Virgin Soil
by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev · English · Gutenberg #2466 · 564,918 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Virgin Soil
Author: Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
Translator: R. S. Townsend
Release date: January 1, 2001 [eBook #2466]
Most recently updated: February 20, 2023
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2466
Credits: Martin Adamson, and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIRGIN SOIL ***
VIRGIN SOIL
By Ivan S. Turgenev
Translated from the Russian by R. S. Townsend
INTRODUCTION
Turgenev was the first writer who was able, having both Slavic and
universal imagination enough for it, to interpret modern Russia to
the outer world, and Virgin Soil was the last word of his greater
testament. It was the book in which many English readers were destined
to make his acquaintance about a generation ago, and the effect of it
was, like Swinburne’s Songs Before Sunrise, Mazzini’s Duties of Man,
and other congenial documents, to break up the insular confines in
which they had been reared and to enlarge their new horizon. Afterwards
they went on to read Tolstoi, and Turgenev’s powerful and antipathetic
fellow-novelist, Dostoievsky, and many other Russian writers: but as
he was the greatest artist of them all, his individual revelation of
his country’s predicament did not lose its effect. Writing in prose
he achieved a style of his own which went as near poetry as narrative
prose can do without using the wrong music: while over his realism or
his irony he cast a tinge of that mixed modern and oriental fantasy
which belonged to his temperament. He suffered in youth, and suffered
badly, from the romantic malady of his century, and that other malady
of Russia, both expressed in what M. Haumand terms his “Hamletisme.”
But in Virgin Soil he is easy and almost negligent master of his
instrument, and though he is an exile and at times a sharply embittered
one, he gathers experience round his theme as only the artist can who
has enriched his art by having outlived his youth without forgetting
its pangs, joys, mortifications, and love-songs.
In Nejdanov it is another picture of that youth which we see—youth
reduced to ineffectiveness by fatalism and by the egoism of the lyric
nature which longs to gain dramatic freedom, but cannot achieve it.
It is one of a series of portraits, wonderfully traced psychological
studies of the Russian dreamers and incompatibles of last mid-century,
of which the most moving figure is the hero of the earlier novel,
Dimitri Rudin. If we cared to follow Turgenev strictly in his growth
and contemporary relations, we ought to begin with his Sportsman’s Note
Book. But so far as his novels go, he is the last writer to be taken
chronologically. He was old enough in youth to understand old age in the
forest, and young enough in age to provide his youth with fresh hues for
another incarnation. Another element of his work which is very finely
revealed and brought to a rare point of characterisation in Virgin Soil,
is the prophetic intention he had of the woman’s part in the new order.
For the real hero of the tale, as Mr. Edward Garnett has pointed out in
an essay on Turgenev, is not Nejdanov and not Solomin; the part is cast
in the woman’s figure of Mariana who broke the silence of “anonymous
Russia.” Ivan Turgenev had the understanding that goes beneath the old
delimitation of the novelist hide-bound by the law—“male and female
created he them.”
He had the same extreme susceptibility to the moods of nature. He
loved her first for herself, and then with a sense of those inherited
primitive associations with her scenes and hid influences which still
play upon us to-day; and nothing could be surer than the wilder or tamer
glimpses which are seen in this book and in its landscape settings of
the characters. But Russ as he is, he never lets his scenery hide his
people: he only uses it to enhance them. He is too great an artist to
lose a human trait, as we see even in a grotesque vignette like that of
Fomishka and Fimishka, or a chance picture like that of the Irish girl
once seen by Solomin in London.
Turgenev was born at Orel, son of a cavalry colonel, in 1818. He died
in exile, like his early master in romance Heine—that is in Paris—on
the 4th of September, 1883. But at his own wish his remains were
carried home and buried in the Volkoff Cemetery, St. Petersburg. The
grey crow he had once seen in foreign fields and addressed in a fit of
homesickness—
“Crow, crow,
You are grizzled, I know,
But from Russia you come;
Ah me, there lies home!”
called him back to his mother country, whose true son he remained
despite all he suffered at her hands, and all the delicate revenges of
the artistic prodigal that he was tempted to take.
E. R.
The following is the list of Turgenev’s chief works:
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF WORKS: Russian Life in the interior: or, the
Experiences of a Sportsman, from French version, by J. D. Meiklejohn,
1855; Annals of a Sportsman, from French version, by F. P. Abbott, 1885;
Tales from the Notebook of a Sportsman, from the Russian, by E. Richter,
1895; Fathers and Sons, from the Russian, by E. Schuyler, 1867, 1883;
Smoke: or, Life at Baden, from French version, 1868, by W. F. West,
1872, 1883; Liza: or, a Nest of Nobles, from the Russian, by W. R. S.
Ralston, 1869, 1873, 1884; On the Eve, a tale, from the Russian, by C.
E. Turner, 1871; Dimitri Roudine, from French and German versions, 1873,
1883; Spring Floods, from the Russian, by S. M. Batts, 1874; from the
Russian, by E. Richter, 1895; A Lear of the Steppe, From the French, by
W. H. Browne, 1874; Virgin Soil, from the French, by T. S. Perry, 1877,
1883, by A. W. Dilke, 1878; Poems in Prose, from the Russian, 1883;
Senilia, Poems in Prose, with a Biographical Sketch of the Author, by S.
J. Macmillan, 1890; First Love, and Punin and Baburin from the Russian,
with a Biographical Introduction, by S. Jerrold, 1884; Mumu, and the
Diary of a Superfluous Man, from the Russian, by H. Gersoni, 1884;
Annouchka, a tale, from the French version, by F. P. Abbott, 1884;
from the Russian (with An Unfortunate Woman), by H. Gersoni, 1886; The
Unfortunate One, from the Russian, by A. R. Thompson, 1888 (see above
for Gersoni’s translation); The Watch, from the Russian, by J. E.
Williams, 1893.
WORKS: Novels, translated by Constance Garnett, 15 vols., 1894-99.
1906. Novels and Stories, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood, with an
Introduction by Henry James, 1903, etc.
LIFE: See above, Biographical Introductions to Poems in Prose and First
Love; E. M. Arnold, Tourguéneff and his French Circle, translated from
the work of E. Halperine-Kaminsky, 1898; J. A. T. Lloyd, Two Russian
Reformers: Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, 1910.
VIRGIN SOIL
“To turn over virgin soil it is necessary to use a deep plough
going well into the earth, not a surface plough gliding lightly
over the top.”—From a Farmer’s Notebook.
I
At one o’clock in the afternoon of a spring day in the year 1868, a
young man of twenty-seven, carelessly and shabbily dressed, was toiling
up the back staircase of a five-storied house on Officers Street in
St. Petersburg. Noisily shuffling his down-trodden goloshes and slowly
swinging his heavy, clumsy figure, the man at last reached the very top
flight and stopped before a half-open door hanging off its hinges. He
did not ring the bell, but gave a loud sigh and walked straight into a
small, dark passage.
“Is Nejdanov at home?” he called out in a deep, loud voice.
“No, he’s not. I’m here. Come in,” an equally coarse woman’s voice
responded from the adjoining room.
“Is that Mashurina?” asked the new-comer.
“Yes, it is I. Are you Ostrodumov?”
“Pemien Ostrodumov,” he replied, carefully removing his goloshes, and
hanging his shabby coat on a nail, he went into the room from whence
issued the woman’s voice.
It was a narrow, untidy room, with dull green coloured walls, badly
lighted by two dusty windows. The furnishings consisted of an iron
bedstead standing in a corner, a table in the middle, several chairs,
and a bookcase piled up with books. At the table sat a woman of about
thirty. She was bareheaded, clad in a black stuff dress, and was smoking
a cigarette. On catching sight of Ostrodumov she extended her broad, red
hand without a word. He shook it, also without saying anything, dropped
into a chair and pulled a half-broken cigar out of a side pocket.
Mashurina gave him a light, and without exchanging a single word, or so
much as looking at one another, they began sending out long, blue puffs
into the stuffy room, already filled with smoke.
There was something similar about these two smokers, although their
features were not a bit alike. In these two slovenly figures, with their
coarse lips, teeth, and noses (Ostrodumov was even pock-marked), there
was something honest and firm and persevering.
“Have you seen Nejdanov?” Ostrodumov asked.
“Yes. He will be back directly. He has gone to the library with some
books.”
Ostrodumov spat to one side.
“Why is he always rushing about nowadays? One can never get hold of
him.”
Mashurina took out another cigarette.
“He’s bored,” she remarked, lighting it carefully.
“Bored!” Ostrodumov repeated reproachfully. “What self-indulgence! One
would think we had no work to do. Heaven knows how we shall get through
with it, and he complains of being bored!”
“Have you heard from Moscow?” Mashurina asked after a pause.
“Yes. A letter came three days ago.”
“Have you read it?”
Ostrodumov nodded his head.
“Well? What news?”
“Some of us must go there soon.”
Mashurina took the cigarette out of her mouth.
“But why?” she asked. “They say everything is going on well there.”
“Yes, that is so, but one man has turned out unreliable and must be
got rid of. Besides that, there are other things. They want you to come
too.”
“Do they say so in the letter?”
“Yes.”
Mashurina shook back her heavy hair, which was twisted into a small
plait at the back, and fell over her eyebrows in front.
“Well,” she remarked; “if the thing is settled, then there is nothing
more to be said.”
“Of course not. Only one can’t do anything without money, and where are
we to get it from?”
Mashurina became thoughtful.
“Nejdanov must get the money,” she said softly, as if to herself.
“That is precisely what I have come about,” Ostrodumov observed.
“Have you got the letter?” Mashurina asked suddenly.
“Yes. Would you like to see it?”
“I should rather. But never mind, we can read it together presently.”
“You need not doubt what I say. I am speaking the truth,” Ostrodumov
grumbled.
“I do not doubt it in the least.” They both ceased speaking and, as
before, clouds of smoke rose silently from their mouths and curled
feebly above their shaggy heads.
A sound of goloshes was heard from the passage.
“There he is,” Mashurina whispered.
The door opened slightly and a head was thrust in, but it was not the
head of Nejdanov.
It was a round head with rough black hair, a broad wrinkled forehead,
bright brown eyes under thick eyebrows, a snub nose and a humorously-set
mouth. The head looked round, nodded, smiled, showing a set of tiny
white teeth, and came into the room with its feeble body, short arms,
and bandy legs, which were a little lame. As soon as Mashurina and
Ostrodumov caught sight of this head, an expression of contempt mixed
with condescension came over their faces, as if each was thinking
inwardly, “What a nuisance!” but neither moved nor uttered a single
word. The newly arrived guest was not in the least taken aback by this
reception, however; on the contrary it seemed to amuse him.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked in a squeaky voice. “A duet? Why
not a trio? And where’s the chief tenor?”
“Do you mean Nejdanov, Mr. Paklin?” Ostrodumov asked solemnly.
“Yes, Mr. Ostrodumov.”
“He will be back directly, Mr. Paklin.”
“I am glad to hear that, Mr. Ostrodumov.”
The little cripple turned to Mashurina. She frowned, and continued
leisurely puffing her cigarette.
“How are you, my dear... my dear... I am so sorry. I always forget your
Christian name and your father’s name.”
Mashurina shrugged her shoulders.
“There is no need for you to know it. I think you know my surname. What
more do you want? And why do you always keep on asking how I am? You see
that I am still in the land of the living!”
“Of course!” Paklin exclaimed, his face twitching nervously. “If you had
been elsewhere, your humble servant would not have had the pleasure of
seeing you here, and of talking to you! My curiosity is due to a bad,
old-fashioned habit. But with regard to your name, it is awkward,
somehow, simply to say Mashurina. I know that even in letters you only
sign yourself Bonaparte! I beg pardon, Mashurina, but in conversation,
however—”
“And who asks you to talk to me, pray?”
Paklin gave a nervous, gulpy laugh.
“Well, never mind, my dear. Give me your hand. Don’t be cross. I know
you mean well, and so do I.... Well?”
Paklin extended his hand, Mashurina looked at him severely and extended
her own.
“If you really want to know my name,” she said with the same expression
of severity on her face, “I am called Fiekla.”
“And I, Pemien,” Ostrodumov added in his bass voice.
“How very instructive! Then tell me, Oh Fiekla! and you, Oh Pemien! why
you are so unfriendly, so persistently unfriendly to me when I—”
“Mashurina thinks,” Ostrodumov interrupted him, “and not only Mashurina,
that you are not to be depended upon, because you always laugh at
everything.”
Paklin turned round on his heels.
“That is the usual mistake people make about me, my dear Pemien! In the
first place, I am not always laughing, and even if I were, that is no
reason why you should not trust me. In the second, I have been flattered
with your confidence on more than one occasion before now, a convincing
proof of my trustworthiness. I am an honest man, my dear Pemien.”
Ostrodumov muttered something between his teeth, but Paklin continued
without the slightest trace of a smile on his face.
“No, I am not always laughing! I am not at all a cheerful person. You
have only to look at me!”
Ostrodumov looked at him. And really, when Paklin was not laughing, when
he was silent, his face assumed a dejected, almost scared expression;
it became funny and rather sarcastic only when he opened his lips.
Ostrodumov did not say anything, however, and Paklin turned to Mashurina
again.
“Well? And how are your studies getting on? Have you made any
progress in your truly philanthropical art? Is it very hard to help an
inexperienced citizen on his first appearance in this world?”
“It is not at all hard if he happens to be no bigger than you are!”
Mashurina retorted with a self-satisfied smile. (She had quite recently
passed her examination as a midwife. Coming from a poor aristocratic
family, she had left her home in the south of Russia about two years
before, and with about twelve shillings in her pocket had arrived in
Moscow, where she had entered a lying-in institution and had worked
very hard to gain the necessary certificate. She was unmarried and
very chaste.) “No wonder!” some sceptics may say (bearing in mind the
description of her personal appearance; but we will permit ourselves to
say that it was wonderful and rare).
Paklin laughed at her retort.
“Well done, my dear! I feel quite crushed! But it serves me right for
being such a dwarf! I wonder where our host has got to?”
Paklin purposely changed the subject of conversation, which was rather a
sore one to him. He could never resign himself to his small stature, nor
indeed to the whole of his unprepossessing figure. He felt it all the
more because he was passionately fond of women and would have given
anything to be attractive to them. The consciousness of his pitiful
appearance was a much sorer point with him than his low origin and
unenviable position in society. His father, a member of the lower middle
class, had, through all sorts of dishonest means, attained the rank of
titular councillor. He had been fairly successful as an intermediary
in legal matters, and managed estates and house property. He had made a
moderate fortune, but had taken to drink towards the end of his life and
had left nothing after his death.
Young Paklin, he was called Sila—Sila Samsonitch, [Meaning strength,
son of Samson] and always regarded this name as a joke against himself,
was educated in a commercial school, where he had acquired a good
knowledge of German. After a great many difficulties he had entered
an office, where he received a salary of five hundred roubles a year,
out of which he had to keep himself, an invalid aunt, and a humpbacked
sister. At the time of our story Paklin was twenty-eight years old.
He had a great many acquaintances among students and young people,
who liked him for his cynical wit, his harmless, though biting,
self-confident speeches, his one-sided, unpedantic, though genuine,
learning, but occasionally they sat on him severely. Once, on arriving
late at a political meeting, he hastily began excusing himself. “Paklin
was afraid!” some one sang out from a corner of the room, and everyone
laughed. Paklin laughed with them, although it was like a stab in his
heart. “He is right, the blackguard!” he thought to himself. Nejdanov
he had come across in a little Greek restaurant, where he was in the
habit of taking his dinner, and where he sat airing his rather free
and audacious views. He assured everyone that the main cause of his
democratic turn of mind was the bad Greek cooking, which upset his
liver.
“I wonder where our host has got to?” he repeated. “He has been out of
sorts lately. Heaven forbid that he should be in love!”
Mashurina scowled.
“He has gone to the library for books. As for falling in love, he has
neither the time nor the opportunity.”
“Why not with you?” almost escaped Paklin’s lips.
“I should like to see him, because I have an important matter to talk
over with him,” he said aloud.
“What about?” Ostrodumov asked. “Our affairs?”
“Perhaps yours; that is, our common affairs.”
Ostrodumov hummed. He did not believe him. “Who knows? He’s such a busy
body,” he thought.
“There he is at last!” Mashurina exclaimed suddenly, and her small
unattractive eyes, fixed on the door, brightened, as if lit up by an
inner ray, making them soft and warm and tender.
The door opened, and this time a young man of twenty-three, with a cap
on his head and a bundle of books under his arm, entered the room. It
was Nejdanov himself.
II
At the sight of visitors he stopped in the doorway, took them in at a
glance, threw off his cap, dropped the books on to the floor, walked
over to the bed, and sat down on the very edge. An expression of
annoyance and displeasure passed over his pale handsome face, which
seemed even paler than it really was, in contrast to his dark-red, wavy
hair.
Mashurina turned away and bit her lip; Ostrodumov muttered, “At last!”
Paklin was the first to approach him.
“Why, what is the matter, Alexai Dmitritch, Hamlet of Russia? Has
something happened, or are you just simply depressed, without any
particular cause?”
“Oh, stop! Mephistopheles of Russia!” Nejdanov exclaimed irritably. “I
am not in the mood for fencing with blunt witticisms just now.”
Paklin laughed.
“That’s not quite correct. If it is wit, then it can’t be blunt. If
blunt, then it can’t be wit.”
“All right, all right! We know you are clever!”
“Your nerves are out of order,” Paklin remarked hesitatingly. “Or has
something really happened?”
“Oh, nothing in particular, only that it is impossible to show one’s
nose in this hateful town without knocking against some vulgarity,
stupidity, tittle-tattle, or some horrible injustice. One can’t live
here any longer!”
“Is that why your advertisement in the papers says that you want a place
and have no objection to leaving St. Petersburg?” Ostrodumov asked.
“Yes. I would go away from here with the greatest of pleasure, if some
fool could be found who would offer me a place!”
“You should first fulfill your duties here,” Mashurina remarked
significantly, her face still turned away.
“What duties?” Nejdanov asked, turning towards her.
Mashurina bit her lip. “Ask Ostrodumov.”
Nejdanov turned to Ostrodumov. The latter hummed and hawed, as if to
say, “Wait a minute.”
“But seriously,” Paklin broke in, “have you heard any unpleasant news?”
Nejdanov bounced up from the bed like an india-rubber ball. “What more
do you want?” he shouted out suddenly, in a ringing voice. “Half of
Russia is dying of hunger! The Moscow News is triumphant! They want
to introduce classicism, the students’ benefit clubs have been closed,
spies everywhere, oppression, lies, betrayals, deceit! And it is not
enough for him! He wants some new unpleasantness! He thinks that I am
joking.... Basanov has been arrested,” he added, lowering his voice. “I
heard it at the library.”
Mashurina and Ostrodumov lifted their heads simultaneously.
“My dear Alexai Dmitritch,” Paklin began, “you are upset, and for a very
good reason. But have you forgotten in what times and in what country we
are living? Amongst us a drowning man must himself create the straw to
clutch at. Why be sentimental over it? One must look the devil straight
in the face and not get excited like children—”
“Oh, don’t, please!” Nejdanov interrupted him desperately, frowning as
if in pain. “We know you are energetic and not afraid of anything—”
“I—not afraid of anything?” Paklin began.
“I wonder who could have betrayed Basanov?” Nejdanov continued. “I
simply can’t understand!”
“A friend no doubt. Friends are great at that. One must look alive! I
once had a friend, who seemed a good fellow; he was always concerned
about me and my reputation. ‘I say, what dreadful stories are being
circulated about you!’ he would greet me one day. ‘They say that you
poisoned your uncle and that on one occasion, when you were introduced
into a certain house, you sat the whole evening with your back to the
hostess and that she was so upset that she cried at the insult! What
awful nonsense! What fools could possibly believe such things!’ Well,
and what do you think? A year after I quarrelled with this same friend,
and in his farewell letter to me he wrote, ‘You who killed your own
uncle! You who were not ashamed to insult an honourable lady by sitting
with your back to her,’ and so on and so on. Here are friends for you!”
Ostrodumov and Mashurina exchanged glances.
“Alexai Dmitritch!” Ostrodumov exclaimed in his heavy bass voice; he was
evidently anxious to avoid a useless discussion. “A letter has come from
Moscow, from Vassily Nikolaevitch.”
Nejdanov trembled slightly and cast down his eyes.
“What does he say?” he asked at last.
“He wants us to go there with her.” Ostrodumov indicated to Mashurina
with his eyebrows.
“Do they want her too?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what’s the difficulty?”
“Why, money, of course.”
Nejdanov got up from the bed and walked over to the window.
“How much do you want?”
“Not less than fifty roubles.”
Nejdanov was silent.
“I have no money just now,” he whispered at last, drumming his fingers
on the window pane, “but I could get some. Have you got the letter?”
“Yes, it... that is... certainly....”
“Why are you always trying to keep things from me?” Paklin exclaimed.
“Have I not deserved your confidence? Even if I were not fully in
sympathy with what you are undertaking, do you think for a moment that I
am in a position to turn around or gossip?”
“Without intending to, perhaps,” Ostrodumov remarked.
“Neither with nor without intention! Miss Mashurina is looking at me
with a smile... but I say—”
“I am not smiling!” Mashurina burst out.
“But I say,” Paklin went on, “that you have no tact. You are utterly
incapable of recognising your real friends. If a man can laugh, then you
think that he can’t be serious—”
“Is it not so?” Mashurina snapped.
“You are in need of money, for instance,” Paklin continued with new
force, paying no attention to Mashurina; “Nejdanov hasn’t any. I could
get it for you.”
Nejdanov wheeled round from the window.
“No, no. It is not necessary. I can get the money. I will draw some of
my allowance in advance. Now I recollect, they owe me something. Let us
look at the letter, Ostrodumov.”
Ostrodumov remained motionless for a time, then he looked around, stood
up, bent down, turned up one of the legs of his trousers, and carefully
pulled a piece of blue paper out of his high boot, blew at it for some
reason or another, and handed it to Nejdanov. The latter took the piece
of paper, unfolded it, read it carefully, and passed it on to Mashurina.
She stood up, also read it, and handed it back to Nejdanov, although
Paklin had extended his hand for it. Nejdanov shrugged his shoulders and
gave the secret letter to Paklin. The latter scanned the paper in his
turn, pressed his lips together significantly, and laid it solemnly on
the table. Ostrodumov took it, lit a large match, which exhaled a strong
odour of sulphur, lifted the paper high above his head, as if showing it
to all present, set fire to it, and, regardless of his fingers, put
the ashes into the stove. No one moved or pronounced a word during this
proceeding; all had their eyes fixed on the floor. Ostrodumov looked
concentrated and business-like, Nejdanov furious, Paklin intense, and
Mashurina as if she were present at holy mass.
About two minutes went by in this way, everyone feeling uncomfortable.
Paklin was the first to break the silence.
“Well?” he began. “Is my sacrifice to be received on the altar of the
fatherland? Am I permitted to bring, if not the whole at any rate,
twenty-five or thirty roubles for the common cause?”
Nejdanov flared up. He seemed to be boiling over with annoyance, which
was not lessened by the solemn burning of the letter—he was only
waiting for an opportunity to burst out.
“I tell you that I don’t want it, don’t want, don’t want it! I’ll not
allow it and I’ll not take it! I can get the money. I can get it at
once. I am not in need of anyone’s help!”
“My dear Alexai,” Paklin remarked, “I see that you are not a democrat in
spite of your being a revolutionist!”
“Why not say straight out that I’m an aristocrat?”
“So you are up to a certain point.”
Nejdanov gave a forced laugh.
“I see you are hinting at the fact of my being illegitimate. You can
save yourself the trouble, my dear boy. I am not likely to forget it.”
Paklin threw up his arms in despair.
“Aliosha! What is the matter with you? How can you twist my words so? I
hardly know you today.”
Nejdanov shrugged his shoulders.
“Basanov’s arrest has upset you, but he was so careless—”
“He did not hide his convictions,” Mashurina put in gloomily. “It is not
for us to sit in judgment upon him!”
“Quite so; only he might have had a little more consideration for
others, who are likely to be compromised through him now.”
“What makes you think so?” Ostrodumov bawled out in his turn. “Basanov
has plenty of character, he will not betray anyone. Besides, not every
one can be cautious you know, Mr. Paklin.”
Paklin was offended and was about to say something when Nejdanov
interrupted him.
“I vote we leave politics for a time, ladies and gentlemen!” he
exclaimed.
A silence ensued.
“I ran across Skoropikin today,” Paklin was the first to begin. “Our
great national critic, aesthetic, and enthusiast! What an insufferable
creature! He is forever boiling and frothing over like a bottle of sour
kvas. A waiter runs with it, his finger stuck in the bottle instead of
a cork, a fat raisin in the neck, and when it has done frothing and
foaming there is nothing left at the bottom but a few drops of some
nasty stuff, which far from quenching any one’s thirst is enough to
make one ill. He’s a most dangerous person for young people to come in
contact with.”
Paklin’s true and rather apt comparison raised no smile on his
listeners’ faces, only Nejdanov remarked that if young people were
fools enough to interest themselves in aesthetics, they deserved no pity
whatever, even if Skoropikin did lead them astray.
“Of course,” Paklin exclaimed with some warmth—the less sympathy he met
with, the more heated he became—“I admit that the question is not
a political one, but an important one, nevertheless. According to
Skoropikin, every ancient work of art is valueless because it is old. If
that were true, then art would be reduced to nothing more or less than
mere fashion. A preposterous idea, not worth entertaining. If art has
no firmer foundation than that, if it is not eternal, then it is utterly
useless. Take science, for instance. In mathematics do you look upon
Euler, Laplace, or Gauss as fools? Of course not. You accept their
authority. Then why question the authority of Raphael and Mozart? I must
admit, however, that the laws of art are far more difficult to define
than the laws of nature, but they exist just the same, and he who fails
to see them is blind, whether he shuts his eyes to them purposely or
not.”
Paklin ceased, but no one uttered a word. They all sat with tightly
closed mouths as if feeling unutterably sorry for him.
“All the same,” Ostrodumov remarked, “I am not in the least sorry for
the young people who run after Skoropikin.”
“You are hopeless,” Paklin thought. “I had better be going.”
He went up to Nejdanov, intending to ask his opinion about smuggling
in the magazine, the “Polar Star”, from abroad (the “Bell” had already
ceased to exist), but the conversation took such a turn that it was
impossible to raise the question. Paklin had already taken up his hat,
when suddenly, without the slightest warning, a wonderfully pleasant,
manly baritone was heard from the passage. The very sound of this voice
suggested something gentle, fresh, and well-bred.
“Is Mr. Nejdanov at home?”
They all looked at one another in amazement.
“Is Mr. Nejdanov at home?” the baritone repeated.
“Yes, he is,” Nejdanov replied at last.
The door opened gently and a man of about forty entered the room and
slowly removed his glossy hat from his handsome, closely cropped head.
He was tall and well-made, and dressed in a beautiful cloth coat with
a gorgeous beaver collar, although it was already the end of April. He
impressed Nejdanov and Paklin, and even Mashurina and Ostrodumov,
with his elegant, easy carriage and courteous manner. They all rose
instinctively on his entrance.
III
The elegantly dressed man went up to Nejdanov with an amiable smile
and began: “I have already had the pleasure of meeting you and even
speaking to you, Mr. Nejdanov, the day before yesterday, if you
remember, at the theatre.” (The visitor paused, as though waiting for
Nejdanov to make some remark, but the latter merely bowed slightly and
blushed.) “I have come to see you about your advertisement, which I
noticed in the paper. I should like us to have a talk if your visitors
would not mind....” (He bowed to Mashurina, and waved a grey-gloved
hand in the direction of Paklin and Ostrodumov.)
“Not at all,” Nejdanov replied awkwardly. “Won’t you sit down?”
The visitor bowed from the waist, drew a chair to himself, but did not
sit down, as every one else was standing. He merely gazed around the
room with his bright though half-closed eyes.
“Goodbye, Alexai Dmitritch,” Mashurina exclaimed suddenly. “I will come
again presently.”
“And I too,” Ostrodumov added.
Mashurina did not take the slightest notice of the visitor as she passed
him, but went straight up to Nejdanov, gave him a hearty shake of the
hand, and left the room without bowing to anyone. Ostrodumov followed
her, making an unnecessary noise with his boots, and snorting out once
or twice contemptuously, “There’s a beaver collar for you!”
The visitor accompanied them with a polite though slightly inquisitive
look, and then directed his gaze to Paklin, hoping the latter would
follow their example, but Paklin withdrew into a corner and settled
down. A peculiarly suppressed smile played on his lips ever since the
appearance of the stranger. The visitor and Nejdanov also sat down.
“My name is Sipiagin. You may perhaps have heard of me,” the visitor
began with modest pride.
We must first relate how Nejdanov had met him at the theatre.
There had been a performance of Ostrovsky’s play “Never Sit in Another
Man’s Sledge”, on the occasion of the great actor Sadovsky’s coming from
Moscow. Rusakov, one of the characters in the play, was known to be one
of his favourite parts. Just before dinner on that day, Nejdanov went
down to the theatre to book a ticket, but found a large crowd already
waiting there. He walked up to the desk with the intention of getting a
ticket for the pit, when an officer, who happened to be standing behind
him, thrust a three-rouble note over Nejdanov’s head and called out to
the man inside: “He” (meaning Nejdanov) “will probably want change. I
don’t. Give me a ticket for the stalls, please. Make haste, I’m in a
hurry!”
“Excuse me, sir, I want a ticket for the stalls myself!” Nejdanov
exclaimed, throwing down a three-rouble note, all the ready money
he possessed. He got his ticket, and in the evening appeared in the
aristocratic part of the Alexandrinsky Theatre.
He was badly dressed, without gloves and in dirty boots. He was
uncomfortable and angry with himself for feeling uncomfortable. A
general with numerous orders glittering on his breast sat on his right,
and on his left this same elegant Sipiagin, whose appearance two days
later at Nejdanov’s so astonished Mashurina and Ostrodumov. The general
stared at Nejdanov every now and again, as though at something indecent,
out of place, and offensive. Sipiagin looked at him sideways, but did
not seem unfriendly. All the people surrounding him were evidently
personages of some importance, and as they all knew one another, they
kept exchanging remarks, exclamations, greetings, occasionally even over
Nejdanov’s head. He sat there motionless and ill at ease in his spacious
armchair, feeling like an outcast. Ostrovsky’s play and Sadovsky’s
acting afforded him but little pleasure, and he felt bitter at heart.
When suddenly, Oh wonder! During one of the intervals, his neighbour
on the left, not the glittering general, but the other with no marks
of distinction on his breast, addressed him politely and kindly, but
somewhat timidly. He asked him what he thought of Ostrovsky’s play,
wanted to know his opinion of it as a representative of the new
generation. Nejdanov, overwhelmed and half frightened, his heart beating
fast, answered at first curtly, in monosyllables, but soon began to be
annoyed with his own excitement. “After all,” he thought, “am I not
a man like everybody else?” And began expressing his opinions quite
freely, without any restraint. He got so carried away by his subject,
and spoke so loudly, that he quite alarmed the order-bedecked general.
Nejdanov was a strong admirer of Ostrovsky, but could not help feeling,
in spite of the author’s great genius, his evident desire to throw a
slur on modern civilisation in the burlesqued character of Veherov, in
“Never Sit in Another Man’s Sledge”.
His polite neighbour listened to him attentively, evidently interested
in what he said. He spoke to him again in the next interval, not about
the play this time, but about various matters of everyday life, about
science, and even touched upon political questions. He was decidedly
interested in his eloquent young companion. Nejdanov did not feel in
the least constrained as before, but even began to assume airs, as if
saying, “If you really want to know, I can satisfy your curiosity!” The
general’s annoyance grew to indignation and even suspicion.
After the play Sipiagin took leave of Nejdanov very courteously, but did
not ask his name, neither did he tell him his own. While waiting for his
carriage, he ran against a friend, a certain Prince G., an aide-de-camp.
“I watched you from my box,” the latter remarked, through a perfumed
moustache. “Do you know whom you were speaking to?”
“No. Do you? A rather clever chap. Who is he?”
The prince whispered in his ear in French. “He is my brother...
illegitimate.... His name is Nejdanov. I will tell you all about it
someday. My father did not in the least expect that sort of thing,
that was why he called him Nejdanov. [The unexpected.] But he looked
after him all right. Il lui a fait un sort. We make him an allowance
to live on. He is not stupid. Had quite a good education, thanks to my
father. But he has gone quite off the track—I think he’s a republican.
We refuse to have anything to do with him. Il est impossible. Goodbye,
I see my carriage is waiting.”
The prince separated.
The next day Sipiagin noticed Nejdanov’s advertisement in the paper and
went to see him.
“My name is Sipiagin,” he repeated, as he sat in front of Nejdanov,
surveying him with a dignified air. “I see by your advertisement that
you are looking for a post, and I should like to know if you would be
willing to come to me. I am married and have a boy of eight, a very
intelligent child, I may say. We usually spend the summer and autumn in
the country, in the province of S., about five miles from the town of
that name. I should like you to come to us for the vacation to teach
my boy Russian history and grammar. I think those were the subjects you
mentioned in your advertisement. I think you will get on with us all
right, and I am sure you will like the neighbourhood. We have a large
house and garden, the air is excellent, and there is a river close
by. Well, would you like to come? We shall only have to come to terms,
although I do not think,” he added, with a slight grimace, “that there
will be any difficulty on that point between us.”
Nejdanov watched Sipiagin all the time he was speaking. He gazed at his
small head, bent a little to one side, his low, narrow, but intelligent
forehead, his fine Roman nose, pleasant eyes, straight lips, out of
which his words flowed graciously; he gazed at his drooping whiskers,
kept in the English fashion, gazed and wondered. “What does it all
mean?” he asked himself. “Why has this man come to seek me out? This
aristocrat and I! What have we in common? What does he see in me?”
He was so lost in thought that he did not open his lips when Sipiagin,
having finished speaking, evidently awaited an answer. Sipiagin cast a
look into the corner where Paklin sat, also watching him. “Perhaps the
presence of a third person prevents him from saying what he would
like,” flashed across Sipiagin’s mind. He raised his eyebrows, as if in
submission to the strangeness of the surroundings he had come to of his
own accord, and repeated his question a second time.
Nejdanov started.
“Of course,” he began hurriedly, “I should like to... with
pleasure... only I must confess... I am rather surprised... having no
recommendations... and the views I expressed at the theatre were more
calculated to prejudice you—”
“There you are quite mistaken Alexai—Alexai Dmitritch—have I got the
name right?” Sipiagin asked with a smile. “I may venture to say that I
am well known for my liberal and progressive opinions. On the contrary,
what you said the other evening, with the exception perhaps of any
youthful characteristics, which are always rather given to exaggeration,
if you will excuse my saying so, I fully agreed with, and was even
delighted with your enthusiasm.”
Sipiagin spoke without the slightest hesitation, his words flowing from
him as a stream.
“My wife shares my way of thinking,” he continued, “her views are,
if anything, more like yours than mine, which is not surprising,
considering that she is younger than I am. When I read your name in the
paper the day after our meeting—and by the way, you announced your name
and address contrary to the usual custom—I was rather struck by the
coincidence, having already heard it at the theatre. It seemed to
me like the finger of fate. Excuse my being so superstitious. As for
recommendations, I do not think they are necessary in this case. I, like
you, am accustomed to trusting my intuition. May I hope that you will
come?”
“Yes, I will come,” Nejdanov replied, “and will try to be worthy of your
confidence. But there is one thing I should like to mention. I could
undertake to teach your boy, but am not prepared to look after him. I do
not wish to undertake anything that would interfere with my freedom.”
Sipiagin gave a slight wave of the hand, as if driving away a fly.
“You may be easy on that point. You are not made that way. I only wanted
a tutor, and I have found one. Well, now, how about terms? Financial
terms, that is. Base metal!”
Nejdanov did not know what to say.
“I think,” Sipiagin went on, bending forward and touching Nejdanov with
the tips of his fingers, “that decent people can settle such things in
two words. I will give you a hundred roubles a month and all travelling
expenses. Will you come?”
Nejdanov blushed.
“That is more than I wanted to ask... because I—”
“Well,” Sipiagin interrupted him, “I look upon the matter as settled,
and consider you as a member of our household.” He rose from his
chair, and became quite gay and expansive, as if he had just received a
present. A certain amiable familiarity, verging on the playful, began to
show itself in all his gestures. “We shall set out in a day or two,” he
went on, in an easy tone. “There is nothing I love better than meeting
spring in the country, although I am a busy, prosaic sort of person,
tied to town.... I want you to count your first month as beginning from
today. My wife and boy have already started, and are probably in Moscow
by now. We shall find them in the lap of nature. We will go alone, like
two bachelors, ha, ha!” Sipiagin laughed coquettishly, through his nose.
“And now—”
He took a black and silver pocketbook out of his overcoat pocket and
pulled out a card.
“This is my address. Come and see me tomorrow at about twelve o’clock.
We can talk things over further. I should like to tell you a few of my
views on education. We can also decide when to start.”
Sipiagin took Nejdanov’s hand. “By the way,” he said, lowering his voice
and bending his head a little to one side, “if you are in need of money,
please do not stand on ceremony. I can let you have a month’s pay in
advance.”
Nejdanov was at a loss to know what to say. He gazed, with the same
puzzled expression, at the kind, bright face, which was so strange yet
so close to him, smiling encouragingly.
“You are not in need of any?” Sipiagin asked in a whisper.
“I will tell you tomorrow, if I may,” Nejdanov said at last.
“Well, goodbye, then. Till tomorrow.” Sipiagin dropped Nejdanov’s hand
and turned to go out.
“I should like to know,” Nejdanov asked suddenly, “who told you my name?
You said you heard it at the theatre.”
“Someone who is very well known to you. A relative of yours, I think.
Prince G.”
“The aide-de-camp?”
“Yes.”
Nejdanov flushed even redder than before, but did not say anything.
Sipiagin shook his hand again, without a word this time, then bowing
first to him and then to Paklin, put on his hat at the door, and
went out with a self-satisfied smile on his lips, denoting the deep
impression the visit must have produced upon him.
IV
Sipiagin had barely crossed the threshold when Paklin jumped up, and
rushing across to Nejdanov began showering congratulations upon him.
“What a fine catch!” he exclaimed laughing, scarcely able to stand
still. “Do you know who he is? He’s quite a celebrity, a chamberlain,
one of our pillars of society, a future minister!”
“I have never heard of him,” Nejdanov remarked dejectedly.
Paklin threw up his arms in despair.
“That’s just where we are mistaken, Alexai Dmitritch! We never know
anyone. We want to do things, to turn the whole world upside down,
and are living outside this very world, amidst two or three friends,
jostling each other in our narrow little circle!”
“Excuse me,” Nejdanov put in. “I don’t think that is quite true. We
certainly do not go amongst the enemy, but are constantly mixing with
our own kind, and with the masses.”
“Just a minute!” Paklin interrupted, in his turn. “Talking of enemies
reminds me of Goethe’s lines—
_Wer den Dichter will versteh’n Muss im Dichter’s lande geh’n._
and I say—
_Wer den Feinde will versteh’n Muss im Feinde’s lande geh’n._
To turn one’s back on one’s enemies, not to try and understand their
manner of life, is utterly stupid! Yes, utterly stu-pid! If I want to
shoot a wolf in the forest, I must first find out his haunts. You talked
of coming in contact with the people just now. My dear boy! In 1862 the
Poles formed their revolutionary bands in the forest; we are just about
to enter that same forest, I mean the people, where it is no less dark
and dense than in the other.”
“Then what would you have us do?”
“The Hindus cast themselves under the wheels of the Juggernaut,” Paklin
continued; “they were mangled to pieces and died in ecstasy. We, also,
have our Juggernaut—it crushes and mangles us, but there is no ecstasy
in it.”
“Then what would you have us do?” Nejdanov almost screamed at him.
“Would you have us write preachy novels?”
Paklin folded his arms and put his head on one side.
“You, at any rate, could write novels. You have a decidedly literary
turn of mind. All right, I won’t say anything about it. I know you don’t
like it being mentioned. I know it is not very exciting to write the
sort of stuff wanted, and in the modern style too. ‘“Oh, I love you,”
she bounded—’”
“It’s all the same to me,” he replied, scratching himself.
“That is precisely why I advise you to get to know all sorts and
conditions, beginning from the very highest. We must not be entirely
dependent on people like Ostrodumov! They are very honest, worthy folk,
but so hopelessly stupid! You need only look at our friend. The very
soles of his boots are not like those worn by intelligent people. Why
did he hurry away just now? Only because he did not want to be in the
same room with an aristocrat, to breathe the same air—”
“Please don’t talk like that about Ostrodumov before me!” Nejdanov burst
out. “He wears thick boots because they are cheaper!”
“I did not mean it in that sense,” Paklin began.
“If he did not wish to remain in the same room with an aristocrat,”
Nejdanov continued, raising his voice, “I think it very praiseworthy on
his part, and what is more, he is capable of sacrificing himself, will
face death, if necessary, which is more than you or I will ever do!”
Paklin made a sad grimace, and pointed to his scraggy, crippled legs.
“Now do I look like a warrior, my dear Alexai Dmitritch? But enough of
this. I am delighted that you met this Sipiagin, and can even foresee
something useful to our cause as a result of it. You will find yourself
in the highest society, will come in contact with those wonderful
beauties one hears about, women with velvety bodies on steel springs, as
it says in ‘Letters on Spain’. Get to know them, my dear fellow. If you
were at all inclined to be an Epicurean, I should really be afraid to
let you go. But those are not the objects with which you are going, are
they?”
“I am going away,” Nejdanov said, “to earn my living. And to get away
from you all,” he added to himself.
“Of course, of course! That is why I advise you to learn. Fugh! What a
smell this gentleman has left behind him!” Paklin sniffed the air. “The
very ambrosia that the governor’s wife longed for in Gogol’s ‘Revisor’!”
“He discussed me with Prince G.,” Nejdanov remarked dejectedly. “I
suppose he knows my whole history now.”
“You need not suppose; you may be quite sure of it! But what does it
matter? I wouldn’t mind betting that that was the very reason for his
wanting to engage you. You will be able to hold your own with the best
of them. You are an aristocrat yourself by blood, and consequently
an equal. However, I have stayed too long. I must go back to the
exploiter’s, to my office. Goodbye.”
Paklin went to the door, but stopped and turned back.
“I say, Aliosha,” he began in a persuasive tone of voice, “you have only
just refused me, and I know you will not be short of money now; but, all
the same, do allow me to sacrifice just a little for the cause. I can’t
do anything else, so let me help with my pocket! I have put ten roubles
on the table. Will you take them?”
Nejdanov remained motionless, and did not say anything. “Silence means
consent! Thanks!” Paklin exclaimed gaily and vanished.
Nejdanov was left alone. He continued gazing out into the narrow, gloomy
court, unpenetrated by the sun even in summer, and he felt sad and
gloomy at heart.
We already know that Nejdanov’s father was Prince G., a rich
adjutant-general. His mother was the daughter of the general’s
governess, a pretty girl who died on the day of Nejdanov’s birth. He
received his early education in a boarding school kept by a certain
Swiss, a very energetic and severe pedagogue, after which he entered the
university. His great ambition was to study law, but his father, who
had a violent hatred for nihilists, made him go in for history and
philology, or for “aesthetics” as Nejdanov put it with a bitter smile.
His father used to see him about four times a year in all, but was,
nevertheless, interested in his welfare, and when he died, left him a
sum of six thousand roubles “in memory of Nastinka” his mother. Nejdanov
received the interest on this money from his brothers the Princes G.,
which they were pleased to call an allowance.
Paklin had good reason to call him an aristocrat. Everything about him
betokened his origin. His tiny ears, hands, feet, his small but fine
features, delicate skin, wavy hair; his very voice was pleasant,
although it was slightly guttural. He was highly strung, frightfully
conceited, very susceptible, and even capricious. The false position he
had been placed in from childhood had made him sensitive and irritable,
but his natural generosity had kept him from becoming suspicious
and mistrustful. This same false position was the cause of an utter
inconsistency, which permeated his whole being. He was fastidiously
accurate and horribly squeamish, tried to be cynical and coarse in
his speech, but was an idealist by nature. He was passionate and
pure-minded, bold and timid at the same time, and, like a repentant
sinner, ashamed of his sins; he was ashamed alike of his timidity and
his purity, and considered it his duty to scoff at all idealism. He had
an affectionate heart, but held himself aloof from everybody, was easily
exasperated, but never bore ill-will. He was furious with his father
for having made him take up “aesthetics,” openly interested himself in
politics and social questions, professed the most extreme views (which
meant more to him than mere words), but secretly took a delight in art,
poetry, beauty in all its manifestations, and in his inspired moments
wrote verses. It is true that he carefully hid the copy-book in which
they were written, and none of his St. Petersburg friends, with
the exception of Paklin, and he only by his peculiar intuitiveness,
suspected its existence. Nothing hurt or offended Nejdanov more than the
smallest allusion to his poetry, which he regarded as an unpardonable
weakness in himself. His Swiss schoolmaster had taught him a great many
things, and he was not afraid of hard work. He applied himself readily
and zealously, but did not work consecutively. All his friends loved
him. They were attracted by his natural sense of justice, his kindness,
and his pure-mindedness, but Nejdanov was not born under a lucky star,
and did not find life an easy matter. He was fully conscious of this
fact and felt utterly lonely in spite of the untiring devotion of his
friends.
He stood meditating at the window. Sad, oppressive thoughts rose up in
his mind one after another about the prospective journey, the new and
unexpected change that was coming into his life. He had no regrets at
the thought of leaving St. Petersburg, as he would leave nothing behind
that was especially dear to him, and he knew that he would be back in
the autumn; but he was pervaded by the spirit of indecision, and an
involuntary melancholy came over him.
“A fine tutor I shall make!” flashed across his mind. “Am I cut out for
a schoolmaster?” He was ready to reproach himself for having undertaken
the duties of a tutor, and would have been unjust in doing so. Nejdanov
was sufficiently cultured, and, in spite of his uncertain temperament,
children grew readily fond of him and he of them. His depression was
due to that feeling which takes possession of one before any change
of place, a feeling experienced by all melancholy, dreaming people and
unknown to those of energetic, sanguine temperaments, who always rejoice
at any break in the humdrum of their daily existence, and welcome a
change of abode with pleasure. Nejdanov was so lost in his meditations
that his thoughts began quite unconsciously to take the form of words.
His wandering sensations began to arrange themselves into measured
cadences.
“Damn!” he exclaimed aloud. “I’m wandering off into poetry!” He shook
himself and turned away from the window. He caught sight of Paklin’s
ten-rouble note, put it in his pocket, and began pacing up and down the
room.
“I must get some money in advance,” he thought to himself. “What a good
thing this gentleman suggested it. A hundred roubles... a hundred from
my brothers—their excellencies.... I want fifty to pay my debts, fifty
or seventy for the journey—and the rest Ostrodumov can have. Then there
are Paklin’s ten roubles in addition, and I dare say I can get something
from Merkulov—”
In the midst of these calculations the rhythmic cadences began to
reassert themselves. He stood still, as if rooted to the spot, with
fixed gaze. After a while his hands involuntarily found their way to the
table drawer, from which he pulled out a much-used copy-book. He dropped
into a chair with the same fixed look, humming softly to himself and
every now and again shaking back his wavy hair, began writing line after
line, sometimes scratching out and rewriting.
The door leading into the passage opened slightly and Mashurina’s head
appeared. Nejdanov did not notice her and went on writing. Mashurina
stood looking at him intently for some time, shook her head, and drew
it back again. Nejdanov sat up straight, and suddenly catching sight of
her, exclaimed with some annoyance: “Oh, is that you?” and thrust the
copy-book into the drawer again.
Mashurina came into the room with a firm step.
“Ostrodumov asked me to come,” she began deliberately.
“He would like to know when we can have the money. If you could get it
today, we could start this evening.”
“I can’t get it today,” Nejdanov said with a frown. “Please come
tomorrow.”
“At what time?”
“Two o’clock.”
“Very well.”
Mashurina was silent for a while and then extended her hand.
“I am afraid I interrupted you. I am so sorry. But then... I am going
away... who knows if we shall ever meet again.... I wanted to say
goodbye to you.”
Nejdanov pressed her cold, red fingers. “You know the man who was here
today,” he began. “I have come to terms with him, and am going with him.
His place is down in the province of S., not far from the town itself.”
A glad smile lit up Mashurina’s face.
“Near S. did you say? Then we may see each other again perhaps. They
might send us there!” Mashurina sighed. “Oh, Alexai Dmitritch—”
“What is it?” Nejdanov asked.
Mashurina looked intense.
“Oh, nothing. Goodbye. It’s nothing.” She squeezed Nejdanov’s hand a
second time and went out.
“There is not a soul in St. Petersburg who is so attached to me as
this eccentric person,” he thought. “I wish she had not interrupted me
though. However, I suppose it’s for the best.”
The next morning Nejdanov called at Sipiagin’s townhouse and was shown
into a magnificent study, furnished in a rather severe style, but
quite in keeping with the dignity of a statesman of liberal views. The
gentleman himself was sitting before an enormous bureau, piled up
with all sorts of useless papers, arrayed in the strictest order, and
numerous ivory paper-knives, which had never been known to cut anything.
During the space of an hour Nejdanov listened to the wise, courteous,
patronising speeches of his host, received a hundred roubles, and ten
days later was leaning back in the plush seat of a reserved first-class
compartment, side by side with this same wise, liberal politician, being
borne along to Moscow on the jolting lines of the Nikolaevsky Railway.
V
In the drawing room of a large stone house with a Greek front—built in
the twenties of the present century by Sipiagin’s father, a
well-known landowner, who was distinguished by the free use of his
fists—Sipiagin’s wife, Valentina Mihailovna, a very beautiful woman,
having been informed by telegram of her husband’s arrival, sat expecting
him every moment. The room was decorated in the best modern taste.
Everything in it was charming and inviting, from the walls hung in
variegated cretonne and beautiful curtains, to the various porcelain,
bronze, and crystal knickknacks arranged upon the tables and cabinets;
the whole blending together into a subdued harmony and brightened by
the rays of the May sun, which was streaming in through the wide-open
windows. The still air, laden with the scent of lily-of-the-valley
(large bunches of these beautiful spring flowers were placed about the
room), was stirred from time to time by a slight breeze from without,
blowing gently over the richly grown garden.
What a charming picture! And the mistress herself, Valentina Mihailovna
Sipiagina, put the finishing touch to it, gave it meaning and life. She
was a tall woman of about thirty, with dark brown hair, a fresh dark
complexion, resembling the Sistine Madonna, with wonderfully deep,
velvety eyes. Her pale lips were somewhat too full, her shoulders
perhaps too square, her hands rather too large, but, for all that,
anyone seeing her as she flitted gracefully about the drawing room,
bending from her slender waist to sniff at the flowers with a smile on
her lips, or arranging some Chinese vase, or quickly readjusting her
glossy hair before the looking-glass, half-closing her wonderful eyes,
anyone would have declared that there could not be a more fascinating
creature.
A pretty curly-haired boy of about nine burst into the room and stopped
suddenly on catching sight of her. He was dressed in a Highland costume,
his legs bare, and was very much befrizzled and pomaded.
“What do you want, Kolia?” Valentina Mihailovna asked. Her voice was as
soft and velvety as her eyes.
“Mamma,” the boy began in confusion, “auntie sent me to get some
lilies-of-the-valley for her room.... She hasn’t got any—”
Valentina Mihailovna put her hand under her little boy’s chin and raised
his pomaded head.
“Tell auntie that she can send to the gardener for flowers. These are
mine. I don’t want them to be touched. Tell her that I don’t like to
upset my arrangements. Can you repeat what I said?”
“Yes, I can,” the boy whispered.
“Well, repeat it then.”
“I will say... I will say... that you don’t want.”
Valentina Mihailovna laughed, and her laugh, too, was soft.
“I see that one can’t give you messages as yet. But never mind, tell her
anything you like.”
The boy hastily kissed his mother’s hand, adorned with rings, and rushed
out of the room.
Valentina Mihailovna looked after him, sighed, walked up to a golden
wire cage, on one side of which a green parrot was carefully holding
on with its beak and claws. She teased it a little with the tip of her
finger, then dropped on to a narrow couch, and picking up a number of
the “Revue des Deux Mondes” from a round carved table, began turning
over its pages.
A respectful cough made her look round. A handsome servant in livery and
a white cravat was standing by the door.
“What do you want, Agafon?” she asked in the same soft voice.
“Simion Petrovitch Kollomietzev is here. Shall I show him in?”
“Certainly. And tell Mariana Vikentievna to come to the drawing room.”
Valentina Mihailovna threw the “Revue des Deux Mondes” on the table,
raised her eyes upwards as if thinking—a pose which suited her
extremely.
From the languid, though free and easy, way in which Simion Petrovitch
Kollomietzev, a young man of thirty-two, entered the room; from the way
in which he brightened suddenly, bowed slightly to one side, and drew
himself up again gracefully; from the manner in which he spoke, not
too harshly, nor too gently; from the respectful way in which he kissed
Valentina Mihailovna’s hand, one could see that the new-comer was not
a mere provincial, an ordinary rich country neighbour, but a St.
Petersburg grandee of the highest society. He was dressed in the latest
English fashion. A corner of the coloured border of his white cambric
pocket handkerchief peeped out of the breast pocket of his tweed coat,
a monocle dangled on a wide black ribbon, the pale tint of his suede
gloves matched his grey checked trousers. He was clean shaven, and his
hair was closely cropped. His features were somewhat effeminate, with
his large eyes, set close together, his small flat nose, full red lips,
betokening the amiable disposition of a well-bred nobleman. He was
effusion itself, but very easily turned spiteful, and even vulgar, when
any one dared to annoy him, or to upset his religious, conservative,
or patriotic principles. Then he became merciless. All his elegance
vanished like smoke, his soft eyes assumed a cruel expression, ugly
words would flow from his beautiful mouth, and he usually got the best
of an argument by appealing to the authorities.
His family had once been simple gardeners. His great-grandfather
was called Kolomientzov after the place in which he was born; his
grandfather used to sign himself Kolomietzev; his father added another
_l_ and wrote himself Kollomietzev, and finally Simion Petrovitch
considered himself to be an aristocrat of the bluest blood, with
pretensions to having descended from the well-known Barons von
Gallenmeier, one of whom had been a field-marshal in the Thirty Years’
War. Simion Petrovitch was a chamberlain, and served in the ministerial
court. His patriotism had prevented him from entering the diplomatic
service, for which he was cut out by his personal appearance,
education, knowledge of the world, and his success with women. _Mais
quitter la Russie? Jamais!_ Kollomietzev was rich and had a great many
influential friends. He passed for a promising, reliable young man _un
peu fèodal dans ses opinions_, as Prince B. said of him, and Prince
B. was one of the leading lights in St. Petersburg official circles.
Kollomietzev had come away on a two months’ leave to look after his
estate, that is, to threaten and oppress his peasants a little more.
“You can’t get on without that!” he used to say.
“I thought that your husband would have been here by now,” he began,
rocking himself from one leg to the other. He suddenly drew himself up
and looked down sideways—a very dignified pose.
Valentina Mihailovna made a grimace.
“Would you not have come otherwise?”
Kollomietzev drew back a pace, horrified at the imputation.
“Valentina Mihailovna!” he exclaimed. “How can you possibly say such a
thing?”
“Well, never mind. Sit down. My husband will be here soon. I have sent
the carriage to the station to meet him. If you wait a little, you will
be rewarded by seeing him. What time is it?”
“Half-past two,” Kollomietzev replied, taking a large gold enamelled
watch out of his waistcoat pocket and showing it to Valentina
Mihailovna. “Have you seen this watch? A present from Michael, the
Servian Prince Obrenovitch. Look, here are his initials. We are great
friends—go out hunting a lot together. Such a splendid fellow, with an
iron hand, just what an administrator ought to be. He will never allow
himself to be made a fool of. Not he! Oh dear no!”
Kollomietzev dropped into an armchair, crossed his legs, and began
leisurely pulling off his left glove.
“We are badly in need of such a man as Michael in our province here,” he
remarked.
“Why? Are you dissatisfied with things here?”
Kollomietzev made a wry face.
“It’s this abominable county council! What earthly use is it? Only
weakens the government and sets people thinking the wrong way.” (He
gesticulated with his left hand, freed from the pressure of the glove.)
“And arouses false hopes.” (Kollomietzev blew on his hand.) “I have
already mentioned this in St. Petersburg, _mais bah!_ they won’t listen to
me. Even your husband—but then he is known to be a confirmed liberal!”
Valentina Mihailovna sat up straight.
“What do I hear? You opposed to the government, Monsieur Kollomietzev?”
“I—not in the least! Never! What an idea! _Mais j’ai mon franc parler._
I occasionally allow myself to criticise, but am always obedient.”
“And I, on the contrary, never criticise and am never obedient.”
“_Ah! Mais c’est un mot!_ Do let me repeat it to my friend _Ladislas_.
_Vous savez_, he is writing a society novel, read me some of it.
Charming! _Nous aurons enfin le grand monde russe peint par lui-même.”_
“Where is it to be published?”
“In the ‘Russian Messenger’, of course. It is our ‘Revue des Deux
Mondes’. I see you take it, by the way.”
“Yes, but I think it rather dull of late.”
“Perhaps, perhaps it is. ‘The Russian Messenger’, too, has also gone off
a bit,” using a colloquial expression.
Kollomietzev laughed. It amused him to have said “gone off a bit.” _“Mais
c’est un journal qui se respecte,”_ he continued, “and that is the main
thing. I am sorry to say that I interest myself very little in Russian
literature nowadays. It has grown so horribly vulgar. A cook is now
made the heroine of a novel. A mere cook, _parole d’honneur_! Of course,
I shall read Ladislas’ novel. _Il y aura le petit mot pour rire_, and he
writes with a purpose! He will completely crush the nihilists, and I
quite agree with him. His ideas _sont très correctes_.”
“That is more than can be said of his past,” Valentina Mihailovna
remarked.
_“Ah! jeton une voile sur les erreurs de sa jeunesse!”_ Kollomietzev
exclaimed, pulling off his other glove.
Valentina Mihailovna half-closed her exquisite eyes and looked at him
coquettishly.
“Simion Petrovitch!” she exclaimed, “why do you use so many French words
when speaking Russian? It seems to me rather old-fashioned, if you will
excuse my saying so.”
“But, my dear lady, not everyone is such a master of our native tongue
as you are, for instance. I have a very great respect for the
Russian language. There is nothing like it for giving commands or for
governmental purposes. I like to keep it pure and uncorrupted by other
languages and bow before Karamzin; but as for an everyday language, how
can one use Russian? For instance, how would you say, in Russian, _de
tout à l’heure, c’est un mot_? You could not possibly say ‘this is a
word,’ could you?”
“You might say ‘a happy expression.’”
Kollomietzev laughed.
“A happy expression! My dear Valentina Mihailovna. Don’t you feel that
it savours of the schoolroom; that all the salt has gone out of it?”
“I am afraid you will not convince me. I wonder where Mariana is?” She
rang the bell and a servant entered.
“I asked to have Mariana Vikentievna sent here. Has she not been told?”
The servant had scarcely time to reply when a young girl appeared behind
him in the doorway. She had on a loose dark blouse, and her hair was
cut short. It was Mariana Vikentievna Sinitska, Sipiagin’s niece on the
mother’s side.
VI
“I am sorry, Valentina Mihailovna,” Mariana said, drawing near to her,
“I was busy and could not get away.”
She bowed to Kollomietzev and withdrew into a corner, where she sat down
on a little stool near the parrot, who began flapping its wings as soon
as it caught sight of her.
“Why so far away, Mariana?” Valentina Mihailovna asked, looking after
her. “Do you want to be near your little friend? Just think, Simion
Petrovitch,” she said, turning to Kollomietzev, “our parrot has simply
fallen in love with Mariana!”
“I don’t wonder at it!”
“But he simply can’t bear me!”
“How extraordinary! Perhaps you tease him.”
“Oh, no, I never tease him. On the contrary, I feed him with sugar.
But he won’t take anything out of my hand. It is a case of sympathy and
antipathy.”
Mariana looked sternly at Valentina Mihailovna and Valentina Mihailovna
looked at her. These two women did not love one another.
Compared to her aunt Mariana seemed plain. She had a round face, a large
aquiline nose, big bright grey eyes, fine eyebrows, and thin lips.
Her thick brown hair was cut short; she seemed retiring, but there was
something strong and daring, impetuous and passionate, in the whole of
her personality. She had tiny little hands and feet, and her healthy,
lithesome little figure reminded one of a Florentine statuette of the
sixteenth century. Her movements were free and graceful.
Mariana’s position in the Sipiagin’s house was a very difficult one. Her
father, a brilliant man of Polish extraction, who had attained the rank
of general, was discovered to have embezzled large state funds. He
was tried and convicted, deprived of his rank, nobility, and exiled
to Siberia. After some time he was pardoned and returned, but was too
utterly crushed to begin life anew, and died in extreme poverty. His
wife, Sipiagin’s sister, did not survive the shock of the disgrace and
her husband’s death, and died soon after. Uncle Sipiagin gave a home to
their only child, Mariana. She loathed her life of dependence and longed
for freedom with all the force of her upright soul. There was a constant
inner battle between her and her aunt. Valentina Mihailovna looked upon
her as a nihilist and freethinker, and Mariana detested her aunt as
an unconscious tyrant. She held aloof from her uncle and, indeed, from
everyone else in the house. She held aloof, but was not afraid of them.
She was not timid by nature.
“Antipathy is a strange thing,” Kollomietzev repeated. “Everybody knows
that I am a deeply religious man, orthodox in the fullest sense of the
word, but the sight of a priest’s flowing locks drives me nearly mad. It
makes me boil over with rage.”
“I believe hair in general has an irritating effect upon you, Simion
Petrovitch,” Mariana remarked. “I feel sure you can’t bear to see it cut
short like mine.”
Valentina Mihailovna lifted her eyebrows slowly, then dropped her head,
as if astonished at the freedom with which modern young girls entered
into conversation. Kollomietzev smiled condescendingly.
“Of course,” he said, “I can’t help feeling sorry for beautiful curls
such as yours, Mariana Vikentievna, falling under the merciless snip of
a pair of scissors, but it doesn’t arouse antipathy in me. In any case,
your example might even ... even ... convert me!”
Kollomietzev could not think of a Russian word, and did not like using a
French one, after what his hostess had said.
“Thank heaven,” Valentina Mihailovna remarked, “Mariana does not wear
glasses and has not yet discarded collars and cuffs; but, unfortunately,
she studies natural history, and is even interested in the woman
question. Isn’t that so, Mariana?”
This was evidently said to make Mariana feel uncomfortable, but Mariana,
however, did not feel uncomfortable.
“Yes, auntie,” she replied, “I read everything I can get hold of on the
subject. I am trying to understand the woman question.”
“There is youth for you!” Valentina Mihailovna exclaimed, turning to
Kollomietzev. “Now you and I are not at all interested in that sort of
thing, are we?”
Kollomietzev smiled good-naturedly; he could not help entering into the
playful mood of his amiable hostess.
“Mariana Vikentievna,” he began, “is still full of the ideals.. . the
romanticism of youth ... which ... in time—”
“Heaven, I was unjust to myself,” Valentina Mihailovna interrupted him;
“I am also interested in these questions. I am not quite an old lady
yet.”
“Of course. So am I in a way,” Kollomietzev put in hastily. “Only I
would forbid such things being talked about!”
“Forbid them being talked about?” Mariana asked in astonishment.
“Yes! I would say to the public, ‘Interest yourselves in these things as
much as you like, but talk about them ... sh.’” He layed his finger
on his lips.
“I would, at any rate, forbid speaking through _the press_ under any
conditions!”
Valentina Mihailovna laughed.
“What? Would you have a commission appointed by the ministers for
settling these questions?”
“Why not? Don’t you think we could do it better than these ignorant,
hungry loafers who know nothing and imagine themselves to be men of
genius? We could appoint Boris Andraevitch as president.”
Valentina Mihailovna laughed louder still.
“You had better take care, Boris Andraevitch is sometimes such a
Jacobin—”
“Jacko, jacko, jacko,” the parrot screamed. Valentina Mihailovna waved
her handkerchief at him. “Don’t interrupt an intelligent conversation!
Mariana, do teach him manners!”
Mariana turned to the cage and began stroking the parrot’s neck with her
finger; the parrot stretched towards her.
“Yes,” Valentina Mihailovna continued, “Boris Andraevitch astonishes me,
too, sometimes. There is a certain strain in him... a certain strain...
of the tribune.”
_“C’est parce qu’il est orateur!”_ Kollomietzev exclaimed
enthusiastically in French. “Your husband is a marvellous orator and is
accustomed to success ... _ses propres paroles le grisent_ ... and then
his desire for popularity.... By the way, he is rather annoyed just now,
is he not? _Il boude?_ Eh?”
Valentina Mihailovna looked at Mariana.
“I haven’t noticed it,” she said after a pause. “Yes,” Kollomietzev
continued pensively, “he was rather overlooked at Easter.”
Valentina Mihailovna indicated Mariana with her eyes. Kollomietzev
smiled and screwed up his eyes, conveying to her that he understood.
“Mariana Vikentievna,” he exclaimed suddenly, in an unnecessarily loud
tone of voice, “do you intend teaching at the school again this year?”
Mariana turned round from the cage.
“Are you interested to know, Simion Petrovitch?”
“Certainly. I am very much interested.”
“Would you forbid it?”
“I would forbid nihilists even so much as to think of schools. I would
put all schools into the hands of the clergy, and with an eye on them I
wouldn’t mind running one myself!”
“Really! I haven’t the slightest idea what I shall do this year. Last
year things were not at all successful. Besides, how can you get a
school together in the summer?”
Mariana blushed deeply all the time she was speaking, as if it cost her
some effort. She was still very self-conscious.
“Are you not sufficiently prepared?” Valentina Mihailovna asked
sarcastically.
“Perhaps not.”
“Heavens!” Kollomietzev exclaimed. “What do I hear? Oh ye gods! Is
preparation necessary to teach peasants the alphabet?”
At this moment Kolia ran into the drawing room shouting “Mamma! mamma!
Papa has come!” And after him, waddling on her stout little legs,
appeared an old grey-haired lady in a cap and yellow shawl, and also
announced that Boris had come.
This lady was Sipiagin’s aunt, and was called Anna Zaharovna. Everyone
in the drawing room rushed out into the hall, down the stairs, and on
to the steps of the portico. A long avenue of chipped yews ran straight
from these steps to the high road—a carriage and four was already
rolling up the avenue straight towards them. Valentina Mihailovna,
standing in front, waved her pocket handkerchief, Kolia shrieked with
delight, the coachman adroitly pulled up the steaming horses, a footman
came down headlong from the box and almost pulled the carriage door
off its hinges in his effort to open it—and then, with a condescending
smile on his lips, in his eyes, over the whole of his face, Boris
Andraevitch, with one graceful gesture of the shoulders, dropped his
cloak and sprang to the ground. Valentina Mihailovna gracefully threw
her arms round his neck and they kissed three times. Kolia stamped
his little feet and pulled at his father’s coat from behind, but
Boris Andraevitch first kissed Anna Zaharovna, quickly threw off his
uncomfortable, ugly Scotch cap, greeted Mariana and Kollomietzev, who
had also come out (he gave Kollomietzev a hearty shake of the hand in
the English fashion), and then turned to his little son, lifted him
under the arms, and kissed him.
During this scene Nejdanov half guiltily scrambled out of the carriage
and, without removing his cap, stood quietly near the front wheel,
looking out from under his eyebrows. Valentina Mihailovna, when
embracing her husband, had cast a penetrating look over his shoulder at
this new figure. Sipiagin had informed her that he was bringing a tutor.
Everyone continued exchanging greetings and shaking hands with the
newly-arrived host as they all moved up the broad stairs, lined on
either side with the principal men and maid servants. They did not come
forward to kiss the master’s hand (an Asiatic custom they had abandoned
long ago), but bowed respectfully. Sipiagin responded to their
salutations with a slight movement of the nose and eyebrows, rather than
an inclination of the head.
Nejdanov followed the stream up the wide stairs. As soon as they reached
the hall, Sipiagin, who had been searching for Nejdanov with his eyes,
introduced him to his wife, Anna Zaharovna, and Mariana, and said to
Kolia, “This is your tutor. Mind you do as he tells you. Give him your
hand.” Kolia extended his hand timidly, stared at him fixedly, but
finding nothing particularly interesting about his tutor, turned to his
“papa” again. Nejdanov felt uncomfortable, just as he had done at the
theatre. He wore an old shabby coat, and his face and hands were covered
with dust from the journey. Valentina Mihailovna said something kindly
to him, but he did not quite catch what it was and did not reply.
He noticed that she was very bright, and clung to her husband
affectionately. He did not like Kolia’s befrizzled and pomaded head, and
when his eye fell on Kollomietzev, thought, “What a sleek individual.” He
paid no attention to the others. Sipiagin turned his head once or twice
in a dignified manner, as if looking round at his worldly belongings, a
pose that set off to perfection his long drooping whiskers and somewhat
small round neck. Then he shouted to one of the servants in a loud
resonant voice, not at all husky from the journey, “Ivan! Take this
gentleman to the green room and see to his luggage afterwards!” He then
told Nejdanov that he could change and rest awhile, and that dinner
would be served at five o’clock. Nejdanov bowed and followed Ivan to the
“green” room, which was situated on the second floor.
The whole company went into the drawing room. The host was welcomed all
over again. An old blind nurse appeared and made him a courtesy. Out of
consideration for her years, Sipiagin gave her his hand to kiss. He
then begged Kollomietzev to excuse him, and retired to his own room
accompanied by his wife.
VII
The room into which the servant conducted Nejdanov was beautifully neat
and spacious, with wide-open windows looking on to the garden. A gentle
breeze stirred the white curtains, blowing them out high like sails
and letting them fall again. Golden reflections glided lightly over the
ceiling; the whole room was filled with the moist freshness of spring.
Nejdanov dismissed the servant, unpacked his trunk, washed, and changed.
The journey had thoroughly exhausted him. The constant presence of a
stranger during the last two days, the many fruitless discussions, had
completely upset his nerves. A certain bitterness, which was neither
boredom nor anger, accumulated mysteriously in the depths of his being.
He was annoyed with himself for his lack of courage, but his heart
ached. He went up to the window and looked out into the garden. It was
an old-fashioned garden, with rich dark soil, such as one rarely sees
around Moscow, laid out on the slope of a hill into four separate parts.
In front of the house there was a flower garden, with straight gravel
paths, groups of acacias and lilac, and round flower beds. To the left,
past the stable yard, as far down as the barn, there was an orchard,
thickly planted with apples, pears, plums, currants, and raspberries.
Beyond the flower garden, in front of the house, there was a large
square walk, thickly interlaced with lime trees. To the right, the view
was shut out by an avenue of silver poplars; a glimpse of an orangery
could be seen through a group of weeping willows. The whole garden was
clothed in its first green leaves; the loud buzz of summer insects
was not yet heard; the leaves rustled gently, chaffinches twittered
everywhere; two doves sat cooing on a tree; the note of a solitary
cuckoo was heard first in one place, then in another; the friendly
cawing of rooks was carried from the distance beyond the mill pond,
sounding like the creaking of innumerable cart wheels. Light clouds
floated dreamily over this gentle stillness, spreading themselves out
like the breasts of some huge, lazy birds.
Nejdanov gazed and listened, drinking in the cool air through
half-parted lips.
His depression left him and a wonderful calmness entered his soul.
Meanwhile he was being discussed in the bedroom below. Sipiagin was
telling his wife how he had met him, what Prince G. had said of him, and
the gist of their talks on the journey.
“A clever chap!” he repeated, “and well educated, too. It’s true he’s a
revolutionist, but what does it matter? These people are ambitious, at
any rate. As for Kolia, he is too young to be spoiled by any of this
nonsense.”
Valentina Mihailovna listened to her husband affectionately; an amused
smile played on her lips, as if he were telling her of some naughty
amusing prank. It was pleasant to her to think that her _seigneur et
maître_, such a respectable man, of important position, could be as
mischievous as a boy of twenty. Standing before the looking-glass in a
snow-white shirt and blue silk braces, Sipiagin was brushing his hair
in the English fashion with two brushes, while Valentina Mihailovna,
her feet tucked under her, was sitting on a narrow Turkish couch,
telling him various news about the house, the paper mill, which, alas,
was not going well, as was to be expected; about the possibilities of
changing the cook, about the church, of which the plaster had come off;
about Mariana, Kollomietzev....
Between husband and wife there existed the fullest confidence and good
understanding; they certainly lived in “love and harmony,” as people
used to say in olden days. When Sipiagin, after finishing his toilet,
asked chivalrously for his wife’s hand and she gave him both, and
watched him with an affectionate pride as he kissed them in turn, the
feeling expressed in their faces was good and true, although in her it
shone out of a pair of eyes worthy of Raphael, and in him out of the
ordinary eyes of a mere official.
On the stroke of five Nejdanov went down to dinner, which was announced
by a Chinese gong, not by a bell. The whole company was already
assembled in the dining room. Sipiagin welcomed him again from behind
his high cravat, and showed him to a place between Anna Zaharovna and
Kolia. Anna Zaharovna was an old maid, a sister of Sipiagin’s father;
she exhaled a smell of camphor, like a garment that had been put away
for a long time, and had a nervous, dejected look. She had acted as
Kolia’s nurse or governess, and her wrinkled face expressed displeasure
when Nejdanov sat down between her and her charge. Kolia looked sideways
at his new neighbour; the intelligent boy soon saw that his tutor was
shy and uncomfortable, that he did not raise his eyes, and scarcely ate
anything. This pleased Kolia, who had been afraid that his tutor would
be cross and severe. Valentina Mihailovna also watched Nejdanov.
“He looks like a student,” she thought to herself. “He’s not accustomed
to society, but has a very interesting face, and the colour of his hair
is like that of the apostle whose hair the old Italian masters always
painted red—and his hands are clean!” Indeed, everybody at the table
stared at Nejdanov, but they had mercy on him, and left him in peace
for the time being. He was conscious of this, and was pleased and angry
about it at the same time.
Sipiagin and Kollomietzev carried on the conversation. They talked about
the county council, the governor, the highway tax, the peasants buying
out the land, about mutual Moscow and St. Petersburg acquaintances,
Katkov’s lyceum, which was just coming into fashion, about the
difficulty of getting labour, penalties, and damage caused by cattle,
even of Bismarck, the war of 1866, and Napoleon III., whom Kollomietzev
called a hero. Kollomietzev gave vent to the most retrograde opinions,
going so far as to propose, in jest it is true, a toast given by a
certain friend of his on a names-day banquet, “I drink to the only
principle I acknowledge, the whip and Roedeger!”
Valentina Mihailovna frowned, and remarked that it was _de très mauvais
goût_.
Sipiagin, on the contrary, expressed the most liberal views, refuted
Kollomietzev’s arguments politely, though with a certain amount of
disdain, and even chaffed him a little.
“Your terror of emancipation, my dear Simion Petrovitch,” he said, “puts
me in mind of our much respected friend, Alexai Ivanovitch Tveritinov,
and the petition he sent in, in the year 1860. He insisted on reading
it in every drawing room in St. Petersburg. There was one rather good
sentence in it about our liberated serf, who was to march over the face
of the fatherland bearing a torch in his hand. You should have seen our
dear Alexai Ivanovitch, blowing out his cheeks and blinking his little
eyes, pronounce in his babyish voice, ‘T-torch! t-torch! Will march with
a t-torch!’ Well, the emancipation is now an established fact, but where
is the peasant with the torch?”
“Tveritinov was only slightly wrong,” Kollomietzev said solemnly. “Not
the peasants will march with the torch, but others.”
At the words, Nejdanov, who until then had scarcely noticed Mariana,
who sat a little to one side, exchanged glances with her, and instantly
felt that this solemn girl and he were of the same convictions, of the
same stamp. She had made no impression on him whatever when Sipiagin
had introduced them; then why did he exchange glances with her in
particular? He wondered if it was not disgraceful to sit and listen
to such views without protesting and by reason of his silence letting
others think that he shared them. Nejdanov looked at Mariana a second
time, and her eyes seemed to say, “Wait a while... the time is not
ripe.... It isn’t worth it... later on... there is plenty of time in
store.”
He was happy to think that she understood him, and began following the
conversation again. Valentina Mihailovna supported her husband, and was,
if anything, even more radical in her expressions than he. She could not
understand, “simply could not un-der-stand, how an educated young man
could hold such antiquated views.”
“However,” she added, “I am convinced that you only say these things for
the sake of argument. And you, Alexai Dmitritch,” she added to Nejdanov,
with a smile (he wondered how she had learned his Christian name and
his father’s name), “I know, do not share Simion Petrovitch’s fears; my
husband told me about your talks on the journey.”
Nejdanov blushed, bent over his plate, and mumbled something; he did not
feel shy, but was simply unaccustomed to conversing with such brilliant
personages. Madame Sipiagin continued smiling to him; her husband nodded
his head patronisingly. Kollomietzev stuck his monocle between his
eyebrow and nose and stared at the student who dared not to share his
“fears.” But it was difficult to embarrass Nejdanov in this way; on the
contrary, he instantly sat up straight, and in his turn fixed his
gaze on the fashionable official. Just as instinctively as he had
felt Mariana to be a comrade, so he felt Kollomietzev to be an enemy!
Kollomietzev felt it too; he removed his monocle, turned away, and
tried to laugh carelessly—but it did not come off somehow. Only Anna
Zaharovna, who secretly worshipped him, was on his side, and became even
angrier than before with the unwelcome neighbour separating her from
Kolia.
Soon after this dinner came to an end. The company went out on the
terrace to drink coffee. Sipiagin and Kollomietzev lit up cigars.
Sipiagin offered Nejdanov a regalia, but the latter refused.
“Why, of course!” Sipiagin exclaimed; “I’ve forgotten that you only
smoke your own particular cigarettes!”
“A curious taste!” Kollomietzev muttered between his teeth.
Nejdanov very nearly burst out, “I know the difference between a regalia
and a cigarette quite well, but I don’t want to be under an obligation
to anyone!” but he contained himself and held his peace. He put down
this second piece of insolence to his enemy’s account.
“Mariana!” Madame Sipiagin suddenly called, “don’t be on ceremony with
our new friend... smoke your cigarette if you like. All the more so,
as I hear,” she added, turning to Nejdanov, “that among you all young
ladies smoke.”
“Yes,” Nejdanov remarked dryly. This was the first remark he had made to
Madame Sipiagina.
“I don’t smoke,” she continued, screwing up her velvety eyes
caressingly. “I suppose I am behind the times.”
Mariana slowly and carefully took out a cigarette, a box of matches,
and began to smoke, as if on purpose to spite her aunt. Nejdanov took a
light from Mariana and also began smoking.
It was a beautiful evening. Kolia and Anna Zaharovna went into the
garden; the others remained for some time longer on the terrace enjoying
the fresh air. The conversation was very lively. Kollomietzev condemned
modern literature, and on this subject, too, Sipiagin showed himself
a liberal. He insisted on the utter freedom and independence of
literature, pointed out its uses, instanced Chateaubriand, whom the
Emperor Alexander Pavlitch had invested with the order of St. Andrew!
Nejdanov did not take part in the discussion; Madame Sipiagina watched
him with an expression of approval and surprise at his modesty.
They all went in to drink tea in the drawing room.
“Alexai Dmitritch,” Sipiagin said to Nejdanov, “we are addicted to the
bad habit of playing cards in the evening, and even play a forbidden
game, stukushka.... I won’t ask you to join us, but perhaps Mariana will
be good enough to play you something on the piano. You like music, I
hope.” And without waiting for an answer Sipiagin took up a pack of
cards. Mariana sat down at the piano and played, rather indifferently,
several of Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words”. _Charmant! Charmant! quel
touché!_ Kollomietzev called out from the other end of the room, but
the exclamation was only due to politeness, and Nejdanov, in spite of
Sipiagin’s remark, showed no passion for music.
Meanwhile Sipiagin, his wife, Kollomietzev, and Anna Zaharovna sat
down to cards. Kolia came to say goodnight, and, receiving his parents’
blessing and a large glass of milk instead of tea, went off to bed. His
father called after him to inform him that tomorrow he was to begin his
lessons with Alexai Dmitritch. A little later, seeing Nejdanov wandering
aimlessly about the room and turning over the photographic albums,
apparently without any interest, Sipiagin begged him not to be on
ceremony and retire if he wished, as he was probably tired after the
journey, and to remember that the ruling principle of their house was
liberty.
Nejdanov took advantage of this and bowing to all present went out. In
the doorway he knocked against Mariana, and, looking into her eyes, was
convinced a second time that they would be comrades, although she
showed no sign of pleasure at seeing him, but, on the contrary, frowned
heavily.
When he went in, his room was filled with a sweet freshness; the windows
had stood wide open all day. In the garden, opposite his window, a
nightingale was trilling out its sweet song; the evening sky became
covered with the warm glow of the rising moon behind the rounded tops of
the lime trees. Nejdanov lit a candle; a grey moth fluttered in from the
dark garden straight to the flame; she circled round it, whilst a gentle
breeze from without blew on them both, disturbing the yellow-bluish
flame of the candle.
“How strange!” Nejdanov thought, lying in bed; “they seem good,
liberal-minded people, even humane... but I feel so troubled in my
heart. This chamberlain... Kollomietzev.... However, morning is wiser
than evening.... It’s no good being sentimental.”
At this moment the watchman knocked loudly with his stick and called
out, “I say there—”
“Take care,” answered another doleful voice. “Fugh! Heavens! It’s like
being in prison!” Nejdanov exclaimed.
VIII
Nejdanov awoke early and, without waiting for a servant, dressed and
went out into the garden. It was very large and beautiful this garden,
and well kept. Hired labourers were scraping the paths with their
spades, through the bright green shrubs a glimpse of kerchiefs could
be seen on the heads of the peasant girls armed with rakes. Nejdanov
wandered down to the pond; the early morning mist had already lifted,
only a few curves in its banks still remained in obscurity. The sun, not
yet far above the horizon, threw a rosy light over the steely silkiness
of its broad surface. Five carpenters were busy about the raft, a
newly-painted boat was lightly rocking from side to side, creating a
gentle ripple over the water. The men rarely spoke, and then in somewhat
preoccupied tones. Everything was submerged in the morning stillness,
and everyone was occupied with the morning work; the whole gave one a
feeling of order and regularity of everyday life. Suddenly, at the other
end of the avenue, Nejdanov got a vision of the very incarnation of
order and regularity—Sipiagin himself.
He wore a brown coat, something like a dressing gown, and a checkered
cap; he was leaning on an English bamboo cane, and his newly-shaven face
shone with satisfaction; he was on the round of inspecting his estate.
Sipiagin greeted Nejdanov kindly.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “I see you are one of the early birds!” (He
evidently wanted to express his approval by this old saying, which was
a little out of place, of the fact that Nejdanov, like himself, did not
like lying in bed long.) “At eight o’clock we all take tea in the dining
room, and we usually breakfast at twelve. I should like you to give
Kolia his first lesson in Russian grammar at ten o’clock, and a lesson
in history at two. I don’t want him to have any lessons tomorrow, as it
will be his name-day, but I would like you to begin today.”
Nejdanov bowed his head, and Sipiagin took leave of him in the French
fashion, quickly lifting his hand several times to his lips and nose,
and walked away, whistling and waving his cane energetically, not at all
like an important official and state dignitary, but like a jolly Russian
country gentleman.
Until eight o’clock Nejdanov stayed in the garden, enjoying the shadows
cast by the old trees, the fresh air, the singing of the birds, until
the sound of a gong called him to the house. On his entrance he found
the whole company already assembled in the dining room. Valentina
Mihailovna greeted him in a friendly manner; she seemed to him
marvellously beautiful in her morning gown. Mariana looked stern and
serious as usual.
Exactly at ten o’clock Nejdanov gave Kolia his first lesson before
Valentina Mihailovna, who had asked him if she might be present, and sat
very quietly the whole time. Kolia proved an intelligent boy; after the
inevitable moments of incertitude and discomfort, the lesson went
off very well, and Valentina Mihailovna was evidently satisfied with
Nejdanov, and spoke to him several times kindly. He tried to hold aloof
a little—but not too much so. Valentina Mihailovna was also present at
the second lesson, this time on Russian history. She announced, with
a smile, that in this subject she needed instruction almost as much
as Kolia. She conducted herself just as quietly as she had done at the
first lesson.
Between two and five o’clock Nejdanov stayed in his own room writing
letters to his St. Petersburg friends. He was neither bored nor in
despair; his overstrained nerves had calmed down somewhat. However, they
were set on edge again at dinner, although Kollomietzev was not present,
and the kind attention of host and hostess remained unchanged; but it
was this very attention that made Nejdanov angry. To make matters worse,
the old maiden lady, Anna Zaharovna, was obviously antagonistic, Mariana
continued serious, and Kolia rather unceremoniously kicked him under the
table. Sipiagin also seemed out of sorts. He was extremely dissatisfied
with the manager of his paper mill, a German, to whom he paid a large
salary. Sipiagin began by abusing Germans in general, then announced
that he was somewhat of a Slavophil, though not a fanatic, and mentioned
a certain young Russian, by the name of Solomin, who, it was said,
had successfully established another mill belonging to a neighbouring
merchant; he was very anxious to meet this Solomin.
Kollomietzev came in the evening; his own estate was only about ten
miles away from “Arjanov,” the name of Sipiagin’s village. There also
came a certain justice of the peace, a squire, of the kind so admirably
described in the two famous lines of Lermontov—
Behind a cravat, frock coat to the heels...
Moustache, squeaky voice—and heavy glance.
Another guest arrived, with a dejected look, without a tooth in his
head, but very accurately dressed. After him came the local doctor, a
very bad doctor, who was fond of coming out with learned expressions.
He assured everyone, for instance, that he liked Kukolnik better than
Pushkin because there was a great deal of “protoplasm” about him. They
all sat down to play cards. Nejdanov retired to his own room, and read
and wrote until midnight.
The following day, the 9th of May, was Kolia’s patron-saint’s day.
Although the church was not a quarter of a mile off, the whole household
drove to mass in three open carriages with footmen at the back.
Everything was very festive and gorgeous. Sipiagin decorated himself
with his order, Valentina Mihailovna was dressed in a beautiful pale
lavender-coloured Parisian gown, and during the service read her prayers
out of a tiny little prayer hook bound in red velvet. This little book
was a matter of great concern among several old peasants, one of whom,
unable to contain himself any longer, asked of his neighbour: “What is
she doing? Lord have mercy on us! Is she casting a spell?” The sweet
scent of the flowers, which filled the whole church, mingled with the
smell of the peasant’s coats, tarred boots and shoes, the whole being
drowned by the delicious, overpowering scent of incense.
In the choir the clerks and sacristans tried their very hardest to sing
well, and with the help of the men from the factory attempted something
like a concert! There was a moment when an almost painful sensation came
over the congregation. The tenor’s voice (it belonged to one of the men
from the factory, who was in the last stages of consumption) rose high
above the rest, and without the slightest restraint trilled out long
chromatic flat minor notes; they were terrible these notes! but to stop
them would have meant the whole concert going to pieces. ... However,
the thing went off without any mishap. Father Kiprian, a priest of
the most patriarchal appearance, dressed in the full vestments of the
church, delivered his sermon out of a copy-book. Unfortunately, the
conscientious father had considered it necessary to introduce the names
of several very wise Assyrian kings, which caused him some trouble in
pronunciation. He succeeded in showing a certain amount of learning, but
perspired very much in the effort!
Nejdanov, who for a long time had not been inside a church, stood in a
corner amidst the peasant women, who kept casting sidelong glances at
him in between crossing themselves, bowing piously to the ground, and
wiping their babies’ noses. But the peasant girls in their new coats
and beaded head-dresses, and the boys in their embroidered shirts,
with girdles round their waists, stared intently at the new worshipper,
turning their faces straight towards him.... Nejdanov, too, looked at
them, and many things rose up in his mind.
After mass, which lasted a very long time—the service of St. Nikolai
the Miraculous is well known to be one of the longest in the Orthodox
Church—all the clergy, at Sipiagin’s invitation, returned to his
house, and, after going through several additional ceremonies, such as
sprinkling the room with holy water, they all sat down to an abundant
breakfast, interspersed with the usual congratulations and rather
wearisome talk. The host and hostess, who never took breakfast at such
an early hour, broke the rule on this occasion. Sipiagin even went so
far as to relate an anecdote, quite proper, of course, but nevertheless
amusing, in spite of his dignity and red ribbon, and caused Father
Kiprian to be filled with gratitude and amazement. To show that he, too,
could tell something worth hearing on occasion, the good father related
a conversation he had had with the bishop, when the latter, on a tour
round his diocese, had invited all the clergy of the district to come
and see him at the monastery in the town. “He is very severe with us,”
Father Kiprian assured everyone. “First he questioned us about our
parish, about our arrangements, and then he began to examine us....
He turned to me also: ‘What is your church’s dedication day?’ ‘The
Transfiguration of our Lord,’ I replied. ‘Do you know the hymn for that
day?’ ‘I think so.’ ‘Sing it.’ ‘Thou wert transfigured on the mountain,
Christ our Lord,’ I began. ‘Stop! Do you know the meaning of the
Transfiguration?’ ‘To be quite brief,’ I replied, ‘our Lord wished to
show himself to His disciples in all His glory.’ ‘Very well,’ he said,
‘here is a little image in memory of me.’ I fell at his feet. ‘I thank
you, your Holiness....’ I did not go away from him empty-handed.”
“I have the honour of knowing his Holiness personally,” Sipiagin said
solemnly. “A most worthy pastor!”
“Most worthy!” Father Kiprian agreed; “only he puts too much faith in
the ecclesiastical superintendents!”
Valentina Mihailovna referred to the peasant school, and spoke of
Mariana as the future schoolmistress; the deacon (who had been appointed
supervisor of the school), a man of strong athletic build, with long
waving hair, bearing a faint resemblance to the well-groomed tail of an
Orlov race courser, quite forgetting his vocal powers, gave forth such a
volume of sound as to confuse himself and frighten everybody else. Soon
after this the clergy took their leave.
Kolia, in his new coat decorated with golden buttons, was the hero of
the day. He was given presents, he was congratulated, his hands were
kissed at the front door and at the back door by servants, workmen from
the factory, old women and young girls and peasants; the latter, in
memory of the days of serfdom, hung around the tables in front of the
house, spread out with pies and small bottles of vodka. The happy boy
was shy and pleased and proud, all at the same time; he caressed his
parents and ran out of the room. At dinner Sipiagin ordered champagne,
and before drinking his son’s health made a speech. He spoke of the
significance of “serving the land,” and indicated the road he wished his
Nikolai to follow (he did not use the diminutive of the boy’s name),
of the duty he owed, first to his family; secondly to his class, to
society; thirdly to the people—“Yes, my dear ladies and gentlemen, to
the people; and fourthly, to the government!” By degrees Sipiagin became
quite eloquent, with his hand under the tail of his coat in imitation of
Robert Peel. He pronounced the word “science” with emotion, and finished
his speech by the Latin exclamation, _laboremus!_ which he instantly
translated into Russian. Kolia, with a glass in his hand, went over to
thank his father and to be kissed by the others.
Nejdanov exchanged glances with Mariana again....
They no doubt felt the same, but they did not speak to each other.
However, Nejdanov was more amused than annoyed with the whole
proceeding, and the amiable hostess, Valentina Mihailovna, seemed to him
to be an intelligent woman, who was aware that she was playing a part,
but pleased to think that there was someone else intelligent enough
to understand her. Nejdanov probably had no suspicion of the degree in
which he was flattered by her attitude towards him.
On the following day lessons were renewed, and life fell back in its
ordinary rut.
A week flew by in this way. Nejdanov’s thoughts and experiences during
that time may be best gathered from an extract of a letter he wrote to
a certain Silin, an old school chum and his best friend. Silin did not
live in St. Petersburg, but in a distant provincial town, with an old
relative on whom he was entirely dependent. His position was such that
he could hardly dream of ever getting away from there. He was a man of
very poor health, timid, of limited capacity, but of an extraordinarily
pure nature. He did not interest himself in politics, but read anything
that came in his way, played on the flute as a resource against
boredom, and was afraid of young ladies. Silin was passionately fond
of Nejdanov—he had an affectionate heart in general. Nejdanov did not
express himself to anyone as freely as he did to Vladimir Silin; when
writing to him he felt as if he were communicating to some dear and
intimate soul, dwelling in another world, or to his own conscience.
Nejdanov could not for a moment conceive of the idea of living together
again with Silin, as comrades in the same town. He would probably have
lost interest in him, as there was little in common between them, but he
wrote him long letters gladly with the fullest confidence. With others,
on paper at any rate, he was not himself, but this never happened when
writing to Silin. The latter was not a master in the art of writing, and
responded only in short clumsy sentences, but Nejdanov had no need of
lengthy replies; he knew quite well that his friend swallowed every
word of his, as the dust in the road swallows each drop of rain, that
he would keep his secrets sacredly, and that in his hopeless solitude he
had no other interests but his, Nejdanov’s, interests. He had never told
anyone of his relation with Silin, a relation that was very dear to him.
“Well, my dear friend, my pure-hearted Vladimir!” Thus he wrote to
him; he always called him pure-hearted, and not without good cause.
“Congratulate me; I have fallen upon green pasture, and can rest awhile
and gather strength. I am living in the house of a rich statesman,
Sipiagin, as tutor to his little son; I eat well (have never eaten
so well in my life!), sleep well, and wander about the beautiful
country—but, above all, I have for a time crept out from under the wing
of my St. Petersburg friends. At first it was horribly boring, but I
feel a bit better now. I shall soon have to go into harness again, that
is, put up with the consequences of what I have undertaken (the reason
I was allowed to come here). For a time, at any rate, I can enjoy the
delights of a purely animal existence, expand in the waist, and write
verses if the mood seizes me. I will give you my observations another
time. The estate seems to me well managed on the whole, with the
exception, perhaps, of the factory, which is not quite right; some of
the peasants are unapproachable, and the hired servants have servile
faces—but we can talk about these things later on. My host and
hostess are courteous, liberal-minded people; the master is for
ever condescending, and bursts out from time to time in torrents of
eloquence, a most highly cultured person! His lady, a picturesque
beauty, who has all her wits about her, keeps such a close watch on
one, and is so soft! I should think she has not a bone in her body! I am
rather afraid of her, you know what sort of a ladies’ man I make! There
are neighbours—but uninteresting ones; then there is an old lady in the
house who makes me feel uncomfortable.... Above all, I am interested
in a certain young lady, but whether she is a relative or simply a
companion here the Lord only knows! I have scarcely exchanged a couple
of words with her, but I feel that we are birds of a feather....”
Here followed a description of Mariana’s personal appearance and of all
her habits; then he continued:
“That she is unhappy, proud, ambitious, reserved, but above all
unhappy, I have not the smallest doubt. But why she is unhappy, I have
as yet failed to discover. That she has an upright nature is quite
evident, but whether she is good-natured or not remains to be seen. Are
there really any good-natured women other than stupid ones? Is goodness
essential? However, I know little about women. The lady of the house
does not like her, and I believe it is mutual on either side.... But
which of them is in the right is difficult to say. I think that the
mistress is probably in the wrong ... because she is so awfully polite
to her; the _other’s_ brows twitch nervously when she is speaking to
her patroness. She is a most highly-strong individual, like myself, and
is just as easily _upset_ as I am, although perhaps not in the same way.
“When all this can be disentangled, I will write to you again.
“She hardly ever speaks to me, as I have already told you, but in the
few words she has addressed to me (always rather sudden and unexpected)
there was a ring of rough sincerity which I liked. By the way, how long
is that relative of yours going to bore you to death? When is he going
to die?
“Have you read the article in the ‘European Messenger’ about the latest
impostors in the province of Orenburg? It happened in 1834, my dear! I
don’t like the journal, and the writer of the article is a conservative,
but the thing is interesting and calculated to give one ideas....”
IX
May had reached its second half; the first hot summer days had already
set in.
After his history lesson one day, Nejdanov wandered out into the garden,
and from thence into a birch wood adjoining it on one side. Certain
parts of this wood had been cleared by merchants about fifteen years
ago, but these clearings were already densely overgrown by young
birches, whose soft silver trunks encircled by grey rings rose as
straight as pillars, and whose bright green leaves sparkled as if they
had just been washed and polished. The grass shot up in sharp tongues
through the even layers of last year’s fallen leaves. Little narrow
paths ran here and there, from which yellow-beaked blackbirds rose with
startled cries, flying close to the earth into the wood as hard as they
could go.
After wandering about for half an hour, Nejdanov sat down on the stump
of a tree, surrounded by old greyish splinters, lying in heaps, exactly
as they had fallen when cut down by the axe. Many a time had these
splinters been covered by the winter’s snow and been thawed by the
spring sun, but nobody had touched them.
Nejdanov leaned against a solid wall of young birches casting a heavy
though mild shade. He was not thinking of anything in particular, but
gave himself up to those peculiar sensations of spring which in the
heart of young and old alike are always mixed with a certain degree of
sadness—the keen sadness of awaiting in the young and of settled regret
in the old.
Nejdanov was suddenly awakened by approaching footsteps.
It did not sound like the footsteps of one person, nor like a peasant in
heavy boots, or a barefooted peasant woman; it seemed as if two people
were advancing at a slow, measured pace. The slight rustling of a
woman’s dress was heard.
Suddenly a deep man’s voice was heard to say:
“Is this your last word? Never?”
“Never!” a familiar woman’s voice repeated, and a moment later from a
bend in the path, hidden from view by a young tree, Mariana appeared,
accompanied by a swarthy man with black eyes, an individual whom
Nejdanov had never seen before.
They both stood still as if rooted to the spot on catching sight of him,
and he was so taken aback that he did not rise from the stump he was
sitting on. Mariana blushed to the roots of her hair, but instantly
gave a contemptuous smile. It was difficult to say whether the smile was
meant for herself, for having blushed, or for Nejdanov. Her companion
scowled—a sinister gleam was seen in the yellowish whites of his
troubled eyes. He exchanged glances with Mariana, and without saying a
word they turned their backs on Nejdanov and walked away as slowly as
they had come, while Nejdanov followed them with a look of amazement.
Half an hour later he returned home to his room, and when, at the sound
of the gong, he appeared in the drawing room, the dark-eyed stranger
whom he had seen in the wood was already there. Sipiagin introduced
Nejdanov to him as his _beaufrère’a_, Valentina Mihailovna’s
brother—Sergai Mihailovitch Markelov.
“I hope you will get to know each other and be friends, gentlemen,”
Sipiagin exclaimed with the amiable, stately, though absent-minded smile
characteristic of him.
Markelov bowed silently; Nejdanov responded in a similar way, and
Sipiagin, throwing back his head slightly and shrugging his shoulders,
walked away, as much as to say, “I’ve brought you together, but whether
you become friends or not is a matter of equal indifference to me!”
Valentina Mihailovna came up to the silent pair, standing motionless,
and introduced them to each other over again; she then turned to her
brother with that peculiarly bright, caressing expression which she
seemed able to summon at will into her wonderful eyes.
“Why, my dear _Serge_, you’ve quite forgotten us! You did not even come
on Kolia’s nameday. Are you so very busy? My brother is making some
sort of new arrangement with his peasants,” she remarked, turning to
Nejdanov. “So very original—three parts of everything for them and one
for himself; even then he thinks that he gets more than his share.”
“My sister is fond of joking,” Markelov said to Nejdanov in his turn,
“but I am prepared to agree with her; for _one_ man to take a quarter
of what belongs to a _hundred_, is certainly too much.”
“Do you think that I am fond of joking, Alexai Dmitritch?” Madame
Sipiagina asked with that same caressing softness in her voice and in
her eyes.
Nejdanov was at a loss for a reply, but just then Kollomietzev was
announced. The hostess went to meet him, and a few moments later a
servant appeared and announced in a sing-song voice that dinner was
ready.
At dinner Nejdanov could not keep his eyes off Mariana and Markelov.
They sat side by side, both with downcast eyes, compressed lips, and an
expression of gloomy severity on their angry faces. Nejdanov wondered
how Markelov could possibly be Madame Sipiagina’s brother; they were so
little like each other. There was only one point of resemblance
between them, their dark complexions; but the even colour of Valentina
Mihailovna’s face, arms, and shoulders constituted one of her charms,
while in her brother it reached to that shade of swarthiness which
polite people call “bronze,” but which to the Russian eye suggests a
brown leather boot-leg.
Markelov had curly hair, a somewhat hooked nose, thick lips, sunken
cheeks, a narrow chest, and sinewy hands. He was dry and sinewy all
over, and spoke in a curt, harsh, metallic voice. The sleepy look
in his eyes, the gloomy expression, denoted a bilious temperament!
He ate very little, amused himself by making bread pills, and every
now and again would fix his eyes on Kollomietzev. The latter had
just returned from town, where he had been to see the governor upon
a rather unpleasant matter for himself, upon which he kept a tacit
silence, but was very voluble about everything else. Sipiagin sat on
him somewhat when he went a little too far, but laughed a good deal at
his anecdotes and _bon mots_, although he thought _qu’il est un affreux
réactionnaire_. Kollomietzev declared, among other things, how he went
into raptures at what the peasants, _oui, oui! les simples mougiks!_
call lawyers. “Liars! Liars!” he shouted with delight. _“Ce peuple
russe est délicieux!”_ He then went on to say how once, when going
through a village school, he asked one of the children what a babugnia
was, and nobody could tell him, not even the teacher himself. He then
asked what a pithecus was, and no one knew even that, although he had
quoted the poet Himnitz, ‘The weakwitted pithecus that mocks the other
beasts.’ Such is the deplorable condition of our peasant schools!
“But,” Valentina Mihailovna remarked, “I don’t know myself what are
these animals!”
“Madame!” Kollomietzev exclaimed, “there is no necessity for you to
know!”
“Then why should the peasants know?”
“Because it is better for them to know about these animals than about
Proudhon or Adam Smith!”
Here Sipiagin again intervened, saying that Adam Smith was one of the
leading lights in human thought, and that it would be well to imbibe his
principles (he poured himself out a glass of wine) with the (he lifted
the glass to his nose and sniffed at it) mother’s milk! He swallowed the
wine. Kollomietzev also drank a glass and praised it highly.
Markelov payed no special attention to Kollomietzev’s talk, but glanced
interrogatively at Nejdanov once or twice; he flicked one of his little
bread pills, which just missed the nose of the eloquent guest.
Sipiagin left his brother-in-law in peace; neither did Valentina
Mihailovna speak to him; it was evident that both husband and wife
considered Markelov an eccentric sort of person whom it was better not
to provoke.
After dinner Markelov went into the billiard room to smoke a pipe, and
Nejdanov withdrew into his own room.
In the corridor he ran against Mariana. He wanted to slip past her, when
she stopped him with a quick movement of the hand.
“Mr. Nejdanov,” she said in a somewhat unsteady tone of voice, “it ought
to be all the same to me what you think of me, but still I find it... I
find it...” (she could not think of a fitting word) “I find it necessary
to tell you that when you met me in the wood today with Mr. Markelov...
you must no doubt have thought, when you saw us both confused, that we
had come there by appointment.”
“It did seem a little strange to me—” Nejdanov began. “Mr. Markelov,”
Mariana interrupted him, “proposed to me... and I refused him. That is
all I wanted to say to you. Goodnight. Think what you like of me.”
She turned away and walked quickly down the corridor.
Nejdanov entered his own room and sat down by the window musing. “What
a strange girl—why this wild issue, this uninvited explanation? Is it a
desire to be original, or simply affectation—or pride? Pride, no doubt.
She can’t endure the idea... the faintest suspicion, that anyone should
have a wrong opinion of her. What a strange girl!”
Thus Nejdanov pondered, while he was being discussed on the terrace
below; every word could be heard distinctly.
“I have a feeling,” Kollomietzev declared, “a feeling, that he’s
a revolutionist. When I served on a special commission at the
governor-general’s of Moscow _avec Ladislas_, I learned to scent these
gentlemen as well as nonconformists. I believe in instinct above
everything.” Here Kollomietzev related how he had once caught an old
sectarian by the heel somewhere near Moscow, on whom he had looked in,
accompanied by the police, and who nearly jumped out of his cottage
window. “He was sitting quite quietly on his bench until that moment,
the blackguard!”
Kollomietzev forgot to add that this old man, when put into prison,
refused to take any food and starved himself to death.
“And your new tutor,” Kollomietzev went on zealously, “is a
revolutionist, without a shadow of a doubt! Have you noticed that he is
never the first to bow to anyone?”
“Why should he?” Madame Sipiagina asked; “on the contrary, that is what
I like about him.”
“I am a guest in the house in which he serves,” Kollomietzev exclaimed,
“yes, serves for money, _comme un salarié_.... Consequently I am his
superior.... He _ought_ to bow to me first.”
“My dear Kollomietzev, you are very particular,” Sipiagin put in,
laying special stress on the word _dear_. “I thought, if you’ll forgive
my saying so, that we had outgrown all that. I pay for his services,
his work, but he remains a free man.”
“He does not feel the bridle, _le frein!_ All these revolutionists are
like that. I tell you I can smell them from afar! Only _Ladislas_ can
compare with me in this respect. If this tutor were to fall into my
hands wouldn’t I give it to him! I would make him sing a very different
tune! How he would begin touching his cap to me—it would be a pleasure
to see him!”
“Rubbish, you swaggering little braggart!” Nejdanov almost shouted
from above, but at this moment the door opened and, to his great
astonishment, Markelov entered the room.
X
Nejdanov rose to meet him, and Markelov, coming straight up to him,
without any form of greeting, asked him if he was Alexai Dmitritch, a
student of the St. Petersburg University.
“Yes,” Nejdanov replied.
Markelov took an unsealed letter out of a side pocket.
“In that case, please read this. It is from Vassily Nikolaevitch,” he
added, lowering his voice significantly.
Nejdanov unfolded and read the letter. It was a semi-official circular
in which Sergai Markelov was introduced as one of “us,” and absolutely
trustworthy; then followed some advice about the urgent necessity of
united action in the propaganda of their well-known principles.
The circular was addressed to Nejdanov, as being a person worthy of
confidence.
Nejdanov extended his hand to Markelov, offered him a chair, and sat
down himself.
Markelov, without saying a word, began lighting a cigarette; Nejdanov
followed his example.
“Have you managed to come in contact with the peasants here?” Markelov
asked at last.
“No, I haven’t had time as yet.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About a fortnight.”
“Have you much to do?”
“Not very much.”
Markelov gave a severe cough.
“H’m! The people here are stupid enough. A most ignorant lot. They
must be enlightened. They’re wretchedly poor, but one can’t make them
understand the cause of their poverty.”
“Your brother-in-law’s old serfs, as far as one can judge, do not seem
to be poor,” Nejdanov remarked.
“My brother-in-law knows what he is about; he is a perfect master at
humbugging people. His peasants are certainly not so badly off; but he
has a factory; that is where we must turn our attention. The slightest
dig there will make the ants move. Have you any books with you?”
“Yes, a few.”
“I will get you some more. How is it you have so few?”
Nejdanov made no reply. Markelov also ceased, and began sending out
puffs of smoke through his nostrils.
“What a pig this Kollomietzev is!” he exclaimed suddenly. “At dinner I
could scarcely keep from rushing at him and smashing his impudent face
as a warning to others. But no, there are more important things to be
done just now. There is no time to waste getting angry with fools for
saying stupid things. The time has now come to prevent them _doing_
stupid things.”
Nejdanov nodded his head and Markelov went on smoking. “Among the
servants here there is only one who is any good,” he began again. “Not
your man, Ivan, he has no more sense than a fish, but another one,
Kirill, the butler.” (Kirill was known to be a confirmed drunkard.)
“He is a drunken debauchee, but we can’t be too particular. What do you
think of my sister?” he asked, suddenly fixing his yellowish eyes on
Nejdanov. “She is even more artful than my brother-in-law. What do you
think of her?”
“I think that she is a very kind and pleasant lady...besides, she is
very beautiful.”
“H’m! With what subtlety you St. Petersburg gentlemen express
yourselves! I can only marvel at it. Well, and what about—” he began,
but his face darkened suddenly, and he did not finish the sentence. “I
see that we must have a good talk,” he went on. “It is quite impossible
here. Who knows! They may be listening at the door. I have a suggestion.
Today is Saturday; you won’t be giving lessons to my nephew tomorrow,
will you?”
“I have a rehearsal with him at three o’clock.”
“A rehearsal! It sounds like the stage. My sister, no doubt, invented
the word. Well, no matter. Would you like to come home with me now? My
village is about ten miles off. I have some excellent horses who will
get us there in a twinkling. You could stay the night and the morning,
and I could bring you back by three o’clock tomorrow. Will you come?”
“With pleasure,” Nejdanov replied. Ever since Markelov’s appearance he
had been in a state of great excitement and embarrassment. This sudden
intimacy made him feel ill at ease, but he was nevertheless drawn to
him. He felt certain that the man before him was of a sufficiently blunt
nature, but for all that honest and full of strength. Moreover, the
strange meeting in the wood, Mariana’s unexpected explanation....
“Very well!” Markelov exclaimed. “You can get ready while I order the
carriage to be brought out. By the way, I hope you won’t have to ask
permission of our host and hostess.”
“I must tell them. I don’t think it would be wise to go away without
doing so.”
“I’ll tell them,” Markelov said. “They are engrossed in their cards just
now and will not notice your absence. My brother-in-law aims only at
governmental folk, and the only thing he can do well is to play at
cards. However, it is said that many succeed in getting what they
want through such means. You’ll get ready, won’t you? I’ll make all
arrangements immediately.”
Markelov withdrew, and an hour later Nejdanov sat by his side on the
broad leather-cushioned seat of his comfortable old carriage. The little
coachman on the box kept on whistling in wonderfully pleasant bird-like
notes; three piebald horses, with plaited manes and tails, flew like
the wind over the smooth even road; and already enveloped in the first
shadows of the night (it was exactly ten o’clock when they started),
trees, bushes, fields, meadows, and ditches, some in the foreground,
others in the background, sailed swiftly towards them.
Markelov’s tiny little village, Borsionkov, consisting of about two
hundred acres in all, and bringing him in an income of seven hundred
roubles a year, was situated about three miles away from the provincial
town, seven miles off from Sipiagin’s village. To get to Borsionkov from
Sipiagin’s, one had to go through the town. Our new friends had scarcely
time to exchange a hundred words when glimpses of the mean little
dwellings of shopkeepers on the outskirts of the town flashed past them,
little dwellings with shabby wooden roofs, from which faint patches
of light could be seen through crooked little windows; the wheels soon
rattled over the town bridge, paved with cobble stones; the carriage
gave a jerk, rocked from side to side, and swaying with every jolt,
rolled past the stupid two-storied stone houses, with imposing frontals,
inhabited by merchants, past the church, ornamented with pillars,
past the shops.... It was Saturday night and the streets were already
deserted—only the taverns were still filled with people. Hoarse drunken
voices issued from them, singing, accompanied by the hideous sounds of
a concertina. Every now and again a door opened suddenly, letting forth
the red reflection of a rush-light and a filthy, overpowering smell of
alcohol. Almost before every tavern door stood little peasant carts,
harnessed with shaggy, big-bellied, miserable-looking hacks, whose heads
were bowed submissively as if asleep; a tattered, unbelted peasant in a
big winter cap, hanging like a sack at the back of his head, came out
of a tavern door, and leaning his breast against the shafts, stood there
helplessly fumbling at something with his hands; or a meagre-looking
factory worker, his cap awry, his shirt unfastened, barefooted, his
boots having been left inside, would take a few uncertain steps, stop
still, scratch his back, groan suddenly, and turn in again....
“Drink will be the ruin of the Russian!” Markelov remarked gloomily.
“It’s from grief, Sergai Mihailovitch,” the coachman said without
turning round. He ceased whistling on passing each tavern and seemed to
sink into his own thoughts.
“Go on! Go on!” Markelov shouted angrily, vigorously tugging at his own
coat collar. They drove through the wide market square reeking with the
smell of rush mats and cabbages, past the governor’s house with coloured
sentry boxes standing at the gate, past a private house with turrets,
past the boulevard newly planted with trees that were already dying,
past the hotel court-yard, filled with the barking of dogs and the
clanging of chains, and so on through the town gates, where they
overtook a long, long line of waggons, whose drivers had taken advantage
of the evening coolness, then out into the open country, where they
rolled along more swiftly and evenly over the broad road, planted on
either side with willows.
We must now say a few words about Markelov. He was six years older than
his sister, Madame Sipiagina, and had been educated at an artillery
school, which he left as an ensign, but sent in his resignation when he
had reached the rank of lieutenant, owing to a certain unpleasantness
that passed between him and his commanding officer, a German. Ever
since then he always detested Germans, especially Russian Germans. He
quarrelled with his father on account of his resignation, and never
saw him again until just before his death, after which he inherited the
little property and settled on it. In St. Petersburg he often came in
contact with various brilliant people of advanced views, whom he simply
worshipped, and who finally brought him around to their way of thinking.
Markelov had read little, mostly books relating to the thing that
chiefly interested him, and was especially attached to Herzen. He
retained his military habits, and lived like a Spartan and a monk. A few
years ago he fell passionately in love with a girl who threw him over in
a most unceremonious manner and married an adjutant, also a German. He
consequently hated adjutants too. He tried to write a series of special
articles on the shortcomings of our artillery, but had not the remotest
idea of exposition and never finished a single article; he continued,
however, covering large sheets of grey paper with his large, awkward,
childish handwriting. Markelov was a man obstinate and fearless to
desperation, never forgiving or forgetting, with a constant sense
of injury done to himself and to all the oppressed, and prepared for
anything. His limited mind was for ever knocking against one point; what
was beyond his comprehension did not exist, but he loathed and
despised all deceit and falsehood. With the upper classes, with the
“reactionaries” as he called them, he was severe and even rude, but
with the people he was simple, and treated a peasant like a brother.
He managed his property fairly well, his head was full of all sorts
of socialist schemes, which he could no more put into practice than he
could finish his articles on the shortcomings of the artillery. He never
succeeded in anything, and was known in his regiment as “the failure.”
Of a sincere, passionate, and morbid nature, he could at a given moment
appear merciless, blood-thirsty, deserving to be called a brute; at
another, he would be ready to sacrifice himself without a moment’s
hesitation and without any idea of reward.
At about two miles away from the town the carriage plunged suddenly into
the soft darkness of an aspen wood, amidst the rustling of invisible
leaves, the fresh moist odour of the forest, with faint patches of light
from above and a mass of tangled shadows below. The moon had already
risen above the horizon, broad and red like a copper shield. Emerging
from the trees, the carriage came upon a small low farm house. Three
illuminated windows stood out sharply on the front of the house, which
shut out the moon’s disc; the wide, open gate looked as if it was never
shut. Two white stage-horses, attached to the back of a high trap, were
standing in the courtyard, half in obscurity; two puppies, also white,
rushed out from somewhere and gave forth piercing, though harmless,
barks. People were seen moving in the house—the carriage rolled up to
the doorstep, and Markelov, climbing out and feeling with difficulty for
the iron carriage step, put on, as is usually the case, by the domestic
blacksmith in the most inconvenient possible place, said to Nejdanov:
“Here we are at home. You will find guests here whom you know very well,
but little expect to meet. Come in, please.”
XI
The guests turned out to be no other than our old friends Mashurina and
Ostrodumov. They were both sitting in the poorly-furnished drawing
room of Markelov’s house, smoking and drinking beer by the light of
a kerosene lamp. Neither of them showed the least astonishment when
Nejdanov came in, knowing beforehand that Markelov had intended bringing
him back, but Nejdanov was very much surprised on seeing them. On his
entrance Ostrodumov merely muttered “Good evening,” whilst Mashurina
turned scarlet and extended her hand. Markelov began to explain that
they had come from St. Petersburg about a week ago, Ostrodumov to remain
in the province for some time for propaganda purposes, while Mashurina
was to go on to K. to meet someone, also in connection with the cause.
He then went on to say that the time had now come for them to do
something practical, and became suddenly heated, although no one had
contradicted him. He bit his lips, and in a hoarse, excited tone of
voice began condemning the horrors that were taking place, saying that
everything was now in readiness for them to start, that none but cowards
could hold back, that a certain amount of violence was just as necessary
as the prick of the lancet to the abscess, however ripe it might be! The
lancet simile was not original, but one that he had heard somewhere. He
seemed to like it, and made use of it on every possible occasion.
Losing all hope of Mariana’s love, it seemed that he no longer cared
for anything, and was only eager to get to work, to enter the field of
action as soon as possible. He spoke harshly, angrily, but straight to
the point like the blow of an axe, his words falling from his pale lips
monotonously, ponderously, like the savage bark of a grim old watch dog.
He said that he was well acquainted with both the peasants and factory
men of the neighbourhood, and that there were possible people among
them. Instanced a certain Eremy, who, he declared, was prepared to go
anywhere at a moment’s notice. This man, Eremy, who belonged to the
village Goloplok, was constantly on his lips. At nearly every tenth word
he thumped his right hand on the table and waved the left in the air,
the forefinger standing away from the others. This sinewy, hairy
hand, the finger, hoarse voice, flashing eyes, all produced a strong
impression on his hearers.
Markelov had scarcely spoken to Nejdanov on the journey, and all his
accumulated wrath burst forth now. Ostrodumov and Mashurina expressed
their approval every now and again by a look, a smile, a short
exclamation, but a strange feeling came over Nejdanov. He tried to make
some sort of objection at first, pointing out the danger of hasty action
and mentioned certain former premature attempts. He marvelled at the
way in which everything was settled beyond a shadow of a doubt, without
taking into consideration the special circumstances, or even trying to
find out what the masses really wanted. At last his nerves became so
highly strung that they trembled like the strings of an instrument, and
with a sort of despair, almost with tears in his eyes, he began speaking
at the top of his voice, in the same strain as Markelov, going even
farther than he had done. What inspired him would be difficult to say;
was it remorse for having been inactive of late, annoyance with himself
and with others, a desire to drown the gnawings of an inner pain, or
merely to show off before his comrades, whom he had not seen for some
time, or had Markelov’s words really had some effect upon him, fired his
blood? They talked until daybreak; Ostrodumov and Mashurina did not once
rise from their seats, while Markelov and Nejdanov remained on their
feet all the time. Markelov stood on the same spot for all the world
like a sentinel, and Nejdanov walked up and down the room with nervous
strides, now slowly, now hurriedly. They spoke of the necessary means
and measures to be employed, of the part each must take upon himself,
selected and tied up various bundles of pamphlets and leaflets,
mentioned a certain merchant, Golushkin, a nonconformist, as a very
possible man, although uneducated, then a young propagandist,
Kisliakov, who was very clever, but had an exaggerated idea of his own
capabilities, and also spoke of Solomin....
“Is that the man who manages a cotton factory?” Nejdanov asked,
recalling what Sipiagin had said of him at table.
“Yes, that is the man,” Markelov replied. “You should get to know him.
We have not sounded him as yet, but I believe he is an extremely capable
man.”
Eremy of Goloplok was mentioned again, together with Sipiagin’s servant,
Kirill, and a certain Mendely, known under the name of “Sulks.” The
latter it seemed was not to be relied upon. He was very bold when sober,
but a coward when drunk, and was nearly always drunk.
“And what about your own people?” Nejdanov asked of Markelov. “Are there
any reliable men among them?”
Markelov thought there were, but did not mention anyone by name,
however. He went on to talk of the town tradespeople, of the
public-school boys, who they thought might come in useful if matters
were to come to fisticuffs. Nejdanov also inquired about the gentry of
the neighbourhood, and learned from Markelov that there were five or six
possible young men—among them, but, unfortunately, the most radical of
them was a German, “and you can’t trust a German, you know, he is sure
to deceive you sooner or later!” They must wait and see what information
Kisliakov would gather. Nejdanov also asked about the military, but
Markelov hesitated, tugged at his long whiskers, and announced at
last that with regard to them nothing certain was known as yet, unless
Kisliakov had made any discoveries.
“Who is this Kisliakov?” Nejdanov asked impatiently.
Markelov smiled significantly.
“He’s a wonderful person,” he declared. “I know very little of him,
have only met him twice, but you should see what letters he writes!
Marvellous letters! I will show them to you and you can judge for
yourself. He is full of enthusiasm. And what activity the man is capable
of! He has rushed over the length and breadth of Russia five or six
times, and written a twelve-page letter from every place!”
Nejdanov looked questioningly at Ostrodumov, but the latter was sitting
like a statue, not an eyebrow twitching. Mashurina was also motionless,
a bitter smile playing on her lips.
Nejdanov went on to ask Markelov if he had made any socialist
experiments on his own estate, but here Ostrodumov interrupted him.
“What is the good of all that?” he asked. “All the same, it will have to
be altered afterwards.”
The conversation turned to political channels again. The mysterious
inner pain again began gnawing at Nejdanov’s heart, but the keener the
pain, the more positively and loudly he spoke. He had drunk only
one glass of beer, but it seemed to him at times that he was quite
intoxicated. His head swam around and his heart beat feverishly.
When the discussion came to an end at last at about four o’clock in the
morning, and they all passed by the servant asleep in the anteroom on
their way to their own rooms, Nejdanov, before retiring to bed, stood
for a long time motionless, gazing straight before him. He was filled
with wonder at the proud, heart-rending note in all that Markelov had
said. The man’s vanity must have been hurt, he must have suffered, but
how nobly he forgot his own personal sorrows for that which he held to
be the truth. “He is a limited soul,” Nejdanov thought, “but is it not a
thousand times better to be like that than such... such as I feel myself
to be?”
He immediately became indignant at his own self-depreciation.
“What made me think that? Am I not also capable of self-sacrifice? Just
wait, gentlemen, and you too, Paklin. I will show you all that although
I am aesthetic and write verses—”
He pushed back his hair with an angry gesture, ground his teeth,
undressed hurriedly, and jumped into the cold, damp bed.
“Goodnight, I am your neighbour,” Mashurina’s voice was heard from the
other side of the door.
“Goodnight,” Nejdanov responded, and remembered suddenly that during the
whole evening she had not taken her eyes off him.
“What does she want?” he muttered to himself, and instantly felt
ashamed. “If only I could get to sleep!”
But it was difficult for him to calm his overwrought nerves, and the sun
was already high when at last he fell into a heavy, troubled sleep.
In the morning he got up late with a bad headache. He dressed, went up
to the window of his attic, and looked out upon Markelov’s farm. It
was practically a mere nothing; the tiny little house was situated in a
hollow by the side of a wood. A small barn, the stables, cellar, and
a little hut with a half-bare thatched roof, stood on one side; on the
other a small pond, a strip of kitchen garden, a hemp field, another hut
with a roof like the first one; in the distance yet another barn, a tiny
shed, and an empty threshing floor—this was all the “wealth” that met
the eye. It all seemed poor and decaying, not exactly as if it had been
allowed to run wild, but as though it had never flourished, like a young
tree that had not taken root well.
When Nejdanov went downstairs, Mashurina was sitting in the dining room
at the samovar, evidently waiting for him. She told him that Ostrodumov
had gone away on business, in connection with the cause, and would not
be back for about a fortnight, and that their host had gone to look
after his peasants. As it was already at the end of May, and there was
no urgent work to be done, Markelov had thought of felling a small birch
wood, with such means as he had at his command, and had gone down there
to see after it.
Nejdanov felt a strange weariness at heart. So much had been said the
night before about the impossibility of holding back any longer, about
the necessity of making a beginning. “But how could one begin, now, at
once?” he asked himself. It was useless talking it over with Mashurina,
there was no hesitation for her. She knew that she had to go to K., and
beyond that she did not look ahead. Nejdanov was at a loss to know what
to say to her, and as soon as he finished his tea took his hat and went
out in the direction of the birch wood. On the way he fell in with some
peasants carting manure, a few of Markelov’s former serfs. He entered
into conversation with them, but was very little the wiser for it. They,
too, seemed weary, but with a normal physical weariness, quite unlike
the sensation experienced by him. They spoke of their master as a
kind-hearted gentleman, but rather odd, and predicted his ruin, because
he would go his own way, instead of doing as his forefathers had done
before him. “And he’s so clever, you know, you can’t understand what he
says, however hard you may try. But he’s a good sort.” A little farther
on Nejdanov came across Markelov himself.
He was surrounded by a whole crowd of labourers, and one could see from
the distance that he was trying to explain something to them as hard as
he could, but suddenly threw up his arms in despair, as if it were of
no use. His bailiff, a small, short-sighted young man without a trace of
authority or firmness in his bearing, was walking beside him, and merely
kept on repeating, “Just so, sir,” to Markelov’s great disgust, who had
expected more independence from him. Nejdanov went up to Markelov, and
on looking into his face was struck by the same expression of spiritual
weariness he was himself suffering from. Soon after greeting one
another, Markelov began talking again of last night’s “problems” (more
briefly this time), about the impending revolution, the weary expression
never once leaving his face. He was smothered in perspiration and dust,
his voice was hoarse, and his clothes were covered all over with bits of
wood shavings and pieces of green moss. The labourers stood by
silently, half afraid and half amused. Nejdanov glanced at Markelov, and
Ostrodumov’s remark, “What is the good of it all? All the same, it will
have to be altered afterwards,” flashed across his mind. One of the men,
who had been fined for some offence, began begging Markelov to let him
off. The latter got angry, shouted furiously, but forgave him in the
end. “All the same, it will have to be altered afterwards.”
Nejdanov asked him for horses and a conveyance to take him home.
Markelov seemed surprised at the request, but promised to have
everything ready in good time. They turned back to the house together,
Markelov staggering as he walked.
“What is the matter with you?” Nejdanov asked.
“I am simply worn out!” Markelov began furiously. “No matter what you
do, you simply can’t make these people understand anything! They are
utterly incapable of carrying out an order, and do not even understand
plain Russian. If you talk of ‘part’, they know what that means
well enough, but the word ‘participation’ is utterly beyond their
comprehension, just as if it did not belong to the Russian language.
They’ve taken it into their heads that I want to give them a part of the
land!”
Markelov had tried to explain to the peasants the principles of
cooperation with a view to introducing it on his estate, but they were
completely opposed to it. “The pit was deep enough before, but now
there’s no seeing the bottom of it,” one of them remarked, and all the
others gave forth a sympathetic sigh, quite crushing poor Markelov. He
dismissed the men and went into the house to see about a conveyance and
lunch.
The whole of Markelov’s household consisted of a man servant, a cook,
a coachman, and a very old man with hairy ears, in a long-skirted linen
coat, who had once been his grandfather’s valet. This old man was for
ever gazing at Markelov with a most woe-begone expression on his face.
He was too old to do anything, but was always present, huddled together
by the door.
After a lunch of hard-boiled eggs, anchovies, and cold hash (the
man handing them pepper in an old pomade pot and vinegar in an old
eau-de-cologne bottle), Nejdanov took his seat in the same carriage in
which he had come the night before. This time it was harnessed to two
horses, not three, as the third had been newly shod, and was a little
lame.
Markelov had spoken very little during the meal, had eaten nothing
whatever, and breathed with difficulty. He let fall a few bitter remarks
about his farm and threw up his arms in despair. “All the same, it will
have to be altered afterwards!”
Mashurina asked Nejdanov if she might come with him as far as the town,
where she had a little shopping to do. “I can walk back afterwards or,
if need be, ask the first peasant I meet for a lift in his cart.”
Markelov accompanied them to the door, saying that he would soon send
for Nejdanov again, and then ... then (he trembled suddenly, but pulled
himself together) they would have to settle things definitely. Solomin
must also come. He (Markelov) was only waiting to hear from Vassily
Nikolaevitch, and that as soon as he heard from him there would be
nothing to hinder them from making a “beginning,” as the masses (the
same masses who failed to understand the word “participation”) refused
to wait any longer!
“Oh, by the way, what about those letters you wanted to show me? What is
the fellow’s name... Kisliakov?” Nejdanov asked.
“Later on... I will show them to you later on. We can do it all at the
same time.”
The carriage moved.
“Hold yourself in readiness!” Markelov’s voice was heard again, as he
stood on the doorstep. And by his side, with the same hopeless dejection
in his face, straightening his bent back, his hands clasped behind him,
diffusing an odour of rye bread and mustiness, not hearing a single
word that was being said around him, stood the model servant, his
grandfather’s decrepit old valet.
Mashurina sat smoking silently all the way, but when they reached the
town gates she gave a loud sigh.
“I feel so sorry for Sergai Mihailovitch,” she remarked, her face
darkening.
“He is over-worked, and it seems to me his affairs are in a bad way,”
Nejdanov said.
“I was not thinking of that.”
“What were you thinking of then?”
“He is so unhappy and so unfortunate. It would be difficult to find a
better man than he is, but he never seems to get on.”
Nejdanov looked at her.
“Do you know anything about him?”
“Nothing whatever, but you can see for yourself. Goodbye, Alexai
Dmitritch.” Mashurina clambered out of the carriage.
An hour later Nejdanov was rolling up the courtyard leading to
Sipiagin’s house. He did not feel well after his sleepless night and the
numerous discussions and explanations.
A beautiful face smiled to him out of the window. It was Madame
Sipiagina welcoming him back home.
“What glorious eyes she has!” he thought.
XII
A great many people came to dinner. When it was over, Nejdanov took
advantage of the general bustle and slipped away to his own room. He
wanted to be alone with his own thoughts, to arrange the impressions
he had carried away from his recent journey. Valentina Mihailovna had
looked at him intently several times during dinner, but there had been
no opportunity of speaking to him. Mariana, after the unexpected freak
which had so bewildered him, was evidently repenting of it, and seemed
to avoid him. Nejdanov took up a pen to write to his friend Silin,
but he did not know what to say to him. There were so many conflicting
thoughts and sensations crowding in upon him that he did not attempt to
disentangle them, and put them off for another day.
Kollomietzev had made one of the guests at dinner. Never before had this
worthy shown so much insolence and snobbish contemptuousness as on this
occasion, but Nejdanov simply ignored him.
He was surrounded by a sort of mist, which seemed to hang before him
like a filmy curtain, separating him from the rest of the world.
And through this film, strange to say, he perceived only three
faces—women’s faces—and all three were gazing at him intently. They
were Madame Sipiagina, Mashurina, and Mariana. What did it mean? Why
particularly these three? What had they in common, and what did they
want of him?
He went to bed early, but could not fall asleep. He was haunted by sad
and gloomy reflections about the inevitable end—death. These thoughts
were familiar to him, many times had he turned them over this way
and that, first shuddering at the probability of annihilation, then
welcoming it, almost rejoicing in it. Suddenly a peculiarly familiar
agitation took possession of him.... He mused awhile, sat down at the
table, and wrote down the following lines in his sacred copy-book,
without a single correction:
When I die, dear friend, remember This desire I tell to thee: Burn thou
to the last black ember All my heart has writ for me. Let the fairest
flowers surround me, Sunlight laugh about my bed, Let the sweetest
of musicians To the door of death be led. Bid them sound no strain
of sadness—Muted string or muffled drum; Come to me with songs of
gladness—Whirling in the wild waltz come! I would hear—ere yet I hear
not—Trembling strings their cadence keep, Chords that quiver: so I also
Tremble as I fall asleep. Memories of life and laughter, Memories of
earthly glee, As I go to the hereafter All my lullaby shall be.
When he wrote the word “friend” he thought of Silin. He read the verses
over to himself in an undertone, and was surprised at what had come from
his pen. This scepticism, this indifference, this almost frivolous lack
of faith—how did it all agree with his principles? How did it agree
with what he had said at Markelov’s? He thrust the copybook into the
table drawer and went back to bed. But he did not fall asleep until
dawn, when the larks had already begun to twitter and the sky was
turning paler.
On the following day, soon after he had finished his lesson and was
sitting in the billiard room, Madame Sipiagina entered, looked round
cautiously, and coming up to him with a smile, invited him to come into
her boudoir. She had on a white barège dress, very simple, but extremely
pretty. The embroidered frills of her sleeves came down as far as the
elbow, a broad ribbon encircled her waist, her hair fell in thick curls
about her neck. Everything about her was inviting and caressing, with
a sort of restrained, yet encouraging, caressiveness, everything; the
subdued lustre of her half-closed eyes, the soft indolence of her voice,
her gestures, her very walk. She conducted Nejdanov into her boudoir, a
cosy, charming room, filled with the scent of flowers and perfumes, the
pure freshness of feminine garments, the constant presence of a woman.
She made him sit down in an armchair, sat down beside him, and began
questioning him about his visit, about Markelov’s way of living, with
much tact and sweetness. She showed a genuine interest in her brother,
although she had not once mentioned him in Nejdanov’s presence. One
could gather from what she said that the impression Mariana had made
on her brother had not escaped her notice. She seemed a little
disappointed, but whether it was due to the fact that Mariana did not
reciprocate his feelings, or that his choice should have fallen upon
a girl so utterly unlike him, was not quite clear. But most of all she
evidently strove to soften Nejdanov, to arouse his confidence towards
her, to break down his shyness; she even went so far as to reproach him
a little for having a false idea of her.
Nejdanov listened to her, gazed at her arms, her shoulders, and from
time to time cast a look at her rosy lips and her unruly, massive curls.
His replies were brief at first; he felt a curious pressure in his
throat and chest, but by degrees this sensation gave way to another,
just as disturbing, but not devoid of a certain sweetness.... He was
surprised that such a beautiful aristocratic lady of important position
should take the trouble to interest herself in him, a simple student,
and not only interest herself, but flirt with him a little besides. He
wondered, but could not make out her object in doing so. To tell the
truth, he was little concerned about the object. Madame Sipiagina went
on to speak of Kolia, and assured Nejdanov that she wished to become
better acquainted with him only so that she might talk to him seriously
about her son, get to know his views on the education of Russian
children. It might have seemed a little curious that such a wish should
have come upon her so suddenly, but the root of the matter did not lie
in what Valentina Mihailovna had said. She had been seized by a wave of
sensuousness, a desire to conquer and bring to her feet this rebellious
young man.
Here it is necessary to go back a little. Valentina Mihailovna was
the daughter of a general who had been neither over-wise nor
over-industrious in his life. He had received only one star and a
buckle as a reward for fifty years’ service. She was a Little Russian,
intriguing and sly, endowed, like many of her countrywomen, with a very
simple and even stupid exterior, from which she knew how to extract the
maximum of advantage. Valentina Mihailovna’s parents were not rich, but
they had managed to educate her at the Smolny Convent, where, although
considered a republican, she was always in the foreground and very well
treated on account of her excellent behaviour and industriousness. On
leaving the convent she settled with her mother (her brother had gone
into the country, and her father, the general with the star and buckle,
had died) in a very clean, but extremely chilly, apartment, in which you
could see your own breath as you talked. Valentina Mihailovna used to
make fun of it and declare it was like being in church. She was very
brave in bearing with all the discomforts of a poor, pinched existence,
having a wonderfully sweet temper. With her mother’s help, she managed
both to keep up and make new connections and acquaintances, and was even
spoken of in the highest circles as a very nice well-bred girl. She had
several suitors, had fixed upon Sipiagin from them all, and had very
quickly and ingeniously made him fall in love with her. However, he
was soon convinced that he could not have made a better choice. She
was intelligent, rather good than ill-natured, at bottom cold and
indifferent, but unable to endure the idea that anyone should be
indifferent to her.
Valentina Mihailovna was possessed of that peculiar charm, the
characteristic of all “charming” egoists, in which there is neither
poetry nor real sensitiveness, but which is often full of superficial
gentleness, sympathy, sometimes even tenderness. But these charming
egoists must not be thwarted. They are very domineering and cannot
endure independence in others. Women like Madame Sipiagina excite and
disturb people of inexperienced and passionate natures, but are fond of
a quiet and peaceful life themselves. Virtue comes easy to them, they
are placid of temperament, but a constant desire to command, to attract,
and to please gives them mobility and brilliance. They have an iron
will, and a good deal of their fascination is due to this will. It is
difficult for a man to hold his ground when the mysterious sparks
of tenderness begin to kindle, as if involuntarily, in one of these
unstirred creatures; he waits for the hour to come when the ice will
melt, but the rays only play over the transparent surface, and never
does he see it melt or its smoothness disturbed!
It cost Madame Sipiagina very little to flirt, knowing full well that it
involved no danger for herself, but to take the lustre out of another’s
eyes and see them sparkle again, to see another’s cheeks become flushed
with desire and dread, to hear another’s voice tremble and break
down, to disturb another’s soul—oh, how sweet it was to her soul! How
delightful it was late at night, when she lay down in her snow-white bed
to an untroubled sleep, to remember all these agitated words and looks
and sighs. With what a self-satisfied smile she retired into herself,
into the consciousness of her inaccessibility, her invulnerability, and
with what condescension she abandoned herself to the lawful embrace of
her well-bred husband! It was so pleasant that for a little time she
was filled with emotion, ready to do some kind deed, to help a fellow
creature.... Once, after a secretary of legation, who was madly in
love with her, had attempted to cut his throat, she founded a small
alms-house! She had prayed for him fervently, although her religious
feelings from earliest childhood had not been strongly developed.
And so she talked to Nejdanov, doing everything she could to bring him
to her feet. She allowed him to come near her, she revealed herself
to him, as it were, and with a sweet curiosity, with a half-maternal
tenderness, she watched this handsome, interesting, stern radical
softening towards her quietly and awkwardly. A day, an hour, a minute
later and all this would have vanished without leaving a trace, but for
the time being it was pleasant, amusing, rather pathetic, and even a
little sad. Forgetting his origin, and knowing that such interest is
always appreciated by lonely people happening to fall among strangers,
she began questioning him about his youth, about his family.... But
guessing from his curt replies that she had made a mistake, Valentina
Mihailovna tried to smooth things over and began to unfold herself still
more before him, as a rose unfolds its fragrant petals on a hot summer’s
noon, closing them again tightly at the first approach of the evening
coolness.
She could not fully smooth over her blunder, however. Having been
touched on a sensitive spot, Nejdanov could not regain his former
confidence. That bitterness which he always carried, always felt at
the bottom of his heart, stirred again, awakening all his democratic
suspicions and reproaches. “That is not what I’ve come here for,” he
thought, recalling Paklin’s admonition. He took advantage of a pause in
the conversation, got up, bowed slightly, and went out “very foolishly”
as he could not help saying to himself afterwards.
His confusion did not escape Valentina Mihailovna’s notice, and judging
by the smile with which she accompanied him, she had put it down to her
own advantage.
In the billiard room Nejdanov came across Mariana. She was standing
with her back to the window, not far from the door of Madame Sipiagina’s
boudoir, with her arms tightly folded. Her face was almost in complete
shadow, but she fixed her fearless eyes on Nejdanov so penetratingly,
and her tightly closed lips expressed so much contempt and insulting
pity, that he stood still in amazement....
“Have you anything to say to me?” he asked involuntarily.
Mariana did not reply for a time.
“No... yes I have, though not now.”
“When?”
“You must wait awhile. Perhaps—tomorrow, perhaps—never. I know so
little—what are you really like?”
“But,” Nejdanov began, “I sometimes feel... that between us—”
“But you hardly know me at all,” Mariana interrupted him. “Well, wait a
little. Tomorrow, perhaps. Now I have to go to... my mistress. Goodbye,
till tomorrow.”
Nejdanov took a step or two in advance, but turned back suddenly.
“By the way, Mariana Vikentievna... may I come to school with you one
day before it closes? I should like to see what you do there.”
“With pleasure.... But it was not the school about which I wished to
speak to you.”
“What was it then?”
“Tomorrow,” Mariana repeated.
But she did not wait until the next day, and the conversation between
her and Nejdanov took place on that same evening in one of the linden
avenues not far from the terrace.
XIII
She came up to him first.
“Mr. Nejdanov,” she began, “it seems that you are quite enchanted with
Valentina Mihailovna.”
She turned down the avenue without waiting for a reply; he walked by her
side.
“What makes you think so?”
“Is it not a fact? In that case she behaved very foolishly today. I can
imagine how concerned she must have been, and how she tried to cast her
wary nets!”
Nejdanov did not utter a word, but looked at his companion sideways.
“Listen,” she continued, “it’s no use pretending; I don’t like Valentina
Mihailovna, and you know that well enough. I may seem unjust... but I
want you to hear me first—”
Mariana’s voice gave way. She suddenly flushed with emotion; under
emotion she always gave one the impression of being angry.
“You are no doubt asking yourself, ‘Why does this tiresome young lady
tell me all this?’ just as you must have done when I spoke to you...
about Mr. Markelov.”
She bent down, tore off a small mushroom, broke it to pieces, and threw
it away.
“You are quite mistaken, Mariana Vikentievna,” Nejdanov remarked. “On
the contrary, I am pleased to think that I inspire you with confidence.”
This was not true, the idea had only just occurred to him.
Mariana glanced at him for a moment. Until then she had persistently
looked away from him.
“It is not that you inspire me with confidence exactly,” she went on
pensively; “you are quite a stranger to me. But your position—and
mine—are very similar. We are both alike—unhappy; that is a bond
between us.”
“Are you unhappy?” Nejdanov asked.
“And you, are you not?” Mariana asked in her turn. Nejdanov did not say
anything.
“Do you know my story?” she asked quickly. “The story of my father’s
exile? Don’t you? Well, here it is: He was arrested, tried, convicted,
deprived of his rank ... and everything ... and sent to Siberia, where
he died.... My mother died too. My uncle, Mr. Sipiagin, my mother’s
brother, brought me up.... I am dependent upon him—he is my benefactor
and—Valentina Mihailovna is my benefactress.... I pay them back with
base ingratitude because I have an unfeeling heart.... But the bread of
charity is bitter—and I can’t bear insulting condescensions—and can’t
endure to be patronised. I can’t hide things, and when I’m constantly
being hurt I only keep from crying out because I’m too proud to do so.”
As she uttered these disjointed sentences, Mariana walked faster and
faster. Suddenly she stopped. “Do you know that my aunt, in order to get
rid of me, wants to marry me to that hateful Kollomietzev? She knows my
ideas... in her eyes I’m almost a nihilist—and he! It’s true he doesn’t
care for me... I’m not good-looking enough, but it’s possible to sell
me. That would also be considered charity.”
“Why didn’t you—” Nejdanov began, but stopped short.
Mariana looked at him for an instant.
“You wanted to ask why I didn’t accept Mr. Markelov, isn’t that so?
Well, what could I do? He’s a good man, but it’s not my fault that I
don’t love him.”
Mariana walked on ahead, as if she wished to save her companion the
necessity of saying anything to this unexpected confession.
They both reached the end of the avenue. Mariana turned quickly down a
narrow path leading into a dense fir grove; Nejdanov followed her. He
was under the influence of a twofold astonishment; first, it puzzled him
that this shy girl should suddenly become so open and frank with him,
and secondly, that he was not in the least surprised at this frankness,
that he looked upon it, in fact, as quite natural.
Mariana turned round suddenly, stopped in the middle of the path with
her face about a yard from Nejdanov’s, and looked straight into his
eyes.
“Alexai Dmitritch,” she said, “please don’t think my aunt is a bad
woman. She is not. She is deceitful all over, she’s an actress, a
poser—she wants everyone to bow down before her as a beauty and worship
her as a saint! She will invent a pretty speech, say it to one person,
repeat it to a second, a third, with an air as if it had only just come
to her by inspiration, emphasising it by the use of her wonderful eyes!
She understands herself very well—she is fully conscious of looking
like a Madonna, and knows that she does not love a living soul! She
pretends to be forever worrying over Kolia, when in reality does nothing
but talk about him with clever people. She does not wish harm to any
one... is all kindness, but let every bone in your body be broken before
her very eyes... and she wouldn’t care a straw! She would not move
a finger to save you, and if by any chance it should happen to be
necessary or useful to her...then heaven have mercy on you....”
Mariana ceased. Her wrath was choking her. She could not contain
herself, and had resolved on giving full vent to it, but words failed
her. Mariana belonged to a particular class of unfortunate beings, very
plentiful in Russia, whom justice satisfies, but does not rejoice, while
injustice, against which they are very sensitive, revolts them to their
innermost being. All the time she was speaking, Nejdanov watched her
intently. Her flushed face, her short, untidy hair, the tremulous
twitching of her thin lips, struck him as menacing, significant, and
beautiful. A ray of sunlight, broken by a net of branches, lay across
her forehead like a patch of gold. And this tongue of fire seemed to
be in keeping with the keen expression of her face, her fixed wide-open
eyes, the earnest sound of her voice.
“Tell me why you think me unhappy,” Nejdanov observed at last. “Do you
know anything about me?”
“Yes.”
“What do you know? Has anyone been talking to you about me?”
“I know about your birth.”
“Who told you?”
“Why, Valentina Mihailovna, of course, whom you admire so much.
She mentioned in my presence, just in passing you know, but quite
intentionally, that there was a very interesting incident in your life.
She was not condoling the fact, but merely mentioned it as a person of
advanced views who is above prejudice. You need not be surprised; in the
same way she tells every visitor that comes that my father was sent
to Siberia for taking bribes. However much she may think herself an
aristocrat, she is nothing more than a mere scandal-monger and a poser.
That is your Sistine Madonna!”
“Why is she mine in particular?”
Mariana turned away and resumed her walk down the path.
“Because you had such a long conversation together,” she said, a lump
rising in her throat.
“I scarcely said a word the whole time,” Nejdanov observed. “It was she
who did the talking.”
Mariana walked on in silence. A turn in the path brought them to the end
of the grove in front of which lay a small lawn; a weeping silver birch
stood in the middle, its hollow trunk encircled by a round seat. Mariana
sat down on this seat and Nejdanov seated himself at her side. The long
hanging branches covered with tiny green leaves were waving gently over
their heads. Around them masses of lily-of-the-valley could be seen
peeping out from amidst the fine grass. The whole place was filled with
a sweet scent, refreshing after the very heavy resinous smell of the
pine trees.
“So you want to see the school,” Mariana began; “I must warn you that
you will not find it very exciting. You have heard that our principal
master is the deacon. He is not a bad fellow, but you can’t imagine what
nonsense he talks to the children. There is a certain boy among them,
called Garacy, an orphan of nine years old, and, would you believe it,
he learns better than any of the others!”
With the change of conversation, Mariana herself seemed to change. She
turned paler, became more composed, and her face assumed an expression
of embarrassment, as if she were repenting of her outburst. She
evidently wished to lead Nejdanov into discussing some “question” or
other about the school, the peasants, anything, so as not to continue in
the former strain. But he was far from “questions” at this moment.
“Mariana Vikentievna,” he began; “to be quite frank with you, I little
expected all that has happened between us.” (At the word “happened” she
drew herself up.) “It seems to me that we have suddenly become very...
very intimate. That is as it should be. We have for some time past been
getting closer to one another, only we have not expressed it in words.
And so I will also speak to you frankly. It is no doubt wretched for you
here, but surely your uncle, although he is limited, seems a kind man,
as far as one can judge. Doesn’t he understand your position and take
your part?”
“My uncle, in the first place, is not a man, he’s an official, a
senator, or a minister, I forget which; and in the second, I don’t want
to complain and speak badly of people for nothing. It is not at all
hard for me here, that is, nobody interferes with me; my aunt’s petty
pin-pricks are in reality nothing to me.... I am quite free.”
Nejdanov looked at her in amazement.
“In that case... everything that you have just told me—”
“You may laugh at me if you like,” she said. “If I am unhappy—it is
not as a result of my own sorrows. It sometimes seems to me that I
suffer for the miserable, poor and oppressed in the whole of Russia....
No, it’s not exactly that. I suffer—I am indignant for them, I rebel
for them.... I am ready to go to the stake for them. I am unhappy
because I am a ‘young lady,’ a parasite, that I am completely unable
to do anything ... anything! When my father was sent to Siberia and I
remained with my mother in Moscow, how I longed to go to him! It was
not that I loved or respected him very much, but I wanted to know,
to see with my own eyes, how the exiled and banished live.... How
I loathed myself and all these placid, rich, well-fed people! And
afterwards, when he returned home, broken in body and soul, and began
humbly busying himself, trying to work ... oh ... how terrible it
was! It was a good thing that he died... and my poor mother too. But,
unfortunately, I was left behind.... What for? Only to feel that I have
a bad nature, that I am ungrateful, that there is no peace for me, that
I can do nothing—nothing for anything or anybody!”
Mariana turned away—her hand slid on to the seat. Nejdanov felt sorry
for her; he touched the drooping hand. Mariana pulled it away quickly;
not that Nejdanov’s action seemed unsuitable to her, but that he should
on no account think that she was asking for sympathy.
Through the branches of the pines a glimpse of a woman’s dress could be
seen. Mariana drew herself up.
“Look, your Madonna has sent her spy. That maid has to keep a watch on
me and inform her mistress where I am and with whom. My aunt very likely
guessed that I was with you, and thought it improper, especially after
the sentimental scene she acted before you this afternoon. Anyhow, it’s
time we were back. Let us go.”
Mariana got up. Nejdanov rose also. She glanced at him over her
shoulder, and suddenly there passed over her face an almost childish
expression, making her embarrassment seem charming.
“You are not angry with me, are you? You don’t think I have been trying
to win your sympathy, do you? No, I’m sure you don’t,” she went on
before Nejdanov had time to make any reply; “you are like me, just as
unhappy, and your nature... is bad, like mine. We can go to the school
together tomorrow. We are excellent friends now, aren’t we?”
When Mariana and Nejdanov drew near to the house, Valentina Mihailovna
looked at them from the balcony through her lorgnette, shook her head
slowly with a smile on her lips, then returning through the open
glass door into the drawing-room, where Sipiagin was already seated at
preferences with their toothless neighbour, who had dropped in to tea,
she drawled out, laying stress on each syllable: “How damp the air is!
It’s not good for one’s health!”
Mariana and Nejdanov exchanged glances; Sipiagin, who had just scored
a trick from his partner, cast a truly ministerial glance at his wife,
looking her over from top to toe, then transferred this same cold,
sleepy, but penetrating glance to the young couple coming in from the
dark garden.
XIV
Two more weeks went by; everything in its accustomed order. Sipiagin
fixed everyone’s daily occupation, if not like a minister, at any rate
like the director of a department, and was, as usual, haughty, humane,
and somewhat fastidious. Kolia continued taking lessons; Anna Zaharovna,
still full of spite, worried about him constantly; visitors came
and went, talked, played at cards, and did not seem bored. Valentina
Mihailovna continued amusing herself with Nejdanov, although her
customary affability had become mixed with a certain amount of
good-natured sarcasm. Nejdanov had become very intimate with Mariana,
and discovered that her temper was even enough and that one could
discuss most things with her without hitting against any violent
opposition. He had been to the school with her once or twice, but with
the first visit had become convinced that he could do nothing there.
It was under the entire control of the deacon, with Sipiagin’s full
consent. The good father did not teach grammar badly, although his
method was rather old-fashioned, but at examinations he would put the
most absurd questions. For instance, he once asked Garacy how he would
explain the expression, “The waters are dark under the firmament,” to
which Garacy had to answer, by the deacon’s own order, “It cannot be
explained.” However, the school was soon closed for the summer, not to
be opened again until the autumn.
Bearing in mind the suggestion of Paklin and others, Nejdanov did all
he could to come in contact with the peasants, but soon found that he
was only learning to understand them, in so far as he could make any
observation and doing no propaganda whatever! Nejdanov had lived in a
town all his life and, consequently, between him and the country people
there existed a gulf that could not be crossed. He once happened to
exchange a few words with the drunken Kirill, and even with Mendely the
Sulky, but besides abuse about things in general he got nothing out
of them. Another peasant, called Fituvy, completely nonplussed him.
This peasant had an unusually energetic countenance, almost like some
brigand. “Well, this one seems hopeful at any rate,” Nejdanov thought.
But it turned out that Fituvy was a miserable wretch, from whom the
mir had taken away his land, because he, a strong healthy man, _would
not_ work. “I can’t,” he sobbed out, with deep inward groans, “I can’t
work! Kill me or I’ll lay hands on myself!” And he ended by begging
alms in the streets! With a face out of a canvas of Rinaldo Rinaldini!
As for the factory men, Nejdanov could not get hold of them at all;
these fellows were either too sharp or too gloomy. He wrote a long
letter to his friend Silin about the whole thing, in which he bitterly
regretted his incapacity, putting it down to the vile education he had
received and to his hopelessly aesthetic nature! He suddenly came to
the conclusion that his vocation in the field of propaganda lay not
in speaking, but in writing. But all the pamphlets he planned did not
work out somehow. Whatever he attempted to put down on paper, according
to him, was too drawn out, artificial in tone and style, and once or
twice—oh horror! he actually found himself wandering off into verse, or
on a sceptical, personal effusion. He even decided to speak about this
difficulty to Mariana, a very sure sign of confidence and intimacy! He
was again surprised to find her sympathetic, not towards his literary
attempts, certainly, but to the moral weakness he was suffering from,
a weakness with which she, too, was somewhat familiar. Mariana’s
contempt for aestheticism was no less strong than his, but for all that
the main reason why she did not accept Markelov was because there was
not the slightest trace of the aesthetic in his nature! She did not
for a moment admit this to herself. It is often the case that what is
strongest in us remains only a half-suspected secret.
Thus the days went by slowly, with little variety, but with sufficient
interest.
A curious change was taking place in Nejdanov. He felt dissatisfied with
himself, that is, with his inactivity, and his words had a constant ring
of bitter self-reproach. But in the innermost depths of his being there
lurked a sense of happiness very soothing to his soul. Was it a result
of the peaceful country life, the summer, the fresh air, dainty food,
beautiful home, or was it due to the fact that for the first time in
his life he was tasting the sweetness of contact with a woman’s soul?
It would be difficult to say. But he felt happy, although he complained,
and quite sincerely, to his friend Silin.
The mood, however, was abruptly destroyed in a single day.
On the morning of this day Nejdanov received a letter from Vassily
Nikolaevitch, instructing him, together with Markelov, to lose no
time in coming to an understanding with Solomin and a certain merchant
Golushkin, an Old Believer, living at S. This letter upset Nejdanov very
much; it contained a note of reproach at his inactivity. The bitterness
which had shown itself only in his words now rose with full force from
the depths of his soul.
Kollomietzev came to dinner, disturbed and agitated. “Would you believe
it!” he shouted almost in tears, “what horrors I’ve read in the papers!
My friend, my beloved Michael, the Servian prince, has been assassinated
by some blackguards in Belgrade. This is what these Jacobins and
revolutionists will bring us to if a firm stop is not put to them all!”
Sipiagin permitted himself to remark that this horrible murder was
probably not the work of Jacobins, “of whom there could hardly be any in
Servia,” but might have been committed by some of the followers of the
Karageorgievsky party, enemies of Obrenovitch. Kollomietzev would not
hear of this, and began to relate, in the same tearful voice, how the
late prince had loved him and what a beautiful gun he had given him!
Having spent himself somewhat and got rather irritable, he at last
turned from foreign Jacobins to home-bred nihilists and socialists, and
ended by flying into a passion. He seized a large roll, and breaking it
in half over his soup plate, in the manner of the stylish Parisian in
the “Café-Riche,” announced that he would like to tear limb from limb,
reduce to ashes, all those who objected to anybody or to anything! These
were his very words. “It is high time! High time!” he announced, raising
the spoon to his mouth; “yes, high time!” he repeated, giving his glass
to the servant, who was pouring out sherry. He spoke reverentially about
the great Moscow publishers, and _Ladislas, notre bon et cher Ladislas_,
did not leave his lips. At this point, he fixed his eyes on Nejdanov,
seeming to say: “There, this is for you! Make what you like of it! I
mean this for you! And there’s a lot more to come yet!” The latter,
no longer able to contain himself, objected at last, and began in a
slightly unsteady tone of voice (not due to fear, of course) defending
the ideals, the hopes, the principles of the modern generation.
Kollomietzev soon went into a squeak—his anger always expressed itself
in falsetto—and became abusive. Sipiagin, with a stately air, began
taking Nejdanov’s part; Valentina Mihailovna, of course, sided with her
husband; Anna Zaharovna tried to distract Kolia’s attention, looking
furiously at everybody; Mariana did not move, she seemed turned to
stone.
Nejdanov, hearing the name of _Ladislas_ pronounced at least for the
twentieth time, suddenly flared up and thumping the palm of his hand on
the table burst out:
“What an authority! As if we do not know who this Ladislas is! A born
spy, nothing more!”
“W-w-w-what—what—did you say?” Kollomietzev stammered cut, choking
with rage. “How dare you express yourself like that of a man who is
respected by such people as Prince Blasenkramf and Prince Kovrishkin!”
Nejdanov shrugged his shoulders.
“A very nice recommendation! Prince Kovrishkin, that enthusiastic
flunky—”
“Ladislas is my friend,” Kollomietzev screamed, “my comrade—and I—”
“So much the worse for you,” Nejdanov interrupted him. “It means that
you share his way of thinking, in which case my words apply to you too.”
Kollomietzev turned deadly pale with passion.
“W-what? How? You—ought to be—on the spot—”
“What would you like to do with me _on the spot_?” Nejdanov asked with
sarcastic politeness. Heaven only knows what this skirmish between these
two enemies might have led to, had not Sipiagin himself put a stop to it
at the very outset. Raising his voice and putting on a serious air, in
which it was difficult to say what predominated most, the gravity of an
important statesman or the dignity of a host, he announced firmly that
he did not wish to hear at his table such immoderate expressions, that
he had long ago made it a rule, a sacred rule, he added, to respect
every sort of conviction, so long as (at this point he raised his
forefinger ornamented with a signet ring) it came within the limits of
decent behaviour; that if he could not help, on the one hand, condemning
Mr. Nejdanov’s intemperate words, for which only his extreme youth could
be blamed, he could not, on the other, agree with Mr. Kollomietzev’s
embittered attack on people of an opposite camp, an attack, he felt
sure, that was only due to an over-amount of zeal for the general
welfare of society.
“Under my roof,” he wound up, “under the Sipiagin’s roof, there are
no Jacobins and no spies, only honest, well-meaning people, who, once
learning to understand one another, would most certainly clasp each
other by the hand!”
Neither Nejdanov nor Kollomietzev ventured on another word, but they
did not, however, clasp each other’s hands. Their moment for a mutual
understanding had not arrived. On the contrary, they had never yet
experienced such a strong antipathy to one another.
Dinner ended in an awkward, unpleasant silence. Sipiagin attempted to
relate some diplomatic anecdote, but stopped half-way through. Mariana
kept looking down at her plate persistently, not wishing to betray her
sympathy with what Nejdanov had said. She was by no means afraid, but
did not wish to give herself away before Madame Sipiagina. She felt
the latter’s keen, penetrating glance fixed on her. And, indeed,
Madame Sipiagina did not take her eyes either off her or Nejdanov. His
unexpected outburst at first came as a surprise to the intelligent
lady, but the next moment a light suddenly dawned upon her, so that she
involuntarily murmured, “Ah!” She suddenly divined that Nejdanov was
slipping away from her, this same Nejdanov who, a short time ago, was
ready to come to her arms. “Something has happened.... Is it Mariana? Of
course it’s Mariana...She likes him... and he—”
“Something must be done.” Thus she concluded her reflections, while
Kollomietzev was choking with indignation. Even when playing preference
two hours later, he pronounced the word “Pass!” or “I buy!” with an
aching heart. A hoarse tremulo of wounded pride could be detected in his
voice, although he pretended to scorn such things! Sipiagin was the only
one really pleased with the scene. It had afforded him an opportunity of
showing off the power of his eloquence and of calming the rising storm.
He knew Latin, and Virgil’s _Quos ego_ was not unfamiliar to him. He did
not consciously compare himself to Neptune, but thought of him with a
kind of sympathetic feeling.
XV
As soon as it was convenient for him to do so, Nejdanov retired to his
own room and locked himself in. He did not want to see anyone, anyone
except Mariana. Her room was situated at the very end of a long
corridor, intersecting the whole of the upper story. Nejdanov had only
once been there for a few moments, but it seemed to him that she would
not mind if he knocked at her door, now that she even wished to speak to
him herself. It was already fairly late, about ten o’clock. The host and
hostess had not considered it necessary to disturb him after what had
taken place at the dinner table. Valentina Mihailovna inquired once
or twice about Mariana, as she too had disappeared soon after dinner.
“Where is Mariana Vikentievna?” she asked first in Russian, then in
French, addressing herself to no one in particular, but rather to the
walls, as people often do when greatly astonished, but she soon became
absorbed in the game.
Nejdanov paced up and down the room several times, then turned down the
corridor and knocked gently at Mariana’s door. There was no response. He
knocked again—then he turned the handle of the door. It was locked.
But he had hardly got back to his own room and sat down, when the door
creaked softly and Mariana’s voice was heard: “Alexai Dmitritch, was
that _you_ came to me?”
He jumped up instantly and rushed out into the corridor. Mariana was
standing at his door with a candle in her hand, pale and motionless.
“Yes... I—” he murmured.
“Come,” she said, turning down the corridor, but before reaching the end
she stopped and pushed open a low door. Nejdanov looked into a small,
almost bare room.
“We had better go in here, Alexai Dmitritch, no one will disturb us
here.”
Nejdanov obeyed. Mariana put the candlestick on a window-sill and turned
to him.
“I understand why you wanted to see me,” she began. “It is wretched for
you to live in this house, and for me too.”
“Yes, I wanted to see you, Mariana Vikentievna,” Nejdanov replied, “but
I do not feel wretched here since I’ve come to know you.”
Mariana smiled pensively.
“Thank you, Alexai Dmitritch. But tell me, do you really intend stopping
here after all that has happened?”
“I don’t think they will keep me—I shall be dismissed,” Nejdanov
replied.
“But don’t you intend going away of your own accord?”
“I... No!”
“Why not?”
“Do you want to know the truth? Because _you_ are here.” Mariana
lowered her head and moved a little further down the room.
“Besides,” Nejdanov continued, “I _must_ stay here. You know
nothing—but I want—I feel that I must tell you everything.” He
approached Mariana and seized her hand; she did not take it away, but
only looked straight into his face. “Listen!” he exclaimed with sudden
force, “Listen!”
And instantly, without stopping to sit down, although there were two
or three chairs in the room, still standing before her and holding her
hand, with heated enthusiasm and with an eloquence, surprising even to
himself, he began telling her all his plans, his intentions, his
reason for having accepted Sipiagin’s offer, about all his connections,
acquaintances, about his past, things that he had always kept hidden
from everybody. He told her about Vassily Nikolaevitch’s letters,
everything—even about Silin! He spoke hurriedly, without a single pause
or the smallest hesitation, as if he were reproaching himself for not
having entrusted her with all his secrets before—as if he were
begging her pardon. She listened to him attentively, greedily; she
was bewildered at first, but this feeling soon wore off. Her heart was
overflowing with gratitude, pride, devotion, resoluteness. Her face and
eyes shone; she laid her other hand on Nejdanov’s—her lips parted in
ecstasy. She became marvellously beautiful!
He ceased at last, and suddenly seemed to see _this_ face for the first
time, although it was so dear and so familiar to him. He gave a deep
sigh.
“Ah! how well I did to tell you everything!” He was scarcely able to
articulate the words.
“Yes, how well—how well!” she repeated, also in a whisper. She imitated
him unconsciously—her voice, too, gave way. “And it means,” she
continued, “that I am at your disposal, that I want to be useful to your
cause, that I am ready to do anything that may be necessary, go wherever
you may want me to, that I have always longed with my whole soul for all
the things that you want—”
She also ceased. Another word—and her emotion would have dissolved into
tears. All the strength and force of her nature suddenly softened as
wax. She was consumed with a thirst for activity, for self-sacrifice,
for immediate self-sacrifice.
A sound of footsteps was heard from the other side of the door—light,
rapid, cautious footsteps.
Mariana suddenly drew herself up and disengaged her hands; her mood
changed, she became quite cheerful, a certain audacious, scornful
expression flitted across her face.
“I know who is listening behind the door at this moment,” she remarked,
so loudly that every word could be heard distinctly in the corridor;
“Madame Sipiagina is listening to us... but it makes no difference to
me.”
The footsteps ceased.
“Well?” Mariana asked, turning to Nejdanov. “What shall I do? How shall
I help you? Tell me... tell me quickly! What shall I do?”
“I don’t know yet,” Nejdanov replied. “I have received a note from
Markelov—”
“When did you receive it? When?”
“This evening. He and I must go and see Solomin at the factory
tomorrow.”
“Yes... yes.... What a splendid man Markelov is! Now he’s a real
friend!”
“Like me?”
“No—not like you.”
“How?”
She turned away suddenly.
“Oh! Don’t you understand what you have become for me, and what I am
feeling at this moment?”
Nejdanov’s heart beat violently; he looked down. This girl who loved
him—a poor, homeless wretch, who trusted him, who was ready to
follow him, pursue the same cause together with him—this wonderful
girl—Mariana—became for Nejdanov at this moment the incarnation of
all earthly truth and goodness—the incarnation of the love of mother,
sister, wife, all the things he had never known; the incarnation of his
country, happiness, struggle, freedom!
He raised his head and encountered her eyes fixed on him again.
Oh, how this sweet, bright glance penetrated to his very soul!
“And so,” he began in an unsteady voice, “I am going away tomorrow....
And when I come back, I will tell... you—” (he suddenly felt it awkward
to address Mariana as “you”) “tell you everything that is decided upon.
From now on everything that I do and think, everything, I will tell thee
first.”
“Oh, my dear!” Mariana exclaimed, seizing his hand again. “I promise
thee the same!”
The word “thee” escaped her lips just as simply and easily as if they
had been old comrades.
“Have you got the letter?”
“Here it is.”
Mariana scanned the letter and looked up at him almost reverently.
“Do they entrust you with such important commissions?” He smiled in
reply and put the letter back in his pocket. “How curious,” he said, “we
have come to know of our love, we love one another—and yet we have not
said a single word about it.”
“There is no need,” Mariana whispered, and suddenly threw her arms
around his neck and pressed her head closely against his breast. They
did not kiss—it would have seemed to them too commonplace and rather
terrible—but instantly took leave of one another, tightly clasping each
other’s hands.
Mariana returned for the candle which she had left on the window-sill
of the empty room. Only then a sort of bewilderment came over her; she
extinguished the candle and, gliding quickly along the dark corridor,
entered her own room, undressed and went to bed in the soothing
darkness.
XVI
On awakening the following morning, Nejdanov did not feel the slightest
embarrassment at what had taken place the previous night, but was, on
the contrary, filled with a sort of quiet joy, as if he had fulfilled
something which ought to have been done long ago. Asking for two days’
leave from Sipiagin, who consented readily, though with a certain amount
of severity, Nejdanov set out for Markelov’s. Before his departure he
managed to see Mariana. She was also not in the least abashed, looked
at him calmly and resolutely, and called him “dear” quite naturally.
She was very much concerned about what he might hear at Markelov’s, and
begged him to tell her everything.
“Of course!” he replied. “After all,” he thought, “why should we be
disturbed? In our friendship personal feeling played only... a secondary
part, and we are united forever. In the name of the cause? Yes, in the
name of the cause!”
Thus Nejdanov thought, and he did not himself suspect how much truth and
how much falsehood there lay in his reflections.
He found Markelov in the same weary, sullen frame of mind. After a very
impromptu dinner they set out in the well-known carriage to the merchant
Falyeva’s cotton factory where Solomin lived. (The second side horse
harnessed to the carriage was a young colt that had never been in
harness before. Markelov’s own horse was still a little lame.)
Nejdanov’s curiosity had been aroused. He very much wanted to become
closer acquainted with a man about whom he had heard so much of late.
Solomin had been informed of their coming, so that as soon as the two
travellers stopped at the gates of the factory and announced who they
were, they were immediately conducted into the hideous little wing
occupied by the “engineering manager.” He was at that time in the
main body of the building, and while one of the workmen ran to fetch
him, Nejdanov and Markelov managed to go up to the window and look
around. The factory was apparently in a very flourishing condition
and over-loaded with work. From every corner came the quick buzzing
sound of unceasing activity; the puffing and rattling of machines, the
creaking of looms, the humming of wheels, the whirling of straps, while
trolleys, barrels, and loaded carts were rolling in and out. Orders
were shouted out at the top of the voice amidst the sound of bells and
whistles; workmen in blouses with girdles round their waists, their
hair fastened with straps, work girls in print dresses, hurried quickly
to and fro, harnessed horses were led about.... It represented the hum
of a thousand human beings working with all their might. Everything
went at full speed in fairly regular order, but not only was there
an absence of smartness and neatness, but there was not the smallest
trace or cleanliness to be seen anywhere. On the contrary, in every
corner one was struck by neglect, dirt, grime; here a pane of glass was
broken, there the plaster was coming off; in another place the boards
were loose; in a third, a door gaped wide open. A large filthy puddle
covered with a coating of rainbow-coloured slime stood in the middle
of the main yard; farther on lay a heap of discarded bricks; scraps
of mats and matting, boxes, and pieces of rope lay scattered here and
there; shaggy, hungry-looking dogs wandered to and fro, too listless
to bark; in a corner, under the fence, sat a grimy little boy of about
four, with an enormous belly and dishevelled head, crying hopelessly,
as if he had been forsaken by the whole world; close by a sow likewise
besmeared in soot and surrounded by a medley of little suckling-pigs
was devouring some cabbage stalks; some ragged clothes were stretched
on a line—and such stuffiness and stench! In a word, just like a
Russian factory—not like a French or a German one.
Nejdanov looked at Markelov.
“I have heard so much about Solomin’s superior capabilities,” he began,
“that I confess all this disorder surprises me. I did not expect it.”
“This is not disorder, but the usual Russian slovenliness,” Markelov
replied gloomily. “But all the same, they are turning over millions.
Solomin has to adjust himself to the old ways, to practical things, and
to the owner himself. Have you any idea what Falyeva is like?”
“Not in the least.”
“He is the biggest skinflint in Moscow. A regular bourgeois.”
At this moment Solomin entered the room. Nejdanov was just as
disillusioned about him as he had been about the factory. At the first
glance he gave one the impression of being a Finn or a Swede. He was
tall, lean, broad-shouldered, with colourless eyebrows and eyelashes;
had a long sallow face, a short, rather broad nose, small greenish eyes,
a placid expression, coarse thick lips, large teeth, and a divided chin
covered with a suggestion of down. He was dressed like a mechanic or a
stoker in an old pea-jacket with baggy pockets, with an oil-skin cap on
his head, a woollen scarf round his neck, and tarred boots on his feet.
He was accompanied by a man of about forty in a peasant coat, who had an
extraordinarily lively gipsy-like face, coal-black piercing eyes, with
which he scanned Nejdanov as soon as he entered the room. Markelov was
already known to him. This was Pavel, Solomin’s _factotum_.
Solomin approached the two visitors slowly and without a word, pressed
the hand of each in turn in his own hard bony one. He opened a drawer,
pulled out a sealed letter, which he handed to Pavel, also without
a word, and the latter immediately left the room. Then he stretched
himself, threw away his cap with one wave of the hand, sat down on
a painted wooden stool and, pointing to a couch, begged Nejdanov and
Markelov to be seated.
Markelov first introduced Nejdanov, whom Solomin again shook by the
hand, then he went on to “business,” mentioning Vassily Nikolaevitch’s
letter, which Nejdanov handed to Solomin. And while the latter was
reading it carefully, his eyes moving from line to line, N
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