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The Created Legend

by Fyodor Sologub · English · Gutenberg #7480 · 440,191 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Created Legend

Author: Fyodor Sologub

Translator: John Cournos


        
Release date: February 1, 2005 [eBook #7480]
                Most recently updated: December 26, 2018

Language: English

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Produced by Eric Eldred, Camilla Venezuela and the Online
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THE
CREATED LEGEND


BY FEODOR SOLOGUB


AUTHORIZED
TRANSLATION FROM
THE RUSSIAN BY
JOHN COURNOS




INTRODUCTION


  _“For there is nothing either good or
  bad but thinking makes it so.”_
  SHAKESPEARE

  _“To the impure all things are impure.”_
  NIETZSCHE


_In “The Little Demon” Sologub has shown us how the evil within us
peering out through our imagination makes all the world seem evil to
us. In “The Created Legend,” feeling perhaps the need of reacting from
his morose creation Peredonov, the author has set himself the task of
showing the reverse of the picture: how the imagination, no longer
warped, but sensitized with beauty, is capable of creating a world of
its own, legendary yet none the less real for the legend._

_The Russian title of the book is more descriptive of the author’s
intentions than an English translation will permit it to be.
“Tvorimaya Legenda” actually means “The legend in the course of
creation.” The legend that Sologub has in mind is the active,
eternally changing process of life, orderly and structural in spite of
the external confusion. The author makes an effort to bring order out
of apparent chaos by stripping life of its complex modern detail and
reducing it to a few significant symbols, as in a rather more subtle
“morality play.” The modern novel is perhaps over-psychologized;
eternal truths and eternal passions are perhaps too often lost sight
of under the mass of unnecessary naturalistic detail._

_In this novel life passes by the author as a kind of dream, a dream
within that nightmare Reality, a legend within that amorphousness
called Life. And the nightmare and the dream, like a sensitive
individual’s ideas of the world as it is and as it ought to be,
alternate here like moods. The author has expressed this
changeableness of mood curiously by alternating a crudely realistic,
deliberately naïve, sometimes journalese style with an extremely
decorative, lyrical manner--this taxing the translator to the utmost
in view of the urgency to translate the mood as well as the ideas._

_As a background we have “the abortive revolution of_ 1905.”
 _This novel is an emotional statement of those “nightmarish” days.
Against this rather hazy, tempestuous background we have the sharply
outlined portrait of an individual, a poet, containing a world within
himself, a more radiant and orderly world than the one which his eyes
look upon outwardly. It is this “inner vision” which permits him to
see the legend in the outer chaos, and we read in this book of his
efforts to disentangle the thread of this legend by the establishment
of a kind of Hellenic Utopia._

_It is not alone the poet who is capable of creating his legend, but
any one who refuses to be subject to the whims of fate and to serve
the goddess of chance and chaos, “the prodigal scatterer of episodes”
 (Aisa). The tragic thing about this philosophy, as one Russian critic
points out, is that even the definite settling of the question does
not assure one complete consolation, for, like Ivan Karamazov in
Dostoyevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov,” one may say: “I do not accept God,
I do not accept the world created by Him, God’s world; I simply return
Him the ticket most respectfully.” Still it is with some such definite
decision that he enters the kingdom of Ananke, the goddess of
Necessity. Readers of “The Little Demon” have seen a practical
illustration of the two forces in Peredonov and Liudmilla. Peredonov
was petty and pitiful, “a little demon”--nevertheless he too “strove
towards the truth in common with all conscious life, and this striving
tormented him. He himself did not understand that he, like all men,
was striving towards the truth, and that was why he had that confused
unrest. He could not find his truth, and he became entangled, and was
perishing.” Liudmilla, however, had saved herself from the pettiness
and provinciality of this “unclean, impotent earth” by creating a new
world for herself. She, at any rate, had her beautiful legend, knew
her truth.

Elisaveta, of “The Created Legend,” also belongs to the Kingdom of
Ananke. She finds her salvation in “the dream of liberation,” the
dream dreamt by all good Russians and made an active creative legend
by the efforts to realize it in life. Being an antithesis to the
analytical novel, this novel treats of sex, not as a psychology but as
a philosophy; nuances are avoided, the feminine figure becomes a
symbol, drawn, not photographically but broadly, in fluent, even
exaggerated Botticellian outlines. I might go even further and say
that as a symbol of Russian revolution the figure of Elisaveta is
perhaps meant to stand out with the statuesque boldness of the Victory
of Samothrace. The feminine figure, nude or thinly draped, has been
used as symbol for ideas in the plastic arts ever since art was born;
our puritans have never been faced with the problem of what some of
the mythological divinities in stone would do if they should suddenly
come to life, become human. Yet it is a problem of this sort that
Sologub has attempted to solve--the problem of the gods in exile. As
for Elisaveta, Sologub goes indeed the length of describing her
previous existence in the second of the series of novels that go under
the general head of “The Created Legend”; she was then the Queen
Ortruda of some beautiful isles in the Mediterranean, and she is fated
to carry her queenliness into her later life._

_“The Little Demon” is Sologub’s “Inferno,” “The Created Legend” his
“Paradiso.” And just as the problem there was the abuse of bodily
beauty, so it is here the idealism of bodily beauty. It is natural
that the over-draping of our bodies, the supposed symbol of our
modesty, but in reality an evidence of our lust, should form part of
his thesis. But M. Anatole France has already pointed out brilliantly
in “Penguin Island” how immodesty originated in the invention of
clothes._

_The conclusion is quite clear: it is beauty that can save the
world, it is our eyes and our imaginations behind our eyes that can
remodel the world into “a chaste dream.” Like Don Quixote, whom
Sologub loves, we must see Dulcinea in our Aldonza, and our persistent
thought of her as Dulcinea may make her Dulcinea in actuality._

_Such are the thoughts behind this strange book, in which fantasy
and reality rub unfriendly shoulders. But it would be robbing the
reader of his prerogative to explain the various symbols the author
employs; for this is in the full sense a Symbolist novel, and, like a
piece of music or a picture in patterns, its charm to him who will
like it will lie in individual interpretation. I cannot, however,
resist the desire to speak of my own personal preference for Chapter
XIII, in which the death of certain musty Russian institutions is
brilliantly symbolized by the author in the passage of the risen dead
on St. John’s Eve_.

_In the “quiet children” the author has resurrected, as it were, the
child heroes in which his stories abound, and given them an existence
on a new plane, “beyond good and evil.” It is only children, beings
chaste and impressionable, who are capable of transformation--or shall
we say transfiguration?--and if they happen to be in this case more
paradisian than earthly it is because truth expressed in symbols must
of necessity appear fantastic and exaggerated. It is, for the same
reason, that we find the worthlessness of Matov expressed in his being
turned by Trirodov into a paper-weight. Then there is the Sun, the
Flaming Dragon, the infuriator of men’s passions, powerless, however,
to affect the “quiet children,” who, freed of all passion--“the beast
in man”--may have their white feet covered with the light dust of the
earth, but never scorched by the evil heat._

_The various references to the art and ideas of the poet Trirodov
and to the poet’s tardy recognition are certain to be recognized as
autobiographical._

_I must add that in the original this first of “Created Legend”
 novels is called “Drops of Blood,” a phrase which recurs several times
in the course of the narrative in connexion with the problem of
cruelty in life._

JOHN COURNOS

_February_ 1916




CHAPTER I


I take a piece of life, coarse and poor, and create from it a
delightful legend--because I am a poet. Whether it linger in the
darkness; whether it be dim, commonplace, or raging with a furious
fire--life is before you; I, a poet, will erect the legend I have
created about the enchanting and the beautiful.

Chance caught in the entangling net of circumstance brings about every
beginning. Yet it is better to begin with what is splendid in earthly
experience, or at any rate with what is beautiful and pleasing.
Splendid are the body, the youth, and the gaiety in man; splendid are
the water, the light, and the summer in nature.

It was a bright, hot midday in summer, and the heavy glances of the
flaming Dragon fell on the River Skorodyen. The water, the light, and
the summer beamed and were glad; they beamed because of the sunlight
that filled the immense space, they were glad because of the wind that
blew from some far land, because of the many birds, because of the two
nude maidens.

Two sisters, Elisaveta and Elena, were bathing in the River Skorodyen.
And the sun and the water were gay, because the two maidens were
beautiful and were naked. And the two girls felt also gay and cool,
and they wanted to scamper and to laugh, to chatter and to jest. They
were talking about a man who had aroused their curiosity.

They were the daughters of a rich proprietor. The place where they
bathed adjoined the spacious old garden of their estate. Perhaps they
enjoyed their bathing because they felt themselves the mistresses of
these fast-flowing waters and of the sand-shoals under their agile
feet. And they swam about and laughed in this river with the assurance
and freedom of princesses born to rule. Few know the boundaries of
their kingdom--but fortunate are they who know what they possess and
exercise their sway.

They swam up and down and across the river, and tried to outswim and
outdive one another. Their bodies, immersed in the water, would have
presented an entrancing sight to any one who might have looked down
upon them from the bench in the garden on the high bank and watched
the exquisite play of their muscles under their thin elastic skin.
Pink tones lost themselves in the skin-yellow pearl of their bodies.
But pink triumphed in their faces, and in those parts of the body most
often exposed.

The river-bank opposite rose in a slope. There were bushes here;
behind them for a great distance stretched fields of rye, while just
over the edge, where the earth and the sky met, were visible the far
huts of the suburban village. Peasant boys passed by on the bank. They
did not look at the bathing women. But a schoolboy, who had come a
long way from the other end of the town, sat on his heels behind the
bushes. He called himself an ass because he had not brought his
camera. But he consoled himself with the thought:

“To-morrow I’ll surely bring it.”

The schoolboy quickly looked at his watch in order to make a note of
the time the girls went out bathing. He knew them, and often came to
their house to see his friend, their relative. Elena, the younger, now
appealed most to him; she was plump, cheerful, white, rosy, her hands
and feet were small. He did not like the hands and feet of the elder
sister, Elisaveta--they seemed to him to be too large and too red. Her
face also was red, very sunburnt, and she was altogether quite large.

“Oh well,” he reflected, “she is certainly well formed, you can’t deny
her that.”

About a year had now passed since the retired _privat-docent_
Giorgiy Sergeyevitch Trirodov, a doctor of chemistry, had settled in
the town of Skorodozh.[1] From the very first he had caused much talk
in the town, mostly unsympathetic. It was quite natural that the two
rose-yellow, black-haired girls in the water should also talk of him.
They splashed about gaily, and as they raised jewel-like spray with
their feet they kept up a conversation.

“How puzzling it all is!” said Elena, the younger sister. “No one
knows where his income comes from, what he does in his house, and why
he has this colony of children. There are all sorts of strange rumours
about him. It’s certainly a mystery.”

Elena’s words reminded Elisaveta of an article she had read lately in
a philosophic periodical published at Moscow. Elisaveta had a good
memory. She recalled a phrase:

“In our world reason will never dominate, and the mysterious will
always maintain its place.”

She tried to recall more, but suddenly realizing that it would not
interest Elena, she gave a sigh and grew silent. Elena gave her a
tender, appealing look and said:

“When it is so bright you want everything to be as clear as it is
around us now.”

“Is everything really clear now?” exclaimed Elisaveta. “The sun blinds
your eyes, the water flashes and dazzles, and in this ragingly bright
world we do not even know whether there isn’t some one a couple of
paces away peeping at us.”

At this moment the sisters were standing breast-high in the water,
near the overgrown bank. The schoolboy who sat on his heels behind the
bush heard Elisaveta’s words. He grew cold in his confusion, and began
to crawl on all-fours between the bushes, away from the river. He got
in among the rye, then perched himself on the rail-fence and pretended
to rest, as though he were not even aware of the closeness of the
river. But no one had noticed him, as if he were non-existent.

The schoolboy sat there a little while, then went home with a vague
feeling of disenchantment, injury, and irritation. There was something
especially humiliating to him in the thought that to the two girl
bathers he was merely a possibility speculated upon but actually
non-existent.

Everything in this world has an end. There was an end also to the
sisters’ bathing. They made their way silently together out of the
pleasant, cool, deep water towards the dry ground, heaven’s
terrestrial footstool, and out into the air, where they met the hot
kisses of the slowly, cumbrously rising Dragon. They stood a while on
the bank, yielding themselves to the Dragon’s kisses, then entered the
protected bath-house where they had left their clothes.

Elisaveta’s clothes were very simple. They consisted of a greenish
yellow, not over-long tunic-dress without sleeves, and a plain straw
hat. Elisaveta nearly always wore yellow dresses. She loved yellow,
she loved buttercups and gold, and though she sometimes said that she
wore yellow in order to soften her ruddy complexion, she really loved
it simply, sincerely, and for its own sake. Yellow delighted
Elisaveta. There was something remote and unpremeditated in this, as
if it were a thing remembered from another, previous life.

Elisaveta’s heavy black braid of hair was coiled tightly and
attractively around her head, and as it was lifted quite high at the
back, her neck showed--sunburnt and gracefully erect. Elisaveta’s face
had a keen, almost exaggerated, expression of the mastery of will and
intellect over the emotions. The long and peculiarly straight parting
of her lips was very exquisite. Her blue eyes were cheerful--even when
her lips did not smile. Their glance was thoughtful and gentle. The
bright ruddiness and strong tan of the face seemed strangely alien to
it.

While waiting for Elena to finish dressing Elisaveta walked slowly on
the sandy bank and looked into the monotonous distances. The fine warm
grains of sand gently warmed her bare feet, which had grown cold in
the water.

Elena dressed slowly. She enjoyed dressing; everything that she put on
seemed an adornment to her. She delighted in the rosy reflections of
her skin, in her pretty light dress of a pinkish white material, in
her broad sash of pink silk fastened behind with a buckle of
mother-of-pearl, in her straw hat trimmed with bright pink ribbons on
top and yellow-pink velvet on its underbrim.

At last Elena was dressed. The sisters climbed the sloping bank and
went where their curiosity drew them. They loved to take long walks.
They had already passed several times the house and grounds of Giorgiy
Trirodov, whom they had not yet seen once. To-day they wished to go
that way again and to try and see what was to be seen.

The sisters walked two versts through the wood. They spoke quietly of
various things, and felt a little agitated. Curiosity often agitates
people.

The sinuous road with two wagon-ruts revealed picturesque views at
every turn. The path finally chosen by the sisters led to a hollow.
Its sides, overgrown with bushes and weeds, looked wildly beautiful.
From its depth came the sweet, warm odour of clover, and down below
its white bosom grass was visible. A small narrow bridge, propped up
from below with thin slender stakes, hung over the hollow. On the
other side of the bridge a low hedge stretched right and left, and in
this hedge, quite facing the bridge, a small gate was visible.

The sisters crossed the bridge, holding on to its slender hand-rail of
birch. They tried the gate--it was closed. They looked at one another.
Elisaveta, growing red with vexation, said:

“We’ll have to go back again.”

“Every one says that you can’t get into the place,” said Elena, “that
you’ve got to get over the hedge, and that even that is impossible for
some reason or other. It’s very strange. I wonder what they can be up
to?”

Suddenly there was a slight rustle in the bushes by the hedge. The
branches parted. A pale boy ran up to them. He looked quickly at the
sisters with his clear, intensely calm, almost dead eyes. There was
something strange in the shape of his pale lips, thought Elisaveta. A
motionless, sorrowful expression lurked in the corners of his mouth.
He opened the gate; he seemed to say something, but so quietly that
the sisters could not catch his words. Or was it the sound of the
light breeze in the wavering foliage?

The boy hid himself behind the bushes so quickly that it was hard to
believe that he had been there at all; the sisters had no time to be
astonished or to thank him. It was as if the gate had opened by
itself, or had been pushed open by one of the sisters by chance.

They stood there undecided. An incomprehensible unrest took possession
of them for an instant and as quickly went from them. Curiosity again
dominated them. The sisters entered.

“How did he open it?” asked Elena.

Elisaveta, without a word, went quickly forward. She was so elated at
getting in that she had almost forgotten the pale boy. Only somewhere,
within the domain of vague consciousness, there gleamed dimly a
strange white face.

The wood was quite like the one by which they had come to the gate,
quite as pensive and as tall and as isolated from the sky, and as
absorbed in its own mysteries. But here it seemed to have been
conquered by human activity. Not far away voices, cries, laughter
resounded. Here and there were evidences of left-off games. The narrow
footpaths often led to wider paths of sand. The sisters quickly
followed the winding path in the direction from which the children’s
voices sounded loudest. Afterwards all this jumble of sound seemed to
collapse, and it renewed itself in loud, sweet singing.

At last there appeared before them a small glade--oval in shape. Tall
firs edged this open space as evenly as graceful columns in a
magnificent _salle_. The blue of the sky above it seemed
especially bright, pure and dominant. The glade was full of children
of various ages. They were sitting and reclining all around in ones,
twos, and threes. In the middle some thirty boys and girls were
singing and dancing; their dance followed strictly the rhythm of the
tune and interpreted the words of the song with beautiful fidelity.
They were directed by a tall, graceful girl who had a strong, sonorous
voice, braids of magnificent golden hair, and grey, cheerful eyes.

All of them, the children as well as their instructresses--of whom
three or four were to be seen--were dressed quite simply and alike.
Their simple, light attire seemed beautiful. It was pleasant to look
at them, perhaps because their dress revealed the active parts of
their body, the arms and the legs. Dress here was made to protect, and
not to conceal; to clothe, and not to muffle.

The blue and red of the hats and of the dresses gave emphasis to the
vivid tones of the faces and of the arms and legs. There was a spirit
of gaiety here, a sense of holiday splendour in these naturally
adorned bodies, boldly revealed under clear azure skies.

Some of the children from among those who did not sing approached the
sisters and looked at them in a friendly manner, smiling trustfully.

“You may sit down if you like,” said a boy with very blue eyes; “here
is a bench.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said Elisaveta.

The sisters sat down. The children wished to talk to them. One little
girl said:

“I’ve just seen a little squirrel. It was sitting on a pine. Then I
gave a shout--you should have seen it run!”

The others also began to talk and to ask questions. The singers ended
their song and scattered in all directions to play. The golden-haired
instructress went up to the sisters and asked:

“Have you come from town? Are you pleased with what you have seen
here?”

“Yes, it’s splendid here,” said Elisaveta. “Our place adjoins this. We
are the Rameyevs. I am Elisaveta. And this is my sister Elena.”

The golden-haired girl suddenly blushed as if she felt ashamed that
the wealthy young women were looking at her naked shoulders and at her
legs naked to the knee. But seeing that they too were barefoot and
wore short skirts, she quickly recovered and smiled at them.

“My name is Nadezhda Vestchezerova,” she said.

She looked attentively at the sisters. Elisaveta thought that she had
heard the name somewhere in town--perhaps a tale in connexion with it,
she could not remember exactly what. For some reason she did not
mention this to Nadezhda. Perhaps it was a tragic history.

This fear of talking about the past occasionally came upon Elisaveta.
Who knows what sorrow is hid behind a bright smile, and from what
darkness has sprung the blossoming which gives sudden joy to a glance,
elusively beautiful and born of unhappy worldly experience?

“Did you find your way in easily?” asked the golden-haired Nadezhda
with a friendly but subtle smile. “It’s usually not a simple matter,”
 she explained.

Elisaveta replied:

“A white boy opened the gate for us. He ran off so quickly that we had
not even the time to thank him.”

Nadezhda suddenly ceased smiling.

“Oh yes--he isn’t one of us,” she said falteringly. “They live over
there with Trirodov. There are several of them. Wouldn’t you like to
have lunch with us?” she asked, cutting short her previous remarks.

Elisaveta suspected that Nadezhda wanted to change the subject.

“We live here all day long, we eat here, we learn here, and we play
here--do everything here,” said Nadezhda. “People have built cities to
escape the wild beast, but they themselves have become like wild
beasts, like savages.”

A bitter note crept into her voice--was it the echo of her past life
or was it a thing foreign to her and grafted upon her sensitive
nature? She continued:

“We have come from the town into the woods. From the wild beast, from
the savages of the town. The beast must be killed. The wolf and the
fox and the hawk--all those who prey upon others--they must be
killed.”

Elisaveta asked:

“How is one to kill a beast who has grown iron and steel nails, and
who has built his lair in the town? It is he who does the killing, and
there’s no end in sight to his ferocity.”

Nadezhda knitted her eyebrows, pressed her hands, and stubbornly
repeated:

“We shall kill him, we shall kill him.”




CHAPTER II


The sisters stayed to lunch.

They remained over an hour chattering cheerfully with the children and
their instructresses. The children were sweet and confiding. The
instructresses, no less simple and charming, seemed cheerful,
care-free, and restful. Yet they were always busy, and nothing escaped
them. Besides many of the children did certain things without being
urged, this being evidently a part of a system, of which the sisters
had as yet barely an inkling.

Instruction was mixed up with play. One of the instructresses invited
the sisters to listen to what she called her lesson. The sisters
listened with enjoyment to an interesting discourse concerning the
objects the children had observed that day in the wood. There were
other instructresses who had just returned from the depths of the
wood--some children were going into the wood, others were coming out,
quite different ones.

The instructress to whom the sisters were listening ended her
discourse and suddenly scampered off somewhere. Through the dark
foliage of the trees could be seen the glimmer of red caps and of
sunburnt arms and legs. The sisters were again left alone. No one paid
especial attention to them any longer; evidently there was no one they
either embarrassed or hindered.

“It’s time to go,” said Elena.

Elisaveta made a move.

“Yes, let’s go,” she agreed. “It’s very interesting and delightful
here, but we can’t stay for ever.”

The departure of the sisters had been noticed. A few of the children
ran up to them. The children cried gaily:

“We will show you the way, or you’ll get lost.”

When the sisters paused at the gate, Elisaveta thought that some one
was looking at her, out of a hiding-place, with a gaze of
astonishment. In perplexity, strange and distressing, she looked
around her. Behind the hedge in the bushes a small boy and a small
girl were hiding. They were like the others she had seen here, except
that they were very white, as though the kisses of the stern Dragon
floating in the hot sky had left no traces upon their tender skin.
Both the little boy and the little girl were staring with a motionless
but attentive gaze. Their chaste look seemed to penetrate into the
very depth of one’s soul; this rather disconcerted Elisaveta. She
whispered to Elena:

“Look, what strange beings!”

Elena looked in the direction of Elisaveta’s glance and said
indifferently:

“Monsters!”

Elisaveta was astonished at her sister’s observation--the faces of
these hiding children seemed to her like the faces of praying angels.

By this time the children who had escorted the sisters ran back,
jostling each other and laughing. Only one boy remained with them. He
opened the gate and waited for the sisters to go out so that he could
shut it again. Elisaveta quietly asked him:

“Who are these?”

With a light movement of her head she indicated the bushes, where the
boy and the girl were hiding. The cheerful urchin looked in the
direction of her glance, then at her, and said:

“There’s no one there.”

And actually no one was now visible in the bushes. Elisaveta
persisted:

“But I did see a boy and a girl there. Both were quite white, not at
all brown like the rest of you. They stood ever so quietly and
looked.”

The cheery, dark-eyed lad looked attentively at Elisaveta, frowned
slightly, lowered his eyes, reflected, then again eyed the sisters
attentively and sadly, and said:

“In the main building, where Giorgiy Sergeyevitch lives, there are
more of these quiet children. They are never with us. They are quiet
ones. They do not play. They have been ill. It’s likely they haven’t
improved yet. I don’t know. They are kept separately.”

The boy said this slowly and thoughtfully, as if he were astonished
because there, in the house of the master, were other children, quiet
ones, who did not join in their play. Suddenly he shook his head
lustily, banishing, as it were, unaccustomed thoughts, then took off
his cap and exclaimed cheerily and with some tenderness:

“A happy journey, darlings! Follow this footpath.”

He made an obeisance and ran off. The sisters were quite alone now.
They went on in the direction given them by the boy. A quiet vale
opened up before them, and in the distance a white wall was visible,
which concealed Trirodov’s house. They continued their way towards the
house. In front of them, keeping close to the bushes, walked a boy in
a white dress; he appeared to be showing them the way.

It was very quiet. High above them, protecting himself from the human
eye by dark purple shields, the flaming Dragon rested. His look from
behind the deceptive, vacillant shields was hot and evil; he poured
out his dazzling light, tormented men with it, yet wished them to
rejoice in his presence and to compose hymns to him. He wished to
rule, and it seemed as though he were motionless, as though he would
never decide to retire. But his livid weariness already began to
incline him westwards. Still his passion grew, and his kisses were
scorching, and his infuriated gaze with its livid purple dimmed the
glances of the two girls.

The girls’ glances were seeking--seeking Trirodov’s house.

Trirodov’s house stood about a verst and a half from the edge of the
town, not at the end where the dirty and smoky factory buildings
squatted, but quite at the other end, along the River Skorodyen, above
the town of Skorodozh. This house and the estate attached to it
occupied a considerable space, surrounded by a stone wall. One side of
the place faced the river, the other the town, the rest adjoined the
fields and woods. The house stood in the middle of an old garden. From
behind the tall white stone wall the tops of the trees were to be
seen, while between them, quite high, two turrets of the house, one
somewhat higher than the other, were visible. The sisters felt as if
some one in the high turret were looking down upon them.

There were ominous rumours concerning the house even in the days when
it belonged to the previous tenant Matov, a kinsman of the Rameyev
sisters. It was said that the house was inhabited by ghosts, and by
phantoms who had left their graves. There was a footpath close to the
house which led across the northern part of the estate, through a
wood, to the Krutitsk cemetery. In the town they called this the
footpath of Navii,[2] and they were afraid to walk upon it even by
day. Many legends grew up around it. The local _intelligentsia_
tried vainly to disprove them. The whole property was sometimes called
Navii’s playground. There were some who said that they had seen with
their own eyes this enigmatic inscription on the gates: “Three went
in, two came out.” This inscription was, of course, no longer there.
Now only lightly cut-out figures were to be seen, one under the other:
‘3’ on top, ‘2’ lower, and ‘1’ at the bottom.

All the evil rumours and warnings did not prevent Giorgiy Sergeyevitch
Trirodov from buying the house. He made changes in it, and then
settled here after his comparatively brief educational career had been
rudely cut short.

It took a long time to rebuild and transform the house. The high walls
prevented any one from seeing what was being done there. This aroused
the curiosity of the townsfolk and caused all sorts of malicious
gossip. The working men did not belong to the place, but were brought
from a distance. Dark and short and rather gruff-looking, they did not
understand the local speech, and seldom showed themselves in the
streets.

“They are wicked and dark” was said about them in the town. “They
carry knives about with them, and dig underground passages in Navii’s
playground. He himself is clean-shaven like a German, and he’s
imported these foreign earth-diggers.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“I like that red-haired instructress, Nadezhda Vestchezerova,” said
Elena.

She looked searchingly at her sister.

“Yes, she’s very sincere,” answered Elisaveta. ‘“A fine girl.”

“They are all charming,” said Elena with greater assurance.

“Yes,” observed Elisaveta, with indecision in her voice. “But there is
that other--the one that ran away from us--there’s something I don’t
like about her. Perhaps it’s a slight veneer of hypocrisy.”

“Why do you say so?” asked Elena.

“I simply feel it. She smiles too pleasantly, too lovingly. She seems
in every way phlegmatic, yet she tries to appear animated. Her words
come rather easily sometimes, and she exaggerates.”

       *       *       *       *       *

It was quiet in the garden behind the stone wall. This was Kirsha’s
free hour. But he could not play, though he tried to.

Little Kirsha, Trirodov’s son, whose mother had died not long before,
was dark and thin. He had a very mobile face and restless dark eyes.
He was dressed like the boys in the wood. He was quite restless
to-day. He felt sad without knowing why. He felt as if some invisible
being were drawing him on, calling to him in an inaudible whisper,
demanding something--what? And who was it approaching their house?
Why? Friend or foe? It was a stranger--yet curiously intimate.

At that moment, when the sisters were taking leave of the children in
the wood, Kirsha felt especially perturbed. In the far corner of the
garden he saw a boy in white dress; he ran up to him. They spoke long
and quietly. Then Kirsha ran to his father.

Giorgiy Sergeyevitch Trirodov was all alone at home. He was lying on
the sofa, reading a book by Wilde.

Trirodov was forty years old. He was slender and erect. His
short-trimmed hair and clean-shaven face made him look very young.
Only on closer scrutiny it was possible to detect the many grey hairs,
the wrinkles on the forehead around the eyes. His face was pale. His
broad forehead seemed very large--it was partly due to a narrow chin,
lean cheeks, and baldness.

The room where Trirodov was reading--his study--was large, bright, and
simple, with a white, unpainted floor as smooth as a mirror. The walls
were lined with open bookcases. In the wall opposite the windows,
between the bookcases, a narrow space was left, large enough for a man
to stand in. It gave the impression of a door being there, hidden by
hangings. In the middle of the room stood a very large table, upon
which lay books, papers, and several strange objects--hexahedral
prisms of an unfamiliar substance, heavy and solid in appearance, dark
red in colour, with purple, blue, grey, and black spots, and with
veins running across it.

Kirsha knocked on the door and entered--quiet, small, troubled.
Trirodov looked at him anxiously. Kirsha said:

“There are two young women in the wood. Such an inquisitive pair. They
have been looking over our colony. Now they’d like to come here to
take a look round.”

Trirodov let the pale green ribbon with a lightly stamped pattern fall
upon the page he was reading and laid the book on the small table at
his side. He then took Kirsha by the hand, drew him close, and looked
attentively at him, with a slight stir in his eyes; then said quietly:

“You’ve been asking questions of those quiet boys again.”

Kirsha grew red, but stood erect and calm, Trirodov continued to
reproach him:

“How often have I told you that this is wicked. It is bad for you and
for them.”

“It’s all the same to them,” said Kirsha quietly.

“How do you know?” asked Trirodov.

Kirsha shrugged his shoulders and said obstinately:

“Why are they here? What are they to us?”

Trirodov turned away, then rose abruptly, went to the window, and
looked gloomily into the garden. Clearly something was agitating his
consciousness, something that needed deciding. Kirsha quietly walked
up to him, stepping softly upon the white, warm floor with his
sunburnt graceful feet, high in instep, and with long, beautiful,
well-formed toes. He touched his father on the shoulder, quietly
rested his sunburnt hand there, and said:

“You know, daddy, that I seldom do this, only when I must. I felt very
much troubled to-day. I knew that something would happen.”

“What will happen?” asked his father.

“I have a feeling,” said Kirsha with a pleading voice, “that you must
let them in to us--these inquisitive girls.”

Trirodov looked very attentively at his son and smiled. Kirsha said
gravely:

“The elder one is very charming. In some way she is like mother. But
the other is also nice.”

“What brings them here?” again asked Trirodov. “They might have waited
until their elders brought them here.”

Kirsha smiled, sighed lightly, and said thoughtfully, shrugging his
small shoulders:

“All women are curious. What’s to be done with them?”

Smiling now joyously, now gravely, Trirodov asked:

“And will mother not come to us?”

“Oh, if she only came, if only for one little minute!” exclaimed
Kirsha.

“What are we to do with these girls?” asked Trirodov.

“Invite them in, show them the house,” replied Kirsha.

“And the quiet children?” quietly asked Trirodov.

“The quiet children also like the elder one,” answered Kirsha.

“And who are they, these girls?” asked Trirodov.

“They are our neighbours, the Rameyevs,” said Kirsha.

Trirodov smiled again and said:

“Yes, one can understand why they are so curious.”

He frowned, went to the table, put his hand on one of the dark, heavy
prisms and picked it up cautiously, and again carefully put it back in
its place, saying at the same time to Kirsha:

“Go, then, and meet them and bring them here.”

Kirsha, growing animated, asked:

“By the door or through the grotto?”

“Yes, bring them through the dark passage, underground.”

Kirsha went out. Trirodov was left alone. He opened the drawer of his
writing-table, took out a strangely shaped flagon of green glass
filled with a dark fluid, and looked in the direction of the secret
door. At that instant it opened quietly and easily. A pale, quiet boy
entered and looked at Trirodov with his dispassionate and innocent,
but understanding eyes.

Trirodov went up to him. A reproach was ripe on his tongue but he
could not say it. Pity and tenderness clung to his lips. Silently he
gave the strange-shaped flagon to the boy. The boy went out quietly.




CHAPTER III


The sisters entered a thicket. The path’s many turnings made them
giddy. Suddenly the turrets of the old house vanished from sight.
Everything around them assumed an unfamiliar look.

“We seem to have lost our way,” said Elena cheerfully.

“Never fear, we’ll find our way out,” replied Elisaveta. “We are bound
to get somewhere.”

At that instant there came towards them from among the bushes the
small, sunburnt, handsome Kirsha. His dark, closely grown eyebrows and
black wavy hair, unspoiled by headgear, gave him the wild look of a
wood-sprite.

“Dear boy, where do you come from?” asked Elisaveta.

Kirsha eyed the sisters with an attentive, direct, and innocent gaze.
He said:

“I am Kirsha Trirodov. Follow this path, and you’ll find yourselves
where you want to go. I’ll go ahead of you.”

He turned and walked on. The sisters followed him upon the narrow path
between the tall trees. Here and there flowers were visible--small,
white, odorous flowers. They emitted a strange, pungent smell. It made
the sisters feel both gay and languid. Kirsha walked silently before
them.

At the end of the road loomed a mound, overgrown by tangled, ugly
grass. At the foot of the mound was a rusty door which looked as if it
were meant to hide some treasure.

Kirsha felt in his pocket, took out a key, and opened the door. It
creaked unpleasantly and breathed out cold, dampness, and fear. A long
dark passage became discernible. Kirsha pressed a spot near the door.
The dark passage became lit up as though by electric light, but the
lights themselves were not visible.

The sisters entered the grotto. The light poured from everywhere. But
the sources of light remained a mystery. The walls themselves seemed
to radiate. The light fell evenly, and neither bright reflections nor
shadowy places were to be seen.

The sisters went on. Now they were alone. The door closed behind them
with a grating sound. Kirsha ran on ahead. The sisters no longer saw
him. The corridor was sinuous. It was difficult to walk fast for some
unknown reason. A kind of weight seemed to fetter their limbs. The
passage inclined slightly downwards. They walked on like this a long
time. It grew hotter and damper the farther they advanced. There was
an aroma--strange, sad, and exotic. The fragrance increased, became
more and more languorous. It made the head dizzy and the heart ready
to faint with a sweetness not free from pain.

It seemed an incredibly long way. Their legs now moved more slowly.
The stone floor was cruelly hard.

“It’s almost impossible to walk,” whispered Elisaveta.

Those few moments seemed like ages in that dank, sultry underground.
There seemed to be no end to the narrow winding passage; the two
sisters felt as though they were doomed to walk on and on, for ever
and ever, without reaching any place.

The light gradually grew dimmer, a thin mist rose before their eyes.
Still they walked on along the cruel, endless way.

Suddenly their journey was done. Before them was an open door, a shaft
of white, exultant light came pouring in--freedom’s own ecstasy.

The door opened into an immense greenhouse. Strange, muscular,
monstrously green plants grew here. The air was very humid, very
oppressive. The glass walls intersected by iron bars let through much
light. The light was painfully, pitilessly dazzling, so that
everything appeared in a whirl before their eyes.

Elena glanced at her dress. It struck her as being grey, worn out. But
the bright light diverted her glances elsewhere and made her forget
herself. The blue-green glass sky of the greenhouse flung down sparks
and heat. The cruel Dragon rejoiced at the earthly respirations
confined in this prison of glass. He furiously kissed his beloved
poisonous grasses.

“It is even more terrible here than in the passage,” said Elisaveta.
“Let’s leave this place quickly.”

“No, it is pleasant here,” said Elena with a happy smile. She was
enjoying the pink and purple flowers which bloomed in a round basin.

But Elisaveta walked rapidly towards the door leading to the garden.
Elena overtook her, and grumbled:

“Why are you running? Here is a bench; let’s rest here.”

Trirodov met them in the garden just outside the greenhouse. His
manner of addressing them was simple and direct.

“I believe,” he began, “that you are interested in this house and its
owner. Well, if you like I’ll show you a part of my kingdom.”

Elena blushed. Elisaveta calmly bowed and said:

“Yes, we are an inquisitive pair. This house once belonged to a
relative, but it was left abandoned. It is said that many changes have
been made.”

“Yes, many changes have been made,” said Trirodov quietly, “but the
greater part remains as it was.”

“Every one was astonished,” continued Elisaveta, “when you decided to
settle here. The reputation of the house did not hinder you.”

Trirodov led the sisters through the house and the garden. The
conversation ran on smoothly. The sisters’ embarrassment was soon
gone. They felt quite natural with Trirodov. His calm, friendly voice
put them wholly at ease. They continued to walk and to observe. But
they felt conscious that another life, intimate yet remote, hovered
round them all the while. Sounds of music came to them at intervals;
sometimes it was the doleful tones of a violin, sometimes the quiet
plaint of a flute; again it was the reed-like voice of some unseen
singer which sang a tender and restful song.

Upon one small lawn, in the shade of old trees, whose foliage
protected them from the hot glare of the Dragon, making it pleasantly
cool and pleasantly dark there, a number of small boys and girls,
dressed in white, had formed a ring and were dancing. As the sisters
approached them the children dispersed. They scampered off so quietly
that they barely made a sound even when they brushed against the
twigs; they vanished as though they had not been there.

The sisters listened to Trirodov as they walked, pausing often to
admire the beauties of the garden--its trees, lawns, ponds, islands,
its quietly murmuring fountains, its picturesque arbours, its
profusely gay flower-beds. They felt a keen elation at having
penetrated this mysterious house--they were as happy as schoolgirls at
the thought of having infringed the commonly accepted rules of good
society in coming here.

As they entered one room of the house Elena exclaimed:

“What a strange room!”

“A magic room,” said Trirodov with a smile.

It was indeed a strange room--everything in it had an odd shape: the
ceiling sloped, the floor was concave, the corners were round, upon
the walls were incomprehensible pictures and unfamiliar hieroglyphics.
In one corner was a dark, flat object in a carved frame of black wood.

“It’s a mirror in which it is interesting to take a look at oneself,”
 said Trirodov. “Only you have to stand in that triangle close to the
wall, near the corner.”

The sisters went there and glanced in the mirror: two old wrinkled
faces were reflected in it. Elena cried out in fright. Elisaveta,
growing pale, turned towards her sister and smiled.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said, “it’s a trick of some sort.”

Elena looked at her and cried out in horror:

“You have become quite old--grey-haired! How awful!”

She ran from the mirror, crying out in her fright:

“What is it? What is it?”

Elisaveta followed her. She did not understand what had happened; she
was agitated, and tried to hide her confusion. Trirodov looked at them
in a self-possessed manner. He opened a cupboard, inset in the wall.

“Be calm,” he said to Elena. “I’ll give you some water in a moment.”

He gave her a glass containing a fluid as colourless as water. Elena
quickly drank the sour-sweet water, and suddenly felt cheerful.
Elisaveta also drank it. Elena threw herself towards the mirror.

“I’m young again,” she exclaimed in a high voice.

Then she ran forward, embraced Elisaveta, and said cheerfully:

“And you too, Elisaveta, have grown young.”

An impetuous joy seized both sisters. They caught each other by the
hands and began to dance and to twirl round the room. Then they
suddenly felt ashamed. They stopped, and did not know which way to
look; they laughed in their confusion. Elisaveta said:

“What a stupid pair we are! You think us ridiculous, don’t you?”

Trirodov smiled in a friendly fashion:

“That is the nature of this place,” he observed. “Terror and joy live
here together.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The sisters were shown many interesting things in the house--objects
of art and of worship; things which told of distant lands and of hoary
antiquity; engravings of a strange and disturbing character;
variegated stones, turquoise, pearls; ugly, amorphous, and grotesque
idols; representations of the god-child--there were many of these, but
only one face profoundly stirred Elisaveta....

Elena enjoyed the objects that resembled toys. There were many things
there that one could play with, and thus indulge in a jumble of magic
reflections of time and space.

The sisters had seen so much that it seemed as if an age had passed,
but actually they had spent only two hours here. It is impossible to
measure time. One hour is an age, another is an instant; but humanity
makes no distinction, levels the hours down to an average.

“What, only two hours!” exclaimed Elena. “How long we’ve spent here.
It’s time to go home for dinner.”

“Do you mind being a little late?” asked Trirodov.

“How can we?” said Elena.

Elisaveta explained:

“The hour of dinner is strictly kept in our house.”

“I’ll have a cart ready for you.”

The sisters thanked him. But they must start at once. They both
suddenly felt sad and tired. They bade their host good-bye and left
him. The boy in white went before them in the garden and showed them
the way.

No sooner had they again entered the underground passage than they saw
a soft couch, and a fatigue so poignant suddenly overcame them that
they could not advance another step.

“Let’s sit down,” said Elena.

“Yes,” replied Elisaveta, “I too am tired. How strange! What a
weariness!”

The sisters sat down. Elisaveta said quietly:

“The light that falls upon us here from an unknown source is not a
living light, and it is terrifying--but the stern face of the monster,
burning yet not consuming itself, is even more terrifying.”

“The lovely sun,” said Elena.

“It will become extinguished,” said Elisaveta, “extinguished--this
unrighteous luminary, and in the depth of subterranean passages, freed
from the scorching Dragon and from cold that kills, men will erect a
new life full of wisdom.”

Elena whispered:

“When the earth grows cold, men will die.”

“The earth will not die,” answered Elisaveta no less quietly.

The sisters fell into a sleep. They did not sleep long, and when both
awakened quite suddenly, everything that had just happened seemed like
a dream. They made haste.

“We must hurry home,” said Elena in an anxious voice.

They ran quickly. The door of the underground passage was open. Just
outside the door, in the road, stood a cart. Kirsha sat in it and held
the reins. The sisters seated themselves. Elisaveta took the reins.
Kirsha spoke a word now and then. They said little on the way, in odd,
disjointed words.

Arrived at their destination, they got out of the cart. They were in a
half-somnolent state. Kirsha was off before they realized that they
had not thanked him. When they looked for him they could only see a
cloud of dust and hear the clatter of hoofs and the rattle of wheels
on the cobblestones.




CHAPTER IV


The sisters had barely time to change for dinner. They entered the
dining-room somewhat weary and distraught. They were awaited there by
their father Rameyev, the two Matovs--the student Piotr Dmitrievitch
and the schoolboy Misha, sons of Rameyev’s lately deceased cousin to
whom Trirodov’s estate had previously belonged.

The sisters spoke little at the table, and they said nothing of their
day’s adventure. Yet before this they used to be frank and loved to
chat, to tell the things that had happened to them.

Piotr Matov, a tall, spare, pale youth with sparkling eyes, who looked
like a man about to enter a prophetic school, seemed worried and
irritated. His nervousness reflected itself, in embarrassed smiles and
awkward movements, in Misha. The latter was a well-nourished,
rosy-cheeked lad, with a quick, merry eye, but betraying his intense
impressionableness. His smiling mouth trembled slightly around the
corners, apparently without cause.

The old Rameyev, who was more robust than tall, and had the tranquil
manners of a well-trained, well-balanced individual, did not betray
his impatience at his daughters’ tardy appearance, but took his place
at the partially extended table, which seemed small in the middle of
the immense dining-room of dark, embellished oak. Miss Harrison,
unembarrassed, began to ladle out the soup; she was a plump, calm,
slightly grey-haired woman, the personification of a successful
household.

Rameyev noticed that his daughters were tired. A vague alarm stirred
within him. But he quickly extinguished this tiny spark of
displeasure, smiled tenderly at his daughters, and said very quietly,
as if cautiously hinting at something:

“You have walked a little too far, my dears.”

There was a short but awkward silence; then, in order to soften the
hidden significance of his words and to ease his daughters’
embarrassment, he added:

“I see you don’t ride horseback as much as you used to.”

After this he turned to the eldest of the brothers:

“Well, Petya, have you brought any news from town?”

The sisters felt uneasy. They tried to take part in the conversation.

This was in those days when the red demon of murder was prowling in
our native land, and his terrible deeds brought discord and hate into
the bosom of peaceful families. The young people in this house, as
elsewhere, often talked and wrangled about what had happened and what
was yet to be. For all their wrangling, they could not reach any
agreement. Friendship from childhood and good breeding mitigated to
some extent this antagonism of ideas. But more than once their
discussions ended in bitter words.

Piotr, in reply to Rameyev, began to tell about working-men’s
disturbances and projected strikes. Irritation was evident in his
voice. He was one of those who was intensely troubled by problems of a
religious-philosophical character. He thought that the mystical
existence of human unities might be achieved only under the brilliant
and alluring sway of Caesars and Popes. He imagined that he loved
freedom--Christian freedom--yet all the turbulent movements of newly
awakened life aroused only hate in his heart.

“There’s terrible news,” said Piotr; “a general strike is talked of.
It is reported that all the factories will shut down to-morrow.”

Misha burst into an unexpected laugh; it was loud, merry, and
childlike; and there was almost rapture in his remark:

“But you ought to see the sort of face the Headmaster makes on all
such occasions.”

His voice was tender and sonorous, and it rang so softly and sweetly
that he might have been telling about the blessed and the innocent,
about the chaste play on the threshold of paradisian abodes. The words
“strike” and “obstruction” came from his lips like the names of rare,
sweet morsels. He grew cheerful and had a sudden desire to make things
lively in schoolboy fashion. He began to sing loudly:

“Awake, rise up....”

But he became confused, stopped sadly, grew quiet, and blushed. The
sisters laughed. Piotr had a surly look. Rameyev smiled benignly. Miss
Harrison, pretending not to have noticed the discordant incident,
calmly pressed the button of the electric bell attached on a cord to
the hanging light to bring on the next course.

The dinner proceeded slowly in the usual order. The discussion grew
hotter, and went helter-skelter from subject to subject. Such is said
to be the Russian manner in argument. Perhaps it is the universal
manner of people when discussing something that touches them deeply.

Piotr exclaimed hotly:

“Why is the autocracy of the proletariat better than the one already
in force? And what wild, barbarous watchwords they have! ‘Who is not
with us, he is against us!’ ‘Who is master, let him get down from his
place; it’s our banquet.’”

“It’s yet too early to speak of our banquet,” said Elena in a
restrained voice.

“Do you know where we are drifting?” continued Piotr. “There will be a
reign of terror, and a shaking up such as Russia has not yet
experienced. The point at issue is not that there is talking or doing
here or there by certain gentry who imagine that they are making
history. The real issue is in the clash of two classes, two interests,
two cultures, two conceptions of the world, two moral systems. Who is
it that wishes to seize the crown of lordship? It is the
_Kham_,[3] it is he who threatens to devour our culture.”

Elisaveta said reproachfully:

“What a word--_Kham_!”

Piotr smiled in a nervous and aggrieved manner, and asked:

“You don’t like it?”

“I don’t like it,” said Elisaveta calmly.

With her habitual subjection to the thoughts and moods of her elder
sister, Elena said:

“It is a rude word. I feel a reminiscence of a once helpless serfdom
in it.”

“Nevertheless this word is now sufficiently literary,” said Piotr,
with a vague smile. “And why shouldn’t one use it? It’s not the word
that matters. We have seen countless instances with our own eyes of
the progress of the spiritual bossiak[4] who is savagely indifferent
to everything, who is hopelessly wild, malicious, and drunken for
generations to come. He will crush everything--science, art,
everything! A good characteristic specimen of a _kham_ is your
Stchemilov, with whom, Elisaveta, you sympathize so strongly. He’s a
familiar young fellow, a handsome flunkey.”

Piotr fixed his eyes on Elisaveta. She replied calmly:

“I think you very unjust to him. He is a good man.”

Every one was glad when dinner was ended. It was a provoking
conversation. Even the imperturbable Miss Harrison rose from her place
rather sooner than usual. Rameyev went to his own room to get his
hour’s nap. The young people went into the garden. Misha and Elena ran
downhill to the river. They had a keen desire to run one after the
other and to laugh.

“Elisaveta!” called out Piotr.

His voice trembled nervously. Elisaveta paused. She now stood within
the deep shadow of an old linden. She looked questioningly at Piotr,
her graceful bare arms folded on her breast; suddenly her heart beat
faster. What a power of bewitchment was in those most lovable
arms--oh, why did not some sudden impulse of passion throw them upon
his shoulders!

“May I speak a few words to you, Elisaveta?” asked Piotr.

Elisaveta flushed a little, lowered her head, and said quietly:

“Let’s sit down somewhere.”

She walked along the path towards the small summer-house which looked
down the slope. Piotr followed her silently. In silence also they
ascended the steep passage. Elisaveta seated herself and rested her
arms upon the low rail of the open summer-house. The undulating
distances lay before her in one broad panoramic sweep--a view intimate
from childhood, and which never failed to awaken the same delightful
emotion. She was looking no longer at the separate objects--Nature
poured herself out like music before her, in an inexhaustible play of
colour and of soothing sound. Piotr stood before her and looked at her
handsome face. The setting Dragon caressed Elisaveta’s face with its
warm light; the skin thus suffused exulted in its radiance and bloom.

They were silent. Both felt a painful awkwardness. Piotr was nervously
breaking twigs from a birch near by. Elisaveta began:

“What is it you wish to tell me?”

A cold remoteness, almost enmity, sounded in her deeply agitated
voice. She felt her own harshness, to soften which she smiled gently
and timidly.

“What’s there to say,” began Piotr quietly and irresolutely, “but one
and the same thing. Elisaveta, I love you!”

Elisaveta flushed. Her eyes gave a sudden flare, then grew dull. She
rose from her seat and spoke in an agitated manner:

“Piotr, why do you again torment yourself and me needlessly? We have
been so intimate from childhood--yet it seems that we must part! Our
ways are different, we think differently, and believe differently.”

Piotr listened to her with an expression of intense impatience and
vexation. Elisaveta wished to continue, but he interrupted:

“Ah, but what’s the good of saying that? Elisaveta, do, I beg you,
forget our differences. They are so petty! Or let us admit that they
are significant. What I wish to say is that politics and all that
separates us is only a light scum, a momentary froth on the broad
surface of our life. In love there is revelation, there is eternal
truth. He who does not love, he who does not strive towards union with
a beloved, he is dead.”

“I love the people, I love freedom,” said Elisaveta quietly. “My love
is revolt.”

Piotr, ignoring her words, went on:

“You know that I love you. I have loved you a long time. My whole soul
is absorbed as with light with my love for you. I am jealous--and I’m
not ashamed to tell you I am jealous of your favour to any one; I am
even jealous of this bloused workman, whose accomplice you would be if
he had had the sufficient boldness and the brain to be a conspirator;
I am jealous of the half-truths which have captivated you and screen
your love of me.”

Again Elisaveta spoke quietly:

“You reproach me for what is dear to me, for my better part, you wish
that I should become different. You do not love me, you are tempted by
the beautiful Beast--my young body with its smiles and its
caresses....”

And again ignoring what she said, Piotr asserted passionately:

“Elisaveta, dearest, love me! You surely do not love any one else!
Isn’t that so? You do not love any one? You have had no time to fall
in love, to fetter your soul to any one else’s. You are as free as
man’s first bride, you are as superb as his last wife. You have grown
ripe for love--for my love--you too are thirsty for kisses and
embraces, even as I. O Elisaveta, love me, love me!”

“How can I?” said Elisaveta.

“Elisaveta, if you’d only will it!” exclaimed Piotr. “One must wish to
love. If you only understood how I love you, you would love me also.
My love should fire in you a responsive love.”

“My friend, you do not love anything that is mine,” answered
Elisaveta. “You do not love me. I don’t believe you--forgive me--I
don’t understand your love.”

Piotr frowned gloomily and said gruffly:

“You have been fascinated by that false, empty word freedom. You have
never thought over its true meaning.”

“I’ve had little time to think over anything,” observed Elisaveta
calmly, “but the feeling of freedom is the thing nearest to me. I
cannot express it in words--I only know that we are fettered on this
earth by iron bonds of necessity and of circumstance, but the nature
of my soul is freedom; its fire is consuming the chains of my material
dependence. I know that we human beings will always be frail, poor,
lonely; but a time will surely come when we shall pass through the
purifying flame of a great conflagration; then a new earth and a new
heaven shall open up to us; through union we shall attain our final
freedom. I know I am saying all this badly, incoherently--I cannot say
clearly what I feel--but let us, please, say no more.”

Elisaveta strode out of the summer-house. Piotr slowly followed her.
His face was sad and his eyes shone feverishly, but he could not utter
a word--inertia gripped his mind. Quite suddenly he roused himself,
raised his head, smiled, overtook Elisaveta.

“You love me, Elisaveta,” he said with joyous assurance. “You love me,
though you won’t admit it. You are not speaking the truth when you say
that you don’t understand my love. You do know my love, you do believe
in it--tell me, is it possible to love so strongly and not be loved in
return?”

Elisaveta stopped. Her eyes lit up with a strange joy.

“I tell you once more,” she said with calm resolution, “it is not me
you love--you love the First Bride. I am going where I must.”

Piotr stood there and looked after her--helpless, pale, dejected.
Between the bushes a sun-yellow dress fluttered against the now dull
sky of a setting sun.




CHAPTER V


Piotr and Elisaveta descended towards the boat landing. Two
rowing-boats seemed to rock on the water, though there was no breeze
and the water was smooth like a mirror. A little farther, behind the
bushes, the canvas roof of the bath-house stood revealed. Elena,
Misha, and Miss Harrison were already there. They were sitting on a
bench halfway down the slope, where the path to the landing was
broken. The view from here, showing the bend of the river, was very
restful. The water was growing darker, heavier, gradually assuming a
leadlike dullness.

Misha and Elena, flushed with running, could not suppress their
smiles. The Englishwoman looked calmly at the river, and nothing
shocked her in the evening landscape and in the peaceful water. But
now two persons came who brought with them their poignant unrest,
their uneasiness, their confusion--and again an endless wrangle began.

They left this bench, from which one could look into such a great
distance and see nothing but calm and peace everywhere. They descended
below to the very bank. Even at this close range the water was still
and smooth, and the agitated words of the restless people did not
cause the broad sheet to stir. Misha picked up thin, flat stones and
threw them underhand into the distance so that, touching the water,
they skipped repeatedly on the surface. He did this habitually
whenever the wrangling distressed him. His hands trembled, the little
stones ricochetted badly sometimes; this annoyed him, but he tried to
hide his annoyance and to look cheerful.

Elisaveta said:

“Misha, let’s see who can throw the better. Let’s try for pennies.”

They began to play. Misha was losing.

At the turn of the river, from the direction of the town, a
rowing-boat appeared. Piotr looked searchingly into the distance, and
said in a vexed voice:

“Mr. Stchemilov, our intelligent workman, the Social Democrat of the
Russia Party, is again about to honour us.”

Elisaveta smiled. She asked with gentle reproof:

“Why do you dislike him so?”

“No, you tell me,” exclaimed Piotr, “why this party calls itself the
Russia Party, and not the Russian Party? Why this high tone?”

Elisaveta answered with her usual calm:

“It is called the Russia and not the Russian Party because it includes
not only the Russian, but also the Lithuanian, the Armenian, the Jew,
and men of other races who happen to be citizens of Russia. It seems
to me this is quite comprehensible.”

“No, I do not understand,” said Piotr obstinately. “I see in it only
unnecessary pretence.”

In the meantime the boat drew nearer. Two men were sitting in it.
Aleksei Makarovitch Stchemilov, a young working man, a locksmith by
trade, sat at the oars. He was thin and of medium height; there was a
suggestion of irony in the shape of his lips. Elisaveta had known
Stchemilov since the past autumn, when she became acquainted with
other labouring men and party workmen.

The boat touched the landing, and Stchemilov sprang out gracefully.
Piotr remarked derisively as he bowed with exaggerated politeness:

“My homage to the proletariat of all lands.”

Stchemilov answered quietly:

“My most humble respects to the gentleman student.”

He exchanged greetings with all; then, turning with special deference
towards Elisaveta, said:

“I’ve rowed back your property. It was almost taken from me. Our
suburbanites have their own conceptions of the divine rights of
ownership.”

Piotr boiled over with vexation--the very sight of this young
blouse-wearer irritated him beyond bounds; he thought Stchemilov’s
manners and speech arrogant. Piotr said sharply:

“As far as I understand your notion of things, it is not rights that
are holy, but brute force.”

Stchemilov whistled and said:

“That is the origin of all ownership. You simply took a thing--and
that’s all there was to it. ‘Blessed are the strong’ is a little adage
among those who have conquered violently.”

“And how did you get hold of this?” asked Piotr with derision.

“Crumbs of wisdom fall from the tables of the rich even to us,”
 answered Stchemilov in a no less contemptuous tone; “we nourish
ourselves on these small trifles.”

The other young man, clearly a workman also, remained in the boat. He
looked rather timid, lean, and taciturn, and had gleaming eyes.

He sat holding on to the ropes of the rudder, and was looking
cautiously towards the bank. Stchemilov looked at him with amused
tenderness and called to him:

“Come here, Kiril, don’t be afraid; there are kindly people
here--quite disposed to us, in fact.”

Piotr grumbled angrily under his breath. Misha smiled. He was eager to
see the new-comer, though he hated violent discussions. Kiril got out
of the boat awkwardly, and no less awkwardly stood up on the sand, his
face averted; he smiled to hide his uneasiness. Piotr’s irritation
grew.

“Please be seated,” he said, trying to assume a pleasant tone.

“I’ve done a lot of sitting,” answered Kiril in an artificial bass
voice.

He continued to smile, but sat down on the edge of the bench, so that
he nearly fell over; his arms shot up into the air, and one of his
hands brushed against Elisaveta. He felt vexed with himself, and he
flushed. As he moved away from the edge he remarked:

“I’ve sat two months in administrative order.”[5]

Every one understood these strange words. Piotr asked:

“For what?”

Kiril seemed embarrassed. He answered with a morose uneasiness:

“It’s all a very simple affair with us--you do the slightest thing,
and they try at once the most murderous measures.”

At this moment Stchemilov said very quietly to Elisaveta:

“Not a bad chap. He wants to become acquainted with you, comrade.”

Elisaveta silently inclined her head, smiled amiably at Kiril, and
pressed his hand. His face brightened.

Rameyev came up to them. He greeted his visitors pleasantly but
coldly, giving an impression of studied correctness. The conversation
continued somewhat awkwardly. Elisaveta’s blue eyes looked gently and
pensively at the irritated Piotr and at his deliberately inimical
adversary Stchemilov.

Piotr asked:

“Mr. Stchemilov, would you care to explain to me this talk of an
autocracy by the proletariat? You admit the need of an autocracy, but
only wish to shift it to another centre? In what way is this an
improvement?”

Stchemilov answered quite simply:

“You masters and possessors do not wish to give us anything--neither a
fraction of an ounce of power nor of possessions; what’s left for us
to do?”

“What’s your immediate object?” put in Rameyev.

“Immediate or ultimate--what’s that!” answered Stchemilov. “We have
only one object: the public ownership of the machinery of production.”

“What of the land?” cried out Piotr rather shrilly.

“Yes, the land too we consider as machinery of production,” answered
Stchemilov.

“You imagine that there is an infinite amount of land in Russia?”
 asked Piotr with bitter irony.

“Not an infinite amount, but certainly enough to go round--and plenty
for every one,” was Stchemilov’s calm reply.

“Ten--or, say, a hundred--acres per soul? Is that what you mean?”
 continued Piotr in loud derision. “You’ve got that idea into the heads
of the muzhiks, and now they’re in revolt.”

Stchemilov again whistled, and said with contemptuous calm:

“Fiddlesticks! The muzhik is not as stupid as all that. And in any
case, let me ask you what hindered the opposing side from hammering
the right ideas into the muzhik’s mind?”

Piotr got up angrily and strode away without saying another word.
Rameyev looked quietly after him and said to Stchemilov:

“Piotr loves culture, or, more properly speaking, civilization, too
well to appreciate freedom. You insist too strongly on your class
interests, and therefore freedom is no such great lure to you. But we
Russian constitutionalists are carrying on the struggle for freedom
almost alone.”

Stchemilov listened to him and made an effort to suppress an ironic
smile.

“It’s true,” he said, “we won’t join hands with you. You wish to fly
about in the free air; while we are still ravenously hungry and want
to eat.”

Rameyev said after a brief silence:

“I am appalled at this savagery. Murders every day, every day.”

“What’s there to do?” asked Stchemilov, persisting in his ironic tone.
“I suppose you’d like to have freedom for domestic use, the sort you
could fold up and put in your pocket.”

Rameyev, making no effort to disguise his desire of closing the
conversation, rose, smiling, and stretched out his hand to Stchemilov.

“I must go now.”

Misha was about to follow him, but changed his mind and ran towards
the river. He found his fishing-rod near the bath-house and entered
the water up to his knees. He had long ago accustomed himself to go to
the river when agitated by sadness or joy or when he had to think
about something very seriously. He was a shy and self-sufficient boy
and loved to be alone with his thoughts and his dreams. The coolness
of the water running fast about his legs comforted him and banished
evil moods. As he stood here, with his naked legs in the water, he
became gentle and calm.

Elena soon came there also. She stood silently on the bank and looked
at the water. For some reason she felt sad and wanted to cry.

The water glided past her tranquilly, almost noiselessly. Its surface
was smooth--and thus it ran on.

Elisaveta looked at Stchemilov with mild displeasure.

“Why are you so sharp, Aleksei?” she asked.

“You don’t like it, comrade?” he asked in return.

“No, I don’t like it,” said Elisaveta in simple, unmistakable tones.

Stchemilov did not reply at once. He grew thoughtful, then said:

“The abyss that separates us from your cousin is too broad. And even
between us and your father. It is hard to come together with them.
Their chief concern, as you very well know, is to construct a pyramid
out of people; ours to scatter this pyramid in an even stratum over
the earth. That’s how it is, Elizaveta.”

Elisaveta showed her annoyance and corrected him:

“_Elisaveta_. How many times have I told you?”

Stchemilov smiled.

“A lordly caprice, comrade Elisaveta. Well, as you like, though it is
a trifle hard to pronounce. Now we would say Lizaveta.”

Kiril complained of his failures, of the police, of the detectives, of
the patriots. His complaints were pitiful and depressing. He had been
arrested and had lost his job. It was easy to see that he had
suffered. The gleam of hunger trembled in his eyes.

“The police treated me most horribly,” complained Kiril, “and then
there’s my family....”

After an awkward silence he continued:

“Not a single thing escapes them at our factory, you get humiliated at
every step. They actually search you.”

Again he lapsed into silence. Again he complained:

“They force their way into your soul. You can’t hold private
conversations.... They stop at nothing.”

He told of hunger, he told of a sick old woman. All this was very
touching, but it had lost its freshness by constant repetition--the
pity of it had become, as it were, stamped out. Kiril, indeed, was a
common type, whose state of mind made him valuable as material to be
used up at an opportune moment in the interests of a political cause.

Stchemilov was saying:

“The Black Hundred are organizing. Zherbenev is very busy at
this--he’s one of your genuine Russians.”

“Kerbakh is with him--another patriot for you,” observed Kiril.

“The most dangerous man in our town, this Zherbenev. Vermin of the
most foul kind,” said Stchemilov contemptuously.

“I am going to kill him,” said Kiril hotly.

To this Elisaveta said:

“In order to kill a man you need to believe that one man is
essentially better or worse than another, that he is distinct from the
other not accidentally or socially, but in the mystic sense. That is
to say, murder only confirms inequality.”

“By the way, Elisaveta,” remarked Stchemilov, “we have come to talk
business with you.”

“Tell me what it is,” answered Elisaveta calmly.

“We are expecting some comrades from Rouban within the next few days.
They are coming to talk things over,” said Stchemilov; “but of course
you know all that.”

“Yes, I know,” said Elisaveta.

“We want to use the occasion,” went on Stchemilov, “to organize a mass
meeting not far from here for our town factory folk. So here, at last,
is your chance to appear as an orator.”

“How can I be of any use?” asked Elisaveta.

“You have the gift of expression, Elisaveta,” said Stchemilov. “You
have a good voice, an easy flow of language, and you have a way of
putting the case simply and clearly. It would be a sin for you not to
speak.”

“We will bring down the Cadets[6] a peg or two,” said Kiril in his
bass voice.

“You’ll forgive Kiril, comrade Elisaveta,” said Stchemilov. “I don’t
think he knows that your father is a Cadet. Besides, he’s a rather
simple, frank fellow.”

Kiril grew red.

“I know so little,” said Elisaveta timidly. “What shall I talk about,
and how?”

“You know enough,” said the other confidently; “more than myself and
Kiril put together. You do things remarkably well. Everything you say
is so clear and accurate.”

“What shall I talk about?”

“You can draw a picture of the general condition of working men,”
 answered Stchemilov, “and how capital is forging a hammer against
itself and compelling labour to organize.”

Elisaveta grew red and silently inclined her head.

“Then it’s all settled, comrade?” asked Stchemilov.

Elisaveta burst into a laugh.

“Yes, settled,” she exclaimed cheerfully.

It was good to hear this gravely and simply pronounced word “comrade.”




CHAPTER VI


The sweet, quiet night came, and brought her enchantments. The weary
din of day lost itself in oblivion. The clear, tranquil, anaemic moon
encircled herself with her own radiance, basked in her own light. She
looked at the earth and did not dissipate the mist--it was as if she
had taken to herself all the brightness and translucence of the sun’s
last afterglow. A calm poured itself out upon the earth and upon the
water, and embraced every tree, every bush, every blade of grass.

A soothing mood took possession of Elisaveta. It struck her as strange
that they should have quarrelled and stood facing one another like
enemies. Why shouldn’t she love him? Why not give herself up to him,
submit to the will of another, make it her will? Why all this noisy
discussion, these fine, yet remote words about a struggle, about
ideals?

Every one in the house, she thought, was tired--was it with the heat?
With wrangling? With a secret sorrow inducing sleep, soothingness? The
sisters went to their rooms somewhat earlier than usual. Fatigue and a
languorous sadness oppressed them. The sisters’ bedrooms were next to
each other, one entering the other by a wide, always open door. They
could hear one another. The even breathing of her sleeping sister gave
a poignant reality to the terrible world of night and slumber.

Elisaveta and Elena did not converse long that night. They parted
early. Elisaveta undressed herself, lit a candle, and began to admire
herself in the cold, dead, indifferent mirror. Pearl-like were the
moon’s reflections on the lines of her graceful body. Palpitating were
her white girlish breasts, crowned by two rubies. The living,
passionate form stood flaming and throbbing, strangely white in the
tranquil rays of the moon. The gradual curves of the body and legs
were precise and delicate. The skin stretched across the knees hinted
at the elastic energy that it covered. And equally elastic and
energetic were the curves of the calves and the feet.

Elisaveta’s body flamed all over, as though a fire had penetrated the
whole sweet, sensitive flesh; and oh, how she wished to press, to
cling, to embrace! If he would only come! Only by day he spoke to her
his dead-sounding words of love, kindled by the kisses of the accursed
Dragon. Oh, if he would only come by night to the secretly flaming
great Fire of the blossoming Flesh!

Did he love her? Was his a final and a single-souled love conquering
by the eternal spirit of the divine Aphrodite? Where love is there
daring should be also. Is love, then, gentle, meek, obedient? Is it
not a flame, decreed to take what is its own without waiting?

Her eager, impatient fancies seethed. If he only had come he would
have been a young god. But he was only a human being who bowed down
before his idol; he was a small slave of a small demon. He did not
come, he had not dared, he had not guessed: a dark grief came over
Elisaveta from the secret seething of her passion.

As she looked at her wonderful image in the mirror, Elisaveta thought:

“Perhaps he is praying. The weak and the haughty--why do they pray?
They should be taught to be joyous, to remake their religion and be
the first in the new sect.”

Elisaveta could not sleep. Desire tormented her; she did not know what
she wanted--was it to go?--to wait? She walked out on the balcony. The
nocturnal coolness caressed her naked body. She stood there long; the
contact of her naked feet with the warm, moist boards was pleasant.
She looked into the pale light of the mist-wrapt garden dreaming there
under the moon. She recalled at this moment the details of the day’s
walk, and all that they had seen in Trirodov’s house; she recalled it
all so clearly, with almost the vividness of a hallucination. Then a
drowsiness crept up, seized her. And Elisaveta could not recall later
how she found herself in her bed. It was almost as if an invisible
being had carried her, tucked her in, and rocked her to sleep.

It was a restless, tormenting sleep. She saw horrible visions,
nightmares. They were remarkably clear and real.

She was in a very dusty room. The air in it was stifling, it oppressed
her breast. The walls were covered with bookcases filled with books.
The tables were also covered with books--all new, slender, with bright
covers. The title-pages were for some reason ponderous, terrible to
look at. A tall, gaunt, long-haired student entered; his hair was very
straight, his face morose and grey, he wore spectacles. He whispered:

“Hide them.”

And he placed on the table a bundle of books and pamphlets. Some one
behind Elisaveta stretched out a hand, took the books, and thrust them
under the table. Then came a woman student, strangely resembling the
man student yet quite different; she was short, thick, red-cheeked,
short-haired, cheerful, and wore pince-nez. She also brought a bundle
of books, and said quietly:

“Hide them.”

Elisaveta hid the books in the bookcase and was afraid of something.

Then came more students, working men, young women, schoolboys,
military men, officials, and clerks; each, placing a packet of books
on the table, whispered:

“Hide them.”

Each one slipped away. And Elisaveta went to work to hide the books.
She put them in the table drawer, in the cupboard, under the sofas,
behind the doors, and in the fireplace. But the pile of books on the
table grew and grew; more and more persistent became the whisper:

“Hide them.”

There was no hiding-place left, and yet the books were still being
brought in--there was no end to them. Everywhere books--they were
pressing on her breast....

Elisaveta awakened. Some one’s face was bending over her. The bedcover
slipped from her handsome body. Elena was whispering something.
Elisaveta asked her in a drowsy voice:

“Did I wake you?”

“You cried out so,” said Elena.

“I’ve had such a stupid dream,” whispered Elisaveta.

She went to sleep again, and again the same hoard of books. There were
so many books that even the window-sills were piled up with them, and
a dim and dusty gleam of light barely penetrated. An ominous silence
tormented her. Behind the counter at her side stood a student and two
boys, strangely erect; they were pale, and seemed to wait for
something. All at once the door opened noiselessly. Many men entered,
making a loud noise with their boots--first a police official, then
another, then a detective in gold-rimmed spectacles, a house-porter,
another house-porter, a muzhik, a policeman, another muzhik, another
house-porter. More and more came; they filled the room, and still they
came--huge, moody, silent fellows. Elisaveta felt it stifling; she
awoke.

Again she dropped into sleep, again she was tormented by horrible
visions oppressing the breast.

She dreamt that the house was being searched.

“An illegal book!” exclaimed a detective, looking ominously at her as
he put a book on the table.

The pile of the illegal books on the table began to grow. They were
examined and shaken. A police official sat down to make out a list.
The pen ran on, but there was not enough paper.

“More paper!” cried the official.

Page was filled after page. The official mocked at her, threatened her
with a revolver.

Once more she awoke, once more she fell asleep. And still another
dream.

A small, frail schoolmaster with a squeaky voice came. Then another, a
third, and still others--an endless flock of peaceful men with wails
of revolt.

And yet another dream.

The city square was bathed in the bright sunlight. A muzhik appeared
and shouted at the top of his voice:

“Hey there! Stand up for your gov’r-ment, and for holy Russia!”

Another muzhik came in answer to his shout, then a third and a fourth.
Slowly and steadily the crowd grew, the turmoil increased. A muzhik in
a white apron wearing a conspicuous emblem[7] made his way through the
crowd and, screwing up his mouth, cried like a madman:

“For Rush-ya, I say, fel-lows, kill ‘em!”

He threw himself on Elisaveta and began to strangle her.

She awoke.

Again there was a dark, terrible dream. Nothing as yet was to be seen,
it was hard to tell what was happening. But fear filled the intense
darkness. Dark figures seemed to throng in it. The darkness cleared a
little, the atmosphere became ominously grey. A narrow courtyard
slowly outlined itself, flanked by high walls with windows closely
intersected by bars. Her heart whispered audibly:

“A prison. A prison courtyard.”

Out of a narrow door prisoners were being conducted into the still
dark courtyard on a cold early morning in winter. They walked in
single file--a soldier, a prisoner, a soldier, a prisoner, a
soldier--there seemed to be no end to it; there was a steady shuffling
of feet across the courtyard. A small gate opened in the wall with a
creaking sound. All walked through it. And beyond the wall Elisaveta
already caught a glimpse of a flat, endless field of snow, and of a
whole row of gallows that stretched into the invisible distance. They
were approaching these nearer and nearer--to meet their fate.

She could not remember how it happened, but she also walked with them.
A soldier strode in front of her and in front of the soldier was a
boy. Though the boy had his back to her she recognized him--it was
Misha. Terror paralysed her tongue--when she tried to cry out she
could not find her voice. Terror fettered her feet--when she tried to
run she remained rooted to the spot. Terror gripped her arms--when she
tried to lift them they hung helplessly at her sides.

People were being hanged at the nearest gallows and the prisoners had
to walk past the hanged ones to the gallows beyond. Misha was being
hanged, but he broke loose. He was hanged again, and again he broke
loose. This happened an endless number of times, and each time he
broke loose.

She could see a furious face and the grey bristles of trimmed
moustaches. She could hear the malignant cry:

“We must finish him off!”

A shot was fired; there was a low, dull discharge: the boy fell and
began to toss on the ground. Another shot--the boy kept on tossing.
The shots came faster--but the boy was still alive.

Elisaveta awoke; this time she did not go to sleep again. Her heart
beat half with pain, half with joy, because it was but a dream--but a
dream! Her heart was bright with exultant joy.

The golden arrows of the yet quiet and gentle Dragon fell softly with
sidelong glances. Evidently it was still early. In the distance
Elisaveta could hear the sound of a horn and the lowing of cows. The
bedroom walls were tinged with rose light. The early light stole in
through the windows and messaged an altogether new, better day. A
refreshing breeze blew in through the open window, the twitter of
birds also entered, the air resounded with early morning joy.

Elisaveta was soon aware that Elena was also awake.




CHAPTER VII


Both sisters had slept badly that night. Elisaveta was worn out by
nightmares, while Elena woke several times and went to her. Both felt
the sweet after-dizziness of sleep suddenly cut short by the Dragon’s
sickles. Their memories pursued one another in a confused, vivid
flock. They began to recall the circumstances of yesterday’s visit. A
secret agitation, akin to shame, stole over them. Little by little
they conquered this feeling during the day. Alone again, they
discussed what they had seen at Trirodov’s. A strange forgetfulness
came upon them. The details of the visit grew more vague the more they
tried to recall them. They found themselves in constant disagreement,
and corrected one another. It might have been a dream. Now it seemed
one, now the other. Was it reality or a dream? Where is the
border-line? Whether life be a sweet or a bitter dream, it passes by
like a swift vision!

Three days passed by. Again the day was quiet and clear, again the
high Dragon smiled his malignant, excessively bright smile. He
counted, as he rose, his livid seconds, his flaming minutes; and he
let fall upon the earth, with a scarcely perceptible echo, his
lead-heavy but transparent hours. It was three o’clock in the
afternoon; they had just finished luncheon. The Rameyevs and the
Matovs were at home. Again Elisaveta wrangled with Piotr and, as
before, the discussion was long, heated and discordant--every one left
the table flustered and depressed; the hopeless confusion of it all
deeply affected even the usually composed Miss Harrison.

The sisters were left by themselves. They went out on the lower
balcony and pretended to read. They appeared to be waiting for
something. This waiting made their hearts beat fast under their
heaving breasts.

Elisaveta, letting the book fall upon her knees, was the first to
break the heavy silence.

“I think he is coming to-day.”

The breeze blew at that moment, there was a rustle in the foliage and
a little bird suddenly began to chirp away somewhere--and it seemed as
if the depressed garden were glad because of these lively, resonant,
quickly uttered words.

“Who?” asked Elena.

The insincerity of her question made her flush quite suddenly. She
knew very well whom Elisaveta meant. The latter glanced at her and
said:

“Trirodov, of course. It is strange that we should be waiting for
him.”

“I think he promised to come,” said Elena indecisively.

“Yes,” answered Elisaveta, “I think he said something at that strange
mirror.”

“It was earlier,” observed Elena.

“Yes, I am mixing it all up,” said Elisaveta. “I don’t understand how
I could forget so quickly.”

“I too am tangling things up badly,” confessed Elena, astonished at
herself. “I feel very tired, I don’t know why.”

The soft noise of wheels over a sandy road grew closer and closer. At
last a light trap, drawn by a horse in English harness, could be seen
turning into the alley of birches and stopping before the house. The
sisters rose nervously. Their faces wore their habitually pleasant
smiles and their hands did not tremble.

Trirodov gave the reins to Kirsha, who drove away.

The meeting proved an embarrassing one. The sisters’ agitation was
evident in their polite, empty phrases. They entered the drawing-room.
Presently Rameyev, accompanied by the Matov brothers, came in to
welcome the guest. There was the usual exchange of compliments, of
meaningless phrases--as everywhere, as always.

Piotr was uneasy and hostile. He spoke abruptly and with evident
unwillingness. Misha looked on with curiosity. He liked Trirodov--he
had already heard something about him which assured pleasant relations
between them.

The conversation developed rapidly and politely. Not a word was said
about the sisters’ visit to Trirodov.

“We’ve heard a great deal about you,” began Rameyev, “I’m glad to know
you.”

Trirodov smiled, and his smile seemed slightly derisive. Elisaveta
remarked:

“I suppose you think our being glad to see you merely a polite
phrase.”

There was sharpness in her voice. Elisaveta, realizing this, suddenly
flushed. Rameyev looked at her in astonishment.

“No, I don’t think that,” put in Trirodov. “There’s real pleasure in
meeting.”

“That’s the usual thing to say in polite society,” said Piotr quietly.

Trirodov glanced at him with a smile and turned to Rameyev.

“I say it in all sincerity, I am glad to have made your acquaintance.
I live very much alone and so am all the more glad of the fortunate
circumstance that has brought me here on a matter of business.”

“Business?” asked Rameyev in astonishment.

“I can put the matter in a few words,” said Trirodov. “I wish to
extend my estate.”

There was a tinge of sadness in Rameyev’s answer:

“You have bought the better part of the Prosianiya Meadows.”

Trirodov said:

“It’s not quite large enough. I should like to acquire the rest of
it--for my colony.”

“I shouldn’t like to let the rest go,” remarked Rameyev. “It belongs
to Piotr and Misha.”

“As far as it concerns me,” put in Piotr, “I’d sell my share with the
greatest pleasure before those ‘comrade’ fellows take it from me for
nothing.”

Misha was silent, but it was evident that the thought of selling his
native soil was distasteful to him. He seemed on the point of bursting
into tears.

“In my opinion,” observed Rameyev, “the land needn’t be sold. I
shouldn’t advise it. I wouldn’t think of selling Misha’s share until
he came of age--and I shouldn’t advise you to sell yours either,
Piotr.”

Misha, gladdened, glanced gratefully at Rameyev, who continued:

“I can direct you to another plot of land which happens to be on sale.
I hope it will suit your needs.”

Trirodov thanked him.

His educational institution now became the topic of conversation.

“Your school, of course, brings you into contact with the Headmaster
of the National Schools. How do you manage to get along with him?”
 asked Rameyev.

Trirodov smiled contemptuously.

“Not at all,” he said.

“A clumsy person, this fellow with his feminine voice,” went on
Rameyev. “He’s an ambitious, cold-blooded man. He’s likely to do you
an injury.”

“I’m used to it,” answered Trirodov calmly. “We are all used to it.”

“They might close your school,” suggested Piotr in a tone of sharp
derision.

“And again they might not,” asserted Trirodov.

“But if they should?” persisted Piotr.

“Let us hope for the best,” said Rameyev.

Elisaveta looked affectionately at her father. But Trirodov said
quietly in his own defence:

“The school might be closed, but it is hard to prevent any one from
living on the soil and running a farm. If the school should cease
being a mere school and become an educational farm, it would succeed
in replacing the large farms as they are now run by their
proprietors.”

“But that is Utopia,” said Piotr in some irritation.

“Very well, then, we’ll establish Utopia,” said Trirodov, unruffled.

“But as a beginning you hope to destroy what exists?” asked Piotr.

“Why?” exclaimed Trirodov, astonished.

Strangely agitated, Piotr said:

“The comrades’ proposed division of land, if carried into force, would
lead to a crushing of culture and science.”

“I don’t understand this alarm for science and culture,” replied
Trirodov. “Both one and the other are sufficiently strong to stand up
for themselves.”

“Nevertheless,” argued Piotr, “monuments of civilization are being
demolished by this _Kham_[8] who is trying to replace us.”

“It is not our monuments of civilization alone that are being
destroyed,” retorted Trirodov patiently. “This is very sad, of course,
and proper measures should be taken. But the sufferings of the people
are so great.... The value of human life is, after all, greater than
the value of such monuments.”

In this peculiarly Russian manner the conversation quickly passed on
to general themes. Trirodov, who took a large share in it, spoke with
a calm assurance. They listened to him with deep attention.

Of his five auditors only Piotr was not captivated. He was tormented
by a feeling of hostility to Trirodov. He glanced at Trirodov with
suspicion and hate. He was exasperated by Trirodov’s confident tone
and facile speech. Piotr’s remarks addressed to the visitor were often
caustic, even coarse. Rameyev looked vexed at Piotr now and then, but
Trirodov appeared not to notice his sallies, and was simple, tranquil,
and courteous. In the end Piotr was compelled to restrain himself and
abandon his sharp manner. Then he grew silent altogether. After
Trirodov’s departure Piotr left the room. It was evident that he did
not wish to join in any discussion about the visitor.




CHAPTER VIII


The day was hot, sultry, windless--helplessly prostrate before the
arrowed glances of the infuriated Dragon. A number of city folk sought
coolness on the float, as the buffet at the steamboat-landing was
called in Skorodozh. It was less oppressive under the canvas roof of
the float, where at intervals gusts of breeze came from the river.

Piotr and Misha were in town to do some shopping. They stopped on the
float to get a glass of lemonade. A steamboat had just come in below
them. It began to unload the passengers and wares it brought from
neighbouring manufacturing towns. It was the boat’s last
stopping-point, the river higher up being too shallow. For a while
there was much bustle and noise on the float. The little tables were
soon occupied by townsfolk and new arrivals, chiefly officials and
landlords. They drank wine and talked loudly, though peacefully; they
shouted in the provincial manner, and it was easy to hear that many of
the conversations touched more or less on political themes.

Two men who sat at one table were in evident agreement, yet spoke in
tones of anger. They were the retired District Attorney Kerbakh and
the retired Colonel Zherbenev, both large land-proprietors and
patriots--members of the Union of Russian People.[9] Their speech was
loud and vehement, and interpolated with such strange words and
phrases as “treachery,” “sedition,” “hang them,” “wipe them out,”
 “give it to them.”

Nikolai Ilyitch Kerbakh was a small, thin, puny-looking man. The long,
drooping moustache on his otherwise clean-shaven face seemed to be
there merely to add to its already savage appearance. He rocked in his
chair as he lazily stretched himself. His large coat hung about his
shoulders like a bag, his highly coloured waistcoat was unbuttoned,
his string necktie hung loose, half undone. Altogether he had the look
of a man who would not let such small trifles stand in the way of his
comfort. Near him, fidgeting restlessly in his chair, was his son, a
slobbering, black-toothed youngster of eight, with a flagging,
carmine-red under-lip.

Andrey Lavrentyevitch Zherbenev, a tall, lank man with an important
air, sat motionless and erect as though he were nailed to his chair,
and surveyed those round him with a stern glance. His white linen
coat, with all its buttons fastened, sat on him as on a bronze idol.

“In everything, I say, the parents are to blame,” continued Kerbakh in
the same savage voice as before. “It is necessary to instil the right
ideas from very childhood. Now look at my children....”

And he shouted at his son with unnecessary loudness, though the two
sat almost nudging each other:

“Sergey!”

“Yeth?” lisped the slobbering boy.

“Stand up before me and answer.”

The youngster slipped off his chair, stretched himself smartly to his
full height in front of his father, and lisped again:

“Yeth, father?”

And he surveyed those sitting at the other tables with a quick, sly
look.

“What should be done with the enemies of the Tsar and the Fatherland?”
 asked Kerbakh.

“They should be destroyed!” answered the boy alertly.

“And afterwards?” continued his father.

The boy quickly repeated the words he had studied:

“And afterwards the foul corpses of the vile enemies of the Fatherland
should be thrown on the dunghill.”

Kerbakh and Zherbenev laughed gleefully.

“That describes them--foul carrion, that’s what they are!” said
Zherbenev in a hoarse voice.

A new-comer at the next table, a stranger apparently to those present,
was giving an order for a bottle of beer. Of middle age and medium
height, he was stout, or rather flabby; he had small glittering eyes;
and his dress had seen much wear. Kerbakh and Zherbenev gave him an
occasional passing glance, not of a very friendly nature. As though
they took it for granted that the stranger held antagonistic views,
they increased the vehemence of their speeches and spoke more and more
furiously of agitators and of Little Mother Russia, and mentioned, by
the way, a number of local undesirables, Trirodov among them.

The new-comer scrutinized the two speakers for a long time. It was
evident that the name of Trirodov, often repeated in Kerbakh’s
remarks, aroused an intense interest, even agitation, in the stranger.
His fixed scrutiny of his two neighbours at last attracted their
attention and they exchanged annoyed glances.

Then the stranger ventured to join in their conversation.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “unless I am mistaken, you were speaking
of Mr. Trirodov--am I right?”

“My dear sir, you....” began Kerbakh.

The new-comer immediately jumped to his feet and began to apologize
profusely.

“May I impose upon your good nature to forgive my impertinent
curiosity. I am Ostrov, the actor--tragedian. You may have heard of
me?”

“For the first time,” said Kerbakh surlily.

“I’ve never heard the name,” said Zherbenev.

The stranger smiled pleasantly, as if he had been commended, and
continued to speak without showing the slightest embarrassment:

“Well--er--I’ve played in many cities. I’m just passing through here.
I’m on my way to attend to some personal business in the Rouban
Government. And you just happened to mention a name very familiar to
me.”

Kerbakh and Zherbenev exchanged glances. Malignant thoughts about
Trirodov again took possession of their minds. Ostrov continued:

“I had no suspicion that Trirodov lived here. He is a very old and
intimate acquaintance of mine. I might say we are friends.”

“So-o,” said Zherbenev severely, glancing at Ostrov with disapproval.

Something in Ostrov’s voice and manner aroused their antagonism. His
glance was certainly impudent. Indeed his words and his whole
demeanour were provokingly arrogant. But it was impossible to be rude
with him. His words were proper enough in themselves.

“We haven’t met for some years,” Ostrov went on. “How does he manage
to get on?”

“Mr. Trirodov is to all appearances a rich man,” said Kerbakh
unwillingly.

“A rich man? That’s agreeable news. In fact, this wealth of Mr.
Trirodov’s is of comparatively recent origin. I’m quite sure of that.
Of recent origin, I assure you,” repeated Ostrov, giving a sly wink.

“And not of the cleanest?” asked Kerbakh.

He winked at Zherbenev. The latter made a grimace and chuckled. Ostrov
looked cautiously at Kerbakh.

“Why do you assume so?” he asked. “No-o, I shouldn’t say that. Quite
clean. Indeed, I can assure you of its clean origin,” he repeated with
peculiar emphasis.

Misha looked with curiosity at the speakers. He wished to hear
something about Trirodov. But Piotr quickly paid his bill and rose to
go. Kerbakh tried to hold him.

“Here’s a friend of your friend Trirodov,” he said.

“I haven’t yet had time to become a friend of Trirodov’s,” Piotr
answered sharply, “and I don’t intend to. As for his friends, nearly
every one has his more or less strange acquaintance.”

And he quickly left with Misha. Ostrov glanced after him with a smile
and said:

“A grave young man.”

“Mr. Trirodov has bought some land belonging to him and his brother,”
 explained Kerbakh.

Piotr Matov’s hostility to Trirodov evidently had its roots in the
chance circumstance that Trirodov had bought the house and part of the
estate, the Prosianiya Meadows, which formerly belonged to the
paternal Matov.

Many in the town of Skorodozh remembered very well Dmitry
Alexandrovitch Matov, the father of Piotr and Mikhail Matov. He had
been a member of the local District Council for a single term, and was
not chosen again. He could not hide his connexions and his affairs,
and lost his reputation, though the scandal was hushed up. This
happened when times were still quiet. During his term of office he
paid visits to the governor more often than necessary.

About the same time, in response to some one’s complaint, the
President of the District Council had been dispatched “in
administrative order” to the Olonetsk Government. There were dark
rumours about Matov. At the next election a few votes were given in
his favour, but not enough. He ceased to have any connexion with the
District Council.

Matov’s money affairs were in a bad state. He led a heedless life,
dissipated, and roamed from place to place. Bold, headstrong,
unrestrained, he lived only for his own pleasure. More than once he
squandered all--to the last farthing. But invariably he found sudden
means again, no one knew how, and again he would lead a dissipated,
gay, profligate life. His estate was mortgaged and re-mortgaged. His
relations with the peasants began to be unbearable. Their own
difficulties and his temper led to constant disputes. A reign of spite
began: the cattle were driven into the corn, some of the buildings
were set afire, some of the peasants were gaoled.

The Prosianiya Meadows more than once passed from a period of lavish
prosperity to a state of complete and hopeless poverty. This was
because Matov was lucky enough to fall heir to several inheritances.
Not only did people say that luck was on his side, but they also
hinted at forged wills, strangled aunts, and poisoned children. Dark
adventures of some sort enriched and ruined Matov by turns. It was all
like some dubious, fantastic game of chance....

During the lean days the ingeniously constructed buildings on his
estate were in a state of disrepair, the live stock showed decrease,
the wheat was got rid of quickly and cheaply, the wood was sold for a
trifling sum for lumber, the labourers were not paid for the work they
had done. On the other hand, during prosperous days, following the
death of some relative, things used to pick up in a marvellous way.
Companies of carpenters, masons, roofers, and painters would make
their appearance. The owner’s fancies were swiftly and energetically
carried out. Money was spent lavishly, without reckoning the cost.

Dmitry Alexandrovitch Matov was already forty years old, and many
dark, mad misdeeds weighed on his shoulders, when, quite unexpectedly
to all and possibly to himself, he married a young girl with excellent
means and a dark past. There was a report that she had been the
mistress of a dignitary, who had begun to grow weary of her. She
managed, none the less, to keep up her connexions and to collect
capital. She would have been very beautiful but for a strange
stain--as from fire--on her left cheek, which disfigured her. This
spot was very conspicuous and completely marred the beauty of her
face.

Very shortly a fierce hatred arose between husband and wife, no one
knew why. The gossips said he was disappointed in his expectations,
while she had found out about his mistresses and revels and had got
wind of the dark rumours about his inheritances. The quarrels grew
more frequent. Quite often he left his home, and always suddenly. Once
he took all valuables with him and decamped, leaving with his wife
only his mortgaged estate, his debts, and their two sons. A short time
afterwards all sorts of reports came in about him. Some had seen him
in Odessa, others in Manchuria. Later even rumours ceased.

Then came the unexpected news of his death in a remote southern town.
Its cause remained unknown. Even his body had not been found. It was
only certain that he had been lured into an empty, uninhabited
house--there all trace of him was lost.

Matov’s widow soon died from a sudden, sharp illness. Her sons
remained in the house of Rameyev. He became their guardian.

“He’s an agitator and a conspirator,” said Zherbenev sharply.

Ostrov smiled.

“All the same, I must stand up for my friend. Pardon me if I ask the
question: are these calumnies against my friend actuated by patriotic
reasons? Of course, from the most honourable impulses!”

“I do not take up my time with calumnies,” said Zherbenev dryly.

“Oh, I beg your pardon. But I’ll not intrude upon you any longer. I’m
very grateful for the pleasant conversation and for the interesting
information.”

Ostrov left them. Kerbakh and Zherbenev quietly discussed him.

“What a strange-looking man! Quite a beast!”

“Yes, what a character! I shouldn’t like to meet him alone in the
woods.”

“Our poet and doctor of chemistry has fine friends, I must say!”




CHAPTER IX


Elisaveta and Elena were walking again on a path close to the road
that connected the Prosianiya Meadows and the Rameyev estate. The
sisters were glad that it was so still and deserted around them and
that the turmoil of life seemed so remote from them. Life with all its
bustling movement seemed indeed distant, and it was a joy to dismiss
all its conditions and proprieties from their minds and to walk with
bare feet upon the soft ground, the sand, the clay, and the grass; it
filled their hearts with a simple, childlike, and chaste delight.

Both were dressed alike, in short frocks; there was a sash raised
rather high at the waist, two other bands crossed each other at the
breast, the sleeves were cut quite short at the shoulders.

They walked on farther, and their eyes contemplated gaily and
affectionately the half-hidden depths of the valleys, the woods, and
the thickets. A simple-hearted devotion to this lovable nature
possessed them--it was a sweet and tender devotion. It struck a deep
note in Elisaveta, who was in a mood of expectancy. If only she could
have met some one deserving of her love whom she might place at the
crossings of all earthly and heavenly roads, and to whom she might do
obeisance!

This tender devotion aroused young virginal intoxication in Elena
also. She felt herself in love--not with any one in particular, but
with everything: as the air loves in the springtime, kissing all in
its gladness; as a stream’s currents love when they brush caressingly
past boys’ and girls’ pink knees--such were the currents of the stream
that suddenly became visible, winding its way among the green in the
direction of the River Skorodyen, into which it emptied itself.

The bridge was some way off, and so the sisters waded the stream.
There was the delicious coolness of the water round their knees. They
remained standing on the bank and admired the porcupines of sand,
studded sparsely with tall blades of grass as with spines; also the
round pebbles made smooth by the water. Their cooled legs felt for
some time afterwards the sensation of the water’s loving caresses.

Just as the running water falls in love with all beauty that is
immersed in it, so Elena fell in love with all that her vision evoked
for her.

Most of all her love was directed towards Piotr. His love for
Elisaveta wounded her with a sweet pain.

The sisters descended into the hollow near Trirodov’s colony, ascended
it again to the other side, walked along the already familiar path,
and opened the gate--this time it yielded without effort. They
entered. Soon they saw a lake before them. The children and their
instructresses were bathing. There was a spirit of buoyancy in the
brown nakedness disporting itself in the buoyant waters--buoyant were
the splashes, the laughter, and the outcries!

The children and the instructresses walked out of the water upon the
dry ground and ran naked upon the sand. Their legs, bare and sunburnt,
seemed white in the green grass, like young birch-saplings growing out
of the earth.

They suddenly caught sight of the sisters, formed a ring of beautiful
wet bodies around them, and twirled in a circle at a fast, furious
pace. The discarded clothes that lay there close by seemed unnecessary
to the sisters at that moment. What, after all, was more beautiful and
lovely than the nude, eternal body?

The sisters learnt afterwards that they more often walked about naked
here than in their clothes.

The radiantly sad Nadezhda said to them:

“To lull the beast to sleep and to awaken the human being--that is the
reason of our nakedness.”

The dark, black-haired Maria said with ecstasy:

“We have bared our feet in order to come in closer contact with the
earth; we have become simple and happy, like people in the first
garden. We have discarded our clothes in order to come closer to the
elements. Caressed by these, clothed by the fire of the sun’s rays, we
have discovered the human being in us. This being is not the uncouth
beast thirsting for blood, or the townsman counting his profits--it is
the human being, clean in body and alive with love.”

So natural, indispensable, and inevitable seemed the nakedness of
these young, beautiful bodies that it appeared rather stupid to put on
one’s clothes afterwards. The sisters joined in with the naked
dancers, and went into the water and lay on the grass under the trees.
It was pleasant to feel the beauty, the grace, and the agility of
their bodies among these other twirling, beautiful, strong bodies.

Elisaveta’s observant glance detected two types among the girl
instructresses. There were the rapturous ones and the dissembling
ones.

The rapturous ones gave themselves up with a bacchic joy to a life
lived in the embrace of chaste nature: they fervently carried out all
the rites of the colony, joyously divested themselves of all fear and
shame, made great efforts and self-denials; and they laughed and they
flamed, overcome by a passionate thirst of noble actions and of
love--a thirst which not all the waters of this poor earth can quench.
Among this number were the sad Nadezhda and the ecstatic Maria.

The others, the dissembling ones, were those who had sold their time
and had parted with all their habits, inclinations, and proprieties
for money. They pretended that they loved children, simple life, and
bodily beauty. They did not find it hard to dissemble, for the others
served them as excellent models.

This time the sisters were shown the buildings of the colony, or at
least as much of them as they could see in an hour, and all sorts of
things made by the children--books and pictures--things that belonged
to this or that child. They were shown the fruit-orchard and the
garden-beds, above which the bees buzzed; and the air was fresh with
the honeyed aroma of flowers half lost in the tender softness of
profuse grasses.

But the sisters soon left.

They had intended to go home, but somehow they lost their way among
the paths and found themselves in sight of Trirodov’s house. Elisaveta
espied the high turrets rising above the white wall and recalled
Trirodov’s neither young nor handsome face: she became suffused with a
sweet passion, as with a rich wine--but it was an emotion not free
from pain.

Before they realized it they were quite close to the white wall, near
the ponderous closed gates. The small gate was open. A quiet, white
boy was looking at the sisters through the crevice with an inviting
glance. The sisters exchanged irresolute glances.

“Shall we go in, Vetochka[10]?” asked Elena.

“Yes, let’s go in,” said Elisaveta.

The sisters entered and found themselves in the garden. They found old
Elikonida at the entrance. She was sitting on the bench near the small
gate and was mumbling something slowly and indistinctly. Evidently no
one was there to listen to her. Perhaps the old woman was talking to
herself.

Old Elikonida was first engaged to nurse Kirsha; now she carried out
the duties of a housekeeper. She had always been austere and never
wasted a word in speaking with people. The sisters tried to draw her
into conversation; they wanted to ask her things, about the ways of
the house, the habits of Trirodov--they were such inquisitive girls!
Elena asked many questions, although Elisaveta tried to restrain her;
but they found out nothing. The old woman looked past the sisters and
mumbled in answer to all questions:

“I know what I know. I have seen what I have seen.”

The quiet children approached them. They stood motionless and
inanimate in the shade of the old trees, and looked at the sisters
with a fixed, expressionless stare. The sisters felt uncomfortable and
made haste to depart. They could hear behind them the austere mumbling
of Elikonida:

“I’ve seen what I’ve seen.”

And the quiet children laughed their quiet, quiet laughter, which was
truly like the sudden rustle of autumn leaves all aflutter in the air.

The sisters walked home silently. They found the right path and walked
without blundering. The evening darkness was coming on. They made
haste. The warm, damp earth clung to their feet and seemed to hinder
their movements.

They were not far from their own house when they suddenly came upon
Ostrov in the woods. He seemed to be on the look-out for something as
he walked. When he saw the sisters he turned aside and stood behind
the trees; then he strode forward quickly and faced them with an
unexpected suddenness that made Elena shudder and Elisaveta frown.
Ostrov bowed to them with derisive politeness and said:

“May I ask you something, fair ladies?”

Elisaveta surveyed him calmly and said without haste:

“What is it?”

Elena was silent with fear.

“Are you taking a walk?” asked Ostrov.

“Yes,” answered Elisaveta briefly.

“Mr. Trirodov’s house is somewhere hereabouts, unless I’m mistaken,”
 said Ostrov, half questioningly.

“Yes, you’ll find it by following the direction from which we came,”
 replied Elena.

She wanted to conquer her fear. Ostrov winked at her insolently and
said:

“Thank you most humbly. And who may you be?”

“Perhaps it is not necessary that you should know,” replied Elisaveta
with a half-question.

Ostrov burst into laughter and said with unpleasant familiarity:

“It may not be necessary, but it would be interesting.”

The sisters walked on rapidly, but he did not desist. They thought him
repulsive. There was something alarming in his obtrusiveness.

“You evidently live hereabouts, fair ladies,” continued Ostrov; “I
will therefore venture to ask you what you know about Mr. Trirodov,
who interests me immensely.”

Elena laughed, perhaps somewhat dissemblingly, in order to hide her
agitation and fear.

“Perhaps we don’t live hereabouts,” she said.

Ostrov whistled.

“Very likely, isn’t it, that you’ve come all the way from Moscow with
your bare little feet,” he shouted angrily.

“We cannot tell you anything that can interest you,” said Elena
coldly. “You had better apply to him personally. It would be more
proper.”

Ostrov again burst into a sarcastic laugh and exclaimed:

“I can’t deny that that would be proper, my handsome barefoot one. But
suppose he’s very busy, eh? How, then, would you advise me to get this
interesting information I want?”

The sisters were silent and walked on rapidly. Ostrov persisted:

“You are of his colony? Unless I’m mistaken you are instructresses
there. As far as one could judge from your light dresses and your
contempt of footwear, I think I’m not mistaken, eh? Tell me, it’s an
amusing life there, isn’t it?”

“No,” said Elisaveta, “we are not instructresses and we do not live
there.”

“What a pity!” said Ostrov incredulously. “I might have told you
something about Mr. Trirodov.”

He looked at the sisters attentively. They were silent.

“I’ve got together all sorts of information here and elsewhere,” he
went on. “Curious things they tell about him, very curious indeed. And
where did he get his money? In general there are many suspicious
circumstances about his life.”

“Suspicious for whom?” asked Elena. “And what affair is it of ours?”

“What affair is it of yours, my charming maidens?” repeated Ostrov
after her. “I have a well-founded suspicion that you are acquainted
with Mr. Trirodov, and I therefore hope that you’ll tell me something
about him.”

“You had better not hope,” said Elisaveta.

“And why not?” observed Ostrov in a familiar tone. “He’s an old
acquaintance of mine. In years gone by we lived, drank, and roamed
together. And quite suddenly I lost sight of him, and now quite as
suddenly I’ve found him again. Naturally, I’m interested. As an old
friend, you see!”

“Now, look here,” said Elisaveta, “we do not wish to converse with
you. You had better go where you were going. We know nothing that
would interest you and we have nothing to say to you.”

“So that’s it!” said Ostrov, with an insolent smile. “And now, my
beauty, I’d better tell you that you’re expressing yourself a little
carelessly. Suppose I whistled suddenly, eh?”

“What for?” asked Elisaveta, astonished.

“What for-r? Well, some one may come out to my whistle.”

“What then?” asked Elisaveta.

After a short silence Ostrov resumed his threatening tone:

“You may be asked to give a few details about what Mr. Trirodov is
doing behind his walls.”

“Nonsense!” said Elisaveta in vexation.

“In any case, I’m only joking,” said Ostrov, suddenly changing his
tone.

He was listening intently. Some one was coming towards them. The
sisters recognized Piotr and walked quickly to meet him. From their
haste and flustered manner Piotr understood that the man was
distasteful to them. He eyed him fixedly and recalled where he had met
him, whereupon he frowned and asked the sisters:

“Who is this?”

“A very inquisitive person who somehow has got an idea that we have
many interesting things to tell him about Trirodov,” said Elisaveta
with a smile.

Ostrov raised his hat and said:

“I’ve had the honour to see you on the float.”

“Well, what of it?” asked Piotr sharply.

“Well--er, I have the honour to remind you,” said Ostrov with
exaggerated politeness.

“What are you doing here?” asked Piotr.

“I’ve had the pleasure of meeting these charming young ladies,” Ostrov
began to explain.

Piotr interrupted him sharply:

“And now you let the young ladies alone and go away from here.”

“Why shouldn’t I have turned to these young ladies with a polite
question and an interesting tale?” asked Ostrov.

Piotr, without replying, turned to the sisters:

“You little girls are ready to enter into conversation with every
vagrant.”

An expression of bitterness crept into Ostrov’s face. Possibly this
was only a game, but it was certainly well played. It made Piotr feel
uncomfortable.

“A vagrant? And what is a vagrant?” asked Ostrov.

“What is a vagrant?” repeated Piotr in confusion. “What a question!”

“Well, sir, you have permitted yourself to use the word, and I’m
rather interested to know in what sense you’ve used it in its
application to me.”

Piotr, annoyed at being disconcerted by the stranger’s question, said
sharply:

“A vagrant is one who roams about without shelter and without money
and obtrudes upon others instead of attending to his own business.”

“Thank you for the definition,” said Ostrov with a bow. “It is true
that I have but little money and that I’m compelled to roam
about--such is the nature of my profession.”

“What is your profession?” asked Piotr.

Ostrov bowed with dignity and said:

“I’m an actor!”

“I doubt it,” said Piotr once more sharply, “you look more like a
detective.”

“You are mistaken,” said Ostrov in a flustered way.

Piotr turned away from him.

“Let us go home at once,” he said to the sisters.




CHAPTER X


It was growing dark. Ostrov was approaching Trirodov’s gates. His face
betrayed agitation. It was even more clear now than by daylight that
life had used him hardly. He felt painfully timid in going to
Trirodov, in whom he evidently had certain hopes. Before Ostrov could
make up his mind to ring the bell at the gates he walked the entire
length of the stone wall that surrounded Trirodov’s house and garden
and examined it attentively, without learning anything. Only the
entire length of the tall wall was before his eyes.

It was already quite dark when Ostrov stopped at last at the main
gate. The half-effaced figures and old heraldic emblems held his
attention for a moment only. He had already taken hold of the brass
bell-handle and paused cautiously, as if it were his habit to
reconsider at the last moment; he gave a sudden shiver. A clear,
childish voice behind his back uttered quietly:

“Not here.”

Ostrov looked on both sides timidly, half stealthily, bending his head
low and letting it sink between his shoulders. Quite close by a pale,
blue-eyed boy dressed in white was standing and eyeing him with intent
scrutiny.

“They won’t hear you here. Every one has left,” he said.

“Where is one to ring?” Ostrov asked harshly.

The boy pointed his finger to the left; it was a slow, graceful
gesture.

“Ring at the small gate there.”

He ran off so quickly and quietly it seemed as if he had not been
there. Ostrov went in the direction indicated. He came to a high,
narrow gate. A white electric bell-button shone in a round wooden
recess. Ostrov rang and listened. He could hear somewhere the rapid
shivering tones of a tiny bell. Ostrov waited. The door did not open.
Ostrov rang once more. It was quiet behind the door.

“I wonder how long there’s to wait?” he grumbled, then gave a shout:
“Hey, you in there!”

A faint, muffled sound vibrated in the damp air, as if some one had
tittered lightly. Ostrov caught hold of the brass handle of the gate.
The gate opened towards him easily and without a sound. Ostrov looked
round cautiously as he entered, and purposely left the gate open.

He found himself in a small court on either side of which was a low
wall. The gate swung to behind him with a metallic click. Had he
himself pulled it to rather quickly? He could not recall now. He
walked forward about ten paces, when he came upon a wall twice as high
as the side walls. It had a massive oak door; an electric bell-button
shone very white on one side. Ostrov rang once more. The bell-button
was very cold, almost icy, to the touch. A sensation of chill passed
down his whole body.

A round window, like a dim, motionless, observing eye, was visible
high above the door.

Ostrov could not say whether he waited there a long or a short time.
He experienced a strange feeling of having become congealed and of
having lost all sense of time. Whole days seemed to pass before him
like a single minute. Rays of bright light fell on his face and
disappeared. Ostrov thought that some one flashed this light on his
face by means of a lantern from the window over the door--a light so
intense that his eyes felt uncomfortable. He turned his face aside in
vexation. He did not wish to be recognized before he entered. That was
why he came in the dark of the evening.

But evidently he had been recognized. This door swung open as
soundlessly as the first. He entered a short, dark corridor in the
thick wall; then another court. No one was there. The door closed
noiselessly behind him.

“How many courts are there in this devilish hole?” growled Ostrov.

A narrow path paved with stone stretched before him. It was lit up by
a lamp from a distance, the reflection of which was directed straight
towards Ostrov, so that he could see only the smooth grey slabs of
stone under his feet. It was altogether dark on either side of the
path, and it was impossible to know whether a wall was there or trees.
There was nothing for him to do but to walk straight on. Nevertheless
he occasionally thrust his foot out to either side of him and felt
there; he was convinced that thickly planted, prickly bushes grew
there. He thought there was another hedge beyond that.

“Tricks!” he grumbled.

As he slowly moved forward he experienced a vague and growing fear. So
as not to be caught off his guard, he put his left hand into the
pocket of his dusty and greasy trousers and felt there the hard body
of a revolver, which he then transferred to his right-hand pocket.

On the threshold of the house he was met by Trirodov. Trirodov’s face
expressed nothing except an apparent effort to suppress his feelings.
There was no warmth or welcome in his voice:

“I did not expect to see you.”

“I’ve come, all the same,” said Ostrov. “Whether you like it or not,
you’ve got to receive your dear guest.”

There was contemptuous defiance in his voice. His eyes looked more
insolent than ever. Trirodov frowned lightly and looked straight into
Ostrov’s eyes, which were compelled to turn aside.

“Come in,” said Trirodov. “Why didn’t you write and tell me that you
wished to see me?”

“How should I know that you were here?” growled Ostrov surlily.

“Nevertheless, you found out,” said Trirodov, with a vexed smile.

“Found out quite by accident on the float,” replied Ostrov. “Heard you
mentioned in conversation. I don’t think you’ll care to know what they
said.”

He gave an insinuating smile. Trirodov merely said: “Come in. Follow
me.”

They ascended a narrow, very steep staircase with low, wide stairs;
there were frequent turnings in various directions round all sorts of
odd corners, interrupted by long landings between the climbs; each
landing revealed a tightly shut door. The light was clear and
unwavering. A cold gaiety and malice, a half-hidden, motionless irony,
were in the gleam of the incandescent wires bent inside the glass
pears.

Some one walked behind with a light, cautious step. There were the
clicking sounds of lights being extinguished; the passages they had
just passed through were plunged in darkness.

At last they reached the top of the stairway. They walked through a
long corridor and found themselves in a large gloomy room. There was a
sideboard against one of the walls and a table in the middle;
cut-glass dishes rested along shelves around the room. It was to all
appearances a dining-room.

“It’s quite the proper thing to do,” grumbled Ostrov. “A meal would do
me no harm.”

The light was strangely distributed. Half of the room and half of the
table were in the shadow. Two boys dressed in white waited at the
table. Ostrov winked at them insolently.

But they looked on calmly and departed quite simply. Trirodov settled
himself in the dark part of the room. Ostrov sat down at the table.
Trirodov began:

“Well, what do you want of me?”

“Now that’s a businesslike question,” answered Ostrov, with a hoarse
laugh, “very much a business question, not so much a gracious as a
businesslike question. What do I want? In the first place, I am
delighted to see you. There is a certain bond between us--our
childhood and all the rest of it.”

“I’m very glad,” said Trirodov dryly.

“I doubt it,” responded Ostrov impudently. “Then again, my dear chap,
I’ve come for something else. In fact, you’ve guessed what I’ve come
for. You’ve been a psychologist ever since I can remember.”

“What is it you want?” asked Trirodov.

“Can’t you guess?” said Ostrov, winking his eye.

“No,” replied Trirodov dryly.

“In that case there’s nothing left for me to do but to tell you
straight: I need money.”

He laughed hoarsely, unnaturally; then, pouring out a glass of wine,
mumbled as he gulped it down:

“Good wine.”

“Every one needs money,” answered Trirodov coldly. “Where do you
intend to get it?”

Ostrov turned in his chair. He chuckled nervously and said:

“I’ve come to you, as you see. You evidently have lots of money, and I
have little. Comment is needless, as the newspapers would say.”

“So that’s it! And suppose I refuse?” asked Trirodov.

Ostrov whistled sharply and looked insolently at Trirodov.

“Well, old chap,” he said rudely, “I don’t count on your permitting
yourself such a stupid mistake.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” repeated Ostrov after him. “I think the facts must be as
clear to you as to me, if not more so--and there’s nothing to be
gained by the world getting wind of them.”

“I owe you nothing,” said Trirodov quietly. “I don’t understand why I
should give you money. You’d only spend it recklessly--squander it
most likely.”

“And do you spend it any more sensibly?” asked Ostrov with a malicious
smile.

“If not more sensibly, at least with more reckoning,” retorted
Trirodov. “In any case, I’m prepared to help you. Only I may as well
tell you that I have little spare cash and that even if I had it I’d
not give you much.”

Ostrov gave a short, abrupt laugh and said with decision:

“A little is of no use to me. I need a lot of money. But perhaps
you’ll not think it much.”

“How much do you want?” asked Trirodov abruptly.

“Twenty thousand roubles,” replied Ostrov, making a determined effort
to brazen it out.

“I’ll not give you so much,” said Trirodov, “and I couldn’t even if I
wished to.”

Ostrov drew nearer to Trirodov and whispered:

“I’ll inform against you.”

“What then?” asked Trirodov, untouched by the threat.

“It will be bad for you. It’s a capital crime, as you know, my dear
chap, and of a no mean order,” said Ostrov in a menacing tone.

“Yours, my good fellow,” said Trirodov in his usual calm voice.

“I’ll manage to wriggle out of it somehow, but will see that you get
your due,” said Ostrov with a laugh.

“You’re making a sad mistake if you think that I have anything to
fear,” observed Trirodov, with a shrug of his shoulders.

Ostrov seemed to grow more insolent every minute. He whistled and said
banteringly:

“Tell me now, if you please! Didn’t you kill him?”

“I? No, I didn’t kill him,” answered Trirodov.

“Who then?” asked Ostrov in his derisive voice.

“He’s alive,” said Trirodov.

“Fiddlesticks!” exclaimed Ostrov.

And he burst out into a loud, insolent, hoarse laugh, though he seemed
panic-stricken at the same time. He asked:

“What of those little prisms which you’ve manufactured? I’ve heard
that even now they are lying on the table in your study.”

“That’s true,” said Trirodov dryly.

“And I’m told that your present is not absolutely clean either,”
 observed Ostrov.

“Yes?” asked Trirodov derisively.

“Yes-s,” continued Ostrov jeeringly. “The first business in your
colony is conspiracy, the second corruption, the third cruelty.”

Trirodov gave a stern frown and asked scornfully:

“You’ve had enough time to gather a bouquet of slanders.”

“Yes-s, I’ve managed, as you see. Whether they are slanders is quite
another matter. I can only say that they fit you somehow. Take, for
instance, those perverse habits of yours; need I recall them to you? I
could remind you, if I wished, of certain facts from your early life.”

“You know you are talking nonsense,” said Trirodov.

“It is reported,” went on Ostrov, “that all this is being repeated in
the quiet of your asylum.”

“Even if it were all true,” said Trirodov, “I do not see that you have
anything to gain by it.”

Trirodov’s eyes had a tranquil look. He seemed remote. His voice had a
calm, hollow sound. Ostrov exclaimed vehemently:

“Don’t imagine for a moment that I have fallen into a trap. If I don’t
leave this place, I have prepared something that will send you to
gaol.”

“Nonsense,” said Trirodov as quietly as before. “I’m not afraid. In
the last resort I can emigrate.”

“I suppose you’ll put on the mantle of a political exile,” laughed
Ostrov. “It’s useless! Our police, they’ll keep a sharp look-out for
you, clever fellows that they are. Never fear, they’ll get you.
They’ll get you anywhere. You may be sure of that.”

“They’ll not give me up where I’m going,” said Trirodov. “It’s a safe
place, and you’ll not be able to reach me there.”

“What sort of place have you prepared for yourself?” asked Ostrov,
smiling malignantly. “Or is it a secret?”

“It is the moon,” was Trirodov’s simple and tranquil answer.

Ostrov laughed boisterously. Trirodov added:

“Moreover, the moon has been created by me. She is before my window,
ready to take me.”

Ostrov jumped up in great rage from his place, stamped violently with
his feet, and shouted:

“You are laughing at me! It is useless. You can’t fool me with those
stupid fairy-tales of yours. Tell those sweet little stories to the
silly little girls of the provinces. I’m an old sparrow. You can’t
feed me on chaff.”

Trirodov remained unruffled.

“You’re fuming all for nothing. I’ll help you with money on a
condition.”

“What sort of condition?” asked Ostrov with restrained anger.

“You’ll have to go from here--very far--for always,” answered
Trirodov.

“I’ll have to think that over,” said Ostrov.

“I give you a week. Come to me exactly within a week, and you’ll
receive the money.”

Ostrov suddenly felt an incomprehensible fear. He experienced the
feeling of having passed into another’s power. He felt oppressed. A
stern smile marked Trirodov’s face. He said quietly:

“You are of such little value that I could kill you without
scruple--like a snake. But I am tired even of other people’s murders.”

“My value?” Ostrov muttered hoarsely and absurdly.

“What is your value?” went on Trirodov. “You are a hired murderer, a
spy, a traitor.”

Ostrov said in a meek voice:

“Nevertheless, I’ve not betrayed you so far.”

“Because it wouldn’t pay, that’s why you’ve not betrayed me. Again,
you dare not.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Ostrov humbly. “What is your
condition? Where do you want me to go?”




CHAPTER XI


Trirodov left a pleasant impression on Rameyev. Rameyev made haste to
return his visit: he went together with Piotr. Piotr did not wish to
go to Trirodov’s, but could not make up his mind to refuse. He kept
frowning on the way, but once in Trirodov’s house he tried to be
courteous. This he did constrainedly.

Misha soon made friends with Kirsha and with some of the boys. An
intimacy sprang up between the Rameyevs and Trirodov--that is, to the
extent that Trirodov’s unsociableness and love of a solitary life
permitted him to become intimate.

It once happened that Trirodov took Kirsha with him to the Rameyevs
and remained to dinner. Several other close acquaintances of the
Rameyevs came to dinner. The older of the visitors were the Cadets,
the younger were the Es-Deks[11] and the Es-Ers.[12]

At the beginning there was a long agitated discussion in connexion
with the news brought by one of the younger guests, a public school
instructor named Voronok, an Es-Er. The Chief of Police had been
killed that day near his house. The culprits managed to escape.

Trirodov took almost no part in the conversation. Elisaveta looked at
him with anxious eyes, and the yellow of her dress appeared like the
colour of sadness. It had been remarked by all that Trirodov was
thoughtful and gloomy; he seemed to be tormented by some secret
agitation, which he made obvious efforts to control. At last the
attention of all was turned upon him. This happened after he had
answered one of the girls’ questions.

Trirodov noticed that they were looking at him. He felt uneasy and
vexed with himself. This vexation, however, helped him to control his
agitation. He became more animated, threw off, as it were, some
weight, and began to talk. The glance of Elisaveta’s deep blue eyes
grew joyous at this.

Piotr put in a remark just then, in his usual parochial,
self-confident manner:

“If it were not for the wild changes in Peter’s time, everything would
have gone differently.”

There was a tinge of derision in Trirodov’s smile.

“A mistake, wasn’t it?” he observed. “But if you are going to look for
mistakes in Russian history, why not start earlier?”

“You mean at the beginning of creation?” said Piotr.

“Precisely then. But without going so far back, let us pause at the
Mongolian period,” replied Trirodov. “The historical error was that
Russia did not amalgamate with the Tartars.”

“As if there were not enough Tartars in Russia now!” said Piotr,
provoked.

“That’s precisely why there are many--because they didn’t amalgamate,”
 observed Trirodov. “They should have had the sense to establish a
Russo-Mongolian empire.”

“And become Mohammedans?” asked Dr. Svetilovitch, a very agreeable
person but very confident of all that was obvious.

“Not at all!” answered Trirodov. “Wasn’t Boris Godunov a Christian?
That’s not the point at issue. All the same, we and the Catholics of
Western Europe have regarded each other as heretics; and our empire
might have become a universal one. Even if they had counted us among
the yellow race, it should be remembered that the yellow race might
have been considered under the circumstances quite noble and the
yellow skin a very elegant thing.”

“You are developing a strange Mongolian paradox,” said Piotr
contemptuously.

“Even now,” retorted Trirodov, “we are looked upon by the rest of
Europe as almost Mongols, as a race mixed with Mongolian elements. You
know the saying: ‘Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar.’”

A discussion arose which continued until they left the table.

Piotr Matov was very much out of sorts during the entire dinner. He
found almost nothing to say to his neighbour, a young girl, a
dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty, an Es-Dek. And the handsome Es-Dek
began to turn more and more towards the diner on the other side of
her, the priest Zakrasin. He belonged to the Cadets, but was nearer to
her in his convictions than the Octobrist[13] Matov.

Piotr was displeased because Elisaveta paid no attention to him and
appeared to be absorbed in Trirodov and in what he was saying; and it
vexed him because Elena also now and then let her softened gaze rest
upon Trirodov. He felt he wanted to say provoking things to Trirodov.

“Yet he is a guest,” reflected Piotr to himself, but at last he could
hold out no longer; he felt that he must in one way or another shake
Trirodov’s self-assurance. Piotr walked up to him and, swaying before
him on his long thin legs, remarked, without almost the slightest
effort to conceal his animosity:

“Some days ago on the pier a stranger made inquiries about you.
Kerbakh and Zherbenev were talking nonsense, and he sat down near them
and seemed very interested in you.”

“Rather flattering,” said Trirodov unwillingly.

“I cannot say to what an extent it is flattering,” said Piotr
maliciously. “In my opinion there was little to recommend him. His
appearance was rather suspicious--that of a ragamuffin, in fact.
Though he insists he’s an actor, I have my doubts. He says you are old
friends. A most insolent fellow.”

Trirodov smiled. Elisaveta remarked with some agitation:

“We met him some days ago not far from your house.”

“It’s quite a lonely place,” observed Trirodov in an uncertain voice.

Piotr went on to describe him.

“Yes, that’s the actor Ostrov,” assented Trirodov.

Elisaveta, feeling a strange unrest, put in:

“He seemed to have gone around the neighbourhood looking about and
asking questions. I wonder what he can be up to.”

“Evidently a spy,” said the young Es-Dek contemptuously.

Trirodov, without expressing the slightest astonishment, remarked:

“Do you think so? It’s possible. I really don’t know. I haven’t seen
him for five years now.”

The young Es-Dek, thinking that Trirodov felt offended at her
reference to his acquaintance, added affectedly:

“You know him well; then please pardon me.”

“I don’t know his present condition,” put in Trirodov. “Everything is
possible.”

“It’s impossible to be responsible for all chance acquaintances!”
 interpolated Rameyev.

Trirodov turned to Piotr:

“And what did he say about me?”

But his voice did not express any especial curiosity. Piotr replied
with a sarcastic smile:

“He said very little, but asked a great deal. He said that you knew
him very well. In any case, I soon left.”

“Yes, I have known him a long time,” was Trirodov’s calm answer.
“Perhaps not too well, yet I know him. I had some dealings with him.”

“I think he paid you a visit yesterday?”

“Yes,” said Trirodov in reply to Elisaveta’s question, “he came to see
me last evening, quite late. I don’t know why he chose such a late
hour. He asked assistance. His demands were large. I will give him
what I can. He’s going away from here.”

All this was said in jerks, unwillingly. No one seemed to care to
continue the subject further, but at this moment, quite unexpectedly
to all, Kirsha entered into the conversation. He went up to his father
and said in a quiet but audible voice:

“He purposely came late, while I slept, so that I shouldn’t see him.
But I remember him. When I was very little he used to show me dreadful
tricks. I don’t remember them now. I can only remember that I used to
get frightened and that I cried.”

All looked in astonishment at Kirsha, exchanged glances and smiled.

“You must have seen it in a dream, Kirsha,” said Trirodov--quietly.
Then, turning to the older people: “Boys of his age love fantastic
tales. Even we love Utopia and read Wells. The very life which we are
now creating is a joining, as it were, of real existence with
fantastic and Utopian elements. Take, for example, this affair of....”

In this manner Trirodov interrupted the conversation about Ostrov and
changed it to another subject that was agitating all circles at the
time. He left very soon after that. The others also stayed but a short
time.

There was an atmosphere of irritation and hostility after the guests
had gone. Rameyev reproached Piotr.

“My dear Petya, you shouldn’t have done that. It isn’t hospitable. You
were looking all the time at Trirodov as if you were getting ready to
send him to all the devils.”

Piotr replied with a controlled gruffness:

“Yes, precisely, to all the devils. You have guessed my feelings,
uncle.”

Rameyev eyed him incredulously and said:

“Why, my dear fellow?”

“Why?” repeated Piotr, giving free rein to his irritation. “What is
he? A charlatan? A visionary? A magician? Is he in partnership with
some unclean power? What do you think of it? Or is it the devil
himself come in a human shape--a little grey, cloven-hoofed demon?”

“That’s enough, Petya; what are you saying?” said Rameyev with
annoyance.

Elisaveta smiled an incredulous smile, full of gentle irony; a golden,
saddened smile, set off by the melancholy yellow rose in her black
hair. And Elena’s astonished eyes dilated widely.

“Think it over yourself, uncle,” went on Piotr, “and look around you.
He has bewitched our little girls completely!”

“Well, if he has,” said Elena with a gay smile, “it’s only just a
little as far as I am concerned.”

Elisaveta flushed but said with composure:

“Yes, he’s interesting to listen to; and it’s no use stuffing one’s
ears.”

“There, she admits it!” exclaimed Piotr angrily.

“Admits what?” asked Elisaveta in astonishment.

“That for the sake of this cold, vain egoist you are ready to forget
every one.”

“I’ve not noticed either his vanity or his egoism,” said Elisaveta
coldly. “I wonder how you’ve managed to know him so well--or so ill.”

“All this is pitiful and absurd nonsense, only an excuse for starting
a quarrel,” said Piotr angrily.

“Petya, you envy him,” retorted Elisaveta with unaccustomed sharpness.
Then, feeling that she had overstepped the mark, she added:

“Do forgive me, Petya, but really you are exasperating sometimes with
your personal attacks.”

“Envy him? Why should I?” he said hotly. “Tell me, what useful thing
has he done? To be sure, he has published a few tales, a volume of
verses--but name me even a single work of his prose or verse that
contains the slightest sense or beauty.”

“His verses....” began Elisaveta.

But Piotr would not let her continue.

“Tell me, where is his talent? What is he famous for? All that he
writes only seems like poetry. If you look at it closely you will see
that it is bookish, forced, dry--it is diabolically suggestive without
being talented.”

Rameyev interrupted in a conciliatory tone:

“You’re unjust. You can’t deny him everything.”

“Let us admit, then, that there’s something in his work not altogether
bad,” continued Piotr. “Who is there nowadays who cannot put together
some nice-sounding versicles! Yet what is there really I should
respect in him? He’s nothing but a corrupt, bald-headed, ridiculous,
and dull-sighted person--yet Elisaveta considers him a handsome man!”

“I never said anything about his being handsome,” protested Elisaveta.
“As for his corruption, isn’t it purely town tattle?”

She frowned and grew red. Her blue eyes flared up with small greenish
flames. Piotr walked angrily out of the room.

“Why is he so annoyed?” asked Rameyev in astonishment.

Elisaveta lowered her head and said with childish bashfulness:

“I don’t know.”

She could not repress an ashamed smile at her timid words, because she
felt like a little girl who was concealing something. At last she
overcame her shame and said:

“He’s jealous!”




CHAPTER XII


Trirodov loved to be alone. Solitude and silence were a holiday to
him. How significant seemed his lonely experiences to him, how
delicious his devotion to his visions. Some one came to him, something
appeared before him, wonderful apparitions visited him, now in dream,
now in his waking hours, and they consumed his sadness.

Sadness was Trirodov’s habitual state. Only while writing his poems
and his prose did he find self-oblivion--an astonishing state, in
which time is shrivelled up and consumed, in which great inspiration
consoles her chosen ones with divine exultation for all burdens, for
all annoyances in life.

He wrote much, published little. His fame was very limited--there were
few who read his verses and prose, and even among these but a few who
acknowledged his talent. His stories and lyrical poems were not
distinguished by any especial obscurity or any especial decadent
mannerisms. They bore the imprint of something strange and exquisite.
It needed an especial kind of soul to appreciate this poetry which
seemed so simple at the first glance, yet actually so out of the
ordinary.

To others, from among those who knew him, the public’s ignorance of
him appeared inexplicable. His capabilities seemed sufficiently great
to awaken the attention and admiration of the crowd. But he, to some
extent, detested people--perhaps because he was too confident of his
own genius--and he never made a definite effort to gratify them. And
that was why his works were only rarely published.

In general, Trirodov did not encourage intimacies with people. He
found it painful to look with involuntary penetration into the
confusion of their dark, foggy souls.

He found himself at ease only in the company of his wife. Love makes
kin of souls. But his wife had died a few years ago, when Kirsha was
six years old. Kirsha remembered her; he could not forget her, and
kept on recalling her. Trirodov for some reason associated his wife’s
death with the birth of his son, though there was no obvious
connexion: his wife died from a casual, sharp illness. Trirodov
thought:

“She bore, and therefore had to die. Life is only for the innocent.”

After her death he always awaited her; there was for him the consoling
thought:

“She will come. She will not deceive me. She will give a sign. She
will take me with her.”

And life became as easy to bear as a vacillant vision seen in dream.

He loved to look at his wife’s portrait. It was painted by a
celebrated English artist and hung in his study. There were also many
photographic reproductions of her. It was his joy to muse of her and,
musing, to delight in images of her handsome face and her lovely body.

Sometimes his solitude was broken by the intrusion of external life
and external, unemotional love. A woman used to come in to him
sometimes--a strange, undemanding woman who seemed to come from
nowhere and to lead to nowhere. Trirodov had had relations with her
for several months. She was an instructress in the local girls’
school, Ekaterina Nikolayevna Alkina--a quiet, tranquil, cold creature
with dark red hair and a thin face, the dull pallor of which
emphasized the impressively vivid lips of her large mouth; it seemed
as if all the sensuality and colour of the face had poured themselves
into the lips and made them startlingly and painfully vivid and
suggestive of sin. She had married and had parted from her husband.
She had a son, who lived with her. She was an S.D.[14] and worked in
the organization, but all this was merely incidental in her life. She
met Trirodov in party work. Her comrades understood as by some
intuition that in order to carry on negotiations with Trirodov, who
did not permit himself any intimacy with them, it was necessary to
choose this woman.

And now Alkina had come again, and began as always:

“I’ve come on business.”

Trirodov regarded her with a deep, tranquil glance and answered her
with the usual commonplaces of welcome.

Slightly agitated by hidden desires, Alkina spoke of the “business” in
hand.

It had already been decided that the party orator who was to come to
speak at the projected mass meeting would be quartered at Trirodov’s:
this was thought to be the least dangerous place. Alkina came to say
that the orator was expected that evening. It was necessary to bring
him to Trirodov’s house in such a way that the town should not know
anything about it. As soon as they had decided at what entrance he
should be received Trirodov went out of the room to make the necessary
arrangements. The agreeable consciousness of creative mystery filled
him with joy.

When Trirodov returned Alkina was standing at the table and turning
over the pages of a new book. Her hands trembled slightly. She glanced
expectantly at Trirodov. She appeared to wish to say something
meaningful and tender--but instead she resumed her remarks on
business. She told him what was new in town, in her school, in the
organization--about the confiscation of the local newspaper, about
personalities ordered to leave town by the police, about the factory
ferment.

“Who will be our own speakers at the mass meeting?” asked Trirodov.

“Bodeyev, from the school, for one.”

“I do not like his manner of speaking,”, said Trirodov.

“He’s a good party workman,” observed Alkina with a timid smile. “He’s
to be valued for that.”

“You know, of course, that I am not much of a party man,” said
Trirodov.

Alkina was silent. She trembled lightly as she rose from her seat,
then suddenly ceased to be agitated. Only her vivid lips, speaking
slowly, seemed to be alive in her pale face.

“Giorgiy Sergeyevitch, will you love me a little?”

Trirodov smiled. He sat quietly in his chair and looked at her simply
and dispassionately. He did not answer at once. Alkina asked again
with her sad and gentle humility:

“Perhaps you haven’t the time, nor the desire?”

“No, Katya, I shall be glad,” answered Trirodov calmly. “You’ll find
it convenient in there,” and he signified with his eyes the little
neighbouring room which had no other exit.

Alkina flushed lightly and said:

“If you will permit me, I’d rather undress here. It would give me joy
to have you look at me a long time.”

Trirodov helped her to undo the clasps of her skirt. Alkina sat down
on a chair, bent over, and began to undo the buttons of her boots.
Then, with evident enjoyment at having freed her feet, she walked
slowly across the floor towards the door and turned the key in the
lock.

“As you know, I have but one joy,” she said.

She gracefully threw off her clothes and stood before Trirodov with
uplifted arms. She was sinuously slender, like a white serpent.
Crossing the fingers of her upraised hands, she bent her whole body
forward, so that she appeared more sinuously slender than ever, and
the curve of her body almost resembled a white ring. Then she relaxed
her arms, stood up erect, all tranquil and self-possessed, and said:

“I want you to take a good look at me. I haven’t grown old yet, have
I? And not altogether faded?”

Trirodov surveyed her with admiration and said quietly:

“Katya, you are as handsome as always.”

Alkina was mistrustful.

“It’s true, isn’t it, that clothes have too long cramped my body and
injured the skin. How can my body be handsome?”

“You are graceful and flexible,” answered Trirodov. “The lines of your
body are somewhat elongated but wholly elastic. If any one were to
measure your body he would find no error in its proportions.”

Alkina scrutinized herself attentively and went on incredulously:

“The lines are good--but the colour? I believe you once said that
Russians often have unpleasant complexions. When I look on the
whiteness of my body I am reminded of plaster of paris, and I begin to
weep because I am so ugly.”

“No, Katya,” asserted Trirodov. “The whiteness of your body is not
like plaster of paris. It is marble, slightly rose-tinged. It is milk
poured into a pink crystal vase. It is mountain snow lit up with the
last glow of sunset. It is a white reverie suffused with rose desire.”

Alkina smiled joyously and flushed lightly as she asked him:

“Will you take a few snapshots of me to-day? Otherwise I shall weep,
because I am so ugly and so meagre that you do not wish to recall
sometimes my face and my body.”

“Yes,” answered Trirodov, “I have a few films ready.”

Alkina laughed gleefully and said:

“Now kiss me.”

She bent over Trirodov and almost fell into his arms. The kisses
seemed tranquil and innocent; it might have been a sister kissing a
brother. How gentle and elastic her skin was under his hands! Alkina
pressed against him with a submissive, yielding movement. Trirodov
carried her to the wide, soft couch. She lay in his arms timidly and
quietly and looked straight into his eyes with a simple, innocent
look.

When the sweet and deep minutes passed, followed by fatigue and shame,
Alkina lay there motionlessly with half-closed eyes--and then said
suddenly:

“I’ve been wanting to ask you, and somehow couldn’t decide to. Do you
detest me? Perhaps you think me very shameless?”

She turned her face towards him and looked at him with frightened,
ashamed eyes. And he answered her with his usual resolution:

“No, Katya. Shame is often needed, in order that we may gain control
over it.”

Alkina once more lay back calmly, basking naked under his glances, as
under the rays of the high Dragon. Trirodov was silent. Alkina laughed
quietly and said:

“My husband used to be so respectable, mean and polite. He never beat
me--he was not a cultured man for nothing--and he never even used
coarse words. If he had but called me a fool! I sometimes think that I
wouldn’t have left him if our quarrels hadn’t passed so quietly, if he
had but beat me, pulled me by my hair, lashed me with something.”

“Sweet?” asked Trirodov.

“Life is so dull,” continued Alkina. “One struggles in the nets of
petty annoyances. If one could but cry out, but give wail to one’s
yearning, one’s woe, one’s unendurable pain!”

She said this with a passion unusual to her and grew silent.




CHAPTER XIII


It was drawing towards evening, and once more Trirodov was alone,
tormented by his unceasing sadness. His mind was in a whirl. He was in
a half-somnolent state, which was like the foreboding of a nightmare.
His half-dreams and half-illusions were full of the day’s impressions,
full of burning, cruel reveries.

It had just grown dark. A fire was visible on a height near the town.
The town boys were making merry. They had lit a bonfire, and were
throwing the brands into the air; as they rose swiftly, the burning
brands appeared like skyrockets against the blue sky. And these
beautiful flights of fire in the darkness gave joy and sadness.

Kirsha, silent as always, came to his father. He placed himself at the
window and looked out with his dark, sad eyes upon the distant fires
of St. John’s Eve. Trirodov went up to him. Kirsha turned quietly
towards his father:

“This will be a terrible night.”

Trirodov answered as quietly:

“There will be nothing terrible. Don’t be afraid, Kirsha. You had
better go to sleep, my boy, it is time.”

As if he had not heard his father, Kirsha went on:

“The dead will soon rise from their graves.”

“The dead are already rising from their graves,” replied Trirodov.

A strange feeling of astonishment stirred within him, why did he speak
of this? Or was it due to the urgency of the questioner’s desire?
Quietly, ever so quietly, half questioning, half relating, Kirsha
persisted:

“The dead will walk on the Navii[15] footpath, the dead will speak
Navii words.”

And again, as though submitting to a strange will, not his own,
Trirodov replied:

“The dead have already risen, they are already walking upon the Navii
footpath, towards the Navii town, they are already speaking Navii
words about Navii affairs.”

And Kirsha asked:

“Are you going?”

“I am going,” said Trirodov after a brief silence.

“I am going with you,” said Kirsha resolutely.

“You had better not go, dear Kirsha,” said his father tenderly.

But Kirsha persistently repeated:

“I will spend this night with you there, at the Navii footpath. I will
see and I will hear. I will look into dead eyes.”

Trirodov said sternly:

“I do not wish to take you with me--you ought to remain here.”

There was entreaty in Kirsha’s voice:

“Perhaps mother will come by.”

Trirodov, falling into deep thought, said finally:

“Very well, come with me.”

The evening dragged on slowly and sadly. The father and son waited. It
grew quite dark by the time they went.

They walked through the garden, past the closed greenhouse with its
mysteriously glittering window-panes. The quiet children were not yet
asleep. Quietly they swung in the garden upon their swings. Quietly
clinked the swing rings, quietly creaked the wooden seats. Upon the
swings sat the quiet children, lit up by the dead moon and cooled by
the night breeze, and they swung softly and sang their songs. The
night listened to their quiet songs, and the full, clear, dead moon
also. Kirsha, lowering his voice so that the quiet children might not
hear, asked:

“Why don’t they sleep? They swing on their swings neither upward nor
downward, but evenly. Why do they do this?”

“They must not sleep to-night,” answered Trirodov, also in a whisper.
“They cannot sleep until the dawn grows rosy, until the dawn begins to
laugh. There is really no reason why they should sleep. They can sleep
as well by day.”

Again Kirsha asked:

“Will they go with us? They want to go.”

“No, Kirsha, they don’t want anything.”

“Don’t want anything?” repeated Kirsha sadly.

“They ought not to go with us unless we call them.”

“Shall we call them?” asked Kirsha joyously.

“We shall call one. Which one would you like?”

Kirsha, after some thought, said:

“Grisha.”

“Very well, we’ll call Grisha,” said Trirodov.

He turned in the direction of the swings, and called out:

“Grisha!”

A boy, who resembled the sad-faced Nadezhda, quietly jumped down from
his swing, and walked behind them, without approaching too closely.
The other quiet children looked tranquilly after him, and continued to
swing and to sing as before.

Trirodov opened the gate, and was followed by Kirsha and Grisha. The
night hovered all around them, and the forgotten Navii footpath
stretched in a black strip through the darkness.

Kirsha shivered--he felt the cold, heavy earth under his bare feet;
the cold air pressed against his bare knees, the cold moist freshness
of the night blew against his half-bared breast. He heard his father
ask in a low voice:

“Kirsha, are you not afraid?”

“No,” whispered Kirsha, as he breathed in the fresh aroma of the dew
and the light mist.

The light of the moon was seductive with mystery. She smiled with her
lifeless, tranquil face, and appeared to be saying:

“What was will be again. What was will happen more than once.”

The night was peaceful and clear. They walked a long time--Trirodov
and Kirsha, and some distance behind them the quiet Grisha followed.
At last there appeared, quite near, peering through the mist, the low
white cemetery wall. Another road cut across theirs. Quite narrow, its
worn cobblestones gleamed dimly in the moonlight. The road of the
living and the road of the dead crossed each other at the entrance of
the cemetery. In the field near the crossing several mounds were
visible--they were the unmarked graves of suicides and convicts.

The whole neighbourhood, bewitched with mystery and fear, seemed
oppressed. The flat field stretched far--all enveloped in a light
mist. Far to the left, the town fires showed their vague glimmers
through the mist--and marked off by the wall of mist, the town seemed
to be very distant, and to be guarding jealously from the fields of
night the tumultuous voices of life.

An old witch, grey, and all bent, appeared from somewhere; she swung a
crutch and stumbled on in haste. She was mumbling angrily:

“It doesn’t smell of our spirit. Strangers have come! Why have they
come? What can strangers want here? What are they seeking? They’ll
find what they don’t want to find. Ours will see them, and will tear
them to pieces, and will scatter the pieces before all the winds.”

Suddenly there was a weird rustle, there rose all about them the
squeak of piping little voices, and the sounds of a confused
scampering. At the crosspaths there darted in all directions, as thick
as dust, countless hordes of grey sprites and evil spirits. Their
running was so impetuous that they could have borne along with them
every living, weak-willed soul. And it could already be seen that
running in their midst were the pitiful souls of little people. Kirsha
whispered in a voice full of fear:

“Quicker, quicker into the ring! They will bear us away if we don’t
mark ourselves in.”

Trirodov called quietly:

“Come here, come here, quiet boy, draw a circle around us with your
nocturnal little stick.”

They no sooner had succeeded in marking themselves in with the magic
line than the dead began to pass down the Navii path. The throng of
the dead, submitting to some evil malediction, walked towards the
town. The spectres walked in the nocturnal silence and the traces they
left behind them were light, curious, and hardly distinguishable.
Whispered conversations were heard--lifeless words. The dead walked at
random, without any defined order. At the beginning the voices merged
into a general drone, and only afterwards, by straining one’s ears, it
was possible to distinguish separate words and whole phrases.

“Be good yourself, that’s the chief thing.”

“For mercy’s sake--what perversion, what immorality!”

“Plenty of food and plenty of clothes--what more can one want?”

“I haven’t sinned much.”

“That’s what they deserve. Kisses are not for them.”

In the beginning all the dead fused into one dark, grey mass. But
gradually, if one looked intently one could distinguish the separate
corpses.

One nobleman who passed by had a cap with a red band on his head; he
was saying with calm and deliberation:

“The divine right of ownership should be inviolable. We and our
ancestors have built up the Russian land.”

Another of the same class, who walked beside him, remarked:

“My motto--autocracy, orthodoxy, and nationality. My credo--a strong
redeeming power.”

A priest in a black vestment swung a censer, and cried in a tenor
voice:

“Every soul should submit to sovereign dominion. The hand that gives
will not grow poorer.”

A wise muzhik passed by muttering:

“We know everything, but are not saying anything just yet. When you
don’t know anything they leave you alone. Only you can’t cover up your
mouth with a handkerchief.”

Several soldiers walked past together. They bawled their indecorous
songs. Their faces were grey-red in colour. They stank of sweat,
putrescence, bad tobacco, and vodka.

“I have laid down my stomach for my faith, my Tsar, and my
Fatherland,” a smart young colonel was saying.

After him came a thin man with the face of a Jesuit and cried out
loudly:

“Russia for the Russians!”

A stout merchant kept on repeating:

“If you don’t cheat you can’t sell your goods. Even a fur coat might
be turned inside out. Your penny makes you well thought of anywhere.”

An austere, freckled woman was saying:

“Beat me, seeing that I’m your woman, but there’s no law that’ll let
you tie up with a girl so long as you’ve got a wife living.”

A muzhik walked at her side, a dirty, ill-smelling fellow, who said
nothing and hiccuped.

Once more there was a nobleman, large, stout, bristling,
savage-looking. He ranted:

“Hang them! Flog them!”

Trirodov turned to Kirsha:

“Don’t be afraid, Kirsha--these are dead words.”

Kirsha silently nodded his head.

A mistress and her servant-maid walked together and exchanged
quarrelsome words.

“God didn’t make all the trees in the forest alike. I am a white bone,
you are a black bone. I am a gentlewoman, you are a peasant-woman.”

“You may be a gentlewoman, yet trash.”

“Maybe trash, but still from the gentry.”

Quite close to the magic line there was an apparent effort on the part
of an elegantly dressed woman and a young man of the breed of dandies
to emerge from the general throng. They had been only recently buried,
and they exhaled the odour of fresh corpses. The woman coquettishly
moved her half-putrefied lips and complained in a hoarse, creaking
voice:

“They’ve forced us to walk with all these _Khams_.[16] They might
have let us walk separately from all this common folk.”

The dandy suddenly complained in a squeaking voice:

“Be careful, there, muzhik, don’t nudge. What a dirty fellow!”

The muzhik had evidently only just jumped out of his grave; he was
barely awake, and he had not yet realized himself or understood his
condition. He was all dishevelled and in rags. His eyes were turbid.
Curses and indecent words issued from his dead lips. He was angry
because he had been disturbed, and he bawled:

“By what right? You are lying there and not doing any one any harm,
and are roused and made to walk along. What new rules have they got
for us--disturbing the dead! You’ve only just found your earth--when
up you must be and moving.”

Unsteady on his feet, the muzhik continued to pour out his coarse
abuse; when he saw Trirodov he opened his eyes wide and went straight
to him. He was blindly conscious of being in the presence of a
stranger and an enemy and he wished to destroy him. Kirsha trembled
and grew pale. He clung to his father in fear. The quiet boy,
retaining his tranquil sadness, stood at their side, like an angel on
guard.

The muzhik touched the enchanted line. Pain and terror transpierced
him. He stared with his dead eyes, but quickly lowered them; as he was
unable to withstand the look of the living, he fell with his forehead
to the ground just beyond the line and begged for mercy.

“Go!” said Trirodov.

The muzhik rose to his feet and scampered away. But he soon paused,
and again burst out into abuse; then ran farther.

Two lean, poorly dressed boys, with green faces, walked by. The rags
which bound their feet hung loosely. One of them said:

“Do you understand? They tormented me, tyrannized over me. I ran away
and they caught me again--I had no strength left. I went to the garret
and strangled myself. I don’t know what I shall get for it now.”

The other green boy replied:

“As for me, I was beaten with salted rods. My hands are quite clean.”

“Yes, you are lucky,” said the first boy enviously. “You will get a
little golden wreath, but what will happen to me?”

“I will entreat the angels, the archangels, the cherubim and the
seraphim for you--give me but your full name and address.”

“My sin is quite a big one, and my name is Mitka Sosipatrov, from
Nizhniya Kolotilovka.”

“Don’t be afraid,” said the birched boy. “As soon as they let me in to
the upper chambers, I will at once fall at the feet of the Virgin Mary
until you are forgiven.”

“Yes, do me this great favour.”

Kirsha stood pale. His eyes sparkled. He trembled from head to foot
and kept on repeating:

“Mamma, come to me! Mamma, come to me!”

A radiant apparition suddenly appeared in the throng, and Kirsha
throbbed with joy. Kirsha’s mother passed by--all white, all lovely,
all gentle. She turned her tranquil eyes upon her dear ones and
whispered:

“I will come.”

Kirsha, transported with a quiet joy, stood motionless. His eyes
gleamed like the eyes of the quiet angel who stood there on guard.

Again the dead throng moved on. A governor passed by. All his figure
breathed might and majesty. Yet hardly awake, he grumbled:

“Make way for the Russian Governor! I’ll have no patience with you. I
will not permit it! You cannot frighten me. What! Feed the hungry, you
say?”

He appeared, as it were, to awaken at these words; he looked around
him and said in great astonishment, as he shrugged his shoulders:

“What a strange disorder! How did I get into this crowd? Where is the
police?”

Then he suddenly bawled out:

“Let the Cossacks come!”

In response to the Governor’s cry a detachment of Cossacks came
flying. Without noticing Trirodov and the children, they swept along
past them and savagely flourished their _nagaikas_.[17] The dead,
pressed from behind by the Cossacks’ horses, became a confused,
wavering mass, and answered with malignant laughter to the blows of
the _nagaikas_ upon their lifeless bodies.

The grey witch sat down on a near-by stone and shook with her hideous,
creaking laughter.




CHAPTER XIV


Elisaveta dressed herself up as a boy. She loved to do this and she
did it quite often; so tedious is the monotony of our lives that even
a change of dress furnishes a diversion!

Elisaveta put on a white sailor-jacket with a blue collar, and blue
knee-breeches which revealed the beauty and grace of her sunburnt
lower limbs; she put on a cap, took a fishing-rod and went to the
river. Elisaveta looked like a rather tall stripling of fourteen in
this dress.

It was quiet and bright on the river’s bank. Elisaveta sat down on a
stone at the edge, lowered her feet into the water, and watched the
float. A rowing-boat appeared. Elisaveta looked intently and saw that
it contained Stchemilov. The latter called out:

“I say, my lad, if you belong here, can you tell me if....”

Then he paused because Elisaveta was laughing.

“Well, who would have thought it--comrade Elisaveta?”

“You didn’t recognize me, comrade?” asked Elisaveta with a merry
laugh, as she approached the landing-place where Stchemilov was
already fastening his boat.

“I must confess that I didn’t know you at once,” he replied, as he
pressed her hand warmly. “I have come for you. To-night we are to hold
our mass meeting.”

“Is it really to-night?” asked Elisaveta.

She grew cold from agitation and confusion as she recalled that she
had promised to speak that evening.

“Yes, to-night,” said Stchemilov; “I hope you haven’t changed your
mind. You will speak, eh?”

“I thought it was to be to-morrow,” she replied. “Just wait a moment.
I’ll get a small bundle of clothes. I will change at your place.”

She quickly and gaily tripped up the bank. Stchemilov whistled as he
sat waiting in the boat. Elisaveta soon reappeared, and deftly jumped
into the boat.

It was necessary to row past the whole length of the town. No one on
either bank recognized Elisaveta in her boy’s attire. Stchemilov’s
house, a cabin in the middle of a vegetable garden, stood on a steep
bank of the river, just along the edge of the town.

No one had yet arrived at the house. Elisaveta picked up a periodical
which lay on the table and asked:

“Tell me, comrade, how do you like these verses?”

Stchemilov looked at the periodical, open at a page which contained
Trirodov’s verses. He smiled and said:

“What shall I say? His revolutionary poems are not bad. Nowadays,
however, everybody writes them. As for his other works, they are not
written about us. Noblemen’s delights are not for us.”

“It’s a long time since I’ve been here,” said Elisaveta. “What a mess
you’ve got here.”

“A house without a mistress,” answered Stchemilov, rather confused.

Elisaveta began to put things in order and to clean and to scrub. She
moved about with agile grace. Stchemilov admired her graceful limbs;
it was fascinating to watch the play of the muscles under the brown
skin of her calves. He exclaimed in a clear, almost ecstatic voice:

“How graceful you are, Elisaveta! Like a statue! I never saw such arms
and legs.”

“I feel embarrassed, comrade Aleksei. You praise me to my eyes as if I
were a charming piece of property.”

Stchemilov suddenly flushed with embarrassment; his habitual
self-assurance appeared to have left him unexpectedly. He breathed
heavily and stammered out in confusion:

“Comrade Elisaveta, you are a fine person. Don’t be offended at my
words. I love you. I know that for you social inequality is a silly
thing; and you know that for me your money is of no account. Now if I
am not repugnant to you....”

Elisaveta stood before him calm and yet sad, and as she dried her
hands, grown red from the cold water, with a towel, she said quietly:

“Forgive me, comrade Aleksei--you are right about my views, but I love
another.”

She herself did not know how these words came to be spoken. Love
another! So unexpectedly the secret of her heart revealed itself in
superficial words. But did he love her, that other one?

They were both flustered. Stchemilov strove heroically to control his
agitation. As he looked with his confused eyes into her clear blue
ones he said:

“Forgive me, Elisaveta, and forget what I have said. I didn’t guess
right that time and did the wrong thing. I didn’t think that you’d
love him. Don’t be angry at me and don’t despise me.”

“Enough, Aleksei,” said Elisaveta tenderly. “You know how I respect
you. We are friends. Give me your hand.”

Stchemilov gave her hand a tight, comradely pressure, then bent down
and kissed it. Elisaveta drew nearer to him and kissed his lips with a
tranquil, innocent, delicious kiss, such as a sister gives a brother.
Then she snatched up her bundle and ran into the passage, one of the
doors of which led to a small storeroom where the literature was kept
in a trunk under the floor.

She ran into Kiril on the way.

“Is Aleksei home, my lad?”

“Yes,” said Elisaveta; “enter, comrade Kiril.”

When Kiril heard the familiar voice and, lifting his eyes, saw plaits
of hair wound around the lad’s head, he was astonished. He was very
much embarrassed upon recognizing Elisaveta. She hid herself behind
the door of the storeroom, while Kiril blundered for a long time in
the dark hall, unable in his confusion to find the door.

Others began to come in: there was the school-instructor Bodeyev,
instructor Voronok of the town school, and the imported orator, who
came accompanied by Alkina.

Elisaveta was attired by now in a simple dark blue dress.

“It’s time to start,” said Stchemilov.

Once seated in the rowing-boat, the members of the party became silent
and slightly nervous. Only the new-comer was perfectly calm--he was
used to it. Near-sighted, he looked indifferently out of his
spectacles, now one side, now the other, and told bits of news while
smoking one cigarette after another. He was young, tall, and
flat-chested. He had a lean face, long, smooth, chestnut-coloured
hair, and a scant beard. His flat round cap, reddish in the sun, gave
him the look of an artisan.

It had begun to grow dark by the time they disembarked at the
appointed place. There was still a half-verst to go through the wood
on foot. The evening twilight seemed oppressed under the eternal
vaults of the wood; it hummed and rustled with barely audible noises
and the sad whisperings of stealthy beings.

They gathered at last in a large glade in the midst of a tall, dense
wood. The moon was already high in the sky, and the black shadows of
the trees crept across half of the glade. The trees were intensely
still and pensive, as if they wished to listen to the words of these
people who had collected at their feet. But they really did not care
to listen--they had their own life and were indifferent to all these
people. And they suffered neither joy nor sadness at sheltering in
their dark shade many young girls who were in love with the dream of
liberation--among them Elisaveta, who was also in love with this
dream, and who created for it a temple of young passion and
embroidered into this dream’s design the image of a living man in a
mysterious house. She was deliciously in love and painfully agitated
by the sudden acknowledgment she made of her love in her poignantly
sweet words, “I love another.”

In the dark shade of the trees were red glimmering cigarettes and
pipes. The odour of tobacco mingled with the fresh, nocturnal coolness
and gave it a sweet piquancy. Piquant also, in the nocturnal
stillness, were the sounds of the young, eager voices. And these
people had no concern with the mystery of the wood made audible in the
silence. The people behaved as if they were at home. They sat about
and walked and met each other and chatted. Sometimes, when the din of
talk grew too loud, the leaders of the meeting uttered their warnings.
Then the voices were lowered.

There were about three hundred people of all kinds--labouring men,
young people from schools, young Jews, and very many girls. All the
young Jews and Jewesses of the town had come. They were agitated more
than the rest and their speech nearly always passed into a violent
commotion. They awaited so much, they hoped so passionately! They were
so painfully in love with the dream of liberation!

Some of the instructresses from Trirodov’s colony were also here,
among them the sad Nadezhda and the ecstatic Maria. There were quite a
number of schoolboys and schoolgirls present. These tried to act at
ease, to show that it was not their first occasion of the sort. There
were also many college students, both men and women. The young were
burning with joyous unrest. But all who had gathered were intensely
agitated. It was the sweet agitation of their dream of liberation; how
tenderly and how passionately they were in love with it! And in more
than one young heart virginal passion flowed together with the dream
of liberation; young passionate love flamed with a great fire in the
joy of liberation, making one of liberation and love, of revolt and
sacrifice, of wine and blood--what delicious mystery in love thirsting
and yielding! And more than one pair of eyes sparkled at the sight of
a beloved image, and more than one pair of lips whispered:

“And he’s here!”

“And she’s here!”

In the shade, under the trees, where indiscreet glances could not
penetrate, impatient lips met in a quick, timid kiss. And the first
words were:

“I’m not late, comrade?”

“No, comrade Natalya, you are in time.”

“Let us go over there, comrade Valentine.”

The names were pronounced tenderly. A man in a cap, black shirt,[18]
and high boots, walked up to Elisaveta. He had a small black beard and
moustache, and his face, which was both familiar and unfamiliar, had
something in it that stirred her. He exclaimed:

“Elisaveta, you don’t recognize me?”

She recognized him at once by his voice. A warmth suffused her. She
laughed and said joyously:

“I knew you by your voice alone. Your beard and moustache make you
wholly unrecognizable.”

“They are glued on,” explained Trirodov.

They conversed. He heard some one whisper behind his back:

“That is comrade Elisaveta. She’s considered the first beauty in our
town.”

Trirodov was for some reason overjoyed at these words, partly because
Elisaveta heard them and blushed so furiously that even the dim
moonlight could not hide her blushes.

A few detectives had also managed to find their way here, and there
was even one provocateur. These chattels alone knew that the police
had information about the meeting and that the wood would shortly be
encircled by the Cossacks.

Conversations were kept up among small groups for some time before the
meeting opened. The agitators discussed matters with labouring men who
were not in the party. The more interesting people were introduced to
the invited speaker.

Stchemilov’s loud voice rang out:

“Comrades, attention. I propose comrade Abram as chairman.”

“Agreed, agreed,” came suppressed voices from every side.

Comrade Abram took his place on a high stump of a hewn-down tree. The
speeches began. Elisaveta was nervous until it came her turn to speak.
She was troubled with pain and fear because she knew that Trirodov
would hear her.

Proud, brave watchwords and bold instructions were heard. The
provocateur also made a speech. He urged them to an immediate armed
revolt. Some one’s voice called out:

“Comrades--this man’s a provocateur!”

There was a commotion. The provocateur shouted something in his
defence. He was promptly jostled out.

Then Stchemilov spoke; he was followed by the invited orator.
Elisaveta’s agitation grew.

But when the chairman said, “Comrade Elisaveta, the word belongs to
you,” she suddenly became calm and, having ascended the high stump
that served as the platform, began to speak. Her deep, measured voice
carried far. Some one seemed to echo it in the wood--it was like a
fantastic, restless din. A being beloved by her and near to her sat
there and listened; her beloved, near comrades also listened. Hundreds
of attentive eyes followed her, and the dear friendly looks,
converging like lances under a shield, held her very high in the pure
atmosphere of happiness.

The sweet moments of joy passed by like a short dream. She ended her
speech and came down among the audience, where she was received with
flattering comments and strong pressures of the hand--sometimes, it
must be confessed, a little over-strong.

“I say, comrade, you’ll break my hand. How strong you are!”

And his face would also break into a joyous smile.

The speeches ended. The songs began. The wood re-echoed with proud,
brave words, with a song of freedom and revolt. Suddenly the song
stopped short, a confused murmur ran through the crowd. Some one
shouted:

“The Cossacks!”

Some one shouted:

“Run, comrades!”

Some one ran. Some one shouted:

“Be calm, comrades!”

The Cossacks had hid themselves in the wood a couple of versts from
the meeting. Many of them had managed to take several drinks. As they
sat around their bonfires they began to sing a gay, noisy, indecent
song, but their officers enjoined silence.

A spy came running; he whispered something to the colonel. Soon a
command was given. The Cossacks jumped quickly on their horses and
rode away, leaving the half-consumed bonfire behind them. The dry
faggots and the grass smouldered a long time. The forest caught
fire.[19]

“What’s the matter?” asked Elisaveta.

Some one whispered quickly:

“Do you hear, it’s the Cossacks! I wonder which side they are coming
from. It’s hard to tell which way to run.”

“They are coming from town,” said some one. “The only thing to do is
to go towards Opalikha.”

The leaders began to give orders:

“Comrades, be calm. Scatter as quickly as possible. Don’t jostle. The
road to Dubky is clear.”

A number of horses’ heads suddenly appeared from among the trees quiet
close to Elisaveta, and their dumb but good eyes looked on
incomprehensibly. The crowd of young people began to run, and carried
Elisaveta along with them. She was seized by a feeling of stupor. She
thought:

“What’s the use of running? They’ll overtake us and drive us wherever
they will.”

But she had not enough strength to pause. They were all running, and
she with them. Another detachment of Cossacks appeared in front of
them. Cries and wails went up from the crowd, which began to scatter
in all directions. The Cossacks came on, as it were, in a broad chain.

Many managed to break through, some with blood-stained faces and torn
clothes. The others were driven forward from the rear and the sides
and gradually became a compact mass. It was evident that the Cossacks
were trying to get the crowd into the middle of the glade. Those who
had broken through the ring at the very beginning had some hope of
escape. There were about a hundred people in the ring. They were
driven towards the town, and those who tried to escape were lashed
with the _nagaika_.

A few shots resounded in the distance. The provocateur fired the first
shot--into the air. This aroused the anger of the Cossacks, who began
to shoot at those who ran.

Elisaveta and Alkina managed to escape the first ring together. But
they could hear all around them the cries of the Cossacks. They paused
and pressed close to an old oak, not knowing which way to turn. They
were joined by Trirodov.

“Follow me,” he said to them; “I think I can find a less dangerous
place.”

“What has become of our invited speaker?” asked Alkina.

“Don’t worry about that,” was the impatient reply; “he was the first
to be attended to. He’s out of danger now. You’d better go on
quickly.”

He walked confidently through the bushes and they followed him.

The sounds made by the patrols of Cossacks were heard on every side.
Suddenly the runners were confronted by the figure of a Cossack who
stepped out from the bushes. He aimed his _nagaika_ at Elisaveta,
but she, falling headlong, escaped the brunt of the blow. The Cossack
bent down, caught Elisaveta by her plait of hair, and began to drag
her after him. Elisaveta cried out from pain. Trirodov pulled out a
revolver and shot him almost without taking aim. The Cossack cried out
and let his victim go. All three then made their way through the
bushes. A deep hollow cut their progress short.

“Well, we are almost out of danger here,” said Trirodov.

They lowered themselves, almost rolled down to the bottom of the
hollow. Their faces and hands bore scratches and their clothes were
torn. On one of the sloping sides of the hollow they found a deep
recess made by the rains, and now obscured by the bushes; and here
they hid themselves.

“Presently we’ll make for the river-bank,” said Trirodov. “We are
quite close to it.”

Suddenly they heard the crackle of breaking twigs above them, followed
by a revolver-shot and outcries. A running figure defined itself in
the dark.

“Kiril!” called Elisaveta in a whisper, “come here.”

Kiril heard her, and threw himself through the bushes in the direction
of the hiding-place. Elisaveta could now see, quite close to her, his
fatigued, desperate eyes. There was a loud, near report of a revolver.
Kiril reeled; there was the sound of breaking twigs as he fell heavily
and rolled down the hollow.

Presently a running Cossack came down precipitately from above. He
brushed so closely past them that a twig caught by his body struck
Alkina’s shoulder. But Alkina did not stir; pale, slender, and calm,
she stood tightly pressing her body against the almost perpendicular
wall of their refuge. The Cossack bent over Kiril, examined him
attentively, then muttered as he straightened himself:

“Well, there’s no breath left in him. You’re done for, my clever
chap.”

Then he turned to climb back again. When the rustle of the parted
bushes ceased Trirodov said:

“Now we must walk carefully along this hollow until we come to the
river. There is a bend in the river here in the direction of the
town--we are bound to get somewhere almost across from my place. Then
we must find our way to the other side somehow or other.”

Slowly and cautiously they made their way through the thick growths of
the hollow. They walked in the dark--Trirodov and the two with him,
his chance one and his fated one, sent him by the two Moirae, Aisa and
Ananke.[20]

The bushes became moist and a fresh breeze blew from the river. Then
Alkina came close to Trirodov and whispered to him:

“If you are glad that she loves you, tell me, and I will share your
gladness.”

Trirodov pressed her hand warmly.

The quiet, dim river lay before them. Beyond it the labours and
dangers of life created by the dream of liberation awaited them.

Soon the mist would rise above the river under the cold and witching
moon--soon the misty veil of fantasy would lighten the tedious and
commonplace life, and behind the veil of mist there would rise in dim
outlines another kind of life, creative and unattainable.




CHAPTER XV


That night the streets of Skorodozh were alive with noises--which
gradually died away. The frightened townsmen sprang from their warm
beds, and peering through the half-opened blinds into the dark streets
saw those who had been caught in the woods led away in the custody of
the Cossacks. Then when the stamp of horses’ hoofs and the hum of
human voices subsided, the residents quietly went back to their beds,
and were soon asleep. Lady Godiva would have been highly pleased with
such modest people: they looked, yet did not show themselves, and did
not hinder.

They went to bed again, and muttered something to their wives. The
freedom-loving bourgeois grumbled:

“They won’t let you sleep. The horses’ hoofs make such a noise. They
might employ bicycles instead of horses.”

The night passed like a nightmare for many. It seemed to grip all life
with a cold apprehensiveness, and burdened one’s soul with a hate
towards the earthly life which suffered agony from its bondage to the
flaming, exultant Dragon. Why did he exult? Was it because we beings
of the earth are evil and cruel, and love to torment, to see drops of
blood and tears?

Our dark, earthly nature is suffused with a cruel voluptuousness. Such
is the imperfection of the human breed that a single human vessel
contains all the deepest ecstasies of love and all the lowest delights
of lust, and the mixture is poisoned with shame and with pain--and
with the desire for shame and pain. From one fountain come both the
gladdening raptures and the gladdening lusts of the passions. We
torment others only because it gives us joy.

After the agonies on the way from the wood, after a search had been
made, many of the prisoners were dispatched to prison. Others were set
free.

       *       *       *       *       *

A restless, sluggish, and unfriendly morning rose over the city. From
the wood, just beyond the town, came the half-pleasant,
half-disagreeable odour of a forest fire.

The news about the two dead victims, Kiril and another workman,
Kliukin, a family man, soon spread. Their comrades were excited.

The corpses had been taken to the mortuary of the town hospital. A
large crowd, grave, silent, and resolute in mood, had gathered quite
early near the mortuary. It mostly consisted of labouring men, and
their wives and children. The large square in front of the hospital,
with its dirty, unpaved spots, its trampled grass, its grey, gloomy
little shops, appeared oppressed by an atmosphere of early morning
fatigue. The slant rays of the rising Dragon, veiled with a light
mist, fell upon the scowling faces of the crowd as indifferently as
upon the fence or the closed gates. The Ancient Dragon is not our sun.

The faces of those who stood near the closed gates were scowling. No
one was permitted to enter the hospital. Within, preparations were
going on for a secret burial of the victims. Tumultuous voices of
anger rose in the crowd.

A detachment of Cossacks soon appeared on the scene. They came on
quickly, and paused near the crowd. The beautiful smooth horses
trembled sensitively. The riders were handsome, sun-burnt, black-eyed,
and black-browed; their black hair, not cut in the military fashion,
was visible from under their high hats. The women in the crowd looked
at them now and then with involuntary admiration.

The tumult increased, the crowd continued to grow. The whole square
was alive with people. There seemed to be imminent danger of a bloody
collision.

Trirodov went that morning to the chief of the rural police and to the
officer of the gendarmerie. He wished to convince them that a secret
burial would only add to the workers’ excitement. The chief listened
to him in a dull way, and kept on repeating:

“Impossible. I can’t....”

He gazed down persistently. This caused his neck to look tight, poured
out like copper. And he kept on turning his ring round his finger as
if it were a talisman protecting him from hostile calumny.

The colonel of the gendarmes proved easier to deal with. In the end
Trirodov succeeded in obtaining an order for the surrender of the
bodies of the dead men to their families.

The chief of the rural police arrived in the square. The crowd greeted
him with discordant and angry cries. He stood up in his trap and
motioned with his hand. Every one grew silent. He addressed them:

“Would you like to bury them yourselves? Very well, you shall have
them. Only be careful that nothing happens which shouldn’t happen. In
any case, the Cossacks will be present, in an emergency. And now I
will see that the bodies of your comrades are delivered to you.”




CHAPTER XVI


The sun was already high when Elisaveta awoke. She quickly recalled
all that happened the night before. She took but little time in
dressing and, urged by a suppressed excitement, was soon on the way to
Trirodov in her carriage. Trirodov met her at the gates. He was
returning from town, and he told her briefly about his conferences
with the authorities. Elisaveta said resolutely:

“I want to see the family of the dead man.”

“I don’t know where they live. We shall have to see Voronok first. He
has all the information.”

“Shall we find him at home now?”

“I think so,” said Trirodov. “If he’s at home we’ll all start
together.”

They drove off. The dusty road trailed behind the rapid wheels, and
revealed vistas of depressing commonplaceness. The light dust, stirred
by the wheels into the sultry air, trailed behind the carriage like a
long serpent. The high flaming Dragon looked down from his
inaccessible sky with furious eyes upon the impoverished earth. There
was a thirst for blood in the hot glister of his rays, and there was a
soaring exultation because men had shed some priceless drops of the
wine of life. In the midst of these open, heat-swept spaces, Trirodov,
drawn at this moment into the crowded town life, was addressing his
companion in dull, everyday words:

“They searched many houses early this morning. They found a great deal
of literature at Stchemilov’s. He’s been arrested.”

He also repeated the rumour of whippings at the police-station.
Elisaveta was silent.

Voronok’s house was situated in a very convenient place, somewhere
between the centre of the town and the factory section. This house had
many visitors because Voronok was an assiduous worker in the local
Social Democratic Party. His chief function was to carry on propaganda
among the working men and the young, and incidentally to instil into
them party views and a true understanding of the aims of the working
classes.

Young boys used to come to Voronok, his pupils from the town school,
and these brought their comrades and acquaintances with them--those
whom they met at home or by chance. They were for the most part
charming, sincere, and intelligent youngsters, but very dishevelled
and very self-conscious. Voronok taught them very heartily and with
good results. They assimilated his teachings: a sympathy towards the
working proletariat, a hate towards the satiated bourgeois, a
consciousness of the irreconcilability of the interests of the two
classes, and a few random facts from history. The ragamuffins from the
town school invariably opened every visit to Voronok by complaining
against the school rules and the inspector. They complained chiefly
about trifles. They would say with an injured air:

“They compel us to wear official badges upon our caps.”

“They treat us as if we were little children.”

“They brand us, so that every one may know that we are the boys of the
town school.”

“They force us to cut our hair; why should our hair worry them?”

Voronok sympathized with them fully. This helped him to keep them in a
state of revolt. Their no less unkempt friends, who did not go to
school, also found something to complain about--if not against their
parents, then against the police, indeed against anything that
occurred to them. But their complaints did not contain quite that
poison and steadiness which was instilled into the schoolboys with all
the force of a school. Voronok used to give both classes pamphlets
that cost a kopeck and were intensely strict in their party purity.

The younger of the working men also used to come to Voronok’s house.
There were still others, a ragged, grumbling lot, who appeared to
carry an air of eternal injury with them, as if they had lost all
capacity for smiling and jesting. Voronok took great pains to read the
pamphlets with them, and to explain to them anything that was not
especially clear. Regular hours were allotted for these readings and
conversations. By such means Voronok succeeded in developing the
desired mood in his visitors; all the party shibboleths were
assimilated by them quickly and thoroughly. He also gave them books
for home reading. Many used to buy this literature occasionally.

In this manner, a flood of books and pamphlets continually poured
through Voronok’s house. Sometimes he selected whole libraries, and
sent them by trustworthy p

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