hunter notes

Chapter 36 Death (1)
I have a neighbor who is a young landowner and also a young hunter. One morning in July, I rode to his house, and asked him to hunt grouse together.He said yes. "But," he said, "let's go through my grove to the sand, and I'll just stop by to see the Chapulgino woods. Do you know that my oak forest is being felled right now?" "All right." Then he ordered his horses to be groomed, and put on a green frock coat with boar's head bronze buttons, a hunting bag embroidered with wool and a silver water jug, and a new French gun slung over his shoulder. , glancing complacently into the mirror, called out to his dog Esperance, which had been given him by his cousin, a good-natured but bald spinster, and then off we go.My neighbor took two people with him: one was Arsib, a squat peasant with a square face and extremely high cheekbones; Mr. Tribe Fond-del-Cock—a youth of about nineteen, thin, fair-haired, very short-sighted, with drooping shoulders and a long neck.My neighbor has only recently started to manage the territory.It was passed down to him by his aunt, Mrs. Kardon Katayeva, the fifth civil servant.This aunt is a particularly fat woman, even when she is lying on the bed, she is always moaning in pain.We rode into the small jungle.

"You wait for us in this clearing!" said Ardarion Mihalich (my neighbour) to the two men.The German saluted, dismounted, took a book from his pocket--it seemed to be a novel by Johann Schopenhauer--and sat down under a bush.Archie remained in the sun, and stood motionless for an hour.The two of us went around the bush several times, but we didn't find a nest of birds.Ardarion Mihalich told me that he wanted to go to the woods.I myself didn't quite believe that the hunting would be successful that day, so I went back with him.Let's go back to the clearing.The German marked the pages of the book, got up, put the book in his pocket, and climbed with difficulty on his poor bob-tailed mare, which neighed and kicked at the slightest touch. of.With a sudden start, Archibald seized the reins, and with great difficulty, with his feet puffed, his frightened and burdened horse was spurred on.off we go.

The woods of Ardarion Michelucci have been familiar to me since I was a child.When I was a child, my French governess, Mr. Deziré Fleury, a man of the utmost kindness (but who nearly ruined my lifelong health by making me take Leroux every night) would always come to Château. Prechino woods to play.The total number of trees in this grove is about two or three hundred great oaks and ash.Their neat, stout trunks, majestic and black, rose above the shining green leaves of the hazel and rowan.These trunks soared skyward, forming neat outlines against the clear blue sky, stretching their splayed, gnarled branches like a canopy.Harrier hawks, green hawks, and kestrels were flying under the quiet treetops, and variegated woodpeckers were pecking at the thick bark; the loud singing of blackbirds suddenly echoed the melodiousness of orioles in the dense leaves. down below, in the bushes, robins, titmouses, and willow warblers chirped and sang merrily; chaffinches hopped away along the path; snow hares cautiously "Finding the way" quietly along the edge of the woods; the reddish-brown squirrel jumped from tree to tree with ease and activity, and suddenly raised its tail to its head and sat down on a tree.In the meadows, around the tall anthills, under the shadows of the beautifully sculpted leaves of the fern, violets and lily-of-the-valleys bloomed, with amanitas, azaleas, milk-mushrooms, acorns, and Red fly mushrooms; bright red strawberries grew on the grass in the wide bushland... Remember how comfortable the shade in the woods was when I was a child!In the hottest time of noon, it will be the same as at night: quiet, fragrant, cool... I used to have a good time in the wood of Chaplechino, so, to be honest, I am now walking into this all-too-familiar wood When I was there, I couldn't help but feel sad. The pitiless, snowless winter of 1840 did not spare my old friends, the oaks and ashes, shriveled, withered, and here and there still covered with thin green leaves, standing sadly in "the place of , but not as good as it used to be" above the grove... Some trees still have leaves under them, and their lifeless, broken branches stand upward as if resentful and hopeless.The leaves of other trees were not as lush as before, but they were still very dense, with thick and dry branches protruding from the middle of the leaves.Some of the trees had lost their bark; others had almost fallen down, rotting on the ground like corpses.No one could have foreseen it at the time: there was no shade to be found in the Chaplechino woods!Looking at these trees, I thought to myself: "Maybe you feel pitiful and sad?"... I remembered Korzoff's poem:

Where did the profound remarks, the power of pride, and the arrogance of the king disappear?Your green vigor is gone now!
"What's the matter, Ardarion Mihelich," I began, "why weren't these trees cut down last year? I don't think they can be sold for a tenth of what they were worth."

He shrugged helplessly. "I'm going to ask my aunt. The merchants have been here before, sending money, and getting entangled."

"Mein Gott! Mein Gott!" cried Von der Kok, as he walked, "how ridiculous! how ridiculous!"

"Why is it ridiculous?" My neighbor asked him with a smile.

"No, I mean, how pitiful." (It is well known that the Germans, after learning the pronunciation of our letter π with difficulty, struggle to pronounce the letter π.) Especially pitiful. Oaks lying across the ground--indeed, some millers would pay dearly for them.Armor leader Arshibo maintained a calm and leisurely attitude, not surprised or sad at all.Instead, he jumped over them with joy, and whipped them again.

We came to the logging place, and suddenly, as the trees fell down with a bang, there were shouts and voices, and after a while, a young farmer with a pale face and disheveled hair came running towards us from the dense woods.

"What's the matter? Where are you going?" asked Ardarion Michelitch.

He stopped immediately. "Oh, Mr. Ardarion Michelucci, something has happened!" "What's the matter?"

"Sir, Maxim was knocked down by a tree." "How did it fall? ... Maxim the contractor?" "Yes, sir. We cut down an ash tree, and he stood there watching ... and then , he went to the well to fetch water, probably wanting to drink. Just then the ash tree suddenly rattled and fell towards him. We shouted to him: run away, run away, run away ...He would have run sideways, but he kept running forward—perhaps in a panic. The top of the ash tree fell on him. Why the tree fell so fast, no one knows... The heart of the tree must have been rotten." "Maxim was wounded, then?" "He was wounded, sir." "Is he dead?"

"No, sir, alive—but with a broken leg and hand. I was just going to run for Seriferstridge, for the doctor."

Ardarion Mihalich ordered the Chief of Armor to ride quickly to the village to invite Seriferstich, and then he ran to the clearing field... I followed him.

We see poor Maxim lying on the ground.A dozen peasants stood around him.We dismounted.He hardly groaned, and occasionally opened his eyes wide, looked around as if in panic, and bit his blue lips... His jaw was trembling, his hair stuck to his forehead, and his chest heaved rapidly: he was about to no more.The faint shadow of the little linden tree flitted across his face.

We stooped to look at him.He recognized Ardarion Michelucci.

"Sir," he said in a slurred voice, "please...send someone...for the priest...God...punish me...a limb...today...Sunday...but I... But I . . . well . . . keep the brothers at work."

He was silent for a while.His breathing became more rapid. "My money...please give...to my wife...deduct...well, Onisim knows...I owe...to whom..." "We sent for the doctor, Maxim," my neighbor said, "maybe you'll be fine." He tried to open his eyes, pushing his eyebrows and eyelids up. "No, I can't. Look, it's approaching, look, death is approaching... Brothers, I'm sorry if I have anything..." "God will forgive you, Maxim Andreich " said the peasants in unison, and they all took off their hats, "please forgive us." He shook his head suddenly in despair, and his chest rose and fell in pain. "But we can't just let him die here," cried Ardarion Mihalich. "Brothers, get the mats from the carriage over there, and let us take him to the hospital."

Two or three people ran to get the mats. "Yesterday... I asked Sechaov's... Yefim..." the dying man said incoherently, "to buy a horse... to pay the down payment... and the horse is mine... also Give it to the wife..."

The peasants put him on the mat... He trembled like a shot bird, and straightened up... "Dead," whispered the peasants.We mounted our horses silently and left the woods.Poor Maxim's death left me in deep thought.Peasants in Russia died strangely!Their dying state of mind can neither be described as indifferent nor dull.They die ceremonially:

Calm and simple.

A few years ago, in another neighbor's village of mine, a farmer was burnt out in his roasting house. (He was nearly burnt to death in the roasting house, but a passing merchant managed to pull him out: the merchant soaked himself in a bucket of water, then ran to scatter the burning fire. The door under the eaves.) I went to see him at his house.The room was dark, stuffy, and full of smoke.I asked, "Where is the patient?"

"Over there, sir, on the kang." A heartbroken peasant woman said to me in a drawn out voice.

I went closer and saw the farmer lying on the pit with a leather jacket covering his body, struggling to breathe. "how do you feel?"

The patient moved on the kang and wanted to sit up, but his whole body was burned and he was about to die. "Lie down, lie down, lie down...how is it? Huh?"

"Very bad," he said. "Are you in pain?" He didn't answer. "Do you need anything?" He didn't answer. "Shall I get you some tea?" "No."

I go away.Sitting on the bench.After sitting for a quarter of an hour, half an hour—the room was extremely silent.In the corner, near the table under the icon, was hiding a little girl of five years old, eating bread.Mother sometimes reprimanded her.In the front room there were people walking now and then, knocking and talking; the sister-in-law was cutting cabbage there. "Alas, Aksinya!" suddenly the sick man spoke. "What's wrong?"

"Give me some kvass." Aksinya gave him some kvass.Then there was silence again.I asked in a low voice, "Has communion been given to him?"I couldn't control it, so I walked out... Later, I remembered that once I went to the hospital in Hongshan Village to visit the assistant doctor I knew, Kabidong—an enthusiastic hunter.The hospital used to be a wing of the landlord's mansion; the hospital was founded by the landlady herself, that is, she ordered a light blue board to be nailed on the door frame, with "Hongshan Hospital" written in white on it, and handed it over to the hospital by herself. Give Capbiton a beautiful booklet, which is used to register the names of patients.On the front page of this booklet was inscribed the following verse by a flattering servant of the charitable landlady:
Dans ces beaux lieux, oùrègne l'allégresse, Ce temple rut ouvert par la Beauté; De VOS seigneurs admirez Ia tendresse, Bons habitats de Krasnogoriè!

(End of this chapter)