Yakov Pasinkov Page #3

"Yakov Pasinkov" is a short story by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev that explores the life and struggles of a rural Russian peasant. The narrative focuses on the titular character, Yakov, who grapples with the harsh realities of peasant life, including poverty, social injustice, and personal despair. Through a blend of poignant character study and social commentary, Turgenev sheds light on the emotional and psychological impacts of societal constraints on individuals. The story reflects Turgenev's deep empathy for the plight of the lower classes and his critique of the broader socio-economic conditions of 19th-century Russia.

								

this?' she said, still not looking at me; 'I play a part?'

'Yes, you do.' (She smiled ... I was seized with spiteful fury.) ...
'You pretend to be indifferent to a man and ... and you write letters
to him,' I added in a whisper.

Sophia's cheeks grew white, but she did not turn to me: she played the
nocturne through to the end, got up, and closed the piano.

'Where are you going?' I asked her in some perplexity. 'You have no
answer to make me?'

'What answer can I make you? I don't know what you 're talking
about.... And I am not good at pretending....'

She began putting by the music.

The blood rushed to my head. 'No; you know what I am talking about,' I
said, and I too got up from my seat; 'or if you like, I will remind you
directly of some of your expressions in one letter: "be as careful as
before"....'

Sophia gave a faint start.

'I never should have expected this of you,' she said at last.

'I never should have expected,' I retorted, 'that you, Sophia
Nikolaevna, would have deigned to notice a man who ...'

Sophia turned with a rapid movement to me; I instinctively stepped back
a little from her; her eyes, always half closed, were so wide open that
they looked immense, and they glittered wrathfully under her frowning
brows.

'Oh! if that's it,' she said, 'let me tell you that I love that man,
and that it's absolutely no consequence to me what you think about him
or about my love for him. And what business is it of yours? ... What
right have you to speak of this? If I have made up my mind ...'

She stopped speaking, and went hurriedly out of the room. I stood
still. I felt all of a sudden so uncomfortable and so ashamed that I
hid my face in my hands. I realised all the impropriety, all the
baseness of my behaviour, and, choked with shame and remorse, I stood
as it were in disgrace. 'Mercy,' I thought, 'what I've done!'

'Anton Nikititch,' I heard the maid-servant saying in the outer-room,
'get a glass of water, quick, for Sophia Nikolaevna.'

'What's wrong?' answered the man.

'I fancy she's crying....'

I started up and went into the drawing-room for my hat.

'What were you talking about to Sonitchka?' Varvara inquired
indifferently, and after a brief pause she added in an undertone,
'Here's that clerk again.'

I began saying good-bye.

'Why are you going? Stay a little; mamma is coming down directly.'

'No; I can't now,' I said: 'I had better call and see her another
time.'

At that instant, to my horror, to my positive horror, Sophia walked
with resolute steps into the drawing-room. Her face was paler than
usual, and her eyelids were a little red. She never even glanced at me.

'Look, Sonia,' observed Varvara; 'there's a clerk keeps continually
passing our house.'

'A spy, perhaps...' Sophia remarked coldly and contemptuously.

This was too much. I went away, and I really don't know how I got home.

I felt very miserable, wretched and miserable beyond description. In
twenty-four hours two such cruel blows! I had learned that Sophia loved
another man, and I had for ever forfeited her respect. I felt myself so
utterly annihilated and disgraced that I could not even feel indignant
with myself. Lying on the sofa with my face turned to the wall, I was
revelling in the first rush of despairing misery, when I suddenly heard
footsteps in the room. I lifted my head and saw one of my most intimate
friends, Yakov Pasinkov.

I was ready to fly into a rage with any one who had come into my room
that day, but with Pasinkov I could never be angry. Quite the contrary;
in spite of the sorrow devouring me, I was inwardly rejoiced at his
coming, and I nodded to him. He walked twice up and down the room, as
his habit was, clearing his throat, and stretching out his long limbs;
then he stood a minute facing me in silence, and in silence he seated
himself in a corner.

I had known Pasinkov a very long while, almost from childhood. He had
been brought up at the same private school, kept by a German,
Winterkeller, at which I had spent three years. Yakov's father, a poor
major on the retired list, a very honest man, but a little deranged
mentally, had brought him, when a boy of seven, to this German; had
paid for him for a year in advance, and had then left Moscow and been
lost sight of completely.... From time to time there were dark, strange
rumours about him. Eight years later it was known as a positive fact
that he had been drowned in a flood when crossing the Irtish. What had
taken him to Siberia, God knows. Yakov had no other relations; his
mother had long been dead. He was simply left stranded on
Winterkeller's hands. Yakov had, it is true, a distant relation, a
great-aunt; but she was so poor, that she was afraid at first to go to
her nephew, for fear she should have the care of him thrust upon her.
Her fears turned out to be groundless; the kind-hearted German kept
Yakov with him, let him study with his other pupils, fed him (dessert,
however, was not offered him except on Sundays), and rigged him out in
clothes cut out of the cast-off morning-gowns--usually
snuff-coloured--of his mother, an old Livonian lady, still alert and
active in spite of her great age. Owing to all these circumstances, and
owing generally to Yakov's inferior position in the school, his
schoolfellows treated him in rather a casual fashion, looked down upon
him, and used to call him 'mammy's dressing-gown,' the 'nephew of the
mob-cap' (his aunt invariably wore a very peculiar mob-cap with a bunch
of yellow ribbons sticking straight upright, like a globe artichoke,
upon it), and sometimes the 'son of Yermak' (because his father had,
like that hero, been drowned in the Irtish). But in spite of those
nicknames, in spite of his ridiculous garb, and his absolute
destitution, every one was fond of him, and indeed it was impossible
not to be fond of him; a sweeter, nobler nature, I imagine, has never
existed upon earth. He was very good at lessons too.

When I saw him first, he was sixteen years old, and I was only just
thirteen. I was an exceedingly selfish and spoilt boy; I had grown up
in a rather wealthy house, and so, on entering the school, I lost no
time in making friends with a little prince, an object of special
solicitude to Winterkeller, and with two or three other juvenile
aristocrats; while I gave myself great airs with all the rest. Pasinkov
I did not deign to notice at all. I regarded the long, gawky lad, in a
shapeless coat and short trousers, which showed his coarse thread
stockings, as some sort of page-boy, one of the house-serfs--at best, a
person of the working class. Pasinkov was extremely courteous and
gentle to everybody, though he never sought the society of any one. If
he were rudely treated, he was neither humiliated nor sullen; he simply
withdrew and held himself aloof, with a sort of regretful look, as it
were biding his time. This was just how he behaved with me. About two
months passed. One bright summer day I happened to go out of the
playground after a noisy game of leap-frog, and walking into the garden
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