Three Portraits Page #4

"Three Portraits" is a novella by Russian author Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, exploring themes of art, identity, and the impact of social change. The narrative revolves around three distinct portraits of a young woman that reveal different aspects of her character and the perceptions of those who behold them. Through these portraits, Turgenev delves into the complexities of human relationships and the elusive nature of beauty and truth, while reflecting on the cultural tensions of 19th-century Russia. The work showcases Turgenev's signature lyrical prose and his keen insight into the human condition.

								

a row of even, white teeth.

'I am to blame,' he said in a thick but resolute voice. 'I took the
money.'

The servants stopped.

'You! what? you, Vaska! without Yuditch's consent?'

'No!' said Yuditch, 'with my consent. I gave Vassily Ivanovitch the key
of my own accord. Your honour, Vassily Ivanovitch! why does your honour
trouble?'

'So this is the thief!' shrieked Ivan Andreevitch. 'Thanks, Vassily,
thanks! But, Yuditch, I'm not going to forgive you anyway. Why didn't
you tell me all about it directly? Hey, you there! why are you standing
still? do you too resist my authority? Ah, I'll settle things with you,
my pretty gentleman!' he added, turning to Vassily.

The servants were again laying hands on Yuditch....

'Don't touch him!' murmured Vassily through his teeth. The men did not
heed him. 'Back!' he shrieked and rushed upon them.... They stepped
back.

'Ah! mutiny!' moaned Ivan Andreevitch, and, raising his stick, he
approached his son. Vassily leaped back, snatched at the handle of his
sword, and bared it to half its length. Every one was trembling. Anna
Pavlovna, attracted by the noise, showed herself at the door, pale and
scared.

A terrible change passed over the face of Ivan Andreevitch. He tottered,
dropped the stick, and sank heavily into an arm-chair, hiding his face
in both hands. No one stirred, all stood rooted to the spot, Vassily
like the rest. He clutched the steel sword-handle convulsively, and his
eyes glittered with a weary, evil light....

'Go, all of you... all, out,' Ivan Andreevitch brought out in a low
voice, not taking his hands from his face.

The whole crowd went out. Vassily stood still in the doorway, then
suddenly tossed his head, embraced Yuditch, kissed his mother's hand...
and two hours later he had left the place. He went back to Petersburg.

In the evening of the same day Yuditch was sitting on the steps of the
house serfs' hut. The servants were all round him, sympathising with him
and bitterly reproaching their young master.

'That's enough, lads,' he said to them at last, 'give over... why do you
abuse him? He himself, the young master, I dare say is not very happy at
his audacity....'

In consequence of this incident, Vassily never saw his father again.
Ivan Andreevitch died without him, and died probably with such a load of
sorrow on his heart as God grant none of us may ever know. Vassily
Ivanovitch, meanwhile, went into the world, enjoyed himself in his own
way, and squandered money recklessly. How he got hold of the money, I
cannot tell for certain. He had obtained a French servant, a very smart
and intelligent fellow, Bourcier, by name. This man was passionately
attached to him and aided him in all his numerous manoeuvres. I do not
intend to relate in detail all the exploits of my grand-uncle; he was
possessed of such unbounded daring, such serpent-like resource, such
inconceivable wiliness, such a fine and ready wit, that I must own I can
understand the complete sway that unprincipled person exercised even
over the noblest natures.

Soon after his father's death, in spite of his wiliness, Vassily
Ivanovitch was challenged by an injured husband. He fought a duel,
seriously wounded his opponent, and was forced to leave the capital; he
was banished to his estate, and forbidden to leave it. Vassily
Ivanovitch was thirty years old. You may easily imagine, gentlemen, with
what feelings he left the brilliant life in the capital that he was used
to, and came into the country. They say that he got out of the hooded
cart several times on the road, flung himself face downwards in the snow
and cried. No one in Lutchinovka would have known him as the gay and
charming Vassily Ivanovitch they had seen before. He did not talk to any
one; went out shooting from morning to night; endured his mother's timid
caresses with undisguised impatience, and was merciless in his ridicule
of his brothers, and of their wives (they were both married by that
time)....

I have not so far, I think, told you anything about Olga Ivanovna. She
had been brought as a tiny baby to Lutchinovka; she all but died on the
road. Olga Ivanovna was brought up, as they say, in the fear of God and
her betters. It must be admitted that Ivan Andreevitch and Anna Pavlovna
both treated her as a daughter. But there lay hid in her soul a faint
spark of that fire which burned so fiercely in Vassily Ivanovitch. While
Ivan Andreevitch's own children did not dare even to wonder about the
cause of the strange, dumb feud between their parents, Olga was from her
earliest years disturbed and tormented by Anna Pavlovna's position. Like
Vassily, she loved independence; any restriction fretted her. She was
devoted with her whole soul to her benefactress; old Lutchinov she
detested, and more than once, sitting at table, she shot such black
looks at him, that even the servant handing the dishes felt
uncomfortable. Ivan Andreevitch never noticed these glances, for he
never took the slightest notice of his family.

At first Anna Pavlovna had tried to eradicate this hatred, but some bold
questions of Olga's forced her to complete silence. The children of Ivan
Andreevitch adored Olga, and the old lady too was fond of her, but not
with a very ardent affection.

Long continued grieving had crushed all cheerfulness and every strong
feeling in that poor woman; nothing is so clear a proof of Vassily's
captivating charm as that he had made even his mother love him
passionately. Demonstrations of tenderness on the part of children were
not in the spirit of the age, and so it is not to be wondered at that
Olga did not dare to express her devotion, though she always kissed Anna
Pavlovna's hand with special reverence, when she said good-night to her.
Twenty years later, Russian girls began to read romances of the class of
The Adventures of Marquis Glagol, Fanfan and Lolotta, Alexey or the
Cottage in the Forest; they began to play the clavichord and to sing
songs in the style of the once very well-known:

  'Men like butterflies in sunshine
   Flutter round us opening blossoms,' etc.

But in the seventies of last century (Olga Ivanovna was born in 1757)
our country beauties had no notion of such accomplishments. It is
difficult for us now to form a clear conception of the Russian miss of
those days. We can indeed judge from our grandmothers of the degree of
culture of girls of noble family in the time of Catherine; but how is
one to distinguish what they had gradually gained in the course of their
long lives from what they were in the days of their youth?

Olga Ivanovna spoke French a little, but with a strong Russian accent:
in her day there was as yet no talk of French emigrants. In fact, with
all her fine qualities, she was still pretty much of a savage, and I
dare say in the simplicity of her heart, she had more than once
chastised some luckless servant girl with her own hands....

Some time before Vassily Ivanovitch's arrival, Olga Ivanovna had been
betrothed to a neighbour, Pavel Afanasievitch Rogatchov, a very
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