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The Precipice

by Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov · English · Gutenberg #7307 · 591,301 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Precipice

Author: Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov


        
Release date: January 1, 2005 [eBook #7307]
                Most recently updated: November 7, 2016

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRECIPICE ***




Produced by Susan Skinner, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team








THE PRECIPICE

Original Russian Title: _OBRYV_

By Ivan Goncharov



TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL RUSSIAN; TRANSLATOR UNKNOWN
{This text is condensed from the original.}




PREFACE

Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812-1891) was one of the leading members
of the great circle of Russian writers who, in the middle of the
nineteenth century, gathered around the _Sovremmenik_ (Contemporary)
under Nekrasov’s editorship--a circle including Turgenev, Dostoyevsky,
Tolstoy, Byelinsky, and Herzen. He had not the marked genius of the
first three of these; but that he is so much less known to the western
reader is perhaps also due to the fact that there was nothing
sensational either in his life or his literary method. His strength was
in the steady delineation of character, conscious of, but not deeply
disturbed by, the problems which were obsessing and distracting smaller
and greater minds.

Tolstoy has a characteristically prejudiced reminiscence: “I remember
how Goncharov, the author, a very sensible and educated man but a
thorough townsman and an aesthete, said to me that, after Turgenev,
there was nothing left to write about in the life of the lower classes.
It was all used up. The life of our wealthy people, with their
amorousness and dissatisfaction with their lives, seemed to him full of
inexhaustible subject-matter. One hero kissed his lady on her palm, and
another on her elbow, and a third somewhere else. One man is
discontented through idleness, another because people don’t love him.
And Goncharov thought that in this sphere there is no end of variety.”

In fact, his greatest success was the portrait of Oblomov in the novel
of that name, which was at once recognised as a peculiarly national
character--a man of thirty-two years, careless, bored, untidy, lazy, but
gentle and good-natured. In the present work, now translated for the
first time into English, the type reappears with some differences.
Raisky seems to have been “born tired.” He has plenty of intelligence,
some artistic gifts, charm, and an abundant kindliness, yet he achieves
nothing, either in work or in love, and in the end fades ineffectually
out of the story. “He knew he would do better to begin a big piece of
work instead of these trifles; but he told himself that Russians did not
understand hard work, or that real work demanded rude strength, the use
of the hands, the shoulders, and the back,” “He is only half a man,”
 says Mark Volokov, the wolfish outlaw who quotes Proudhon and talks
about “the new knowledge, the new life.” This rascal, whose violent
pursuit of the heroine produces the tragedy of the book, is a much less
convincing figure, though he also represents a reality of Russian life
then, and even now.

The true contrast to Raisky of which Goncharov had deep and sympathetic
knowledge is shown in the splendid picture of the two women--Vera, the
infatuated beauty, and Aunt Tatiana, whose agony of motherly concern and
shamed remembrance is depicted with great power. The book is remarkable
as a study in the psychology of passionate emotion; for the western
reader, it is also delightful for the glimpses it gives of the old
Russian country life which is slowly passing away. The scene lies beside
one of the small towns on the Volga--“like other towns, a cemetery ...
the tranquillity of the grave. What a frame for a novel, if only he knew
what to put in the novel.... If the image of passion should float over
this motionless, sleepy little world, the picture would glow into the
enchanting colour of life.” The storm of passion does break over the
edge of the hill overlooking the mighty river, and, amid the wreckage,
the two victims rise into a nobility that the reckless reformer and the
pleasant dilettante have never conceived.

Goncharov had passed many years in Governmental service and had, in fact,
reached the age of thirty-five when his first work, _“A Common
Story,”_ was published. _“The Frigate Pallada,”_ which followed,
is a lengthy descriptive account of an official expedition to Japan and
Siberia in which Goncharov took part. After the publication of _“The
Precipice,”_ its author was moved to write an essay, _“Better Late
Than Never,”_ in which he attempted to explain that the purpose of
his three novels was to present the eternal struggle between East and
West--the lethargy of the Russian and the ferment of foreign influences.
Thus he ranged himself more closely with the great figures among his
contemporaries. Two other volumes consist of critical study and
reminiscence.




CHAPTER I


Boris Pavlovich Raisky had a vivacious, unusually mobile face. At first
sight he appeared younger than his years. The high, white forehead gave
an impression of freshness and vigour; the eyes blazed one moment with
intelligence, emotion or gaiety, a moment later they wore a meditative,
dreamy expression, then again they looked young, even childlike. At
other times they evidenced knowledge of life, or looked so weary, so
bored that they betrayed their owner’s age; at these times there
appeared between them three furrows, certain indications of time and
knowledge of life. Smooth black hair fell on his neck and half covered
the ears, with here and there silver threads about the temples. His
complexion had kept the tints of youth except on the temples and the
chin, which were a brownish-yellow colour.

It was easy to guess from his physiognomy that the conflict between
youth and maturity was past, that he had passed the early stages of
life’s journey and that sorrow and sickness had left their marks on him.
Only the mouth, with its delicate lines, with the fresh, almost
childlike smile remained unchanged by age.

He had been left an orphan in childhood, and for some time his
indifferent, bachelor guardian had left his education to a relative,
Boris’s aunt.

This lady was endowed with a rich temperament, but her horizon did not
stretch far beyond her own home, where in the tranquil atmosphere of
woods and gardens, in the environment of the family and the estate,
Boris had passed several years. When he grew older his guardian sent him
to the High School, where the family traditions of former wealth and of
the connexion with other old noble families faded.

His further development, occupations and inclinations led him still
further from the traditions of his childhood. Raisky had lived for about
ten years in St. Petersburg; that is to say he rented three pleasant
rooms from a German landlord, which he retained, although after he had
left the civil service he rarely spent two successive half-years in the
capital.

He had left the civil service as casually as he had entered it, because,
when he had had time to consider his position, he came to the conclusion
that the service is not an aim in itself, but merely a means to bring
together a number of men who would otherwise have had no justification
for their existence. If these men had not existed, the posts which they
filled need never have been created.

Now, he had already passed his thirtieth year, and had neither sowed nor
reaped. He did not follow the same path as the other ordinary arrival
from the interior of Russia, for he was neither an officer nor an
official, nor did he seek a career for himself by hard work or by
influence. He was inscribed in the registers of his police district as a
civil servant.

It would have been hard for the expert in physiognomy to decipher
Raisky’s characteristics, inclinations and character from his face
because of its extraordinary mobility. Still less could his mental
physiognomy be defined. He had moments when, to use his own expression,
he embraced the whole world, so that many people declared that there was
no kinder, more amiable man in existence. Others, on the contrary, who
came across him at an unfortunate moment, when the yellow patches on his
face were most marked, when his lips were drawn in a sinister, nervous
quiver, and he returned kindness and sympathy with cold looks and sharp
words, were repelled by him and even pursued him with their dislike.
Some called him egotistic and proud, while others declared themselves
enchanted with him; some again maintained that he was theatrical, others
that he was not to be trusted. Two or three friends judged otherwise. “A
noble nature,” they said, “most honourable, but with all its virtues,
nervous, passionate, excitable, fiery tempered....” So there had never
been any unanimous opinion of him.

Even in early childhood while he lived with his aunt, and later, after
his school-days had begun, he showed the same enigmatic and
contradictory traits.

It might be expected that the first effort of a new boy would be to
listen to the teacher’s questions and the pupils’ answers. But Raisky
stared at the teacher, as if seeking to impress on his memory the
details of his appearance, his speech, how he took snuff; he looked at
his eyebrows, his beard, then at his clothes, at the cornelian seal
suspended across his waistcoat, and so on. Then he would observe each of
the other boys and note their peculiarities, or he would study his own
person, and wonder what his own face was like, what the others thought
of him....

“What did I say just now?” interrupted the master, noticing Boris’s
wandering glance.

To the teacher’s amazement Boris replied word for word, “And what is the
meaning of this?” He had listened mechanically, and had caught the
actual syllables.

The master repeated his explanation, and again Boris caught the sound of
his voice, noticing that sometimes he spoke shortly, staccato--sometimes
drawled as if he were singing, and then rapped out his words smartly
like nuts.

“Well?”

Raisky blushed, perspired with anxiety, and was silent.

It was the mathematical master. He went to the blackboard, wrote up the
problem, and again began the explanation. Raisky only noticed with what
rapidity and certainty he wrote the figures, how the waistcoat with the
cornelian seal and then the snuff-spattered shirt front came
nearer--nothing, except the solution of the problem, escaped him.

Now and then a notion penetrated to his brain, but when it came to
equations he grew weary with the effort required. Sometimes the teacher
lost patience with him, and generally concluded: “Go back to your place,
you are a blockhead.”

But if a whiff of originality passed over the master himself, if he
taught as if it were a game, and had recourse neither to his book nor to
the blackboard, then the solution flashed on Raisky, and he found the
answer quicker than any of the others.

He consumed passionately history, novels and tales; wherever he could he
begged for books. But he did not like facts or theories or anything that
drew him from the world of fancy towards the world of reality. In the
geography lesson he could not understand how any boy could answer in
class, but once out of class he could talk about foreign countries and
cities, or about the sea, to the amazement of his classmates. He had not
learnt it from the teacher or from a book, but he gave a picture of the
place as if he had actually been there.

“You are inventing,” a sceptical listener would say. “Vassili Nikitich
never said that.”

His companions did not know what to make of him, for his sympathies
changed so often that he had neither constant friends nor constant
enemies. One week he would attach himself to one boy, seek his society,
sit with him, read to him, talk to him and give him his confidence. Then,
for no reason, he would leave him, enter into close relations with
another boy, and then as speedily forget him.

If one of his companions annoyed him he became angry with him and
pursued hostilities obstinately long after the original cause was
forgotten. Then suddenly he would have a friendly, magnanimous impulse,
would carefully arrange a scene of reconciliation, which interested
everyone, himself most of all.

When he was out of school, everyday life attracted him very little; he
cared neither for its gayer side nor its sterner activities. If his
guardian asked him how the corn should be threshed, the cloth milled or
linen bleached, he turned away and went out on to the verandah to look
out on the woods, or made his way along the river to the thicket to
watch the insects at work, or to observe the birds, to see how they
alighted, how they sharpened their beaks. He caught a hedgehog and made
a playmate of it, went out fishing all day long with the village boys,
or listened to the tales about Pugachev told by a half-witted old woman
living in a mud hut, greedily drinking in the most singular of the
horrible incidents she related, while he looked into the old woman’s
toothless mouth and into the caverns of her fading eyes.

For hours he would listen with morbid curiosity to the babble of the
idiot Feklusha. At home he read in the most desultory way. He deemed the
secrets of Eastern magic, Russian tales and folk-lore, skimmed Ossian,
Tasso, Homer, or wandered with Cook in strange lands. If he found
nothing to read he lay motionless all day long, as if he were exhausted
with hard work; his fancy carried him beyond Ossian and Homer, beyond
the tales of Cook, until fevered with his imaginings he rose tired,
exhausted, and unable for a long time to resume normal life.

People called him an idler. He feared this accusation, and wept over it
in secret, though he was convinced that he was no idler, but something
different, that no one but himself comprehended.

Unfortunately, there was no one to guide him in a definite direction. On
the one hand, his guardian merely saw to it that his masters came at
stated times and that Boris did not avoid school; on the other, his aunt
contented herself with seeing that he was in good health, ate and slept
well, was decently dressed, and as a well-brought-up boy should, did not
consort with every village lout.

Nobody cared to see what he read; his aunt gave him the keys of his
father’s library in the old house, where he shut himself in, now to read
Spinoza, now a novel, and another day Voltaire or Boccaccio.

He made better progress in the arts than in the sciences. Here too he
had his tricks. One day the teacher set the pupils to draw eyes, but
Raisky grew tired of that, and proceeded to add a nose and a moustache.
The master surprised him, and seized him by the hair. When he looked
closer at the drawing, however, he asked: “Where did you learn to do
that?”

“Nowhere,” was the reply.

“But it is well done, my lad. See yourself what this hurry to get on
leads to; the forehead and nose are good enough, but the ear you have
put in the wrong place, and the hair looks like tow.”

Raisky was triumphant. The words, “But it is well done; the forehead and
nose are good enough,” were for him a crown of laurel.

He walked round the school yard proud in the consciousness that he was
the best in the drawing class; this mood lasted to the next day, when he
came to grief in the ordinary lessons. But he conceived a passion for
drawing, and during the month that followed drew a curly-headed boy,
then the head of Fingal. His fancy was caught by a woman’s head which
hung in the master’s room; it leaned a little towards one shoulder, and
looked away into the distance with melancholy, meditative eyes. “Allow
me to make a copy,” he begged with a gentle, tremulous voice, and with a
nervous quiver of the upper lip.

“Don’t break the glass,” the master warned him, and gave him the picture.
Boris was happy. For a whole week his masters did not secure a single
intelligent answer from him. He sat silently in his corner and drew. At
night he took the drawing to his bedroom, and as he looked into its
gracious eyes, followed the lines of the delicately bent neck, he
shivered, his heart stood still, there was a catch in his breath, and he
closed his eyes; with a faint sigh he pressed the picture to his breast
where the breath came so painfully--and then there was a crash and the
glass fell clattering on the floor.

When he had drawn the head his pride knew no bounds. His work was
exhibited with the drawings of pupils of the top class, the teacher had
made few corrections, had only here and there put broad strokes in the
shading, had drawn three or four more decided lines, had put a point in
each eye--and the eyes were now like life.

“How lifelike and bold it is!” thought Raisky, as he looked at the
strokes inserted by his master, and more especially at the points in the
eyes, which had so suddenly given them the look of life. This step
forward intoxicated him. “Talent! Talent!” sang in his ears.

He sketched the maids, the coachman, the peasants of the countryside. He
was particularly successful with the idiot Feklusha, seated in a cavern
with her bust in the shade, and the light on her wild hair; he had not
the patience nor the skill to finish bust, hands and feet. How could
anybody be expected to sit still all the morning, when the sun was
shedding its rays so gaily and so generously on stream and meadow?

Within three days the picture had faded in his imagination, and new
images were thronging his brain. He would like to have drawn a round
dance, a drunken old man, the rapid passage of a troïka. For two days he
was taken up with this picture, which stood before his mind’s eye in
every detail; the peasants and the women were finished, but not the
waggon with its three fleet horses.

In a week he had forgotten this picture also.

He loved music to distraction. At school he had an enduring affection
for the dull Vassyvkov, who was the laughing stock of the other boys. A
boy would seize Vassyvkov by the ear, crying, “Get out, stupid,
blockhead,” but Raisky stood by him, because Vassyvkov, inattentive,
sleepy, idle, who never did his work even for the universally beloved
Russian master, would every afternoon after dinner take his violin, and
as he played, forget the school, the masters and the nose-pullings. His
eyes as they gazed into the distance, apparently seeking something
strange, enticing, and mysterious, became wild and gloomy, and often
filled with tears.

He was no longer Vassyvkov, but another creature. His pupils dilated,
his eyes ceased to blink, becoming clearer and deeper; his glance was
proud and intelligent; his breath came long and deep. Over his face
stole an expression of happiness, of gentleness; his eyes became darker
and seemed to radiate light. In a word he became beautiful.

Raisky began to think the thoughts of Vassyvkov, to see what he saw. His
surroundings vanished, and boys and benches were lost in a mist. More
notes ... and a wide space opened before him. A world in motion arose.
He heard the murmur of running streams, saw ships, men, woods, and
drifting clouds; everywhere was light, motion, and gaiety. He had the
sensation that he himself was growing taller, he caught his breath....

The dream continued just so long as the notes were heard. Suddenly he
heard a noise, he was awakened with a start, Vassyvkov had ceased to
play; the moving, musical waves vanished, and there were only the boys,
benches and tables. Vassyvkov laid aside his violin, and somebody
tweaked his ear. Raisky threw himself in a rage on the offender, struck
him--all the while possessed by the magic notes.

Every nerve in his body sang. Life, thought, emotion broke in waves in
the seething sea of his consciousness. The notes strike a chord of
memory. A cloud of recollection hovers before him, shaping the figure of
a woman who holds him to her breast. He gropes in his consciousness--it
was thus that his mother’s arms cradled him, his face pressed to her
breast ... her figure grows in distinctness, as if she had risen from
the grave....

He had begun to take lessons from Vassyvkov. For a whole week he had
been moving the bow up and down, but its scratching set his teeth on
edge. He caught two strings at once, and his hand trembled with weakness.
It was clearly no use. When Vassyvkov played his hand seemed to play of
itself. Tired of the torment, Raisky begged his guardian to allow him to
take piano lessons.

“It will be easier on the pianoforte,” he thought.

His guardian engaged a German master, but took the opportunity of saying
a few words to his nephew.

“Boris,” he said, “for what are you preparing yourself? I have been
intending to ask you for a long time.”

Boris did not understand the question, and made no answer.

“You are nearly sixteen years old, and it is time you began to think of
serious things. It is plain that you have not yet considered what
faculty you will follow in the University, and to which branch of the
service you will devote yourself. You cannot well go into the army,
because you have no great fortune, and yet, for the sake of your family,
could hardly serve elsewhere than in the Guards.”

Boris was silent, and watched through the window how the hens strutted
about, how the pigs wallowed in the mire, how the cat was stalking a
pigeon....

“I am speaking to you seriously, and you stare out of the window. For
what future are you preparing yourself?”

“I want to be an artist.”

“Wha-at?”

“An artist.”

“The devil only knows what notions you have got into your head. Who
would agree to that? Do you even know what an artist is?”

Raisky made no answer.

“An artist ... is a man who borrows money from you, or chatters foolish
nonsense, and drives you to distraction.... Artist! ... These people
lead a wild gipsy life, are destitute of money, clothes, shoes, and all
the time they dream of wealth. Artists live on this earth like the birds
of heaven. I have seen enough of them in St. Petersburg: bold rascals
who meet one another in the evening dressed in fantastic costumes, lie
upon divans, smoke pipes, talk about trifles, read poetry, drink brandy
and declare that they are artists. Uncombed, unwashed....”

“I have heard, Uncle, that artists are now held in high esteem. You are
thinking of the past. Now, the Academy produces many famous people.”

“I am not very old, and I have seen the world. You have heard the bells
ring, but do not know in what tower. Famous people! There are famous
artists as there are famous doctors. But when do they achieve fame? When
do they enter the service and reach the rank of Councillor? If a man
builds a cathedral or erects a monument in a public place, then people
begin to seek him out. But artists begin in poverty, with a crust of
bread. You will find they are for the most part freed serfs, small
tradespeople or foreigners, or Jews. Poverty drives them to art. But
you--a Raisky! You have land of your own, and bread to eat. It’s
pleasant enough to have graceful talents in society, to play the piano,
to sketch in an album, and to sing a song, and I have therefore engaged
a German professor for you. But what an abominable idea to be an artist
by profession! Have you ever heard of a prince or a count who has
painted a picture, or a nobleman who has chiselled a statue? No, and
why?”

“What about Rubens? He was a courtier, an ambassador....”

“Where have you dug that out? Two hundred years ago.... Among the
Germans ... but you are going to the University, to enter the faculty of
law, then you will study for the service in St. Petersburg, try to get a
position as advocate, and your connexions will help you to a place at
court. And if you keep your eyes open, with your name and your
connexions, you will be a Governor in thirty years’ time. That is the
career for you. But there seem to be no serious ideas in your head; you
catch fish with the village boors, have sketched a swamp and a drunken
beggar, but you have not the remotest idea of when this or that crop
should be sown, or at what price it is sold.”

Raisky trembled. His guardian’s lecture affected his nerves.

Like Vassyvkov, the music master began to bend his fingers. If Raisky
had not been ashamed before his guardian he would not have endured the
torture. As it was he succeeded in a few months, after much trouble, in
completing the first stages of his instruction. Very soon he surpassed
and surprised the local young ladies by the strength and boldness of his
playing. His master saw his abilities were remarkable, his indolence
still more remarkable.

That, he thought, was no misfortune. Indolence and negligence are native
to artists. He had been told too that a man who has talent should not
work too hard. Hard work is only for those with moderate abilities.




CHAPTER II


Raisky entered the University, and spent the summer vacation with his
aunt, Tatiana Markovna Berezhkov.

His aunt lived in a family estate which Boris had inherited from his
mother--a piece of land on the Volga, close by a little town, with fifty
souls and two residences, one built of stone and now neglected, the
other a wooden building built by Boris’s father. In this newer house
Tatiana Markovna lived with two orphan girls of six and five years old
respectively, who had been left in her care by a niece whom she had
loved as a daughter.

Tatiana Markovna had an estate and a village of her own, but after the
death of Raisky’s parents she had established herself on their little
estate, which she ruled like a miniature kingdom, wisely, economically,
carefully and despotically. She never permitted Boris’s guardian to
interfere in her business, took no heed of documents, papers, or deeds,
but carried on the affairs of the estate according to the practice of
its former owners. She told Boris’s guardian that all the documents,
papers and deeds were inscribed in her memory, and that she would render
account to Boris when he came of age; until that day came she, according
to the verbal instructions of his parents, was mistress of the estate.
Boris’s guardian was content. It was an excellent estate, and could not
be better administered than by the old lady.

What a Paradise Raisky evolved for himself in this corner of the earth,
from which he had been taken away in his childhood and where he had
spent many a summer visit in his schooldays. What views in the
neighbourhood! Every window in the house framed a lovely landscape. From
one side could be seen the Volga with its steep banks; from the others
wide meadows and gorges, and the whole seemed to melt into the distant
blue hills. From the third side could be seen fields, villages, and part
of the town. The air was cool and invigorating, and as refreshing as a
bathe on a summer day.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the two houses the great park, with
its dark alleys, arbours and seats, was kept in good order, but beyond
these limits it was left wild. There were broad stretching elms, cherry
and apple trees, service trees, and there were lime trees intended to
form an avenue, which lost itself in a wood in the friendly
neighbourhood of pines and birches. Suddenly the whole ended in a
precipice, thickly overgrown with bushes, which overhung a plain about
one and a-half versts in breadth along the banks of the Volga.

Nearer the wooden house lay the vegetable garden, and just in front of
its windows lay the flower garden. Tatiana Markovna liked to have a
space clear of trees in front of the house, so that the place was
flooded with sunshine and the scent of flowers. From the other side of
the house one could watch all that was going on in the courtyard and
could see the servants’ quarters, the kitchens, the hayricks, and the
stable. In the depths of the courtyard stood the old house, gloomy,
always in shadow, stained with age, with here and there a cracked window
pane, with heavy doors fastened by heavy bolts, and the path leading up
to it overgrown with grass. But on the new house the sun streamed from
morning to night; the flower garden, full of roses and dahlias,
surrounded it like a garland, and the gay flowers seemed to be trying to
force their way in through the windows. Swallows nesting under the eaves
flew hither and thither; in the garden and the trees there were
hedge-sparrows, siskins and goldfinches, and when darkness fell the
nightingale began to sing. Around the flowers there were swarms of bees,
humble-bees, dragon-flies, and glittering butterflies; and in the
corners cats and kittens stretched themselves comfortably in the
sunshine.

In the house itself peace and joy reigned. The rooms were small, but
cosy. Antique pieces of furniture had been brought over from the great
house, as had the portraits of Raisky’s parents and grandparents. The
floors were painted, waxed and polished; the stoves were adorned with
old-fashioned tiles, also brought over from the other house; the
cupboards were full of plate and silver; there were old Dresden cups and
figures, Chinese ornaments, tea-pots, sugar-basins, heavy old spoons.
Round stools bound with brass, and inlaid tables stood in pleasant
corners.

In Tatiana Markovna’s sitting-room stood an old-fashioned carved bureau
with a mirror, urns, lyres, and genii. But she had hung up the mirror,
because she said it was a hindrance to writing when you stared at your
own stupid face. The room also contained a round table where she lunched
and drank her tea and coffee, and a rather hard leather-covered armchair
with a high back. Grandmother {1} was old-fashioned; she did not approve
of lounging, but held herself upright and was simple and reserved in
her manners.

How beautiful Boris thought her! And indeed she was beautiful.

Tall, neither stout nor thin, a vivacious old lady ... not indeed an old
lady, but a woman of fifty, with quick black eyes, and so kind and
gracious a smile that even when she was angry, and the storm-light
flickered in her eyes, the blue sky could be observed behind the clouds.
She had a slight moustache, and, on her left cheek, near the chin, a
birth-mark with a little bunch of hairs, details which gave her face a
remarkable expression of kindness.

She cut her grey hair short, and went about in house, yard, garden with
her head uncovered, but on feast days, or when guests were expected she
put on a cap. The cap could not be kept in its place, and did not suit
her at all, so that after about five minutes she would with apologies
remove the tiresome headdress.

In the mornings she wore a wide white blouse with a girdle and big
pockets; in the afternoon she put on a brown dress, and on feast days a
heavy rustling silk dress that gleamed like silver, and over it a
valuable shawl which only Vassilissa, her housekeeper, was allowed to
take out of the press.

“Uncle Ivan Kusmich brought it from the East,” she used to boast. “It
cost three hundred gold roubles, and now no money would buy it.”

At her girdle hung a bunch of keys, so that Grandmother could be heard
from afar like a rattlesnake when she crossed the yard or the garden. At
the sound the coachmen hid their pipes in their boots, because the
mistress feared nothing so much as fire, and for that reason counted
smoking as the greatest of crimes. The cooks seized the knife, the spoon
or the broom; Kirusha, who had been joking with Matrona, hurried to the
door, while Matrona hurried to the byre.

If the approaching clatter gave warning that the mistress was returning
to the house Mashutka quickly took off her dirty apron and wiped her
hands on a towel or a bit of rag, as the case might be. Spitting on her
hands she smoothed down her dry, rebellious hair, and covered the round
table with the finest of clean tablecloths. Vassilissa, silent, serious,
of the same age as her mistress, buxom, but faded with much confinement
indoors, would bring in the silver service with the steaming coffee.

Mashutka effaced herself as far as possible in a corner. The mistress
insisted on cleanliness in her servants, but Mashutka had no gift for
keeping herself spotless. When her hands were clean she could do nothing,
but felt as if everything would slip through her fingers. If she was
told to do her hair on Sunday, to wash and to put on tidy clothes, she
felt the whole day as if she had been sewn into a sack. She only seemed
to be happy when, smeared and wet with washing the boards, the windows,
the silver, or the doors, she had become almost unrecognisable, and had,
if she wanted to rub her nose or her eyebrows, to use her elbow.

Vassilissa, on the contrary, respected herself, and was the only tidy
woman among all the servants. She had been in the service of her
mistress since her earliest days as her personal maid, had never been
separated from her, knew every detail of her life, and now lived with
her as housekeeper and confidential servant. The two women communicated
with one another in monosyllables. Tatiana Markovna hardly needed to
give instructions to Vassilissa, who knew herself what had to be done.
If something unusual was required, her mistress did not give orders, but
suggested that this or that should be done.

Vassilissa was the only one of her subjects whom Tatiana Markovna
addressed by her full name. If she did address them by their baptismal
names they were names that could not be compressed nor clipped, as for
example Ferapont or Panteleimon. The village elder she did indeed
address as Stepan Vassilich, but the others were to her Matroshka,
Mashutka, Egorka and so on. The unlucky individual whom she addressed
with his Christian name and patronymic knew that a storm was impending.
“Here, Egor Prokhorich! where were you all day yesterday?” Or “Simeon
Vassilich, you smoked a pipe yesterday in the hayrick. Take care!”

She would get up in the middle of the night to convince herself that a
spark from a pipe had not set fire to anything, or that there was not
someone walking about the yard or the coachhouse with a lantern.

Under no consideration could the gulf between the “people” and the
family be bridged. She was moderately strict and moderately considerate,
kindly, but always within the limits of her ideas of government. If
Irene, Matrona or another of the maids gave birth to a child, she
listened to the report of the event with an air of injured dignity, but
gave Vassilissa to understand that the necessaries should be provided;
and would add, “Only don’t let me see the good-for-nothing.” After
Matrona or Irene had recovered she would keep out of her mistress’s
sight for a month or so; then it was as if nothing had happened, and the
child was put out in the village.

If any of her people fell sick, Tatiana got up in the night, sent him
spirits and embrocation, but next day she would send him either to the
infirmary or oftener to the “wise woman,” but she did not send for a
doctor. But if one of her own relatives, her “grandchildren” showed a
bad tongue, or a swollen face, Kirusha or Vlass must immediately ride
post haste to the town for the doctor.

The “wise woman” was a woman in the suburbs who treated the “people”
 with simple remedies, and rapidly relieved them of their maladies. It
did, indeed, happen that many a man remained crippled for life after her
treatment. One lost his voice and could only crow, another lost an eye,
or a piece of his jawbone, but the pain was gone and he went back to
work. That seemed satisfactory to the patient as well as the proprietor
of the estate. And as the “wise woman” only concerned herself with
humble people, with serfs and the poorer classes, the medical profession
did not interfere with her.

Tatiana Markovna fed her servants decently with cabbage soup and groats,
on feast-days with rye and mutton; at Christmas geese and pigs were
roasted. She allowed nothing out of the common on the servants’ table or
in their dress, but she gave the surplus from her own table now to one
woman, now to another.

Vassilissa drank tea immediately after her mistress; after her came the
maids in the house, and last old Yakob. On feast days, on account of the
hardness of their work, a glass of brandy was handed to the coachman,
the menservants and the Starost.

As soon as the tea was cleared away in the morning a stout, chubby-faced
woman pushed her way into the room, always smiling. She was maid to the
grandchildren, Veroshka and Marfinka. Close at her heels the
twelve-year-old assistant, and together they brought the children
to breakfast.

Never knowing which of the two to kiss first, Tatiana Markovna would
begin: “Well, my birdies, how are you? Veroshka, darling, you have
brushed your hair?”

“And me, Granny, me,” Marfinka would cry.

“Why are Marfinka’s eyes red? Has she been crying?” Tatiana Markovna
inquired anxiously of the maid. “The sun has dazzled her. Are her
curtains well drawn, you careless girl? I must see.”

In the maid’s room sat three or four young girls who sat all day long
sewing, or making bobbin lace, without once stretching their limbs all
day, because the mistress did not like to see idle hands. In the
ante-room there sat idly the melancholy Yakob, Egorka, who was sixteen
and always laughing, with two or three lackeys. Yakob did nothing but
wait at table, where he idly flicked away the flies, and as idly changed
the plates. He was almost too idle to speak, and when the visitors
addressed him he answered in a tone indicating excessive boredom or a
guilty conscience. Because he was quiet, never seriously drunk, and did
not smoke, his master had made him butler; he was also very zealous at
church.

{1} Tatiana Markovna was addressed by her grand-nieces and her
grand-nephew as Grandmother.




CHAPTER III


Boris came in on his aunt during the children’s breakfast. Tatiana
Markovna clapped her hands and all but jumped from her chair; the plates
were nearly shaken off the table.

“Borushka, tiresome boy! You have not even written, but descend like a
thunderclap. How you frightened me!”

She took his head in her hands, looked for a full minute into his face,
and would have wept, but she glanced away at his mother’s portrait, and
sighed.

“Well, well!” she seemed to say, but in fact said nothing, but smiled
and wiped away her tears with her handkerchief. “Your mother’s boy,” she
cried, “her very image! See how lovely she was, look, Vassilissa! Do you
remember? Isn’t he like her?”

With youthful appetite Boris devoured coffee, tea, cakes and bread, his
aunt watching all the while.

“Call the people, tell the Starost and everybody that the Master is here,
the real Master, the owner. Welcome, little father, welcome home!” she
said, with an ironic air of humility, laughing and mimicking the
pleasant speech. “Forsake us not with your favour. Tatiana Markovna
insults us, ruins us, take us over into your charge.... Ha! Ha! Here are
the keys, the accounts, at your service, demand a reckoning from the old
lady. Ask her what she has done with the estate money, why the peasants’
huts are in ruins. See how the Malinovka peasants beg in the streets of
the town. Ha! Ha! Under your guardian and uncle in the new estate, I
believe, the peasants wear polished boots and red shirts, and live in
two-storied houses. Well, Sir, why this silence? Why do you not ask for
the accounts? Have your breakfast, and then I will show you everything.”

After breakfast Tatiana Markovna took her sunshade, put on her
thick-soled shoes, covered her head with a light hood, and went to
show Boris the garden.

“Now, Sir, keep your eyes wide open, and if there is anything wrong,
don’t spare your Grandmother. You will see I have just planted out the
beds in front of the house. Veroshka and Marfinka play here under my
eyes, in the sand. One cannot trust any nurse.”

They reached the yard.

“Kirusha, Eromka, Matroshka, where have you all hidden yourselves? One
of you come here.”

Matroshka appeared, and announced that Kirusha and Eromka had gone into
the village to fetch the peasants.

“Here is Matroshka. Do you remember her? What are you staring there for,
fool. Kiss your Master’s hand.”

Matroshka came nearer. “I dare not,” she said.

Boris shyly embraced the girl.

“You have built a new wing to the buildings, Grandmother,” he said.

“You noticed that. Do you remember the old one? It was quite rotten, had
holes in the floors as broad as my hand, and the dirt and the soot! And
now look!”

They went into the new wing. His aunt showed Boris the alterations in
the stables, the horses and the separate space for fowls, the laundry
and byres.

“Here is the new kitchen which I built detached so that the kitchen
range is outside the house, and the servants have more room. Now each
has his own corner. Here is the pantry, there the new ice-cellar. What
are you standing there for?” she said, turning to Matrona. “Go and tell
Egorka to run into the village and say to the Starost that we are going
over there.”

In the garden his aunt showed him every tree and every bush, led him
through the alleys, looked down from the top of the precipice into the
brushwood, and went with him into the village. It was a warm day, and
the winter corn waved gently in the pleasant breeze.

“Here is my nephew, Boris Pavlovich,” she said to the Starost. “Are you
getting in the hay while the warm weather lasts? We are sure to have
rain before long after this heat. Here is the Master, the real Master,
my nephew,” she said, turning to the peasants. “Have you seen him before,
Garashka? Take a good look at him. Is that your calf in the rye,
Iliusha?” she said in passing to a peasant, while her attention already
wandered to the pond.

“There they are again, hanging out the clothes on the trees,” she
remarked angrily to the village elder. “I have given orders for a line
to be fixed. Tell blind Agasha so. It is she that likes to hang her
things out on the willows. The branches will break....”

“We haven’t a line long enough,” answered the Starost sleepily. “We
shall have to buy one in the town.”

“Why did you not tell Vassilissa? She would have let me know. I go into
the town every week, and would have brought a line long ago.”

“I have told her, but she forgets, or says it is not worth while to
bother the Mistress about it.”

Tatiana Markovna made a knot in her handkerchief. She liked it to be
said that nothing could be done without her; a clothes-line, for
instance, could be bought by anybody, but God forbid that she should
trust anybody with money. Although by no means avaricious, she was
sparing with money. Before she brought herself to part with it she was
thoughtful, sometimes angry, but the money once spent, she forgot all
about it and did not like keeping account of it.

Besides the more important arrangements, her life was full of small
matters of business. The maids had to be put to cutting out and sewing,
or to cooking and cleaning. She arranged so that everything was carried
out before her own eyes. She herself did not touch the actual work, but
with the dignity of age she stood with one hand on her hip and the other
pointing out exactly where and how everything was to be done. The
clattering keys opened cupboards, chests, strong boxes, which contained
a profusion of household linen, costly lace yellow with age, diamonds,
destined for the dowry of her nieces, and money. The cupboards where tea,
sugar, coffee and other provisions were kept were in Vassilissa’s charge.

In the morning, after coffee, when she had given her orders for the farm,
Tatiana Markovna sat down at her bureau to her accounts, then sat by the
window and looked out into the field, watched the labourers, saw what
was going on in the yard, and sent Yakob or Vassilissa when there was
anything of which she disapproved.

When necessary she drove into the town to the market hall, or to make
visits, but never was long away, returning always in time for the midday
meal. She herself received many guests; she liked to be dispensing
hospitality from morning to night.

When in winter afternoons she sat by the stove, she was silent and
thoughtful, and liked everything around her quiet. Summer afternoons she
spent in the garden, when she put on her gardening gloves and took a
spade, a rake, or a watering can, by way of obtaining a little exercise.
Then she spent the evening at the tea-table in the company of Tiet
Nikonich Vatutin, her oldest and best friend and adviser.

Tiet Nikonich was a gentleman of birth and breeding. He owned in the
province two or three hundred “souls”--he did not exactly know how many,
and never attended to his estate, but left his peasants to do as they
liked, and to pay him what dues they pleased. Shyly, and without
counting it, he took the money they brought him, put it in his bureau,
and signed to them to go where they pleased. He had been in the army,
and old people remembered him as a handsome young officer, a modest,
frank young man. In his youth he often visited his mother on the estate,
and spent his leave with her. Eventually he took his discharge, and then
built himself a little grey house in the town with three windows on to
the street, and there established himself.

Although he had only received a moderate education in the cadet school,
he liked to read, occupying himself chiefly with politics and natural
science. In his speech, his manners and his gait he betrayed a gentle
shyness, never obtruded his dignity, but was ready to show it if
necessity arose. However intimate he might be with anyone, he always
maintained a certain courtesy and reserve in word and gesture. He bowed
to the Governor or a friend or a new acquaintance with the same
old-fashioned politeness, drawing back one foot as he did so. In the
street he addressed ladies with uncovered head, was the first to pick up
a handkerchief or bring a footstool. If there were young girls in a house
he visited he came armed with a pound of bonbons, a bunch of flowers,
and tried to suit his conversation to their age, their tastes and their
occupations. He always maintained his delicate politeness, tinged with
the respectful manner of a courtier of the old school. When ladies were
present he always wore his frock-coat. He neither smoked, nor used
perfume, nor tried to make himself look younger, but was always spotless,
and distinguished in his dress. His clothes were simple but dazzlingly
neat. His nankeen trousers were freshly pressed, and his blue frock-coat
looked as if it had come straight from the tailor. In spite of his fifty
years, he had, with his perruque and his shaven chin, the air of a fresh,
rosy-cheeked young man. With all his narrow means he gave the impression
of wealth and good breeding, and put down his hundred roubles as if he
had thousands to throw about.

For Tatiana Markovna he showed a respectful friendship, but one so
devoted and ardent that it was evident from his manner that he loved her
beyond all others. But although he was her daily guest he gave no sign
of intimacy before strangers.

She showed great friendship for him, but there was more vivacity in her
tone. Those who remembered them when they were young, said she had been
a very beautiful girl. When she had thrown on her shawl and sat looking
meditatively before her, she resembled a family portrait in the gallery
of the old house. Occasionally there came over her moods which betrayed
pride and a desire for domination; when this happened her face wore an
earnest, dreamy expression, as if she were leading another life far from
the small details of her actual existence.

Hardly a day went by that Tiet Nikonich did not bring some present for
Grandmother or the little girls, a basket of strawberries, oranges,
peaches, always the earliest on the market.

At one time it had been rumoured in the town--a rumour long since
stilled--that Tiet Nikonich had loved Tatiana Markovna and Tatiana
Markovna him, but that her parents had chosen another husband for her.
She refused to assent, and remained unmarried. What truth there was in
this, none knew but herself. But every day he came to her, either at
midday or in the evening.

He liked to talk over with her what was going on in the world, who was
at war, and with whom, and why. He knew why bread was cheap in Russia;
the names of all the noble houses; he knew by heart the names of all the
ministers and the men in high commands and their past history; he could
tell why one sea lay at a higher tide than another; he was the first to
know what the English or the French had invented, and whether the
inventions were useful or not. If there was any business to be arranged
in the law courts, Tiet Nikonich arranged it, and sometimes concealed
the sums that he spent in so doing. If he was found out, she scolded him;
he could not conceal his confusion, begged her pardon, kissed her hand,
and took his leave.

Tatiana Markovna was always at loggerheads with the bureaucracy of the
neighbourhood. If soldiers were to be billeted on her, the roads to be
improved, or the taxes collected, she complained of outrage, argued and
refused to pay. She would hear nothing about the public interest. In her
opinion everyone had his own business to mind. She strongly objected to
the police, and especially to the Superintendent, who was in her view a
robber. More than once Tiet Nikonich tried, without success, to
reconcile her to the doctrine of the public interest; he had to be
content if she was reconciled with the officials and the police.

This was the patriarchal, peaceful atmosphere which young Raisky
absorbed. Grandmother and the little girls were mother and sisters to
him, and Tiet Nikonich the ideal uncle.




CHAPTER IV


Boris’s aunt had only just begun to give him an idea of her methods of
conducting the estate when he began to yawn.

“Listen, these are all your affairs; I am only your Starost,” she said.
But he could not suppress a yawn, watched the birds, the dragon-flies,
picked the cornflowers, looked curiously at the peasants, and gazed up
at the sky over-arching the wide horizon. Then his aunt began to talk to
one of the peasants, and he hurried off to the garden, ran down to the
edge of the precipice, and made his way through the undergrowth to the
steep bank of the Volga.

“He is still too young, only a child, does not understand serious
matters,” thought his aunt, as she followed him with her eyes. “What
will become of him?”

The Volga glided quietly between its overgrown banks, with here and
there a sandbank or an island thickly covered with bushes. In the
distance lay the sandhills and the darkening forest. Here and there
shimmered a sail; gulls, with an even balancing of their wings, skimmed
the water, and then rose with a more strenuous movement, while over the
gardens, high in the air, the goshawks hovered.

Boris stood still for a long time, recalling his childhood. He
remembered that he had sat on this spot with his mother, looking
thoughtfully out at this same landscape. Then he went slowly back to the
house, and climbed the precipice, with the picture of her vividly before
his mind’s eye.

In Malinovka and the neighbourhood there were tragic memories connected
with this precipice. In the lifetime of Boris’s parents a man wild with
jealousy, a tailor from the town, had killed his wife and her lover
there in the midst of the thicket, and had then cut his own throat. The
suicide had been buried on the spot where he had committed the crime.
Among the common people, as always happens in cases of this sort, there
were rumours that the murderer, all dressed in white, wandered about the
wood, climbed the precipice, and looked down on town and village before
he vanished into air. And for superstitious reasons this part of the
grounds had been left neglected. None of the servants went down the
precipice, and the peasants from the outskirts of the town and from
Malinovka made a détour to avoid it. The fence that divided the Raiskys’
park from the woods had long since fallen into disrepair. Pines and
bushes of hawthorn and dwarf-cherry had woven themselves together into a
dense growth in the midst of which was concealed a neglected arbour.

Boris vividly imagined the scene, how the jealous husband, trembling
with agitation, stole through the bushes, threw himself on his rival,
and struck him with his knife; how the woman flung herself at his feet
and begged his forgiveness. But he, with the foam of madness on his lips,
struck her again and again, and then, in the presence of the two corpses,
cut his own throat. Boris shuddered. Agitated and gloomy he turned from
the accursed spot. Yet he was attracted by the mysterious darkness of
the tangled wood to the precipice, to the lovely view over the Volga and
its banks.

He closed his eyes, abandoning himself to the contemplation of the
picture; his thoughts swept over him like the waves of the Volga; the
lovely landscape was ever before his eyes, mirrored in his consciousness.

Veroshka and Marfinka provided him with amusement.

Veroshka was a little girl of six, with dark, brilliant eyes and dark
complexion, who was beginning to be serious and to be ashamed of her
baby ways. She would hop, skip and jump, then stand still, look shyly
round and walk sedately along; then she would dart on again like a bird,
pick a handful of currants and stuff them into her mouth. If Boris
patted her hair, she smoothed it rapidly; if he gave her a kiss, she
wiped it away. She was self-willed too. When she was sent on an errand
she would shake her head, then run off to do it. She never asked Boris
to draw for her, but if Marfinka asked him she watched silently and more
intently than her sister. She did not, like Marfinka, beg either
drawings or pencils.

Marfinka, a rosy little girl of four, was often self-willed, and often
cried, but before the tears were dry she was laughing and shouting again.
Veroshka rarely wept, and then quietly. She soon recovered, but she did
not like to be told to beg pardon.

Boris’s aunt wondered, as she saw him gay and serious by turns, what
occupied his mind; she wondered what he did all day long. In answer
Boris showed his sketching folio; then he would play her quadrilles,
mazurkas, excerpts from opera, and finally his own improvisations.

Tatiana Markovna’s astonishment remained. “Just like your mother,” she
said. “She was just as restless, always sighing as if she expected
something to happen. Then she would begin to play and was gay again. See,
Vassilissa, he has sketched you and me, like life! When Tiet Nikonich
comes, hide yourself and make a sketch of him, and next day we will send
it him, and it can hang on the study wall. What a boy you are! And you
play as well as the French emigré who used to live with your Aunt. Only
it is impossible to talk to you about the farm; you are still too
young.”

She always wished to go through the accounts with him. “The accounts for
Veroshka and Marfinka are separate, you see,” she said. “You need not
think that a penny of your money goes to them. See....”

But he never listened. He merely watched how his aunt wrote, how she
looked at him over her spectacles, observed the wrinkles in her face,
her birthmark, her eyes, her smile, and then burst out laughing, and,
throwing himself into her arms, kissed her, and begged to go and look at
the old house. She could refuse him nothing; so she unwillingly gave him
the keys and he went to look at the rooms where he was born and had
spent his childhood, of which he retained only a confused memory.

“I am going with Cousin Boris,” said Marfinka.

“Where, my darling? It is uncanny over there,” said Tatiana Markovna.

Marfinka was frightened. Veroshka said nothing, but when Boris reached
the old house, she was already standing at the door, with her hand on
the latch, as if she feared she might be driven away.

Boris shuddered as he entered the ante-room, and cast an anxious glance
into the neighbouring hall, supported by pillars. Veroshka had run on in
front.

“Where are you off to, Veroshka?”

She stood still a moment, her hand on the latch of the nearest door, and
he had only just time to follow her before she vanished. Dark,
smoke-stained reception rooms adjoined the hall. In one were two ghostly
figures of shrouded statues and shrouded candelabra; by the walls were
ranged dark stained oak pieces of furniture with brass decorations and
inlaid work; there were huge Chinese vases, a clock representing Bacchus
with a barrel, and great oval mirrors in elaborate gilded frames. In the
bedroom stood an enormous bed, like a magnificent bier, with a brocade
cover. Boris could not imagine how any human being could sleep in such a
catafalque. Under the baldachin hovered a gilded Cupid, spotted and
faded, with his arrow aimed at the bed. In the corners stood carved
cupboards, damascened with ebony and mother-of-pearl. Veroshka opened a
press and put her little face inside, and a musty, dusty smell came from
the shelves, laden with old-fashioned caftans and embroidered uniforms
with big buttons.

Raisky shivered. “Granny was right!” he laughed. “It is uncanny here.”

“But everything here is so beautiful!” cried Vera, “the great pictures
and the books!”

“Pictures? Books? Where? I don’t remember. Bravo, little Veroshka.”

He kissed her. She wiped her lips, and ran on in front to show him the
books. He found some two thousand volumes, and was soon absorbed in
reading the titles; many of the books were still uncut.

From this time he was not often to be seen in the wooden house. He did
not even go down to the Volga, but devoured one volume after another.
Then he wrote verses, read them aloud, and intoxicated himself with the
sound of them; then gave all his time to drawing. He expected something,
he knew not what, from the future. He was filled with passion, with the
foretaste of pleasure; there rose before him a world of wonderful music,
marvellous pictures, and the murmur of enchanting life.

“I have been wanting to ask you,” said Tatiana Markovna, “why you have
entered yourself for school again.”

“Not the school, the University!”

“It’s the same thing. You studied at your guardian’s, and at the High
School, you can draw, play the piano. What more do you want to learn?
The students will only teach you to smoke a pipe, and in the end--which
God forbid--to drink wine. You should go into the Guards.”

“Uncle says my means are not sufficient....”

“Not sufficient! What next?” She pointed to the fields and the village.
She counted out his resources in hundreds and thousands of roubles. She
had had no experience of army circles, had never lived in the capital,
and did not know how much money was needed.

“Your means insufficient! Why, I can send provision alone for a whole
regiment. No means! What does your Uncle do with the revenues?”

“I intend to be an artist, Granny.”

“What! An artist!”

“When I leave the University, I intend to enter the Academy.”

“What’s the matter with you, Borushka? Make the sign of the cross! Do
you want to be a teacher!”

“All artists are not teachers. Among artists there are great geniuses,
who are famous and receive large sums for pictures or music.”

“And do you intend to sell your pictures for money, or to play the piano
for money in the evenings? What a disgrace!”

“No, Grandmother, an artist....”

“No, Borushka, don’t anger your Grandmother; let her have the joy of
seeing you in your Guard’s uniform.”

“Uncle says I ought to go into the Civil Service.”

“A clerk! Good heavens! To stoop over a desk all day, bathed in ink, run
in and out of the courts! Who would marry you then? No, no; come home to
me as an officer, and marry a rich woman!”

Although Boris shared neither his uncle’s nor his aunt’s views, yet for
a moment there shimmered before his eyes a vision of his own figure in a
hussar’s or a court uniform. He saw how well he sat his horse, how well
he danced. That day he made a sketch of himself, negligently seated in
the saddle, with a cloak over his shoulders.




CHAPTER V


In Moscow Raisky spent his time partly in the University, partly in the
Kremlin gardens. In the evening he sat in the club with his friends,
hot-headed, good-hearted individuals. Every one of them made a great
to-do, and confidently expected a great future.

At the University, as at school, Raisky paid little attention to the
rules of grammar, but observed intently the professor and the students.
But as soon as the lecture touched actual life and brought living men,
Romans, Germans or Russians on the scene, whether in history or
literature, he involuntarily gave the lecturer his attention, and the
personages and their doings became real to him.

In his second year he made friends with a poor student named Koslov, the
son of a deacon, who had been sent first of all to a seminary, but had
taught himself Latin and Greek at home, and thus gained admission to the
Gymnasium. He zealously studied the life of antiquity, but understood
nothing of the life going on around him. Raisky felt himself drawn to
this young man, at first because of his loneliness, his reserve,
simplicity and kindness; later he discovered in him passion, the sacred
fire, profundity of comprehension and austerity of thought and delicacy
of perception--in all that pertained to antiquity. Koslov on his side
was devoted to Raisky, whose vivacious temperament could not be
permanently bound by anything. The outcome was the great gift of an
intimate friendship.

In summer Raisky liked to explore the neighbourhood of Moscow. He
explored old convents, examined their dark recesses, the blackened
pictures of the saints and martyrs; his imagination interpreted old
Russia for him better than the lectures of his professors.

The tsars, monks, warriors and statesmen of the past filed before him as
they lived and moved. Moscow seemed to him to be a miniature tsardom.
Here was conflict, here the death punishment was carried out; he saw
Tatars, Cossacks of the Don. The varied life attracted him.

In spite of obstacles he passed from one course to another at the
University. He was helped by the reputation for talent he had won by
certain poems and essays, the subjects of which were drawn from Russian
history.

“Which service do you mean to enter?” the Dean asked him one day. “In a
week’s time you will be leaving the University. What are you going to
do?”

Raisky was silent.

“What profession have you selected?”

Raisky almost answered that he meant to be an artist, but he remembered
in time the reception that this proposition had received from his
guardian and his aunt. “I shall write verses,” he answered in a low tone.

“But that is not a profession. You may write verses and yet....”

“Stories too.”

“Naturally, you can write stories as well. You have talent and means to
develop it. But what profession--profession, I asked.”

“For the moment I shall enter the Guards, later on the Civil Service--I
mean to be a barrister, a governor....”

The Dean smiled. “You begin by being an ensign, that is comprehensible.
You and Leonid Koslov are exceptions; every other man has made his
decision.”

When Koslov was asked his intentions he replied that he would like to be
a schoolmaster somewhere in the interior, and from this intention he
refused to be turned aside.

Raisky moved among the golden youth of St. Petersburg society, first as
young officer, then as bureaucrat, fulfilled his duties in devotion to
the beauty of many an Armide, suffering to some degree, and gaining some
experience in the process. After a time his dreams and his artistic
consciousness revived. He seemed to see the Volga flowing between its
steep banks, the shady garden, and the wooded precipice. He abandoned
the Civil Service in its turn to enter the Academy of Arts. His
education would never be finished, but he was determined to be a
creative artist. His aunt scolded him by letter for having left the
Guards; his guardian advised him to seek a position in the Senate, and
sent him letters of recommendation.

But Raisky did not enter the Senate, but indolently pursued his artistic
studies, read a great deal, wrote poems and prose, danced, went into
society and to the theatre, indulged in wild dissipation, and at the
same time did some musical composition, and drew a portrait of a lady.
He would spend one week in dissipation and the next in diligent study at
the Academy. Life knocked at the door and tore him from his artist’s
dreams to a dissolute existence of alternating pleasure and boredom.

The universal summer exodus from the capital had driven him abroad. But
one day when he came home he found two letters awaiting him, one from
Tatiana Markovna, the other from his comrade at the University, Leonid
Koslov, who had been installed in Raisky’s native place as a master in
the Gymnasium.

During all these years his aunt had often written to him, and sent him
statements of accounts. His answers were short but affectionate; the
accounts he tore up without having even looked at them.

“Is it not a sin,” she wrote, “to forget an old woman like me, when I am
all the family you have? But in these days it seems that old people have,
in the judgment of youth, become superfluous. But I have not even
leisure to die; I have two grown-up nieces, and until their future is
settled to my satisfaction, I shall pray God to spare my life--and then
His will be done. I do not complain that you forget me. But if I were
not here my little girls, your sisters, would be alone. You are their
next of kin and their natural protector. Think, too, of the estate. I am
old, and can no longer be your bailiff. To whom do you intend to entrust
the estate? The place will be ruined and the estate dissipated. It
breaks my heart to think that your family silver, bronzes, pictures,
diamonds, lace, china and glass will come into the hands of the servants,
or the Jews, or the usurers. So long as your Grandmother lives, you may
be sure that not a thread goes astray, but after that I can give no
guarantee. And my two nieces, what is to become of them? Vera is a good,
sensible, but retiring girl, and does not concern herself with domestic
matters at all. Marfinka will be a splendid manager, but she is still
young; although she ought to have been married before now, she is still
such a child in her ideas, thank God! She will mature with experience,
and meantime I shelter her. She appreciates this and does nothing
against her Grandmother’s will, for which may God reward her. In the
house she is a great help, but I do not let her do anything on the
estate; that is no work for a young girl.

“Do not defer your coming, but gladden your Grandmother’s heart. She is
devoted to you, not merely because of the relationship, but from her
heart. You were conscious of the sympathy between us when you were a
child. I don’t know what you are in manhood, but you were then a good
nephew. Come, if only to see your sisters, and perhaps happiness will
reward your coming. If God grants me the joy of seeing you married and
laying the estate in your hands I shall die happy. Marry, Borushka; you
are long since of an age to do so. Then my little girls will still have
a home. So long as you remain unmarried they cannot live in your house.
Marry, please your Grandmother, and God will not forsake you. I wait
your coming; let me know when to expect you.

“Tiet Nikonich desires to be remembered to you. He has aged, but is
still hale and hearty, he has the same smile, still talks well and has
such pleasant manners that none of the young dandies can hold a candle
to him. Bring him, please, a vest and hose of Samian leather; it is worn
now, I hear, as a specific against rheumatism. It will be a surprise for
him. I enclose the account for the last two years. Accept my blessing.”




CHAPTER VI


In a _kibitka_ covered with bast, drawn by three lean and sleepy
nags, Raisky drove slowly to his estate. It was not without agitation
that he saw the smoke curling up from the chimneys of his own roof, the
fresh, delicate green of the birches and the limes which overshadowed
this place of refuge, the gables of the old house and the pale line of
the Volga now gleaming between the trees and now hidden from view. He
approached nearer and nearer; now he could see the shimmer of the
flowers in the garden, the avenues of lime and acacia became visible,
the old elm emerged, and there, more to the left, lay the orchard. There
were dogs in the yard, cats sunning themselves, on the roof of the new
house flocked the pigeon and the swallows flitted around the eaves.
Behind the house, on the side towards the village, linen lay out to
bleach. One woman was rolling a cask, the coachman was chopping wood, a
peasant got into the _telega_ and gathered up the reins--Boris saw
only unfamiliar faces. But Yakob was there and looked sleepily round.
One familiar face, but how aged!

Raisky observed the scene intently. He alighted from the _kibitka_,
and walked along the fence which divided house, yard, garden and park
from the road, feasting his eyes on the well-remembered prospect, when
suddenly his eye was caught by an unexpected apparition.

On the verandah, which led down to the garden and was decorated by lemon
and pomegranate trees in tubs, and with cactus and aloe and flowering
plants, stood a young girl of about twenty, scattering millet from two
plates held by a barefooted child of twelve. At her feet were assembled
hens, turkeys, ducks, pigeons, sparrows and daws. She called to the
birds to come to breakfast, and cocks, hens and pigeons fell to, looking
round every moment as if they feared treason, and then again falling to.
As the morning sun shed a fierce light on the busy group of birds and on
the young girl herself, Raisky saw her large, dark grey eyes, her round,
healthy cheeks, her narrow white teeth, her long light-brown tresses
wound twice round her head, and the strong young breasts rising and
sinking underneath her white blouse. Her white, slightly tanned neck was
innocent of collar or scarf. A hasty movement loosened one plait of hair
over her head and back, but she took no notice, but continued to scatter
the corn, taking care that all received their share and that sparrows
and daws did not obtrude too much, and looking as fresh and happy as the
morning itself.

“Didn’t you see the goose?” she asked the little girl in a loud clear
voice.

“No,” answered the child, “it is the cat’s fault. Afimua says it will
die.”

“I shall look after it myself. Afimua has no pity.”
 Motionless, Raisky watched the scene without his presence being
suspected. This must be his cousin, and how charming! But which one,
Veroshka or Marfinka? Without waiting for the _kibitka_ to turn in
through the gate, he ran forward, and stood before the young girl.

“Cousin,” he cried, extending his arms.

In a moment both girls had vanished as if by magic, the sparrows were
away on the roof, and the pigeons in flight. The servants in the yard
stopped their work. Raisky looked in amazement on the emptiness and at
the corn scattered at his feet.

Then he heard in the house bustle, murmurs, movement, the clatter of
keys, and his aunt’s voice, “Where is he?” Her face lighted up when she
saw Raisky and she opened her arms, to press him to her breast.
She had aged, but in so even, so healthy a fashion, that there were no
unwholesome patches, no deep hanging pockets about the eyes and mouth,
no sadness or gloom in her eyes. Life had not conquered her; she
conquered life, and only slowly laid down her weapons in the combat. Her
voice was not so clear as of old, and she leaned on a stick, but she
made no complaint. She still wore no cap on her short hair. Health and
kindliness shone from her eyes, and not only from her eyes, from her
whole figure.

“Borushka, my friend!” Three times she embraced him. Tears stood in her
eyes. In her embrace, her voice, in the sudden grip of joy, there was
tenderness, affection, and ardour.

He felt that he was almost a criminal, that he had been playing with his
emotions and seeking forbidden fruit, wandering homelessly in the world,
while Nature himself had been preparing for him a nest where sympathy
and happiness awaited him.

“Marfinka, where are you, come here,” cried her grandmother. “She was so
terrified when she saw you, and terrified me too. Let me look at you,
Borushka.”

She led him to the light and looked at him long and earnestly.

“How ill you look,” she said. “But no, you are sunburnt. The moustache
suits you, why do you grow a beard? Shave it off, Borushka, I can’t
endure it. Ah! grey hairs here and there already. You are beginning to
age too soon.”

“It’s not with age, Granny.”

“Why then? Are you in good health?”

“I’m well enough. Let us talk of something else. You, thank God, are
always the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t alter a bit, are still as beautiful as ever. I never saw an
old lady whose age adorned her so.”

“Thanks for the compliment, my child. It would be better for you to
spend your admiration on your sisters. I will whisper the truth to you.
Two such beauties you will not find in the town, especially the
other....”

“Where is my other sister?”

“On a visit to the pope’s wife on the other side of the Volga. It is a
pity. The pope’s wife has been ill and sent for her, of course just now.
A messenger shall go.”

“No! No! Why should anyone be disturbed on my account?”

“And you have come on your Grandmother so suddenly. We waited, waited,
in vain. The peasants sat up for you at night, I have just sent Egorka
on to the highway to look for you and Savili into the town. Now you must
have your breakfast. Why is it so long in coming? The master has come,
and there is nothing ready, just as if the house was nothing better than
a station. Serve what is ready.”

“I need nothing, Granny. I am stuffed with food. At one station I drank
tea, milk at another, and at the third there was a wedding, and I was
treated to wine, meat and gingerbread.”

“You are on your way home to your Grandmother, and are not ashamed to
eat and drink all sorts of things. Gingerbread in the morning! Marfinka
ought to have been there; she loves weddings and gingerbread. Come in.
Marfinka, don’t be so shy. She is ashamed because you caught her in her
morning gown. Come here, darling; he is your brother.”

Tea and coffee appeared, and finally breakfast. However much he
protested Raisky had to eat, for otherwise his aunt’s morning would have
been spoiled.

“Marfinka, come here and entertain us.”

After about five minutes the door opened slowly and quietly, and
Marfinka entered, blushing with confusion and with downcast eyes. At her
heels followed Vassilissa with a tea-tray full of sweets, preserves,
cakes, etc. Marfinka stood still, betraying in her confusion a certain
curiosity. She wore lace at her neck and wrists; her hair was plaited
firmly around her head and the waist of her barège dress encircled by a
blue ribbon.

Raisky threw down his napkin, and jumped up, to stand before her in
admiration. “How lovely,” he cried. “This is my little sister, Marfa
Vassilievna. And is the goose still alive?”

Marfinka became still more embarrassed, returned his greeting awkwardly,
and retired to a corner.

“You have both gone mad,” interrupted their aunt. “Is that the way to
greet one another?”

“Marfa Vassilievna,” said Raisky, as he sought to kiss Marfinka’s hand.

“Vassilievna!” cried Tatiana Markovna. “Don’t you love her any more?
Marfinka, not Marfa Vassilievna! You will be addressing me as Tatiana
Markovna next! Kiss one another. Are you not brother and sister?”

“I won’t, Grandmama. He is teasing me about the goose. It is not polite
to spy on people,” she said severely.

Everybody laughed. Raisky kissed her on both cheeks, embraced her, and
overcame her confusion. She kissed him in return, and her shyness
vanished.

“Do you remember, Marfinka, how we used to run about and draw, and how
you cried?”

“No ... but yes. I do remember as if in a dream.”

“How should she remember, when she was only five?” interrupted her aunt.

“But I do, Grandmama, as in a dream.”

Raisky had hardly captured his old memories when Marfinka disappeared.
Soon she returned with sketch books, drawings and toys, and sitting down
by Raisky in friendly fashion began, “Granny says that I don’t remember.
I remember how you used to draw, and how I sat on your knee. Granny has
all your drawings, portraits and sketch books. She has kept them all in
the dark room where the silver, the diamonds and the lace are. She got
them out, and gave them to me a little time ago, when she heard you were
coming. Here is my portrait. How funny I looked! And here is Veroshka,
and Granny, and Vassilissa. Do you remember how you held me, and
Veroshka sat on your shoulder, and you carried us over the water?”

“Do you remember that too?” asked her aunt. “Boastful child! Veroshka
said the other day....”

“This is how I draw now,” said Marfinka, handing him a drawing of a
bunch of flowers.

“Splendid, little sister! Is it done from nature?”

“Yes, from nature. I can make wax-flowers, too.”

“And do you play or sing?”

“I play the piano.”

“And does Veroshka draw and play?”

Marfinka shook her head.

“Does she like needlework? No? Then is she fond of reading?”

“Yes, she reads a great deal. But she does not tell us what she reads,
nor show us the book, nor even say where she got it.”

“She hides herself from everybody, does my strange child,” sighed
Tatiana Markovna. “God only knows what will become of her. Now, Marfinka,
don’t waste your brother’s time any longer with your chatter about
trifles. We will talk about serious matters, about the estate.”

The old lady had worn a serious expression while she watched Boris as he
talked to Marfinka. She recognised his mother’s features, but the
changes in his face did not escape her--the indications of vanishing
youth, the premature furrows; and she was baffled by the original
expression of his eyes. Formerly she had always been able to read his
face, but now there was much inscribed on it that was undecipherable for
her. Yet his temperament was open and affectionate and his words frankly
interpreted his thoughts.

Now his aunt stood before him wearing a most business-like expression;
in her hand were accounts and a ledger.

“Are you not weary with your journey?” she said. “You are yawning and
perhaps you would like a little sleep. Business can wait till
to-morrow.”

“I slept a good deal on the journey. But you are giving yourself useless
trouble, Grandmother, for I am not going to look at your accounts.”

“What? You have surely come to take over the estate and to ask for an
account of my stewardship. The accounts and statements that I sent you--”

“I have never even read, Grandmother.”

“You haven’t read them. I have sent you precise information about your
income and you don’t even know how your money is spent.”

“And I don’t want to know,” answered Raisky, looking out of the window
away towards the banks of the Volga.

“Imagine, Marfinka,” he said, “I remember a verse I learnt as a child--

  “‘Oh Volga, proudest of rivers,
   Stem thy hurrying flood;
   Oh Volga, hearken, hearken,
   To the ringing song of the poet,
   The unknown, whose life thou hast spared.’”


“Don’t be vexed with me, Borushka,” cried Tatiana Markovna, “but I think
you are mad. What have you done with the papers I sent you? Have you
brought them?”

“Where are they?” she continued, as he shook his head.

“Granny, I tore up all the accounts, and I swear I will do the same with
these if you worry me with them.”

He seized the paper, but she snatched them away, exclaiming, “You dare
to tear up my accounts.”

He laughed, suddenly embraced her, and kissed her lips as he had done
when he was a child. She shook herself free and wiped her mouth.

“I toil till midnight, adding up and writing down every kopek, and he
tears up my work. That is why you never wrote about money matters, gave
any orders, made any preparations, or did anything of the kind. Did you
never think of your estate?”

“Not at all, Granny. I forgot all about it. If I thought at all I
thought of these rooms in which lives the only woman who loves me and is
loved by me, you alone in the whole world. And now,” he said, turning to
Marfinka, “I want to win my sisters too.”

His aunt took off her spectacles and gazed at him.

“In all my days I have never seen anything like it,” she said. “Here the
only person with no roots like that is Markushka.”

“What sort of person is this Markushka. Leonti Koslov writes about him.
How is Leonti, Granny? I must look him up.”

“How should he be? He crouches in one spot with a book, and his wife in
another. But he does not even see what goes on under his nose, and can
any good come from his friendship with this Markushka. Only the other
day your friend came here to complain that that Markushka was destroying
books from your library. You know, don’t you, that the library from the
old house has been installed in Koslov’s house?”

Raisky hummed an air from _“Il Barbiere.”_

“You are an extraordinary man,” cried his aunt angrily. “Why did you
come at all? Do talk sensibly.”

“I came to see you, Granny, to live here for a little while, to breathe
freely, to look out over the Volga, to write, to draw....”

“But the estate? If you are not tired we will drive out into the field,
to look at the sowing of the winter-corn.”

“Later on, Granny.”

“Will you take over the management of the estate?”

“No, Granny, I will not.”
 “Who then is to look after it? I am old and can no longer do all the
work. Do you wish me to put the estate into strange hands?”

“Farm it yourself, Granny, so long as you take any pleasure in it.”

“And if I die?”

“Then leave everything as it is.”

Tatiana Markovna looked at the portrait of Raisky’s mother, for a long
time she looked at the languishing eyes, the melancholy smile.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I honour the memory of the departed, but hers is
the fault. She kept you by her side, talked to you, played the piano,
read out of books and wept as she did so. And this is the result.
Singing and painting. Now tell me, Borushka,” she went on in her
ordinary tone, “what is to become of the house, of the linen, the silver,
the diamonds? Shall you order them to be given to the peasants?”

“Do I possess diamonds and silver?”

“How often have I told you so? From your mother you have inherited all
these things; what is to be done with them. I will show you the
inventory of them.”

“Don’t do that, for Heaven’s sake. I can believe they are mine. And so I
can dispose of them as I please?”

“Of course; you are the proprietor. We live here as your guests, though
we do not eat your bread. See here are my receipts and expenditure,” she
said, thrusting towards another big ledger which he waved away.

“But I believe all you say, Granny,” he said. “Send for a clerk and tell
him to make out a deed, by which I give the house, the land, and all
that belongs to it to my dear cousins, Veroshka and Marfinka, as dowry.”
 The old lady wrinkled her brow, and waited impatiently till he should
finish speaking. “So long as you live, dear Granny,” he continued, “the
estate naturally remains under your control; the peasants must have
their freedom....”

“Never,” interrupted his aunt, “Veroshka and Marfinka are not
beggars--each of them has her fifty thousand roubles--and after my death
three times that sum, perhaps more. All I have is for my little girls,
and, thank God, I am not a pauper. I have a corner of my own, a bit of
land, and a roof to cover them. One would think you were a millionaire.
You make gifts; you will have this, and you won’t have that. Here,
Marfinka! where have you hidden yourself?”

“Directly!” cried Marfinka’s clear voice from a neighbouring room. Happy,
gay, smiling and frank, she fluttered into the room, looked hesitatingly,
first at Raisky, then at her aunt, who was nearly beside herself.

“Your cousin, Marfinka, is pleased to present you with a house, silver,
and lace. You are, he thinks, a beggared, dowerless girl. Make a curtsey,
thank your benefactor, kiss his hand--Well?”

Marfinka, who did not know what to say, squeezed herself flat against
the stove and looked at her two relatives. Her aunt pushed papers and
books on one side, crossed her hands over her breast, and looked out of
the window, while Raisky sat down beside Marfinka, and took her hand.

“Would you like to go away from here, Marfinka, into a strange house,
perhaps in an altogether different district?”

“God forbid! How could such a thing happen. Who ever imagined such
nonsense?”

“Granny,” laughed Raisky.

Happily “Granny” had not heard the words. Marfinka was embarrassed, and
looked out of the window.

“Here I have everything I want, the lovely flowers in the garden, the
birds. Who would look after the birds? I will never go away from here,
never!”

“But Granny wants to go and take you with her.”

“Granny! Where? Why?” she asked her aunt in her caressing, coaxing way.

“Don’t tease me,” said Tatiana Markovna.

“Marfinka, you don’t want to leave home?” asked Boris.

“Not for anything in the world. How could such a thing be?”

“What would Veroshka say about it?”

“She would never be separated from the old house.”

“She loves the old house?”

“Yes. She is only happy when she is here. If she were taken away from it
she would die. We both should.”

“That matter is settled then, little sister. You two, Veroshka and you,
will accept the gift from me, won’t you?”

“I will if Veroshka agrees.”

“Agreed, dear sister. You are not so proud as Granny,” he said, as he
kissed her forehead.

“What is agreed?” suddenly grumbled Tatiana Markovna. “You have accepted?
Who told you you might accept? Grandmother will never permit you to live
at a stranger’s expense. Be so kind, Boris Pavlovich, as to take over
books, accounts, inventories and sales. I am not your paid servant.” She
pushed papers and books towards him.

“Granny!”

“Granny! My name is Tatiana Markovna Berezhkov.” She stood up, and
opened the door into the servants’ room. “Send Savili here.”

A quarter of an hour later, a peasant of almost forty-five years of age
opened the door with a casual greeting. He was strongly-built, big boned,
and was robust, without being fat. His eyes with their overhanging brows
and wide heavy lids, wasted no idle glances; he neither spoke an
unnecessary word, nor made a superfluous gesture.

“The proprietor is here,” said Tatiana Markovna, indicating Raisky. “You
must now make your reports to him. He intends to administer the estate
himself.”

Savili looked askance at Raisky.

“At your orders,” he said stiffly, slowly raising his eyes. “What orders
are you pleased to give?” he asked, lowering his eyes again.
Raisky thought for a moment before he replied:

“Do you know an official who could draw up a document for the transfer
of the estate?”

“Gavril Ivanov Meshetshnikov draws up the papers we require,” he said.

“Send for him.”

As Savili bowed, and slowly retired, Raisky followed him with his eyes.

“An anxious rascal,” was his comment.

“How should he be other than anxious,” said his aunt, “when he is tied
to a wife like Marina Antipovna? Do you remember Antip? Well, she is his
daughter. But for his marriage he is a treasure. He does my important
business, sells the corn, and collects the money. He is honest and
practical, but fate deals her blows where she will, and every man must
bear his own burden. But what idea have you in your head now? Are you
beside yourself?”

“Something must be done. I am going away, and you will not administer
the estate, so some arrangement must be made.”

“And is that your reason for going? I thought you were now going to take
over the management of your estate. You have done enough gadding about.
Why not marry and settle here?”

She was visibly struggling with herself. It had never entered her head
to give up the administration; she would not have known what to do with
herself. Her idea had been to alarm Raisky, and he was taking her
seriously.

“What is to be done?” she said. “I will see after the estate as long as
I have the strength to do so. How else should you live, you strange
creature?”

“I receive two thousand roubles from my other estate, and that is a
sufficient income. I want to work, to draw, to write, to travel for a
little; and for that purpose I might mortgage or sell the other estate.”

“God bless you, Borushka, what next? Are you so near beggary? You talk
of drawing, writing, alienating your land; next it will be giving
lessons or school teaching. Instead of arriving with four horses and a
travelling carriage you sneak in, without a servant, in a miserable
_kibitka_, you, a Raisky. Look at the old house, at the portraits
of your ancestors, and take shame to yourself. Shame, Borushka! How
splendid it would have been if you had come epauletted like Sergei
Ivanovich, and had married a wife with a dowry of three thousand souls.”

Raisky burst out laughing.

“Why laugh? I am speaking seriously when I tell you what a joy it would
have been for your Grandmother. Then you would have wanted the lace and
the silver, and not be flinging it away.”

“But as I am not marrying, I don’t need these things. Therefore it is
settled that Veroshka and Marfinka shall have them.”

“Your decision is final?”

“It is final. And it is further settled that if you do not like this
arrangement, everything passes into the hands of strangers. You have my
word for it.”

“Your word for it,” cried his aunt. “You are a lost man. Where have you
lived, and what have you done. Tell me, for Heaven’s sake, what your
purpose in life is, and what you really are?”

“What I am, Grandmother? The unhappiest of men!” He leaned his head back
on the cushion as he spoke.

“Never say such a thing,” she interrupted. “Fate hears and exacts the
penalty, and you will one day be unhappy. Either be content or feign
content.”

She looked anxiously round, as if Fate were already standing at her
shoulder.

Raisky rose from the divan.

“Let us be reconciled,” he said. “Agree to keep this little corner of
God’s earth under your protection.”

“It is an estate, not a ‘corner.’”

“Resign yourself to my gift of this old stuff to the dear girls. A
lonely man like me has no use for it, but they will be mistresses of a
house. If you don’t agree, I will present it to the school....”

“The school-children! Those rascals who steal our apples, shall not have
it.”

“Come to the point, Granny! You don’t really want to leave this nest in
your old age.”

“We’ll see, we’ll see. Give them the lace on their wedding-day. I can do
nothing with you; talk to Tiet Nikonich who is coming to dinner.” And
she wondered what would come of such strangeness.

Raisky took his cap to go out, and Marfinka went with him. She showed
him the park, her own garden, the vegetable and flower gardens, and the
arbours. When they came to the precipice she looked anxiously over the
edge, and drew back with a shudder. Raisky looked down on the Volga,
which was in flood, and had overflowed into the meadows. In the distance
were ships which appeared to be motionless, and above hung heaped banks
of cloud. Marfinka drew closer to Raisky, and looked down indifferently
on the familiar picture.

“Come down!” he said suddenly, and seized her hand.

“No, I am afraid,” she answered trembling, and drew back.

“I won’t let you fall. Do you think I can’t take care of you?”

“Not at all, but I am afraid. Veroshka has no fear, but goes down alone,
even in the dusk. Although a murderer lies buried there, she is not
afraid.”

“Try, shut your eyes, and give me your hand. You will see how carefully
I take you down.”

Marfinka half closed her eyes, but she had hardly taken his hand and
made one step, when she found herself standing on the edge of the
precipice. Shuddering she withdrew her hand.

“I would not go down for anything in the world,” she cried as she ran
back. “Where are you going to!”

No answer reached her. She approached the edge and looked timidly over.
She saw how the bushes were bent noisily aside, as Raisky sprang down,
step by step. How horrible! she thought as she returned to the house.




CHAPTER VII


Raisky went nearly all round the town, and when he climbed the cliffs
once more, he was on the extreme boundary of his estate. A steep path
led down to the suburbs, and the town lay before him as in the palm of a
hand. Stirred with the passion aroused by his memories of childhood, he
looked at the rows of houses, cottages and huts. It was not a town, but,
like other towns, a cemetery. Going from street to street, Raisky saw
through the windows, how in one house the family sat at dinner, and in
another the amovar had already been brought in. In the empty streets,
every conversation could be heard a _verst_ away; voices and
footsteps re-echoed on the wooden pavement. It seemed to Raisky a
picture of dreamy peace, the tranquillity of the grave. What a frame for
a novel, if only he knew what to put in the novel. The houses fell into
their places in the picture that filled his mind, he drew in the faces
of the towns-people, grouped the servants with his aunt, the whole
composition centring in Marfinka. The figures stood sharply outlined in
his mind; they lived and breathed. If the image of passion should float
over this motionless sleeping little world, the picture would glow with
the enchanting colour of life. Where was he to find the passion, the
colour?

“Passion!” he repeated to himself. If her burning fire could but be
poured out upon him, and engulf the artist in her destroying waves.

As he moved forward he remembered that his stroll had an aim. He
wondered how Leonid Koslov was, whether he had changed, or whether he
had remained what he had been before, a child for all his learning. He
too was a good subject for an artist. Raisky thought of Leonti’s
beautiful wife, whose acquaintance he had made during his student days
in Moscow, when she was a young girl. She used to call Leonti her fiancé,
without any denial on his part, and five years after he had left the
University he made the journey to Moscow, and married her. He loved his
wife as a man loves air and warmth; absorbed in the life and art of the
ancients, his lover’s eyes saw in her the antique ideal of beauty. The
lines of her neck and bosom charmed him, and her head recalled to him
Roman heads seen on bas-reliefs and cameos.

Leonti did not recognise Raisky, when his friend suddenly entered his
study.

“I have not the honour,” he began.

But when Boris Pavlovich opened his lips he embraced him.

“Wife! Ulinka!” he cried into the garden. “Come quickly, and see who has
come to see us.”

She came hastily, and kissed Raisky.

“What a man you have grown, and how much more handsome you are!” she
said, her eyes flashing.

Her eyes, her mien, her whole figure betrayed audacity. Just over thirty
years old, she gave the impression of a splendidly developed specimen of
blooming womanhood.

“Have you forgotten me?” she asked.

“How should he forget you?” broke in Leonti. “But Ulinka is right. You
have altered, and are hardly recognisable with your beard. How delighted
your Aunt must have been to see you.”

“Ah! his Aunt!” remarked Juliana Andreevna in a tone of displeasure. “I
don’t like her.”

“Why not?”

“She is despotic and censorious.”

“Yes, she is a despot,” answered Raisky. “That comes from intercourse
with serfs. Old customs!”

“According to Tatiana Markovna,” continued Juliana Andreevna, “everybody
should stay on one spot, turn his head neither to right nor left, and
never exchange a word with his neighbours. She is a past mistress in
fault-finding; nevertheless she and Tiet Nikonich are inseparable, he
spends his days and nights with her.”

Raisky laughed and said, “She is a saint nevertheless, whatever you may
find to say about her.”

“A saint perhaps, but nothing is right for her. Her world is in her two
nieces, and who knows how they will turn out? Marfinka plays with her
canaries and her flowers, and the other sits in the corner like the
family ghost, and not a word can be got from her. We shall see what will
become of her.”

“Veroshka? I haven’t seen her yet. She is away on a visit on the other
side of the Volga.”

“And who knows what her business is there?”

“I love my Aunt as if she were my Mother,” said Raisky emphatically.
“She is wise, honourable, just! She has strength and individuality, and
there is nothing commonplace about her.”

“You will believe everything she says?” asked Juliana Andreevna, drawing
him away to the window, while Leonti collected the scattered papers,
laid them in cupboards and put the books on the shelves.

“Yes, everything,” she said.

“Don’t believe her. I know she will tell you all sorts of
nonsense--about Monsieur Charles.”

“Who is he?”

“A Frenchman, a teacher, and a colleague of my husband’s. They sit there
reading till all hours. How can I help it? Yet God knows what they make
out of it in the town, as if I.... Don’t believe it,” she went on, as she
saw Raisky was silent. “It is idle talk, there is nothing,” she
concluded, with a false smile intended to be allowing.

“What business is it of mine?” returned Raisky, turning away from her.
“Shall we go into the garden?”

“Yes, we will have dinner outside,” said Leonti. “Serve what there is,
Ulinka. Come, Boris, now we can talk.” Then as an idea struck him, he
added, “What shall you have to say to me about the library?”

“About what library? You wrote to me about it, but I did not understand
what you were talking about. I think you said some person called Mark,
had been tearing the books.”

“You cannot imagine, Boris, how vexed I was about it,” he said as he
took down some books with torn backs from the shelves.

Raisky pushed the books away. “What does it matter to me?” he said. “You
are like my grandmother; she bothers me about accounts, you about
books.”

“But Boris, I don’t know what accounts she bothered you about, but these
books are your most precious possession. Look!” he said, pointing with
pride to the rows of books which filled the study to the ceiling.

“Only on this shelf nearly everything is ruined by that accursed Mark!
The other books are all right. See, I drew up a catalogue, which took
a whole year to do,” and he pointed self-consciously to a thick bound
volume of manuscript. “I wrote it all with my own hand,” he continued.
“Sit down, Boris, and read out the names. I will get on the ladder, and
show you the books; they are arranged according to their numbers.”

“What an idea!”

“Or better wait till after dinner; we shall not be able to finish
before.”

“Listen, should you like to have a library like that?” asked Raisky.

“I!--a library like that?”

Sunshine blazed from Leonti’s eyes, he smiled so broadly that even the
hair on his brow stirred with the dislocation caused. “A library like
that?” He shook his head. “You must be mad.”

“Tell me, do you love me as you used to do?”

“Why do you ask? Of course.”

“Then the books shall be yours for good and all, under one condition.”

“I--take these books!”

Leonti looked now at the books, now at Raisky, then made a gesture of
refusal, and sighed.

“Do not laugh at me, Boris! Don’t tempt me.”

“I am not joking.”

Here Juliana Andreevna, who had heard the last words, chimed in with,
“Take what is given you.”

“She is always like that,” sighed Leonti. “On feast days the tradesmen
come with presents, and on the eve of the examinations the parents. I
send them away, but my wife receives them at the side door. She looks
like Lucretia, but she has a sweet tooth, a dainty one.”

Raisky laughed, but Juliana Andreevna was annoyed.

“Go to your Lucretia,” she said indifferently. “He compares me with
everybody. One day I am Cleopatra, then Lavinia, then Cornelia. Better
take the books when they are offered you. Boris Pavlovich will give them
to me.”

“Don’t take it on yourself to ask him for gifts,” commanded Leonti. “And
what can we give him? Shall I hand you over to him, for instance?” he
added as he embraced her.

“Splendid! Take me, Boris Pavlovich,” she cried, throwing a sparkling
glance at him.

“If you don’t take the books, Leonti,” said Raisky, “I will make them
over to the Gymnasium. Give me the catalogue, and I’ll send it to the
Director to-morrow.”

He put his hand out for the catalogue, of which Leonti kept a tight hold.

“The Gymnasium shall never get one of them,” he cried. “You don’t know
the Director, who cares for books just about as much as I do for perfume
and pomade. They will be destroyed, torn, and worse handled than by
Mark.”

“Then take them.”

“To give away such treasures all in a minute. It would be comprehensible
if you were selling them to responsible hands. I have never wanted so
much to be rich. I would give five thousand. I cannot accept, I cannot.
You are a spendthrift, or rather a blind, ignorant child--”

“Many thanks.”

“I didn’t mean that,” cried Leonti in confusion. “You are an artist; you
need pictures, statues, music; and books are nothing to you. Besides,
you don’t know what treasures you possess; after dinner I will show
you.”

“Well, in the afternoon, instead of drinking coffee, you will go over
with the books to the Gymnasium for me.”

“Wait, Boris, what was the condition on which you would give me the
books. Will you take instalments from my salary for them? I would sell
all I have, pledge myself and my wife.”

“No, thank you,” broke in Juliana Andreevna, “I can pledge or sell
myself if I want to.”

Leonti and Raisky looked at one another.

“She does not think before she speaks,” said Leonti. “But tell me what
the condition is.”

“That you never mention these books to me again, even if Mark tears them
to pieces.”

“Do you mean I am not to let him have access to them?”

“He is not likely to ask you,” put in Juliana Andreevna. “As if that
monster cared for what you may say.”

“How Ulinka loves me,” said Leonti to Raisky. “Would that every woman
loved her husband like that.”

He embraced her. She dropped her eyes, and the smile died from her face.

“But for her you would not see a single button on my clothes,” continued
Leonti. “I eat and sleep comfortably, and our household goes on evenly
and placidly. However small my means are she knows how to make them
provide for everything.” She raised her eyes, and looked at them, for
the last statement was true. “It’s a pity,” continued Leonti, “that she
does not care about books. She can chatter French fast enough, but if
you give her a book, she does not understand half of it. She still
writes Russian incorrectly. If she sees Greek characters, she says they
would make a good pattern for cotton printing, and sets the book upside
down. And she cannot even read a Latin title.”

“That will do. Not another word about the books. Only on that condition,
I don’t send them to the Gymnasium. Now let us sit down to table, or I
shall go to my Grandmother’s, for I am famished.”

“Do you intend to spend your whole life like this?” asked Raisky as he
was sitting after dinner alone with Leonti in the study.

“Yes, what more do I need?”

“Have you no desires, does nothing call you away from this place, have
you no longings for freedom and space, and don’t you feel cramped in
this narrow frame of hedge, church spire and house, under your very
nose?”

“Have I so little to look at under my nose?” asked Leonti, pointing to
the books. “I have books, pupils, and in addition a wife and peace of
heart, isn’t that enough?”

“Are books life? This old trash has a great deal to answer for. Men
strive forwards, seek to improve themselves, to cleanse their
conceptions, to drive away the mist, to meet the problems of society by
justice, civilisation, orderly administration, while you instead of
looking at life, study books.”

“What is not to be found in books is not to be found in life either, or
if there is anything it is of no importance,” said Leonti firmly. “The
whole programme of public and private life lies behind us; we can find
an example for everything.”

“You are still the same old student, Leonti, always worrying about what
has been experienced in the past, and never thinking of what you
yourself are.”

“What I am! I am a teacher of the classics. I am as deeply concerned
with the life of the past, as you with ideals and figures. You are an
artist. Why should you wonder that certain figures are dear to me? Since
when have artists ceased to draw water from the wells of the ancients?”

“Yes, an artist,” said Raisky, with a sigh. He pointed to his head and
breast. “Here are figures, notes, forms, enthusiasm, the creative
passion, and as yet I have done almost nothing.”

“What restrains you? You are now painting, you wrote me, a great picture,
which you mean to exhibit.”

“The devil take the great pictures. I shall hardly be able to devote my
whole energy to painting now. One must put one’s whole being into a
great picture, and then to give effect to one hundredth part of what one
has put in a representation of a fleeting, irrecoverable impression.
Sometimes I paint portraits....”

“What art are you following now?”

“There is but one Art that can satisfy the artist of to-day, the art of
words, of poetry, which is limitless in its possibilities.”

“You write verses then?”

“Verses are children’s food. In verse you celebrate a love affair, a
festival, flowers, a nightingale.”

“And satire. Remember the use made of it by the Romans.”

With these words he would have gone to the bookshelf, but Raisky held
him back. “You may,” he said, “be able now and then to hit a diseased
spot with satire. Satire is a rod, whose stroke stings but has no
further consequences; but she does not show you figures brimming with
life, she does not reveal the depths of life with its secret mainsprings
of action, she holds no mirror before your eyes. It is only the novel
that comprehends and mirrors the life of man.”

“So you are writing a novel? On what subject?”

“I have not yet quite decided.”

“Don’t at all events describe this pettifogging, miserable existence
which stares us in the face without the medium of art. Our contemporary
literature squeezes every worm, every peasant-girl, and I don’t know
what else, into the novel. Choose a historical subject, worthy of your
vivacious imagination and your clean-cut style. Do you remember how you
used to write of old Russia? Now it is the fashion to choose material
from the ant-heap, the talking shop of everyday life. This is to be the
stuff of which literature is made. Bah! it is the merest journalism.”

“There we are again on the old controversy. If you once mount that horse,
there will be no calling you back. Let us leave this question for the
moment, and go back to my question. Are you satisfied to spend your life
here, as you are now doing, with no desires for anything further?”

Leonti looked at him in astonishment, with wide opened eyes.

“You do nothing for your generation,” Raisky went on, “but creep
backwards like a crab. Why are you for ever talking of the Greeks and
Romans? Their work is done, and ours is to bring life into these
cemeteries, to shake the slumbering ghosts out of their twilight
dreams.”

“And how is the task to be begun?”

“I mean to draw a picture of this existence, to reflect it as in a
mirror. And you....”

“I too accomplish something. I have prepared several boys for the
University,” remarked Leonti with hesitation, for he was not sure
whether this was meritorious or not. “You imagine that I go into my
class, then home, and forget about everything. That is not the case.
Young people gather round me, attach themselves to me, and I show them
drawings of old buildings, utensils, make sketches and give explanations,
as I once did for you. What I know myself I communicate to others,
explain the ancient ideals of virtue, expound classical life, just as
our own classics are explained. Is that no longer essential?”

“Certainly it has its advantage. But it has nothing to do with real life.
One cannot live like that to-day. So much has disappeared, so many
things have arisen that the Greeks and Romans never knew. But we need
models from contemporary life, we must educate ourselves and others to
be men. That is our task.”

“No, I do not take that upon my shoulders; it is sufficient for one to
take the models of ancient virtue from books. I myself live for and
through myself. You see I live quietly and modestly, eat my vermicelli
soup....”

“Life for and through yourself is not life at all, it is a passive
condition, and man is a fighting animal.”

“I have already told you that I do my duty and do not interfere in
anybody else’s business; and no one interferes with mine.”

“Life’s arm is long, and will not spare even you. And how will you meet
her blows--unprepared.”

“What has Life to do with a humble man like me? I shall pass unnoticed.
I have books, although they are not mine,” he said glancing hesitatingly
at Raisky, “but you give me free use of them. My needs are small, I feel
no boredom. I have a wife who loves me....”

Raisky looked away.

“And,” he added in a whisper, “I love her.”

It was plain that as his mind nourished itself on the books, so his
heart had found a warm refuge; he himself did not even know what bound
him to life and books, and did not guess that he might keep his books
and lose his life, and that his life would be maimed if his “Roman head”
 was stolen from him.

Happy child, thought Raisky. In his learned sleep he does not notice the
darkness that is hidden in that dear Roman head, nor how empty the
woman’s heart is. He is helpless as far as she is concerned, and will
never convince her of the virtues of the ancient ideals.




CHAPTER VIII


The sun was setting when Raisky returned home, and was received at the
door by Marfinka.

“Where did you get lost, Cousin?” she asked him. “Grandmother is very
angry, and is grumbling....”

“I was with Leonti,” returned Raisky indifferently.

“I thought so, and told Grandmother so, but she won’t listen and will
hardly speak even to Tiet Nikonich. He is with her now and Paulina
Karpovna too. Go to Grandmother, and it will be all right. Are you
afraid. Does your heart beat fast?”

Raisky had to laugh.

“She is very angry. We had prepared so many dishes.”

“We will eat them up for supper.”

“Will you? Grandmother, Grandmother,” she cried happily, “Cousin has
come and wants his supper.”

His aunt sat severely there, and did not look up when Raisky entered.
Tiet Nikonich embraced him. He received an elegant bow from Paulina
Karpovna, an elaborately got-up person of forty-five in a low cut muslin
gown, with a fine lace handkerchief and a fan, which she kept constantly
in motion although there was no heat.

“What a man you have grown! I should hardly have known you,” said Tiet
Nikonich, beaming with kindness and pleasure.

“He has grown very, very handsome,” said Paulina Karpovna Kritzki.

“You have not altered, Tiet Nikonich,” remarked Raisky. “You have hardly
aged at all, and are as gay, as fresh, as kind and amiable....”

“Thank God! there is nothing worse than rheumatism the matter with me,
and my digestion is no longer quite as good as it was. That is age, age.
But how glad I am that you, our guest, have arrived in such good spirits.
Tatiana Markovna was anxious about you. You will be staying here for
some time?”

“Of course you will spend the summer with us,” said Paulina Karpovna.
“Here is nature, and fine air, and so many people are interested in
you.”

He looked at her askance, and said nothing.

“Do you remember me?” she asked. Boris’s aunt noticed with displeasure
that Paulina Karpovna was ogling her nephew.

“No, I must confess I forgot.”

“Yes, impressions are quickly forgotten in the capital,” she said in
a languishing tone. She looked him up and down and then added, “What an
admirable travelling suit.”

“That reminds me I am still in my travelling clothes. Egor must be sent
for and must take my clothes and linen out of the trunk. For you, Granny,
and for you, my dear sisters, I have brought some small things for
remembrance.”

Marfinka grew crimson with pleasure.

“Granny, where are you going to put me up?”

“The house belongs to you. Where you will,” she returned coldly.

“Don’t be angry, Granny,” he laughed. “It won’t happen twice.”

“You may laugh, you may laugh, Boris Pavlovich. Here, in the presence of
our guests, I tell you you have behaved badly. You have hardly put your
nose inside the house, and straightway vanish. That is an insult to your
Grandmother.”

“Surely, Granny, we shall be together every day. I have been visiting an
old friend, and we forgot ourselves in talking.”

“Cousin Boris did not do it on purpose, Granny,” said Marfinka. “Leonti
Ivanovich is so good.”

“Please be silent when you are not addressed. You are too young to
contradict your Grandmother, who knows what she is saying.”

Smilingly Marfinka drew back into her corner.

“No doubt Juliana Andreevna was able to entertain you better, and knows
better than I how to entertain a Petersburger. What friccassee did she
give you?” asked his aunt, not without a little real curiosity.

“Vermicelli soup, pastry with cabbage, then beef and potatoes.”

Tatiana Markovna laughed ironically, “Vermicelli soup and beef!”

“And groats in the pan....”

“It’s a long time since you tasted such delicacies.”

“Excellent dishes,” said Tiet Nikonich kindly, “but heavy for the
digestion.”

“To-morrow, Marfinka,” said the old lady, “we will entertain our guest
with a gosling, pickled pork, carrots, and perhaps with a goose.”

“A goose, stuffed with groats, would be acceptable,” put in Raisky.

“Indigestible!” protested Tiet Nikonich. “The best is a light soup, with
pearl barley, a cutlet, pastries and jelly; that is the proper midday
meal.”

“But I should like groats.”

“Do you like mushrooms too, Cousin?” asked Marfinka. “Because we have so
many.”

“Rather! Can’t we have them for supper tonight?”

In spite of Tiet Nikonich’s caution against this heavy food, Tatiana
Markovna sent Marfinka to Peter and to the cook to order mushrooms for
supper.

“If there is any champagne in the cellar, Granny, let us have a bottle
up. Tiet Nikonich and I would like to drink your health. Isn’t that so,
Tiet Nikonich?”

“Yes, to celebrate your arrival, though mushrooms and champagne are
indigestible.”

“Tell the cook to bring champagne on ice, Marfinka,” said the old lady.

_“Ce que femme veut,”_ said Tiet Nikonich amiably, with a slight
bow.

“Supper is a special occasion, but one ought to dine at home too. You
have vexed your Grandmother by going out on the very day of your
return.”

“Ah, Tatiana Markovna,” sighed Paulina Karpovna, “our ways here are so
bourgeois, but in the capital....”

The old lady’s eyes blazed, as she pointed to the wall where hung the
portraits of Raisky’s and the young girls’ parents, and exclaimed:
“There was nothing bourgeois about those, Paulina Karpovna.”

“Granny,” said Raisky, “let us allow one another absolute freedom. I am
now making up for my absence at midday, and shall be here all night. But
I can’t tell where I shall dine to-morrow, or where I shall sleep.”

Paulina Karpovna could not refrain from applauding, but his aunt looked
at him with amazement, and inquired if he were really a gipsy.

“Monsieur Raisky is a poet, and poets are as free as air,” remarked
Paulina Karpovna. Again she made play with her eyes, shifted the pointed
toes of her shoes in an effort to arouse Raisky’s attention. The more
she twisted and turned, the more icy was his indifference, for her
presence made an uncomfortable impression on him. Marfinka observed the
by-play and smiled to herself.

“You have two houses, land, peasants, silver and glass, and talk of
wandering about from one shelter to another like a beggar, like
Markushka, the vagrant.”

“Markushka again! I must certainly make his acquaintance.”

“No, don’t do that and add to your Grandmother’s anxieties. If you see
him, make your escape.”

“But why?”

“He will lead you astray.”

“That’s of no consequence, Grandmother. It looks as if he were an
interesting individual, doesn’t it, Tiet Nikonich?”

“He is a riddle to everybody,” Tiet Nikonich answered with a smile. “He
must have gone astray very early in life, but he has apparently good
brains and considerable knowledge, and might have been a useful member
of society.”

Paulina Karpovna turned her head away, and dismissed Mark with the
criticism, “No manners.”

“Brains! You bought his brains for three hundred roubles. Has he repaid
them?” asked Tatiana Markovna.

“I did not remind him of his debt. But to me he is, for the matter of
that, almost polite.”

“That is to say he does not strike you, or shoot in your direction. Just
imagine, Boris, that he nearly shot Niel Andreevich.”

“His dogs tore my train,” complained Paulina Karpovna.

“Did he never visit you unceremoniously at dinner again?” Tatiana
Markovna asked Tiet Nikonich.

“No, you don’t like me to receive him, so I refuse him admission. He
once came to me at night,” he went on, addressing Raisky. “He had been
out hunting, and had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours. I gave him
food, and we passed the time very pleasantly.”

“Pleasantly!” exclaimed Tatiana Markovna. “How can you say such things?
If he came to me at that hour, I would settle him. No, Boris Pavlovich,
live like other decent people. Stay with us, have dinner with us, go out
with us, keep suspicious people at a distance, see how I administer your
estate, and find fault if I do anything wrong.”

“That is so monotonous, Grandmother. Let us rather live each one after
his own ideas and inclinations.”

“You are an exception,” sighed his aunt.

“No, Grandmother, it is you who are an exceptional woman. Why should we
bother about one another.”

“To please your Grandmother.”

“Why don’t you want to please your Grandson? You are a despot,
Grandmother.”

“A despot! Boris Pavlovich, I have waited anxiously for you, I have
hardly slept, have tried to have everything as you liked it.”

“But you did all that because activity is a pleasure to you. All this
care and trouble is a pleasant stimulant, keeps you busy. If Markushka
came to you, you would receive him in the same fashion.”

“You are right, Cousin,” broke in Marfinka. “Grandmother is kindness
itself, but she tries to disguise it.”

“Don’t give your opinion when it is not asked. She contradicts her
Grandmother only when you are here, Boris Pavlovich; at other times she
is modest enough. And now the ideas she suddenly takes into her head. I?
entertain Markushka!”

“You did as you pleased,” continued Raisky. “And then when it entered my
head too to do as I pleased, I disturbed your arrangements and made a
breach in your despotism. Isn’t that so, Granny? And now kiss me, and we
will give one another full liberty.”

“What a strange boy? Do you hear, Tiet Nikonich, what nonsense he
talks.”

On that evening Tatiana Markovna and Raisky concluded, if not peace, at
least a truce. She was assured that Boris loved and esteemed her; she
was, in truth, easily convinced. After supper Raisky unpacked his trunk,
and brought down his gifts; for his aunt, a few pounds of excellent tea,
of which she was a connoisseur, a coffee machine of a new kind, with a
coffee-pot, and a dark brown silk dress; bracelets with monograms for
his cousins; and for Tiet Nikonich vest and hose of Samian leather, as
his aunt had desired.

Tatiana Markovna, with tears in her eyes, sat down beside him, and
putting her hand on his shoulder said, “And you remembered me?”

“Whom else should I remember? You are my nearest and dearest,
Grandmother.”

When Tiet Nikonich and Paulina Karpovna took leave, the lady said that
she had left orders with no one to fetch her, and that she hoped someone
would accompany her, looking towards Raisky as she spoke. Tiet Nikonich
expressed himself ready to see her home.

“Egorka could have taken her,” whispered Tatiana Markovna. “Why didn’t
she stay at home; she was not invited.”

“Thank you, thank you,” said Paulina Karpovna to Raisky as she passed
him.

“What for?” asked Raisky in amazement.

“For the pleasant, witty conversation, although it was not directed to
me. What pleasure it gave me!”

“A practical conversation about groats, a goose, and a quarrel with
Grandmother.”

“Ah, I understand,” she continued, “but I caught two glances, which were
intended for me, confess they were. I am filled with hope and
expectation.”

As she went out Raisky asked Marfinka what she was talking about.

“She’s always like that,” laughed Marfinka.

Tatiana Markovna followed Raisky to his room, smoothed the sheets of his
bed once more, drew the curtains so that the sun should not awaken him
in the morning, felt the feather bed to test its softness, and had a jug
of water placed on the table beside him. She came back three times to
see if he were asleep or wanted anything. Touched by so much kindly
thought he recognised that his grandmother’s activity was not only
exerted to gratify herself.




CHAPTER IX


The days passed quietly by. Every morning the sun climbed up through the
blue air, and lighted up the Volga and its banks. At midday the snowy
clouds crept up, often piled one on another until the blue sky was
hidden, and the cooling rain fell on woods and fields; then once more
the clouds stole away before the approach of the warm, pleasant evening.

Life at Malinovka passed just as peacefully. The naiveté of the
surroundings had not yet lost its charm for Raisky. The sunshine
insinuating itself everywhere, his aunt’s kind face, Marfinka’s
friendliness, and the willing attention of the servants made up a
pleasant, friendly environment. He even felt pleasure in the watchful
guardianship that his aunt exercised over him; he smiled when she
preached order to him, warned him of crime and temptation, reproached
him for his gipsy tendencies and tried to lead him to a definite plan of
life.

He liked Tiet Nikonich, and saw in his courtesy and his extreme good
manners, his care for his health, and the universal esteem and affection
in which he was held, a survival from the last century. When he felt
very good tempered he found even Paulina Karpovna’s eccentricities
amusing. She had induced him to lunch with her one day, when she assured
him that she was not indifferent to him, and that he himself was on the
eve of returning her sentiments!

The even, monotonous life lulled him like a cradle song. He wrote idly
at his novel, strengthened a situation here, grouped a scene there, or
accentuated a character. He watched his aunt, Leonti and his wife, and
Marfinka, or looked at the villages and fields lying in an enchanted
sleep along the banks of the Volga. In this ocean of silence he caught
notes which he could interpret in terms of music, and determined, in his
abundant leisure, to pursue the subject.

One day, after a lonely walk along the shore, he climbed the cliff, and
passed Koslov’s house. Seeing that the windows were lighted, he was
going up to the door, when suddenly he heard someone climb over the
fence and jump down into the garden. Standing in the shadow of the fence,
Raisky hesitated. He was afraid to sound the alarm until he knew whether
it was a thief or an admirer of Juliana Andreevna’s, some Monsieur
Charles or other. However, he decided to pursue the intruder, and
promptly climbed the fence and followed him. The man stopped before a
window and hammered on the pane.

“That is no thief, possibly Mark,” thought Raisky. He was right.

“Philosopher, open! Quick!” cried the intruder.

“Go round to the entrance,” said Leonti’s voice dully through the glass.

“To the entrance, to wake the dog! Open!”

“Wait!” said Leonti, and as he opened the window Mark swung himself into
the room.

“Who is that behind you. Whom have you brought with you?” asked Leonti
in terror.

“No one. Do you imagine there’s a ghost. Ah! there is someone scrambling
up.”

“Boris, you? How did you happen to arrive together,” he exclaimed as
Raisky sprang into the room.

Mark cast a hasty glance on Boris and turned to Leonti. “Give me another
pair of trousers. Have you any wine in the house?

“What’s the matter, and where have you been?” asked Leonti suddenly, who
had just noticed that Mark was covered up to the waist with wet and
slime.

“Give me another pair of trousers quick,” said Mark impatiently. “What
is the good of chattering?”

“I have no wine, because we drank it all at dinner, when Monsieur
Charles was our guest.”

“Where do you keep your clothes?”

“My wife is asleep and I don’t know; you must ask Avdotya.”

“Fool! I will find them myself!”

He took a light, and went into the next room.

“You see what he is like,” sighed Leonti, addressing Raisky.

After about ten minutes, Mark returned with the trousers and Leonti
questioned him as to how he had got wet through.

“I was crossing the Volga in a fishing-boat. The ass of a fisherman fell
asleep, and brought us right up into the reeds by the island, and we had
to get out among the reeds to extricate the boat.”

Without taking any heed of Raisky, he changed his trousers and sat down
with his feet drawn up under him in the great armchair, so that his
knees were on a level with his face, and he supported his bearded chin
upon them.

Raisky observed him silently. Mark was twenty-seven, built as if his
muscles were iron, and well proportioned; a thick mane of light brown
hair framed his pale face with its high arched forehead, and fell in
long locks on his neck. The full beard was paler in colour. His open,
bold, irregular, rather thin face was illuminated every now and then by
a smile--of which it was hard to read the meaning; one could not tell
whether it spelt vexation, mockery or pleasure. His grey eyes could be
bold and commanding, but for the most part wore a cold expression of
contempt. Tied up in a knot as he was, he now sat motionless with
staring eyes, stirring neither hand nor foot.

There was something restless and watchful in the motionless attitude, as
in that of a dog apparently at rest, but ready to spring.

Suddenly his eyes gleamed, and he turned to Raisky. “You will have
brought some good cigars from St. Petersburg,” he began without ceremony.
“Give me one.”

Raisky offered his cigar case, and reminded Leonti that he had not
introduced them.

“What need is there of introduction! You came in by the same way, and
both know who the other is.”

“Words of wisdom from the scholar!” ejaculated Mark.

“That same Mark of whom I wrote to you, don’t you remember!” said Leonti.

“Wait, I will introduce myself,” cried Mark, springing from the easy
chair. He posed ceremoniously, and bowed.

“I have the honour to present myself, Mark Volokov, under police
surveillance, involuntary citizen of this town.”

He puffed away at his cigar, and again rolled himself up in a ball.

“What do you do with yourself here?” asked Raisky.

“I think, as you do.”

“You love art, are perhaps an artist?”

“And are you an artist?”

“Painter and musician,” broke in Leonti, “and now he is writing a novel.
Take care, brother, he may put you in too.”

Raisky signed to him to be silent.

“Yes, I am an artist,” Mark went on, “but of a different kind. Your Aunt
will have acquainted you with my works.”

“She won’t hear your name mentioned.”

“There you have it. But it was only a matter of a hundred apples or so
that I plucked from over the fence.”

“The apples are mine; you may take as many as you like.”

“Many thanks. But why should I need your permission? I am accustomed to
do everything in this life without permission. Therefore I will take the
apples without your permission, they taste better.”

“I was curious to make your acquaintance. I hear so many tales about
you.”

“What do they say?”

“Little that is good.”

“Probably they tell you I am a thief, a monster, the terror of the
neighbourhood.”

“That’s about it.”

“But if this reputation precedes me, why should you seek my acquaintance.
I have torn your books, as no doubt our friend there has informed you.”

“There he is to the point,” cried Leonti. “I am glad he began the
subject himself. He is a good sort at the bottom. If one is ill, he
waits on one like a nurse, runs to the chemist, and takes any amount of
trouble. But the rascal wanders round and gives no one any peace.”

“Don’t chatter so,” interrupted Mark.

“For that matter,” said Raisky, “everybody does not abuse you. Tiet
Nikonich Vatutin, for instance, goes out of his way to speak well of
you.”

“Is it possible! The sugar marquis! I left him some souvenirs of my
presence. More than once I have waked him in the night by opening his
bedroom window. He is always fussing about his health, but in all the
forty years since he came here no one remembers him to have been ill. I
shall never return the money he lent me. What more provocation would he
have? And yet he praises me.”

“So that is your department of art,” said Raisky gaily.

“What kind of an artist are you? It is your turn to tell me.”

“I love and adore beauty. I love art, draw, and make music, and just now
I am trying to write a great work, a novel.”

“Yes, yes, I see. You are an artist of the kind we all are.”

“All?”

“With us Russians everybody is an artist. They use the chisel, paint,
strum, write poetry, as you and your like do. Others drive in the
mornings to the courts or the government offices, others sit before
their stalls playing draughts, and still others stick on their
estates--Art is everywhere.”

“Do you feel no desire to enter any of these categories.”

“I have tried, but don’t know how to. What brought you here?”

“I don’t know myself. It is all the same to me where I go. I had a
letter summoning me here from my Aunt, and I came.”

Mark busied himself in his thoughts, and took no further interest in
Raisky. Raisky on the other hand examined the extraordinary person
before him attentively, studied the expression of his face, followed his
movements, and tried to grasp the outline of a strong character. “Thank
God,” he said to himself, “that I am not the only idle, aimless person
here. In this man there is something similar; he wanders about,
reconciles himself to his fate, and does nothing. I at least draw and
try to write my novel, while he does nothing. Is he the victim of secret
discord like myself? Is he always struggling between two fires?
Imagination striving upward to the ideal lures him on on the one
hand--man, nature and life in all its manifestations; on the other he is
attracted by a cold, destructive analysis which allows nothing to live,
and will forget nothing, an analysis that leads to eternal discontent
and blighting cold. Is that his secret?” He glanced at Mark, who was
already drowsing.

“Good-bye, Leonti,” he said, “it’s time I was going home.”

“What am I to do with him?”

“He can stay here all right.”

“Think of the books. It’s leaving the goat loose in the vegetable
garden.”

“I might wheel him in the armchair into that dark little room,
and lock him in,” thought Leonti, “but if he woke, he might pull the
roof down.”

Mark helped him out of his dilemma by jumping to his feet.

“I am going with you,” he said to Raisky. “It is time for you to go to
bed, philosopher,” he said to Leonti. “Don’t sit up at nights. You have
already got a yellow patch in your face, and your eyes are hollow.”

He put out the light, stuffed on his cap, and leapt out of the window.
Raisky followed his example, and they went down the garden once more,
climbed the fence, and came out in the street.

“Listen,” said Mark. “I am hungry, and Leonti has nothing to give me.
Can you help me to storm an inn?”

“As far as I am concerned. But the thing can be managed without the
application of force.”

“It is late, and the inns are shut. No one will open willingly,
especially when it is known that I am in the case; consequently we must
enter by storm. We will call ‘Fire!’ and then they will open at once,
and we can get in.”

“And be hurled out into the street again.”

“There you are wrong. It is possible that I might be refused entrance,
but once in, I remain.”

“A siege, a row at night....”

“Ah, you are afraid of the police,” laughed Mark. “You are thinking of
what the Governor would decide on in such a serious case, what Niel
Andreevich would say, how the company would take it. Now good-bye, I
will go and storm my entrance alone.”

“Wait, I have another, more delightful plan,” said Raisky. “My Aunt
cannot, you say, bear to hear your name; only the other day she declared
she would in no circumstances give you hospitality.”

“Well, what then?”

“Come home with me to supper, and stay the night with me.”

“That’s not a bad plan. Let us go.”

They walked in silence, almost feeling their way through the darkness.
When they came to the fence of the Malinovka estate, which bounded the
vegetable garden, Raisky proposed to climb it.

“It would be better,” said Mark, “to go by way of the orchard or from
the precipice. Here we shall wake the house and must make a circuit in
addition. I always go the other way.”

“You--come--here--into the garden? What to do?”

“To get apples.”

“You have my permission, so long as Tatiana Markovna does not catch
you.”

“I shan’t be caught so easily. Look, someone has just leaped over the
fence, like us. Hi! Stop! Don’t try to hide. Who’s there? Halt! Raisky,
come and help me!”

He ran forward a few paces, and seized someone.

Raisky hurried to the point from which voices were audible, remarking,
“What cat’s eyes you have!” The man who was held fast by Mark’s strong
arms twisted round to free himself, and in the end fell to the ground
and made for the fence.

“Catch him, hold fast! There is another sneaking round in the vegetable
garden,” cried Raisky.

Raisky saw dimly a figure about to spring down from the fence, and
demanded who it was.

“Sir, let me go, do not ruin me!” whispered a woman’s voice.

“Is it you, Marina, what are you doing here?

“Gently, Sir. Don’t call me by name. Savili will hear, and will beat
me.”

“Off with you! No, stop. I have found you at the right moment. Can you
bring some supper to my room?”

“Anything, Sir. Only, for God’s sake, don’t betray me.”

“I won’t betray you. Tell me what there is in the kitchen.”

“The whole supper is there. As you did not come, no one ate anything.
There is sturgeon in jelly, turkey, all on ice.”

“Bring it, and what about wine?”

“There is a bottle in the sideboard, and the fruit liqueurs are in Marfa
Vassilievna’s room.”

“Be careful not to wake her.”

“She sleeps soundly. Let me go now, Sir, for my husband may hear us.”

“Run, but take care you don’t run into him.”

“He dare not do anything if he does meet me now. I shall tell him that
you have given me orders....”

Meanwhile, Mark had dragged his man from hiding. “Savili Ilivich,” the
unknown murmured, “don’t strike me.”

“I ought to know the voice,” said Raisky.

“Ah! You are not Savili Ilivich, thank God. I Sir, I am the gardener
from over there.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came on a real errand, Sir. Our clock has stopped, and I came here to
wait for the church-clock to strike.”

“Devil take you,” cried Mark, and gave the man a push that sent him
reeling.

The man sprang over the ditch, and vanished in the darkness.

Raisky, meantime, returned to the main entrance. He tried to open the
door, not wishing to knock for fear of awaking his aunt. “Marina,” he
called in a low voice, “Marina, open!”

The bolt was pushed back. Raisky pushed open the door with his foot.
Before him stood--he recognised the voice--Savili, who flung himself
upon him and held him.

“Wait, my little dove, I will make my reckoning with you, not with
Marina.”

“Take your hands off, Savili, it is I.”

“Who, not the Master?” exclaimed Savili, loosening his prisoner. “You
were so good as to call Marina? But,” after a pause, “have you not seen
her.”

“I had already asked her to leave some supper for me and to open the
door,” he said untruthfully, by way of protecting the unfaithful wife.
“She had already heard that I am here. Now let my guest pass, shut the
door, and go to bed.”

“Yes, Sir,” said Savili, and went slowly to his quarters, meeting Marina
on the way.

“Why aren’t you in bed, you demon?” she cried, dashing past him. “You
sneak around at night, you might be twisting the manes of the horses
like a goblin, and put me to shame before the gentry.”

Marina sped past light-footed as a sylph, skilfully balancing dishes and
plates in her hands, and vanished into the dark night. Savili’s answer
was a threatening gesture with his whip.

Mark was indeed hungry, and as Raisky showed no hesitation either, the
sturgeon soon disappeared, and when Marina came to clear away there was
not much to take.

“Now we should like something sweet,” suggested Raisky.

“No sweets are left,” Marina assured them, “but I could get some
preserves, of which Vassilissa has the keys.”

“Better still punch,” said Mark. “Have you any rum?”

“Probably,” she said, in answer to an inquiring glance from Raisky. “The
cook was given a bottle this morning for a pudding. I will see.”

Marina returned with a bottle of rum, a lemon and sugar, and then left
the room. The bowl was soon in flames, which lighted up the darkened
room with their pale blue light. Mark stirred it with the spoon, while
the sugar held between two spoons dripped slowly into the bowl. From
time to time he tasted it.

“How long have you been in our town?” asked Raisky after a short silence.

“About two years.”

“You must assuredly be bored?”

“I try to amuse myself,” he said, pouring out a glass for himself and
emptying it. “Drink,” he said, pushing a glass towards Raisky.

Raisky drank slowly, not from inclination, but out of politeness to his
guest. “It must be essential for you to do something, and yet you appear
to do nothing?”

“And what do you do?”

“I told you I am an artist.”

“Show me proof of your art.”

“At the moment I have nothing except a trifling thing, and even that is
not complete.”

He rose from the divan and uncovered Marfinka’s portrait.

“H’m, it’s like her, and good,” declared Mark. He told himself that
Raisky had talent. “And it would be excellent, but the head is too large
in proportion and the shoulders a trifle broad.”

“He has a straight eye,” thought Raisky.

“I like best the lightly-observed background and accessories, from which
the figure detaches itself light, gay, and transparent. You have found
the secret of Marfinka’s figure. The tone suits her hair and her
complexion.”

Raisky recognised that he had taste and comprehension, and wondered if
he were really an artist in a disguise.

“Do you know Marfinka?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And Vera?”

“Vera too.”

“Where have you met my cousins? You do not come to the house.”

“At church.”

“At church? But they say you never look inside a church.”

“I don’t exactly remember where I have seen them, in the village, in the
field.”

Raisky concluded his guest was a drunkard, as he drunk down glass after
glass of punch. Mark guessed his thoughts.

“You think it extraordinary that I should drink. I do it out of sheer
boredom, because I am idle and have no occupation. But don’t be afraid
that I shall set the house on fire or murder anybody. To-day I am
drinking more than usual because I am tired and cold. But I am not a
drunkard.”

“It depends on ourselves whether we are idle or not.”

“When you climbed over Leonti’s fence, I thought you were a sensible
individual, but now I see that you belong to the same kind of preaching
person as Niel Andreevich....”

“Is it true that you fired on him?” asked Raisky curiously.

“What nonsense! I fired a shot among the pigeons to empty the barrel of
my gun, as I was returning from hunting. He came up and shouted that I
should stop, because it was sinful. If he had been content with
protesting I should merely have called him a fool, and there it would
have ended. But he began to stamp and to threaten, ‘I will have you put
in prison, you ruffian, and will have you locked up where not even the
raven will bring you a bone.’ I allowed him to run through the whole
gamut of polite remarks, and listened calmly--and then I ‘took aim at
him.’”

“And he?”

“Ducked, lost his stick and goloshes, finally squatted on the ground and
whimpered for forgiveness. I shot into the air. That’s all.”

“A pretty distraction,” commented Raisky ironically.

“No distraction,” said Mark seriously. “There was more in it, a
badly-needed lesson for the old boy.”

“And then what?”

“Nothing. He lied to the Governor, saying that I had aimed at him, but
missed. If I had been a peaceful citizen of the town I should have been
thrust into gaol without delay; but as I am an outlaw, the Governor
inquired into the matter and advised Niel Andreevich to say nothing. So
that no enquiry should be instituted from St. Petersburg; they fear that
like fire.”

“When I spoke of idleness,” said Raisky, “I did not mean to read a moral.
Yet when I see what your mind, your abilities and your education
are....”

“What have you seen? That I can climb a hedge, shoot at a fool, eat and
drink heavily?” he asked as he drained his glass.

Raisky watched him, and wondered uneasily how it would all end.

“We were speaking of the art you love so much,” said Mark.

“I have been snatched from Art as if from my mother’s breast,” sighed
Raisky, “but I shall return and shall reach my goal.”

“No, you will not,” laughed Mark.

“Why not, don’t you believe in firm intentions?”

“How should I do otherwise, since they say the way to Hell is paved with
them. No, you will do little more than you have accomplished
already--that is very little. We, and many like us, simply rot and die.
The only wonder is that you don’t drink. That is how our artists,
half men, usually end their careers.”

Smiling he thrust a glass towards his host, but emptied it himself.
Raisky concluded that he was cold, malicious and heartless. But the last
remark had disturbed him. Was he really only half a man? Had he not a
firm determination to reach the goal he had set before himself? He was
only making fun of him.

“You see that I don’t drink away my talents,” he remarked.

“Yes, that is an improvement, a step forward. You haven’t succumbed to
society, to perfumes, gloves and dancing. Drinking is a different thing.
It goes to one man’s head, another is susceptible to passion. Tell me,
do you easily take fire? Ah! I have touched the spot,” he went on as
Raisky coloured. “That belongs to the artistic temperament, to which
nothing is foreign--_Nihil humanum_, etc. One loves wine, another
women, a third cards. The artists have usurped all these things for
themselves. Now kindly explain what I am.”

“What you are. Why, an artist, without doubt, who on a first
acquaintance will drink, storm public houses, shoot, borrow money--”

“And not repay it. Bravo! an admirable description. To justify your last
remark and prove its truth beyond doubt, lend me a hundred roubles. I
will never pay them back unless you and I should have exchanged our
respective situations in life.”

“You say that in jest?”

“Not at all. The market gardener, with whom I live, feeds me. He has no
money, nor have I.”

Raisky shrugged his shoulders, felt in his pockets, produced his pocket
book and laid some notes on the table.

“You have counted wrong,” said Mark. “There are only eighty here.”

“I have no more money on me. My aunt keeps my money, and I will send you
the balance to-morrow.”

“Don’t forget. This is enough for the moment and now I want to sleep.”

“My bed is at your disposal, and I will sleep on the divan. You are my
guest.”

“I should be worse than a Tatar if I did that,” murmured Mark, already
half asleep. “Lie down on your bed. Anything will do for me.”

In a few minutes he was sleeping the sleep of a tired, satisfied and
drunken man worn out with cold and weariness. Raisky went to the window,
raised the curtain, and looked out into the dark, starlit night. Now and
then a flame hovered over the unemptied bowl, flared up and lighted up
the room for a moment. There was a gentle tap on the door.

“Who is there?” he asked.

“I, Borushka. Open quickly. What are you doing there,” said the anxious
voice of Tatiana Markovna.

Raisky opened the door, and saw his aunt before him, like a white-clad
ghost.

“What is going on here. I saw a light through the window, and thought
you were asleep. What is burning in the bowl.”

“Rum.”

“Do you drink punch at night?” she whispered, looking first at him, then
at the bowl in amazement.

“I am a sinner, Grandmother. Sometimes I drink.”

“And who is lying there asleep?” she asked in new terror as she gazed on
the sleeping Mark.

“Gently, Grandmother, don’t wake him. It is Mark.”

“Mark! Shall I send for the police! What have you to do with him? You
have been drinking punch at night with Mark? What has come over you,
Boris Pavlovich?”

“I found him at Leonti’s, we were both hungry. So I brought him here and
we had supper.”

“Why didn’t you call me. Who served you, and what did they bring you?”

“Marina did everything.”

“A cold meal. Ah, Borushka, you shame me.”

“We had plenty to eat.”

“Plenty, without a single hot dish, without dessert. I will send up some
preserves.”

“No, no ... if you want anything, I can wake Mark and ask him.”

“Good heavens! I am in my night-jacket,” she whispered, and drew back to
the door. “How he sleeps, all rolled up like a little dog. I am ashamed,
Boris Pavlovich, as if we had no beds in the house. But put out the
flames. No dessert!”

Raisky extinguished the blue flame and embraced the old lady. She made
the sign of the Cross over him, looked round the room once more, and
went out on tiptoe. Just as he was going to lie down again there was
another tap on the door, he opened it immediately.

Marina entered, bearing a jar of preserves; then she brought a bed and
two pillows. “The mistress sent them,” she said.

Raisky laughed heartily, and was almost moved to tears.




CHAPTER X


Early in the morning a slight noise wakened Raisky, and he sat up to see
Mark disappear through the window. He does not like the straight way, he
thought, and stepped to the window. Mark was going through the park, and
vanished under the thick trees on the top of the precipice. As he had no
inclination to go to bed again, he put on a light overcoat and went down
into the park too, thinking to bring Mark back, but he was already far
below on the bank of the Volga. Raisky remained standing at the top of
the precipice. The sun had not yet risen, but his rays were already
gilding the hill tops, the dew covered fields were glistening in the
distance, and the cool morning wind breathed freshness. The air grew
rapidly warmer, giving promise of a hot day. Raisky walked on in the
park, and the rain began to fall. The birds sang, as they darted in all
directions seeking their morning meal, and the bees and the humble-bees
hummed over the flowers. A feeling of discomfort came over Raisky. He
had a long day before him, with the impressions of yesterday and the day
before still strong upon him. He looked down on the unchanging prospect
of smiling nature, the woods and the melancholy Volga, and felt the
caress of the same cooling breeze. He went forward over the courtyard,
taking no notice of the greetings of the servants or the friendly
advances of the dogs.

He intended to go back to his room to turn the tenseness of his mood to
account as an artistic motive in his novel; but as he hurried past the
old house, he noticed that the door was half open, and went in. Since
his arrival he had only been here for a moment with Marfinka, and had
glanced into Vera’s room. Now it occurred to him to make a closer
inspection. Passing through his old bedroom and two or three other rooms,
he came into the corner room, then with an expression of extreme
astonishment in his face he stood still.

Leaning on the window-sill, so that her profile was turned towards him,
stood a girl of two or three and twenty, looking with strained curiosity,
as if she were following some one with her eyes, down to the bank of the
Volga. He was startled by the white, almost pallid face under the dark
hair, the velvet-black eyes with their long lashes. Her face, still
looking anxiously into the distance, gradually assumed an indifferent
expression. The girl glanced hastily over park and courtyard, then as
she turned and caught sight of him, shrank back.

“Sister Vera!” he cried.

Her face cleared, and her eyes remained fixed on him with an expression
of modest curiosity, as he approached to kiss her.

She drew back almost imperceptibly, turning her head a little so that
his lips touched her cheek, not her mouth, and they sat down opposite
the window.

Impatient to hear her voice he began: “How eagerly I have expected you,
and you have stayed away so long.”

“Marina told me yesterday that you were here.”

Her voice, though not so clear as Marfinka’s, was still fresh and
youthful.

“Grandmother wanted to send you word of my arrival, but I begged her not
to tell you. When did you return? No one told me you were here.”

“Yesterday, after supper. Grandmother and my sister don’t know I am here
yet. No one saw me but Marina.”

She threw some white garments that lay beside her into the next room,
pushed aside a bundle and brought a table to the window. Then she sat
down again, with a manner quite unconstrained, as if she were alone.

“I have prepared coffee,” she said. “Will you drink it with me. It will
be a long time before it is ready at the other house. Marfinka gets up
late.”

“I should like it very much,” he replied, following her with his eyes.
Like a true artist he abandoned himself to the new and unexpected
impression.

“You must have forgotten me, Vera,” he remarked after a pause, with an
affectionate note in his voice.

“No,” she said, as he poured out the coffee, “I remember everything. How
was it possible to forget you when Grandmother was for ever talking
about you?”

He would have liked to ask her question after question, but they crowded
into his brain in so disconnected a fashion that he did not know where
to begin.

“I have already been in your room. Forgive the intrusion,” he said.

“There is nothing remarkable here,” she said hastily, looking around as
if something not intended for strange eyes might be lying about.

“Nothing remarkable, quite right. What book is that?”

He put out his hand for the book under her hand; she rapidly drew it
away and put it behind her on the shelf.

“You hide it as you used to hide the currants in your mouth. But show it
me.”

“Do you read books that may not be seen?” he said, laughingly as she
shook her head.

“Heavens! how lovely she is!” he thought. And he wondered how such
beauty could have lost its way in such an outlandish place. He wanted to
touch some answering chord in her heart, wanted her to reveal something
of her feelings, but his efforts only produced a greater coldness.

“My library was in your hands?”

“Yes, but later Leonid Ivanovich took it over, and I was glad to be
relieved of the charge.”

“But he must have left you a few books?”

“Oh no! I read what I liked, and then surrendered the books.”

“What did you like?”

She looked out of the window as she answered: “A great many. I have
really forgotten.”

“Do you care for music?”

She looked at him inquiringly before she said, “Does that mean that I
play myself, or like to hear music?”

“Both.”

“I don’t play, but I like to hear music, but what music is there here?”

“But what are your particular tastes?” Again she looked at him
inquiringly. “Do you like housekeeping, or needlework. Do you do
embroidery?”

“No, Marfinka likes and understands all those things.”

“But what do you like? A book only occupies you for a short time. You
say that you don’t do any needlework, but you must like something,
flowers perhaps.”

“Flowers, yes, in the garden, but not in the house where they have to be
tended. I love this corner of God’s earth, the Volga, the precipice, the
forest and the garden--these are the things I love,” she said, looking
contentedly at the prospect from the window.

“What ties bind you to this little place?”

She gave no answer, but her eyes wandered lovingly over the trees and
the rising ground, and finally rested on the dazzling mirror of water.

“It is a beautiful place,” admitted Raisky, “but the view, the river
bank, the hills, the forest--all these things would became tedious if
they were not inhabited by living creatures which share our feelings and
exchange ideas with us.”

She was silent.

“Vera!” said Raisky after a pause.

“Ah!” she said, as if she had only just heard his remarks, “I don’t live
alone; Grandmother, Marfinka....”

“As if you shared your sympathies and thoughts with them. But perhaps
you have a congenial spirit here?”

Vera nodded her head.

“Who is that happy individual?” he stammered, urged on by envy, terror
and jealousy.

“The pope’s wife with whom I have been stopping,” said Vera as she rose
and shook the crumbs from her apron. “You must have heard of her.”

“The pope’s wife!” he repeated.

“When she is here with me we both admire the Volga, we are never tired
of talking about it. Will you have some more coffee? May I have it
cleared away?”

“The pope’s wife,” he repeated thoughtfully, without hearing her
question, and the smile on her lips passed unobserved.

“Will you have some more coffee?”

“No. Do you care for Grandmother and Marfinka?”

“Whom else should I hold dear?”

“Well--me,” he retorted, jesting.

“You too,” she said, looking gaily at him, “if you deserve it.”

“How does one earn this good fortune?” he asked ironically.

“Love, they say, is blind, gives herself without any merit, is indeed
blind,” she rejoined.

“Yet sometimes love comes consciously, by way of confidence, esteem and
friendship. I should like to begin with the last, and end with the first.
So what must one do, dear sister, to attract your attention.”

“Not to make such round eyes as you are doing now for instance, not to
go into my room--without me, not to try to find out what my likes and
dislikes are....”

“What pride! Tell me, Sister, forgive my bluntness: Do you pride
yourself on this? I ask because Grandmother told me you were proud.”

“Grandmother must have her finger in everything. I am not proud. In what
connection did she say I was?”

“Because I have made a gift of these houses and gardens to you and
Marfinka. She said that you would not accept the gift. Is that true?
Marfinka has accepted on the condition that you do not refuse.
Grandmother hesitated, and has not come to a final decision, but waits,
it seems, to see what you will say. And how shall you decide. Will a
sister take a gift from a brother?”

“Yes, I accept ... but no, I can buy the estate. Sell it to me.... I
have money, and will pay you 50,000 roubles for it.”

“I will not do it that way.”

She looked thoughtfully out on the Volga, the precipice, and the park.

“Very well. I agree to anything you please, so long as we remain here.”

“I will have the deed drawn up.”

“Yes, thank you!” she said, stretching out both hands to him.

He pressed her hands, and kissed Vera on the cheek. She returned the
pressure of his hands and kissed the air.

“You seem really to love the place and this old house.”

“And you, do you mean to stay here long?”

“I don’t know. It depends on circumstances--on you.”

“On me?”

“Come over to the other house.”

“I will follow you. I must first put things straight here. I have not
yet unpacked.”

The less Raisky appeared to notice Vera, the more friendly Vera was to
him, although, in spite of her aunt’s wishes she neither kissed him nor
addressed him as “thou.” But as soon as he looked at her overmuch or
seemed to hang on her words, she became suspicious, careful and reserved.
Her coming made a change in the quiet circle, putting everything in a
different light. It might happen that she said nothing, and was hardly
seen for a couple of days, yet Raisky was conscious every moment of her
whereabouts and her doings. It was as if her voice penetrated to him
through any wall, and as if her doings were reflected in any place where
he was. In a few days he knew her habits, her tastes, her likings, all
that love on her outer life. But the indwelling spirit, Vera herself,
remained concealed in the shadows. In her conversation she betrayed no
sign of her active imagination and she answered a jest with a gay smile,
but Raisky rarely made her laugh outright. If he did her laughter broke
off abruptly to give place to an indifferent silence. She had no regular
employment. She read, but was never heard to speak of what she read; she
did not play the piano, though she sometimes struck discords and
listened to their effects.

Raisky noticed that their aunt was liberal with observation and warnings
for Marfinka; but she said nothing to Vera, no doubt in the hope that
the good seed sown would bear fruit.

Vera had moments when she was seized with a feverish desire for activity;
and then she would help in the house, and in the most varying tasks with
surprising skill. This thirst for occupation came on her especially when
she read reproach in her aunt’s eyes. If she complained that her guests
were too much for her, Vera would not bring herself to assist
immediately, but presently she would appear in the company with a bright
face, her eyes gleaming with gaiety, and astonished her aunt by the
grace and wit with which she entertained the visitors. This mood would
last a whole evening, sometimes a whole day, before she again relapsed
into shyness and reserve, so that no one could read her mind and heart.

That was all that Raisky could observe for the time, and it was all the
others saw either. The less ground he had to go on however, the more
active his imagination was in seeking to divine her secret.

She came over every day for a short time, exchanged greetings with her
aunt and her sister, and returned to the other house, and no one knew
how she passed her time there. Tatiana Markovna grumbled a little to
herself, complained that her niece was moody, and shy, but did not
insist.

For Raisky the whole place, the park, the estate with the two houses,
the huts, the peasants, the whole life of the place had lost its gay
colours. But for Vera he would long since have left it. It was in this
melancholy mood that he lay smoking a cigar on the sofa in Tatiana
Markovna’s room. His aunt who was never happy unless she was doing
something, was looking through some accounts brought her by Savili;
before her lay on pieces of paper samples of hay and rye. Marfinka was
working at a piece of lace. Vera, as usual, was not there.

Vassilissa announced visitors; the young master; from Kolchino.

“Nikolai Andreevich Vikentev, please enter.”

Marfinka coloured, smoothed her hair, gave a tug to her fichu, and cast
a glance in the mirror. Raisky shook his finger at her, making her
colour more deeply.

“The person who stayed one night here,” said Vassilissa to Raisky, “is
also asking for you.”

“Markushka?” asked Tatiana Markovna in a horrified tone.

“Yes,” said Vassilissa.

Raisky hurried out.

“How glad he is, how he rushes to meet him. Don’t forget to ask him for
the money. Is he hungry? I will send food directly,” cried his aunt
after him.

There stepped, or rather sprang into the room a fresh-looking,
well-built young man of middle height of about twenty-three years of age.
He had chestnut hair, a rosy face, grey-blue keen eyes, and a smile which
displayed a row of strong teeth. He laid on a chair with his hat a bunch
of cornflowers and a packet carefully done up in a handkerchief.

“Good-day, Tatiana Markovna; Good-day, Marfa Vassilievna,” he cried. He
kissed the old lady’s hand, and would have raised Marfinka’s to his lips,
but she pulled it away, though he found time to snatch a hasty kiss from
it.

“You haven’t been to see us for three weeks,” said Tatiana Markovna,
reproachfully.

“I could not come. The Governor would not let me off. Orders were given
to settle up all the business in the office,” said Vikentev, so
hurriedly that he nearly swallowed some of the words.

“That is absurd; don’t listen to him, Granny,” interrupted Marfinka. “He
hasn’t any business, as he himself said.”

“I swear I am up to my neck in work. We are now expecting a new chief
clerk, and I swear by God we have to sit up into the night.”

“It is not the custom to appeal to God over such trifles. It is a sin,”
 said Tatiana Markovna severely.

“What do you mean? Is it a trifle when Marfa Vassilievna will not
believe me, and I, by God--”

“Again?”

“Is it true, Tatiana Markovna, that you have a visitor? Has Boris
Pavlovich arrived? Was it he I met in the corridor? I have come on
purpose--”

“You see, Granny, he has come to see my cousin. Otherwise he would have
stayed away longer, wouldn’t he?”

“As soon as I could tear myself away, I came here. Yesterday I was at
Kolchino for a minute, with Mama--”

“Is she well?”

“Thanks for the kind thought. She sends her kind regards and begs you
not to forget her nameday.”

“Many thanks. I only don’t know whether I can come myself. I am old, and
fear the crossing of the Volga.”

“Without you, Granny, Vera and I will not go. We, too, are afraid of
crossing the Volga.”

“Be ashamed of yourself, Marfa Vassilievna. What are you afraid of? I
will fetch you myself with our boat. Our rowers are singers.”

“Under no circumstances will I cross with you. You never sit quiet in
the boat for a minute. What have you got alive in that handkerchief? See,
Granny, I am sure it’s a snake.”

“I have brought you a carp, Tatiana Markovna, which I have caught myself.
And these are for you, Marfa Vassilievna. I picked the cornflowers here
in the rye.”

“You promised not to pick any without me. Now you have not put in an
appearance for more than two weeks. The cornflowers are all withered,
and what can I do with them?”

“Come with me, and we’ll pick some fresh ones.”

“Wait,” called Tatiana Markovna. “You can never sit quiet, you have
hardly had time to show your nose, the perspiration still stands on your
forehead, and you are aching to be off. First you must have breakfast.
And you, Marfinka, find out if that person, Markushka, will have
anything. But don’t go yourself, send Egorka.”

Marfinka seized the carp’s head with two fingers, but when he began to
wave his tail hither and thither, she uttered a loud cry, hastily
dropped him on the floor, and fled down the corridor.

Vikentev hurried after, and a few moments later Tatiana Markovna heard a
gay waltz in progress and a vigorous stampede, as if someone were
rolling down the steps. Soon the two of them tore across the courtyard
to the garden, Marfinka leading, and from the garden came the sound of
chattering, singing and laughter. Tatiana Markovna shook her head as she
looked through the window. Cocks, hens and ducks fled in panic, the dogs
dashed barking at Marfinka’s heels, the servants put their heads out of
the windows of their quarters, in the garden the tall plants swayed
hither and hither, the flower beds were broken by the print of flying
feet, two or three vases were overturned, and every bird sought refuge
in the depths of the trees.

A quarter of an hour later, the two culprits sat with Tatiana Markovna
as politely as if nothing had happened. They looked gaily about the room
and at one another, as Vikentev wiped the perspiration from his face and
Marfinka fanned her burning face with her handkerchief.

“You are a nice pair,” remarked Tatiana Markovna.

“He is always like that,” complained Marfinka, “he chased me. Tell him
to sit quiet.”

“It wasn’t my fault, Tatiana Markovna. Marfa Vassilievna told me to go
into the garden, and she herself ran on in front.”

“He is a man. But it does not become you, who are a girl, to do these
things.”

“You see what I have to endure through you,” said Marfinka.

“Never mind, Marfa Vassilievna. Granny is only scolding a little, as she
is privileged to do.”

“What do you say, Sir?” said Tatiana Markovna, catching his words. “Come
here, and since your Mama is not here, I will box your ears for you.”

“But, Tatiana Markovna, you threaten these things and never do them,” he
said, springing up to the old lady and bowing his head submissively.

“Do box his ears well, Granny, so that his ears will be red for a
month.”

“How did you come to be made of quicksilver?” said Tatiana Markovna,
affectionately. “Your late father was serious, never talked at random,
and even disaccustomed your mother from laughter!”

“Ah, Marfa Vassilievna,” broke in Vikentev. “I have brought you some
music and a new novel.”

“Where are they?”

“I left them in the boat. That’s the fault of the carp. I will go and
fetch them now.”

In a moment he was out of the door, and Marfinka would have followed if
her aunt had not detained her.

“What I wanted to say to you is----” she began.

She hesitated a little, as if she could not make up her mind to speak.
Marfinka came up to her, and the old lady smoothed her disordered hair.

“What then, Granny?”

“You are a good child, and obey every word of your grandmother’s. You
are not like Veroshka....”

“Don’t find fault with Veroshka, Granny!”

“No, you always defend her. She does indeed respect me, but she retains
her own opinion and does not believe me. Her view is that I am old,
while you two girls are young, know everything, and read everything. If
only she were right. But everything is not written in books,” she added
with a sigh.

“What do you want to say to me?” asked Marfinka curiously.

“That a grown girl must be a little more cautious. You are so wild, and
run about like a child.”

“I am not always running about. I work, sew embroider, pour out tea,
attend to the household. Why do you scold me, Grandmother,” she asked
with tears in her eyes. “If you tell me I must not sing, I won’t do it.”

“God grant that you may always be as happy as a bird. Sing, play----”

“Then, why scold me?”

“I don’t scold you; I only ask you to keep within bounds. You used to
run about with Nikolai Andreevich--”

Marfinka reddened and retired to her corner.

“That is no harm,” continued Tatiana Markovna. “There is nothing against
Nikolai Andreevich, but he is just as wild as you are. You are my
dearest child, and you will remember what is due to your dignity.”

Marfinka blushed crimson.

“Don’t blush, darling. I know that you will do nothing wrong, but for
other people’s sake you must be careful. Why do you look so angry. Come
and let me kiss you.”

“Nikolai Andreevich will be here in a moment, and I don’t know how to
face him.”

Before Tatiana Markovna could answer Vikentev burst in, covered with
dust and perspiration, carrying music and a book which he laid on the
table by Marfinka.

“Give me your hand, Marfa Vassilievna,” he cried, wiping his forehead.
“How I did run, with the dogs after me!”

Marfinka hid her hand, bowed, and returned with dignity:

_“Je vous remercie, monsieur Vikentev, vous êtes bien amiable.”_

He stared first at Marfinka, then at her aunt, and asked whether she
would try over a song with him.

“I will try it by myself, or in company with Grandmother.”

“Let us go into the park, and I will read you the new novel,” he then
said, picking up the book.

“How could I do such a thing?” asked Marfinka, looking demurely at her
aunt. “Do you think I am a child?”

“What is the meaning of this, Tatiana Markovna,” stammered Vikentev in
amazement. “Marfa Vassilievna is unendurable.” He looked at both of them,
walked into the middle of the room, assumed a sugary smile, bowed
slightly, put his hat under his arm, and struggling in vain to drag his
gloves on his moist hands began: “_Mille pardons, mademoiselle, de
vous avoir dérangée. Sacrebleu, ca n’entre pas. Oh mille pardons,
mademoiselle_.”

“Do stop, you foolish boy!”

Marfinka bit her lips, but could not help laughing.

“Just look at him, Granny! How can anybody keep serious when he mimics
Monsieur Charles so nicely?”

“Stop, children,” cried Tatiana Markovna, her frown relaxing into smiles.
“Go, and God be with you. Do whatever you like.”




CHAPTER XI


Raisky’s patience had to suffer a hard trial in Vera’s indifference. His
courage failed him, and he fell into a dull, fruitless boredom. In this
idle mood he drew village scenes in his sketch album--he had already
sketched nearly every aspect of the Volga to be seen from the house or
the cliff--and he made notes in his note books. He hoped by these
occupations to free himself from his obsessing thoughts of Vera. He knew
he would do better to begin a big piece of work, instead of these
trifles. But he told himself that Russians did not understand hard work,
or that real work demanded rude strength, the use of the hands, the
shoulders and the back. He thought that in work of this kind a man lost
consciousness of his humanity, and experienced no pleasures in his
exertions; he shouldered his burden like a horse that seeks to ward off
the whip with his tail. Rough manual labour left no place for boredom.
Yet no one seeks distractions in work, but in pleasure. Work, not
appearances, he repeated, oppressed by the overpowering dulness which
drove him nearly mad, and created a frame of mind quite contrary to his
gentle temperament. I have no work, I cannot create as do artists who
are absorbed in their work, and are ready to die for it.

He took his cap and strolled into the outlying parts of the town, then
into the town, where he observed every passer-by, stared into the houses,
down the streets, and at last found himself standing before the Koslov’s
house. Being told that Koslov was at the school, he inquired for Juliana
Andreevna. The woman who had opened the door to him, looked at him
askance, blew her nose with her apron, wiped it with her finger, and
vanished into the house for good. He knocked again, the dogs barked, and
then appeared a little girl, holding her finger to her mouth, who stared
at him and departed. He was about to knock again, but, instead, turned
to go. As he passed through the little garden he heard voices, Parisian
French, and a woman’s voice; he heard laughter and even a kiss.

“Poor Leonti!” he whispered. “Or rather, blind Leonti!”

He stood uncertain whether to go or stay, then hastened his steps, and
determined to have speech with Mark. He sought distraction of some kind
to rid himself of his mood of depression, and to drive away the
insistent thoughts of Vera. Passing the warped houses, he left the town
and passed between two thick hedges beyond which stretched on both sides
vegetable gardens.

“Where does the market gardener, Ephraim, live?” he asked, addressing a
woman over the hedge who was working in the beds.

Silently, without pausing in her work, she motioned with her elbow to a
hut standing isolated in the field. As he climbed over the fence, two
dogs barked furiously at him. From the door of the hut came a healthy
young woman with sunburnt face and bare arms, holding a baby.

She called off the dogs with curses, and asked Raisky whom he wished to
see. He was looking curiously round, since he did not understand how
anyone except the peasant and his wife could be living there. The hut,
against which were propped spades, rakes and other tools, planks and
pails, had neither yard nor fence; two windows looked out on the
vegetable garden, two others on the field. In the shed were two horses,
here was a pig surrounded by a litter of young, and a hen wandered
around with her chickens. A little further off stood some cars and a big
telega.

“Does Mark Volokov live here?” asked Raisky.

The woman pointed to the telega in silence.

“That’s his room,” she said, pointing to one of the windows. “He sleeps
in the telega.”

“At this time of day?”

“He only came home this morning, probably rather drunk.”

Raisky approached the telega.

“What do you want of him?” asked the woman.

“To visit him.”

“Let him sleep.”

“Why?”

“I am frightened here alone with him, and my husband won’t be here yet.
I hope he’ll sleep.”

“Does he insult you?”

“No, it would be wicked to say such a thing. But he is so restless and
peculiar that I am afraid of him.”

She rocked the child in her arms, and Raisky looked curiously under the
straw covering. Suddenly Mark’s tangled hair and beard emerged and the
woman vanished into the hut as he cried, “Fool, you don’t know how to
receive visitors.”

“Good-day! What has brought you here?” cried Mark as he crawled out of
the telega and stretched himself. “A visit, perhaps.”

“I was taking a walk out of sheer boredom.”

“Bored! with two beautiful girls at home. You, an artist, and you are
taking a walk out of sheer boredom. Don’t your affections prosper?” he
winked. “They are lovely children, especially Vera?”

“How do you know my cousins, and in what way do they concern you?” asked
Raisky drily.

“Don’t be vexed. Come into my drawing-room.”

“Tell me rather why you sleep in the telega. Are you playing at
Diogenes?”

“Yes, because I must.”

They entered the hut and went into a boarded compartment, where stood
Mark’s bed with a thin old mattress, a thin wadded bed-cover and a tiny
pillow. Scattered on a shelf on the wall, and on the table lay books,
two guns hung on the wall, linen and clothes were tumbled untidily on
the only chair.

“This is my salon, sit down on the bed, and I will sit on the chair. Let
us take off our coats, for it is infernally hot. No ceremony, as there
are no ladies. That’s right. Do you want anything? There is nothing but
milk and eggs. If you don’t want any, give me a cigar.”

“Many thanks. I have already breakfasted, and it will presently be
dinner time.”

“Yes! You live with your Aunt. Weren’t you expelled after having
harboured me in the night?”

“On the contrary, she reproached me with having allowed you to go to bed
without any dessert, and for not having demanded pillows.”

“And didn’t she rail against me?”

“As usual, but....”

“I know it is habit and does not come from her heart. She has the best
heart one can wish for, better than any here. She is bold, full of
character, and with a solid understanding; now indeed her brain is
weakening....”

“That is your opinion? You have found someone for whom you have
sympathy?”

“Yes, especially in one respect. She cannot endure the Governor any more
than I can. I don’t know what her reasons are; his position is enough
for me. We neither of us like the police; we are oppressed by them. The
old lady is compelled by them to carry out all sorts of repairs; to me
they pay far too much attention, find out where I live, whether I go far
from the town, and whom I visit.”

Both fell silent.

“Now we have nothing more to talk about. Why did you come here?” asked
Mark.

“Because I was bored.”

“Fall in love.”

Raisky was silent.

“With Vera,” continued Mark. “Splendid girl, and she is related to you.
It must be easy for you to begin a romance with her.”

Raisky made an angry gesture, to which Mark replied by a burst of
laughter.

“Call the ancient wisdom to your help,” he said. “Show outward coldness
when you are inwardly consumed, indifference of manner, pride,
contempt--every little helps. Parade yourself before her as suits
your calling.”

“My calling?”

“Isn’t it your calling to be eccentric?”

“Perhaps,” remarked Raisky indifferently.

“I, for instance,” said Mark, “should make direct for my goal, and
should be sure of victory. You may do the same, but you would do so
penetrated by the conviction that you stood on the heights and had drawn
her up to you, you idealist. Show that you understand your calling, and
you may succeed. It’s no use to wear yourself out with sighs, to be
sleepless, to watch for the raising of the lilac curtain by a white hand,
to wait a week for a kindly glance.”

Raisky rose, furious.

“Ah, I have hit the bull’s eye.”

Raisky put compulsion on himself to restrain his rage, for every
involuntary expression or gesture of anger would have meant nothing less
than acquiescence.

“I should very well like to fall in love, but I cannot,” he yawned,
counterfeiting indifference. “It is unsuited to my years and doesn’t
cure my boredom.”

“Try it,” teased Mark. “Let us have a wager that in a week you will be
as enamoured as a young cat. And within two months, or perhaps one, you
will have perpetrated so many follies that you will not know how to get
away from here.”

“If I am, with what will you pay?” asked Raisky in a tone bordering on
contempt.

“I will give you my trousers or my gun. I possess only two pairs of
trousers. The tailor has recovered a third pair for debt. Wait, I will
try on your coat. Why, it fits as if I were poured into a mould. Try
mine.”

“Why?”

“I should like to see whether it suits you. Please try it on, do.”

Raisky was indulgent enough to allow himself to be persuaded, and put on
Mark’s worn, dirty coat.

“Well, does it suit?”

“It fits!”

“Wear it then. You don’t wear a coat long, while for me it lasts for two
years. Besides, whether you are contented or not I shan’t take yours off
my shoulders. You would have to steal it from me.”

Raisky shrugged his shoulders.

“Does the wager hold!” asked Mark.

“What put you on to that--you will excuse me--ridiculous idea?”

“Don’t excuse yourself. Does it hold?”

“The wager is not equal. You have no possessions.”

“Don’t be disturbed on that account. I shall not have to pay. If my
prophecy comes true, then you will pay me three hundred roubles, which
would come in very conveniently.”

“What nonsense,” said Raisky, as he stood up and reached for his cap and
stick.

“At the latest you will be in love in a fortnight. In a month you will
be groaning, wandering about like a ghost, playing your part in a drama,
or possibly in a tragedy, and ending, as all your like do, with some
piece of folly. I know you, I can see through you.”

“But if, instead my falling in love with her, she were to fall in love
with me....”

“Vera! with you!”

“Yes, Vera, with me.”

“Then I will find a double pledge, and bring it to you.”

“You are a madman!” said Raisky, and went without bestowing a further
glance on Mark.

“In one month’s time I shall have won three hundred roubles,” Mark cried
after him.

Raisky walked angrily home. “I wonder where our charmer is now,” he
wondered gloomily. “Probably sitting on her favourite bench, admiring
the view. I will see.” As he knew Vera’s habits, he could say with
nearly complete certainty where she would be at any hour of the day. He
went over to the precipice, and saw her, as he had thought, sitting on
the bench with a book in her hand. Instead of reading she looked out,
now over the Volga, now into the bushes. When she saw Raisky, she rose
slowly and walked over to the old house. He signed to her to wait for
him, but she either did not perceive the sign, or did not wish to do so.
When she reached the courtyard she quickened her steps, and disappeared
within the door of the old house.

Raisky could hardly control his rage. “And a stupid girl like that
thinks that I am in love with her,” he thought. “She has not the
remotest conception of manners.” In offering the wager, Mark had stirred
up all the bitterness latent in him. He hardly looked at Vera when he
sat opposite her at dinner. If he happened to raise his eyes, it was as
if he were dazed by a flash of lightning. Once or twice she had looked
at him in a kind, almost affectionate way, but his wild glance betrayed
to her the agitation, of which she deemed herself to be the cause, and
to avoid meeting his eyes she bent her head over her empty plate.

“After dinner, I shall drive with Marfinka to the hay harvest,” said
Tatiana Markovna to Raisky. “Will you bestow on your meadows the honour
of your presence, Sir?”

“I have no inclination to go,” he murmured.

“Does the world go so hard with you?” asked Tatiana Markovna. “You are
indeed weighed down with work.”

He looked at Vera, who was mixing red wine with water. She emptied her
glass, rose, kissed her aunt’s hand, and went out.

Raisky too rose, and went to his room. His aunt, Marfinka, and Vikentev,
who had just happened to turn up, drove to the hay harvest, and the
afternoon peace soon reigned over the house. One man crawled into the
hayrick, another in the outhouse, another slept in the family carriage
itself, while others took advantage of the mistress’s absence to go into
the outskirts of the town.

Raisky’s thoughts were filled with Vera. Although he had sworn to
himself to think of her no more, he could not conquer his thoughts.
Where was she? He would go to her and talk it all over. He was inspired
only with curiosity, he assured himself. He took his cap and hurried out.
Vera was neither in the room nor in the old house; he searched for her
in vain on the field, in the vegetable garden, in the thicket on the
cliff, and went to look for her down along the bank of the Volga. When
he found no one he turned homewards, and suddenly came across her a few
steps from him, not far from the house.

“Ah!” he cried, “there you are. I have been hunting for you everywhere.”

“And I have been waiting for you here,” she returned.

He felt as if he were suddenly enveloped in winter in the soft airs of
the South.

“You--waiting for me,” he said in a strange voice, and looked at her in
astonishment.

“I wanted to ask you why you pursue me?”

Raisky looked at her fixedly.

“I hardly ever speak to you.”

“It is true that you rarely talk to me, but you look at me in such a
wild and extraordinary fashion that it constitutes a kind of pursuit.
And that is not all; you quietly follow my steps. You get up earlier
than I do, and wait for me to wake, draw my curtains back, and open the
window; whatever way I take in the park, and wherever I sit down, I must
meet you.”

“Very rarely.”

“Three or four times a week. It would not be often and would not annoy
me, quite the reverse, if it occurred without intention. But in your
eyes and steps I see only one thing, the continual effort to give me no
peace, to master my every glance, word and thought.”

He was amazed at her boldness and independence, at the freedom of her
speech. He saw before him, as he imagined, the little girl who had
nervously concealed herself from him for fear that her egoism might
suffer through the inequality of her brains, her ideas and her education.
This was a new figure, a new Vera.

“What if all this exists only in your imagination?” he said undecidedly.

“Don’t lie to me,” she interrupted. “If you are successful in observing
my every footstep, my every moment, at least permit me to be conscious
of the discomfort of such observation. I tell you plainly that it
oppresses me; it is slavery; I feel like a prisoner.”

“What do you ask of me?”

“My freedom.”

“Freedom--I am your chevalier--therefore....”

“Therefore you will not leave a poor girl room to breathe. Tell me, what
reason have I given you to regard me differently from any other girl?”

“Beauty adores admiration; it is her right.”

“Beauty has also a right to esteem and freedom. Is it an apple hanging
on the other side of the hedge, that every passer-by can snatch at?”

“Don’t agitate yourself, Vera!” he begged, taking her hands. “I confess
my guilt. I am an artist, have a susceptible temperament, and perhaps
abandoned myself too much to my impressions. Then I am no stranger. Let
us be reconciled, Vera. Tell me your wishes, and they shall be sacredly
fulfilled. I will do what pleases you, will avoid what offends you, in
order to deserve your friendship.”

“I told you from the beginning, you remember, how you could show me your
sympathy, by not observing me, by letting me go my way and taking no
notice of me. Then I will come of myself, and we will fix the hours that
we will spend together, reading or walking.”

“You ask me, Vera, to be utterly indifferent to you?”

“Yes.”

“Not to notice how lovely you are? To look at you as if you were
Grandmother. But even if I adore your beauty in silence from a distance,
you would know it, and can you forbid me that? Passion may melt the
surface and there may steal into your heart an affection for me. Don’t
let me leave you without any hope. Can you not give me any?”

“I cannot!”

“How can you tell? There may come a time.”

“No, Cousin, never.”

Unmanned by terror, he collected his strength to say breathlessly:

“You are no longer free? You love?”

She knit her brow and looked down on the Volga.

“And is there any sin if I do? Will you not permit it, Cousin?” she
asked ironically.

“I! I, who bring you the lofty philosophy of freedom, how should I not
permit you to love. Love independently of everybody, conceal nothing,
fear neither Granny nor anyone else. The dawn of freedom is red in the
sky, and shall woman alone be enslaved? You love. Say so boldly, for
passion is happiness, and allow others at least to envy you.”

“I concede no one the right to call me to account; I am free.”

“But you are afraid of Grandmother.”

“I am afraid of no one. Grandmother knows it, and respects my freedom.
And my wish is that you should follow her example. That is all I wanted
to say,” she concluded as she rose from the bench.

“Yes, Vera, now I understand, and am in accord with you,” he replied,
rising also. “Here is my hand on it, that from to-day you will neither
hear nor notice my presence.”

She gave her hand, but drew it rapidly back as he pressed it to his lips.

“We will see,” she said. “But if you don’t keep your word, we will see--”

“Say all you have to say, Vera, or my head will go to pieces.”

Vera looked long at the prospect before her before she ended with
decision:

“Then however dearly I love this place, I will leave it.”

“To go where?”

“God’s world is wide. Au revoir, Cousin!”

A few days later Raisky got up about five o’clock. The sun was already
full on the horizon, a wholesome freshness rose from garden and park,
flowers breathed a deeper perfume, and the dew glittered on the grass.
He dressed quickly and went out into the garden, when he suddenly met
Vera.

“It is not intentional, not intentional, I swear,” he stammered in his
first surprise.

They both laughed. She picked a flower, threw it to him, and gave him
her hand; and in reply to the kiss he gave she kissed him on the
forehead.

“It was not intentional, Vera,” he repeated. “You see yourself.”

“I see you are good and kind.”

“Generous,” he added.

“We have not got to generosity yet,” she said laughing, and took his arm.
“Let us go for a walk; it’s a lovely morning.”

He felt unspeakably happy.

“What coat are you wearing?” she asked in surprise as they walked. “It
is not yours.”

“Ah, it is Mark’s.”

“Is he here? How did you come by his coat?”

“Are you frightened? The whole house fears him like fire?” And he
explained how he got the coat. She listened absently as they went
silently down the main path of the garden, Vera with her eyes on the
ground.

Against his will he felt impelled to seek another argument with her.

“You seem to have something on your mind,” she began, “which you do not
wish to tell.”

“I did wish to, but I feared the storm I might draw upon myself.”

“You did not wish to discuss beauty once more?”

“No, no, I want to explain what my feeling for you is. I am convinced
that this time I am not in error. You have opened to me a special door
of your heart, and I recognise that your friendship would bring great
happiness, and that its soft tones would bring colour into my dull life.
Do you think, Vera, that friendship is possible between a man and a
woman?”

“Why not? If two such friends can make up their minds to respect one
another’s freedom, if one does not oppress the other, does not seek to
discover the secret of the other’s heart, if they are in constant,
natural intercourse, and know how to respect secrets....”

His eyes blazed. “Pitiless woman,” he broke in.

She had seen the glance, and lowered her eyes.

“We will go in to Grandmother. She has just opened the window, and will
call us to tea?”

“One word more, Vera. You have wisdom, lucidity, decision....”

“What is wisdom?” she asked mischievously.

“Observation and experience, harmoniously applied to life.”

“I have hardly any experience.”

“Nature has bestowed on you a sharp eye and a clear brain.”

“Is not such a possession disgraceful for a girl?”

“Your wholesome ideas, your cultivated speech....”

“You are surprised that a drop of village wisdom should have descended
on your poor sister. You would have preferred to find a fool in my place,
wouldn’t you, and now you are annoyed?”

“No, Vera, you intoxicate me. You do indeed forbid me to mention your
beauty by so much as a syllable, and will not hear why I place it so
high. Beauty is the aim and at the same time the driving power of art,
and I am an artist. The beauty of which I speak is no material thing,
she does not kindle her fires with the glow of passionate desire alone;
more especially she awakens the man in man, arouses thought, inspires
courage, fertilises the creative power of genius, even when that genius
stands at the culmination of its dignity and power; she does not scatter
her beams for trifles, does not besmirch purity--she is womanly wisdom.
You are a woman, Vera, and understand what I mean. Your hand will not be
raised to punish the man, the artist, for this worship of beauty.”

“According to you wisdom lies in keeping these rules before one’s eyes
as the guiding thread of life, in which case I am not wise, I have not
‘received this baptism.’”

An emotion closely related to sadness shone in her eyes, as she gazed
upwards for a moment before she entered the house. Raisky anxiously told
himself that she was as enigmatic as night itself, and he wondered what
was the origin of these foreign ideas and whether her young life was
already darkened.




CHAPTER XII


On Sunday Tatiana Markovna had guests for the second breakfast. The
covers had been removed from the purple damask-covered chairs in the
reception room. Yakob had rubbed the eyes of the family portraits with a
damp rag, and they appeared to look forth more sharply than on ordinary
days. The freshly waxed floors shone. Yakob himself paraded in a dress
coat and a white necktie, while Egorka, Petrushka and Stepka, the latter
of whom had been fetched from the village and had not yet found his legs,
had been put into old liveries which did not fit them and smelt of moth.
The dining-room and the reception room had been fumigated just before
the meal.

Tatiana Markovna herself, in a silk dress and shawl, with her cap on the
back of her head, sat on the divan. Near her the guests had taken their
places in accordance with their rank and dignity. The place of honour
was occupied by Niel Andreevich Tychkov, in a dress coat with an order,
an important old gentleman whose eyebrows met in his great fat face,
while his chin was lost in his cravat. The consciousness of his dignity
appeared in every gesture and in his condescending speech. Next him sat
the invariably modest Tiet Nikonich, also in a dress coat, with a glance
of devotion for Tatiana Markovna, and a smile for all. Then followed the
priest in a silk gown with a broad embroidered girdle, the councillors
of the local court, the colonel of the garrison, ladies from the town;
young officials who stood talking in undertones in a corner; young girls,
friends of Marfinka, who timidly clasped their damp hands and
continually changed colour; finally a proprietor from the neighbourhood
with three half-grown sons.

When the company had already been assembled for some little time at the
breakfast-table, Raisky entered. He felt that he was playing the rôle of
an actor, fresh to the place, making his first appearance on the
provincial stage after the most varying reports had been spread about
him.

Tatiana Markovna introduced him as “My nephew, the son of my late niece
Sfonichka,” though everybody knew who he was. Several people stood up to
greet him. Niel Andreevich, who expected that he would come and speak to
him, gave him a friendly smile; the ladies pulled their dresses straight
and glanced at the mirror; the young officials who were standing eating
off their plates in the corner shifted from one foot to the other; and
the young girls blushed still more and pressed their hands as if danger
threatened.

Raisky bowed to the assembled guests, and sat down beside his aunt on
the divan.

“Look how he throws himself down,” whispered a young official to his
neighbour. “His Excellency is looking at him.”

“Niel Andreevich has been wanting to see you for a long time,” said
Tatiana Markovna aloud, adding under her breath, “His Excellency, don’t
forget.” In the same low tone Raisky asked who the little lady was with
the fine teeth and the well-developed figure.

“Shame, Boris Pavlovich,” and aloud, “Niel Andreevich, Borushka has been
desiring to present himself to you for a long time.”

Raisky was about to reply when Tatiana Markovna pressed his hand,
enjoining silence.

“Why have you not given me the pleasure of a visit from you before,”
 said Niel Andreevich with a kindly air. “Good men are always welcome.
But it is not amusing to visit us old people, and the new generation do
not care for us, do they? And you hold with the young people. Answer
frankly.”

“I do not divide mankind into the old and the new generation,” said
Raisky, helping himself to a slice of cake.

“Don’t hurry about eating; talk to him,” whispered Tatiana Markovna.

“I will eat and talk at the same time,” he returned aloud.

Tatiana Markovna looked confused, and turned her back on him.

“Don’t disturb him,” continued Niel Andreevich. “Young people are like
that. I am curious to know how you judge men, Boris Pavlovich.”

“By the impression they produce on me.”

“Admirable. I like you for your candour. Let us take an example. What is
your opinion of me?”

“I am afraid of you.”

Niel Andreevich laughed complacently.

“Tell me why. You may speak quite plainly.”

“Why I am afraid of you? They say you find fault with everybody,” he
went on, heedless of Tatiana Markovna’s efforts to interrupt. “My
Grandmother tells me that you lectured one man for not having attended
Mass.”

Tatiana Markovna went hot all over, and taking off her cap, put it down
behind her.

“I am glad she told you that. I like to have my doings correctly
reported. Yes, I do lecture people sometimes. Do you remember?” he
appealed to the young men at the door.

“At your service, your Excellency,” answered one of them quickly,
putting one foot forward and his hands behind his back. “I once received
one.”

“And why?”

“I was unsuitably dressed.”

“You came to me one Sunday after Mass. I was glad to see you, but
instead of appearing in a dress coat, you came in a short jacket.”

At this point Paulina Karpovna rustled in, wearing a muslin dress with
wide sleeves so that her white arms were visible almost to the shoulder.
She was followed by a cadet.

“What heat! _Bonjour, Bonjour_,” she cried, nodding in all
directions, and then sat down on the divan beside Raisky.

“There is not room here,” he said, and sat down on a chair beside her.

“Ah, Dalila Karpovna,” remarked Niel Andreevich. “Good-day. How are
you?”

“Good-day,” she answered drily, turning away.

“Why don’t you bestow a kind glance on me, and let me admire your
swanlike neck!”

The young officials in the corner giggled, the ladies smiled, and
Paulina Karpovna whispered to Raisky: “The rude creature. The first word
he speaks is folly.”

“Ah, you despise an old man. But if I were to seek for your hand? Do I
look like a bridegroom, or am I too old for you?”

“I decline the honour. _Bonjour_, Natalie Ivanovna, where did you
buy that pretty hat, at Madame Pichet’s?”

“My husband ordered it from Moscow, as a surprise for me.”

“Very pretty.”

“But listen seriously,” cried Niel Andreevich insistently. “I am going
to woo you in earnest. I need a housekeeper, a modest woman, who is no
coquette, and has no taste for finery, who never glances at another man,
and you are an example.”

Paulina Karpovna pretended not to hear, but fanned herself and attempted
to draw Raisky into a conversation.

“In our esteem,” went on Niel Andreevich, pitilessly, “you are a model
for our mothers and daughters. At church your eyes remain fixed on the
sacred picture without a moment’s diversion, and never even perceive the
presence of young men....”

The giggling in the corner increased, the ladies made faces in their
efforts to restrain their laughter, and Tatiana Markovna tried to divert
Niel Andreevich’s attention from her guest, by herself addressing her,
but he returned to the attack.

“You are as retiring as a nun,” he went on, “never display your arms and
shoulders, but bear yourself in accordance with your years.”

“Why don’t you leave me alone?” returned Paulina Karpovna, and turning
to Raisky she added: “_Est-il bête, grossier_.”

“Because I wish to marry you, we are a suitable pair.”

“It will be difficult to find a wife for you.”

“We are well matched. I was still an assessor when you married the late
Ivan Egorovich. And that must be--”

“How hot it is! Stifling! Let us go into the garden. Please give me my
mantilla, Michel,” she said turning to the cadet who had come with her.

At this moment Vera appeared, and the company rose and crowded round her,
so that the conversation took another turn. Raisky was bored by the
guests, and by the exhibition he had just witnessed. He would have left
the room, but that Vera’s presence provided a strong incentive to remain.
Vera looked quickly round at the guests, said a few words here and there,
shook hands with the young girls, smiled at the ladies, and sat down on
a chair by the stove. The young officials smoothed their coats, Niel
Andreevich kissed her hand with evident pleasure, and the girls fixed
their eyes on her. Meanwhile Marfinka was busily employed in pouring out
time, handing dishes and particularly in entertaining her friends.

“Vera Vassilievna, my dear, do take my part,” cried Niel Andreevich.

“Is any one offending you?”

“Indeed there is. There is Dalila, no, Pelageia Karpovna--”

“Impertinent creature,” said that lady aloud, as she rose and went
quickly towards the door.

Tatiana Markovna also rose. “Where are you going, Paulina Karpovna?” she
cried. “Marfinka, do not let her go.”

“No, no, Tatiana Markovna,” came Paulina Karpovna’s voice from the hall,
“I am always grateful to you, but I do not wish to meet such a loon. If
my husband were alive, no man would dare....”

“Do not be vexed; he means nothing by it, but is in reality a decent old
gentleman.”

“Please let me go. I will come again and see you when he is not here,”
 she said as she left the house in tears.

In the room she had left everyone was in gay humour, and Niel Andreevich
condescended to share the general laughter, in which however, neither
Raisky nor Vera joined. Paulina Karpovna might be eccentric, but that
did not excuse either the loonish amusement of the people assembled or
the old man’s attacks. Raisky remained gloomily silent, and shifted his
feet ominously.

“She is offended and has departed,” remarked Niel Andreevich, as Tatiana
Markovna, visibly agitated returned, and resumed her seat in silence.
“It won’t do her any harm, but will be good for her health. She
shouldn’t appear naked in society. This is not a bathing establishment.”

At this point the ladies lowered their eyes, and the young girls grew
crimson, and pressed their hands nervously together.

“Neither should she stare about her in church and have young men
following her footsteps. Come, Ivan Ivanovich, you were once her
indefatigable cavalier. Do y

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