Punin and Baburin Page #5

"Punin and Baburin" is a novella by the renowned Russian author Ivan Turgenev, written in 1872. The story revolves around two central characters: the introspective Punin, a middle-aged man who grapples with his philosophical musings on life, love, and society, and the boisterous Baburin, a more practical and straightforward individual. Set against the backdrop of 19th-century Russia, the narrative explores themes of friendship, the clash of differing worldviews, and the complexities of human relationships. Through sharp dialogue and rich character development, Turgenev delves into the nuances of personal ambition and social dynamics, offering a poignant reflection on the human condition.

• Novel

								


My grandmother in everything liked cleanliness and order, quite in the
spirit of the active generals of those days; cleanliness and order were
to be maintained too in our garden. And so from time to time they
'drove' into it poor peasants, who had no families, no land, no beasts
of their own, and those among the house serfs who were out of favour or
superannuated, and set them to clearing the paths, weeding the borders,
breaking up and sifting the earth in the beds, and so on. Well, one day,
in the very heat of these operations, my grandmother went into the
garden, and took me with her. On all sides, among the trees and about
the lawns, we caught glimpses of white, red, and blue smocks; on all
sides we heard the scraping and clanging of spades, the dull thud of
clods of earth on the slanting sieves. As she passed by the labourers,
my grandmother with her eagle eye noticed at once that one of them was
working with less energy than the rest, and that he took off his cap,
too, with no show of eagerness. This was a youth, still quite young,
with a wasted face, and sunken, lustreless eyes. His cotton smock, all
torn and patched, scarcely held together over his narrow shoulders.

'Who's that?' my grandmother inquired of Filippitch, who was walking on
tiptoe behind her.

'Of whom ... you are pleased ...' Filippitch stammered.

'Oh, fool! I mean the one that looked so sullenly at me. There, standing
yonder, not working.'

'Oh, him! Yes ... th ... th ... that's Yermil, son of Pavel Afanasiitch,
now deceased.'

Pavel Afanasiitch had been, ten years before, head butler in my
grandmother's house, and stood particularly high in her favour. But
suddenly falling into disgrace, he was as suddenly degraded to being
herdsman, and did not long keep even that position. He sank lower still,
and struggled on for a while on a monthly pittance of flour in a little
hut far away. At last he had died of paralysis, leaving his family in
the most utter destitution.

'Aha!' commented my grandmother; 'it's clear the apple's not fallen far
from the tree. Well, we shall have to make arrangements about this
fellow too. I've no need of people like that, with scowling faces.'

My grandmother went back to the house--and made arrangements. Three
hours later Yermil, completely 'equipped,' was brought under the window
of her room. The unfortunate boy was being transported to a settlement;
the other side of the fence, a few steps from him, was a little cart
loaded with his poor belongings. Such were the times then. Yermil stood
without his cap, with downcast head, barefoot, with his boots tied up
with a string behind his back; his face, turned towards the seignorial
mansion, expressed not despair nor grief, nor even bewilderment; a
stupid smile was frozen on his colourless lips; his eyes, dry and
half-closed, looked stubbornly on the ground. My grandmother was
apprised of his presence. She got up from the sofa, went, with a faint
rustle of her silken skirts, to the window of the study, and, holding
her golden-rimmed double eyeglass on the bridge of her nose, looked at
the new exile. In her room there happened to be at the moment four other
persons, the butler, Baburin, the page who waited on my grandmother in
the daytime, and I.

My grandmother nodded her head up and down....

'Madam,' a hoarse almost stifled voice was heard suddenly. I looked
round. Baburin's face was red ... dark red; under his overhanging brows
could be seen little sharp points of light.... There was no doubt about
it; it was he, it was Baburin, who had uttered the word 'Madam.'

My grandmother too looked round, and turned her eyeglass from Yermil
to Baburin.

'Who is that ... speaking?' she articulated slowly ... through her nose.
Baburin moved slightly forward.

'Madam,' he began, 'it is I.... I venture ... I imagine ... I make bold
to submit to your honour that you are making a mistake in acting as ...
as you are pleased to act at this moment.'

'That is?' my grandmother said, in the same voice, not removing
her eyeglass.

'I take the liberty ...' Baburin went on distinctly, uttering every word
though with obvious effort--'I am referring to the case of this lad who
is being sent away to a settlement ... for no fault of his. Such
arrangements, I venture to submit, lead to dissatisfaction, and to
other--which God forbid!--consequences, and are nothing else than a
transgression of the powers allowed to seignorial proprietors.'

'And where have you studied, pray?' my grandmother asked after a short
silence, and she dropped her eyeglass.

Baburin was disconcerted. 'What are you pleased to wish?' he muttered.

'I ask you: where have you studied? You use such learned words.'

'I ... my education ...' Baburin was beginning.

My grandmother shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. 'It seems,' she
interrupted, 'that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of
absolutely no consequence to me--among my subjects I am sovereign, and
answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having people
criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their
business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript
position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always
lived till you came, and so I shall live after you've gone. You do not
suit me; you are discharged. Nikolai Antonov,' my grandmother turned to
the steward, 'pay this man off; and let him be gone before dinner-time
to-day! D'you hear? Don't put me into a passion. And the other too ...
the fool that lives with him--to be sent off too. What's Yermilka
waiting for?' she added, looking out of window, 'I have seen him. What
more does he want?' My grandmother shook her handkerchief in the
direction of the window, as though to drive away an importunate fly.
Then she sat down in a low chair, and turning towards us, gave the order
grimly: 'Everybody present to leave the room!'

We all withdrew--all, except the day page, to whom my grandmother's
words did not apply, because he was nobody.

My grandmother's decree was carried out to the letter. Before dinner,
both Baburin and my friend Punin were driving away from the place. I
will not undertake to describe my grief, my genuine, truly childish
despair. It was so strong that it stifled even the feeling of
awe-stricken admiration inspired by the bold action of the republican
Baburin. After the conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to
his room and began packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one
look, though I was the whole time hanging about him, or rather, in
reality, about Punin. The latter was utterly distraught, and he too said
nothing; but he was continually glancing at me, and tears stood in his
eyes ... always the same tears; they neither fell nor dried up. He did
not venture to criticise his 'benefactor'--Paramon Semyonitch could not
make a mistake,--but great was his distress and dejection. Punin and I
made an effort to read something out of the Rossiad for the last time;
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