous surprise of the great personage to whom it was
addressed--I can imagine the tone in which he would pronounce "a
worthless officer! ill weeds are cleared out of the field!"

Only at the very end of the letter there was a sincere note from
Tyeglev's heart. "Ah, Your Excellency," he concluded his epistle, "I
am an orphan, I had no one to love me as a child--and all held aloof
from me ... and I myself destroyed the only heart that gave itself to
me!"

Semyon found in the pocket of Tyeglev's great-coat a little album from
which his master was never separated. But almost all the pages had
been torn out; only one was left on which there was the following
calculation:

  Napoleon was born          Ilya Tyeglev was born
  on August 15th, 1769.      on January 7th, 1811.
          1769                        1811
            15                           7
             8*                          1+
          -----                       -----
  Total   1792                Total   1819

  * August--the 8th month    + January--the 1st month
    of the year.               of the year.

             1                           1
             7                           8
             9                           1
             2                           9
            ---                         ---
  Total     19!                Total    19!

  Napoleon died on May       Ilya Tyeglev died on
  5th, 1825.                 April 21st, 1834.

          1825                        1834
             5                          21
             5*                          7+
          -----                       -----
  Total   1835                 Total  1862

  * May--the 5th month       + July--the 7th month
    of the year.               of the year.

            1                            1
            8                            8
            3                            6
            5                           23
           --                           --
     Total 17!                    Total 17!

Poor fellow! Was not this perhaps why he became an artillery officer?

As a suicide he was buried outside the cemetery--and he was
immediately forgotten.

XVIII

The day after Tyeglev's burial (I was still in the village waiting for
my brother) Semyon came into the hut and announced that Ilya wanted to
see me.

"What Ilya?" I asked.

"Our pedlar."

I told Semyon to call him.

He made his appearance. He expressed some regret at the death of the
lieutenant; wondered what could have possessed him....

"Was he in debt to you?" I asked.

"No, sir. He always paid punctually for everything he had. But I tell
you what," here the pedlar grinned, "you have got something of mine."

"What is it?"

"Why, that," he pointed to the brass comb lying on the little toilet
table. "A thing of little value," the fellow went on, "but as it was a
present ..."

All at once I raised my head. Something dawned upon me.

"Your name is Ilya?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was it you, then, I saw under the willow tree the other night?"

The pedlar winked, and grinned more broadly than ever.

"Yes, sir."

"And it was your name that was called?"

"Yes, sir," the pedlar repeated with playful modesty. "There is a
young girl here," he went on in a high falsetto, "who, owing to the
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