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‘Who was that Alexey Ivanitch the Jew,’ I asked, ‘through whom he was brought to ruin?’

‘Oh, the brother of Agrafena Ivanovna. A grasping creature, Jewish indeed. He lent his sister money at interest, and Vassily Fomitch was her security. He had to pay for it too … pretty heavily!’

‘And Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer–who was she?’

‘Her sister too … and a sharp one too, as sharp as a lance. A terrible woman!’

XIV

‘What a place to find a Werter!’ I thought next day, as I set off again towards the brigadier’s dwelling. I was at that time very young, and that was possibly why I thought it my duty not to believe in the lasting nature of love. Still, I was impressed and somewhat puzzled by the story I had heard, and felt an intense desire to stir up the old man, to make him talk freely. ‘I’ll first refer to Suvorov again,’ so I resolved within myself; ‘there must be some spark of his former fire hidden within him still … and then, when he’s warmed up, I’ll turn the conversation on that … what’s her name? … Agrafena Ivanovna. A queer name for a “Charlotte”–Agrafena!’

I found my Werter-Guskov in the middle of a tiny kitchen-garden, a few steps from the lodge, near the old framework of a never-finished hut, overgrown with nettles. On the mildewed upper beams of this skeleton hut some miserable-looking turkey poults were scrambling, incessantly slipping and flapping their wings and cackling. There was some poor sort of green stuff growing in two or three borders. The brigadier had just pulled a young carrot out of the ground, and rubbing it under his arm ‘to clean it,’ proceeded to chew its thin tail…. I bowed to him, and inquired after his health.

He obviously did not recognise me, though he returned my greeting–that is to say, touched his cap with his hand, though without leaving off munching the carrot.

‘You didn’t go fishing to-day?’ I began, in the hope of recalling myself to his memory by this question.

‘To-day?’ he repeated and pondered … while the carrot, stuck into his mouth, grew shorter and shorter. ‘Why, I suppose it’s Cucumber fishing! … But I’m allowed to, too.’

‘Of course, of course, most honoured Vassily Fomitch…. I didn’t mean that…. But aren’t you hot … like this in the sun.’

The brigadier was wearing a thick wadded dressing-gown.

‘Eh? Hot?’ he repeated again, as though puzzled over the question, and, having finally swallowed the carrot, he gazed absently upwards.

‘Would you care to step into my apartement?’ he said suddenly. The poor old man had, it seemed, only this phrase still left him always at his disposal.

We went out of the kitchen-garden … but there involuntarily I stopped short. Between us and the lodge stood a huge bull. With his head down to the ground, and a malignant gleam in his eyes, he was snorting heavily and furiously, and with a rapid movement of one fore-leg, he tossed the dust up in the air with his broad cleft hoof, lashed his sides with his tail, and suddenly backing a little, shook his shaggy neck stubbornly, and bellowed–not loud, but plaintively, and at the same time menacingly. I was, I confess, alarmed; but Vassily Fomitch stepped forward with perfect composure, and saying in a stern voice, ‘Now then, country bumpkin,’ shook his handkerchief at him. The bull backed again, bowed his horns … suddenly rushed to one side and ran away, wagging his head from side to side.

‘There’s no doubt he took Prague,’ I thought.

We went into the room. The brigadier pulled his cap off his hair, which was soaked with perspiration, ejaculated, ‘Fa!’ … squatted down on the edge of a chair … bowed his head gloomily….

‘I have come to you, Vassily Fomitch,’ I began my diplomatic approaches, ‘because, as you have served under the leadership of the great Suvorov–have taken part altogether in such important events–it would be very interesting for me to hear some particulars of your past.’