Chapter 4 — IONITCH

WHEN visitors to the provincial town S—— complained of the dreariness
and monotony of life, the inhabitants of the town, as though defending
themselves, declared that it was very nice in S——, that there was a
library, a theatre, a club; that they had balls; and, finally, that
there were clever, agreeable, and interesting families with whom one
could make acquaintance. And they used to point to the family of the
Turkins as the most highly cultivated and talented.

This family lived in their own house in the principal street, near the
Governor's. Ivan Petrovitch Turkin himself—a stout, handsome, dark man
with whiskers—used to get up amateur performances for benevolent
objects, and used to take the part of an elderly general and cough very
amusingly. He knew a number of anecdotes, charades, proverbs, and was
fond of being humorous and witty, and he always wore an expression from
which it was impossible to tell whether he were joking or in earnest.
His wife, Vera Iosifovna—a thin, nice-looking lady who wore a
pince-nez—used to write novels and stories, and was very fond of
reading them aloud to her visitors. The daughter, Ekaterina Ivanovna, a
young girl, used to play on the piano. In short, every member of the
family had a special talent. The Turkins welcomed visitors, and
good-humouredly displayed their talents with genuine simplicity. Their
stone house was roomy and cool in summer; half of the windows looked
into a shady old garden, where nightingales used to sing in the spring.
When there were visitors in the house, there was a clatter of knives in
the kitchen and a smell of fried onions in the yard—and that was always
a sure sign of a plentiful and savoury supper to follow.

And as soon as Dmitri Ionitch Startsev was appointed the district
doctor, and took up his abode at Dyalizh, six miles from S——, he, too,
was told that as a cultivated man it was essential for him to make the
acquaintance of the Turkins. In the winter he was introduced to Ivan
Petrovitch in the street; they talked about the weather, about the
theatre, about the cholera; an invitation followed. On a holiday in the
spring—it was Ascension Day—after seeing his patients, Startsev set
off for town in search of a little recreation and to make some
purchases. He walked in a leisurely way (he had not yet set up his
carriage), humming all the time: