Chapter 40: The Little Beggar

“Are you referring to the peasants I encountered during my upbringing?”

When Mikhail asked this, Turgenev seemed to instantly grasp the point, and his expression grew subtly complex.

It carried both nostalgia and remembrance of the past, mixed with a touch of guilt and an inexplicable sigh.

“Perhaps landowners too,” Mikhail nodded. “When can you ever separate peasants from landowners? Just like factory owners and workers.”

“You’re right, you’re absolutely right,” Turgenev muttered, nodding repeatedly after hearing Mikhail’s words; it took him a long moment to react, then he gripped Mikhail’s hand tightly, excitedly saying:

“Thank you so much, dear Mikhail! I seem to have found my direction now! Those vague thoughts I had before—suddenly they’ve become clear! Yes, how could I forget them? They watched me grow up on my family’s estate, calling me ‘Master’ with every word.

But I also watched them grow old and fade away; I had dealings with many of them. Perhaps because I often spoke up for them before my mother, they weren’t afraid of me and were willing to talk to me. I saw them grow, age, disappear, and die. I saw them suffer under one landowner after another. How could I ever forget them?”

The young man’s excitement was laced with sorrow; emotions long suppressed within him burst forth, bringing him to the brink of tears as he clung to Mikhail’s hand and poured out many things.

When he finally calmed down, he solemnly announced to Mikhail:

“In a while, perhaps I should take time to return home, to spend some more time on the land where I grew up. I know our region well—I’ve hunted there often, crossed mountain after mountain, visited landowner after landowner, and seen their serfs.

I need to write some sketches, Mikhail. I’ve already begun thinking of titles—not just for each piece, but perhaps a unifying title as well. What do you think it should be called, Mikhail?”

“If you’re asking me,” Mikhail smiled slightly, “then based on what you just said—how about ‘Notes of a Hunter’?”

“Perfect name! What a perfect name!”

Upon hearing the name, Turgenev first froze, then began muttering it as if entranced. Had there been paper and pen nearby, he would have already begun writing.

Watching Turgenev like this, Mikhail felt a quiet stir within him.

To be honest, it now seemed impossible for anything to follow its original course exactly.

Yet for true great writers, even small changes often failed to stop them from creating masterpieces.

Take Turgenev before him—he was completely lost in a certain possibility, oblivious to the risks it carried.

Undoubtedly, ‘Notes of a Hunter’ would anger the authorities by exposing the brutality and injustice of serfdom, and by portraying one foolish, hypocritical landowner after another.

My Turgenev nearly got caught because of this; later, he openly defied censorship by publishing an article mourning Gogol, and was swiftly arrested, imprisoned for a time, then exiled.

Of course, as a nobleman, and with many noble friends lobbying for him, my Turgenev never felt the secret police’s potato-sized fists—he was released after three weeks, and his exile was merely to his family’s village.

But then again, it was precisely from this work that my Turgenev began his path of being cursed by every faction and party.

Returning to the matter, after speaking with Mikhail, Turgenev seemed truly entranced by the ideas in his mind. After sitting a while longer at the Panaevs’ home, he hastily took leave of everyone.

Seeing this, Mikhail checked the time and didn’t linger long; after a while, he quietly asked the Panaevs’ mistress, Panaeva, to pack him some bread or other food.

Cough cough

Though taking food along was a bit unseemly, after seeing Belinsky do it nearly every visit, Mikhail quickly let it go.

After all, if Belinsky understood this, why should I still be so conflicted?

Still, though Mikhail had always harbored this thought, he’d never been able to bring himself to ask outright—it was far too embarrassing.

Fortunately, Mistress Panaeva seemed to have noticed on Mikhail the same awkward situation as previous visitors, and without a word, she brought it up herself.

In that case, for Mikhail to refuse would have been downright ungrateful.

One can’t refuse a good meal just to save face.

Besides, if Mikhail remembered correctly, Mistress Panaeva would one day write a memoir, recalling the notable writers and artists she had met.

Hmm, I wonder what kind of figure Mikhail would be in her book.

With some free white bread in hand, a flushed and content Mikhail soon stepped out of the Panaevs’ home and hurried toward his own home.

As Mikhail was about to enter the building housing his tiny room, he suddenly spotted a ragged, small figure wandering nearby.

He appeared to be an eleven- or twelve-year-old child, perhaps even younger; due to his tattered clothes and filthy appearance, Mikhail couldn’t determine his gender.

Clearly, he was a beggar—his gaze at passersby and his hand movements spoke volumes.

In St. Petersburg, this was utterly commonplace; if you didn’t see such figures, it only meant they’d been driven out of the area.

Moreover, his awkward manner suggested he was no seasoned beggar—he had only recently taken up this trade.

Yet to Mikhail, he felt strangely familiar.

As previously mentioned, though Mikhail was poor, he often found himself reaching into his pocket for a few kopecks when encountering these wandering ghosts of St. Petersburg—even when he hated to part with them.

Most times, he’d see them only once; he rarely encountered them again, as if they floated beneath the city, never truly touching the ground.

But this boy—if Mikhail remembered correctly—they had met before.

Whether their paths simply overlapped or for some other reason, Mikhail had indeed seen him twice.

When he finally noticed Mikhail passing by, the young boy froze for a moment, then, though his voice trembled, it carried a clear sense of relief and anguish—as if he’d finally found a meal.

Mikhail: “...”

How did you suddenly become so confident?

Of course, at such a moment, Mikhail couldn’t dwell on his own dwindling purse—he looked at the frail child several times, then crouched down. Amid the boy’s trembling pleas of “Please, kind sir,” he broke off some bread, pulled out several kopecks enough to buy more bread, and handed them both out.

Finally, the non-religious Mikhail spoke: “God bless you.”

“God bless you too, kind sir! Thank you!”

After saying this, the boy—who had seen Mikhail several times before—stared after him as he walked away, then, braving the cold wind, headed off in one direction.

Someone was waiting for him there.

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(End of Chapter)