Free Sketches from a Hunter's Album by Ivan Turgenev Page B

Mikhaylo Savelyev, known as Foggy. He lived in the house of a consumptive townsman of Bolkhov, the proprietor of an inn where I’d stayed fairly often. Young officials and other idle folk (merchants piled high with striped feather coverlets are indifferent to it) who travel on the Oryol high road can see even to this day, a short way beyond the village of Troitsky, an enormous wooden house on two floors, stuck rightbeside the road, completely abandoned, its roof collapsed and its windows stove in. At midday in clear sunny weather it’s hard to imagine anything sadder than this ruin. Here Count Pyotr Ilyich used to live, famous for his lavish hospitality, a rich magnate of the last century. The whole province used to visit him and would dance and make merry in fine fashion, to the deafening accompaniment of homegrown music and the crackling of fireworks and Roman candles. And probably there’s more than one old lady who nowadays passes by that abandoned manorial residence and sighs and recalls long-vanished times and long-vanished youth. The Count spent much time in feasting, spent long strolling with welcoming smiles among the crowds of obsequious guests; but his estate, sad to say, did not last out his lifetime. Having ruined himself thoroughly, he went off to St Petersburg to seek an official niche for himself and died in a hotel room before anything had been decided. Foggy’d been employed as a butler in his house and had achieved his freedom in the Count’s lifetime. He was a man of seventy or so, with pleasant, regular features. Almost the whole time he smiled, as nowadays only those from the epoch of Catherine the Great are used to smiling, in a kindly and dignified manner. In conversation, he would slowly protrude and compress his lips as he sweetly squeezed up his eyes and pronounced his words with a slight nasal intonation. He would blow his nose and sniff tobacco also without any haste, as if he were engaged in doing something very serious.
    â€˜Well, Mikhaylo Savelyich,’ I began, ‘have you caught anything?’
    â€˜Take a look in the basket. A couple of perch and five or so sculpin. Show ’em, Steve.’
    Stepushka held out the basket to me.
    â€˜How are you, Stepan?’ I asked him.
    â€˜I… I… I… I get by, sir,’ answered Stepan, stammering as though his tongue was moving heavy weights.
    â€˜Is Mitrofan well?’
    â€˜Well, yes-s-sir.’
    The poor wretch turned away.
    â€˜Not biting, they’re not biting,’ said Foggy. ‘It’s too hot. Fish’re all hidin’ under the bushes, all asleep… Give us ‘nother worm, Steve.’ (Stepushka got out a worm, placed it on his palm, hit it once or twice, stuck it on the hook, spat on it and handed it to Foggy.)‘Thanks, Steve… And you, sir,’ he went on, turning to me, ‘you’re out huntin’, sir, are you?’
    â€˜As you can see.’
    â€˜I see, sir… And what’s that dog you got, sir, an Inglish or Furland?’
    The old man liked to take the opportunity to show he’d been about the world and knew a thing or two.
    â€˜I don’t know what breed it is, but it’s a good one.’
    â€˜I see, sir… D’you go out ridin’ with dogs?’
    â€˜I’ve got a couple of packs.’
    Foggy smiled and shook his head.
    â€˜That’s the way of it – one’s a great dog-lover, t’other’s not interested like. What I think is, accordin’ to my simple way o’ thinkin’, dogs oughter be kept more for show, so to speak… And so as everythin’ was in proper order, the horses in proper order, and the men lookin’ after the dogs, and everythin’. The dead Count – the Lord bless ’im! – weren’t a great one for huntin’, truth to tell, but he kept dogs and once or twice a year he’d ride out with ’em. The huntsmen’d gather out in the