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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Reckless Character, by Ivan Turgenev
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Reckless Character
+       And Other Stories
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+
+Translator: Isabel Hapgood
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2005 [EBook #15994]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A RECKLESS CHARACTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dave Kline, Tapio Riikonen and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+A RECKLESS CHARACTER
+
+And Other Stories
+
+
+BY
+
+IVAN TURGENIEFF
+
+
+Translated from the Russian by
+ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
+
+
+NEW YORK, CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 1907.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+A RECKLESS CHARACTER
+THE DREAM
+FATHER ALEXYEI'S STORY
+OLD PORTRAITS
+THE SONG OF LOVE TRIUMPHANT
+CLARA MILITCH
+POEMS IN PROSE
+ENDNOTES
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A RECKLESS CHARACTER[1]
+
+(1881)
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+There were eight of us in the room, and we were discussing contemporary
+matters and persons,
+
+"I do not understand these gentlemen!" remarked A.--"They are fellows of
+a reckless sort.... Really, desperate.... There has never been anything
+of the kind before."
+
+"Yes, there has," put in P., a grey-haired old man, who had been born
+about the twenties of the present century;--"there were reckless men in
+days gone by also. Some one said of the poet Yazykoff, that he had
+enthusiasm which was not directed to anything, an objectless enthusiasm;
+and it was much the same with those people--their recklessness was
+without an object. But see here, if you will permit me, I will narrate
+to you the story of my grandnephew, Misha Polteff. It may serve as a
+sample of the recklessness of those days."
+
+He made his appearance in God's daylight in the year 1828, I remember,
+on his father's ancestral estate, in one of the most remote nooks of a
+remote government of the steppes. I still preserve a distinct
+recollection of Misha's father, Andrei Nikolaevitch Polteff. He was a
+genuine, old-fashioned landed proprietor, a pious inhabitant of the
+steppes, sufficiently well educated,--according to the standards of that
+epoch,--rather crack-brained, if the truth must be told, and subject, in
+addition, to epileptic fits.... That also is an old-fashioned malady....
+However, Andrei Nikolaevitch's attacks were quiet, and they generally
+terminated in a sleep and in a fit of melancholy.--He was kind of heart,
+courteous in manner, not devoid of some pomposity: I have always
+pictured to myself the Tzar Mikhail Feodorovitch as just that sort of a
+man.
+
+Andrei Nikolaevitch's whole life flowed past in the punctual discharge
+of all the rites established since time immemorial, in strict conformity
+with all the customs of ancient-orthodox, Holy-Russian life. He rose and
+went to bed, he ate and went to the bath, he waxed merry or wrathful (he
+did both the one and the other rarely, it is true), he even smoked his
+pipe, he even played cards (two great innovations!), not as suited his
+fancy, not after his own fashion, but in accordance with the rule and
+tradition handed down from his ancestors, in proper and dignified style.
+He himself was tall of stature, of noble mien and brawny; he had a
+quiet and rather hoarse voice, as is frequently the case with virtuous
+Russians; he was neat about his linen and his clothing, wore white
+neckerchiefs and long-skirted coats of snuff-brown hue, but his noble
+blood made itself manifest notwithstanding; no one would have taken him
+for a priest's son or a merchant! Andrei Nikolaevitch always knew, in
+all possible circumstances and encounters, precisely how he ought to act
+and exactly what expressions he must employ; he knew when he ought to
+take medicine, and what medicine to take, which symptoms he should heed
+and which might be disregarded ... in a word, he knew everything that it
+was proper to do.... It was as though he said: "Everything has been
+foreseen and decreed by the old men--the only thing is not to devise
+anything of your own.... And the chief thing of all is, don't go even as
+far as the threshold without God's blessing!"--I am bound to admit that
+deadly tedium reigned in his house, in those low-ceiled, warm, dark
+rooms which so often resounded from the chanting of vigils and
+prayer-services,[2] with an odour of incense and fasting-viands,[3]
+which almost never left them!
+
+Andrei Nikolaevitch had married, when he was no longer in his first
+youth, a poor young noblewoman of the neighbourhood, a very nervous and
+sickly person, who had been reared in one of the government institutes
+for gentlewomen. She played far from badly on the piano; she spoke
+French in boarding-school fashion; she was given to enthusiasm, and
+still more addicted to melancholy, and even to tears.... In a word, she
+was of an uneasy character. As she considered that her life had been
+ruined, she could not love her husband, who, "as a matter of course,"
+did not understand her; but she respected, she tolerated him; and as she
+was a thoroughly honest and perfectly cold being, she never once so much
+as thought of any other "object." Moreover, she was constantly engrossed
+by anxieties: in the first place, over her really feeble health; in the
+second place, over the health of her husband, whose fits always inspired
+her with something akin to superstitious terror; and, in conclusion,
+over her only son, Misha, whom she reared herself with great zeal.
+Andrei Nikolaevitch did not prevent his wife's busying herself with
+Misha--but on one condition: she was never, under any circumstances, to
+depart from the limits, which had been defined once for all, wherein
+everything in his house must revolve! Thus, for example: during the
+Christmas holidays and Vasily's evening preceding the New Year, Misha
+was not only permitted to dress up in costume along with the other
+"lads,"--doing so was even imposed upon him as an obligation....[4]
+On the other hand, God forbid that he should do it at any other time!
+And so forth, and so forth.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I remember this Misha at the age of thirteen. He was a very comely lad
+with rosy little cheeks and soft little lips (and altogether he was soft
+and plump), with somewhat prominent, humid eyes; carefully brushed and
+coifed--a regular little girl!--There was only one thing about him which
+displeased me: he laughed rarely; but when he did laugh his teeth, which
+were large, white, and pointed like those of a wild animal, displayed
+themselves unpleasantly; his very laugh had a sharp and even
+fierce--almost brutal--ring to it; and evil flashes darted athwart his
+eyes. His mother always boasted of his being so obedient and polite, and
+that he was not fond of consorting with naughty boys, but always was
+more inclined to feminine society.
+
+"He is his mother's son, an effeminate fellow," his father, Andrei
+Nikolaevitch, was wont to say of him:--"but, on the other hand, he
+likes to go to God's church.... And that delights me."
+
+Only one old neighbour, a former commissary of the rural police, once
+said in my presence concerning Misha:--"Good gracious! he will turn out
+a rebel." And I remember that that word greatly surprised me at the
+time. The former commissary of police, it is true, had a habit of
+descrying rebels everywhere.
+
+Just this sort of exemplary youth did Misha remain until the age of
+eighteen,--until the death of his parents, whom he lost on almost one
+and the same day. As I resided constantly in Moscow, I heard nothing
+about my young relative. Some one who came to town from his government
+did, it is true, inform me that Misha had sold his ancestral estate for
+a song; but this bit of news seemed to me altogether too
+incredible!--And lo! suddenly, one autumn morning, into the courtyard of
+my house dashes a calash drawn by a pair of splendid trotters, with a
+monstrous coachman on the box; and in the calash, wrapped in a cloak of
+military cut with a two-arshin[5] beaver collar, and a fatigue-cap over
+one ear--_a la diable m'emporte_--sits Misha!
+
+On catching sight of me (I was standing at the drawing-room window and
+staring in amazement at the equipage which had dashed in), he burst into
+his sharp laugh, and jauntily shaking the lapels of his cloak, he
+sprang out of the calash and ran into the house.
+
+"Misha! Mikhail Andreevitch!" I was beginning ... "is it you?"
+
+"Call me 'thou' and 'Misha,'" he interrupted me.--"'Tis I ... 'tis I, in
+person.... I have come to Moscow ... to take a look at people ... and to
+show myself. So I have dropped in on you.--What do you think of my
+trotters?... Hey?" Again he laughed loudly.
+
+Although seven years had elapsed since I had seen Misha for the last
+time, yet I recognised him on the instant.--His face remained thoroughly
+youthful and as comely as of yore; his moustache had not even sprouted;
+but under his eyes on his cheeks a puffiness had made its appearance,
+and an odour of liquor proceeded from his mouth.
+
+"And hast thou been long in Moscow?" I inquired.--"I supposed that thou
+wert off there in the country, managing thy estate...."
+
+"Eh! I immediately got rid of the village!--As soon as my parents
+died,--may the kingdom of heaven be theirs,"--(Misha crossed himself
+with sincerity, without the slightest hypocrisy)--"I instantly, without
+the slightest delay ... _ein, zwei, drei_! Ha-ha! I let it go cheap, the
+rascally thing! Such a scoundrel turned up.--Well, never mind! At all
+events, I shall live at my ease--and amuse others.--But why do you stare
+at me so?--Do you really think that I ought to have spun the affair out
+indefinitely?... My dear relative, can't I have a drink?"
+
+Misha talked with frightful rapidity, hurriedly and at the same time as
+though half asleep.
+
+"Good mercy, Misha!"--I shouted: "Have the fear of God before thine
+eyes! How dreadful is thine aspect, in what a condition thou art! And
+thou wishest another drink! And to sell such a fine estate for a
+song!..."
+
+"I always fear God and remember him," he caught me up.--"And he 's
+good--God, I mean.... He'll forgive! And I also am good.... I have never
+injured any one in my life as yet. And a drink is good also; and as for
+hurting ... it won't hurt anybody, either. And as for my looks, they are
+all right.... If thou wishest, uncle, I'll walk a line on the floor. Or
+shall I dance a bit?"
+
+"Akh, please drop that!--What occasion is there for dancing? Thou hadst
+better sit down."
+
+"I don't mind sitting down.... But why don't you say something about my
+greys? Just look at them, they're regular lions! I'm hiring them for the
+time being, but I shall certainly buy them together with the coachman.
+It is incomparably cheaper to own one's horses. And I did have the
+money, but I dropped it last night at faro.--Never mind, I'll retrieve
+my fortunes to-morrow. Uncle ... how about that drink?"
+
+I still could not collect myself.--"Good gracious! Misha, how old art
+thou? Thou shouldst not be occupying thyself with horses, or with
+gambling ... thou shouldst enter the university or the service."
+
+Misha first roared with laughter again, then he emitted a prolonged
+whistle.
+
+"Well, uncle, I see that thou art in a melancholy frame of mind just
+now. I'll call another time.--But see here: just look in at Sokolniki[6]
+some evening. I have pitched my tent there. The Gipsies sing.... Well,
+well! One can hardly restrain himself! And on the tent there is a
+pennant, and on the pennant is written in bi-i-ig letters: 'The Band of
+Polteva[7] Gipsies.' The pennant undulates like a serpent; the letters
+are gilded; any one can easily read them. The entertainment is whatever
+any one likes!... They refuse nothing. It has kicked up a dust all over
+Moscow ... my respects.... Well? Will you come? I've got a Gipsy
+there--a regular asp! Black as my boot, fierce as a dog, and eyes ...
+regular coals of fire! One can't possibly make out whether she is
+kissing or biting.... Will you come, uncle?... Well, farewell for the
+present!"
+
+And abruptly embracing me and kissing me with a smack on my shoulder,
+Misha darted out into the court to his calash, waving his cap over his
+head, and uttering a yell; the monstrous coachman[8] bestowed upon him
+an oblique glance across his beard, the trotters dashed forward, and all
+disappeared!
+
+On the following day, sinful man that I am, I did go to Sokolniki, and
+actually did see the tent with the pennant and the inscription. The
+tent-flaps were raised; an uproar, crashing, squealing, proceeded
+thence. A crowd of people thronged around it. On the ground, on an
+outspread rug, sat the Gipsy men and Gipsy women, singing, and thumping
+tambourines; and in the middle of them, with a guitar in his hands, clad
+in a red-silk shirt and full trousers of velvet, Misha was gyrating like
+a whirligig.--"Gentlemen! Respected sirs! Pray enter! The performance is
+about to begin! Free!"--he was shouting in a cracked voice.--"Hey there!
+Champagne! Bang! In the forehead! On the ceiling! Akh, thou rascal, Paul
+de Kock!"--Luckily, he did not catch sight of me, and I hastily beat a
+retreat.
+
+I shall not dilate, gentlemen, on my amazement at the sight of such a
+change. And, as a matter of fact, how could that peaceable, modest lad
+suddenly turn into a tipsy good-for-nothing? Was it possible that all
+this had been concealed within him since his childhood, and had
+immediately come to the surface as soon as the weight of parental
+authority had been removed from him?--And that he had kicked up a dust
+in Moscow, as he had expressed it, there could be no possible doubt,
+either. I had seen rakes in my day; but here something frantic, some
+frenzy of self-extermination, some sort of recklessness, had made itself
+manifest!
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+This diversion lasted for two months.... And lo! again I am standing at
+the window of the drawing-room and looking out into the courtyard....
+Suddenly--what is this?... Through the gate with quiet step enters a
+novice.... His conical cap is pulled down on his brow, his hair is
+combed smoothly and flows from under it to right and left ... he wears a
+long cassock and a leather girdle.... Can it be Misha? It is!
+
+I go out on the steps to meet him.... "What is the meaning of this
+masquerade?" I ask.
+
+"It is not a masquerade, uncle," Misha answers me, with a deep
+sigh;--"but as I have squandered all my property to the last kopek, and
+as a mighty repentance has seized upon me, I have made up my mind to
+betake myself to the Troitzko-Sergieva Lavra,[9] to pray away my sins.
+For what asylum is now left to me?... And so I have come to bid you
+farewell, uncle, like the Prodigal Son...."
+
+I gazed intently at Misha. His face was the same as ever, fresh and rosy
+(by the way, it never changed to the very end), and his eyes were humid
+and caressing and languishing, and his hands were small and white....
+But he reeked of liquor.
+
+"Very well!" I said at last: "It is a good move if there is no other
+issue. But why dost thou smell of liquor?"
+
+"Old habit," replied Misha, and suddenly burst out laughing, but
+immediately caught himself up, and making a straight, low, monastic
+obeisance, he added:--"Will not you contribute something for the
+journey? For I am going to the monastery on foot...."
+
+"When?"
+
+"To-day ... at once."
+
+"Why art thou in such a hurry?"
+
+"Uncle! my motto has always been 'Hurry! Hurry!'"
+
+"But what is thy motto now?"
+
+"It is the same now.... Only '_Hurry_--to good!'"
+
+So Misha went away, leaving me to meditate over the mutability of human
+destinies.
+
+But he speedily reminded me of his existence. A couple of months after
+his visit I received a letter from him,--the first of those letters with
+which he afterward favoured me. And note this peculiarity: I have rarely
+beheld a neater, more legible handwriting than was possessed by this
+unmethodical man. The style of his letters also was very regular, and
+slightly florid. The invariable appeals for assistance alternated with
+promises of amendment, with honourable words and with oaths.... All this
+appeared to be--and perhaps was--sincere. Misha's signature at the end
+of his letters was always accompanied by peculiar flourishes, lines and
+dots, and he used a great many exclamation-points. In that first letter
+Misha informed me of a new "turn in his fortune." (Later on he called
+these turns "dives" ... and he dived frequently.) He had gone off to the
+Caucasus to serve the Tzar and fatherland "with his breast," in the
+capacity of a yunker. And although a certain benevolent aunt had
+commiserated his poverty-stricken condition and had sent him an
+insignificant sum, nevertheless he asked me to help him to equip
+himself. I complied with his request, and for a period of two years
+thereafter I heard nothing about him. I must confess that I entertained
+strong doubts as to his having gone to the Caucasus. But it turned out
+that he really had gone thither, had entered the T---- regiment as
+yunker, through influence, and had served in it those two years. Whole
+legends were fabricated there about him. One of the officers in his
+regiment communicated them to me.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+I learned a great deal which I had not expected from him. I was not
+surprised, of course, that he had proved to be a poor, even a downright
+worthless military man and soldier; but what I had not expected was,
+that he had displayed no special bravery; that in battle he wore a
+dejected and languid aspect, as though he were partly bored, partly
+daunted. All discipline oppressed him, inspired him with sadness; he was
+audacious to recklessness when it was a question of himself personally;
+there was no wager too crazy for him to accept; but do evil to others,
+kill, fight, he could not, perhaps because he had a good heart,--and
+perhaps because his "cotton-wool" education (as he expressed it) had
+enervated him. He was ready to exterminate himself in any sort of way at
+any time.... But others--no. "The devil only can make him out," his
+comrades said of him:--"he's puny, a rag---and what a reckless fellow he
+is--a regular dare-devil!"--I happened afterward to ask Misha what evil
+spirit prompted him, made him indulge in drinking-bouts, risk his life,
+and so forth. He always had one answer: "Spleen."
+
+"But why hast thou spleen?"
+
+"Just because I have, good gracious! One comes to himself, recovers his
+senses, and begins to meditate about poverty, about injustice, about
+Russia.... Well, and that settles it! Immediately one feels such spleen
+that he is ready to send a bullet into his forehead! One goes on a
+carouse instinctively."
+
+"But why hast thou mixed up Russia with this?"
+
+"What else could I do? Nothing!--That's why I am afraid to think."
+
+"All that--that spleen--comes of thy idleness."
+
+"But I don't know how to do anything, uncle! My dear relative! Here now,
+if it were a question of taking and staking my life on a card,--losing
+my all and shooting myself, bang! in the neck!--I can do that!--Here
+now, tell me what to do, what to risk my life for.--I'll do it this very
+minute!..."
+
+"But do thou simply live.... Why risk thy life?"
+
+"I can't!--You will tell me that I behave recklessly. What else can I
+do?... One begins to think--and, O Lord, what comes into his head! 'T is
+only the Germans who think!..."
+
+What was the use of arguing with him? He was a reckless man--and that is
+all there is to say!
+
+I will repeat to you two or three of the Caucasian legends to which I
+have alluded. One day, in the company of the officers, Misha began to
+brag of a Circassian sabre which he had obtained in barter.--"A genuine
+Persian blade!"--The officers expressed doubt as to whether it were
+really genuine. Misha began to dispute.--"See here," he exclaimed at
+last,--"they say that the finest judge of Circassian sabres is one-eyed
+Abdulka. I will go to him and ask."--The officers were dumbfounded.
+
+"What Abdulka? The one who lives in the mountains? The one who is not at
+peace with us? Abdul-Khan?"
+
+"The very man."
+
+"But he will take thee for a scout, he will place thee in the
+bug-house,--or he will cut off thy head with that same sabre. And how
+wilt thou make thy way to him? They will seize thee immediately."
+
+"But I will go to him, nevertheless."
+
+"We bet that thou wilt not go!"
+
+"I take your bet!"
+
+And Misha instantly saddled his horse and rode off to Abdulka. He was
+gone for three days. All were convinced that he had come to some
+dreadful end. And behold! he came back, somewhat tipsy, and with a
+sabre, only not the one which he had carried away with him, but
+another. They began to question him.
+
+"It's all right," said he. "Abdulka is a kind man. At first he really
+did order fetters to be riveted on my legs, and was even preparing to
+impale me on a stake. But I explained to him why I had come. 'Do not
+expect any ransom from me,' said I. 'I haven't a farthing to my
+name--and I have no relatives.'--Abdulka was amazed; he stared at me
+with his solitary eye.-'Well,' says he, 'thou art the chief of heroes,
+Russian! Am I to believe thee?'--'Believe me,' said I; 'I never lie'
+(and Misha really never did lie).--Abdulka looked at me again.-'And dost
+thou know how to drink wine?'-'I do,' said I; 'as much as thou wilt
+give, so much will I drink.'--Again Abdulka was astonished, and
+mentioned Allah. And then he ordered his daughter, or some pretty
+maiden, whoever she was,--anyhow, she had the gaze of a jackal,--to
+fetch a leathern bottle of wine.--And I set to work.--'But thy sabre is
+spurious,' says he; 'here, take this genuine one. And now thou and I are
+friends.'--And you have lost your wager, gentlemen, so pay up."
+
+A second legend concerning Misha runs as follows. He was passionately
+fond of cards; but as he had no money and did not pay his gambling debts
+(although he was never a sharper), no one would any longer sit down to
+play with him. So one day he began to importune a brother officer, and
+insisted upon the latter's playing with him.
+
+"But thou wilt be sure to lose, and thou wilt not pay."
+
+"I will not pay in money, that's true--but I will shoot a hole through
+my left hand with this pistol here!"
+
+"But what profit is there for me in that?"
+
+"No profit whatever--but it's a curious thing, nevertheless."
+
+This conversation took place after a carouse, in the presence of
+witnesses. Whether Misha's proposal really did strike the officer as
+curious or not,--at all events, he consented. The cards were brought,
+the game began. Misha was lucky; he won one hundred rubles. And
+thereupon his opponent smote himself on the forehead.
+
+"What a blockhead I am!" he cried.--"On what a bait was I caught! If
+thou hadst lost, much thou wouldst have shot thyself through the
+hand!--so it's just an assault on my pocket!"
+
+"That's where thou art mistaken," retorted Misha:--"I have won--but I'll
+shoot the hole through my hand."
+
+He seized his pistol, and bang! shot himself through the hand. The
+bullet went clear through ... and a week later the wound was completely
+healed!
+
+On another occasion still, Misha is riding along the road by night with
+his comrades.... And they see yawning, right by the side of the road, a
+narrow ravine in the nature of a cleft, dark, very dark, and the bottom
+of it not visible.
+
+"Here now," says one comrade, "Misha is reckless enough about some
+things, but he will not leap into this ravine."
+
+"Yes, I will!"
+
+"No, thou wilt not, because it is, probably, ten fathoms deep, and thou
+mightest break thy neck."
+
+His friend knew how to attack him--through his vanity.... Misha had a
+great deal of it.
+
+"But I will leap, nevertheless! Wilt thou bet on it? Ten rubles."
+
+"All right!"
+
+And before his comrade had managed to finish the last word Misha flew
+off his horse into the ravine, and crashed down on the stones. They were
+all fairly petrified with horror.... A good minute passed, and they
+heard Misha's voice proceeding as though from the bowels of the earth,
+and very dull:
+
+"I'm whole! I landed on sand.... But the descent was long! Ten rubles on
+you!"
+
+"Climb out!" shouted his comrades.
+
+"Yes, climb out!"--returned Misha. "Damn it! One can't climb out of
+here! You will have to ride off now for ropes and lanterns. And in the
+meanwhile, so that I may not find the waiting tedious, toss me down a
+flask...."
+
+And so Misha had to sit for five hours at the bottom of the ravine; and
+when they dragged him out, it appeared that he had a dislocated
+shoulder. But this did not daunt him in the least. On the following day
+a blacksmith bone-setter set his shoulder, and he used it as though
+nothing were the matter.
+
+Altogether, his health was remarkable, unprecedented. I have already
+told you that until his death he preserved an almost childish freshness
+of complexion. He did not know what it was to be ill, in spite of all
+his excesses; the vigour of his constitution was not affected in a
+single instance. Where any other man would have fallen dangerously ill,
+or even have died, he merely shook himself like a duck in the water, and
+became more blooming than ever. Once--that also was in the Caucasus....
+This legend is improbable, it is true, but from it one can judge what
+Misha was regarded as capable of doing.... So then, once, in the
+Caucasus, when in a state of intoxication, he fell into a small stream
+that covered the lower part of his body; his head and arms remained
+exposed on the bank. The affair took place in winter; a rigorous frost
+set in; and when he was found on the following morning, his legs and
+body were visible beneath a stout crust of ice which had frozen over in
+the course of the night--and he never even had a cold in the head in
+consequence! On another occasion (this happened in Russia, near
+Orel,[10] and also during a severe frost), he chanced to go to a
+suburban eating-house in company with seven young theological students.
+These theological students were celebrating their graduation
+examination, and had invited Misha, as a charming fellow, "a man with a
+sigh," as it was called then. They drank a great deal; and when, at
+last, the merry crew were preparing to depart, Misha, dead drunk, was
+found to be already in a state of unconsciousness. The whole seven
+theological students had between them only one troika sledge with a high
+back;[11]--where were they to put the helpless body? Then one of the
+young men, inspired by classical reminiscences, suggested that Misha be
+tied by the feet to the back of the sledge, as Hector was to the chariot
+of Achilles! The suggestion was approved ... and bouncing over the
+hummocks, sliding sideways down the declivities, with his feet strung up
+in the air, and his head dragging through the snow, our Misha traversed
+on his back the distance of two versts which separated the restaurant
+from the town, and never even so much as coughed or frowned. With such
+marvellous health had nature endowed him!
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Leaving the Caucasus, he presented himself once more in Moscow, in a
+Circassian coat, with cartridge-pouches on the breast, a dagger in his
+belt, and a tall fur cap on his head. From this costume he did not part
+until the end, although he was no longer in the military service, from
+which he had been dismissed for not reporting on time. He called on me,
+borrowed a little money ... and then began his "divings," his progress
+through the tribulations,[12] or, as he expressed it, "through the seven
+Semyons";[13] then began his sudden absences and returns, the
+despatching of beautifully-written letters addressed to all possible
+persons, beginning with the Metropolitan and ending with riding-masters
+and midwives! Then began the visits to acquaintances and strangers! And
+here is one point which must be noted: in making his calls he did not
+cringe and did not importune; but, on the contrary, he behaved himself
+in decorous fashion, and even wore a cheery and pleasant aspect,
+although an ingrained odour of liquor accompanied him everywhere--and
+his Oriental costume was gradually reduced to rags.
+
+"Give--God will reward you--although I do not deserve it," he was
+accustomed to say, smiling brightly and blushing openly. "If you do not
+give, you will be entirely in the right, and I shall not be angry in the
+least. I shall support myself. God will provide! For there are many,
+very many people who are poorer and more worthy than I!"
+
+Misha enjoyed particular success with women; he understood how to arouse
+their compassion. And do not think that he was or imagined himself to be
+a Lovelace.... Oh, no! In that respect he was very modest. Whether he
+had inherited from his parents such cold blood, or whether herein was
+expressed his disinclination to do evil to any one,--since, according to
+his ideas, to consort with a woman means inevitably to insult the
+woman,--I will not take it upon myself to decide; only, in his relations
+with the fair sex he was extremely delicate. The women felt this, and
+all the more willingly did they pity and aid him until he, at last,
+repelled them by his sprees and hard drinking, by the recklessness of
+which I have already spoken.... I cannot hit upon any other word.
+
+On the other hand, in other respects he had already lost all delicacy
+and had gradually descended to the extreme depths of degradation. He
+once went so far that in the Assembly of Nobility of T---- he placed on
+the table a jug with the inscription:
+
+"Any one who finds it agreeable to tweak the nose of hereditary
+nobleman[14] Polteff (whose authentic documents are herewith appended)
+may satisfy his desire, on condition that he puts a ruble in this jug."
+
+And it is said that there were persons who did care to tweak the
+nobleman's nose! It is true that he first all but throttled one amateur
+who, having put but one ruble in the jug, tweaked his nose twice, and
+then made him sue for pardon; it is true also that he immediately
+distributed to other tatterdemalions a portion of the money thus
+secured ... but, nevertheless, what outrageous conduct!
+
+In the course of his wanderings through the seven Semyons he had also
+reached his ancestral nest, which he had sold for a song to a speculator
+and usurer well known at that period. The speculator was at home, and on
+learning of the arrival of the former owner, who had been transformed
+into a tramp, he gave orders that he was not to be admitted into the
+house, and that in case of need he was to be flung out by the scruff of
+the neck. Misha declared that he would not enter the house, defiled as
+it was by the presence of a scoundrel; that he would allow no one to
+throw him out; but that he was on his way to the churchyard to salute
+the dust of his ancestors. This he did. At the churchyard he was joined
+by an old house-serf, who had formerly been his man-nurse. The
+speculator had deprived the old man of his monthly stipend and expelled
+him from the home farm; from that time forth the man sought shelter in
+the kennel of a peasant. Misha had managed his estate for so short a
+time that he had not succeeded in leaving behind him a specially good
+memory of himself; but the old servitor had not been able to resist,
+nevertheless, and on hearing of his young master's arrival, he had
+immediately hastened to the churchyard, had found Misha seated on the
+ground among the mortuary stones, had begged leave to kiss his hand in
+memory of old times, and had even melted into tears as he gazed at the
+rags wherewith the once petted limbs of his nursling were swathed. Misha
+looked long and in silence at the old man.
+
+"Timofei!" he said at last.
+
+Timofei gave a start.
+
+"What do you wish?"
+
+"Hast thou a spade?"
+
+"I can get one.... But what do you want with a spade, Mikhailo
+Andreitch?"
+
+"I want to dig a grave for myself here, Timofei; and lie down here
+forever between my parents. For this is the only spot which is left to
+me in the world. Fetch the spade!"
+
+"I obey," said Timofei; and went off and brought it.
+
+And Misha immediately began to dig up the earth, while Timofei stood by
+with his chin propped on his hand, repeating: "That's the only thing
+left for thee and me, master!"
+
+And Misha dug and dug, inquiring from time to time: "Life isn't worth
+living, is it, Timofei?"
+
+"It is not, dear little father."
+
+The hole had already grown fairly deep. People saw Misha's work and ran
+to report about it to the speculator-owner. At first the speculator flew
+into a rage, and wanted to send for the police. "What hypocrisy!" he
+said. But afterward, reflecting, probably, that it would be inconvenient
+to have a row with that lunatic, and that a scandal might be the result,
+he betook himself in person to the churchyard, and approaching the
+toiling Misha, he made a polite obeisance to him. The latter continued
+to dig, as though he had not noticed his successor.
+
+"Mikhail Andreitch," began the speculator, "permit me to inquire what
+you are doing there?"
+
+"As you see--I am digging a grave for myself."
+
+"Why are you doing that?"
+
+"Because I do not wish to live any longer."
+
+The speculator fairly flung apart his hands in surprise.--"You do not
+wish to live?"
+
+Misha cast a menacing glance at the speculator:--"Does that surprise
+you? Are not you the cause of it all?... Is it not you?... Is it not
+thou?...[15] Is it not thou, Judas, who hast robbed me, by taking
+advantage of my youth? Dost not thou skin the peasants? Is it not thou
+who hast deprived this decrepit old man of his daily bread? Is it not
+thou?... O Lord! Everywhere there is injustice, and oppression, and
+villainy.... So down with everything,--and with me also! I don't wish to
+live--I don't wish to live any longer in Russia!"--And the spade made
+swifter progress than ever in Misha's hands.
+
+"The devil knows the meaning of this!" thought the speculator: "he
+actually is burying himself."--"Mikhail Andreitch,"--he began afresh,
+"listen; I really am guilty toward you; people did not represent you
+properly to me."
+
+Misha went on digging.
+
+"But why this recklessness?"
+
+Misha went on digging--and flung the dirt on the speculator, as much as
+to say: "Take that, earth-devourer!"
+
+"Really, you have no cause for this. Will not you come to my house to
+eat and rest?"
+
+Misha raised his head a little. "Now you're talking! And will there be
+anything to drink?"
+
+The speculator was delighted.--"Good gracious!... I should think so!"
+
+"And dost thou invite Timofei also?"
+
+"But why ... well, I invite him also."
+
+Misha reflected.--"Only look out ... for thou didst turn me out of
+doors.... Don't think thou art going to get off with one bottle!"
+
+"Do not worry ... there will be as much as you wish of everything."
+
+Misha flung aside his spade.... "Well, Timosha," he said, addressing his
+old man-nurse, "let us honour the host.... Come along!"
+
+"I obey," replied the old man.
+
+And all three wended their way toward the house.
+
+The speculator knew with whom he had to deal. Misha made him promise as
+a preliminary, it is true, that he would "allow all privileges" to the
+peasants;--but an hour later that same Misha, together with Timofei,
+both drunk, danced a gallopade through those rooms where the pious shade
+of Andrei Nikolaitch seemed still to be hovering; and an hour later
+still, Misha, so sound asleep that he could not be waked (liquor was his
+great weakness), was placed in a peasant-cart, together with his kazak
+cap and his dagger, and sent off to the town, five-and-twenty versts
+distant,--and there was found under a fence.... Well, and Timofei, who
+still kept his feet and merely hiccoughed, was "pitched out neck and
+crop," as a matter of course. The master had made a failure of his
+attempt. So they might as well let the servant pay the penalty!
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Again considerable time elapsed and I heard nothing of Misha.... God
+knows where he had vanished.--One day, as I was sitting before the
+samovar at a posting-station on the T---- highway, waiting for horses,
+I suddenly heard, under the open window of the station-room, a hoarse
+voice uttering in French:--"_Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitie d'un
+pauvre gentilhomme ruine!_".... I raised my head and looked.... The kazak
+cap with the fur peeled off, the broken cartridge-pouches on the
+tattered Circassian coat, the dagger in a cracked sheath, the bloated
+but still rosy face, the dishevelled but still thick hair.... My God!
+It was Misha! He had already come to begging alms on the highways!--I
+involuntarily uttered an exclamation. He recognised me, shuddered,
+turned away, and was about to withdraw from the window. I stopped
+him ... but what was there that I could say to him? Certainly I could
+not read him a lecture!... In silence I offered him a five-ruble
+bank-note. With equal silence he grasped it in his still white and
+plump, though trembling and dirty hand, and disappeared round the
+corner of the house.
+
+They did not furnish me with horses very promptly, and I had time to
+indulge in cheerless meditations on the subject of my unexpected
+encounter with Misha. I felt conscience-stricken that I had let him go
+in so unsympathetic a manner.--At last I proceeded on my journey, and
+after driving half a verst from the posting-station I observed, ahead of
+me on the road, a crowd of people moving along with a strange and as it
+were measured tread. I overtook this crowd,--and what did I see?--Twelve
+beggars, with wallets on their shoulders, were walking by twos, singing
+and skipping as they went,---and at their head danced Misha, stamping
+time with his feet and saying: "Natchiki-tchikaldi, tchuk-tchuk-tchuk!
+Natchiki-tchikaldi, tchuk-tchuk-tchuk!"
+
+As soon as my calash came on a level with him, and he caught sight of
+me, he immediately began to shout, "Hurrah! Halt, draw up in line! Eyes
+front, my guard of the road!"
+
+The beggars took up his cry and halted,--while he, with his habitual
+laugh, sprang upon the carriage-step, and again yelled: "Hurrah!"
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" I asked, with involuntary amazement.
+
+"This? This is my squad, my army; all beggars, God's people, my friends!
+Each one of them, thanks to your kindness, has quaffed a cup of liquor:
+and now we are all rejoicing and making merry!... Uncle! 'Tis only with
+the beggars and God's poor that one can live in the world, you know ...
+by God, that's so!"
+
+I made him no reply ... but this time he seemed to me such a
+good-natured soul, his face expressed such childlike ingenuousness ... a
+light suddenly seemed to dawn upon me, and there came a prick at my
+heart....
+
+"Get into the calash with me," I said to him.
+
+He was amazed....
+
+"What? Get into the calash?"
+
+"Get in, get in!" I repeated. "I want to make thee a proposition. Get
+in!... Drive on with me."
+
+"Well, you command."--He got in.--"Come, and as for you, my dear
+friends, respected comrades," he added to the beggars: "good-bye! Until
+we meet again!"--Misha took off his kazak cap and made a low bow.--The
+beggars all seemed to be dumbfounded.... I ordered the coachman to whip
+up the horses, and the calash rolled on.
+
+This is what I wished to propose to Misha: the idea had suddenly
+occurred to me to take him into my establishment, into my country-house,
+which was situated about thirty versts from that posting-station,--to
+save him, or, at least, to make an effort to save him.
+
+"Hearken, Misha," said I; "wilt thou settle down with me?... Thou shalt
+have everything provided for thee, clothes and under-linen shall be made
+for thee, thou shalt be properly fitted out, and thou shalt receive
+money for tobacco and so forth, only on one condition: not to drink
+liquor!... Dost thou accept?"
+
+Misha was even frightened with joy. He opened his eyes very wide, turned
+crimson, and suddenly falling on my shoulder, he began to kiss me and to
+repeat in a spasmodic voice:--"Uncle ... benefactor.... May God reward
+you!..." He melted into tears at last, and doffing his kazak cap, began
+to wipe his eyes, his nose, and his lips with it.
+
+"Look out," I said to him. "Remember the condition--not to drink
+liquor!"
+
+"Why, damn it!" he exclaimed, flourishing both hands, and as a result
+of that energetic movement I was still more strongly flooded with that
+spirituous odour wherewith he was thoroughly impregnated.... "You see,
+dear uncle, if you only knew my life.... If it were not for grief, cruel
+Fate, you know.... But now I swear,--I swear that I will reform, and
+will prove.... Uncle, I have never lied--ask any one you like if I
+have.... I am an honourable, but an unhappy man, uncle; I have never
+known kindness from any one...."
+
+At this point he finally dissolved in sobs. I tried to soothe him and
+succeeded, for when we drove up to my house Misha had long been sleeping
+the sleep of the dead, with his head resting on my knees.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+He was immediately allotted a special room, and also immediately, as the
+first measure, taken to the bath, which was absolutely indispensable.
+All his garments, and his dagger and tall kazak cap and hole-ridden
+shoes, were carefully laid away in the storehouse; clean linen was put
+on him, slippers, and some of my clothing, which, as is always the case
+with paupers, exactly fitted his build and stature. When he came to the
+table, washed, neat, fresh, he seemed so much touched, and so happy, he
+was beaming all over with such joyful gratitude, that I felt emotion
+and joy.... His face was completely transfigured. Little boys of twelve
+wear such faces at Easter, after the Communion, when, thickly pomaded,
+clad in new round-jackets and starched collars, they go to exchange the
+Easter greeting with their parents. Misha kept feeling of himself
+cautiously and incredulously, and repeating:--"What is this?... Am not I
+in heaven?"--And on the following day he announced that he had not been
+able to sleep all night for rapture!
+
+In my house there was then living an aged aunt with her niece. They were
+both greatly agitated when they heard of Misha's arrival; they did not
+understand how I could have invited him to my house! He bore a very bad
+reputation. But, in the first place, I knew that he was always very
+polite to ladies; and, in the second place, I trusted to his promise to
+reform. And, as a matter of fact, during the early days of his sojourn
+under my roof Misha not only justified my expectations, but exceeded
+them; and he simply enchanted my ladies. He played picquet with the old
+lady; he helped her to wind yarn; he showed her two new games of
+patience; he accompanied the niece, who had a small voice, on the piano;
+he read her French and Russian poetry; he narrated diverting but
+decorous anecdotes to both ladies;--in a word, he was serviceable to
+them in all sorts of ways, so that they repeatedly expressed to me their
+surprise, while the old woman even remarked: "How unjust people
+sometimes are!... What all have not they said about him ... while he is
+so discreet and polite ... poor Misha!"
+
+It is true that at table "poor Misha" licked his lips in a
+peculiarly-hasty way every time he even looked at a bottle. But all I
+had to do was to shake my finger, and he would roll up his eyes, and
+press his hand to his heart ... as much as to say: "I have sworn...."
+
+"I am regenerated now!" he assured me.--"Well, God grant it!" I thought
+to myself.... But this regeneration did not last long.
+
+During the early days he was very loquacious and jolly. But beginning
+with the third day he quieted down, somehow, although, as before, he
+kept close to the ladies and amused them. A half-sad, half-thoughtful
+expression began to flit across his face, and the face itself grew pale
+and thin.
+
+"Art thou ill?" I asked him.
+
+"Yes," he answered;--"my head aches a little."
+
+On the fourth day he became perfectly silent; he sat in a corner most of
+the time, with dejectedly drooping head; and by his downcast aspect
+evoked a feeling of compassion in the two ladies, who now, in their
+turn, tried to divert him. At table he ate nothing, stared at his
+plate, and rolled bread-balls. On the fifth day the feeling of pity in
+the ladies began to be replaced by another--by distrust and even fear.
+Misha had grown wild, he avoided people and kept walking along the wall,
+as though creeping stealthily, and suddenly darting glances around him,
+as though some one had called him. And what had become of his rosy
+complexion? It seemed to be covered with earth.
+
+"Art thou still ill?" I asked him.
+
+"No; I am well," he answered abruptly.
+
+"Art thou bored?"
+
+"Why should I be bored?"--But he turned away and would not look me in
+the eye.
+
+"Or hast thou grown melancholy again?"--To this he made no reply.
+
+On the following day my aunt ran into my study in a state of great
+excitement, and declared that she and her niece would leave my house if
+Misha were to remain in it.
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Why, we feel afraid of him.... He is not a man,--he is a wolf, a
+regular wolf. He stalks and stalks about, saying never a word, and has
+such a wild look.... He all but gnashes his teeth. My Katya is such a
+nervous girl, as thou knowest.... She took a great interest in him the
+first day.... I am afraid for her and for myself...."
+
+I did not know what reply to make to my aunt. But I could not expel
+Misha, whom I had invited in.
+
+He himself extricated me from this dilemma.
+
+That very day--before I had even left my study--I suddenly heard a dull
+and vicious voice behind me.
+
+"Nikolai Nikolaitch, hey there, Nikolai Nikolaitch!"
+
+I looked round. In the doorway stood Misha, with a terrible, lowering,
+distorted visage.
+
+"Nikolai Nikolaitch," he repeated ... (it was no longer "dear uncle").
+
+"What dost thou want?"
+
+"Let me go ... this very moment!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Let me go, or I shall commit a crime,--set the house on fire or cut
+some one's throat."--Misha suddenly fell to shaking.--"Order them to
+restore my garments, and give me a cart to carry me to the highway, and
+give me a trifling sum of money!"
+
+"But art thou dissatisfied with anything?" I began.
+
+"I cannot live thus!" he roared at the top of his voice.--"I cannot live
+in your lordly, thrice-damned house! I hate, I am ashamed to live so
+tranquilly!... How do _you_ manage to endure it?!"
+
+"In other words," I interposed, "thou wishest to say that thou canst not
+live without liquor...."
+
+"Well, yes! well, yes!" he yelled again.--"Only let me go to my
+brethren, to my friends, to the beggars!... Away from your noble,
+decorous, repulsive race!"
+
+I wanted to remind him of his promise on oath, but the criminal
+expression of Misha's face, his unrestrained voice, the convulsive
+trembling of all his limbs--all this was so frightful that I made haste
+to get rid of him. I informed him that he should receive his clothing at
+once, that a cart should be harnessed for him; and taking from a casket
+a twenty-ruble bank-note, I laid it on the table. Misha was already
+beginning to advance threateningly upon me, but now he suddenly stopped
+short, his face instantaneously became distorted, and flushed up; he
+smote his breast, tears gushed from his eyes, and he stammered,
+--"Uncle!--Angel! I am a lost man, you see!---Thanks! Thanks!"--He
+seized the bank-note and rushed out of the room.
+
+An hour later he was already seated in a cart, again clad in his
+Circassian coat, again rosy and jolly; and when the horses started off
+he uttered a yell, tore off his tall kazak cap, and waving it above his
+head, he made bow after bow. Immediately before his departure he
+embraced me long and warmly, stammering:--"Benefactor, benefactor!... It
+was impossible to save me!" He even ran in to see the ladies, and kissed
+their hands over and over again, went down on his knees, appealed to
+God, and begged forgiveness! I found Katya in tears later on.
+
+But the coachman who had driven Misha reported to me, on his return,
+that he had taken him to the first drinking establishment on the
+highway, and that there he "had got stranded," had begun to stand treat
+to every one without distinction, and had soon arrived at a state of
+inebriation.
+
+Since that time I have never met Misha, but I learned his final fate in
+the following manner.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Three years later I again found myself in the country; suddenly a
+servant entered and announced that Madame Polteff was inquiring for me.
+I knew no Madame Polteff, and the servant who made the announcement was
+grinning in a sarcastic sort of way, for some reason or other. In reply
+to my questioning glance he said that the lady who was asking for me was
+young, poorly clad, and had arrived in a peasant-cart drawn by one
+horse which she was driving herself! I ordered that Madame Polteff
+should be requested to do me the favour to step into my study.
+
+I beheld a woman of five-and-twenty,--belonging to the petty burgher
+class, to judge from her attire,--with a large kerchief on her head. Her
+face was simple, rather round in contour, not devoid of agreeability;
+her gaze was downcast and rather melancholy, her movements were
+embarrassed.
+
+"Are you Madame Polteff?" I asked, inviting her to be seated.
+
+"Just so, sir," she answered, in a low voice, and without sitting
+down.--"I am the widow of your nephew, Mikhail Andreevitch Polteff."
+
+"Is Mikhail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long?--But sit down, I
+beg of you."
+
+She dropped down on a chair.
+
+"This is the second month since he died."
+
+"And were you married to him long ago?"
+
+"I lived with him one year in all."
+
+"And whence come you now?"
+
+"I come from the vicinity of Tula.... There is a village there called
+Znamenskoe-Glushkovo--perhaps you deign to know it. I am the daughter of
+the sexton there. Mikhail Andreitch and I lived there.... He settled
+down with my father. We lived together a year in all." The young woman's
+lips twitched slightly, and she raised her hand to them. She seemed to
+be getting ready to cry, but conquered herself, and cleared her throat.
+
+"The late Mikhail Andreitch, before his death," she went on, "bade me go
+to you. 'Be sure to go,' he said. And he told me that I was to thank you
+for all your goodness, and transmit to you ... this ... trifle" (she
+drew from her pocket a small package), "which he always carried on his
+person.... And Mikhail Andreitch said, Wouldn't you be so kind as to
+accept it in memory--that you must not scorn it.... 'I have nothing else
+to give him,' ... meaning you ... he said...."
+
+In the packet was a small silver cup with the monogram of Mikhail's
+mother. This tiny cup I had often seen in Mikhail's hands; and once he
+had even said to me, in speaking of a pauper, that he must be stripped
+bare, since he had neither cup nor bowl, "while I have this here," he
+said.
+
+I thanked her, took the cup and inquired, "Of what malady did Mikhail
+Andreitch die?--Probably...."
+
+Here I bit my tongue, but the young woman understood my unspoken
+thought.... She darted a swift glance at me, then dropped her eyes,
+smiled sadly, and immediately said, "Akh, no! He had abandoned that
+entirely from the time he made my acquaintance.... Only, what health had
+he?!... It was utterly ruined. As soon as he gave up drinking, his
+malady immediately manifested itself. He became so steady, he was always
+wanting to help my father, either in the household affairs, or in the
+vegetable garden ... or whatever other work happened to be on hand ...
+in spite of the fact that he was of noble birth. Only, where was he to
+get the strength?... And he would have liked to busy himself in the
+department of writing also,--he knew how to do that beautifully, as you
+are aware; but his hands shook so, and he could not hold the pen
+properly.... He was always reproaching himself: 'I'm an idle dog,' he
+said. 'I have done no one any good, I have helped no one, I have not
+toiled!' He was very much afflicted over that same.... He used to say,
+'Our people toil, but what are we doing?...' Akh, Nikolai Nikolaitch, he
+was a fine man--and he loved me ... and I.... Akh, forgive me...."
+
+Here the young woman actually burst into tears. I would have liked to
+comfort her, but I did not know how.
+
+"Have you a baby?" I asked at last.
+
+She sighed.--"No, I have not.... How could I have?"--And here tears
+streamed worse than before.
+
+So this was the end of Misha's wanderings through tribulations [old P.
+concluded his story].--You will agree with me, gentlemen, as a matter of
+course, that I had a right to call him reckless; but you will probably
+also agree with me that he did not resemble the reckless fellows of the
+present day, although we must suppose that any philosopher would find
+traits of similarity between him and them. In both cases there is the
+thirst for self-annihilation, melancholy, dissatisfaction.... And what
+that springs from I will permit precisely that philosopher to decide.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DREAM
+
+(1876)
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+I was living with my mother at the time, in a small seaport town. I was
+just turned seventeen, and my mother was only thirty-five; she had
+married very young. When my father died I was only seven years old; but
+I remembered him well. My mother was a short, fair-haired woman, with a
+charming, but permanently-sad face, a quiet, languid voice, and timid
+movements. In her youth she had borne the reputation of a beauty, and as
+long as she lived she remained attractive and pretty. I have never
+beheld more profound, tender, and melancholy eyes. I adored her, and she
+loved me.... But our life was not cheerful; it seemed as though some
+mysterious, incurable and undeserved sorrow were constantly sapping the
+root of her existence. This sorrow could not be explained by grief for
+my father alone, great as that was, passionately as my mother had loved
+him, sacredly as she cherished his memory.... No! there was something
+else hidden there which I did not understand, but which I felt,--felt
+confusedly and strongly as soon as I looked at those quiet, impassive
+eyes, at those very beautiful but also impassive lips, which were not
+bitterly compressed, but seemed to have congealed for good and all.
+
+I have said that my mother loved me; but there were moments when she
+spurned me, when my presence was burdensome, intolerable to her. At such
+times she felt, as it were, an involuntary aversion for me--and was
+terrified afterward, reproaching herself with tears and clasping me to
+her heart. I attributed these momentary fits of hostility to her
+shattered health, to her unhappiness.... These hostile sentiments might
+have been evoked, it is true, in a certain measure, by some strange
+outbursts, which were incomprehensible even to me myself, of wicked and
+criminal feelings which occasionally arose in me....
+
+But these outbursts did not coincide with the moments of repulsion.--My
+mother constantly wore black, as though she were in mourning. We lived
+on a rather grand scale, although we associated with no one.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+My mother concentrated upon me all her thoughts and cares. Her life was
+merged in my life. Such relations between parents and children are not
+always good for the children ... they are more apt to be injurious.
+Moreover I was my mother's only child ... and only children generally
+develop irregularly. In rearing them the parents do not think of
+themselves so much as they do of them.... That is not practical. I did
+not get spoiled, and did not grow obstinate (both these things happen
+with only children), but my nerves were unstrung before their time; in
+addition to which I was of rather feeble health--I took after my mother,
+to whom I also bore a great facial resemblance. I shunned the society of
+lads of my own age; in general, I was shy of people; I even talked very
+little with my mother. I was fonder of reading than of anything else,
+and of walking alone--and dreaming, dreaming! What my dreams were about
+it would be difficult to say. It sometimes seemed to me as though I were
+standing before a half-open door behind which were concealed hidden
+secrets,--standing and waiting, and swooning with longing--yet not
+crossing the threshold; and always meditating as to what there was
+yonder ahead of me--and always waiting and longing ... or falling into
+slumber. If the poetic vein had throbbed in me I should, in all
+probability, have taken to writing verses; if I had felt an inclination
+to religious devoutness I might have become a monk; but there was
+nothing of the sort about me, and I continued to dream--and to wait.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+I have just mentioned that I sometimes fell asleep under the inspiration
+of obscure thoughts and reveries. On the whole, I slept a great deal,
+and dreams played a prominent part in my life; I beheld visions almost
+every night. I did not forget them, I attributed to them significance, I
+regarded them as prophetic, I strove to divine their secret import. Some
+of them were repeated from time to time, which always seemed to me
+wonderful and strange. I was particularly perturbed by one dream. It
+seems to me that I am walking along a narrow, badly-paved street in an
+ancient town, between many-storied houses of stone, with sharp-pointed
+roofs. I am seeking my father who is not dead, but is, for some reason,
+hiding from us, and is living in one of those houses. And so I enter a
+low, dark gate, traverse a long courtyard encumbered with beams and
+planks, and finally make my way into a small chamber with two circular
+windows. In the middle of the room stands my father, clad in a
+dressing-gown and smoking a pipe. He does not in the least resemble my
+real father: he is tall, thin, black-haired, he has a hooked nose,
+surly, piercing eyes; in appearance he is about forty years of age. He
+is displeased because I have hunted him up; and I also am not in the
+least delighted at the meeting--and I stand still, in perplexity. He
+turns away slightly, begins to mutter something and to pace to and fro
+with short steps.... Then he retreats a little, without ceasing to
+mutter, and keeps constantly casting glances behind him, over his
+shoulder; the room widens out and vanishes in a fog.... I suddenly grow
+terrified at the thought that I am losing my father again. I rush after
+him--but I no longer see him, and can only hear his angry, bear-like
+growl.... My heart sinks within me. I wake up, and for a long time
+cannot get to sleep again.... All the following day I think about that
+dream and, of course, am unable to arrive at any conclusion.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The month of June had come. The town in which my mother and I lived
+became remarkably animated at that season. A multitude of vessels
+arrived at the wharves, a multitude of new faces presented themselves on
+the streets. I loved at such times to stroll along the quay, past the
+coffee-houses and inns, to scan the varied faces of the sailors and
+other people who sat under the canvas awnings, at little white tables
+with pewter tankards filled with beer.
+
+One day, as I was passing in front of a coffee-house, I caught sight of
+a man who immediately engrossed my entire attention. Clad in a long
+black coat of peasant cut, with a straw hat pulled down over his eyes,
+he was sitting motionless, with his arms folded on his chest. Thin
+rings of black hair descended to his very nose; his thin lips gripped
+the stem of a short pipe. This man seemed so familiar to me, every
+feature of his swarthy, yellow face, his whole figure, were so
+indubitably stamped on my memory, that I could not do otherwise than
+halt before him, could not help putting to myself the question: "Who is
+this man? Where have I seen him?" He probably felt my intent stare, for
+he turned his black, piercing eyes upon me.... I involuntarily uttered a
+cry of surprise....
+
+This man was the father whom I had sought out, whom I had beheld in my
+dream!
+
+There was no possibility of making a mistake,--the resemblance was too
+striking. Even the long-skirted coat, which enveloped his gaunt limbs,
+reminded me, in colour and form, of the dressing-gown in which my father
+had presented himself to me.
+
+"Am not I dreaming?" I thought to myself.... "No.... It is daylight now,
+a crowd is roaring round me, the sun is shining brightly in the blue
+sky, and I have before me, not a phantom, but a living man."
+
+I stepped up to an empty table, ordered myself a tankard of beer and a
+newspaper, and seated myself at a short distance from this mysterious
+being.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Placing the sheets of the newspaper on a level with my face, I continued
+to devour the stranger with my eyes.--He hardly stirred, and only raised
+his drooping head a little from time to time. He was evidently waiting
+for some one. I gazed and gazed.... Sometimes it seemed to me that I had
+invented the whole thing, that in reality there was no resemblance
+whatever, that I had yielded to the semi-involuntary deception of the
+imagination ... but "he" would suddenly turn a little on his chair,
+raise his hand slightly, and again I almost cried aloud, again I beheld
+before me my "nocturnal" father! At last he noticed my importunate
+attention, and, first with surprise, then with vexation, he glanced in
+my direction, started to rise, and knocked down a small cane which he
+had leaned against the table. I instantly sprang to my feet, picked it
+up and handed it to him. My heart was beating violently.
+
+He smiled in a constrained way, thanked me, and putting his face close
+to my face, he elevated his eyebrows and parted his lips a little, as
+though something had struck him.
+
+"You are very polite, young man," he suddenly began, in a dry, sharp,
+snuffling voice.--"That is a rarity nowadays. Allow me to congratulate
+you. You have been well brought up."
+
+I do not remember precisely what answer I made to him; but the
+conversation between us was started. I learned that he was a
+fellow-countryman of mine, that he had recently returned from America,
+where he had lived many years, and whither he was intending to return
+shortly. He said his name was Baron.... I did not catch the name well.
+He, like my "nocturnal" father, wound up each of his remarks with an
+indistinct, inward growl. He wanted to know my name.... On hearing it he
+again showed signs of surprise. Then he asked me if I had been living
+long in that town, and with whom? I answered him that I lived with my
+mother.
+
+"And your father?"
+
+"My father died long ago."
+
+He inquired my mother's Christian name, and immediately burst into an
+awkward laugh--and then excused himself, saying that he had that
+American habit, and that altogether he was a good deal of an eccentric.
+Then he asked where we lived. I told him.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The agitation which had seized upon me at the beginning of our
+conversation had gradually subsided; I thought our intimacy rather
+strange--that was all. I did not like the smile with which the baron
+questioned me; neither did I like the expression of his eyes when he
+fairly stabbed them into me.... There was about them something rapacious
+and condescending ... something which inspired dread. I had not seen
+those eyes in my dream. The baron had a strange face! It was pallid,
+fatigued, and, at the same time, youthful in appearance, but with a
+disagreeable youthfulness! Neither had my "nocturnal" father that deep
+scar, which intersected his whole forehead in a slanting direction, and
+which I did not notice until I moved closer to him.
+
+Before I had had time to impart to the baron the name of the street and
+the number of the house where we lived, a tall negro, wrapped up in a
+cloak to his very eyes, approached him from behind and tapped him softly
+on the shoulder. The baron turned round, said: "Aha! At last!" and
+nodding lightly to me, entered the coffee-house with the negro. I
+remained under the awning. I wished to wait until the baron should come
+out again, not so much for the sake of entering again into conversation
+with him (I really did not know what topic I could start with), as for
+the purpose of again verifying my first impression.--But half an hour
+passed; an hour passed.... The baron did not make his appearance. I
+entered the coffee-house, I made the circuit of all the rooms--but
+nowhere did I see either the baron or the negro.... Both of them must
+have taken their departure through the back door.
+
+My head had begun to ache a little, and with the object of refreshing
+myself I set out along the seashore to the extensive park outside the
+town, which had been laid out ten years previously. After having
+strolled for a couple of hours in the shade of the huge oaks and
+plaintain-trees, I returned home.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Our maid-servant flew to meet me, all tremulous with agitation, as soon
+as I made my appearance in the anteroom. I immediately divined, from the
+expression of her face, that something unpleasant had occurred in our
+house during my absence.--And, in fact, I learned that half an hour
+before a frightful shriek had rung out from my mother's bedroom. When
+the maid rushed in she found her on the floor in a swoon which lasted
+for several minutes. My mother had recovered consciousness at last, but
+had been obliged to go to bed, and wore a strange, frightened aspect;
+she had not uttered a word, she had not replied to questions--she had
+done nothing but glance around her and tremble. The servant had sent the
+gardener for a doctor. The doctor had come and had prescribed a soothing
+potion, but my mother had refused to say anything to him either. The
+gardener asserted that a few moments after the shriek had rung out from
+my mother's room he had seen a strange man run hastily across the
+flower-plots of the garden to the street gate. (We lived in a one-story
+house, whose windows looked out upon a fairly large garden.) The
+gardener had not been able to get a good look at the man's face; but the
+latter was gaunt, and wore a straw hat and a long-skirted coat.... "The
+baron's costume!" immediately flashed into my head.--The gardener had
+been unable to overtake him; moreover, he had been summoned, without
+delay, to the house and despatched for the doctor.
+
+I went to my mother's room; she was lying in bed, whiter than the pillow
+on which her head rested.... At sight of me she smiled faintly, and put
+out her hand to me. I sat down by her side, and began to question her;
+at first she persistently parried my questions; but at last she
+confessed that she had seen something which had frightened her greatly.
+
+"Did some one enter here?" I asked.
+
+"No," she answered hastily, "no one entered, but it seemed to me ... I
+thought I saw ... a vision...."
+
+She ceased speaking and covered her eyes with her hand. I was on the
+point of communicating to her what I had heard from the gardener--and
+my meeting with the baron also, by the way ... but, for some reason or
+other, the words died on my lips.
+
+Nevertheless I did bring myself to remark to my mother that visions do
+not manifest themselves in the daylight....
+
+"Stop," she whispered, "please stop; do not torture me now. Some day
+thou shalt know...." Again she relapsed into silence. Her hands were
+cold, and her pulse beat fast and unevenly. I gave her a dose of her
+medicine and stepped a little to one side, in order not to disturb her.
+
+She did not rise all day. She lay motionless and quiet, only sighing
+deeply from time to time, and opening her eyes in a timorous
+fashion.--Every one in the house was perplexed.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Toward night a slight fever made its appearance, and my mother sent me
+away. I did not go to my own chamber, however, but lay down in the
+adjoining room on the divan. Every quarter of an hour I rose, approached
+the door on tiptoe, and listened.... Everything remained silent--but my
+mother hardly slept at all that night. When I went into her room early
+in the morning her face appeared to me to be swollen, and her eyes were
+shining with an unnatural brilliancy. In the course of the day she
+became a little easier, but toward evening the fever increased again.
+
+Up to that time she had maintained an obstinate silence, but now she
+suddenly began to talk in a hurried, spasmodic voice. She was not
+delirious, there was sense in her words, but there was no coherency in
+them. Not long before midnight she raised herself up in bed with a
+convulsive movement (I was sitting beside her), and with the same
+hurried voice she began to narrate to me, continually drinking water in
+gulps from a glass, feebly flourishing her hands, and not once looking
+at me the while.... At times she paused, exerted an effort over herself,
+and went on again.... All this was strange, as though she were doing it
+in her sleep, as though she herself were not present, but as though some
+other person were speaking with her lips, or making her speak.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+"Listen to what I have to tell thee," she began. "Thou art no longer a
+young boy; thou must know all. I had a good friend.... She married a man
+whom she loved with all her heart, and she was happy with her husband.
+But during the first year of their married life they both went to the
+capital to spend a few weeks and enjoy themselves. They stopped at a
+good hotel and went out a great deal to theatres and assemblies. My
+friend was very far from homely; every one noticed her, all the young
+men paid court to her; but among them was one in particular ... an
+officer. He followed her unremittingly, and wherever she went she beheld
+his black, wicked eyes. He did not make her acquaintance, and did not
+speak to her even once; he merely kept staring at her in a very strange,
+insolent way. All the pleasures of the capital were poisoned by his
+presence. She began to urge her husband to depart as speedily as
+possible, and they had fully made up their minds to the journey. One day
+her husband went off to the club; some officers--officers who belonged
+to the same regiment as this man--had invited him to play cards.... For
+the first time she was left alone. Her husband did not return for a long
+time; she dismissed her maid and went to bed.... And suddenly a great
+dread came upon her, so that she even turned cold all over and began to
+tremble. It seemed to her that she heard a faint tapping on the other
+side of the wall--like the noise a dog makes when scratching--and she
+began to stare at that wall. In the corner burned a shrine-lamp; the
+chamber was all hung with silken stuff.... Suddenly something began to
+move at that point, rose, opened.... And straight out of the wall, all
+black and long, stepped forth that dreadful man with the wicked eyes!
+
+"She tried to scream and could not. She was benumbed with fright. He
+advanced briskly toward her, like a rapacious wild beast, flung
+something over her head, something stifling, heavy and white.... What
+happened afterward I do not remember.... I do not remember! It was like
+death, like murder.... When that terrible fog dispersed at last--when
+I ... my friend recovered her senses, there was no one in the room.
+Again--and for a long time--she was incapable of crying out, but she did
+shriek at last ... then again everything grew confused....
+
+"Then she beheld by her side her husband, who had been detained at the
+club until two o'clock.... His face was distorted beyond recognition. He
+began to question her, but she said nothing.... Then she fell ill....
+But I remember that when she was left alone in the room she examined
+that place in the wall.... Under the silken hangings there proved to be
+a secret door. And her wedding-ring had disappeared from her hand. This
+ring was of an unusual shape. Upon it seven tiny golden stars alternated
+with seven tiny silver stars; it was an ancient family heirloom. Her
+husband asked her what had become of her ring; she could make no reply.
+Her husband thought that she had dropped it somewhere, hunted everywhere
+for it, but nowhere could he find it. Gloom descended upon him, he
+decided to return home as speedily as possible, and as soon as the
+doctor permitted they quitted the capital.... But imagine! On the very
+day of their departure they suddenly encountered, on the street, a
+litter.... In that litter lay a man who had just been killed, with a
+cleft skull---and just imagine! that man was that same dreadful
+nocturnal visitor with the wicked eyes.... He had been killed over a
+game of cards!
+
+"Then my friend went away to the country, and became a mother for the
+first time ... and lived several years with her husband. He never
+learned anything about that matter, and what could she say? She herself
+knew nothing. But her former happiness had vanished. Darkness had
+invaded their life--and that darkness was never dispelled.... They had
+no other children either before or after ... but that son...."
+
+My mother began to tremble all over, and covered her face with her
+hands.
+
+"But tell me now," she went on, with redoubled force, "whether my friend
+was in any way to blame? With what could she reproach herself? She was
+punished, but had not she the right to declare, in the presence of God
+himself, that the punishment which overtook her was unjust? Then why can
+the past present itself to her, after the lapse of so many years, in so
+frightful an aspect, as though she were a sinner tortured by the
+gnawings of conscience? Macbeth slew Banquo, so it is not to be
+wondered at that he should have visions ... but I...."
+
+But my mother's speech became so entangled and confused that I ceased to
+understand her ... I no longer had any doubt that she was raving in
+delirium.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Any one can easily understand what a shattering effect my mother's
+narration produced upon me! I had divined, at her very first word, that
+she was speaking of herself, and not of any acquaintance of hers; her
+slip of the tongue only confirmed me in my surmise. So it really was my
+father whom I had sought out in my dream, whom I had beheld when wide
+awake! He had not been killed, as my mother had supposed, but merely
+wounded.... And he had come to her, and had fled, affrighted by her
+fright. Everything suddenly became clear to me; the feeling of
+involuntary repugnance for me which sometimes awoke in my mother, and
+her constant sadness, and our isolated life.... I remember that my head
+reeled, and I clutched at it with both hands, as though desirous of
+holding it firmly in its place. But one thought had become riveted in it
+like a nail. I made up my mind, without fail, at any cost, to find that
+man again! Why? With what object?--I did not account to myself for
+that; but to find him ... to find him--that had become for me a question
+of life or death!
+
+On the following morning my mother regained her composure at last ...
+the fever passed off ... she fell asleep. Committing her to the care of
+our landlord and landlady and the servants, I set out on my quest.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+First of all, as a matter of course, I betook myself to the coffee-house
+where I had met the baron; but in the coffee-house no one knew him or
+had even noticed him; he was a chance visitor. The proprietors had
+noticed the negro--his figure had been too striking to escape notice;
+but who he was, where he stayed, no one knew either. Leaving my address,
+in case of an emergency, at the coffee-house, I began to walk about the
+streets and the water-front of the town, the wharves, the boulevards; I
+looked into all the public institutions, and nowhere did I find any one
+who resembled either the baron or his companion.... As I had not caught
+the baron's name, I was deprived of the possibility of appealing to the
+police; but I privately gave two or three guardians of public order to
+understand (they gazed at me in surprise, it is true, and did not
+entirely believe me) that I would lavishly reward their zeal if they
+should be successful in coming upon the traces of those two individuals,
+whose personal appearance I tried to describe as minutely as possible.
+
+Having strolled about in this manner until dinner-time, I returned home
+thoroughly worn out. My mother had got out of bed; but with her habitual
+melancholy there was mingled a new element, a sort of pensive
+perplexity, which cut me to the heart like a knife. I sat with her all
+the evening. We said hardly anything; she laid out her game of patience,
+I silently looked at her cards. She did not refer by a single word to
+her story, or to what had happened the day before. It was as though we
+had both entered into a compact not to touch upon those strange and
+terrifying occurrences.... She appeared to be vexed with herself and
+ashamed of what had involuntarily burst from her; but perhaps she did
+not remember very clearly what she had said in her semi-fevered
+delirium, and hoped that I would spare her.... And, in fact, I did spare
+her, and she was conscious of it; as on the preceding day she avoided
+meeting my eyes.
+
+A frightful storm had suddenly sprung up out of doors. The wind howled
+and tore in wild gusts, the window-panes rattled and quivered;
+despairing shrieks and groans were borne through the air, as though
+something on high had broken loose and were flying with mad weeping
+over the shaking houses. Just before dawn I lost myself in a doze ...
+when suddenly it seemed to me as though some one had entered my room and
+called me, had uttered my name, not in a loud, but in a decided voice. I
+raised my head and saw no one; but, strange to relate! I not only was
+not frightened--I was delighted; there suddenly arose within me the
+conviction that now I should, without fail, attain my end. I hastily
+dressed myself and left the house.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+The storm had subsided ... but its last flutterings could still be felt.
+It was early; there were no people in the streets; in many places
+fragments of chimneys, tiles, boards of fences which had been rent
+asunder, the broken boughs of trees, lay strewn upon the ground....
+"What happened at sea last night?" I involuntarily thought at the sight
+of the traces left behind by the storm. I started to go to the port, but
+my feet bore me in another direction, as though in obedience to an
+irresistible attraction. Before ten minutes had passed I found myself in
+a quarter of the town which I had never yet visited. I was walking, not
+fast, but without stopping, step by step, with a strange sensation at my
+heart; I was expecting something remarkable, impossible, and, at the
+same time, I was convinced that that impossible thing would come to
+pass.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+And lo, it came to pass, that remarkable, that unexpected thing! Twenty
+paces in front of me I suddenly beheld that same negro who had spoken to
+the baron in my presence at the coffee-house! Enveloped in the same
+cloak which I had then noticed on him, he seemed to have popped up out
+of the earth, and with his back turned toward me was walking with brisk
+strides along the narrow sidewalk of the crooked alley! I immediately
+dashed in pursuit of him, but he redoubled his gait, although he did not
+glance behind him, and suddenly made an abrupt turn around the corner of
+a projecting house. I rushed to that corner and turned it as quickly as
+the negro had done.... Marvellous to relate! Before me stretched a long,
+narrow, and perfectly empty street; the morning mist filled it with its
+dim, leaden light,--but my gaze penetrated to its very extremity. I
+could count all its buildings ... and not a single living being was
+anywhere astir! The tall negro in the cloak had vanished as suddenly as
+he had appeared! I was amazed ... but only for a moment. Another feeling
+immediately took possession of me; that street which stretched out
+before my eyes, all dumb and dead, as it were,--I recognised it! It was
+the street of my dream. I trembled and shivered--the morning was so
+chilly--and instantly, without the slightest wavering, with a certain
+terror of confidence, I went onward.
+
+I began to seek with my eyes.... Yes, there it is, yonder, on the right,
+with a corner projecting on the sidewalk--yonder is the house of my
+dream, yonder is the ancient gate with the stone scrolls on each
+side.... The house is not circular, it is true, but square ... but that
+is a matter of no importance.... I knock at the gate, I knock once,
+twice, thrice, ever more and more loudly.... The gate opens slowly, with
+a heavy screech, as though yawning. In front of me stands a young
+serving-maid with a dishevelled head and sleepy eyes. She has evidently
+just waked up.
+
+"Does the baron live here?" I inquire, as I run a swift glance over the
+deep, narrow courtyard.... It is there; it is all there ... there are
+the planks which I had seen in my dream.
+
+"No," the maid answers me, "the baron does not live here."
+
+"What dost thou mean by that? It is impossible!"
+
+"He is not here now. He went away yesterday."
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"To America."
+
+"To America!" I involuntarily repeated. "But he is coming back?"
+
+The maid looked suspiciously at me.
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps he will not come back at all."
+
+"But has he been living here long?"
+
+"No, not long; about a week. Now he is not here at all."
+
+"But what was the family name of that baron?"
+
+The maid-servant stared at me.
+
+"Don't you know his name? We simply called him the baron. Hey, there!
+Piotr!" she cried, perceiving that I was pushing my way in.--"come
+hither: some stranger or other is asking all sorts of questions."
+
+From the house there presented itself the shambling figure of a robust
+labourer.
+
+"What's the matter? What's wanted?" he inquired in a hoarse voice,--and
+having listened to me with a surly mien, he repeated what the
+maid-servant had said.
+
+"But who does live here?" I said.
+
+"Our master."
+
+"And who is he?"
+
+"A carpenter. They are all carpenters in this street."
+
+"Can he be seen?"
+
+"Impossible now, he is asleep."
+
+"And cannot I go into the house?"
+
+"No; go your way."
+
+"Well, and can I see your master a little later?"
+
+"Why not? Certainly. He can always be seen.... That's his business as a
+dealer. Only, go your way now. See how early it is."
+
+"Well, and how about that negro?" I suddenly asked.
+
+The labourer stared in amazement, first at me, then at the maid-servant.
+
+"What negro?" he said at last.--"Go away, sir. You can come back later.
+Talk with the master."
+
+I went out into the street. The gate was instantly banged behind me,
+heavily and sharply, without squeaking this time.
+
+I took good note of the street and house and went away, but not home.--I
+felt something in the nature of disenchantment. Everything which had
+happened to me was so strange, so remarkable--and yet, how stupidly it
+had been ended! I had been convinced that I should behold in that house
+the room which was familiar to me--and in the middle of it my father,
+the baron, in a dressing-gown and with a pipe.... And instead of that,
+the master of the house was a carpenter, and one might visit him as much
+as one pleased,--and order furniture of him if one wished!
+
+But my father had gone to America! And what was left for me to do
+now?... Tell my mother everything, or conceal forever the very memory of
+that meeting? I was absolutely unable to reconcile myself to the thought
+that such a senseless, such a commonplace ending should be tacked on to
+such a supernatural, mysterious beginning!
+
+I did not wish to return home, and walked straight ahead, following my
+nose, out of the town.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+I walked along with drooping head, without a thought, almost without
+sensation, but wholly engrossed in myself.--A measured, dull and angry
+roar drew me out of my torpor. I raised my head: it was the sea roaring
+and booming fifty paces from me. Greatly agitated by the nocturnal
+storm, the sea was a mass of white-caps to the very horizon, and steep
+crests of long breakers were rolling in regularly and breaking on the
+flat shore, I approached it, and walked along the very line left by the
+ebb and flow on the yellow, ribbed sand, strewn with fragments of
+trailing seawrack, bits of shells, serpent-like ribbons of eel-grass.
+Sharp-winged gulls with pitiful cry, borne on the wind from the distant
+aerial depths, soared white as snow against the grey, cloudy sky,
+swooped down abruptly, and as though skipping from wave to wave,
+departed again and vanished like silvery flecks in the strips of
+swirling foam. Some of them, I noticed, circled persistently around a
+large isolated boulder which rose aloft in the midst of the monotonous
+expanse of sandy shores. Coarse seaweed grew in uneven tufts on one side
+of the rock; and at the point where its tangled stems emerged from the
+yellow salt-marsh, there was something black, and long, and arched, and
+not very large.... I began to look more intently.... Some dark object
+was lying there--lying motionless beside the stone.... That object
+became constantly clearer and more distinct the nearer I approached....
+
+I was only thirty paces from the rock now.... Why, that was the outline
+of a human body! It was a corpse; it was a drowned man, cast up by the
+sea! I went clear up to the rock.
+
+It was the corpse of the baron, my father! I stopped short, as though
+rooted to the spot. Then only did I understand that ever since daybreak
+I had been guided by some unknown forces--that I was in their
+power,--and for the space of several minutes there was nothing in my
+soul save the ceaseless crashing of the sea, and a dumb terror in the
+presence of the Fate which held me in its grip....
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+He was lying on his back, bent a little to one side, with his left arm
+thrown above his head ... the right was turned under his bent body. The
+sticky slime had sucked in the tips of his feet, shod in tall sailor's
+boots; the short blue pea-jacket, all impregnated with sea-salt, had not
+unbuttoned; a red scarf encircled his neck in a hard knot. The swarthy
+face, turned skyward, seemed to be laughing; from beneath the upturned
+upper lip small close-set teeth were visible; the dim pupils of the
+half-closed eyes were hardly to be distinguished from the darkened
+whites; covered with bubbles of foam the dirt-encrusted hair spread out
+over the ground and laid bare the smooth forehead with the purplish line
+of the scar; the narrow nose rose up like a sharp, white streak between
+the sunken cheeks. The storm of the past night had done its work.... He
+had not beheld America! The man who had insulted my mother, who had
+marred her life, my father--yes! my father, I could cherish no doubt as
+to that--lay stretched out helpless in the mud at my feet. I experienced
+a sense of satisfied vengeance, and compassion, and repulsion, and
+terror most of all ... of twofold terror; terror of what I had seen, and
+of what had come to pass. That evil, that criminal element of which I
+have already spoken, those incomprehensible spasms rose up within
+me ... stifled me.
+
+"Aha!" I thought to myself: "so that is why I am what I am.... That is
+where blood tells!" I stood beside the corpse and gazed and waited, to
+see whether those dead pupils would not stir, whether those benumbed
+lips would not quiver. No! everything was motionless; the very seaweed,
+among which the surf had cast him, seemed to have congealed; even the
+gulls had flown away--there was not a fragment anywhere, not a plank or
+any broken rigging. There was emptiness everywhere ... only he--and
+I--and the foaming sea in the distance. I cast a glance behind me; the
+same emptiness was there; a chain of hillocks on the horizon ... that
+was all!
+
+I dreaded to leave that unfortunate man in that loneliness, in the ooze
+of the shore, to be devoured by fishes and birds; an inward voice told
+me that I ought to hunt up some men and call them thither, if not to
+aid--that was out of the question--at least for the purpose of laying
+him out, of bearing him beneath an inhabited roof.... But indescribable
+terror suddenly took possession of me. It seemed to me as though that
+dead man knew that I had come thither, that he himself had arranged that
+last meeting--it even seemed as though I could hear that dull, familiar
+muttering.... I ran off to one side ... looked behind me once more....
+Something shining caught my eye; it brought me to a standstill. It was
+a golden hoop on the outstretched hand of the corpse.... I recognised my
+mother's wedding-ring. I remember how I forced myself to return, to go
+close, to bend down.... I remember the sticky touch of the cold fingers,
+I remember how I panted and puckered up my eyes and gnashed my teeth, as
+I tugged persistently at the ring....
+
+At last I got it off--and I fled--fled away, in headlong flight,--and
+something darted after me, and overtook me and caught me.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Everything which I had gone through and endured was, probably, written
+on my face when I returned home. My mother suddenly rose upright as soon
+as I entered her room, and gazed at me with such insistent inquiry that,
+after having unsuccessfully attempted to explain myself, I ended by
+silently handing her the ring. She turned frightfully pale, her eyes
+opened unusually wide and turned dim like _his_.--She uttered a faint
+cry, seized the ring, reeled, fell upon my breast, and fairly swooned
+there, with her head thrown back and devouring me with those wide, mad
+eyes. I encircled her waist with both arms, and standing still on one
+spot, never stirring, I slowly narrated everything, without the
+slightest reservation, to her, in a quiet voice: my dream and the
+meeting, and everything, everything.... She heard me out to the end,
+only her breast heaved more and more strongly, and her eyes suddenly
+grew more animated and drooped. Then she put the ring on her fourth
+finger, and, retreating a little, began to get out a mantilla and a hat.
+I asked where she was going. She raised a surprised glance to me and
+tried to answer, but her voice failed her. She shuddered several times,
+rubbed her hands as though endeavouring to warm herself, and at last she
+said: "Let us go at once thither."
+
+"Whither, mother dear?"
+
+"Where he is lying.... I want to see ... I want to know ... I shall
+identify...."
+
+I tried to persuade her not to go; but she was almost in hysterics. I
+understood that it was impossible to oppose her desire, and we set out.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+And lo, again I am walking over the sand of the dunes, but I am no
+longer alone, I am walking arm in arm with my mother. The sea has
+retreated, has gone still further away; it is quieting down; but even
+its diminished roar is menacing and ominous. Here, at last, the solitary
+rock has shown itself ahead of us--and there is the seaweed. I look
+intently, I strive to distinguish that rounded object lying on the
+ground--but I see nothing. We approach closer. I involuntarily retard my
+steps. But where is that black, motionless thing? Only the stalks of the
+seaweed stand out darkly against the sand, which is already dry.... We
+go to the very rock.... The corpse is nowhere to be seen, and only on
+the spot where it had lain there still remains a depression, and one can
+make out where the arms and legs lay.... Round about the seaweed seems
+tousled, and the traces of one man's footsteps are discernible; they go
+across the down, then disappear on reaching the flinty ridge.
+
+My mother and I exchange glances and are ourselves frightened at what we
+read on our own faces....
+
+Can he have got up of himself and gone away?
+
+"But surely thou didst behold him dead?" she asks in a whisper.
+
+I can only nod my head. Three hours have not elapsed since I stumbled
+upon the baron's body.... Some one had discovered it and carried it
+away.--I must find out who had done it, and what had become of him.
+
+But first of all I must attend to my mother.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+While she was on her way to the fatal spot she was in a fever, but she
+controlled herself. The disappearance of the corpse had startled her as
+the crowning misfortune. She was stupefied. I feared for her reason.
+With great difficulty I got her home. I put her to bed again; again I
+called the doctor for her; but as soon as my mother partly recovered her
+senses she at once demanded that I should instantly set out in search of
+"that man." I obeyed. But, despite all possible measures, I discovered
+nothing. I went several times to the police-office, I visited all the
+villages in the neighbourhood, I inserted several advertisements in the
+newspapers, I made inquiries in every direction--all in vain! It is true
+that I did hear that a drowned man had been found at one of the hamlets
+on the seashore.... I immediately hastened thither, but he was already
+buried, and from all the tokens he did not resemble the baron. I found
+out on what ship he had sailed for America. At first every one was
+positive that that ship had perished during the tempest; but several
+months afterward rumours began to circulate to the effect that it had
+been seen at anchor in the harbour of New York. Not knowing what to do,
+I set about hunting up the negro whom I had seen.--I offered him,
+through the newspapers, a very considerable sum of money if he would
+present himself at our house. A tall negro in a cloak actually did come
+to the house in my absence.... But after questioning the servant-maid,
+he suddenly went away and returned no more.
+
+And thus the trace of my ... my father grew cold; thus did it vanish
+irrevocably in the mute gloom. My mother and I never spoke of him. Only,
+one day, I remember that she expressed surprise at my never having
+alluded before to my strange dream; and then she added: "Of course, it
+really ..." and did not finish her sentence.
+
+My mother was ill for a long time, and after her convalescence our
+former relations were not reestablished. She felt awkward in my presence
+until the day of her death.... Precisely that, awkward. And there was no
+way of helping her in her grief. Everything becomes smoothed down, the
+memories of the most tragic family events gradually lose their force and
+venom; but if a feeling of awkwardness has been set up between two
+closely-connected persons, it is impossible to extirpate it!
+
+I have never again had that dream which had been wont so to disturb me;
+I no longer "search for" my father; but it has sometimes seemed to
+me--and it seems so to me to this day--that in my sleep I hear distant
+shrieks, unintermittent, melancholy plaints; they resound somewhere
+behind a lofty wall, across which it is impossible to clamber; they
+rend my heart--and I am utterly unable to comprehend what it is: whether
+it is a living man groaning, or whether I hear the wild, prolonged roar
+of the troubled sea. And now it passes once more into that beast-like
+growl--and I awake with sadness and terror in my soul.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FATHER ALEXYEI'S STORY
+
+(1877)
+
+
+
+
+Twenty years ago I was obliged--in my capacity of private inspector--to
+make the circuit of all my aunt's rather numerous estates. The parish
+priests, with whom I regarded it as my duty to make acquaintance, proved
+to be individuals of pretty much one pattern, and made after one model,
+as it were. At length, in about the last of the estates which I was
+inspecting, I hit upon a priest who did not resemble his brethren. He
+was a very aged man, almost decrepit; and had it not been for the urgent
+entreaties of his parishioners, who loved and respected him, he would
+long before have petitioned to be retired that he might rest. Two
+peculiarities impressed me in Father Alexyei (that was the priest's
+name). In the first place, he not only asked nothing for himself but
+announced plainly that he required nothing; and, in the second place, I
+have never beheld in any human face a more sorrowful, thoroughly
+indifferent--what is called an "overwhelmed"--expression. The features
+of that face were of the ordinary rustic type: a wrinkled forehead,
+small grey eyes, a large nose, a wedge-shaped beard, a swarthy,
+sunburned skin.... But the expression! ... the expression!... In that
+dim gaze life barely burned, and sadly at that; and his voice also was,
+somehow, lifeless and dim.
+
+I fell ill and kept my bed for several days. Father Alexyei dropped in
+to see me in the evenings, not to chat, but to play "fool."[16] The game
+of cards seemed to divert him more than it did me. One day, after having
+been left "the fool" several times in succession (which delighted Father
+Alexyei not a little), I turned the conversation on his past life, on
+the afflictions which had left on him such manifest traces. Father
+Alexyei remained obdurate for a long time at first, but ended by
+relating to me his story. He must have taken a liking to me for some
+reason or other. Otherwise he would not have been so frank with me.
+
+I shall endeavour to transmit his story in his own words. Father Alexyei
+talked very simply and intelligently, without any seminary or provincial
+tricks and turns of speech. It was not the first time I had noticed that
+Russians, of all classes and callings, who have been violently shattered
+and humbled express themselves precisely in such language.
+
+... I had a good and sedate wife [thus he began], I loved her heartily,
+and we begat eight children. One of my sons became a bishop, and died
+not so very long ago, in his diocese. I shall now tell you about my
+other son,--Yakoff was his name. I sent him to the seminary in the town
+of T----, and soon began to receive the most comforting reports about
+him. He was the best pupil in all the branches! Even at home, in his
+boyhood, he had been distinguished for his diligence and discretion; a
+whole day would sometimes pass without one's hearing him ... he would be
+sitting all the time over his book, reading. He never caused me and my
+wife[17] the slightest displeasure; he was a meek lad. Only sometimes he
+was thoughtful beyond his years, and his health was rather weak. Once
+something remarkable happened to him. He left the house at daybreak, on
+St. Peter's day,[18] and was gone almost all the morning. At last he
+returned. My wife and I ask him: "Where hast thou been?"
+
+"I have been for a ramble in the forest," says he, "and there I met a
+certain little green old man, who talked a great deal with me, and gave
+me such savoury nuts!"
+
+"What little green old man art thou talking about?" we ask him.
+
+"I don't know," says he; "I never saw him before. He was a little old
+man with a hump, and he kept shifting from one to the other of his
+little feet, and laughing--and he was all green, just like a leaf."
+
+"What," say we, "and was his face green also?"
+
+"Yes, his face, and his hair, and even his eyes."
+
+Our son had never lied to us; but this time my wife and I had our
+doubts.
+
+"Thou must have fallen asleep in the forest, in the heat of the day, and
+have seen that old man in thy dreams."
+
+"I wasn't asleep at all," says he. "Why, don't you believe me?" says
+he. "See here, I have one of the nuts left in my pocket."
+
+Yakoff pulled the nut out of his pocket and showed it to us.--The kernel
+was small, in the nature of a chestnut, and rather rough; it did not
+resemble our ordinary nuts. I laid it aside, and intended to show it to
+the doctor ... but it got lost.... I did not find it again.
+
+Well, sir, so we sent him to the seminary, and, as I have already
+informed you, he rejoiced us by his success. So my spouse and I assumed
+that he would turn out a fine man! When he came for a sojourn at home it
+was a pleasure to look at him; he was so comely, and there was no
+mischief about him;--every one liked him, every one congratulated us.
+Only he was still rather thin of body, and there was no real good
+rosiness in his face. So then, he was already in his nineteenth year,
+and his education would soon be finished. When suddenly we receive from
+him a letter.--He writes to us: "Dear father and mother, be not wroth
+with me, permit me to be a layman;[19] my heart does not incline to the
+ecclesiastical profession, I dread the responsibility, I am afraid I
+shall sin--doubts have taken hold upon me! Without your parental
+permission and blessing I shall venture on nothing--but one thing I will
+tell you; I am afraid of myself, for I have begun to think a great
+deal."
+
+I assure you, my dear sir, that this letter made me very sad,--as though
+a boar-spear had pricked my heart,--for I saw that I should have no one
+to take my place![20] My eldest son was a monk; and this one wanted to
+abandon his vocation altogether. I was also pained because priests from
+our family have lived in our parish for close upon two hundred years.
+But I thought to myself: "There's no use in kicking against the pricks;
+evidently, so it was predestined for him. What sort of a pastor would he
+be if he has admitted doubt to his mind?" I took counsel with my wife,
+and wrote to him in the following sense:
+
+"Think it over well, my son Yakoff; measure ten times before you cut
+off once--there are great difficulties in the worldly service, cold and
+hunger, and scorn for our caste! And thou must know beforehand that no
+one will lend a hand to aid; so see to it that thou dost not repine
+afterward. My desire, as thou knowest, has always been that thou
+shouldst succeed me; but if thou really hast come to cherish doubts as
+to thy calling and hast become unsteady in the faith, then it is not my
+place to restrain thee. The Lord's will be done! Thy mother and I will
+not refuse thee our blessing."
+
+Yakoff answered me with a grateful letter. "Thou hast rejoiced me, dear
+father," said he. "It is my intention to devote myself to the profession
+of learning, and I have some protection; I shall enter the university
+and become a doctor, for I feel a strong bent for science." I read
+Yashka's letter and became sadder than before; but I did not share my
+grief with any one. My old woman caught a severe cold about that time
+and died--from that same cold, or the Lord took her to Himself because
+He loved her, I know not which. I used to weep and weep because I was a
+lonely widower--but what help was there for that?[21] So it had to be,
+you know. And I would have been glad to go into the earth ... but it is
+hard ... it will not open. And I was expecting my son; for he had
+notified me: "Before I go to Moscow," he said, "I shall look in at
+home." And he did come to the parental roof, but did not remain there
+long. It seemed as though something were urging him on; he would have
+liked, apparently, to fly on wings to Moscow, to his beloved university!
+I began to question him as to his doubts. "What was the cause of them?"
+I asked. But I did not get much out of him. One idea had pushed itself
+into his head, and that was the end of it! "I want to help my
+neighbours," he said.--Well, sir, he left me. I don't believe he took a
+penny with him, only a few clothes. He had such reliance on himself! And
+not without reason. He passed an excellent examination, matriculated as
+student, obtained lessons in private houses.... He was very strong on
+the ancient languages! And what think you? He took it into his head to
+send me money. I cheered up a little,--not on account of the money, of
+course,--I sent that back to him, and even scolded him; but I cheered up
+because I saw that the young fellow would make his way in the world. But
+my rejoicing did not last long....
+
+He came to me for his first vacation.... And, what marvel is this? I do
+not recognise my Yakoff! He had grown so tiresome and surly,--you
+couldn't get a word out of him. And his face had changed also: he had
+grown about ten years older. He had been taciturn before, there's no
+denying that! At the slightest thing he would grow shy and blush like a
+girl.... But when he raised his eyes, you could see that all was bright
+in his soul! But now it was quite different. He was not shy, but he held
+aloof, like a wolf, and was always looking askance. He had neither a
+smile nor a greeting for any one--he was just like a stone! If I
+undertook to interrogate him, he would either remain silent or snarl. I
+began to wonder whether he had taken to drink--which God forbid!--or had
+conceived a passion for cards; or whether something in the line of a
+weakness for women had happened to him. In youth love-longings act
+powerfully,--well, and in such a large city as Moscow bad examples and
+occasions are not lacking. But no; nothing of that sort was discernible.
+His drink was kvas[22] and water; he never looked at the female sex--and
+had no intercourse with people in general. And what was most bitter of
+all to me, he did not have his former confidence in me; a sort of
+indifference had made its appearance, just as though everything belonging
+to him had become loathsome to him. I turned the conversation on the
+sciences, on the university, but even there could get no real answer. He
+went to church, but he was not devoid of peculiarities there also;
+everywhere he was grim and scowling, but in church he seemed always
+to be grinning.
+
+After this fashion he spent six weeks with me, then went back to Moscow.
+From Moscow he wrote to me twice, and it seemed to me, from his letters,
+as though he were regaining his sensibilities. But picture to yourself
+my surprise, my dear sir! Suddenly, in the very middle of the winter,
+just before the Christmas holidays, he presents himself before me!
+
+"How didst thou get here? How is this? What's the matter? I know that
+thou hast no vacation at this time.--Dost thou come from Moscow?"--I
+ask.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And how about ... the university?"
+
+"I have left the university."
+
+"Thou hast left it?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"For good?"
+
+"For good."
+
+"But art thou ill, pray, Yakoff?"
+
+"No, father," says he, "I am not ill; but just don't bother me and
+question me, dear father, or I will go away from here--and that's the
+last thou wilt ever see of me."
+
+Yakoff tells me that he is not ill, but his face is such that I am
+fairly frightened. It was dreadful, dark--not human, actually!--His
+cheeks were drawn, his cheek-bones projected, he was mere skin and bone;
+his voice sounded as though it proceeded from a barrel ... while his
+eyes.... O Lord and Master! what eyes!--menacing, wild, incessantly
+darting from side to side, and it was impossible to catch them; his
+brows were knit, his lips seemed to be twisted on one side.... What had
+happened to my Joseph Most Fair,[23] to my quiet lad? I cannot
+comprehend it. "Can he have gone crazy?" I say to myself. He roams about
+like a spectre by night, he does not sleep,--and then, all of a sudden,
+he will take to staring into a corner as though he were completely
+benumbed.... It was enough to scare one!
+
+Although he had threatened to leave the house if I did not leave him in
+peace, yet surely I was his father! My last hope was ruined--yet I was
+to hold my tongue! So one day, availing myself of an opportunity, I
+began to entreat Yakoff with tears, I began to adjure him by the memory
+of his dead mother:
+
+"Tell me," I said, "as thy father in the flesh and in the spirit, Yasha,
+what aileth thee? Do not kill me; explain thyself, lighten thy heart!
+Can it be that thou hast ruined some Christian soul? If so, repent!"
+
+"Well, dear father," he suddenly says to me (this took place toward
+nightfall), "thou hast moved me to compassion. I will tell thee the
+whole truth. I have not ruined any Christian soul--but my own soul is
+going to perdition."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"In this way...." And thereupon Yakoff raised his eyes to mine for the
+first time.--"It is going on four months now," he began.... But suddenly
+he broke off and began to breathe heavily.
+
+"What about the fourth month? Tell me, do not make me suffer!"
+
+"This is the fourth month that I have been seeing him."
+
+"Him? Who is he?"
+
+"Why, the person ... whom it is awkward to mention at night."
+
+I fairly turned cold all over and fell to quaking.
+
+"What?!" I said, "dost thou see _him_?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And dost thou see him now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where?" And I did not dare to turn round, and we both spoke in a
+whisper.
+
+"Why, yonder ..." and he indicated the spot with his eyes ... "yonder,
+in the corner."
+
+I summoned up my courage and looked at the corner; there was nothing
+there.
+
+"Why, good gracious, there is nothing there, Yakoff!"
+
+"_Thou_ dost not see him, but I do."
+
+Again I glanced round ... again nothing. Suddenly there recurred to my
+mind the little old man in the forest who had given him the chestnut.
+"What does he look like?" I said.... "Is he green?"
+
+"No, he is not green, but black."
+
+"Has he horns?"
+
+"No, he is like a man,--only all black."
+
+As Yakoff speaks he displays his teeth in a grin and turns as pale as a
+corpse, and huddles up to me in terror; and his eyes seem on the point
+of popping out of his head, and he keeps staring at the corner.
+
+"Why, it is a shadow glimmering faintly," I say. "That is the blackness
+from a shadow, but thou mistakest it for a man."
+
+"Nothing of the sort!--And I see his eyes: now he is rolling up the
+whites, now he is raising his hand, he is calling me."
+
+"Yakoff, Yakoff, thou shouldst try to pray; this obsession would
+disperse. Let God arise and His enemies shall be scattered!"
+
+"I have tried," says he, "but it has no effect."
+
+"Wait, wait, Yakoff, do not lose thy courage. I will fumigate with
+incense; I will recite a prayer; I will sprinkle holy water around
+thee."
+
+Yakoff merely waved his hand. "I believe neither in thy incense nor in
+holy water; they don't help worth a farthing. I cannot get rid of him
+now. Ever since he came to me last summer, on one accursed day, he has
+been my constant visitor, and he cannot be driven away, Understand this,
+father, and do not wonder any longer at my behaviour--and do not torment
+me."
+
+"On what day did he come to thee?" I ask him, and all the while I am
+making the sign of the cross over him. "Was it not when thou didst write
+about thy doubts?"
+
+Yakoff put away my hand.
+
+"Let me alone, dear father," says he, "don't excite me to wrath lest
+worse should come of it. I'm not far from laying hands on myself, as it
+is."
+
+You can imagine, my dear sir, how I felt when I heard that.... I
+remember that I wept all night. "How have I deserved such wrath from the
+Lord?" I thought to myself.
+
+At this point Father Alexyei drew from his pocket a checked handkerchief
+and began to blow his nose, and stealthily wiped his eyes, by the way.
+
+A bad time began for us then [he went on]. I could think of but one
+thing: how to prevent him from running away, or--which the Lord
+forbid!--of actually doing himself some harm! I watched his every step,
+and was afraid to enter into conversation.--And there dwelt near us at
+that time a neighbour, the widow of a colonel, Marfa Savishna was her
+name; I cherished a great respect for her, because she was a quiet,
+sensible woman, in spite of the fact that she was young and comely. I
+was in the habit of going to her house frequently, and she did not
+despise my vocation.[24] Not knowing, in my grief and anguish, what to
+do, I just told her all about it.--At first she was greatly alarmed, and
+even thoroughly frightened; but later on she became thoughtful. For a
+long time she deigned to sit thus, in silence; and then she expressed a
+wish to see my son and converse with him. And I felt that I ought
+without fail to comply with her wish; for it was not feminine curiosity
+which prompted it in this case, but something else.
+
+On returning home I began to persuade Yakoff. "Come with me to see the
+colonel's widow," I said to him.
+
+He began to flourish his legs and arms!
+
+"I won't go to her," says he, "not on any account! What shall I talk to
+her about?" He even began to shout at me. But at last I conquered him,
+and hitching up my little sledge, I drove him to Marfa Savishna's, and,
+according to our compact, I left him alone with her. I was surprised at
+his having consented so speedily. Well, never mind,--we shall see. Three
+or four hours later my Yakoff returns.
+
+"Well," I ask, "how did our little neighbour please thee?"
+
+He made me no answer. I asked him again.
+
+"She is a virtuous woman," I said.--"I suppose she was amiable with
+thee?"
+
+"Yes," he says, "she is not like the others."
+
+I saw that he seemed to have softened a little. And I made up my mind to
+question him then and there....
+
+"And how about the obsession?" I said.
+
+Yakoff looked at me as though I had lashed him with a whip, and again
+made no reply. I did not worry him further, and left the room; and an
+hour later I went to the door and peeped through the keyhole.... And
+what do you think?--My Yasha was asleep! He was lying on the couch and
+sleeping. I crossed myself several times in succession. "May the Lord
+send Marfa Savishna every blessing!" I said. "Evidently, she has managed
+to touch his embittered heart, the dear little dove!"
+
+The next day I see Yakoff take his cap.... I think to myself: "Shall I
+ask him whither he is going?--But no, better not ask ... it certainly
+must be to her!"... And, in point of fact, Yakoff did set off for Marfa
+Savishna's house--and sat with her still longer than before; and on the
+day following he did it again! Then again, the next day but one! My
+spirits began to revive, for I saw that a change was coming over my son,
+and his face had grown quite different, and it was becoming possible to
+look into his eyes: he did not turn away. He was just as depressed as
+ever, but his former despair and terror had disappeared. But before I
+had recovered my cheerfulness to any great extent everything again broke
+off short! Yakoff again became wild, and again it was impossible to
+approach him. He sat locked up in his little room, and went no more to
+the widow's.
+
+"Can it be possible," I thought, "that he has hurt her feelings in some
+way, and she has forbidden him the house?--But no," I thought ...
+"although he is unhappy he would not dare to do such a thing; and
+besides, she is not that sort of woman."
+
+At last I could endure it no longer, and I interrogated him: "Well,
+Yakoff, how about our neighbour?... Apparently thou hast forgotten her
+altogether."
+
+But he fairly roared at me:--"Our neighbour? Dost thou want _him_ to
+jeer at me?"
+
+"What?" I say.--Then he even clenched his fists and ... got perfectly
+furious.
+
+"Yes!" he says; and formerly he had only towered up after a fashion, but
+now he began to laugh and show his teeth.--"Away! Begone!"
+
+To whom these words were addressed I know not! My legs would hardly bear
+me forth, to such a degree was I frightened. Just imagine: his face was
+the colour of red copper, he was foaming at the mouth, his voice was
+hoarse, exactly as though some one were choking him!... And that very
+same day I went--I, the orphan of orphans--to Marfa Savishna ... and
+found her in great affliction. Even her outward appearance had undergone
+a change: she had grown thin in the face. But she would not talk with me
+about my son. Only one thing she did say: that no human aid could effect
+anything in that case. "Pray, father," she said,--and then she presented
+me with one hundred rubles,--"for the poor and sick of your parish," she
+said. And again she repeated: "Pray!"--O Lord! As if I had not prayed
+without that--prayed day and night!
+
+Here Father Alexyei again pulled out his handkerchief, and again wiped
+away his tears, but not by stealth this time, and after resting for a
+little while, he resumed his cheerless narrative.
+
+Yakoff and I then began to descend as a snowball rolls down hill, and
+both of us could see that an abyss lay at the foot of the hill; but how
+were we to hold back, and what measures could we take? And it was
+utterly impossible to conceal this; my entire parish was greatly
+disturbed, and said: "The priest's son has gone mad; he is possessed of
+devils,--and the authorities ought to be informed of all this."--And
+people infallibly would have informed the authorities had not my
+parishioners taken pity on me ... for which I thank them. In the
+meantime winter was drawing to an end, and spring was approaching.--And
+such a spring as God sent!--fair and bright, such as even the old people
+could not remember: the sun shone all day long, there was no wind, and
+the weather was warm! And then a happy thought occurred to me: to
+persuade Yakoff to go off with me to do reverence to Mitrofany, in
+Voronezh. "If that last remedy is of no avail," I thought, "well, then,
+there is but one hope left--the grave!"
+
+So I was sitting one day on the porch just before evening, and the
+sunset glow was flaming in the sky, and the larks were warbling, and the
+apple-trees were in bloom, and the grass was growing green.... I was
+sitting and meditating how I could communicate my intention to Yakoff.
+Suddenly, lo and behold! he came out on the porch; he stood, gazed
+around, sighed, and sat down on the step by my side. I was even
+frightened out of joy, but I did nothing except hold my tongue. But he
+sits and looks at the sunset glow, and not a word does he utter either.
+But it seemed to me as though he had become softened, the furrows on his
+brow had been smoothed away, his eyes had even grown bright.... A little
+more, it seemed, and a tear would have burst forth! On beholding such a
+change in him I--excuse me!--grew bold.
+
+"Yakoff," I said to him, "do thou hearken to me without anger...." And
+then I informed him of my intention; how we were both to go to Saint
+Mitrofany on foot; and it is about one hundred and fifty versts to
+Voronezh from our parts; and how pleasant it would be for us two, in the
+spring chill, having risen before dawn, to walk and walk over the green
+grass, along the highway; and how, if we made proper obeisance and
+prayed before the shrine of the holy man, perhaps--who knows?--the Lord
+God would show mercy upon us, and he would receive healing, of which
+there had already been many instances. And just imagine my happiness, my
+dear sir!
+
+"Very well," says Yakoff, only he does not turn round, but keeps on
+gazing at the sky.--"I consent. Let us go."
+
+I was fairly stupefied....
+
+"My friend," I say, "my dear little dove, my benefactor!"... But he asks
+me:
+
+"When shall we set out?"
+
+"Why, to-morrow, if thou wilt," I say.
+
+So on the following day we started. We slung wallets over our shoulders,
+took staves in our hands, and set forth. For seven whole days we trudged
+on, and all the while the weather favoured us, and was even downright
+wonderful! There was neither sultry heat nor rain; the flies did not
+bite, the dust did not make us itch. And every day my Yakoff acquired a
+better aspect. I must tell you that Yakoff had not been in the habit of
+seeing _that one_ in the open air, but had felt him behind him, close to
+his back, or his shadow had seemed to be gliding alongside, which
+troubled my son greatly. But on this occasion nothing of that sort
+happened, and nothing made its appearance. We talked very little
+together ... but how greatly at our ease we felt--especially I! I saw
+that my poor boy was coming to life again. I cannot describe to you, my
+dear sir, what my feelings were then.--Well, we reached Voronezh at
+last. We cleaned up ourselves and washed ourselves, and went to the
+cathedral, to the holy man. For three whole days we hardly left the
+temple. How many prayer-services we celebrated, how many candles we
+placed before the holy pictures! And everything was going well,
+everything was fine; the days were devout, the nights were tranquil; my
+Yakoff slept like an infant. He began to talk to me of his own accord.
+He would ask: "Dost thou see nothing, father dear?" and smile. "No, I
+see nothing," I would answer.--What more could be demanded? My gratitude
+to the saint was unbounded.
+
+Three days passed; I said to Yakoff: "Well, now, dear son, the matter
+has been set in order; there's a festival in our street. One thing
+remains to be done; do thou make thy confession and receive the
+communion; and then, with God's blessing, we will go our way, and after
+having got duly rested, and worked a bit on the farm to increase thy
+strength, thou mayest bestir thyself and find a place--and Marfa
+Savishna will certainly help us in that," I said.
+
+"No," said Yakoff, "why should we trouble her? But I will take her a
+ring from Mitrofany's hand."
+
+Thereupon I was greatly encouraged. "See to it," I said, "that thou
+takest a silver ring, not a gold one,--not a wedding-ring!"
+
+My Yakoff flushed up and merely repeated that it was not proper to
+trouble her, but immediately assented to all the rest.--We went to the
+cathedral on the following day; my Yakoff made his confession, and
+prayed so fervently before it! And then he went forward to take the
+communion. I was standing a little to one side, and did not feel the
+earth under me for joy.... It is no sweeter for the angels in heaven!
+But as I look--what is the meaning of that?--My Yakoff has received the
+communion, but does not go to sip the warm water and wine![25] He is
+standing with his back to me.... I go to him.
+
+"Yakoff," I say, "why art thou standing here?"
+
+He suddenly wheels round. Will you believe it, I sprang back, so
+frightened was I!--His face had been dreadful before, but now it had
+become ferocious, frightful! He was as pale as death, his hair stood on
+end, his eyes squinted.... I even lost my voice with terror. I tried to
+speak and could not; I was perfectly benumbed.... And he fairly rushed
+out of the church! I ran after him ... but he fled straight to the
+tavern where we had put up, flung his wallet over his shoulder, and away
+he flew!
+
+"Whither?" I shouted to him. "Yakoff, what aileth thee? Stop, wait!"
+
+But Yakoff never uttered a word in reply to me, but ran like a hare, and
+it was utterly impossible to overtake him! He disappeared from sight. I
+immediately turned back, hired a cart, and trembled all over, and all I
+could say was: "O Lord!" and, "O Lord!" And I understood nothing: some
+calamity had descended upon us! I set out for home, for I thought, "He
+has certainly fled thither."--And so he had. Six versts out of the town
+I espied him; he was striding along the highway. I overtook him, jumped
+out of the cart, and rushed to him.
+
+"Yasha! Yasha!"--He halted, turned his face toward me, but kept his eyes
+fixed on the ground and compressed his lips. And say what I would to
+him, he stood there just like a statue, and one could just see that he
+was breathing. And at last he trudged on again along the highway.--What
+was there to do? I followed him....
+
+Akh, what a journey that was, my dear sir! Great as had been our joy on
+the way to Voronezh, just so great was the horror of the return! I would
+try to speak to him, and he would begin to gnash his teeth at me over
+his shoulder, precisely like a tiger or a hyena! Why I did not go mad I
+do not understand to this day! And at last, one night, in a peasant's
+chicken-house, he was sitting on the platform over the oven and dangling
+his feet and gazing about on all sides, when I fell on my knees before
+him and began to weep, and besought him with bitter entreaty:
+
+"Do not slay thy old father outright," I said; "do not let him fall
+into despair--tell me what has happened to thee?"
+
+He glanced at me as though he did not see who was before him, and
+suddenly began to speak, but in such a voice that it rings in my ears
+even now.
+
+"Listen, daddy," said he. "Dost thou wish to know the whole truth? When
+I had taken the communion, thou wilt remember, and still held the
+particle[26] in my mouth, suddenly _he_ (and that was in the church, in
+the broad daylight!) stood in front of me, just as though he had sprung
+out of the ground, and whispered to me ... (but he had never spoken to
+me before)--whispered: 'Spit it out, and grind it to powder!' I did so;
+I spat it out, and ground it under foot. And now it must be that I am
+lost forever, for every sin shall be forgiven, save the sin against the
+Holy Spirit...."
+
+And having uttered these dreadful words, my son threw himself back on
+the platform and I dropped down on the floor of the hut.... My legs
+failed me....
+
+Father Alexyei paused for a moment, and covered his eyes with his hand.
+
+But why should I weary you longer [he went on], and myself? My son and I
+dragged ourselves home, and there he soon afterward expired, and I lost
+my Yasha. For several days before his death he neither ate nor drank,
+but kept running back and forth in the room and repeating that there
+could be no forgiveness for his sin.... But he never saw _him_ again.
+"He has ruined my soul," he said; "and why should he come any more
+now?" And when Yakoff took to his bed, he immediately sank into
+unconsciousness, and thus, without repentance, like a senseless worm,
+he went from this life to life eternal....
+
+But I will not believe that the Lord judged harshly....
+
+And among other reasons why I do not believe it is, that he looked so
+well in his coffin; he seemed to have grown young again and resembled
+the Yakoff of days gone by. His face was so tranquil and pure, his hair
+curled in little rings, and there was a smile on his lips. Marfa
+Savishna came to look at him, and said the same thing. She encircled him
+all round with flowers, and laid flowers on his heart, and set up the
+gravestone at her own expense.
+
+And I was left alone.... And that is why, my dear sir, you have beheld
+such great grief on my face.... It will never pass off---and it cannot.
+
+I wanted to speak a word of comfort to Father Alexyei ... but could
+think of none. We parted soon after.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+OLD PORTRAITS[27]
+
+(1881)
+
+
+
+
+About forty versts from our village there dwelt, many years ago, the
+great-uncle of my mother, a retired Sergeant of the Guards and a fairly
+wealthy landed proprietor, Alexyei Sergyeitch Telyegin, on his ancestral
+estate, Sukhodol. He never went anywhere himself, and therefore did not
+visit us; but I was sent to pay my respects to him a couple of times a
+year, at first with my governor, and later on alone. Alexyei Sergyeitch
+always received me very cordially, and I spent three or four days with
+him. He was already an old man when I made his acquaintance; I remember
+that I was twelve years old at my first visit, and he was already over
+seventy. He had been born under the Empress Elizabeth, in the last year
+of her reign. He lived alone with his wife, Malanya Pavlovna; she was
+ten years younger than he. They had had two daughters who had been
+married long before, and rarely visited Sukhodol; there had been
+quarrels between them and their parents,[28] and Alexyei Sergyeitch
+hardly ever mentioned them.
+
+I see that ancient, truly noble steppe home as though it stood before me
+now. Of one story, with a huge mezzanine,[29] erected at the beginning
+of the present century from wonderfully thick pine beams--such beams
+were brought at that epoch from the Zhizdrin pine forests; there is no
+trace of them nowadays!--it was very spacious and contained a multitude
+of rooms, which were decidedly low-ceiled and dark, it is true, and the
+windows were mere slits in the walls, for the sake of warmth. As was
+proper, the offices and the house-serfs' cottages surrounded the
+manor-house on all sides, and a park adjoined it, small but with fine
+fruit-trees, pellucid apples and seedless pears; for ten versts round
+about stretched out the flat, black-loam steppe. There was no lofty
+object for the eye: neither a tree nor a belfry; only here and there a
+windmill reared itself aloft with holes in its wings; it was a regular
+Sukhodol! (Dry Valley). Inside the house the rooms were filled with
+ordinary, plain furniture; rather unusual was a verst-post which stood
+on a window-sill in the hall, and bore the following inscription:
+
+"If thou walkest 68 times around this hall,[30] thou wilt have gone a
+verst; if thou goest 87 times from the extreme corner of the
+drawing-room to the right corner of the billiard-room, thou wilt have
+gone a verst,"--and so forth. But what most impressed the guest who
+arrived for the first time was the great number of pictures hung on the
+walls, for the most part the work of so-called Italian masters: ancient
+landscapes, and mythological and religious subjects. But as all these
+pictures had turned very black, and had even become warped, all that met
+the eye was patches of flesh-colour, or a billowy red drapery on an
+invisible body--or an arch which seemed suspended in the air, or a
+dishevelled tree with blue foliage, or the bosom of a nymph with a large
+nipple, like the cover of a soup-tureen; a sliced watermelon, with black
+seeds; a turban, with a feather above a horse's head; or the gigantic,
+light-brown leg of some apostle or other, with a muscular calf and
+up-turned toes, suddenly protruded itself. In the drawing-room, in the
+place of honour, hung a portrait of the Empress Katherine II, full
+length, a copy from Lampi's well-known portrait--the object of special
+reverence, one may say adoration, for the master of the house. From the
+ceiling depended crystal chandeliers in bronze fittings, very small and
+very dusty.
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch himself was a very squat, pot-bellied, little old
+man, with a plump, but agreeable face all of one colour, with sunken
+lips and very vivacious little eyes beneath lofty eyebrows. He brushed
+his scanty hair over the back of his head; it was only since the year
+1812 that he had discarded powder. Alexyei Sergyeitch always wore a grey
+"redingote" with three capes which fell over his shoulders, a striped
+waistcoat, chamois-leather breeches and dark-red morocco short boots
+with a heart-shaped cleft, and a tassel at the top of the leg; he wore a
+white muslin neckerchief, a frill, lace cuffs, and two golden English
+"onions,"[31] one in each pocket of his waistcoat. In his right hand he
+generally held an enamelled snuff-box with "Spanish" snuff, while his
+left rested on a cane with a silver handle which had been worn quite
+smooth with long use. Alexyei Sergyeitch had a shrill, nasal voice, and
+was incessantly smiling, amiably, but somewhat patronisingly, not
+without a certain self-satisfied pompousness. He also laughed in an
+amiable manner, with a fine, thin laugh like a string of wax pearls. He
+was courteous and affable, in the ancient manner of Katherine's day, and
+moved his hands slowly and with a circular motion, also in ancient
+style. On account of his weak legs he could not walk, but he was wont
+to trip with hurried little steps from one arm-chair to another
+arm-chair, in which he suddenly seated himself--or, rather, he fell into
+it, as softly as though he had been a pillow.
+
+As I have already said, Alexyei Sergyeitch never went anywhere, and
+associated very little with the neighbours, although he was fond of
+society,--for he was loquacious! He had plenty of society in his own
+house, it is true: divers Nikanor Nikanoritches, Sevastyei
+Sevastyeitches, Fedulitches, and Mikheitches, all poverty-stricken petty
+nobles, in threadbare kazak coats and short jackets, frequently from his
+own noble shoulders, dwelt beneath his roof, not to mention the poor
+gentlewomen in cotton-print gowns, with black kerchiefs on their
+shoulders, and worsted reticules in their tightly-clenched
+fingers,--divers Avdotiya Savishnas, Pelageya Mironovnas, and plain
+Fekluskas and Arinkas, who received asylum in the women's wing. No less
+than fifteen persons ever sat down to Alexyei Sergyeitch's table ... he
+was so hospitable!--Among all these parasites two individuals stood
+forth with special prominence: a dwarf named Janus or the Two-faced, a
+Dane,--or, as some asserted, of Jewish extraction,--and crazy Prince L.
+In contrast to the customs of that day the dwarf did not in the least
+serve as a butt for the guests, and was not a jester; on the contrary,
+he maintained constant silence, wore an irate and surly mien,
+contracted his brows in a frown, and gnashed his teeth as soon as any
+one addressed a question to him. Alexyei Sergyeitch also called him a
+philosopher, and even respected him. At table he was always the first to
+be served after the guests and the master and mistress of the
+house.--"God has wronged him," Alexyei Sergyeitch was wont to say: "that
+was the Lord's will; but it is not my place to wrong him."
+
+"Why is he a philosopher?" I asked one day. (Janus did not like me. No
+sooner would I approach him, than he would begin to snarl and growl
+hoarsely, "Stranger! don't bother me!")
+
+"But God have mercy, why isn't he a philosopher?" replied Alexyei
+Sergyeitch. "Just observe, my little gentleman, how finely he holds his
+tongue!"
+
+"But why is he two-faced?"
+
+"Because, my young sir, he has one face outside; there it is for you,
+ninny, and judge it.... But the other, the real one, he hides. And I am
+the only one who knows that face, and for that I love him.... Because 't
+is a good face. Thou, for example, gazest and beholdest nothing ... but
+even without words, I see when he is condemning me for anything; for he
+is strict! And always with reason. Which thing thou canst not
+understand, young sir; but just believe me, an old man!"
+
+The true history of the two-faced Janus--whence he had come, how he had
+got into Alexyei Sergyeitch's house--no one knew. On the other hand, the
+story of Prince L. was well known to all. As a young man of twenty, he
+had come from a wealthy and distinguished family to Petersburg, to serve
+in a regiment of the Guards; the Empress Katherine noticed him at the
+first Court reception, and halting in front of him and pointing to him
+with her fan, she said, in a loud voice, addressing one of her
+favourites: "Look, Adam Vasilievitch, see what a beauty! A regular
+doll!" The blood flew to the poor young fellow's head. On reaching home
+he ordered his calash to be harnessed up, and donning his ribbon of the
+Order of Saint Anna, he started out to drive all over the town, as
+though he had actually fallen into luck.--"Crush every one who does not
+get out of the way!" he shouted to his coachman.--All this was
+immediately brought to the Empress's knowledge; an order was issued that
+he was to be adjudged insane and given in charge of his two brothers;
+and the latter, without the least delay, carried him off to the country
+and chained him up in a stone bag.--As they were desirous to make use of
+his property, they did not release the unfortunate man even when he
+recovered his senses and came to himself, but continued to keep him
+incarcerated until he really did lose his mind.--But their wickedness
+profited them nothing. Prince L. outlived his brothers, and after long
+sufferings, found himself under the guardianship of Alexyei Sergyeitch,
+who was a connection of his. He was a fat, perfectly bald man, with a
+long, thin nose and blue goggle-eyes. He had got entirely out of the way
+of speaking--he merely mumbled something unintelligible; but he sang the
+ancient Russian ballads admirably, having retained, to extreme old age,
+his silvery freshness of voice, and in his singing he enunciated every
+word clearly and distinctly. Something in the nature of fury came over
+him at times, and then he became terrifying. He would stand in one
+corner, with his face to the wall, and all perspiring and
+crimson,--crimson all over his bald head to the nape of his neck.
+Emitting a malicious laugh, and stamping his feet, he would issue orders
+that some one was to be castigated,--probably his brothers.--"Thrash!"--
+he yelled hoarsely, choking and coughing with laughter,--"scourge, spare
+not, thrash, thrash, thrash the monsters my malefactors! That's right!
+That's right!" Just before he died he greatly amazed and frightened
+Alexyei Sergyeitch. He entered the latter's room all pale and quiet, and
+inclining his body in obeisance to the girdle, he first returned thanks
+for the asylum and oversight, and then requested that a priest might be
+sent for; for Death had come to him--he had beheld her--and he must
+pardon all men and whiten himself.
+
+"How was it that thou didst see her?" muttered the astounded Alexyei
+Sergyeitch, who now heard a coherent speech from him for the first
+time.--"What is she like? Has she a scythe?"
+
+"No," replied Prince L.--"She's a plain old woman in a loose gown--only
+she has but one eye in her forehead, and that eye has no lid."
+
+And on the following day Prince L. actually expired, after having
+fulfilled all his religious obligations and taken leave of every one
+intelligently and with emotion.
+
+"That's the way I shall die also," Alexyei Sergyeitch was wont to
+remark. And, in fact, something similar happened with him--of which,
+later on.
+
+But now let us return to our former subject. Alexyei Sergyeitch did not
+consort with the neighbours, as I have already said; and they did not
+like him any too well, calling him eccentric, arrogant, a mocker, and
+even a Martinist who did not recognise the authorities, without
+themselves understanding, of course, the meaning of the last word. To a
+certain extent the neighbours were right. Alexyei Sergyeitch had resided
+for nearly seventy years in succession in his Sukhodol, having almost no
+dealings whatever with the superior authorities, with the military
+officials, or the courts. "The court is for the bandit, the military
+officer for the soldier," he was wont to say; "but I, God be thanked, am
+neither a bandit nor a soldier." Alexyei Sergyeitch really was somewhat
+eccentric, but the soul within him was not of the petty sort. I will
+narrate a few things about him.
+
+I never found out authoritatively what were his political views, if,
+indeed, one can apply to him such a very new-fangled expression; but he
+was, in his way, rather an aristocrat than a nobly-born master of serfs.
+More than once he complained because God had not given him a son and
+heir "for the honour of the race, for the continuation of the family."
+On the wall of his study hung the genealogical tree of the Telyegins,
+with very profuse branches, and multitudinous circles in the shape of
+apples, enclosed in a gilt frame.
+
+"We Telyegins,"[32] he said, "are a very ancient stock, existing from
+remote antiquity; there have been a great many of us Telyegins, but we
+have not run after foreigners, we have not bowed our backs, we have not
+wearied ourselves by standing on the porches of the mighty, we have not
+nourished ourselves on the courts, we have not earned wages, we have not
+pined for Moscow, we have not intrigued in Peter;[33] we have sat
+still, each on his place, his own master on his own land ... thrifty,
+domesticated birds, my dear sir!--Although I myself have served in the
+Guards, yet it was not for long, I thank you!"
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch preferred the olden days.--"Things were freer then,
+more seemly, I assure you on my honour! But ever since the year one
+thousand and eight hundred" (why precisely from that year he did not
+explain), "this warring and this soldiering have come into fashion, my
+dear fellow. These military gentlemen have mounted upon their heads some
+sort of plumes made of cocks' tails, and made themselves like cocks;
+they have drawn their necks up tightly, very tightly ... they speak in
+hoarse tones, their eyes are popping out of their heads--and how can
+they help being hoarse? The other day some police corporal or other came
+to see me.--'I have come to you, Your Well-Born,' quoth he.... (A pretty
+way he had chosen to surprise me! ... for I know myself that I am
+well-born....) 'I have a matter of business with you.' But I said to him:
+'Respected sir, first undo the hooks on thy collar. Otherwise, which God
+forbid, thou wilt sneeze! Akh, what will become of thee! What will
+become of thee!--Thou wilt burst like a puff-ball.... And I shall be
+responsible for it!' And how they drink, those military
+gentlemen--o-ho-ho! I generally give orders that they shall be served
+with champagne from the Don, because Don champagne and Pontacq are all
+the same to them; it slips down their throats so smoothly and so
+fast--how are they to distinguish the difference? And here's another
+thing: they have begun to suck that sucking-bottle, to smoke tobacco. A
+military man will stick that same sucking-bottle under his moustache,
+between his lips, and emit smoke through his nostrils, his mouth, and
+even his ears--and think himself a hero! There are my horrid
+sons-in-law, for example; although one of them is a senator, and the
+other is some sort of a curator, they suck at the sucking-bottle
+also,--and yet they regard themselves as clever men!..."
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch could not endure smoking tobacco, nor dogs,
+especially small dogs.--"Come, if thou art a Frenchman, then keep a
+lap-dog. Thou runnest, thou skippest hither and thither, and it follows
+thee, with its tail in the air ... but of what use is it to fellows like
+me?"--He was very neat and exacting. He never spoke of the Empress
+Katherine otherwise than with enthusiasm, and in a lofty, somewhat
+bookish style: "She was a demi-god, not a human being!--Only contemplate
+yon smile, my good sir," he was wont to add, pointing at the Lampi
+portrait, "and admit that she was a demi-god! I, in my lifetime, have
+been so happy as to have been vouchsafed the bliss of beholding yon
+smile, and to all eternity it will never be erased from my heart!"--And
+thereupon he would impart anecdotes from the life of Katherine such as
+it has never been my lot to read or hear anywhere. Here is one of them.
+Alexyei Sergyeitch did not permit the slightest hint at the failings of
+the great Empress. "Yes, and in conclusion," he cried: "is it possible
+to judge her as one judges other people?--One day, as she was sitting in
+her powder-mantle, at the time of her morning toilet, she gave orders
+that her hair should be combed out.... And what happened? The
+waiting-woman passes the comb through it, and electric sparks fly from
+it in a perfect shower!--Then she called to her the body physician,
+Rodgerson, who was present on duty, and says to him: 'I know that people
+condemn me for certain actions; but dost thou see this electricity?
+Consequently, with such a nature and constitution as mine, thou mayest
+thyself judge, for thou art a physician, that it is unjust to condemn
+me, but they should understand me!'"
+
+The following incident was ineffaceably retained in the memory of
+Alexyei Sergyeitch. He was standing one day on the inner watch in the
+palace, and he was only sixteen years of age. And lo, the Empress passes
+him--he presents arms.... "And she," cried Alexyei Sergyeitch, again with
+rapture, "smiling at my youth and my zeal, deigned to give me her hand
+to kiss, and patted me on the cheek, and inquired who I was, and whence
+I came, and from what family? And then ..." (here the old man's voice
+generally broke) ... "then she bade me give my mother her compliments
+and thank her for rearing her children so well. And whether I was in
+heaven or on earth, and how and whither she withdrew,--whether she
+soared up on high, or passed into another room,--I know not to this
+day!"
+
+I often tried to question Alexyei Sergyeitch about those olden days,
+about the men who surrounded the Empress.... But he generally evaded the
+subject. "What's the use of talking about old times?"--he said ... "one
+only tortures himself. One says to himself,--'Thou wert a young man
+then, but now thy last teeth have vanished from thy mouth.' And there's
+no denying it--the old times were good ... well, and God be with them!
+And as for those men--I suppose, thou fidgety child, that thou art
+talking about the accidental men? Thou hast seen a bubble spring forth
+on water? So long as it is whole and lasts, what beautiful colours play
+upon it! Red and yellow and blue; all one can say is, ''Tis a rainbow
+or a diamond!'--But it soon bursts, and no trace of it remains. And
+that's what those men were like."
+
+"Well, and how about Potyomkin?" I asked one day.
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch assumed a pompous mien. "Potyomkin, Grigory
+Alexandritch, was a statesman, a theologian, a nursling of Katherine's,
+her offspring, one must say.... But enough of that, my little sir!"
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch was a very devout man and went to church regularly,
+although it was beyond his strength. There was no superstition
+perceptible in him; he ridiculed signs, the evil eye, and other
+"twaddle," yet he did not like it when a hare ran across his path, and
+it was not quite agreeable for him to meet a priest.[34] He was very
+respectful to ecclesiastical persons, nevertheless, and asked their
+blessing, and even kissed their hand every time, but he talked with them
+reluctantly.--"They emit a very strong odour," he explained; "but I,
+sinful man that I am, have grown effeminate beyond measure;--their hair
+is so long[35] and oily, and they comb it out in all directions,
+thinking thereby to show me respect, and they clear their throats loudly
+in the middle of conversation, either out of timidity or because they
+wish to please me in that way also. Well, but they remind me of my hour
+of death. But be that as it may, I want to live a while longer. Only,
+little sir, don't repeat these remarks of mine; respect the
+ecclesiastical profession--only fools do not respect it; and I am to
+blame for talking nonsense in my old age."
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch had received a scanty education,[36] like all nobles
+of that epoch; but he had completed it, to a certain degree, by reading.
+He read only Russian books of the end of the last century; he considered
+the newer writers unleavened and weak in style. During his reading he
+placed beside him, on a round, one-legged little table, a silver jug
+filled with a special effervescent kvas flavoured with mint, whose
+pleasant odour disseminated itself through all the rooms. He placed
+large, round spectacles on the tip of his nose; but in his later years
+he did not so much read as stare thoughtfully over the rims of the
+spectacles, elevating his brows, mowing with his lips and sighing. Once
+I caught him weeping, with a book on his knees, which greatly surprised
+me, I admit.
+
+He recalled the following wretched doggerel:
+
+    O all-conquering race of man!
+    Rest is unknown to thee!
+    Thou findest it only
+    When thou swallowest the dust of the grave....
+    Bitter, bitter is this rest!
+    Sleep, ye dead.... But weep, ye living!
+
+These verses were composed by a certain Gormitch-Gormitzky, a roving
+poetaster, whom Alexyei Sergyeitch had harboured in his house because he
+seemed to him a delicate and even subtle man; he wore shoes with knots
+of ribbon, pronounced his _o's_ broadly, and, raising his eyes to
+heaven, he sighed frequently. In addition to all these merits,
+Gormitch-Gormitzky spoke French passably well, for he had been educated
+in a Jesuit college, while Alexyei Sergyeitch only "understood" it. But
+having once drunk himself dead-drunk in a dram-shop, this same subtle
+Gormitzky displayed outrageous violence. He thrashed "to flinders"
+Alexyei Sergyeitch's valet, the cook, two laundresses who happened
+along, and even an independent carpenter, and smashed several panes in
+the windows, yelling lustily the while: "Here now, I'll just show these
+Russian sluggards, these unlicked katzapy!"[37]--And what strength that
+puny little man displayed! Eight men could hardly control him! For this
+turbulence Alexyei Sergyeitch gave orders that the rhymster should be
+flung out of the house, after he had preliminarily been rolled in the
+snow (it happened in the winter), to sober him.
+
+"Yes," Alexyei Sergyeitch was wont to say, "my day is over; the horse is
+worn out. I used to keep poets at my expense, and I used to buy pictures
+and books from the Jews--and my geese were quite as good as those of
+Mukhan, and I had genuine slate-coloured tumbler-pigeons.... I was an
+amateur of all sorts of things! Except that I never was a dog-fancier,
+because of the drunkenness and the clownishness! I was mettlesome,
+untamable! God forbid that a Telyegin should be anything but first-class
+in everything! And I had a splendid horse-breeding establishment.... And
+those horses came ... whence, thinkest thou, my little sir?--From those
+very renowned studs of the Tzar Ivan Alexyeitch, the brother of Peter
+the Great.... I'm telling you the truth! All stallions, dark brown in
+colour, with manes to their knees, tails to their hoofs.... Lions!
+Vanity of vanities, all is vanity! But what's the use of regretting it?
+Every man has his limit fixed for him.--You cannot fly higher than
+heaven, nor live in the water, nor escape from the earth.... Let us live
+on a while longer, at any rate!"
+
+And again the old man smiled and took a pinch of his Spanish tobacco.
+
+His peasants loved him. Their master was kind, according to them, and
+not a heart-breaker.--Only, they also repeated that he was a worn-out
+steed. Formerly Alexyei Sergyeitch had gone into everything himself: he
+had ridden out into the fields, and to the flour-mill, and to the
+oil-mill and the storehouses, and looked in to the peasants' cottages;
+every one was familiar with his racing-drozhky,[38] upholstered in
+crimson plush and drawn by a well-grown horse with a broad blaze
+extending clear across its forehead, named "Lantern"--from that same
+famous breeding establishment. Alexyei Sergyeitch drove him himself with
+the ends of the reins wound round his fists. But when his seventieth
+birthday came the old man gave up everything, and entrusted the
+management of his estate to the peasant bailiff Antip, of whom he
+secretly stood in awe and called Micromegas (memories of Voltaire!), or
+simply "robber."
+
+"Well, robber, hast thou gathered a big lot of stolen goods?" he would
+say, looking the robber straight in the eye.
+
+"Everything is according to your grace," Antip would reply merrily.
+
+"Grace is all right, only just look out for thyself, Micromegas! Don't
+dare to touch my peasants, my subjects behind my back! They will make
+complaint ... my cane is not far off, seest thou?"
+
+"I always keep your little cane well in mind, dear little father Alexyei
+Sergyeitch," replied Antip-Micromegas, stroking his beard.
+
+"That's right, keep it in mind!" and master and bailiff laughed in each
+other's faces.
+
+With his house-serfs, with his serfs in general, with his "subjects"
+(Alexyei Sergyeitch loved that word), he dealt gently.--"Because, judge
+for thyself, little nephew, if thou hast nothing of thine own save the
+cross on thy neck,[39] and that a brass one, don't hanker after other
+folks' things.... What sense is there in that?" There is no denying the
+fact that no one even thought of the so-called problem of the serfs at
+that epoch; and it could not disturb Alexyei Sergyeitch. He very calmly
+ruled his "subjects"; but he condemned bad landed proprietors and called
+them the enemies of their class.
+
+He divided the nobles in general into three categories: the judicious,
+"of whom there are not many"; the profligate, "of whom there is a goodly
+number"; and the licentious, "of whom there are enough to dam a pond."
+And if any one of them was harsh and oppressive to his subjects, that
+man was guilty in the sight of God, and culpable in the sight of
+men!--Yes; the house-serfs led an easy life in the old man's house; the
+"subjects behind his back" were less well off, as a matter of course,
+despite the cane wherewith he threatened Micromegas.--And how many there
+were of them--of those house-serfs--in his manor! And for the most part
+they were old, sinewy, hairy, grumbling, stoop-shouldered, clad in
+long-skirted nankeen kaftans, and imbued with a strong acrid odour! And
+in the women's department nothing was to be heard but the trampling of
+bare feet, and the rustling of petticoats.--The head valet was named
+Irinarkh, and Alexyei Sergyeitch always summoned him with a
+long-drawn-out call: "I-ri-na-a-arkh!"--He called the others: "Young
+fellow! Boy! What subject is there?!"--He could not endure bells. "God
+have mercy, this is no tavern!" And what amazed me was, that no matter
+at what time Alexyei Sergyeitch called his valet, the man instantly
+presented himself, just as though he had sprung out of the earth, and
+placing his heels together, and putting his hands behind his back, stood
+before his master a grim and, as it were, an irate but zealous servant!
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch was lavish beyond his means; but he did not like to
+be called "benefactor."--"What sort of a benefactor am I to you, sir?...
+I'm doing myself a favour, not you, my good sir!" (When he was angry or
+indignant he always called people "you.")--"To a beggar give once, give
+twice, give thrice," he was wont to say.... "Well, and if he returns for
+the fourth time--give to him yet again, only add therewith: 'My good
+man, thou shouldst work with something else besides thy mouth all the
+time.'"
+
+"Uncle," I used to ask him, "what if the beggar should return for the
+fifth time after that?"
+
+"Why, then, do thou give to him for the fifth time."
+
+The sick people who appealed to him for aid he had cured at his own
+expense, although he himself did not believe in doctors, and never sent
+for them.--"My deceased mother," he asserted, "used to heal all maladies
+with olive-oil and salt; she both administered it internally and rubbed
+it on externally, and everything passed off splendidly. And who was my
+mother? She had her birth under Peter the First--only think of that!"
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch was a Russian man in every respect; he loved Russian
+viands, he loved Russian songs, but the accordion, "a factory
+invention," he detested; he loved to watch the maidens in their choral
+songs, the women in their dances. In his youth, it was said, he had sung
+rollickingly and danced with agility. He loved to steam himself in the
+bath,--and steamed himself so energetically that Irinarkh, who served
+him as bath-attendant, thrashed him with a birch-besom soaked in beer,
+rubbed him down with shredded linden bark,[40] then with a bit of
+woollen cloth, rolled a soap bladder over his master's shoulders,--this
+faithfully-devoted Irinarkh was accustomed to say every time, as he
+climbed down from the shelf as red as "a new brass statue": "Well, for
+this time I, the servant of God, Irinarkh Tolobyeeff, am still whole....
+What will happen next time?"
+
+And Alexyei Sergyeitch spoke splendid Russian, somewhat old-fashioned,
+but piquant and pure as spring water, constantly interspersing his
+speech with his pet words: "honour bright," "God have mercy," "at any
+rate," "sir," and "little sir."...
+
+Enough concerning him, however. Let us talk about Alexyei Sergyeitch's
+spouse, Malanya Pavlovna.
+
+Malanya Pavlovna was a native of Moscow, and had been accounted the
+greatest beauty in town, _la Venus de Moscou_.--When I knew her she was
+already a gaunt old woman, with delicate but insignificant features,
+little curved hare-like teeth in a tiny little mouth, with a multitude
+of tight little curls on her forehead, and dyed eyebrows. She constantly
+wore a pyramidal cap with rose-coloured ribbons, a high ruff around her
+neck, a short white gown and prunella shoes with red heels; and over her
+gown she wore a jacket of blue satin, with the sleeve depending from
+the right shoulder. She had worn precisely such a toilet on St. Peter's
+day, 1789! On that day, being still a maiden, she had gone with her
+relatives to the Khodynskoe Field,[41] to see the famous prize-fight
+arranged by the Orloffs.
+
+"And Count Alexyei Grigorievitch ..." (oh, how many times did I hear
+that tale!), ... "having descried me, approached, made a low obeisance,
+holding his hat in both hands, and spake thus: 'My stunning beauty, why
+dost thou allow that sleeve to hang from thy shoulder? Is it that thou
+wishest to have a match at fisticuffs with me?... With pleasure; only I
+tell thee beforehand that thou hast vanquished me--I surrender!--and I
+am thy captive!'--and every one stared at us and marvelled."
+
+And so she had worn that style of toilet ever since.
+
+"Only, I wore no cap then, but a hat _a la bergere de Trianon_; and
+although I was powdered, yet my hair gleamed through it like gold!"
+
+Malanya Pavlovna was stupid to sanctity, as the saying goes; she
+chattered at random, and did not herself quite know what issued from her
+mouth--but it was chiefly about Orloff.--Orloff had become, one may say,
+the principal interest of her life. She usually entered--no! she
+floated into--the room, moving her head in a measured way like a
+peacock, came to a halt in the middle of it, with one foot turned out in
+a strange sort of way, and holding the pendent sleeve in two fingers
+(that must have been the pose which had pleased Orloff once on a time),
+she looked about her with arrogant carelessness, as befits a beauty,--
+she even sniffed and whispered "The idea!" exactly as though some
+important cavalier-adorer were besieging her with compliments,--then
+suddenly walked on, clattering her heels and shrugging her shoulders.--
+She also took Spanish snuff out of a tiny bonbon box, scooping it out
+with a tiny golden spoon, and from time to time, especially when a new
+person made his appearance, she raised--not to her eyes, but to her nose
+(her vision was excellent)--a double lorgnette in the shape of a pair of
+horns, showing off and twisting about her little white hand with one
+finger standing out apart.
+
+How many times did Malanya Pavlovna describe to me her wedding in the
+Church of the Ascension, "which is on the Arbat Square--such a fine
+church!--and all Moscow was present at it ... there was such a crush! 'T
+was frightful! There were equipages drawn by six horses, golden
+carriages, runners ... one of Count Zavadovsky's runners even fell under
+the wheels! And the bishop himself married us,[42] and what an address
+he delivered! Everybody wept--wherever I looked there was nothing but
+tears, tears ... and the Governor-General's horses were
+tiger-coloured.... And how many, many flowers people brought!... They
+overwhelmed us with flowers! And one foreigner, a rich, very rich man,
+shot himself for love on that occasion, and Orloff was present also....
+And approaching Alexyei Sergyeitch he congratulated him and called him a
+lucky dog.... 'Thou art a lucky dog, brother gaper!' he said. And in
+reply Alexyei Sergyeitch made such a wonderful obeisance, and swept the
+plume of his hat along the floor from left to right ... as much as to
+say: 'There is a line drawn now, Your Radiance, between you and my
+spouse which you must not step across!'--And Orloff, Alexyei
+Grigorievitch, immediately understood and lauded him.--Oh, what a man he
+was! What a man! And then, on another occasion, Alexis and I were at a
+ball in his house--I was already married--and what magnificent diamond
+buttons he wore! And I could not restrain myself, but praised them.
+'What splendid diamonds you have, Count!' And thereupon he took a knife
+from the table, cut off one button and presented it to me--saying: 'You
+have in your eyes, my dear little dove, diamonds a hundredfold finer;
+just stand before the mirror and compare them.' And I did stand there,
+and he stood beside me.--'Well? Who is right?'--says he--and keeps
+rolling his eyes all round me. And then Alexyei Sergyeitch was greatly
+dismayed; but I said to him: 'Alexis,' I said to him, 'please do not be
+dismayed; thou shouldst know me better!' And he answered me: 'Be at
+ease, Melanie!'--And those same diamonds I now have encircling a
+medallion of Alexyei Grigorievitch--I think, my dear, that thou hast
+seen me wear it on my shoulder on festival days, on a ribbon of St.
+George--because he was a very brave hero, a cavalier of the Order of St.
+George: he burned the Turks!"[43]
+
+Notwithstanding all this, Malanya Pavlovna was a very kind woman; she
+was easy to please.--"She doesn't nag you, and she doesn't sneer at
+you," the maids said of her.--Malanya Pavlovna was passionately fond of
+all sweets, and a special old woman, who occupied herself with nothing
+but the preserves, and therefore was called the preserve-woman, brought
+to her, half a score of times in a day, a Chinese plate now with
+candied rose-leaves, again with barberries in honey, or orange sherbet.
+Malanya Pavlovna feared solitude--dreadful thoughts come then--and was
+almost constantly surrounded by female hangers-on whom she urgently
+entreated: "Talk, talk! Why do you sit there and do nothing but warm
+your seats?"--and they began to twitter like canary-birds. Being no less
+devout than Alexyei Sergyeitch, she was very fond of praying; but as,
+according to her own words, she had not learned to recite prayers well,
+she kept for that purpose the widow of a deacon, who prayed so tastily!
+She would never stumble to all eternity! And, in fact, that deacon's
+widow understood how to utter prayerful words in an irrepressible sort
+of way, without a break even when she inhaled or exhaled her breath--and
+Malanya Pavlovna listened and melted with emotion. She had another widow
+also attached to her service; the latter's duty consisted in telling her
+stories at night,--"but only old ones," entreated Malanya Pavlovna,
+"those I already know; all the new ones are spurious."
+
+Malanya Pavlovna was very frivolous and sometimes suspicious. All of a
+sudden she would take some idea into her head. She did not like the
+dwarf Janus, for example; it always seemed to her as though he would
+suddenly start in and begin to shriek: "But do you know who I am? A
+Buryat Prince! So, then, submit!"--And if she did not, he would set fire
+to the house out of melancholy. Malanya Pavlovna was as lavish as
+Alexyei Sergyeitch; but she never gave money--she did not wish to soil
+her pretty little hands--but kerchiefs, ear-rings, gowns, ribbons, or
+she would send a patty from the table, or a bit of the roast, or if not
+that, a glass of wine. She was also fond of regaling the peasant-women
+on holidays. They would begin to dance, and she would click her heels
+and strike an attitude.
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch was very well aware that his wife was stupid; but he
+had trained himself, almost from the first year of his married life, to
+pretend that she was very keen of tongue and fond of saying stinging
+things. As soon as she got to chattering he would immediately shake his
+little finger at her and say: "Okh, what a naughty little tongue! What a
+naughty little tongue! Won't it catch it in the next world! It will be
+pierced with red-hot needles!"--But Malanya Pavlovna did not take
+offence at this; on the contrary, she seemed to feel flattered at
+hearing such remarks--as much as to say: "Well, I can't help it! It
+isn't my fault that I was born witty!"
+
+Malanya Pavlovna worshipped her husband, and all her life remained an
+exemplary and faithful wife. But there had been an "object" in her life
+also, a young nephew, a hussar, who had been slain, so she assumed, in
+a duel on her account---but, according to more trustworthy information,
+he had died from a blow received on the head from a billiard-cue, in
+tavern company. The water-colour portrait of this "object" was preserved
+by her in a secret casket. Malanya Pavlovna crimsoned to the very ears
+every time she alluded to Kapitonushka--that was the "object's"
+name;--while Alexyei Sergyeitch scowled intentionally, again menaced his
+wife with his little finger and said, "Trust not a horse in the meadow,
+a wife in the house! Okh, that Kapitonushka, Kupidonushka!"--Then
+Malanya Pavlovna bristled up all over and exclaimed:
+
+"Alexis, shame on you, Alexis!--You yourself probably flirted with
+divers little ladies in your youth--and so you take it for granted...."
+
+"Come, that will do, that will do, Malaniushka," Alexyei Sergyeitch
+interrupted her, with a smile;--"thy gown is white, and thy soul is
+whiter still!"
+
+"It is whiter, Alexis; it is whiter!"
+
+"Okh, what a naughty little tongue, on my honour, what a naughty little
+tongue!" repeated Alexyei Sergyeitch, tapping her on the cheek.
+
+To mention Malanya Pavlovna's "convictions" would be still more out of
+place than to mention those of Alexyei Sergyeitch; but I once chanced to
+be the witness of a strange manifestation of my aunt's hidden feelings.
+I once chanced, in the course of conversation, to mention the well-known
+Sheshkovsky.[44] Malanya Pavlovna suddenly became livid in the face,--as
+livid as a corpse,--turned green, despite the layer of paint and powder,
+and in a dull, entirely-genuine voice (which very rarely happened with
+her--as a general thing she seemed always somewhat affected, assumed an
+artificial tone and lisped) said: "Okh! whom hast thou mentioned! And at
+nightfall, into the bargain!--Don't utter that name!" I was amazed; what
+significance could that name possess for such an inoffensive and
+innocent being, who would not have known how to devise, much less to
+execute, anything reprehensible?--This alarm, which revealed itself
+after a lapse of nearly half a century, induced in me reflections which
+were not altogether cheerful.
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch died in his eighty-eighth year, in the year 1848,
+which evidently disturbed even him. And his death was rather strange.
+That morning he had felt well, although he no longer quitted his
+arm-chair at all. But suddenly he called to his wife: "Malaniushka, come
+hither!"
+
+"What dost thou want, Alexis?"
+
+"It is time for me to die, that's what, my darling."
+
+"God be with you, Alexyei Sergyeitch! Why so?"
+
+"This is why. In the first place, one must show moderation; and more
+than that; I was looking at my legs a little while ago ... they were
+strange legs--and that settles it!--I looked at my hands---and those
+were strange also! I looked at my belly--and the belly belonged to some
+one else!--Which signifies that I am devouring some other person's
+life.[45] Send for the priest; and in the meanwhile, lay me on my bed,
+from which I shall not rise again."
+
+Malanya Pavlovna was in utter consternation, but she put the old man to
+bed, and sent for the priest. Alexyei Sergyeitch made his confession,
+received the holy communion, took leave of the members of his household,
+and began to sink into a stupor. Malanya Pavlovna was sitting beside his
+bed.
+
+"Alexis!" she suddenly shrieked, "do not frighten me, do not close thy
+dear eyes! Hast thou any pain?"
+
+The old man looked at his wife.--"No, I have no pain ... but I find
+it ... rather difficult ... difficult to breathe." Then, after a brief
+pause:--"Malaniushka," he said, "now life has galloped past--but dost
+thou remember our wedding ... what a fine young couple we were?"
+
+"We were, my beauty, Alexis my incomparable one!"
+
+Again the old man remained silent for a space.
+
+"And shall we meet again in the other world, Malaniushka?"
+
+"I shall pray to God that we may, Alexis."--And the old woman burst into
+tears.
+
+"Come, don't cry, silly one; perchance the Lord God will make us young
+again there--and we shall again be a fine young pair!"
+
+"He will make us young, Alexis!"
+
+"Everything is possible to Him, to the Lord," remarked Alexyei
+Sergyeitch.--"He is a worker of wonders!--I presume He will make thee a
+clever woman also.... Come, my dear, I was jesting; give me thy hand to
+kiss."
+
+"And I will kiss thine."
+
+And the two old people kissed each other's hands.
+
+Alexyei Sergyeitch began to quiet down and sink into a comatose state.
+Malanya Pavlovna gazed at him with emotion, brushing the tears from her
+eyelashes with the tip of her finger. She sat thus for a couple of
+hours.
+
+"Has he fallen asleep?" asked in a whisper the old woman who knew how to
+pray so tastily, peering out from behind Irinarkh, who was standing as
+motionless as a pillar at the door, and staring intently at his dying
+master.
+
+"Yes," replied Malanya Pavlovna, also in a whisper. And suddenly Alexyei
+Sergyeitch opened his eyes.
+
+"My faithful companion," he stammered, "my respected spouse, I would
+like to bow myself to thy feet for all thy love and faithfulness--but
+how am I to rise? Let me at least sign thee with the cross."
+
+Malanya Pavlovna drew nearer, bent over.... But the hand which had been
+raised fell back powerless on the coverlet, and a few moments later
+Alexyei Sergyeitch ceased to be.
+
+His daughters with their husbands only arrived in time for the funeral;
+neither one of them had any children. Alexyei Sergyeitch had not
+discriminated against them in his will, although he had not referred to
+them on his death-bed.
+
+"My heart is locked against them," he had said to me one day. Knowing
+his kind-heartedness, I was surprised at his words.--It is a difficult
+matter to judge between parents and children.--"A vast ravine begins
+with a tiny rift," Alexyei Sergyeitch had said to me on another
+occasion, referring to the same subject. "A wound an arshin long will
+heal over, but if you cut off so much as a nail, it will not grow
+again!"
+
+I have an idea that the daughters were ashamed of their eccentric old
+folks.
+
+A month later Malanya Pavlovna expired also. She hardly rose from her
+bed again after the day of Alexyei Sergyeitch's death, and did not
+array herself; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and with the
+medal of Orloff on her shoulder, only minus the diamonds. The daughters
+shared those between them, under the pretext that those diamonds were to
+be used for the setting of holy pictures; but as a matter of fact they
+used them to adorn their own persons.
+
+And now how vividly do my old people stand before me, and what a good
+memory I cherish of them! And yet, during my very last visit to them (I
+was already a student at the time) an incident occurred which injected
+some discord into the harmoniously-patriarchal mood with which the
+Telyegin house inspired me.
+
+Among the number of the household serfs was a certain Ivan, nicknamed
+"Sukhikh--the coachman, or the little coachman, as he was called, on
+account of his small size, in spite of his years, which were not few. He
+was a tiny scrap of a man, nimble, snub-nosed, curly-haired, with a
+perennial smile on his infantile countenance, and little, mouse-like
+eyes. He was a great joker and buffoon; he was able to acquire any
+trick; he set off fireworks, snakes, played all card-games, galloped his
+horse while standing erect on it, flew higher than any one else in the
+swing, and even knew how to present Chinese shadows. There was no one
+who could amuse children better than he, and he would have been only
+too glad to occupy himself with them all day long. When he got to
+laughing he set the whole house astir. People would answer him from this
+point and that--every one would join in.... They would both abuse him
+and laugh.--Ivan danced marvellously--especially 'the fish.'--The chorus
+would thunder out a dance tune, the young fellow would step into the
+middle of the circle, and begin to leap and twist about and stamp his
+feet, and then come down with a crash on the ground--and there represent
+the movements of a fish which has been thrown out of the water upon the
+dry land; and he would writhe about this way and that, and even bring
+his heels up to his neck; and then, when he sprang to his feet and began
+to shout, the earth would simply tremble beneath him! Alexyei Sergyeitch
+was extremely fond of choral songs and dances, as I have already said;
+he could never refrain from shouting: 'Send hither Vaniushka! the little
+coachman! Give us 'the fish,' be lively!'--and a minute later he would
+whisper in ecstasy: 'Akh, what a devil of a man he is!'"
+
+Well, then,--on my last visit this same Ivan Sukhikh comes to me in my
+room, and without uttering a word plumps down on his knees.
+
+"What is the matter with thee, Ivan?"
+
+"Save me, master!"
+
+"Why, what's the trouble?"
+
+And thereupon Ivan related to me his grief.
+
+He had been swapped twenty years previously by the Messrs. Sukhoy for
+another serf, a man belonging to the Telyegins--he had simply been
+exchanged, without any formalities and documents. The man who had been
+given in exchange for him had died, but the Messrs. Sukhoy had forgotten
+all about Ivan and had left him in Alexyei Sergyeitch's house as his
+property; his nickname alone served as a reminder of his
+origin.[46]--But lo and behold! his former owners had died also, their
+estate had fallen into other hands, and the new owner, concerning whom
+rumours were in circulation to the effect that he was a cruel man, a
+torturer, having learned that one of his serfs was to be found at
+Alexyei Sergyeitch's without any passport and right, began to demand his
+return; in case of refusal he threatened to have recourse to the courts
+and a penalty--and he did not threaten idly, as he himself held the rank
+of Privy Councillor,[47] and had great weight in the government.[48]
+Ivan, in his affright, darted to Alexyei Sergyeitch. The old man was
+sorry for his dancer, and he offered to buy Ivan from the privy
+councillor at a good price; but the privy councillor would not hear of
+such a thing; he was a Little Russian and obstinate as the devil. The
+poor fellow had to be surrendered.
+
+"I have got used to living here, I have made myself at home here, I have
+eaten bread here, and here I wish to die," Ivan said to me--and there
+was no grin on his face now; on the contrary, he seemed turned into
+stone.... "But now I must go to that malefactor.... Am I a dog that I am
+to be driven from one kennel to another with a slip-noose round my
+neck--and a 'take that'? Save me, master; entreat your uncle,--remember
+how I have always amused you.... Or something bad will surely come of
+it; the matter will not pass off without sin."
+
+"Without what sin, Ivan?"
+
+"Why, I will kill that gentleman.--When I arrive I shall say to him:
+'Let me go back, master; otherwise, look out, beware.... I will kill
+you.'"
+
+If a chaffinch or a bullfinch could talk and had begun to assure me that
+it would claw another bird, it would not have caused me greater
+astonishment than did Ivan on that occasion.--What! Vanya Sukhikh, that
+dancer, jester, buffoon, that favourite of the children, and a child
+himself--that kindest-hearted of beings--a murderer! What nonsense! I
+did not believe him for a single moment. I was startled in the extreme
+that he should have been able to utter such a word! Nevertheless, I
+betook myself to Alexyei Sergyeitch. I did not repeat to him what Ivan
+had said to me, but I tried in every way to beg him to see whether he
+could not set the matter right.
+
+"My little sir," the old man replied to me, "I would be only too
+delighted, but how can I?--I have offered that Topknot[49] huge
+remuneration. I offered him three hundred rubles, I assure thee on my
+honour! but in vain. What is one to do? We had acted illegally, on
+faith, after the ancient fashion ... and now see what a bad thing has
+come of it! I am sure that Topknot will take Ivan from me by force the
+first thing we know; he has a strong hand, the Governor eats sour
+cabbage-soup with him--the Topknot will send a soldier! I'm afraid of
+those soldiers! In former days, there's no denying it, I would have
+defended Ivan,--but just look at me now, how decrepit I have grown. How
+am I to wage war?"--And, in fact, during my last visit I found that
+Alexyei Sergyeitch had aged very greatly; even the pupils of his eyes
+had acquired a milky hue--like that in infants--and on his lips there
+appeared not the discerning smile of former days, but that
+strainedly-sweet, unconscious smirk which never leaves the faces of very
+old people even in their sleep.
+
+I imparted Alexyei Sergyeitch's decision to Ivan. He stood a while, held
+his peace, and shook his head.--"Well," he said at last, "what is fated
+to be cannot be avoided. Only my word is firm. That is to say: only one
+thing remains for me ... play the wag to the end.--Master, please give
+me something for liquor!" I gave it; he drank himself drunk--and on that
+same day he danced "the fish" in such wise that the maidens and married
+women fairly squealed with delight, so whimsically amusing was he.
+
+The next day I went home, and three months later--when I was already in
+Petersburg--I learned that Ivan had actually kept his word!--He had been
+sent to his new master; his master had summoned him to his study and
+announced to him that he was to serve as his coachman, that he entrusted
+him with a troika of Vyatka horses,[50] and that he should exact a
+strict account from him if he treated them badly, and, in general, if he
+were not punctual.--"I'm not fond of jesting," he said.--Ivan listened
+to his master, first made obeisance to his very feet, and then informed
+him that it was as his mercy liked, but he could not be his
+servant.--"Release me on quit-rent, Your High-Born," he said, "or make a
+soldier of me; otherwise there will be a catastrophe before long."
+
+The master flared up.--"Akh, damn thee! What is this thou darest to say
+to me?--Know, in the first place, that I am 'Your Excellency,' and not
+'Your High-Born'; in the second place, thou art beyond the age, and thy
+size is not such that I can hand thee over as a soldier; and, in
+conclusion,--what calamity art thou threatening me with? Art thou
+preparing to commit arson?"
+
+"No, your Excellency, not to commit arson."
+
+"To kill me, then, pray?"
+
+Ivan maintained a stubborn silence.--"I will not be your servant," he
+said at last.
+
+"Here, then, I'll show thee," roared the gentleman, "whether thou wilt
+be my servant or not!"--And after having cruelly flogged Ivan, he
+nevertheless ordered that the troika of Vyatka horses should be placed
+in his charge, and appointed him a coachman at the stables.
+
+Ivan submitted, to all appearances; he began to drive as coachman. As he
+was a proficient in that line his master speedily took a fancy to
+him,--the more so as Ivan behaved very discreetly and quietly, and the
+horses throve under his care; he tended them so that they became as
+plump as cucumbers,--one could never leave off admiring them! The master
+began to drive out more frequently with him than with the other
+coachmen. He used to ask: "Dost thou remember, Ivan, how unpleasant was
+thy first meeting with me? I think thou hast got rid of thy folly?" But
+to these words Ivan never made any reply.
+
+So, then, one day, just before the Epiphany, the master set out for the
+town with Ivan in his troika with bells, in a broad sledge lined with
+rugs. The horses began to ascend a hill at a walk, while Ivan descended
+from the box and went back to the sledge, as though he had dropped
+something.--The cold was very severe. The master sat there all wrapped
+up, and with his beaver cap drawn down over his ears. Then Ivan pulled a
+hatchet out from under the skirts of his coat, approached his master
+from behind, knocked off his cap, and saying: "I warned thee, Piotr
+Petrovitch--now thou hast thyself to thank for this!"--he laid open his
+head with one slash. Then he brought the horses to a standstill, put the
+cap back on his murdered master's head, and again mounting the box, he
+drove him to the town, straight to the court-house.
+
+"Here's the general from Sukhoy for you, murdered; and I killed him.--I
+told him I would do it, and I have done it. Bind me!"
+
+They seized Ivan, tried him, condemned him to the knout and then to
+penal servitude.--The merry, bird-like dancer reached the mines--and
+there vanished forever....
+
+Yes; involuntarily--although in a different sense,--one repeats with
+Alexyei Sergyeitch:--"The old times were good ... well, yes, but God be
+with them! I want nothing to do with them!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG OF LOVE TRIUMPHANT
+
+(1881)
+
+
+                 MDXLII
+
+DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
+
+    Wage du zu irren und zu traeumen!
+                                 SCHILLER.
+
+
+The following is what I read in an Italian manuscript:
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+About the middle of the sixteenth century there dwelt in Ferrara--(it
+was then flourishing under the sceptre of its magnificent dukes, the
+patrons of the arts and of poetry)--there dwelt two young men, named
+Fabio and Muzio. Of the same age and nearly related, they were almost
+never separated; a sincere friendship had united them since their early
+childhood, and a similarity of fate had strengthened this bond. Both
+belonged to ancient families; both were wealthy, independent, and
+without family; the tastes and inclinations of both were similar. Muzio
+occupied himself with music, Fabio with painting. All Ferrara was proud
+of them as the finest ornaments of the Court, of society, and of the
+city. But in personal appearance they did not resemble each other,
+although both were distinguished for their stately, youthful beauty.
+Fabio was the taller of the two, white of complexion, with ruddy-gold
+hair, and had blue eyes. Muzio, on the contrary, had a swarthy face,
+black hair, and in his dark-brown eyes there was not that merry gleam,
+on his lips not that cordial smile, which Fabio had; his thick eyebrows
+over-hung his narrow eyelids, while Fabio's golden brows rose in slender
+arches on his pure, smooth forehead. Muzio was less animated in
+conversation also; nevertheless both friends were equally favoured by
+the ladies; for not in vain were they models of knightly courtesy and
+lavishness.
+
+At one and the same time with them there dwelt in Ferrara a maiden named
+Valeria. She was considered one of the greatest beauties in the city,
+although she was to be seen only very rarely, as she led a retired life
+and left her house only to go to church;--and on great festivals for a
+walk. She lived with her mother, a nobly-born but not wealthy widow, who
+had no other children. Valeria inspired in every one whom she met a
+feeling of involuntary amazement and of equally involuntary tender
+respect: so modest was her mien, so little aware was she, to all
+appearance, of the full force of her charms. Some persons, it is true,
+thought her rather pale; the glance of her eyes, which were almost
+always lowered, expressed a certain shyness and even timidity; her lips
+smiled rarely, and then but slightly; hardly ever did any one hear her
+voice. But a rumour was in circulation to the effect that it was very
+beautiful, and that, locking herself in her chamber, early in the
+morning, while everything in the city was still sleeping, she loved to
+warble ancient ballads to the strains of a lute, upon which she herself
+played. Despite the pallor of her face, Valeria was in blooming health;
+and even the old people, as they looked on her, could not refrain from
+thinking:--"Oh, how happy will be that young man for whom this bud still
+folded in its petals, still untouched and virgin, shall at last unfold
+itself!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Fabio and Muzio beheld Valeria for the first time at a sumptuous popular
+festival, got up at the command of the Duke of Ferrara, Ercole, son of
+the famous Lucrezia Borgia, in honour of some distinguished grandees who
+had arrived from Paris on the invitation of the Duchess, the daughter of
+Louis XII, King of France. Side by side with her mother sat Valeria in
+the centre of an elegant tribune, erected after drawings by Palladius
+on the principal square of Ferrara for the most honourable ladies of the
+city. Both Fabio and Muzio fell passionately in love with her that day;
+and as they concealed nothing from each other, each speedily learned
+what was going on in his comrade's heart. They agreed between themselves
+that they would both try to make close acquaintance with Valeria, and if
+she should deign to choose either one of them the other should submit
+without a murmur to her decision.
+
+Several weeks later, thanks to the fine reputation which they rightfully
+enjoyed, they succeeded in penetrating into the not easily accessible
+house of the widow; she gave them permission to visit her. From that
+time forth they were able to see Valeria almost every day and to
+converse with her;--and with every day the flame kindled in the hearts
+of both young men blazed more and more vigorously. But Valeria displayed
+no preference for either of them, although their presence evidently
+pleased her. With Muzio she occupied herself with music; but she chatted
+more with Fabio: she was less shy with him. At last they decided to
+learn their fate definitely, and sent to Valeria a letter wherein they
+asked her to explain herself and say on whom she was prepared to bestow
+her hand. Valeria showed this letter to her mother, and informed her
+that she was content to remain unmarried; but if her mother thought it
+was time for her to marry, she would wed the man of her mother's
+choice. The honourable widow shed a few tears at the thought of parting
+from her beloved child; but there was no reason for rejecting the
+suitors: she considered them both equally worthy of her daughter's hand.
+But as she secretly preferred Fabio, and suspected that he was more to
+Valeria's taste also, she fixed upon him. On the following day Fabio
+learned of his happiness: and all that was left to Muzio was to keep his
+word and submit.
+
+This he did; but he was not able to be a witness to the triumph of his
+friend, his rival. He immediately sold the greater part of his property,
+and collecting a few thousand ducats, he set off on a long journey to
+the Orient. On taking leave of Fabio he said to him that he would not
+return until he should feel that the last traces of passion in him had
+vanished. It was painful for Fabio to part from the friend of his
+childhood and his youth ... but the joyful anticipation of approaching
+bliss speedily swallowed up all other sentiments--and he surrendered
+himself completely to the transports of happy love.
+
+He soon married Valeria, and only then did he learn the full value of
+the treasure which it had fallen to his lot to possess. He had a very
+beautiful villa at a short distance from Ferrara; he removed thither
+with his wife and her mother. A bright time then began for them. Wedded
+life displayed in a new and captivating light all Valeria's perfections.
+Fabio became a remarkable artist,---no longer a mere amateur, but a
+master. Valeria's mother rejoiced and returned thanks to God as she
+gazed at the happy pair. Four years flew by unnoticed like a blissful
+dream. One thing alone was lacking to the young married couple, one
+thing caused them grief: they had no children ... but hope had not
+deserted them. Toward the end of the fourth year a great, and this time
+a genuine grief, visited them: Valeria's mother died, after an illness
+of a few days.
+
+Valeria shed many tears; for a long time she could not reconcile herself
+to her loss. But another year passed; life once more asserted its rights
+and flowed on in its former channel. And, lo! one fine summer evening,
+without having forewarned any one, Muzio returned to Ferrara.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+During the whole five years which had elapsed since his departure, no
+one had known anything about him. All rumours concerning him had died
+out, exactly as though he had vanished from the face of the earth. When
+Fabio met his friend on one of the streets in Ferrara he came near
+crying out aloud, first from fright, then from joy, and immediately
+invited him to his villa. There, in the garden, was a spacious, detached
+pavilion; he suggested that his friend should settle down in that
+pavilion. Muzio gladly accepted, and that same day removed thither with
+his servant, a dumb Malay--dumb but not deaf, and even, judging from the
+vivacity of his glance, a very intelligent man.... His tongue had been
+cut out. Muzio had brought with him scores of chests filled with divers
+precious things which he had collected during his prolonged wanderings.
+
+Valeria was delighted at Muzio's return; and he greeted her in a
+cheerfully-friendly but composed manner. From everything it was obvious
+that he had kept the promise made to Fabio. In the course of the day he
+succeeded in installing himself in his pavilion; with the aid of his
+Malay he set out the rarities he had brought--rugs, silken tissues,
+garments of velvet and brocade, weapons, cups, dishes, and beakers
+adorned with enamel, articles of gold and silver set with pearls and
+turquoises, carved caskets of amber and ivory, faceted flasks, spices,
+perfumes, pelts of wild beasts, the feathers of unknown birds, and a
+multitude of other objects, the very use of which seemed mysterious and
+incomprehensible. Among the number of all these precious things there
+was one rich pearl necklace which Muzio had received from the Shah of
+Persia for a certain great and mysterious service; he asked Valeria's
+permission to place this necklace on her neck with his own hand; it
+seemed to her heavy, and as though endowed with a strange sort of warmth
+... it fairly adhered to the skin. Toward evening, after dinner, as they
+sat on the terrace of the villa, in the shade of oleanders and laurels,
+Muzio began to narrate his adventures. He told of the distant lands
+which he had seen, of mountains higher than the clouds, of rivers like
+unto seas; he told of vast buildings and temples, of trees thousands of
+years old, of rainbow-hued flowers and birds; he enumerated the cities
+and peoples he had visited.... (their very names exhaled something
+magical). All the Orient was familiar to Muzio: he had traversed Persia
+and Arabia, where the horses are more noble and beautiful than all other
+living creatures; he had penetrated the depths of India, where is a race
+of people resembling magnificent plants; he had attained to the confines
+of China and Tibet, where a living god, the Dalai Lama by name, dwells
+upon earth in the form of a speechless man with narrow eyes. Marvellous
+were his tales! Fabio and Valeria listened to him as though enchanted.
+
+In point of fact, Muzio's features had undergone but little change:
+swarthy from childhood, his face had grown still darker,--had been
+burned beneath the rays of a more brilliant sun,--his eyes seemed more
+deeply set than of yore, that was all; but the expression of that face
+had become different: concentrated, grave, it did not grow animated even
+when he alluded to the dangers to which he had been subjected by night
+in the forests, deafened by the roar of tigers, by day on deserted roads
+where fanatics lie in wait for travellers and strangle them in honour of
+an iron goddess who demands human blood. And Muzio's voice had grown
+more quiet and even; the movements of his hands, of his whole body, had
+lost the flourishing ease which is peculiar to the Italian race.
+
+With the aid of his servant, the obsequiously-alert Malay, he showed his
+host and hostess several tricks which he had been taught by the Brahmins
+of India. Thus, for example, having preliminarily concealed himself
+behind a curtain, he suddenly appeared sitting in the air, with his legs
+doubled up beneath him, resting the tips of his fingers lightly on a
+bamboo rod set upright, which not a little amazed and even alarmed Fabio
+and Valeria.... "Can it be that he is a magician?" the thought occurred
+to her.--But when he set to calling out tame snakes from a covered
+basket by whistling on a small flute,--when, wiggling their fangs, their
+dark, flat heads made their appearance from beneath the motley stuff,
+Valeria became frightened and begged Muzio to hide away those horrors as
+quickly as possible.
+
+At supper Muzio regaled his friends with wine of Shiraz from a round
+flask with a long neck; extremely fragrant and thick, of a golden hue,
+with greenish lights, it sparkled mysteriously when poured into the tiny
+jasper cups. In taste it did not resemble European wines: it was very
+sweet and spicy; and, quaffed slowly, in small sips, it produced in all
+the limbs a sensation of agreeable drowsiness. Muzio made Fabio and
+Valeria drink a cup apiece, and drank one himself. Bending over her cup,
+he whispered something and shook his fingers. Valeria noticed this; but
+as there was something strange and unprecedented in all Muzio's ways in
+general, and in all his habits, she merely thought: "I wonder if he has
+not accepted in India some new faith, or whether they have such customs
+there?"--Then, after a brief pause, she asked him: "Had he continued to
+occupy himself with music during the time of his journeys?"--In reply
+Muzio ordered the Malay to bring him his Indian violin. It resembled
+those of the present day, only, instead of four strings it had three; a
+bluish snake-skin was stretched across its top, and the slender bow of
+reed was semi-circular in form, and on its very tip glittered a pointed
+diamond.
+
+Muzio first played several melancholy airs,--which were, according to
+his assertion, popular ballads,--strange and even savage to the Italian
+ear; the sound of the metallic strings was plaintive and feeble. But
+when Muzio began the last song, that same sound suddenly strengthened,
+quivered powerfully and resonantly; the passionate melody poured forth
+from beneath the broadly-handled bow,--poured forth with beautiful
+undulations, like the snake which had covered the top of the violin with
+its skin; and with so much fire, with so much triumphant joy did this
+song beam and blaze that both Fabio and Valeria felt a tremor at their
+heart, and the tears started to their eyes ... while Muzio, with his
+head bent down and pressed against his violin, with pallid cheeks, and
+brows contracted into one line, seemed still more concentrated and
+serious than ever, and the diamond at the tip of the bow scattered
+ray-like sparks in its flight, as though it also were kindled with the
+fire of that wondrous song. And when Muzio had finished and, still
+holding the violin tightly pressed between his chin and his shoulder,
+dropped his hand which held the bow--"What is that? What hast thou been
+playing to us?" Fabio exclaimed.--Valeria uttered not a word, but her
+whole being seemed to repeat her husband's question. Muzio laid the
+violin on the table, and lightly shaking back his hair, said, with a
+courteous smile: "That? That melody ... that song I heard once on the
+island of Ceylon. That song is known there, among the people, as the
+song of happy, satisfied love."
+
+"Repeat it," whispered Fabio.
+
+"No; it is impossible to repeat it," replied Muzio. "And it is late now.
+Signora Valeria ought to rest; and it is high time for me also.... I am
+weary."
+
+All day long Muzio had treated Valeria in a respectfully-simple manner,
+like a friend of long standing; but as he took leave he pressed her hand
+very hard, jamming his fingers into her palm, staring so intently into
+her face the while that she, although she did not raise her eyelids,
+felt conscious of that glance on her suddenly-flushing cheeks. She said
+nothing to Muzio, but drew away her hand, and when he was gone she
+stared at the door through which he had made his exit. She recalled how,
+in former years also, she had been afraid of him ... and now she was
+perplexed. Muzio went off to his pavilion; the husband and wife withdrew
+to their bed-chamber.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Valeria did not soon fall asleep; her blood was surging softly and
+languidly, and there was a faint ringing in her head ... from that
+strange wine, as she supposed, and, possibly, also from Muzio's tales,
+from his violin playing.... Toward morning she fell asleep at last, and
+had a remarkable dream.
+
+It seems to her that she enters a spacious room with a low, vaulted
+ceiling.... She has never seen such a room in her life. All the walls
+are set with small blue tiles bearing golden patterns; slender carved
+pillars of alabaster support the marble vault; this vault and the
+pillars seem semi-transparent.... A pale, rose-coloured light penetrates
+the room from all directions, illuminating all the objects mysteriously
+and monotonously; cushions of gold brocade lie on a narrow rug in the
+very middle of the floor, which is as smooth as a mirror. In the
+corners, barely visible, two tall incense-burners, representing
+monstrous animals, are smoking; there are no windows anywhere; the door,
+screened by a velvet drapery, looms silently black in a niche of the
+wall. And suddenly this curtain softly slips aside, moves away ... and
+Muzio enters. He bows, opens his arms, smiles.... His harsh arms
+encircle Valeria's waist; his dry lips have set her to burning all
+over.... She falls prone on the cushions....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Moaning with fright, Valeria awoke after long efforts.--Still not
+comprehending where she is and what is the matter with her, she half
+raises herself up in bed and looks about her.... A shudder runs through
+her whole body.... Fabio is lying beside her. He is asleep; but his
+face, in the light of the round, clear moon, is as pale as that of a
+corpse ... it is more melancholy than the face of a corpse. Valeria
+awoke her husband--and no sooner had he cast a glance at her than he
+exclaimed: "What is the matter with thee?"
+
+"I have seen ... I have seen a dreadful dream," she whispered, still
+trembling....
+
+But at that moment, from the direction of the pavilion, strong sounds
+were wafted to them--and both Fabio and Valeria recognised the melody
+which Muzio had played to them, calling it the Song of Love
+Triumphant.--Fabio cast a glance of surprise at Valeria.... She closed
+her eyes, and turned away--and both, holding their breath, listened to
+the song to the end. When the last sound died away the moon went behind
+a cloud, it suddenly grew dark in the room.... The husband and wife
+dropped their heads on their pillows, without exchanging a word, and
+neither of them noticed when the other fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+On the following morning Muzio came to breakfast; he seemed pleased,
+and greeted Valeria merrily. She answered him with confusion,--
+scrutinised him closely, and was startled by that pleased, merry
+face, those piercing and curious eyes. Muzio was about to begin his
+stories again ... but Fabio stopped him at the first word.
+
+"Evidently, thou wert not able to sleep in a new place? My wife and I
+heard thee playing the song of last night."
+
+"Yes? Did you hear it?"--said Muzio.--"I did play it, in fact; but I had
+been asleep before that, and I had even had a remarkable dream."
+
+Valeria pricked up her ears.--"What sort of a dream?" inquired Fabio.
+
+"I seemed," replied Muzio, without taking his eyes from Valeria, "to see
+myself enter a spacious apartment with a vaulted ceiling, decorated in
+Oriental style. Carved pillars supported the vault; the walls were
+covered with tiles, and although there were no windows nor candles, yet
+the whole room was filled with a rosy light, just as though it had all
+been built of transparent stone. In the corners Chinese incense-burners
+were smoking; on the floor lay cushions of brocade, along a narrow rug.
+I entered through a door hung with a curtain, and from another door
+directly opposite a woman whom I had once loved made her appearance. And
+she seemed to me so beautiful that I became all aflame with my love of
+days gone by...."
+
+Muzio broke off significantly. Valeria sat motionless, only paling
+slowly ... and her breathing grew more profound.
+
+"Then," pursued Muzio, "I woke up and played that song."
+
+"But who was the woman?" said Fabio.
+
+"Who was she? The wife of an East Indian. I met her in the city of
+Delhi.... She is no longer among the living. She is dead."
+
+"And her husband?" asked Fabio, without himself knowing why he did so.
+
+"Her husband is dead also, they say. I soon lost sight of them."
+
+"Strange!" remarked Fabio.--"My wife also had a remarkable dream last
+night--which she did not relate to me," added Fabio.
+
+But at this point Valeria rose and left the room. Immediately after
+breakfast Muzio also went away, asserting that he was obliged to go to
+Ferrara on business, and that he should not return before evening.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Several weeks before Muzio's return Fabio had begun a portrait of his
+wife, depicting her with the attributes of Saint Cecilia.--He had made
+noteworthy progress in his art; the famous Luini, the pupil of Leonardo
+da Vinci, had come to him in Ferrara, and aiding him with his own
+advice, had also imparted to him the precepts of his great master. The
+portrait was almost finished; it only remained for him to complete the
+face by a few strokes of the brush, and then Fabio might feel justly
+proud of his work.
+
+When Muzio departed to Ferrara, Fabio betook himself to his studio,
+where Valeria was generally awaiting him; but he did not find her there;
+he called to her--she did not respond. A secret uneasiness took
+possession of Fabio; he set out in quest of her. She was not in the
+house; Fabio ran into the garden--and there, in one of the most remote
+alleys, he descried Valeria. With head bowed upon her breast, and hands
+clasped on her knees, she was sitting on a bench, and behind her,
+standing out against the dark green of a cypress, a marble satyr, with
+face distorted in a malicious smile, was applying his pointed lips to
+his reed-pipes. Valeria was visibly delighted at her husband's
+appearance, and in reply to his anxious queries she said that she had a
+slight headache, but that it was of no consequence, and that she was
+ready for the sitting. Fabio conducted her to his studio, posed her, and
+took up his brush; but, to his great vexation, he could not possibly
+finish the face as he would have liked. And that not because it was
+somewhat pale and seemed fatigued ... no; but he did not find in it
+that day the pure, holy expression which he so greatly loved in it, and
+which had suggested to him the idea of representing Valeria in the form
+of Saint Cecilia. At last he flung aside his brush, told his wife that
+he was not in the mood, that ft would do her good to lie down for a
+while, as she was not feeling quite well, to judge by her looks,--and
+turned his easel so that the portrait faced the wall. Valeria agreed
+with him that she ought to rest, and repeating her complaint of
+headache, she retired to her chamber.
+
+Fabio remained in the studio. He felt a strange agitation which was
+incomprehensible even to himself. Muzio's sojourn under his roof, a
+sojourn which he, Fabio, had himself invited, embarrassed him. And it
+was not that he was jealous ... was it possible to be jealous of
+Valeria?--but in his friend he did not recognise his former comrade. All
+that foreign, strange, new element which Muzio had brought with him from
+those distant lands--and which, apparently, had entered into his very
+flesh and blood,---all those magical processes, songs, strange
+beverages, that dumb Malay, even the spicy odour which emanated from
+Muzio's garments, from his hair, his breath,--all this inspired in Fabio
+a feeling akin to distrust, nay, even to timidity. And why did that
+Malay, when serving at table, gaze upon him, Fabio, with such
+disagreeable intentness? Really, one might suppose that he understood
+Italian. Muzio had said concerning him, that that Malay, in paying the
+penalty with his tongue, had made a great sacrifice, and in compensation
+now possessed great power.--What power? And how could he have acquired
+it at the cost of his tongue? All this was very strange! Very
+incomprehensible!
+
+Fabio went to his wife in her chamber; she was lying on the bed fully
+dressed, but was not asleep.--On hearing his footsteps she started, then
+rejoiced again to see him, as she had done in the garden. Fabio sat down
+by the bed, took Valeria's hand, and after a brief pause, he asked her,
+"What was that remarkable dream which had frightened her during the past
+night? And had it been in the nature of that dream which Muzio had
+related?"
+
+Valeria blushed and said hastily--"Oh, no! no! I saw ... some sort of a
+monster, which tried to rend me."
+
+"A monster? In the form of a man?" inquired Fabio.
+
+"No, a wild beast ... a wild beast!"--And Valeria turned away and hid
+her flaming face in the pillows. Fabio held his wife's hand for a while
+longer; silently he raised it to his lips, and withdrew.
+
+The husband and wife passed a dreary day. It seemed as though something
+dark were hanging over their heads ... but what it was, they could not
+tell. They wanted to be together, as though some danger were menacing
+them;--but what to say to each other, they did not know. Fabio made an
+effort to work at the portrait, to read Ariosto, whose poem, which had
+recently made its appearance in Ferrara, was already famous throughout
+Italy; but he could do nothing.... Late in the evening, just in time for
+supper, Muzio returned.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+He appeared calm and contented--but related few stories; he chiefly
+interrogated Fabio concerning their mutual acquaintances of former days,
+the German campaign, the Emperor Charles; he spoke of his desire to go
+to Rome, to have a look at the new Pope. Again he offered Valeria wine
+of Shiraz--and in reply to her refusal he said, as though to himself,
+"It is not necessary now."
+
+On returning with his wife to their bedroom Fabio speedily fell
+asleep ... and waking an hour later was able to convince himself that no
+one shared his couch: Valeria was not with him. He hastily rose, and at
+the selfsame moment he beheld his wife, in her night-dress, enter the
+room from the garden. The moon was shining brightly, although not long
+before a light shower had passed over.--With widely-opened eyes, and an
+expression of secret terror on her impassive face, Valeria approached
+the bed, and fumbling for it with her hands, which were outstretched in
+front of her, she lay down hurriedly and in silence. Fabio asked her a
+question, but she made no reply; she seemed to be asleep. He touched
+her, and felt rain-drops on her clothing, on her hair, and grains of
+sand on the soles of her bare feet. Then he sprang up and rushed into
+the garden through the half-open door. The moonlight, brilliant to
+harshness, inundated all objects. Fabio looked about him and descried on
+the sand of the path traces of two pairs of feet; one pair was bare; and
+those tracks led to an arbour covered with jasmin, which stood apart,
+between the pavilion and the house. He stopped short in perplexity; and
+lo! suddenly the notes of that song which he had heard on the preceding
+night again rang forth! Fabio shuddered, and rushed into the
+pavilion.... Muzio was standing in the middle of the room, playing on
+his violin. Fabio darted to him.
+
+"Thou hast been in the garden, thou hast been out, thy clothing is damp
+with rain."
+
+"No.... I do not know ... I do not think ... that I have been out of
+doors ..." replied Muzio, in broken accents, as though astonished at
+Fabio's advent, and at his agitation.
+
+Fabio grasped him by the arm.--"And why art thou playing that melody
+again? Hast thou had another dream?"
+
+Muzio glanced at Fabio with the same surprise as before, and made no
+answer.
+
+"Come, answer me!"
+
+    "The moon is steel, like a circular shield....
+    The river gleams like a snake....
+    The friend is awake, the enemy sleeps--
+    The hawk seizes the chicken in his claws....
+    Help!"
+
+mumbled Muzio, in a singsong, as though in a state of unconsciousness.
+
+Fabio retreated a couple of paces, fixed his eyes on Muzio, meditated
+for a space ... and returned to his house, to the bed-chamber.
+
+With her head inclined upon her shoulder, and her arms helplessly
+outstretched, Valeria was sleeping heavily. He did not speedily succeed
+in waking her ... but as soon as she saw him she flung herself on his
+neck, and embraced him convulsively; her whole body was quivering.
+
+"What aileth thee, my dear one, what aileth thee?" said Fabio
+repeatedly, striving to soothe her.
+
+But she continued to lie as in a swoon on his breast. "Akh, what
+dreadful visions I see!" she whispered, pressing her face against him.
+
+Fabio attempted to question her ... but she merely trembled....
+
+The window-panes were reddening with the first gleams of dawn when, at
+last, she fell asleep in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+On the following day Muzio disappeared early in the morning, and Valeria
+informed her husband that she intended to betake herself to the
+neighbouring monastery, where dwelt her spiritual father--an aged and
+stately monk, in whom she cherished unbounded confidence. To Fabio's
+questions she replied that she desired to alleviate by confession her
+soul, which was oppressed with the impressions of the last few days. As
+he gazed at Valeria's sunken visage, as he listened to her faint voice,
+Fabio himself approved of her plan: venerable Father Lorenzo might be
+able to give her useful advice, disperse her doubts.... Under the
+protection of four escorts, Valeria set out for the monastery, but Fabio
+remained at home; and while awaiting the return of his wife, he roamed
+about the garden, trying to understand what had happened to her, and
+feeling the unremitting terror and wrath and pain of indefinite
+suspicions.... More than once he entered the pavilion; but Muzio had not
+returned, and the Malay stared at Fabio like a statue, with an
+obsequious inclination of his head, and a far-away grin--at least, so it
+seemed to Fabio--a far-away grin on his bronze countenance.
+
+In the meantime Valeria had narrated everything in confession to her
+confessor, being less ashamed than frightened. The confessor listened to
+her attentively, blessed her, absolved her from her involuntary
+sins,--but thought to himself: "Magic, diabolical witchcraft ... things
+cannot be left in this condition".... and accompanied Valeria to her
+villa, ostensibly for the purpose of definitely calming and comforting
+her.
+
+At the sight of the confessor Fabio was somewhat startled; but the
+experienced old man had already thought out beforehand how he ought to
+proceed. On being left alone with Fabio, he did not, of course, betray
+the secrets of the confessional; but he advised him to banish from his
+house, if that were possible, his invited guest who, by his tales,
+songs, and his whole conduct, had upset Valeria's imagination. Moreover,
+in the old man's opinion, Muzio had not been firm in the faith in days
+gone by, as he now recalled to mind; and after having sojourned so long
+in regions not illuminated by the light of Christianity, he might have
+brought thence the infection of false doctrines; he might even have
+dabbled in magic; and therefore, although old friendship did assert its
+rights, still wise caution pointed to parting as indispensable.
+
+Fabio thoroughly agreed with the venerable monk. Valeria even beamed all
+over when her husband communicated to her her confessor's counsel; and
+accompanied by the good wishes of both husband and wife, and provided
+with rich gifts for the monastery and the poor, Father Lorenzo wended
+his way home.
+
+Fabio had intended to have an explanation with Muzio directly after
+supper, but his strange guest did not return to supper. Then Fabio
+decided to defer the interview with Muzio until the following day, and
+husband and wife withdrew to their bed-chamber.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Valeria speedily fell asleep; but Fabio could not get to sleep. In the
+nocturnal silence all that he had seen, all that he had felt, presented
+itself to him in a still more vivid manner; with still greater
+persistence did he ask himself questions, to which, as before, he found
+no answer. Was Muzio really a magician? And had he already poisoned
+Valeria? She was ill ... but with what malady? While he was engrossed in
+painful meditations, with his head propped on his hand and restraining
+his hot breathing, the moon again rose in the cloudless sky; and
+together with its rays, through the semi-transparent window-panes, in
+the direction of the pavilion, there began to stream in--or did Fabio
+merely imagine it?--there began to stream in a breath resembling a
+faint, perfumed current of air....
+
+Now an importunate, passionate whisper began to make itself heard ...
+and at that same moment he noticed that Valeria was beginning to stir
+slightly. He started, gazed; she rose, thrust first one foot, then the
+other from the bed, and, like a somnambulist, with her dull eyes
+strained straight ahead, and her arms extended before her, she advanced
+toward the door into the garden! Fabio instantly sprang through the
+other door of the bedroom, and briskly running round the corner of the
+house, he closed the one which led into the garden.... He had barely
+succeeded in grasping the handle when he felt some one trying to open
+the door from within, throwing their force against it ... more and more
+strongly ... then frightened moans resounded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But Muzio cannot have returned from the town, surely," flashed through
+Fabio's head, and he darted into the pavilion....
+
+What did he behold?
+
+Coming to meet him, along the path brilliantly flooded with the radiance
+of the moonlight, also with arms outstretched and lifeless eyes staring
+widely--was Muzio.... Fabio ran up to him, but the other, without
+noticing him, walked on, advancing with measured steps, and his
+impassive face was smiling in the moonlight like the face of the Malay.
+Fabio tried to call him by name ... but at that moment he heard a window
+bang in the house behind him.... He glanced round....
+
+In fact, the window of the bedroom was open from top to bottom, and with
+one foot thrust across the sill stood Valeria in the window ... and her
+arms seemed to be seeking Muzio, her whole being was drawn toward him.
+
+Unspeakable wrath flooded Fabio's breast in a suddenly-invading
+torrent.--"Accursed sorcerer!" he yelled fiercely, and seizing Muzio by
+the throat with one hand, he fumbled with the other for the dagger in
+his belt, and buried its blade to the hilt in his side.
+
+Muzio uttered a piercing shriek, and pressing the palm of his hand to
+the wound, fled, stumbling, back to the pavilion.... But at that same
+instant, when Fabio stabbed him, Valeria uttered an equally piercing
+shriek and fell to the ground like one mowed down.
+
+Fabio rushed to her, raised her up, carried her to the bed, spoke to
+her....
+
+For a long time she lay motionless; but at last she opened her eyes,
+heaved a deep sigh, convulsively and joyously, like a person who has
+just been saved from inevitable death,--caught sight of her husband, and
+encircling his neck with her arms, pressed herself to his breast.
+
+"Thou, thou, it is thou," she stammered. Gradually the clasp of her arms
+relaxed, her head sank backward, and whispering, with a blissful
+smile:--"Thank God, all is over.... But how weary I am!"--she fell into
+a profound but not heavy slumber.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Fabio sank down beside her bed, and never taking his eyes from her pale,
+emaciated, but already tranquil face, he began to reflect upon what had
+taken place ... and also upon how he ought to proceed now. What was he
+to do? If he had slain Muzio--and when he recalled how deeply the blade
+of his dagger had penetrated he could not doubt that he had done
+so--then it was impossible to conceal the fact. He must bring it to the
+knowledge of the Duke, of the judges ... but how was he to explain, how
+was he to narrate such an incomprehensible affair? He, Fabio, had slain
+in his own house his relative, his best friend! People would ask, "What
+for? For what cause?..." But what if Muzio were not slain?--Fabio had
+not the strength to remain any longer in uncertainty, and having made
+sure that Valeria was asleep, he cautiously rose from his arm-chair,
+left the house, and directed his steps toward the pavilion. All was
+silent in it; only in one window was a light visible. With sinking heart
+he opened the outer door--(a trace of bloody fingers still clung to it,
+and on the sand of the path drops of blood made black patches)--
+raversed the first dark chamber ... and halted on the threshold,
+petrified with astonishment.
+
+In the centre of the room, on a Persian rug, with a brocade cushion
+under his head, covered with a wide scarlet shawl with black figures,
+lay Muzio, with all his limbs stiffly extended. His face, yellow as wax,
+with closed eyes and lids which had become blue, was turned toward the
+ceiling, and no breath was to be detected: he seemed to be dead. At his
+feet, also enveloped in a scarlet shawl, knelt the Malay. He held in his
+left hand a branch of some unfamiliar plant, resembling a fern, and
+bending slightly forward, he was gazing at his master, never taking his
+eyes from him. A small torch, thrust into the floor, burned with a
+greenish flame, and was the only light in the room. Its flame did not
+flicker nor smoke.
+
+The Malay did not stir at Fabio's entrance, but merely darted a glance
+at him and turned his eyes again upon Muzio. From time to time he
+raised himself a little, and lowered the branch, waving it through the
+air,--and his dumb lips slowly parted and moved, as though uttering
+inaudible words. Between Muzio and the Malay there lay upon the floor
+the dagger with which Fabio had stabbed his friend. The Malay smote the
+blood-stained blade with his bough. One minute passed ... then another.
+Fabio approached the Malay, and bending toward him, he said in a low
+voice: "Is he dead?"--The Malay bowed his head, and disengaging his
+right hand from beneath the shawl, pointed imperiously to the door.
+Fabio was about to repeat his question, but the imperious hand repeated
+its gesture, and Fabio left the room, raging arid marvelling but
+submitting.
+
+He found Valeria asleep, as before, with a still more tranquil face. He
+did not undress, but seated himself by the window, propped his head on
+his hand, and again became immersed in thought. The rising sun found him
+still in the same place. Valeria had not wakened.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Fabio was intending to wait until she should awake, and then go to
+Ferrara--when suddenly some one tapped lightly at the door of the
+bedroom. Fabio went out and beheld before him his aged major-domo,
+Antonio.
+
+"Signor," began the old man, "the Malay has just informed us that Signor
+Muzio is ailing and desires to remove with all his effects to the town;
+and therefore he requests that you will furnish him with the aid of some
+persons to pack his things--and that you will send, about dinner-time,
+both pack-and saddle-horses and a few men as guard. Do you permit?"
+
+"Did the Malay tell thee that?" inquired Fabio. "In what manner? For he
+is dumb."
+
+"Here, signor, is a paper on which he wrote all this in our language,
+very correctly."
+
+"And Muzio is ill, sayest thou?"
+
+"Yes, very ill, and he cannot be seen."
+
+"Has not a physician been sent for?"
+
+"No; the Malay would not allow it."
+
+"And was it the Malay who wrote this for thee?"
+
+"Yes, it was he."
+
+Fabio was silent for a space.
+
+"Very well, take the necessary measures," he said at last.
+
+Antonio withdrew.
+
+Fabio stared after his servant in perplexity.--"So he was not
+killed?"--he thought ... and he did not know whether to rejoice or to
+grieve.--"He is ill?"--But a few hours ago he had beheld him a corpse!
+
+Fabio returned to Valeria. She was awake, and raised her head. The
+husband and wife exchanged a long, significant look.
+
+"Is he already dead?" said Valeria suddenly.--Fabio shuddered.
+
+"What ... he is not?--Didst thou.... Has he gone away?" she went on.
+
+Fabio's heart was relieved.--"Not yet; but he is going away to-day."
+
+"And I shall never, never see him again?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"And those visions will not be repeated?"
+
+"No."
+
+Valeria heaved another sigh of relief; a blissful smile again made its
+appearance on her lips. She put out both hands to her husband.
+
+"And we shall never speak of him, never, hearest thou, my dear one. And
+I shall not leave this room until he is gone. But now do thou send me my
+serving-women ... and stay: take that thing!"--she pointed to a pearl
+necklace which lay on the night-stand, the necklace which Muzio had
+given her,---"and throw it immediately into our deep well. Embrace me--I
+am thy Valeria--and do not come to me until ... that man is gone."
+
+Fabio took the necklace--its pearls seemed to have grown dim--and
+fulfilled his wife's behest. Then he began to roam about the garden,
+gazing from a distance at the pavilion, around which the bustle of
+packing was already beginning. Men were carrying out chests, lading
+horses ... but the Malay was not among them. An irresistible feeling
+drew Fabio to gaze once more on what was going on in the pavilion. He
+recalled the fact that in its rear facade there was a secret door
+through which one might penetrate to the interior of the chamber where
+Muzio had been lying that morning. He stole up to that door, found it
+unlocked, and pushing aside the folds of a heavy curtain, darted in an
+irresolute glance.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Muzio was no longer lying on the rug. Dressed in travelling attire, he
+was sitting in an arm-chair, but appeared as much of a corpse as at
+Fabio's first visit. The petrified head had fallen against the back of
+the chair, the hands lay flat, motionless, and yellow on the knees. His
+breast did not heave. Round about the chair, on the floor strewn with
+dried herbs, stood several flat cups filled with a dark liquid which
+gave off a strong, almost suffocating odour,--the odour of musk. Around
+each cup was coiled a small, copper-coloured serpent, which gleamed here
+and there with golden spots; and directly in front of Muzio, a couple of
+paces distant from him, rose up the tall figure of the Malay, clothed in
+a motley-hued mantle of brocade, girt about with a tiger's tail, with a
+tall cap in the form of a horned tiara on his head.
+
+But he was not motionless: now he made devout obeisances and seemed to
+be praying, again he drew himself up to his full height, even stood on
+tiptoe; now he threw his hands apart in broad and measured sweep, now he
+waved them urgently in the direction of Muzio, and seemed to be menacing
+or commanding with them, as he contracted his brows in a frown and
+stamped his foot. All these movements evidently cost him great effort,
+and even caused him suffering: he breathed heavily, the sweat streamed
+from his face. Suddenly he stood stock-still on one spot, and inhaling
+the air into his lungs and scowling, he stretched forward, then drew
+toward him his clenched fists, as though he were holding reins in
+them ... and to Fabio's indescribable horror, Muzio's head slowly
+separated itself from the back of the chair and reached out after the
+Malay's hands.... The Malay dropped his hands, and Muzio's head again
+sank heavily backward; the Malay repeated his gestures, and the obedient
+head repeated them after him. The dark liquid in the cups began to
+seethe with a faint sound; the very cups themselves emitted a faint
+tinkling, and the copper snakes began to move around each of them in
+undulating motion. Then the Malay advanced a pace, and elevating his
+eyebrows very high and opening his eyes until they were of huge size, he
+nodded his head at Muzio ... and the eyelids of the corpse began to
+flutter, parted unevenly, and from beneath them the pupils, dull as lead,
+revealed themselves. With proud triumph and joy--a joy that was almost
+malicious--beamed the face of the Malay; he opened his lips widely, and
+from the very depths of his throat a prolonged roar wrested itself with
+an effort.... Muzio's lips parted also, and a faint groan trembled on
+them in reply to that inhuman sound.
+
+But at this point Fabio could endure it no longer: he fancied that he
+was witnessing some devilish incantations! He also uttered a shriek and
+started off at a run homeward, without looking behind him,--homeward as
+fast as he could go, praying and crossing himself as he ran.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Three hours later Antonio presented himself before him with the report
+that everything was ready, all the things were packed, and Signor Muzio
+was preparing to depart. Without uttering a word in answer to his
+servant, Fabio stepped out on the terrace, whence the pavilion was
+visible. Several pack-horses were grouped in front of it; at the porch
+itself a powerful black stallion, with a roomy saddle adapted for two
+riders, was drawn up. There also stood the servants with bared heads and
+the armed escort. The door of the pavilion opened and, supported by the
+Malay, Muzio made his appearance. His face was deathlike, and his arms
+hung down like those of a corpse,--but he walked ... yes! he put one
+foot before the other, and once mounted on the horse, he held himself
+upright, and got hold of the reins by fumbling. The Malay thrust his
+feet into the stirrups, sprang up behind him on the saddle, encircled
+his waist with his arm,--and the whole procession set out. The horses
+proceeded at a walk, and when they made the turn in front of the house,
+Fabio fancied that on Muzio's dark countenance two small white patches
+gleamed.... Could it be that he had turned his eyes that way?--The Malay
+alone saluted him ... mockingly, but as usual.
+
+Did Valeria see all this? The shutters of her windows were closed ...
+but perhaps she was standing behind them.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+At dinner-time she entered the dining-room, and was very quiet and
+affectionate; but she still complained of being weary. Yet there was no
+agitation about her, nor any of her former constant surprise and secret
+fear; and when, on the day after Muzio's departure, Fabio again set
+about her portrait, he found in her features that pure expression, the
+temporary eclipse of which had so disturbed him ... and his brush flew
+lightly and confidently over the canvas.
+
+Husband and wife began to live their life as of yore. Muzio had vanished
+for them as though he had never existed. And both Fabio and Valeria
+seemed to have entered into a compact not to recall him by a single
+sound, not to inquire about his further fate; and it remained a mystery
+for all others as well. Muzio really did vanish, as though he had sunk
+through the earth. One day Fabio thought himself bound to relate to
+Valeria precisely what had occurred on that fateful night ... but she,
+probably divining his intention, held her breath, and her eyes narrowed
+as though she were anticipating a blow.... And Fabio understood her: he
+did not deal her that blow.
+
+One fine autumnal day Fabio was putting the finishing touches to the
+picture of his Cecilia; Valeria was sitting at the organ, and her
+fingers were wandering over the keys.... Suddenly, contrary to her own
+volition, from beneath her fingers rang out that Song of Love Triumphant
+which Muzio had once played,--and at that same instant, for the first
+time since her marriage, she felt within her the palpitation of a new,
+germinating life.... Valeria started and stopped short....
+
+What was the meaning of this? Could it be....
+
+With this word the manuscript came to an end.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CLARA MILITCH
+
+A TALE
+
+(1882)
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+In the spring of 1878 there lived in Moscow, in a small wooden house on
+Shabolovka Street, a young man five-and-twenty years of age, Yakoff
+Aratoff by name. With him lived his aunt, an old maid, over fifty years
+of age, his father's sister, Platonida Ivanovna. She managed his
+housekeeping and took charge of his expenditures, of which Aratoff was
+utterly incapable. He had no other relations. Several years before, his
+father, a petty and not wealthy noble of the T---- government, had
+removed to Moscow, together with him and Platonida Ivanovna who, by the
+way, was always called Platosha; and her nephew called her so too. When
+he quitted the country where all of them had constantly dwelt hitherto,
+old Aratoff had settled in the capital with the object of placing his
+son in the university, for which he had himself prepared him; he
+purchased for a trifling sum a small house on one of the remote streets,
+and installed himself therein with all his books and "preparations." And
+of books and preparations he had many, for he was a man not devoid of
+learning ... "a supernatural eccentric," according to the words of his
+neighbours. He even bore among them the reputation of a magician: he had
+even received the nickname of "the insect-observer." He busied himself
+with chemistry, mineralogy, entomology, botany, and medicine; he treated
+voluntary patients with herbs and metallic powders of his own
+concoction, after the method of Paracelsus. With those same powders he
+had sent into the grave his young, pretty, but already too delicate
+wife, whom he had passionately loved, and by whom he had had an only
+son. With those same metallic powders he had wrought considerable havoc
+with the health of his son also, which, on the contrary, he had wished
+to reinforce, as he detected in his organisation anaemia and a tendency
+to consumption inherited from his mother. The title of "magician" he had
+acquired, among other things, from the fact that he considered himself a
+great-grandson--not in the direct line, of course--of the famous Bruce,
+in whose honour he had named his son Yakoff.[51] He was the sort of man
+who is called "very good-natured," but of a melancholy temperament,
+fussy, and timid, with a predilection for everything that was mysterious
+or mystical.... "Ah!" uttered in a half-whisper was his customary
+exclamation; and he died with that exclamation on his lips, two years
+after his removal to Moscow.
+
+His son Yakoff did not, in outward appearance, resemble his father, who
+had been homely in person, clumsy and awkward; he reminded one rather of
+his mother. There were the same delicate, pretty features, the same soft
+hair of ashblonde hue, the same plump, childish lips, and large,
+languishing, greenish-grey eyes, and feathery eyelashes. On the other
+hand in disposition he resembled his father; and his face, which did not
+resemble his father's, bore the stamp of his father's expression; and he
+had angular arms, and a sunken chest, like old Aratoff, who, by the way,
+should hardly be called an old man, since he did not last to the age of
+fifty. During the latter's lifetime Yakoff had already entered the
+university, in the physico-mathematical faculty; but he did not finish
+his course,--not out of idleness, but because, according to his ideas, a
+person can learn no more in the university than he can teach himself at
+home; and he did not aspire to a diploma, as he was not intending to
+enter the government service. He avoided his comrades, made acquaintance
+with hardly any one, was especially shy of women, and lived a very
+isolated life, immersed in his books. He was shy of women, although he
+had a very tender heart, and was captivated by beauty.... He even
+acquired the luxury of an English keepsake, and (Oh, for shame!) admired
+the portraits of divers, bewitching Gulnares and Medoras which "adorned"
+it.... But his inborn modesty constantly restrained him. At home he
+occupied his late father's study, which had also been his bedroom; and
+his bed was the same on which his father had died.
+
+The great support of his whole existence, his unfailing comrade and
+friend, was his aunt, that Platosha, with whom he exchanged barely ten
+words a day, but without whom he could not take a step. She was a
+long-visaged, long-toothed being, with pale eyes in a pale face, and an
+unvarying expression partly of sadness, partly of anxious alarm.
+Eternally attired in a grey gown, and a grey shawl which was redolent of
+camphor, she wandered about the house like a shadow, with noiseless
+footsteps; she sighed, whispered prayers--especially one, her favourite,
+which consisted of two words: "Lord, help!"--and managed the
+housekeeping very vigorously, hoarding every kopek and buying everything
+herself. She worshipped her nephew; she was constantly fretting about
+his health, was constantly in a state of alarm, not about herself but
+about him, and as soon as she thought there was anything the matter with
+him, she would quietly approach and place on his writing-table a cup of
+herb-tea, or stroke his back with her hands, which were as soft as
+wadding.
+
+This coddling did not annoy Yakoff, but he did not drink the herb-tea,
+and only nodded approvingly. But neither could he boast of his health.
+He was extremely sensitive, nervous, suspicious; he suffered from
+palpitation of the heart, and sometimes from asthma. Like his father, he
+believed that there existed in nature and in the soul of man secrets, of
+which glimpses may sometimes be caught, though they cannot be
+understood; he believed in the presence of certain forces and
+influences, sometimes well-disposed but more frequently hostile ... and
+he also believed in science,--in its dignity and worth. Of late he had
+conceived a passion for photography. The odour of the ingredients used
+in that connection greatly disturbed his old aunt,--again not on her own
+behalf, but for Yasha's sake, on account of his chest. But with all his
+gentleness of disposition he possessed no small portion of stubbornness,
+and he diligently pursued his favourite occupation. "Platosha"
+submitted, and merely sighed more frequently than ever, and whispered
+"Lord, help!" as she gazed at his fingers stained with iodine.
+
+Yakoff, as has already been stated, shunned his comrades; but with one
+of them he struck up a rather close friendship, and saw him frequently,
+even after that comrade, on leaving the university, entered the
+government service, which, however, was not very exacting: to use his
+own words, he had "tacked himself on" to the building of the Church of
+the Saviour[52] without, of course, knowing anything whatever about
+architecture. Strange to say, that solitary friend of Aratoff's, Kupfer
+by name, a German who was Russified to the extent of not knowing a
+single word of German, and even used the epithet "German"[53] as a term
+of opprobrium,--that friend had, to all appearance, nothing in common
+with him. He was a jolly, rosy-cheeked young fellow with black, curly
+hair, loquacious, and very fond of that feminine society which Aratoff
+so shunned. Truth to tell, Kupfer breakfasted and dined with him rather
+often, and even--as he was not a rich man--borrowed small sums of money
+from him; but it was not that which made the free-and-easy German so
+diligently frequent the little house on Shabolovka Street. He had taken
+a liking to Yakoff's spiritual purity, his "ideality,"--possibly as a
+contrast to what he daily encountered and beheld;--or, perhaps, in that
+same attraction toward "ideality" the young man's German blood revealed
+itself. And Yakoff liked Kupfer's good-natured frankness; and in
+addition to this, his tales of the theatres, concerts, and balls which
+he constantly attended--in general of that alien world into which Yakoff
+could not bring himself to penetrate--secretly interested and even
+excited the young recluse, yet without arousing in him a desire to test
+all this in his own experience. And Platosha liked Kupfer; she sometimes
+thought him too unceremonious, it is true; but instinctively feeling and
+understanding that he was sincerely attached to her beloved Yasha, she
+not only tolerated the noisy visitor, but even felt a kindness for him.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+At the time of which we are speaking, there was in Moscow a certain
+widow, a Georgian Princess,--a person of ill-defined standing and almost
+a suspicious character. She was about forty years of age; in her youth
+she had, probably, bloomed with that peculiar oriental beauty, which so
+quickly fades; now she powdered and painted herself, and dyed her hair a
+yellow hue. Various, not altogether favourable, and not quite definite,
+rumours were in circulation about her; no one had known her husband--and
+in no one city had she lived for any length of time. She had neither
+children nor property; but she lived on a lavish scale,--on credit or
+otherwise. She held a salon, as the saying is, and received a decidedly
+mixed company--chiefly composed of young men. Her whole establishment,
+beginning with her own toilette, furniture, and table, and ending with
+her equipage and staff of servants, bore a certain stamp of inferiority,
+artificiality, transitoriness ... but neither the Princess herself nor
+her guests, apparently, demanded anything better. The Princess was
+reputed to be fond of music and literature, to be a patroness of actors
+and artists; and she really did take an interest in these "questions,"
+even to an enthusiastic degree--and even to a pitch of rapture which was
+not altogether simulated. She indubitably did possess the aesthetic
+chord. Moreover, she was very accessible, amiable, devoid of
+pretensions, of affectation, and--a fact which many did not suspect--in
+reality extremely kind, tender-hearted and obliging.... Rare qualities,
+and therefore all the more precious, precisely in individuals of that
+stamp.
+
+"A frivolous woman!" one clever person said concerning her, "and she
+will infallibly get into paradise! For she forgives everything--and
+everything will be forgiven her!"--It was also said concerning her that
+when she disappeared from any town, she always left behind her as many
+creditors as persons whom she had loaded with benefits. A soft heart can
+be pressed in any direction you like.
+
+Kupfer, as was to be expected, was a visitor at her house, and became
+very intimate with her ... altogether too intimate, so malicious tongues
+asserted. But he always spoke of her not only in a friendly manner, but
+also with respect; he lauded her as a woman of gold--interpret that as
+you please!--and was a firm believer in her love for art, and in her
+comprehension of art!--So then, one day after dinner, at the Aratoffs',
+after having discussed the Princess and her evening gatherings, he began
+to urge Yakoff to break in upon his life of an anchorite for once, and
+permit him, Kupfer, to introduce him to his friend. At first Yakoff
+would not hear to anything of the sort.
+
+"Why, what idea hast thou got into thy head?" exclaimed Kupfer at last.
+"What sort of a presentation is in question? I shall simply take thee,
+just as thou art now sitting there, in thy frock-coat, and conduct thee
+to her evening. They do not stand on ceremony in the least there,
+brother! Here now, thou art learned, and thou art fond of music" (there
+actually was in Aratoff's study a small piano, on which he occasionally
+struck a few chords in diminished sevenths)--"and in her house there is
+any quantity of that sort of thing!... And there thou wilt meet
+sympathetic people, without any airs! And, in conclusion, it is not
+right that at thy age, with thy personal appearance" (Aratoff dropped
+his eyes and waved his hand)--"yes, yes, with thy personal appearance,
+thou shouldst shun society, the world, in this manner! I'm not going to
+take thee to call on generals, seest thou! Moreover, I don't know any
+generals myself!... Don't be stubborn, my dear fellow! Morality is a
+good thing, a thing worthy of respect.... But why give thyself up to
+asceticism? Assuredly, thou art not preparing to become a monk!"
+
+Aratoff continued, nevertheless, to resist; but Platonida Ivanovna
+unexpectedly came to Kupfer's assistance. Although she did not quite
+understand the meaning of the word "asceticism," still she also thought
+that it would not be a bad idea for Yashenka to divert himself, to take
+a look at people,--and show himself.--"The more so," she added, "that I
+have confidence in Feodor Feodoritch! He will not take thee to any bad
+place!..."
+
+"I'll restore him to thee in all his pristine purity!" cried Kupfer, at
+whom Platonida Ivanovna, in spite of her confidence, kept casting
+uneasy glances; Aratoff blushed to his very ears--but he ceased to
+object.
+
+It ended in Kupfer taking him, on the following day, to the Princess's
+evening assembly. But Aratoff did not remain there long. In the first
+place, he found at her house about twenty guests, men and women, who
+were, presumably, sympathetic, but who were strangers to him,
+nevertheless; and this embarrassed him, although he was obliged to talk
+very little: but he feared this most of all. In the second place, he did
+not like the hostess herself, although she welcomed him very cordially
+and unaffectedly. Everything about her displeased him; her painted face,
+and her churned-up curls, and her hoarsely-mellifluous voice, her shrill
+laugh, her way of rolling up her eyes, her too _decollete_ bodice--and
+those plump, shiny fingers with a multitude of rings!... Slinking off
+into a corner, he now swiftly ran his eyes over the faces of all the
+guests, as though he did not even distinguish one from another; again he
+stared persistently at his own feet. But when, at last, an artist who
+had just come to town, with a drink-sodden countenance, extremely long
+hair, and a bit of glass under his puckered brow, seated himself at the
+piano, and bringing down his hands on the keys and his feet on the
+pedals, with a flourish, began to bang out a fantasia by Liszt on a
+Wagnerian theme, Aratoff could stand it no longer, and slipped away,
+bearing in his soul a confused and oppressive impression, athwart which,
+nevertheless, there pierced something which he did not understand, but
+which was significant and even agitating.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Kupfer came on the following day to dinner; but he did not enlarge upon
+the preceding evening, he did not even reproach Aratoff for his hasty
+flight, and merely expressed regret that he had not waited for supper,
+at which champagne had been served! (of Nizhegorod[54] fabrication, we
+may remark in parenthesis).
+
+Kupfer probably understood that he had made a mistake in trying to
+rouse his friend, and that Aratoff was a man who positively was not
+adapted to that sort of society and manner of life. On his side, Aratoff
+also did not allude to the Princess or to the night before. Platonida
+Ivanovna did not know whether to rejoice at the failure of this first
+attempt or to regret it. She decided, at last, that Yasha's health might
+suffer from such expeditions, and regained her complacency. Kupfer went
+away directly after dinner, and did not show himself again for a whole
+week. And that not because he was sulking at Aratoff for the failure of
+his introduction,--the good-natured fellow was incapable of such a
+thing,--but he had, evidently, found some occupation which engrossed all
+his time, all his thoughts;--for thereafter he rarely came to the
+Aratoffs', wore an abstracted aspect, and soon vanished.... Aratoff
+continued to live on as before; but some hitch, if we may so express
+ourselves, had secured lodgment in his soul. He still recalled something
+or other, without himself being quite aware what it was precisely,--and
+that "something" referred to the evening which he had spent at the
+Princess's house. Nevertheless, he had not the slightest desire to
+return to it; and society, a section of which he had inspected in her
+house, repelled him more than ever. Thus passed six weeks.
+
+And lo! one morning, Kupfer again presented himself to him, this time
+with a somewhat embarrassed visage.
+
+"I know," he began, with a forced laugh, "that thy visit that evening
+was not to thy taste; but I hope that thou wilt consent to my proposal
+nevertheless ... and wilt not refuse my request."
+
+"What art thou talking about?" inquired Aratoff.
+
+"See here," pursued Kupfer, becoming more and more animated; "there
+exists here a certain society of amateurs and artists, which from time
+to time organises readings, concerts, even theatrical representations,
+for philanthropic objects...."
+
+"And the Princess takes part?" interrupted Aratoff.
+
+"The Princess always takes part in good works--but that is of no
+consequence. We have got up a literary and musical morning ... and at
+that performance thou mayest hear a young girl ... a remarkable young
+girl!--We do not quite know, as yet, whether she will turn out a Rachel
+or a Viardot ... for she sings splendidly, and declaims and acts.... She
+has talent of the first class, my dear fellow! I am not
+exaggerating.--So here now ... wilt not thou take a ticket?--Five rubles
+if thou wishest the first row."
+
+"And where did this wonderful young girl come from?" asked Aratoff.
+
+Kupfer grinned.--"That I cannot say.... Of late she has found an asylum
+with the Princess. The Princess, as thou knowest, is a patron of all
+such people.... And it is probable that thou sawest her that evening."
+
+Aratoff started inwardly, faintly ... but made no answer.
+
+"She has even acted somewhere in country districts," went on Kupfer,
+"and, on the whole, she was created for the theatre. Thou shalt see for
+thyself!"
+
+"Is her name Clara?" asked Aratoff.
+
+"Yes, Clara...."
+
+"Clara!" interrupted Aratoff again.--"It cannot be!"
+
+"Why not?--Clara it is, ... Clara Militch; that is not her real name ...
+but that is what she is called. She is to sing a romance by Glinka ...
+and one by Tchaikovsky, and then she will recite the letter from 'Evgeny
+Onyegin'[55]--Come now! Wilt thou take a ticket?"
+
+"But when is it to be?"
+
+"To-morrow ... to-morrow, at half-past one, in a private hall, on
+Ostozhyonka Street.... I will come for thee. A ticket at five rubles?...
+Here it is.... No, this is a three-ruble ticket.--Here it is.--And here
+is the affiche.[56]--I am one of the managers."
+
+Aratoff reflected. Platonida Ivanovna entered the room at that moment
+and, glancing at his face, was suddenly seized with agitation.--"Yasha,"
+she exclaimed, "what ails thee? Why art thou so excited? Feodor
+Feodorovitch, what hast thou been saying to him?"
+
+But Aratoff did not give his friend a chance to answer his aunt's
+question, and hastily seizing the ticket which was held out to him, he
+ordered Platonida Ivanovna to give Kupfer five rubles on the instant.
+
+She was amazed, and began to blink her eyes.... Nevertheless, she handed
+Kupfer the money in silence. Yashenka had shouted at her in a very
+severe manner.
+
+"She's a marvel of marvels, I tell thee!" cried Kupfer, darting toward
+the door.--"Expect me to-morrow!"
+
+"Has she black eyes?" called Aratoff after him.
+
+"As black as coal!" merrily roared Kupfer, and disappeared.
+
+Aratoff went off to his own room, while Platonida Ivanovna remained
+rooted to the spot, repeating: "Help, Lord! Lord, help!"
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The large hall in a private house on Ostozhyonka Street was already half
+filled with spectators when Aratoff and Kupfer arrived. Theatrical
+representations were sometimes given in that hall, but on this occasion
+neither stage-scenery nor curtain were visible. Those who had organised
+the "morning" had confined themselves to erecting a platform at one end,
+placing thereon a piano and a couple of music-racks, a few chairs, a
+table with a carafe of water and a glass, and hanging a curtain of red
+cloth over the door which led to the room set apart for the artists. In
+the first row the Princess was already seated, clad in a bright green
+gown; Aratoff placed himself at some distance from her, after barely
+exchanging a bow with her. The audience was what is called motley; it
+consisted chiefly of young men from various institutions of learning.
+Kupfer, in his quality of a manager, with a white ribbon on the lapel of
+his dress-coat, bustled and fussed about with all his might; the
+Princess was visibly excited, kept looking about her, launching smiles
+in all directions, and chatting with her neighbours ... there were only
+men in her immediate vicinity.
+
+The first to make his appearance on the platform was a flute-player of
+consumptive aspect, who spat out ... that is to say, piped out a piece
+which was consumptive like himself. Two persons shouted "Bravo!" Then a
+fat gentleman in spectacles, very sedate and even grim of aspect,
+recited in a bass voice a sketch by Shtchedrin;[57] the audience
+applauded the sketch, not him.--Then the pianist, who was already known
+to Aratoff, presented himself, and pounded out the same Liszt fantasia;
+the pianist was favoured with a recall. He bowed, with his hand resting
+on the back of a chair, and after each bow he tossed back his hair
+exactly like Liszt! At last, after a decidedly long intermission, the
+red cloth over the door at the rear of the platform moved, was drawn
+widely apart, and Clara Militch made her appearance. The hall rang with
+applause. With unsteady steps she approached the front of the platform,
+came to a halt, and stood motionless, with her large, red, ungloved
+hands crossed in front of her, making no curtsey, neither bending her
+head nor smiling.
+
+She was a girl of nineteen, tall, rather broad-shouldered, but well
+built. Her face was swarthy, partly Hebrew, partly Gipsy in type; her
+eyes were small and black beneath thick brows which almost met, her nose
+was straight, slightly up-turned, her lips were thin with a beautiful
+but sharp curve; she had a huge braid of black hair, which was heavy
+even to the eye, a low, impassive, stony brow, tiny ears ... her whole
+countenance was thoughtful, almost surly. A passionate, self-willed
+nature,--not likely to be either kindly or even intelligent,--but
+gifted, was manifested by everything about her.
+
+For a while she did not raise her eyes, but suddenly gave a start and
+sent her intent but not attentive glance, which seemed to be buried in
+herself, along the rows of spectators.
+
+"What tragic eyes!" remarked a certain grey-haired fop, who sat behind
+Aratoff, with the face of a courtesan from Revel,--one of Moscow's
+well-known first-nighters and rounders. The fop was stupid and intended
+to utter a bit of nonsense ... but he had spoken the truth! Aratoff, who
+had never taken his eyes from Clara since she had made her appearance,
+only then recalled that he actually had seen her at the Princess's; and
+had not only seen her, but had even noticed that she had several times
+looked at him with particular intentness out of her dark, watchful eyes.
+And on this occasion also ... or did he merely fancy that it was so?--on
+catching sight of him in the first row, she seemed to be delighted,
+seemed to blush--and again she gazed intently at him. Then, without
+turning round, she retreated a couple of paces in the direction of the
+piano, at which the accompanist, the long-haired foreigner, was already
+seated. She was to execute Glinka's romance, "As soon as I recognised
+thee...." She immediately began to sing, without altering the position
+of her hands and without glancing at the notes. Her voice was soft and
+resonant,--a contralto,--she pronounced her words distinctly and
+forcibly, and sang monotonously, without shading but with strong
+expression.
+
+"The lass sings with conviction," remarked the same fop who sat behind
+Aratoff,--and again he spoke the truth.
+
+Shouts of "Bis!" "Bravo!" resounded all about, but she merely darted a
+swift glance at Aratoff, who was neither shouting nor clapping,--he had
+not been particularly pleased by her singing,--made a slight bow and
+withdrew, without taking the arm of the hairy pianist which he had
+crooked out like a cracknel. She was recalled ... but it was some time
+before she made her appearance, advanced to the piano with the same
+uncertain tread as before, and after whispering a couple of words to her
+accompanist, who was obliged to get and place on the rack before him not
+the music he had prepared but something else,--she began Tchaikovsky's
+romance: "No, only he who hath felt the thirst of meeting".... This
+romance she sang in a different way from the first--in an undertone, as
+though she were weary ... and only in the line before the last, "He will
+understand how I have suffered,"--did a ringing, burning cry burst from
+her. The last line, "And how I suffer...." she almost whispered, sadly
+prolonging the final word. This romance produced a slighter impression
+on the audience than Glinka's; but there was a great deal of
+applause.... Kupfer, in particular, distinguished himself: he brought
+his hands together in a peculiar manner, in the form of a cask, when he
+clapped, thereby producing a remarkably sonorous noise. The Princess
+gave him a large, dishevelled bouquet, which he was to present to the
+songstress; but the latter did not appear to perceive Kupfer's bowed
+figure, and his hand outstretched with the bouquet, and she turned and
+withdrew, again without waiting for the pianist, who had sprung to his
+feet with still greater alacrity than before to escort her, and who,
+being thus left in the lurch, shook his hair as Liszt himself, in all
+probability, never shook his!
+
+During the whole time she was singing Aratoff had been scanning Clara's
+face. It seemed to him that her eyes, athwart her contracted lashes,
+were again turned on him. But he was particularly struck by the
+impassiveness of that face, that forehead, those brows, and only when
+she uttered her passionate cry did he notice a row of white, closely-set
+teeth gleaming warmly from between her barely parted lips. Kupfer
+stepped up to him.
+
+"Well, brother, what dost thou think of her?" he asked, all beaming with
+satisfaction.
+
+"She has a fine voice," replied Aratoff, "but she does not know how to
+sing yet, she has had no real school." (Why he said this and what he
+meant by "school" the Lord only knows!)
+
+Kupfer was surprised.--"She has no school," he repeated slowly....
+"Well, now.... She can still study. But on the other hand, what soul!
+But just wait until thou hast heard her recite Tatyana's letter."
+
+He ran away from Aratoff, and the latter thought: "Soul! With that
+impassive face!"--He thought that she bore herself and moved like a
+hypnotised person, like a somnambulist.... And, at the same time, she
+was indubitably.... Yes! she was indubitably staring at him.
+
+Meanwhile the "morning" went on. The fat man in spectacles presented
+himself again; despite his serious appearance he imagined that he was a
+comic artist and read a scene from Gogol, this time without evoking a
+single token of approbation. The flute-player flitted past once more;
+again the pianist thundered; a young fellow of twenty, pomaded and
+curled, but with traces of tears on his cheeks, sawed out some
+variations on his fiddle. It might have appeared strange that in the
+intervals between the recitations and the music the abrupt notes of a
+French horn were wafted, now and then, from the artists' room; but this
+instrument was not used, nevertheless. It afterward came out that the
+amateur who had offered to perform on it had been seized with a panic at
+the moment when he should have made his appearance before the audience.
+So at last, Clara Militch appeared again.
+
+She held in her hand a small volume of Pushkin; but during her reading
+she never once glanced at it.... She was obviously frightened; the
+little book shook slightly in her fingers. Aratoff also observed the
+expression of dejection which _now_ overspread her stern features. The
+first line: "I write to you ... what would you more?" she uttered with
+extreme simplicity, almost ingenuously,--stretching both arms out in
+front of her with an ingenuous, sincere, helpless gesture. Then she
+began to hurry a little; but beginning with the line: "Another! Nay! to
+none on earth could I have given e'er my heart!" she regained her
+self-possession, and grew animated; and when she reached the words:
+"All, all life hath been a pledge of faithful meeting thus with
+thee,"--her hitherto rather dull voice rang out enthusiastically and
+boldly, and her eyes riveted themselves on Aratoff with a boldness and
+directness to match. She went on with the same enthusiasm, and only
+toward the close did her voice again fall, and in it and in her face her
+previous dejection was again depicted. She made a complete muddle, as
+the saying is, of the last four lines,--the little volume of Pushkin
+suddenly slipped from her hands, and she beat a hasty retreat.
+
+The audience set to applauding and recalling her in desperate
+fashion.... One theological student,--a Little Russian,--among others,
+bellowed so loudly: "Muiluitch! Muiluitch!"[58] that his neighbour
+politely and sympathetically begged him to "spare himself, as a future
+proto-deacon!"[59] But Aratoff immediately rose and betook himself to
+the entrance. Kupfer overtook him....
+
+"Good gracious, whither art thou going?" he yelled:--"I'll introduce
+thee to Clara if thou wishest--shall I?"
+
+"No, thanks," hastily replied Aratoff, and set off homeward almost at a
+run.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Strange emotions, which were not clear even to himself, agitated him. In
+reality, Clara's recitation had not altogether pleased him either ...
+altogether he could not tell precisely why. It had troubled him, that
+recitation, it had seemed to him harsh, unmelodious.... Somehow it
+seemed to have broken something within him, to have exerted some sort of
+violence. And those importunate, persistent, almost insolent
+glances--what had caused them? What did they signify?
+
+Aratoff's modesty did permit him even a momentary thought that he might
+have pleased that strange young girl, that he might have inspired her
+with a sentiment akin to love, to passion!... And he had imagined to
+himself quite otherwise that as yet unknown woman, that young girl, to
+whom he would surrender himself wholly, and who would love him, become
+his bride, his wife.... He rarely dreamed of this: he was chaste both in
+body and soul;--but the pure image which rose up in his imagination at
+such times was evoked under another form,--the form of his dead mother,
+whom he barely remembered, though he cherished her portrait like a
+sacred treasure. That portrait had been painted in water-colours, in a
+rather inartistic manner, by a friendly neighbour, but the likeness was
+striking, as every one averred. The woman, the young girl, whom as yet
+he did not so much as venture to expect, must possess just such a tender
+profile, just such kind, bright eyes, just such silky hair, just such a
+smile, just such a clear understanding....
+
+But this was a black-visaged, swarthy creature, with coarse hair, and a
+moustache on her lip; she must certainly be bad-tempered, giddy.... "A
+gipsy" (Aratoff could not devise a worse expression)--what was she to
+him?
+
+And in the meantime, Aratoff was unable to banish from his mind that
+black-visaged gipsy, whose singing and recitation and even whose
+personal appearance were disagreeable to him. He was perplexed, he was
+angry with himself. Not long before this he had read Walter Scott's
+romance "Saint Ronan's Well" (there was a complete edition of Walter
+Scott's works in the library of his father, who revered the English
+romance-writer as a serious, almost a learned author). The heroine of
+that romance is named Clara Mowbray. A poet of the '40's, Krasoff, wrote
+a poem about her, which wound up with the words:
+
+    "Unhappy Clara! foolish Clara!
+    Unhappy Clara Mowbray!"
+
+Aratoff was acquainted with this poem also.... And now these words kept
+incessantly recurring to his memory.... "Unhappy Clara! foolish
+Clara!..." (That was why he had been so surprised when Kupfer mentioned
+Clara Militch to him.) Even Platosha noticed, not precisely a change in
+Yakoff's frame of mind--as a matter of fact, no change had taken
+place--but something wrong about his looks, in his remarks. She
+cautiously interrogated him about the literary morning at which he had
+been present;--she whispered, sighed, scrutinised him from in front,
+scrutinised him from the side, from behind--and suddenly, slapping her
+hands on her thighs, she exclaimed:
+
+"Well, Yashal--I see what the trouble is!"
+
+"What dost thou mean?" queried Aratoff in his turn.
+
+"Thou hast certainly met at that morning some one of those
+tail-draggers" (that was what Platonida Ivanovna called all ladies who
+wore fashionable gowns).... "She has a comely face--and she puts on airs
+like _this_,--and twists her face like _this_" (Platosha depicted all
+this in her face), "and she makes her eyes go round like this...." (she
+mimicked this also, describing huge circles in the air with her
+forefinger).... "And it made an impression on thee, because thou art not
+used to it.... But that does not signify anything, Yasha ... it does not
+signify anything! Drink a cup of herb-tea when thou goest to bed, and
+that will be the end of it!... Lord, help!"
+
+Platosha ceased speaking and took herself off.... She probably had never
+made such a long and animated speech before since she was born ... but
+Aratoff thought:
+
+"I do believe my aunt is right.... It is all because I am not used to
+such things...." (He really had attracted the attention of the female
+sex to himself for the first time ... at any rate, he had never noticed
+it before.) "I must not indulge myself."
+
+So he set to work at his books, and drank some linden-flower tea when he
+went to bed, and even slept well all that night, and had no dreams. On
+the following morning he busied himself with his photography, as though
+nothing had happened....
+
+But toward evening his spiritual serenity was again disturbed.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+To wit: a messenger brought him a note, written in a large, irregular
+feminine hand, which ran as follows:
+
+"If you guess who is writing to you, and if it does not bore you, come
+to-morrow, after dinner, to the Tver boulevard--about five o'clock--and
+wait. You will not be detained long. But it is very important. Come."
+
+There was no signature. Aratoff instantly divined who his correspondent
+was, and that was precisely what disturbed him.--"What nonsense!" he
+said, almost aloud. "This is too much! Of course I shall not
+go."--Nevertheless, he ordered the messenger to be summoned, and from
+him he learned merely that the letter had been handed to him on the
+street by a maid. Having dismissed him, Aratoff reread the letter, and
+flung it on the floor.... But after a while he picked it up and read it
+over again; a second time he cried: "Nonsense!" He did not throw the
+letter on the floor this time, however, but put it away in a drawer.
+
+Aratoff went about his customary avocations, busying himself now with
+one, now with another; but his work did not make progress, was not a
+success. Suddenly he noticed that he was waiting for Kupfer, that he
+wanted to interrogate him, or even communicate something to him.... But
+Kupfer did not make his appearance. Then Aratoff got Pushkin and read
+Tatyana's letter and again felt convinced that that "gipsy" had not in
+the least grasped the meaning of the letter. But there was that jester
+Kupfer shouting: "A Rachel! A Viardot!" Then he went to his piano,
+raised the cover in an abstracted sort of way, tried to search out in
+his memory the melody of Tchaikovsky's romance; but he immediately
+banged to the piano-lid with vexation and went to his aunt, in her own
+room, which was always kept very hot, and was forever redolent of mint,
+sage, and other medicinal herbs, and crowded with such a multitude of
+rugs, etageres, little benches, cushions and various articles of
+softly-stuffed furniture that it was difficult for an inexperienced
+person to turn round in it, and breathing was oppressive. Platonida
+Ivanovna was sitting by the window with her knitting-needles in her hand
+(she was knitting a scarf for Yashenka--the thirty-eighth, by actual
+count, during the course of his existence!)--and was greatly surprised.
+Aratoff rarely entered her room, and if he needed anything he always
+shouted in a shrill voice from his study: "Aunt Platosha!"--But she made
+him sit down and, in anticipation of his first words, pricked up her
+ears, as she stared at him through her round spectacles with one eye,
+and above them with the other. She did not inquire after his health, and
+did not offer him tea, for she saw that he had not come for that.
+Aratoff hesitated for a while ... then began to talk ... to talk about
+his mother, about the way she had lived with his father, and how his
+father had made her acquaintance. He knew all this perfectly well ...
+but he wanted to talk precisely about that. Unluckily for him, Platosha
+did not know how to converse in the least; she made very brief replies,
+as though she suspected that Yasha had not come for that purpose.
+
+"Certainly!"--she kept repeating hurriedly, as she plied her
+knitting-needles almost in an angry way. "Every one knows that thy
+mother was a dove ... a regular dove.... And thy father loved her as a
+husband should love, faithfully and honourably, to the very grave; and
+he never loved any other woman,"--she added, elevating her voice and
+removing her spectacles.
+
+"And was she of a timid disposition?" asked Aratoff, after a short
+pause.
+
+"Certainly she was. As is fitting for the female sex. The bold ones are
+a recent invention."
+
+"And were there no bold ones in your time?"
+
+"There were such even in our day ... of course there were! But who were
+they? Some street-walker, or shameless hussy or other. She would drag
+her skirts about, and fling herself hither and thither at random....
+What did she care? What anxiety had she? If a young fool came along, he
+fell into her hands. But steady-going people despised them. Dost thou
+remember ever to have beheld such in our house?"
+
+Aratoff made no reply and returned to his study. Platonida Ivanovna
+gazed after him, shook her head and again donned her spectacles, again
+set to work on her scarf ... but more than once she fell into thought
+and dropped her knitting-needles on her knee.
+
+And Aratoff until nightfall kept again and again beginning, with the
+same vexation, the same ire as before, to think about "the gipsy," the
+appointed tryst, to which he certainly would not go! During the night
+also she worried him. He kept constantly seeing her eyes, now narrowed,
+now widely opened, with their importunate gaze riveted directly on him,
+and those impassive features with their imperious expression.
+
+On the following morning he again kept expecting Kupfer, for some reason
+or other; he came near writing him a letter ... however, he did
+nothing ... but spent most of his time pacing to and fro in his study.
+Not for one instant did he even admit to himself the thought that he
+would go to that stupid "rendezvous" ... and at half-past four, after
+having swallowed his dinner in haste, he suddenly donned his overcoat
+and pulling his cap down on his brows, he stole out of the house without
+letting his aunt see him and wended his way to the Tver boulevard.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Aratoff found few pedestrians on the boulevard. The weather was raw and
+quite cold. He strove not to think of what he was doing. He forced
+himself to turn his attention to all the objects he came across and
+pretended to assure himself that he had come out to walk precisely like
+the other people.... The letter of the day before was in his
+side-pocket, and he was uninterruptedly conscious of its presence. He
+walked the length of the boulevard a couple of times, darting keen
+glances at every feminine form which approached him, and his heart
+thumped, thumped violently.... He began to feel tired, and sat down on a
+bench. And suddenly the idea occurred to him: "Come now, what if that
+letter was not written by her but by some one else, by some other
+woman?" In point of fact, that should have made no difference to him ...
+and yet he was forced to admit to himself that he did not wish this. "It
+would be very stupid," he thought, "still more stupid than _that_!" A
+nervous restlessness began to take possession of him; he began to feel
+chilly, not outwardly but inwardly. Several times he drew out his watch
+from his waistcoat pocket, glanced at the face, put it back again,--and
+every time forgot how many minutes were lacking to five o'clock. It
+seemed to him as though every one who passed him stared at him in a
+peculiar manner, surveying him with a certain sneering surprise and
+curiosity. A wretched little dog ran up, sniffed at his legs and began
+to wag its tail. He flourished his arms angrily at it. He was most
+annoyed of all by a small boy from a factory in a bed-ticking jacket,
+who seated himself on the bench and first whistled, then scratched his
+head, dangling his legs, encased in huge, broken boots, the while, and
+staring at him from time to time. "His employer is certainly expecting
+him," thought Aratoff, "and here he is, the lazy dog, wasting his time
+idling about...."
+
+But at that same moment it seemed to him as though some one had
+approached and taken up a stand close behind him ... a warm current
+emanated thence....
+
+He glanced round.... It was she!
+
+He recognised her immediately, although a thick, dark-blue veil
+concealed her features. He instantly sprang from the bench, and remained
+standing there, unable to utter a word. She also maintained silence. He
+felt greatly agitated ... but her agitation was as great as his: Aratoff
+could not help seeing even through the veil how deadly pale she grew.
+But she was the first to speak.
+
+"Thank you," she began in a broken voice, "thank you for coming. I did
+not hope...." She turned away slightly and walked along the boulevard.
+Aratoff followed her.
+
+"Perhaps you condemn me," she went on, without turning her head.--"As a
+matter of fact, my action is very strange.... But I have heard a great
+deal about you ... but no! I ... that was not the cause.... If you only
+knew.... I wanted to say so much to you, my God!... But how am I to do
+it?... How am I to do it!"
+
+Aratoff walked by her side, but a little in the rear. He did not see her
+face; he saw only her hat and a part of her veil ... and her long,
+threadbare cloak. All his vexation against her and against himself
+suddenly returned to him; all the absurdity, all the awkwardness of this
+tryst, of these explanations between utter strangers, on a public
+boulevard, suddenly presented itself to him.
+
+"I have come hither at your behest," he began in his turn, "I have come,
+my dear madame" (her shoulders quivered softly, she turned into a side
+path, and he followed her), "merely for the sake of having an
+explanation, of learning in consequence of what strange misunderstanding
+you were pleased to appeal to me, a stranger to you, who ... who only
+_guessed_, as you expressed it in your letter, that it was precisely you
+who had written to him ... because he guessed that you had tried, in the
+course of that literary morning to show him too much ... too much
+obvious attention."
+
+Aratoff uttered the whole of this little speech in the same resonant but
+firm voice in which men who are still very young answer at examinations
+on questions for which they are well prepared.... He was indignant; he
+was angry.... And that wrath had loosed his tongue which was not very
+fluent on ordinary occasions.
+
+She continued to advance along the path with somewhat lagging steps....
+Aratoff followed her as before, and as before saw only her little old
+mantilla and her small hat, which was not quite new either. His vanity
+suffered at the thought that she must now be thinking: "All I had to do
+was to make a sign, and he immediately hastened to me!"
+
+Aratoff lapsed into silence ... he expected that she would reply to him;
+but she did not utter a word.
+
+"I am ready to listen to you," he began again, "and I shall even be very
+glad if I can be of service to you in any way ... although, I must
+confess, nevertheless, that I find it astonishing ... that considering
+my isolated life...."
+
+But at his last words Clara suddenly turned to him and he beheld the
+same startled, profoundly-sorrowful visage, with the same large, bright
+tears in its eyes, with the same woful expression around the parted
+lips; and the visage was so fine thus that he involuntarily broke off
+short and felt within himself something akin to fright, and pity and
+forbearance.
+
+"Akh, why ... why are you like this? ..." she said with irresistibly
+sincere and upright force--and what a touching ring there was to her
+voice!--"Is it possible that my appeal to you can have offended you?...
+Is it possible that you have understood nothing?... Ah, yes! You have
+not understood anything, you have not understood what I said to you. God
+knows what you have imagined about me, you have not even reflected what
+it cost me to write to you!... You have been anxious only on your own
+account, about your own dignity, your own peace!... But did I...." (she
+so tightly clenched her hands which she had raised to her lips that her
+fingers cracked audibly).... "As though I had made any demands upon you,
+as though explanations were requisite to begin with.... 'My dear
+madame'.... 'I even find it astonishing'.... 'If I can be of service to
+you'.... Akh, how foolish I have been!--I have been deceived in you, in
+your face!... When I saw you for the first time.... There.... There you
+stand.... And not one word do you utter! Have you really not a word to
+say?"
+
+She had been imploring.... Her face suddenly flushed, and as suddenly
+assumed an evil and audacious expression,--"O Lord! how stupid this
+is!"--she cried suddenly, with a harsh laugh.--"How stupid our tryst is!
+How stupid I am! ... and you, too!... Fie!"
+
+She made a disdainful gesture with her hand as though sweeping him out
+of her path, and passing around him she ran swiftly from the boulevard
+and disappeared.
+
+That gesture of the hand, that insulting laugh, that final exclamation
+instantly restored Aratoff to his former frame of mind and stifled in
+him the feeling which had risen in his soul when she turned to him with
+tears in her eyes. Again he waxed wroth, and came near shouting after
+the retreating girl: "You may turn out a good actress, but why have you
+taken it into your head to play a comedy on me?"
+
+With great strides he returned home, and although he continued to be
+indignant and to rage all the way thither, still, at the same time,
+athwart all these evil, hostile feelings there forced its way the memory
+of that wondrous face which he had beheld only for the twinkling of an
+eye.... He even put to himself the question: "Why did not I answer her
+when she demanded from me at least one word?"--"I did not have time,"
+... he thought.... "She did not give me a chance to utter that word....
+And what would I have uttered?"
+
+But he immediately shook his head and said, "An actress!"
+
+And yet, at the same time, the vanity of the inexperienced, nervous
+youth, which had been wounded at first, now felt rather flattered at
+the passion which he had inspired....
+
+"But on the other hand," he pursued his reflections, "all that is at an
+end of course.... I must have appeared ridiculous to her."....
+
+This thought was disagreeable to him, and again he grew angry ... both
+at her ... and at himself. On reaching home he locked himself in his
+study. He did not wish to encounter Platosha. The kind old woman came to
+his door a couple of times, applied her ear to the key-hole, and merely
+sighed and whispered her prayer....
+
+"It has begun!" she thought.... "And he is only five-and-twenty.... Akh,
+it is early, early!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Akatoff was very much out of sorts all the following day.
+
+"What is the matter, Yasha?" Platonida Ivanovna said to him. "Thou
+seemest to be tousled to-day, somehow."... In the old woman's peculiar
+language this quite accurately defined Aratoff's moral condition. He
+could not work, but even he himself did not know what he wanted. Now he
+was expecting Kupfer again (he suspected that it was precisely from
+Kupfer that Clara had obtained his address ... and who else could have
+"talked a great deal" about him?); again he wondered whether his
+acquaintance with her was to end in that way? ... again he imagined that
+she would write him another letter; again he asked himself whether he
+ought not to write her a letter, in which he might explain everything to
+her,---as he did not wish to leave an unpleasant impression of
+himself.... But, in point of fact, _what_ was he to explain?--Now he
+aroused in himself something very like disgust for her, for her
+persistence, her boldness; again that indescribably touching face
+presented itself to him and her irresistible voice made itself heard;
+and yet again he recalled her singing, her recitation--and did not know
+whether he was right in his wholesale condemnation.--In one word: he was
+a tousled man! At last he became bored with all this and decided, as the
+saying is, "to take it upon himself" and erase all that affair, as it
+undoubtedly was interfering with his avocations and disturbing his peace
+of mind.--He did not find it so easy to put his resolution into
+effect.... More than a week elapsed before he got back again into his
+ordinary rut. Fortunately, Kupfer did not present himself at all, any
+more than if he had not been in Moscow. Not long before the "affair"
+Aratoff had begun to busy himself with painting for photographic ends;
+he devoted himself to this with redoubled zeal.
+
+Thus, imperceptibly, with a few "relapses" as the doctors express it,
+consisting, for example in the fact that he once came very near going to
+call on the Princess, two weeks ... three weeks passed ... and Aratoff
+became once more the Aratoff of old. Only deep down, under the surface
+of his life, something heavy and dark secretly accompanied him in all
+his comings and goings. Thus does a large fish which has just been
+hooked, but has not yet been drawn out, swim along the bottom of a deep
+river under the very boat wherein sits the fisherman with his stout rod
+in hand.
+
+And lo! one day as he was skimming over some not quite fresh numbers of
+the _Moscow News,_ Aratoff hit upon the following correspondence:
+
+"With great sorrow," wrote a certain local literary man from Kazan, "we
+insert in our theatrical chronicle the news of the sudden death of our
+gifted actress, Clara Militch, who had succeeded in the brief space of
+her engagement in becoming the favourite of our discriminating public.
+Our sorrow is all the greater because Miss Militch herself put an end to
+her young life, which held so much of promise, by means of poison. And
+this poisoning is all the more dreadful because the actress took the
+poison on the stage itself! They barely got her home, where, to
+universal regret, she died. Rumours are current in the town to the
+effect that unrequited love led her to that terrible deed."
+
+Aratoff softly laid the newspaper on the table. To all appearances he
+remained perfectly composed ... but something smote him simultaneously
+in his breast and in his head, and then slowly diffused itself through
+all his members. He rose to his feet, stood for a while on one spot, and
+again seated himself, and again perused the letter. Then he rose once
+more, lay down on his bed and placing his hands under his head, he
+stared for a long time at the wall like one dazed. Little by little that
+wall seemed to recede ... to vanish ... and he beheld before him the
+boulevard beneath grey skies and _her_ in her black mantilla ... then
+her again on the platform ... he even beheld himself by her side.--That
+which had smitten him so forcibly in the breast at the first moment, now
+began to rise up ... to rise up in his throat.... He tried to cough, to
+call some one, but his voice failed him, and to his own amazement, tears
+which he could not restrain gushed from his eyes.... What had evoked
+those tears? Pity? Regret? Or was it simply that his nerves had been
+unable to withstand the sudden shock? Surely, she was nothing to him?
+Was not that the fact?
+
+"But perhaps that is not true," the thought suddenly occurred to him. "I
+must find out! But from whom? From the Princess?--No, from Kupfer ...
+from Kupfer? But they say he is not in Moscow.--Never mind! I must apply
+to him first!"
+
+With these ideas in his head Aratoff hastily dressed himself, summoned a
+cab and dashed off to Kupfer.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+He had not hoped to find him ... but he did. Kupfer actually had been
+absent from Moscow for a time, but had returned about a week previously
+and was even preparing to call on Aratoff again. He welcomed him with
+his customary cordiality, and began to explain something to him ... but
+Aratoff immediately interrupted him with the impatient question:
+
+"Hast thou read it?--Is it true?"
+
+"Is what true?" replied the astounded Kupfer.
+
+"About Clara Militch?"
+
+Kupfer's face expressed compassion.--"Yes, yes, brother, it is true; she
+has poisoned herself. It is such a misfortune!"
+
+Aratoff held his peace for a space.--"But hast thou also read it in the
+newspaper?" he asked:--"Or perhaps thou hast been to Kazan thyself?"
+
+"I have been to Kazan, in fact; the Princess and I conducted her
+thither. She went on the stage there, and had great success. Only I did
+not remain there until the catastrophe.... I was in Yaroslavl."
+
+"In Yaroslavl?"
+
+"Yes; I escorted the Princess thither.... She has settled in Yaroslavl
+now."
+
+"But hast thou trustworthy information?"
+
+"The most trustworthy sort ... at first hand! I made acquaintance in
+Kazan with her family.--But stay, my dear fellow ... this news seems to
+agitate thee greatly.--But I remember that Clara did not please thee
+that time! Thou wert wrong! She was a splendid girl--only her head! She
+had an ungovernable head! I was greatly distressed about her!"
+
+Aratoff did not utter a word, but dropped down on a chair, and after
+waiting a while he asked Kupfer to tell him ... he hesitated.
+
+"What?" asked Kupfer.
+
+"Why ... everything," replied Aratoff slowly.--"About her family, for
+instance ... and so forth. Everything thou knowest!"
+
+"But does that interest thee?--Certainly!"
+
+Kupfer, from whose face it was impossible to discern that he had
+grieved so greatly over Clara, began his tale.
+
+From his words Aratoff learned that Clara Militch's real name had been
+Katerina Milovidoff; that her father, now dead, had been an official
+teacher of drawing in Kazan, had painted bad portraits and official
+images, and moreover had borne the reputation of being a drunkard and a
+domestic tyrant ... "and a _cultured_ man into the bargain!".... (Here
+Kupfer laughed in a self-satisfied manner, by way of hinting at the pun
+he had made);[60]--that he had left at his death, in the first place, a
+widow of the merchant class, a thoroughly stupid female, straight out of
+one of Ostrovsky's comedies;[61] and in the second place, a daughter
+much older than Clara and bearing no resemblance to her--a very clever
+girl and "greatly developed, my dear fellow!" That the two--widow and
+daughter--lived in easy circumstances, in a decent little house which
+had been acquired by the sale of those wretched portraits and holy
+pictures; that Clara ... or Katya, whichever you choose to call her, had
+astonished every one ever since her childhood by her talent, but was of
+an insubordinate, capricious disposition, and was constantly quarrelling
+with her father; that having an inborn passion for the theatre, she had
+run away from the parental house at the age of sixteen with an
+actress....
+
+"With an actor?" interjected Aratoff.
+
+"No, not with an actor, but an actress; to whom she had become
+attached.... This actress had a protector, it is true, a wealthy
+gentleman already elderly, who only refrained from marrying her because
+he was already married--while the actress, it appeared, was married
+also."
+
+Further, Kupfer informed Aratoff that, prior to her arrival in Moscow,
+Clara had acted and sung in provincial theatres; that on losing her
+friend the actress (the gentleman had died also, it seems, or had made
+it up with his wife--precisely which Kupfer did not quite remember ...),
+she had made the acquaintance of the Princess, "that woman of gold, whom
+thou, my friend Yakoff Andreitch," the narrator added with feeling,
+"wert not able to appreciate at her true worth"; that finally Clara had
+been offered an engagement in Kazan, and had accepted it, although she
+had previously declared that she would never leave Moscow!--But how the
+people of Kazan had loved her--it was fairly amazing! At every
+representation she received bouquets and gifts! bouquets and gifts!--A
+flour merchant, the greatest bigwig in the government, had even
+presented her with a golden inkstand!--Kupfer narrated all this with
+great animation, but without, however, displaying any special
+sentimentality, and interrupting his speech with the question:--"Why
+dost thou want to know that?" ... or "To what end is that?" when
+Aratoff, after listening to him with devouring attention, demanded more
+and still more details. Everything was said at last, and Kupfer ceased
+speaking, rewarding himself for his toil with a cigar.
+
+"But why did she poison herself?" asked Aratoff. "The newspaper
+stated...."
+
+Kupfer waved his hands.--"Well.... That I cannot say.... I don't know.
+But the newspaper lies, Clara behaved in an exemplary manner ... she had
+no love-affairs.... And how could she, with her pride! She was as proud
+as Satan himself, and inaccessible! An insubordinate head! Firm as a
+rock! If thou wilt believe me,--I knew her pretty intimately, seest
+thou,--I never beheld a tear in her eyes!"
+
+"But I did," thought Aratoff to himself.
+
+"Only there is this to be said," went on Kupfer:--"I noticed a great
+change in her of late: she became so depressed, she would remain silent
+for hours at a time; you couldn't get a word out of her. I once asked
+her: 'Has any one offended you, Katerina Semyonovna?' Because I knew her
+disposition: she could not endure an insult. She held her peace, and
+that was the end of it! Even her success on the stage did not cheer her
+up; they would shower her with bouquets ... and she would not smile! She
+gave one glance at the gold inkstand,--and put it aside!--She complained
+that no one would write her a genuine part, as she conceived it. And she
+gave up singing entirely. I am to blame, brother!... I repeated to her
+that thou didst not think she had any _school_. But nevertheless ... why
+she poisoned herself is incomprehensible! And the way she did it
+too...."
+
+"In what part did she have the greatest success?".... Aratoff wanted to
+find out what part she had played that last time, but for some reason or
+other he asked something else.
+
+"In Ostrovsky's' Grunya'[62] I believe. But I repeat to thee: she had no
+love-affairs! Judge for thyself by one thing: she lived in her mother's
+house.... Thou knowest what some of those merchants' houses are like; a
+glass case filled with holy images in every corner and a shrine lamp in
+front of the case; deadly, stifling heat; a sour odour; in the
+drawing-room nothing but chairs ranged along the wall, and geraniums in
+the windows;--and when a visitor arrives, the hostess begins to groan as
+though an enemy were approaching. What chance is there for love-making,
+and amours in such a place? Sometimes it happened that they would not
+even admit me. Their maid-servant, a robust peasant-woman, in a Turkey
+red cotton sarafan,[63] and pendulous breasts, would place herself
+across the path in the anteroom and roar: 'Whither away?' No, I
+positively cannot understand what made her poison herself. She must have
+grown tired of life," Kupfer philosophically wound up his remarks.
+
+Aratoff sat with drooping head.--"Canst thou give me the address of
+that house in Kazan?" he said at last.
+
+"I can; but what dost thou want of it?--Dost thou wish to send a letter
+thither?"
+
+"Perhaps so."
+
+"Well, as thou wilt. Only the old woman will not answer thee. Her sister
+might ... the clever sister!--But again, brother, I marvel at thee! Such
+indifference formerly ... and now so much attention! All that comes of
+living a solitary life, my dear fellow!"
+
+Aratoff made no reply to this remark and went away, after having
+procured the address in Kazan.
+
+Agitation, surprise, expectation had been depicted on his face when he
+went to Kupfer.... Now he advanced with an even gait, downcast eyes, and
+hat pulled low down over his brows; almost every one he met followed him
+with a searching gaze ... but he paid no heed to the passers-by ... it
+was quite different from what it had been on the boulevard!...
+
+"Unhappy Clara! Foolish Clara!" resounded in his soul.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Nevertheless, Aratoff passed the following day in a fairly tranquil
+manner. He was even able to devote himself to his customary occupations.
+There was only one thing: both during his busy time and in his leisure
+moments he thought incessantly of Clara, of what Kupfer had told him the
+day before. Truth to tell, his thoughts were also of a decidedly pacific
+nature. It seemed to him that that strange young girl interested him
+from a psychological point of view, as something in the nature of a
+puzzle, over whose solution it was worth while to cudgel one's
+brains,--"She ran away from home with a kept actress," he thought, "she
+placed herself under the protection of that Princess, in whose house she
+lived,--and had no love-affairs? It is improbable!... Kupfer says it was
+pride! But, in the first place, we know" (Aratoff should have said: "we
+have read in books") ... "that pride is compatible with light-minded
+conduct; and in the second place, did not she, such a proud person,
+appoint a meeting with a man who might show her scorn ... and appoint it
+in a public place, into the bargain ... on the boulevard!"--At this
+point there recurred to Aratoff's mind the whole scene on the boulevard,
+and he asked himself: "Had he really shown scorn for Clara?"--"No," he
+decided.... That was another feeling ... a feeling of perplexity ... of
+distrust, in short!--"Unhappy Clara!" again rang through his
+brain.--"Yes, she was unhappy," he decided again ... that was the most
+fitting word.
+
+"But if that is so, I was unjust. She spoke truly when she said that I
+did not understand her. 'Tis a pity!--It may be that a very remarkable
+being has passed so close to me ... and I did not take advantage of the
+opportunity, but repulsed her.... Well, never mind! My life is still
+before me. I shall probably have other encounters of a different sort!
+
+"But what prompted her to pick out _me_ in particular?"--He cast a
+glance at a mirror which he was passing at the moment. "What is there
+peculiar about me? And what sort of a beauty am I?--My face is like
+everybody else's face.... However, she was not a beauty either.
+
+"She was not a beauty ... but what an expressive face she had! Impassive
+... but expressive! I have never before seen such a face.--And she has
+talent ... that is to say, she had talent, undoubted talent. Wild,
+untrained, even coarse ... but undoubted.--And in that case also I was
+unjust to her."--Aratoff mentally transported himself to the musical
+morning ... and noticed that he remembered with remarkable distinctness
+every word she had sung or recited, every intonation.... That would not
+have been the case had she been devoid of talent.
+
+"And now all that is in the grave, where she has thrust herself.... But
+I have nothing to do with that.... I am not to blame! It would even be
+absurd to think that I am to blame."--Again it flashed into Aratoff's
+mind that even had she had "anything of that sort" about her, his
+conduct during the interview would indubitably have disenchanted her.
+That was why she had broken into such harsh laughter at parting.--And
+where was the proof that she had poisoned herself on account of an
+unhappy love? It is only newspaper correspondents who attribute every
+such death to unhappy love!--But life easily becomes repulsive to people
+with character, like Clara ... and tiresome. Yes, tiresome. Kupfer was
+right: living simply bored her.
+
+"In spite of her success, of her ovations?"--Aratoff meditated.--The
+psychological analysis to which he surrendered himself was even
+agreeable to him. Unaccustomed as he had been, up to this time, to all
+contact with women, he did not suspect how significant for him was this
+tense examination of a woman's soul.
+
+"Consequently," he pursued his meditations, "art did not satisfy her,
+did not fill the void of her life. Genuine artists exist only for art,
+for the theatre.... Everything else pales before that which they regard
+as their vocation.... She was a dilettante!"
+
+Here Aratoff again became thoughtful.--No, the word "dilettante" did not
+consort with that face, with the expression of that face, of those
+eyes....
+
+And again there rose up before him the image of Clara with her
+tear-filled eyes riveted upon him, and her clenched hands raised to her
+lips....
+
+"Akh, I won't think of it, I won't think of it ..." he whispered....
+"What is the use?"
+
+In this manner the whole day passed. During dinner Aratoff chatted a
+great deal with Platosha, questioned her about old times, which, by the
+way, she recalled and transmitted badly, as she was not possessed of a
+very glib tongue, and had noticed hardly anything in the course of her
+life save her Yashka. She merely rejoiced that he was so good-natured
+and affectionate that day!--Toward evening Aratoff quieted down to such
+a degree that he played several games of trumps with his aunt.
+
+Thus passed the day ... but the night was quite another matter!
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+It began well; he promptly fell asleep, and when his aunt entered his
+room on tiptoe for the purpose of making the sign of the cross over him
+thrice as he slept--she did this every night--he was lying and breathing
+as quietly as a child.--But before daybreak he had a vision.
+
+He dreamed that he was walking over the bare steppes, sown with stones,
+beneath a low-hanging sky. Between the stones wound a path; he was
+advancing along it.
+
+Suddenly there rose up in front of him something in the nature of a
+delicate cloud. He looked intently at it; the little cloud turned into a
+woman in a white gown, with a bright girdle about her waist. She was
+hurrying away from him. He did not see either her face or her hair ... a
+long piece of tissue concealed them. But he felt bound to overtake her
+and look into her eyes. Only, no matter how much haste he made, she
+still walked more quickly than he.
+
+On the path lay a broad, flat stone, resembling a tomb-stone. It barred
+her way. The woman came to a halt. Aratoff ran up to her. She turned
+toward him--but still he could not see her eyes ... they were closed.
+Her face was white,--white as snow; her arms hung motionless. She
+resembled a statue.
+
+Slowly, without bending a single limb, she leaned backward and sank down
+on that stone.... And now Aratoff was lying beside her, outstretched
+like a mortuary statue,--and his hands were folded like those of a
+corpse.
+
+But at this point the woman suddenly rose to her feet and went away.
+Aratoff tried to rise also ... but he could not stir, he could not
+unclasp his hands, and could only gaze after her in despair.
+
+Then the woman suddenly turned round, and he beheld bright, vivacious
+eyes in a living face, which was strange to him, however. She was
+laughing, beckoning to him with her hand ... and still he was unable to
+move.
+
+She laughed yet once again, and swiftly retreated, merrily nodding her
+head, on which a garland of tiny roses gleamed crimson.
+
+Aratoff strove to shout, strove to break that frightful nightmare....
+Suddenly everything grew dark round about ... and the woman returned to
+him.
+
+But she was no longer a statue whom he knew not ... she was Clara. She
+halted in front of him, folded her arms, and gazed sternly and
+attentively at him. Her lips were tightly compressed, but it seemed to
+Aratoff that he heard the words:
+
+"If thou wishest to know who I am, go thither!"
+
+"Whither?" he asked.
+
+"Thither!"--the moaning answer made itself audible.--"Thither!"
+
+Aratoff awoke.
+
+He sat up in bed, lighted a candle which stood on his night-stand, but
+did not rise, and sat there for a long time slowly gazing about him. It
+seemed to him that something had taken place within him since he went to
+bed; that something had taken root within him ... something had taken
+possession of him. "But can that be possible?" he whispered
+unconsciously. "Can it be that such a power exists?"
+
+He could not remain in bed. He softly dressed himself and paced his
+chamber until daylight. And strange to say! He did not think about Clara
+for a single minute,--and he did not think about her because he had made
+up his mind to set off for Kazan that very day!
+
+He thought only of that journey, of how it was to be made, and what he
+ought to take with him,--and how he would there ferret out and find out
+everything,--and regain his composure.
+
+"If thou dost not go," he argued with himself, "thou wilt surely lose
+thy reason!" He was afraid of that; he was afraid of his nerves. He was
+convinced that as soon as he should see all that with his own eyes, all
+obsessions would flee like a nocturnal nightmare.--"And the journey will
+occupy not more than a week in all," he thought.... "What is a week? And
+there is no other way of ridding myself of it."
+
+The rising sun illuminated his room; but the light of day did not
+disperse the shades of night which weighed upon him, did not alter his
+decision.
+
+Platosha came near having an apoplectic stroke when he communicated his
+decision to her. She even squatted down on her heels ... her legs gave
+way under her. "To Kazan? Why to Kazan?" she whispered, protruding her
+eyes which were already blind enough without that. She would not have
+been any more astounded had she learned that her Yasha was going to
+marry the neighbouring baker's daughter, or depart to America.--"And
+shalt thou stay long in Kazan?"
+
+"I shall return at the end of a week," replied Aratoff, as he stood
+half-turned away from his aunt, who was still sitting on the floor.
+
+Platosha tried to remonstrate again, but Aratoff shouted at her in an
+utterly unexpected and unusual manner:
+
+"I am not a baby," he yelled, turning pale all over, while his lips
+quivered and his eyes flashed viciously.--"I am six-and-twenty years of
+age. I know what I am about,--I am free to do as I please!--I will not
+permit any one.... Give me money for the journey; prepare a trunk with
+linen and clothing ... and do not bother me! I shall return at the end
+of a week, Platosha," he added, in a softer tone.
+
+Platosha rose to her feet, grunting, and, making no further opposition,
+wended her way to her chamber. Yasha had frightened her.--"I have not a
+head on my shoulders," she remarked to the cook, who was helping her to
+pack Yasha's things,--"not a head--but a bee-hive ... and what bees are
+buzzing there I do not know! He is going away to Kazan, my mother, to
+Ka-za-an!"
+
+The cook, who had noticed their yard-porter talking for a long time to
+the policeman about something, wanted to report this circumstance to her
+mistress, but she did not dare, and merely thought to herself: "To
+Kazan? If only it isn't some place further away!"--And Platonida
+Ivanovna was so distracted that she did not even utter her customary
+prayer.--In such a catastrophe as this even the Lord God could be of no
+assistance!
+
+That same day Aratoff set off for Kazan.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+No sooner had he arrived in that town and engaged a room at the hotel,
+than he dashed off in search of the widow Milovidoff's house. During the
+whole course of his journey he had been in a sort of stupor, which,
+nevertheless, did not in the least prevent his taking all proper
+measures,--transferring himself at Nizhni Novgorod from the railway to
+the steamer, eating at the stations, and so forth. As before, he was
+convinced that everything would be cleared up _there_, and accordingly
+he banished from his thoughts all memories and speculations, contenting
+himself with one thing,--the mental preparation of the speech in which
+he was to set forth to Clara Militch's family the real reason of his
+trip.--And now, at last, he had attained to the goal of his yearning,
+and ordered the servant to announce him. He was admitted--with surprise
+and alarm--but he was admitted.
+
+The widow Milovidoff's house proved to be in fact just as Kupfer had
+described it; and the widow herself really did resemble one of
+Ostrovsky's women of the merchant class, although she was of official
+rank; her husband had been a Collegiate Assessor.[64] Not without some
+difficulty did Aratoff, after having preliminarily excused himself for
+his boldness, and the strangeness of his visit, make the speech which he
+had prepared, to the effect that he wished to collect all the necessary
+information concerning the gifted actress who had perished at such an
+early age; that he was actuated not by idle curiosity, but by a profound
+sympathy for her talent, of which he was a worshipper (he said exactly
+that--"a worshipper"); that, in conclusion, it would be a sin to leave
+the public in ignorance of the loss it had sustained,--and why its hopes
+had not been realized!
+
+Madame Milovidoff did not interrupt Aratoff; it is hardly probable that
+she understood very clearly what this strange visitor was saying to her,
+and she merely swelled a little with pride, and opened her eyes widely
+at him on perceiving that he had a peaceable aspect, and was decently
+clad, and was not some sort of swindler ... and was not asking for any
+money.
+
+"Are you saying that about Katya?" she asked, as soon as Aratoff ceased
+speaking.
+
+"Exactly so ... about your daughter."
+
+"And you have come from Moscow for that purpose?"
+
+"Yes, from Moscow."
+
+"Merely for that?"
+
+"Merely for that."
+
+Madame Milovidoff suddenly took fright.--"Why, you--are an author? Do
+you write in the newspapers?"
+
+"No, I am not an author,--and up to the present time, I have never
+written for the newspapers."
+
+The widow bent her head. She was perplexed.
+
+"Consequently ... it is for your own pleasure?" she suddenly inquired.
+Aratoff did not immediately hit upon the proper answer.
+
+"Out of sympathy, out of reverence for talent," he said at last.
+
+The word "reverence" pleased Madame Milovidoff. "Very well!" she
+ejaculated with a sigh.... "Although I am her mother, and grieved very
+greatly over her.... It was such a catastrophe, you know!... Still, I
+must say, that she was always a crazy sort of girl, and ended up in the
+same way! Such a disgrace.... Judge for yourself: what sort of a thing
+is that for a mother? We may be thankful that they even buried her in
+Christian fashion...." Madame Milovidoff crossed herself.--"From the
+time she was a small child she submitted to no one,--she abandoned the
+paternal roof ... and finally, it is enough to say that she became an
+actress! Every one knows that I did not turn her out of the house; for I
+loved her! For I am her mother, all the same! She did not have to live
+with strangers,--and beg alms!..." Here the widow melted into
+tears.--"But if you, sir," she began afresh, wiping her eyes with the
+ends of her kerchief, "really have that intention, and if you will not
+concoct anything dishonourable about us,--but if, on the contrary, you
+wish to show us a favour,--then you had better talk with my other
+daughter. She will tell you everything better than I can...."
+"Annotchka!" called Madame Milovidoff:--"Annotchka, come hither! There's
+some gentleman or other from Moscow who wants to talk about Katya!"
+
+There was a crash in the adjoining room, but no one
+appeared.--"Annotchka!" cried the widow again--"Anna Semyonovna! come
+hither, I tell thee!"
+
+The door opened softly and on the threshold appeared a girl no longer
+young, of sickly aspect, and homely, but with very gentle and sorrowful
+eyes. Aratoff rose from his seat to greet her, and introduced himself,
+at the same time mentioning his friend Kupfer.--"Ah! Feodor
+Feodoritch!" ejaculated the girl softly, as she softly sank down on a
+chair.
+
+"Come, now, talk with the gentleman," said Madame Milovidoff, rising
+ponderously from her seat: "He has taken the trouble to come expressly
+from Moscow,--he wishes to collect information about Katya. But you must
+excuse me, sir," she added, turning to Aratoff.... "I shall go away, to
+attend to domestic affairs. You can have a good explanation with
+Annotchka--she will tell you about the theatre ... and all that sort of
+thing. She's my clever, well-educated girl: she speaks French and reads
+books quite equal to her dead sister. And she educated her sister, I may
+say.... She was the elder--well, and so she taught her."
+
+Madame Milovidoff withdrew. When Aratoff was left alone with Anna
+Semyonovna he repeated his speech; but from the first glance he
+understood that he had to deal with a girl who really was cultured, not
+with a merchant's daughter,--and so he enlarged somewhat, and employed
+different expressions;--and toward the end he became agitated, flushed,
+and felt conscious that his heart was beating hard. Anna Semyonovna
+listened to him in silence, with her hands folded; the sad smile did not
+leave her face ... bitter woe which had not ceased to cause pain, was
+expressed in that smile.
+
+"Did you know my sister?" she asked Aratoff.
+
+"No; properly speaking, I did not know her," he replied. "I saw and
+heard your sister once ... but all that was needed was to hear and see
+your sister once, in order to...."
+
+"Do you mean to write her biography?" Anna put another question.
+
+Aratoff had not expected that word; nevertheless, he immediately
+answered "Why not?" But the chief point was that he wished to acquaint
+the public....
+
+Anna stopped him with a gesture of her hand.
+
+"To what end? The public caused her much grief without that; and Katya
+had only just begun to live. But if you yourself" (Anna looked at him
+and again smiled that same sad smile, only now it was more cordial ...
+apparently she was thinking: "Yes, thou dost inspire me with
+confidence") ... "if you yourself cherish such sympathy for her, then
+permit me to request that you come to us this evening ... after dinner.
+I cannot now ... so suddenly.... I will collect my forces.... I will
+make an effort.... Akh, I loved her too greatly!"
+
+Anna turned away; she was on the point of bursting into sobs.
+
+Aratoff rose alertly from his chair, thanked her for her proposal, said
+that he would come without fail ... without fail! and went away, bearing
+in his soul an impression of a quiet voice, of gentle and sorrowful
+eyes--and burning with the languor of anticipation.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Aratoff returned to the Milovidoffs' house that same day, and conversed
+for three whole hours with Anna Semyonovna. Madame Milovidoff went to
+bed immediately after dinner--at two o'clock--and "rested" until evening
+tea, at seven o'clock. Aratoff's conversation with Clara's sister was
+not, properly speaking, a conversation: she did almost the whole of the
+talking, at first with hesitation, with confusion, but afterward with
+uncontrollable fervour. She had, evidently, idolised her sister. The
+confidence wherewith Aratoff had inspired her waxed and strengthened;
+she was no longer embarrassed; she even fell to weeping softly, twice,
+in his presence. He seemed to her worthy of her frank revelations and
+effusions. Nothing of that sort had ever before come into her own dull
+life!... And he ... he drank in her every word.
+
+This, then, is what he learned ... much of it, as a matter of course,
+from what she refrained from saying ... and much he filled out for
+himself.
+
+In her youth Clara had been, without doubt, a disagreeable child; and as
+a young girl she had been only a little softer: self-willed,
+hot-tempered, vain, she had not got on particularly well with her
+father, whom she despised for his drunkenness and incapacity. He was
+conscious of this and did not pardon it in her. Her musical faculties
+showed themselves at an early age; her father repressed them,
+recognising painting as the sole art,--wherein he himself had had so
+little success, but which had nourished him and his family. Clara had
+loved her mother ... in a careless way, as she would have loved a nurse;
+she worshipped her sister, although she squabbled with her, and bit
+her.... It is true that afterward she had been wont to go down on her
+knees before her and kiss the bitten places. She was all fire, all
+passion, and all contradiction: vengeful and kind-hearted, magnanimous
+and rancorous; "she believed in Fate, and did not believe in God" (these
+words Anna whispered with terror); she loved everything that was
+beautiful, and dressed herself at haphazard; she could not endure to
+have young men pay court to her, but in books she read only those pages
+where love was the theme; she did not care to please, she did not like
+petting and never forgot caresses as she never forgot offences; she was
+afraid of death, and she had killed herself! She had been wont to say
+sometimes, "I do not meet the sort of man I want--and the others I will
+not have!"--"Well, and what if you should meet the right sort?" Anna had
+asked her.--"If I do ... I shall take him."--"But what if he will not
+give himself?"--"Well, then ... I will make an end of myself. It will
+mean that I am good for nothing."
+
+Clara's father ... (he sometimes asked his wife when he was drunk: "Who
+was the father of that black-visaged little devil of thine?--I was
+not!")--Clara's father, in the endeavour to get her off his hands as
+promptly as possible, undertook to betroth her to a wealthy young
+merchant, a very stupid fellow,--one of the "cultured" sort. Two weeks
+before the wedding (she was only sixteen years of age), she walked up to
+her betrothed, folded her arms, and drumming with her fingers on her
+elbows (her favourite pose), she suddenly dealt him a blow, bang! on his
+rosy cheek with her big, strong hand! He sprang to his feet, and merely
+gasped,--it must be stated that he was dead in love with her.... He
+asked: "What is that for?" She laughed and left the room.--"I was
+present in the room," narrated Anna, "and was a witness. I ran after her
+and said to her: 'Good gracious, Katya, why didst thou do that?'--But
+she answered me: 'If he were a real man he would have thrashed me, but
+as it is, he is a wet hen!' And he asks what it is for, to boot. If he
+loved me and did not avenge himself, then let him bear it and not ask:
+'what is that for?' He'll never get anything of me, unto ages of ages!'
+And so she did not marry him. Soon afterward she made the acquaintance
+of that actress, and left our house. My mother wept, but my father only
+said: 'Away with the refractory goat from the flock!' and would take no
+trouble, or try to hunt her up. Father did not understand Clara. On the
+eve of her flight," added Anna, "she almost strangled me in her embrace,
+and kept repeating: 'I cannot! I cannot do otherwise!... My heart may
+break in two, but I cannot! our cage is too small ... it is not large
+enough for my wings! And one cannot escape his fate'"....
+
+"After that," remarked Anna, "we rarely saw each other.... When father
+died she came to us for a couple of days, took nothing from the
+inheritance, and again disappeared. She found it oppressive with us....
+I saw that. Then she returned to Kazan as an actress."
+
+Aratoff began to interrogate Anna concerning the theatre, the parts in
+which Clara had appeared, her success.... Anna answered in detail, but
+with the same sad, although animated enthusiasm. She even showed Aratoff
+a photographic portrait, which represented Clara in the costume of one
+of her parts. In the portrait she was looking to one side, as though
+turning away from the spectators; the ribbon intertwined with her thick
+hair fell like a serpent on her bare arm. Aratoff gazed long at that
+portrait, thought it a good likeness, inquired whether Clara had not
+taken part in public readings, and learned that she had not; that she
+required the excitement of the theatre, of the stage ... but another
+question was burning on his lips.
+
+"Anna Semyonovna!" he exclaimed at last, not loudly, but with peculiar
+force, "tell me, I entreat you, why she ... why she made up her mind to
+that frightful step?"
+
+Anna dropped her eyes.--"I do not know!" she said, after the lapse of
+several minutes.--"God is my witness, I do not know!" she continued
+impetuously, perceiving that Aratoff had flung his hands apart as though
+he did not believe her.... "From the very time she arrived here she
+seemed to be thoughtful, gloomy. Something must infallibly have happened
+to her in Moscow, which I was not able to divine! But, on the contrary,
+on that fatal day, she seemed ... if not more cheerful, at any rate more
+tranquil than usual. I did not even have any forebodings," added Anna
+with a bitter smile, as though reproaching herself for that.
+
+"You see," she began again, "it seemed to have been written in Katya's
+fate, that she should be unhappy. She was convinced of it herself from
+her early youth. She would prop her head on her hand, meditate, and say:
+'I shall not live long!' She had forebodings. Just imagine, she even saw
+beforehand,--sometimes in a dream, sometimes in ordinary wise,--what was
+going to happen to her! 'I cannot live as I wish, so I will not live at
+all,' ... was her adage.--'Our life is in our own hands, you know!' And
+she proved it."
+
+Anna covered her face with her hands and ceased speaking.
+
+"Anna Semyonovna," began Aratoff, after waiting a little: "perhaps you
+have heard to what the newspapers attributed...."
+
+"To unhappy love?" interrupted Anna, removing her hands from her face
+with a jerk. "That is a calumny, a calumny, a lie!... My unsullied,
+unapproachable Katya ... Katya! ... and an unhappy, rejected love? And
+would not I have known about that?... Everybody, everybody fell in love
+with her ... but she.... And whom could she have fallen in love with
+here? Who, out of all these men, was worthy of her? Who had attained to
+that ideal of honour, uprightness, purity,--most of all, purity,--which
+she constantly held before her, in spite of all her defects?... Reject
+her ... her...."
+
+Anna's voice broke.... Her fingers trembled slightly. Suddenly she
+flushed scarlet all over ... flushed with indignation, and at that
+moment--and only at that moment--did she resemble her sister.
+
+Aratoff attempted to apologise.
+
+"Listen," broke in Anna once more:--"I insist upon it that you shall not
+believe that calumny yourself, and that you shall dissipate it, if
+possible! Here, you wish to write an article about her, or something of
+that sort:--here is an opportunity for you to defend her memory! That is
+why I am talking so frankly with you. Listen: Katya left a diary...."
+
+Aratoff started.--"A diary," he whispered.
+
+"Yes, a diary ... that is to say, a few pages only.--Katya was not fond
+of writing ... for whole months together she did not write at all ...
+and her letters were so short! But she was always, always truthful, she
+never lied.... Lie, forsooth, with her vanity! I ... I will show you
+that diary! You shall see for yourself whether it contains a single hint
+of any such unhappy love!"
+
+Anna hastily drew from the table-drawer a thin copy-book, about ten
+pages in length, no more, and offered it to Aratoff. The latter grasped
+it eagerly, recognised the irregular, bold handwriting,--the handwriting
+of that anonymous letter,--opened it at random, and began at the
+following lines:
+
+     "Moscow--Tuesday ... June. I sang and recited at a literary
+     morning. To-day is a significant day for me. _It must decide my
+     fate_." (These words were doubly underlined.) "Once more I have
+     seen...." Here followed several lines which had been carefully
+     blotted out.--And then: "No! no! no!... I must return to my former
+     idea, if only...."
+
+Aratoff dropped the hand in which he held the book, and his head sank
+quietly on his breast.
+
+"Read!" cried Anna.--"Why don't you read? Read from the beginning....
+You can read the whole of it in five minutes, though this diary extends
+over two whole years. In Kazan she wrote nothing...."
+
+Aratoff slowly rose from his chair, and fairly crashed down on his knees
+before Anna!
+
+She was simply petrified with amazement and terror.
+
+"Give ... give me this diary," said Aratoff in a fainting voice.--"Give
+it to me ... and the photograph ... you must certainly have another--but
+I will return the diary to you.... But I must, I must...."
+
+In his entreaty, in the distorted features of his face there was
+something so despairing that it even resembled wrath, suffering.... And
+in reality he was suffering. It seemed as though he had not been able to
+foresee that such a calamity would descend upon him, and was excitedly
+begging to be spared, to be saved....
+
+"Give it to me," he repeated.
+
+"But ... you ... you were not in love with my sister?" said Anna at
+last.
+
+Aratoff continued to kneel.
+
+"I saw her twice in all ... believe me!... and if I had not been
+impelled by causes which I myself cannot clearly either understand or
+explain ... if some power that is stronger than I were not upon me.... I
+would not have asked you.... I would not have come hither.... I must ...
+I ought ... why, you said yourself that I was bound to restore her
+image!"
+
+"And you were not in love with my sister?" asked Anna for the second
+time.
+
+Aratoff did not reply at once, and turned away slightly, as though with
+pain.
+
+"Well, yes! I was! I was!--And I am in love with her now...." he
+exclaimed with the same desperation as before.
+
+Footsteps became audible in the adjoining room.
+
+"Rise ... rise ..." said Anna hastily. "My mother is coming."
+
+Aratoff rose.
+
+"And take the diary and the picture. God be with you!--Poor, poor
+Katya!... But you must return the diary to me," she added with
+animation.--"And if you write anything, you must be sure to send it to
+me.... Do you hear?"
+
+The appearance of Madame Milovidoff released Aratoff from the necessity
+of replying.--He succeeded, nevertheless, in whispering:--"You are an
+angel! Thanks! I will send all that I write...."
+
+Madame Milovidoff was too drowsy to divine anything. And so Aratoff left
+Kazan with the photographic portrait in the side-pocket of his coat. He
+had returned the copy-book to Anna, but without her having detected it,
+he had cut out the page on which stood the underlined words.
+
+On his way back to Moscow he was again seized with a sort of stupor.
+Although he secretly rejoiced that he had got what he went for, yet he
+repelled all thoughts of Clara until he should reach home again. He
+meditated a great deal more about her sister Anna.--"Here now," he said
+to himself, "is a wonderful, sympathetic being! What a delicate
+comprehension of everything, what a loving heart, what absence of
+egoism! And how comes it that such girls bloom with us, and in the
+provinces,--and in such surroundings into the bargain! She is both
+sickly, and ill-favoured, and not young,--but what a capital wife she
+would make for an honest, well-educated man! That is the person with
+whom one ought to fall in love!..." Aratoff meditated thus ... but on
+his arrival in Moscow the matter took quite another turn.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+Platonida Ivanova was unspeakably delighted at the return of her nephew.
+She had thought all sorts of things during his absence!--"At the very
+least he has gone to Siberia!" she whispered, as she sat motionless in
+her little chamber: "for a year at the very least!"--Moreover the cook
+had frightened her by imparting the most authentic news concerning the
+disappearance of first one, then another young man from the
+neighbourhood. Yasha's complete innocence and trustworthiness did not in
+the least serve to calm the old woman.--"Because ... much that
+signifies!--he busies himself with photography ... well, and that is
+enough! Seize him!" And now here was her Yashenka come back to her safe
+and sound! She did notice, it is true, that he appeared to have grown
+thin, and his face seemed to be sunken--that was comprehensible ... he
+had had no one to look after him. But she did not dare to question him
+concerning his trip. At dinner she inquired:
+
+"And is Kazan a nice town?"
+
+"Yes," replied Aratoff.
+
+"Tatars live there, I believe?"
+
+"Not Tatars only."
+
+"And hast not thou brought a khalat[65] thence?"
+
+"No, I have not."
+
+And there the conversation ended.
+
+But as soon as Aratoff found himself alone in his study he immediately
+felt as though something were embracing him round about, as though he
+were again in _the power_,--precisely that, in the power of another
+life, of another being. Although he had told Anna--in that outburst of
+sudden frenzy--that he was in love with Clara, that word now seemed to
+him devoid of sense and whimsical.--No, he was not in love; and how
+could he fall in love with a dead woman, whom, even during her lifetime
+he had not liked, whom he had almost forgotten?--No! But he was in the
+power of ... in _her_ power ... he no longer belonged to himself. He had
+been _taken possession of_. Taken possession of to such a point that he
+was no longer trying to free himself either by ridiculing his own
+stupidity, or by arousing in himself if not confidence, at least hope
+that all this would pass over, that it was nothing but nerves,--or by
+seeking proofs of it,--or in any other way!--"If I meet him I shall take
+him" he recalled Clara's words reported by Anna ... and so now he had
+been taken.
+
+But was not she dead? Yes; her body was dead ... but how about her
+soul?--Was not that immortal ... did it require bodily organs to
+manifest its power? Magnetism has demonstrated to us the influence of
+the living human soul upon another living human soul.... Why should not
+that influence be continued after death, if the soul remains alive?--But
+with what object? What might be the result of this?--But do we, in
+general, realise the object of everything which goes on around us?
+
+These reflections occupied Aratoff to such a degree that at tea he
+suddenly asked Platosha whether she believed in the immortality of the
+soul. She did not understand at first what it was he had asked; but
+afterward she crossed herself and replied, "of course. How could the
+soul be otherwise than immortal?"
+
+"But if that is so, can it act after death?" Aratoff put a second
+question.
+
+The old woman replied that it could ... that is to say, it can pray for
+us; when it shall have passed through all sorts of tribulations, and is
+awaiting the Last Judgment. But during the first forty days it only
+hovers around the spot where its death occurred.
+
+"During the first forty days?"
+
+"Yes; and after that come its tribulations."[66]
+
+Aratoff was surprised at his aunt's erudition, and went off to his own
+room.--And again he felt the same thing, that same power upon him. The
+power was manifested thus--that the image of Clara incessantly presented
+itself to him, in its most minute details,--details which he did not
+seem to have observed during her lifetime; he saw ... he saw her
+fingers, her nails, the bands of hair on her cheeks below her temples, a
+small mole under the left eye; he saw the movement of her lips, her
+nostrils, her eyebrows ... and what sort of a gait she had, and how she
+held her head a little on the right side ... he saw everything!--He did
+not admire all this at all; he simply could not help thinking about it
+and seeing it.--Yet he did not dream about her during the first night
+after his return ... he was very weary and slept like one slain. On the
+other hand, no sooner did he awake than she again entered his room, and
+there she remained, as though she had been its owner; just as though she
+had purchased for herself that right by her voluntary death, without
+asking him or requiring his permission.
+
+He took her photograph; he began to reproduce it, to enlarge it. Then it
+occurred to him to arrange it for the stereoscope. It cost him a great
+deal of trouble, but at last he succeeded. He fairly started when he
+beheld through the glass her figure which had acquired the semblance of
+bodily substance. But that figure was grey, as though covered with
+dust ... and moreover, the eyes ... the eyes still gazed aside, as
+though they were averting themselves. He began to gaze at them for a
+long, long time, as though expecting that they might, at any moment,
+turn themselves in his direction ... he even puckered up his eyes
+deliberately ... but the eyes remained motionless, and the whole figure
+assumed the aspect of a doll. He went away, threw himself into an
+arm-chair, got out the leaf which he had torn from her diary, with the
+underlined words, and thought: "They say that people in love kiss the
+lines which have been written by a beloved hand; but I have no desire to
+do that--and the chirography appears to me ugly into the bargain. But in
+that line lies my condemnation."--At this point there flashed into his
+mind the promise he had made to Anna about the article. He seated
+himself at his table, and set about writing it; but everything he wrote
+turned out so rhetorical ... worst of all, so artificial ... just as
+though he did not believe in what he was writing, or in his own feelings
+... and Clara herself seemed to him unrecognisable, incomprehensible!
+She would not yield herself to him.
+
+"No," he thought, throwing aside his pen, "either I have no talent for
+writing in general, or I must wait a while yet!"
+
+He began to call to mind his visit to the Milovidoffs, and all the
+narration of Anna, of that kind, splendid Anna.... The word she had
+uttered: "unsullied!" suddenly struck him. It was exactly as though
+something had scorched and illuminated him.
+
+"Yes," he said aloud, "she was unsullied and I am unsullied.... That is
+what has given her this power!"
+
+Thoughts concerning the immortality of the soul, the life beyond the
+grave, again visited him. "Is it not said in the Bible: 'O death, where
+is thy sting?' And in Schiller: 'And the dead also shall live!' (_Auch
+die Todten sollen leben!_)--Or here again, in Mickiewicz, 'I shall love
+until life ends ... and after life ends!'--While one English writer has
+said: 'Love is stronger than death!'"--The biblical sentence acted with
+peculiar force on Aratoff. He wanted to look up the place where those
+words were to be found.... He had no Bible; he went to borrow one from
+Platosha. She was astonished; but she got out an old, old book in a
+warped leather binding with brass clasps, all spotted with wax, and
+handed it to Aratoff. He carried it off to his own room, but for a long
+time could not find that verse ... but on the other hand, he hit upon
+another:
+
+     "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
+     for his friends".... (the Gospel of John, Chap. XV, verse 13).
+
+He thought: "That is not properly expressed.--It should read: 'Greater
+_power_ hath no man!'"....
+
+"But what if she did not set her soul on me at all? What if she killed
+herself merely because life had become a burden to her?--What if she, in
+conclusion, did not come to that tryst with the object of obtaining
+declarations of love at all?"
+
+But at that moment Clara before her parting on the boulevard rose up
+before him.... He recalled that sorrowful expression on her face, and
+those tears, and those words:--"Akh, you have understood nothing!"
+
+No! He could not doubt for what object and for what person she had laid
+down her life....
+
+Thus passed that day until nightfall.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Aratoff went early to bed, without feeling particularly sleepy; but he
+hoped to find rest in bed. The strained condition of his nerves caused
+him a fatigue which was far more intolerable than the physical weariness
+of the journey and the road. But great as was his fatigue, he could not
+get to sleep. He tried to read ... but the lines got entangled before
+his eyes. He extinguished his candle, and darkness took possession of
+his chamber.--But he continued to lie there sleepless, with closed
+eyes.... And now it seemed to him that some one was whispering in his
+ear.... "It is the beating of my heart, the rippling of the blood," he
+thought.... But the whisper passed into coherent speech. Some one was
+talking Russian hurriedly, plaintively, and incomprehensibly. It was
+impossible to distinguish a single separate word.... But it was Clara's
+voice!
+
+Aratoff opened his eyes, rose up in bed, propped himself on his
+elbows.... The voice grew fainter, but continued its plaintive, hurried,
+unintelligible speech as before....
+
+It was indubitably Clara's voice!
+
+Some one's fingers ran over the keys of the piano in light arpeggios....
+Then the voice began to speak again. More prolonged sounds made
+themselves audible ... like moans ... always the same. And then words
+began to detach themselves....
+
+"Roses ... roses ... roses."....
+
+"Roses," repeated Aratoff in a whisper.--
+
+"Akh, yes! The roses which I saw on the head of that woman in my
+dream...."
+
+"Roses," was audible again.
+
+"Is it thou?" asked Aratoff, whispering as before.
+
+The voice suddenly ceased.
+
+Aratoff waited ... waited--and dropped his head on his pillow. "A
+hallucination of hearing," he thought. "Well, and what if ... what if
+she really is here, close to me?... What if I were to see her, would I
+be frightened? But why should I be frightened? Why should I rejoice?
+Possibly because it would be a proof that there is another world, that
+the soul is immortal.--But, however, even if I were to see anything,
+that also might be a hallucination of the sight"....
+
+Nevertheless he lighted his candle, and shot a glance over the whole
+room not without some trepidation ... and descried nothing unusual in
+it. He rose, approached the stereoscope ... and there again was the same
+grey doll, with eyes which gazed to one side. The feeling of alarm in
+Aratoff was replaced by one of vexation. He had been, as it were,
+deceived in his expectations ... and those same expectations appeared to
+him absurd.--"Well, this is downright stupid!" he muttered as he got
+back into bed, and blew out his light. Again profound darkness reigned
+in the room.
+
+Aratoff made up his mind to go to sleep this time.... But a new
+sensation had cropped up within him. It seemed to him as though some one
+were standing in the middle of the room, not far from him, and breathing
+in a barely perceptible manner. He hastily turned round, opened his
+eyes.... But what could be seen in that impenetrable darkness?--He began
+to fumble for a match on his night-stand ... and suddenly it seemed to
+him as though some soft, noiseless whirlwind dashed across the whole
+room, above him, through him--and the words: "'Tis I!" rang plainly in
+his ears. "'Tis I! 'Tis I!..."
+
+Several moments passed before he succeeded in lighting a match.
+
+Again there was no one in the room, and he no longer heard anything
+except the violent beating of his own heart. He drank a glass of water,
+and remained motionless, with his head resting on his hand.
+
+He said to himself: "I will wait. Either this is all nonsense ... or she
+is here. She will not play with me like a cat with a mouse!" He waited,
+waited a long time ... so long that the hand on which he was propping
+his head became numb ... but not a single one of his previous sensations
+was repeated. A couple of times his eyes closed.... He immediately
+opened them ... at least, it seemed to him that he opened them.
+Gradually they became riveted on the door and so remained. The candle
+burned out and the room became dark once more ... but the door gleamed
+like a long, white spot in the midst of the gloom. And lo! that spot
+began to move, it contracted, vanished ... and in its place, on the
+threshold, a female form made its appearance. Aratoff looked at it
+intently ... it was Clara! And this time she was gazing straight at him,
+she moved toward him.... On her head was a wreath of red roses.... It
+kept undulating, rising....
+
+Before him stood his aunt in her nightcap, with a broad red ribbon, and
+in a white wrapper.
+
+"Platosha!" he enunciated with difficulty.--"Is it you?"
+
+"It is I," replied Platonida Ivanovna.... "It is I, Yashyonotchek, it is
+I."
+
+"Why have you come?"
+
+"Why, thou didst wake me. At first thou seemedst to be moaning all the
+while ... and then suddenly thou didst begin to shout: 'Save me! Help
+me!'"
+
+"I shouted?"
+
+"Yes, thou didst shout, and so hoarsely: 'Save me!'--I thought: 'O Lord!
+Can he be ill?' So I entered. Art thou well?"
+
+"Perfectly well."
+
+"Come, that means that thou hast had a bad dream. I will fumigate with
+incense if thou wishest--shall I?"
+
+Again Aratoff gazed intently at his aunt, and burst into a loud
+laugh.... The figure of the kind old woman in nightcap and wrapper, with
+her frightened, long-drawn face, really was extremely comical. All that
+mysterious something which had surrounded him, had stifled him, all
+those delusions dispersed on the instant.
+
+"No, Platosha, my dear, it is not necessary," he said.--"Forgive me for
+having involuntarily alarmed you. May your rest be tranquil--and I will
+go to sleep also."
+
+Platonida Ivanovna stood a little while longer on the spot where she
+was, pointed at the candle, grumbled: "Why dost thou not extinguish
+it? ... there will be a catastrophe before long!"--and as she retired,
+could not refrain from making the sign of the cross over him from afar.
+
+Aratoff fell asleep immediately, and slept until morning. He rose in a
+fine frame of mind ... although he regretted something.... He felt
+light and free. "What romantic fancies one does devise," he said to
+himself with a smile. He did not once glance either at the stereoscope
+or the leaf which he had torn out. But immediately after breakfast he
+set off to see Kupfer.
+
+What drew him thither ... he dimly recognised.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Aratoff found his sanguine friend at home. He chatted a little with him,
+reproached him for having quite forgotten him and his aunt, listened to
+fresh laudations of the golden woman, the Princess, from whom Kupfer had
+just received,--from Yaroslavl,--a skull-cap embroidered with
+fish-scales ... and then suddenly sitting down in front of Kupfer, and
+looking him straight in the eye, he announced that he had been to Kazan.
+
+"Thou hast been to Kazan? Why so?"
+
+"Why, because I wished to collect information about that ... Clara
+Militch."
+
+"The girl who poisoned herself?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Kupfer shook his head.--"What a fellow thou art! And such a sly one!
+Thou hast travelled a thousand versts there and back ... and all for
+what? Hey? If there had only been some feminine interest there! Then I
+could understand everything! every sort of folly!"--Kupfer ruffled up
+his hair.--"But for the sake of collecting materials, as you learned men
+put it.... No, I thank you! That's what the committee of statistics
+exists for!--Well, and what about it--didst thou make acquaintance with
+the old woman and with her sister? She's a splendid girl, isn't she?"
+
+"Splendid," assented Aratoff.--"She communicated to me many curious
+things."
+
+"Did she tell thee precisely how Clara poisoned herself?"
+
+"Thou meanest ... what dost thou mean?"
+
+"Why, in what manner?"
+
+"No.... She was still in such affliction.... I did not dare to question
+her too much. But was there anything peculiar about it?"
+
+"Of course there was. Just imagine: she was to have acted that very
+day--and she did act. She took a phial of poison with her to the
+theatre, drank it before the first act, and in that condition played
+through the whole of that act. With the poison inside her! What dost
+thou think of that strength of will? What character, wasn't it? And they
+say that she never sustained her role with so much feeling, with so much
+warmth! The audience suspected nothing, applauded, recalled her.... But
+as soon as the curtain fell she dropped down where she stood on the
+stage. She began to writhe ... and writhe ... and at the end of an hour
+her spirit fled! But is it possible I did not tell thee that? It was
+mentioned in the newspapers also."
+
+Aratoff's hands suddenly turned cold and his chest began to heave. "No,
+thou didst not tell me that," he said at last.--"And dost thou not know
+what the piece was?"
+
+Kupfer meditated.--"I was told the name of the piece ... a young girl
+who has been betrayed appears in it.... It must be some drama or other.
+Clara was born for dramatic parts. Her very appearance.... But where art
+thou going?" Kupfer interrupted himself, perceiving that Aratoff was
+picking up his cap.
+
+"I do not feel quite well," replied Aratoff. "Good-bye.... I will drop
+in some other time."
+
+Kupfer held him back and looked him in the face.--"What a nervous fellow
+thou art, brother! Just look at thyself.... Thou hast turned as white as
+clay."
+
+"I do not feel well," repeated Aratoff, freeing himself from Kupfer's
+hands and going his way. Only at that moment did it become clear to him
+that he had gone to Kupfer with the sole object of talking about
+Clara....
+
+"About foolish, about unhappy Clara"....
+
+But on reaching home he speedily recovered his composure to a certain
+extent.
+
+The circumstances which had attended Clara's death at first exerted a
+shattering impression upon him ... but later on that acting "with the
+poison inside her," as Kupfer had expressed it, seemed to him a
+monstrous phrase, a piece of bravado, and he tried not to think of it,
+fearing to arouse within himself a feeling akin to aversion. But at
+dinner, as he sat opposite Platosha, he suddenly remembered her
+nocturnal apparition, recalled that bob-tailed wrapper, that cap with
+the tall ribbon (and why should there be a ribbon on a night-cap?), the
+whole of that ridiculous figure, at which all his visions had dispersed
+into dust, as though at the whistle of the machinist in a fantastic
+ballet! He even made Platosha repeat the tale of how she had heard him
+shout, had taken fright, had leaped out of bed, had not been able at
+once to find either her own door or his, and so forth. In the evening he
+played cards with her and went off to his own room in a somewhat sad but
+fairly tranquil state of mind.
+
+Aratoff did not think about the coming night, and did not fear it; he
+was convinced that he should pass it in the best possible manner. The
+thought of Clara awoke in him from time to time; but he immediately
+remembered that she had killed herself in a "spectacular" manner, and
+turned away. That "outrageous" act prevented other memories from rising
+in him. Giving a cursory glance at the stereoscope it seemed to him that
+she was looking to one side because she felt ashamed. Directly over the
+stereoscope on the wall, hung the portrait of his mother. Aratoff
+removed it from its nail, kissed it, and carefully put it away in a
+drawer. Why did he do this? Because that portrait must not remain in the
+vicinity of that woman ... or for some other reason--Aratoff did not
+quite know. But his mother's portrait evoked in him memories of his
+father ... of that father whom he had seen dying in that same room, on
+that very bed. "What dost thou think about all this, father?" he
+mentally addressed him. "Thou didst understand all this; thou didst also
+believe in Schiller's world of spirits.--Give me counsel!"
+
+"My father has given me counsel to drop all these follies," said Aratoff
+aloud, and took up a book. But he was not able to read long, and feeling
+a certain heaviness all through his body, he went to bed earlier than
+usual, in the firm conviction that he should fall asleep immediately.
+
+And so it came about ... but his hopes for a peaceful night were not
+realised.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Before the clock struck midnight he had a remarkable, a menacing dream.
+
+It seemed to him that he was in a sumptuous country-house of which he
+was the owner. He had recently purchased the house, and all the estates
+attached to it. And he kept thinking: "It is well, now it is well, but
+disaster is coming!" Beside him was hovering a tiny little man, his
+manager; this man kept making obeisances, and trying to demonstrate to
+Aratoff how admirably everything about his house and estate was
+arranged.--"Please, please look," he kept reiterating, grinning at every
+word, "how everything is flourishing about you! Here are horses ... what
+magnificent horses!" And Aratoff saw a row of huge horses. They were
+standing with their backs to him, in stalls; they had wonderful manes
+and tails ... but as soon as Aratoff walked past them the horses turned
+their heads toward him and viciously displayed their teeth.
+
+"It is well," thought Aratoff, "but disaster is coming!"
+
+"Please, please," repeated his manager again; "please come into the
+garden; see what splendid apples we have!"
+
+The apples really were splendid, red, and round; but as soon as Aratoff
+looked at them, they began to shrivel and fall.... "Disaster is coming!"
+he thought.
+
+"And here is the lake," murmurs the manager: "how blue and smooth it is!
+And here is a little golden boat!... Would you like to have a sail in
+it?... It moves of itself."
+
+"I will not get into it!" thought Aratoff; "a disaster is coming!" and
+nevertheless he did seat himself in the boat. On the bottom, writhing,
+lay a little creature resembling an ape; in its paws it was holding a
+phial filled with a dark liquid.
+
+"Pray do not feel alarmed," shouted the manager from the shore.... "That
+is nothing! That is death! A prosperous journey!"
+
+The boat darted swiftly onward ... but suddenly a hurricane arose, not
+like the one of the day before, soft and noiseless--no; it is a black,
+terrible, howling hurricane!--Everything is in confusion round
+about;--and amid the swirling gloom Aratoff beholds Clara in theatrical
+costume: she is raising the phial to her lips, a distant "Bravo! bravo!"
+is audible, and a coarse voice shouts in Aratoff's ear:
+
+"Ah! And didst thou think that all this would end in a comedy?--No! it
+is a tragedy! a tragedy!"
+
+Aratoff awoke all in a tremble. It was not dark in the room.... A faint
+and melancholy light streamed from somewhere or other, impassively
+illuminating all objects. Aratoff did not try to account to himself for
+the light.... He felt but one thing: Clara was there in that room ... he
+felt her presence ... he was again and forever in her power!
+
+A shriek burst from his lips: "Clara, art thou here?"
+
+"Yes!" rang out clearly in the middle of the room illuminated with the
+motionless light.
+
+Aratoff doubly repeated his question....
+
+"Yes!" was audible once more.
+
+"Then I want to see thee!" he cried, springing out of bed.
+
+For several moments he stood in one spot, treading the cold floor with
+his bare feet. His eyes roved: "But where? Where?" whispered his
+lips....
+
+Nothing was to be seen or heard.
+
+He looked about him, and noticed that the faint light which filled the
+room proceeded from a night-light, screened by a sheet of paper, and
+placed in one corner, probably by Platosha while he was asleep. He even
+detected the odour of incense also, in all probability, the work of her
+hands.
+
+He hastily dressed himself. Remaining in bed, sleeping, was not to be
+thought of.--Then he took up his stand in the centre of the room and
+folded his arms. The consciousness of Clara's presence was stronger than
+ever within him.
+
+And now he began to speak, in a voice which was not loud, but with the
+solemn deliberation wherewith exorcisms are uttered:
+
+"Clara,"--thus did he begin,--"if thou art really here, if thou seest
+me, if thou hearest me, reveal thyself!... If that power which I feel
+upon me is really thy power,--reveal thyself! If thou understandest how
+bitterly I repent of not having understood thee, of having repulsed
+thee,--reveal thyself!--If that which I have heard is really thy voice;
+if the feeling which has taken possession of me is love; if thou art now
+convinced that I love thee,--I who up to this time have not loved, and
+have not known a single woman;--if thou knowest that after thy death I
+fell passionately, irresistibly in love with thee, if thou dost not wish
+me to go mad--reveal thyself!"
+
+No sooner had Aratoff uttered this last word than he suddenly felt some
+one swiftly approach him from behind, as on that occasion upon the
+boulevard--and lay a hand upon his shoulder. He wheeled round--and saw
+no one. But the consciousness of _her_ presence became so distinct, so
+indubitable, that he cast another hasty glance behind him....
+
+What was that?! In his arm-chair, a couple of paces from him, sat a
+woman all in black. Her head was bent to one side, as in the
+stereoscope.... It was she! It was Clara! But what a stern, what a
+mournful face!
+
+Aratoff sank down gently upon his knees.--Yes, he was right, then;
+neither fear, nor joy was in him, nor even surprise.... His heart even
+began to beat more quietly;--The only thing in him was the feeling: "Ah!
+At last! At last!"
+
+"Clara," he began in a faint but even tone, "why dost thou not look at
+me? I know it is thou ... but I might, seest thou, think that my
+imagination had created an image like _that one_...." (He pointed in the
+direction of the stereoscope).... "Prove to me that it is thou.... Turn
+toward me, look at me, Clara!"
+
+Clara's hand rose slowly ... and fell again.
+
+"Clara! Clara! Turn toward me!"
+
+And Clara's head turned slowly, her drooping lids opened, and the dark
+pupils of her eyes were fixed on Aratoff.
+
+He started back, and uttered a tremulous, long-drawn: "Ah!"
+
+Clara gazed intently at him ... but her eyes, her features preserved
+their original thoughtfully-stern, almost displeased expression. With
+precisely that expression she had presented herself on the platform upon
+the day of the literary morning, before she had caught sight of Aratoff.
+And now, as on that occasion also, she suddenly flushed scarlet, her
+face grew animated, her glance flashed, and a joyful, triumphant smile
+parted her lips....
+
+"I am forgiven!"--cried Aratoff.--"Thou hast conquered.... So take me!
+For I am thine, and thou art mine!"
+
+He darted toward her, he tried to kiss those smiling, those triumphant
+lips,--and he did kiss them, he felt their burning touch, he felt even
+the moist chill of her teeth, and a rapturous cry rang through the
+half-dark room.
+
+Platonida Ivanovna ran in and found him in a swoon. He was on his knees;
+his head was lying on the arm-chair; his arms, outstretched before him,
+hung powerless; his pale face breathed forth the intoxication of
+boundless happiness.
+
+Platonida Ivanovna threw herself beside him, embraced him, stammered:
+"Yasha! Yashenka! Yashenyonotchek!!"[67] tried to lift him up with her
+bony arms ... he did not stir. Then Platonida Ivanovna set to screaming
+in an unrecognisable voice. The maid-servant ran in. Together they
+managed somehow to lift him up, seated him in a chair, and began to dash
+water on him--and water in which a holy image had been washed at
+that....
+
+He came to himself; but merely smiled in reply to his aunt's queries,
+and with such a blissful aspect that she became more perturbed than
+ever, and kept crossing first him and then herself.... At last Aratoff
+pushed away her hand, and still with the same beatific expression on his
+countenance, he said:--
+
+"What is the matter with you, Platosha?"
+
+"What ails thee, Yashenka?"
+
+"Me?--I am happy ... happy, Platosha ... that is what ails me. But now I
+want to go to bed and sleep."
+
+He tried to rise, but felt such a weakness in his legs and in all his
+body that he was not in a condition to undress and get into bed himself
+without the aid of his aunt and of the maid-servant. But he fell asleep
+very quickly, preserving on his face that same blissfully-rapturous
+expression. Only his face was extremely pale.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+When Platonida Ivanovna entered his room on the following morning he was
+in the same condition ... but his weakness had not passed off, and he
+even preferred to remain in bed. Platonida Ivanovna did not like the
+pallor of his face in particular.
+
+"What does it mean, O Lord!" she thought. "There isn't a drop of blood
+in his face, he refuses his beef-tea; he lies there and laughs, and
+keeps asserting that he is quite well!"
+
+He refused breakfast also.--"Why dost thou do that, Yasha?" she asked
+him; "dost thou intend to lie like this all day?"
+
+"And what if I do?" replied Aratoff, affectionately.
+
+This very affection also did not please Platonida Ivanovna. Aratoff
+wore the aspect of a man who has learned a great secret, which is very
+agreeable to him, and is jealously clinging to it and reserving it for
+himself. He was waiting for night, not exactly with impatience but with
+curiosity.
+
+"What comes next?" he asked himself;--"what will happen?" He had ceased
+to be surprised, to be perplexed; he cherished no doubt as to his having
+entered into communication with Clara; that they loved each other ... he
+did not doubt, either. Only ... what can come of such a love?--He
+recalled that kiss ... and a wondrous chill coursed swiftly and sweetly
+through all his limbs.--"Romeo and Juliet did not exchange such a kiss
+as that!" he thought. "But the next time I shall hold out better.... I
+shall possess her.... She will come with the garland of tiny roses in
+her black curls....
+
+"But after that what? For we cannot live together, can we? Consequently
+I must die in order to be with her? Was not that what she came for,--and
+is it not in _that_ way she wishes to take me?
+
+"Well, and what of that? If I must die, I must. Death does not terrify
+me in the least now. For it cannot annihilate me, can it? On the
+contrary, only _thus_ and _there_ shall I be happy ... as I have never
+been happy in my lifetime, as she has never been in hers.... For we are
+both unsullied!--Oh, that kiss!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Platonida Ivanovna kept entering Aratoff's room; she did not worry him
+with questions, she merely took a look at him, whispered, sighed, and
+went out again.--But now he refused his dinner also.... Things were
+getting quite too bad. The old woman went off to her friend, the medical
+man of the police-district, in whom she had faith simply because he did
+not drink and was married to a German woman. Aratoff was astonished when
+she brought the man to him; but Platonida Ivanovna began so insistently
+to entreat her Yashenka to permit Paramon Paramonitch (that was the
+medical man's name) to examine him--come, now, just for her sake!--that
+Aratoff consented. Paramon Paramonitch felt his pulse, looked at his
+tongue, interrogated him after a fashion, and finally announced that it
+was indispensably necessary to "auscultate" him. Aratoff was in such a
+submissive frame of mind that he consented to this also. The doctor
+delicately laid bare his breast, delicately tapped it, listened, smiled,
+prescribed some drops and a potion, but chief of all, advised him to be
+quiet, and refrain from violent emotions.
+
+"You don't say so!" thought Aratoff.... "Well, brother, thou hast
+bethought thyself too late!"
+
+"What ails Yasha?" asked Platonida Ivanovna, as she handed Paramon
+Paramonitch a three-ruble bank-note on the threshold. The district
+doctor, who, like all contemporary doctors,--especially those of them
+who wear a uniform,--was fond of showing off his learned terminology,
+informed her that her nephew had all the dioptric symptoms of nervous
+cardialgia, and that febris was present also.
+
+"But speak more simply, dear little father," broke in Platonida
+Ivanovna; "don't scare me with Latin; thou art not in an apothecary's
+shop!"
+
+"His heart is out of order," explained the doctor;--"well, and he has
+fever also," ... and he repeated his advice with regard to repose and
+moderation.
+
+"But surely there is no danger?" sternly inquired Platonida Ivanovna, as
+much as to say: "Look out and don't try your Latin on me again!"
+
+"Not at present!"
+
+The doctor went away, and Platonida Ivanovna took to grieving....
+Nevertheless she sent to the apothecary for the medicine, which Aratoff
+would not take, despite her entreaties. He even refused herb-tea.
+
+"What makes you worry so, dear?" he said to her. "I assure you I am now
+the most perfectly healthy and happy man in the whole world!"
+
+Platonida Ivanovna merely shook her head. Toward evening he became
+slightly feverish; yet he still insisted upon it that she should not
+remain in his room, and should go away to her own to sleep. Platonida
+Ivanovna obeyed, but did not undress, and did not go to bed; she sat up
+in an arm-chair and kept listening and whispering her prayer.
+
+She was beginning to fall into a doze, when suddenly a dreadful,
+piercing shriek awakened her. She sprang to her feet, rushed into
+Aratoff's study, and found him lying on the floor, as upon the night
+before.
+
+But he did not come to himself as he had done the night before, work
+over him as they would. That night he was seized with a high fever,
+complicated by inflammation of the heart.
+
+A few days later he died.
+
+A strange circumstance accompanied his second swoon. When they lifted
+him up and put him to bed, there proved to be a small lock of woman's
+black hair clutched in his right hand. Where had that hair come from?
+Anna Semyonovna had such a lock, which she had kept after Clara's death;
+but why should she have given to Aratoff an object which was so precious
+to her? Could she have laid it into the diary, and not noticed the fact
+when she gave him the book?
+
+In the delirium which preceded his death Aratoff called himself
+Romeo ... after the poison; he talked about a marriage contracted,
+consummated;--said that now he knew the meaning of delight. Especially
+dreadful for Platonida Ivanovna was the moment when Aratoff, recovering
+consciousness, and seeing her by his bedside, said to her:
+
+"Aunty, why art thou weeping? Is it because I must die? But dost thou
+not know that love is stronger than death?... Death! O Death, where is
+thy sting? Thou must not weep, but rejoice, even as I rejoice...."
+
+And again the face of the dying man beamed with that same blissful smile
+which had made the poor old woman shudder so.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POEMS IN PROSE
+
+(1878-1882)
+
+
+
+
+_From the Editor of the "European Messenger_"
+
+
+In compliance with our request, Ivan Sergyeevitch Turgenieff has given
+his consent to our sharing now with the readers of our journal, without
+delay, those passing comments, thoughts, images which he had noted down,
+under one impression or another of current existence, during the last
+five years,--those which belong to him personally, and those which
+pertain to society in general. They, like many others, have not found a
+place in those finished productions of the past which have already been
+presented to the world, and have formed a complete collection in
+themselves. From among these the author has made fifty selections.
+
+In the letter accompanying the pages which we are now about to print, I.
+S. Turgenieff says, in conclusion:
+
+"... Let not your reader peruse these 'Poems in Prose' at one sitting;
+he will probably be bored, and the book will fall from his hands. But
+let him read them separately,--to-day one, to-morrow another,--and then
+perchance some one of them may leave some trace behind in his soul...."
+
+The pages have no general title; the author has written on their
+wrapper: "Senilia--An Old Man's Jottings,"--but we have preferred the
+words carelessly dropped by the author in the end of his letter to us,
+quoted above,--"Poems in Prose"--and we print the pages under that
+general title. In our opinion, it fully expresses the source from which
+such comments might present themselves to the soul of an author well
+known for his sensitiveness to the various questions of life, as well as
+the impression which they may produce on the reader, "leaving behind in
+his soul" many things. They are, in reality, poems in spite of the fact
+that they are written in prose. We place them in chronological order,
+beginning with the year 1878.
+
+M. S.[68]
+
+October 28, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+(1878)
+
+
+
+
+THE VILLAGE
+
+
+The last day of July; for a thousand versts round about lies Russia, the
+fatherland.
+
+The whole sky is suffused with an even azure; there is only one little
+cloud in it, which is half floating, half melting. There is no wind, it
+is warm ... the air is like new milk!
+
+Larks are carolling; large-cropped pigeons are cooing; the swallows dart
+past in silence; the horses neigh and munch, the dogs do not bark, but
+stand peaceably wagging their tails.
+
+And there is an odour of smoke abroad, and of grass,--and a tiny whiff
+of tan,--and another of leather.--The hemp-patches, also, are in their
+glory, and emit their heavy but agreeable fragrance.
+
+A deep but not long ravine. Along its sides, in several rows, grow
+bulky-headed willows, stripped bare at the bottom. Through the ravine
+runs a brook; on its bottom tiny pebbles seem to tremble athwart its
+pellucid ripples.--Far away, at the spot where the rims of earth and sky
+come together, is the bluish streak of a large river.
+
+Along the ravine, on one side are neat little storehouses, and buildings
+with tightly-closed doors; on the other side are five or six pine-log
+cottages with board roofs. Over each roof rises a tall pole with a
+starling house; over each tiny porch is an openwork iron horse's head
+with a stiff mane.[69] The uneven window-panes sparkle with the hues of
+the rainbow. Jugs holding bouquets are painted on the shutters. In front
+of each cottage stands sedately a precise little bench; on the earthen
+banks around the foundations of the house cats lie curled in balls, with
+their transparent ears pricked up on the alert; behind the lofty
+thresholds the anterooms look dark and cool.
+
+I am lying on the very brink of the ravine, on an outspread horse-cloth;
+round about are whole heaps of new-mown hay, which is fragrant to the
+point of inducing faintness. The sagacious householders have spread out
+the hay in front of their cottages: let it dry a little more in the hot
+sun, and then away with it to the barn! It will be a glorious place for
+a nap!
+
+The curly heads of children project from each haycock; crested hens are
+searching in the hay for gnats and small beetles; a white-toothed puppy
+is sprawling among the tangled blades of grass.
+
+Ruddy-curled youths in clean, low-girt shirts, and heavy boots with
+borders, are bandying lively remarks as they stand with their breasts
+resting on the unhitched carts, and display their teeth in a grin.
+
+From a window a round-faced lass peeps out; she laughs, partly at their
+words, and partly at the pranks of the children in the heaped-up hay.
+
+Another lass with her sturdy arms is drawing a huge, dripping bucket
+from the well.... The bucket trembles and rocks on the rope, scattering
+long, fiery drops.
+
+In front of me stands an aged housewife in a new-checked petticoat of
+homespun and new peasant-shoes.
+
+Large inflated beads in three rows encircle her thin, swarthy neck; her
+grey hair is bound about with a yellow kerchief with red dots; it droops
+low over her dimmed eyes.
+
+But her aged eyes smile in cordial wise; her whole wrinkled face smiles.
+The old woman must be in her seventh decade ... and even now it can be
+seen that she was a beauty in her day!
+
+With the sunburned fingers of her right hand widely spread apart, she
+holds a pot of cool, unskimmed milk, straight from the cellar; the sides
+of the pot are covered with dewdrops, like small pearl beads. On the
+palm of her left hand the old woman offers me a big slice of bread still
+warm from the oven. As much as to say: "Eat, and may health be thine,
+thou passing guest!"
+
+A cock suddenly crows and busily flaps his wings; an imprisoned calf
+lows without haste, in reply.
+
+"Hey, what fine oats!" the voice of my coachman makes itself heard....
+
+O Russian contentment, repose, plenty! O free village! O tranquillity
+and abundance!
+
+And I thought to myself: "What care we for the cross on the dome of
+Saint Sophia in Constantinople, and all the other things for which we
+strive, we people of the town?"
+
+February, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+A CONVERSATION
+
+     "Never yet has human foot trod either the
+     Jungfrau or the Finsteraarhorn."
+
+
+The summits of the Alps.... A whole chain of steep cliffs.... The very
+heart of the mountains.
+
+Overhead a bright, mute, pale-green sky. A hard, cruel frost; firm,
+sparkling snow; from beneath the snow project grim blocks of ice-bound,
+wind-worn cliffs.
+
+Two huge masses, two giants rise aloft, one on each side of the horizon:
+the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn.
+
+And the Jungfrau says to its neighbour: "What news hast thou to tell?
+Thou canst see better.--What is going on there below?"
+
+Several thousand years pass by like one minute. And the Finsteraarhorn
+rumbles in reply: "Dense clouds veil the earth.... Wait!"
+
+More thousands of years elapse, as it were one minute.
+
+"Well, what now?" inquires the Jungfrau.
+
+"Now I can see; down yonder, below, everything is still the same:
+party-coloured, tiny. The waters gleam blue; the forests are black;
+heaps of stones piled up shine grey. Around them small beetles are still
+bustling,--thou knowest, those two-legged beetles who have as yet been
+unable to defile either thou or me."
+
+"Men?"
+
+"Yes, men."
+
+Thousands of years pass, as it were one minute.
+
+"Well, and what now?" asks the Jungfrau.
+
+"I seem to see fewer of the little beetles," thunders the
+Finsteraarhorn. "Things have become clearer down below; the waters have
+contracted; the forests have grown thinner."
+
+More thousands of years pass, as it were one minute.
+
+"What dost thou see?" says the Jungfrau.
+
+"Things seem to have grown clearer round us, close at hand," replies
+the Finsteraarhorn; "well, and yonder, far away, in the valleys there is
+still a spot, and something is moving."
+
+"And now?" inquires the Jungfrau, after other thousands of years, which
+are as one minute.
+
+"Now it is well," replies the Finsteraarhorn; "it is clean everywhere,
+quite white, wherever one looks.... Everywhere is our snow, level snow
+and ice. Everything is congealed. It is well now, and calm."
+
+"Good," said the Jungfrau.--"But thou and I have chattered enough, old
+fellow. It is time to sleep."
+
+"It is time!"
+
+The huge mountains slumber; the green, clear heaven slumbers over the
+earth which has grown dumb forever.
+
+February, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD WOMAN
+
+
+I was walking across a spacious field, alone.
+
+And suddenly I thought I heard light, cautious footsteps behind my
+back.... Some one was following me.
+
+I glanced round and beheld a tiny, bent old woman, all enveloped in grey
+rags. The old woman's face was visible from beneath them: a yellow,
+wrinkled, sharp-nosed, toothless face.
+
+I stepped up to her.... She halted.
+
+"Who art thou? What dost thou want? Art thou a beggar? Dost thou expect
+alms?"
+
+The old woman made no answer. I bent down to her and perceived that both
+her eyes were veiled with a semi-transparent, whitish membrane or film,
+such as some birds have; therewith they protect their eyes from too
+brilliant a light.
+
+But in the old woman's case that film did not move and reveal the
+pupils ... from which I inferred that she was blind.
+
+"Dost thou want alms?" I repeated my question.--"Why art thou following
+me?"--But, as before, the old woman did not answer, and merely shrank
+back almost imperceptibly.
+
+I turned from her and went my way.
+
+And lo! again I hear behind me those same light, measured footsteps
+which seem to be creeping stealthily up.
+
+"There's that woman again!" I said to myself.--"Why has she attached
+herself to me?"--But at this point I mentally added: "Probably, owing to
+her blindness, she has lost her way, and now she is guiding herself by
+the sound of my steps, in order to come out, in company with me, at some
+inhabited place. Yes, yes; that is it."
+
+But a strange uneasiness gradually gained possession of my thoughts: it
+began to seem to me as though that old woman were not only following
+me, but were guiding me,--that she was thrusting me now to the right,
+now to the left, and that I was involuntarily obeying her.
+
+Still I continue to walk on ... but now, in front of me, directly in my
+road, something looms up black and expands ... some sort of pit.... "The
+grave!" flashes through my mind.--"That is where she is driving me!"
+
+I wheel abruptly round. Again the old woman is before me ... but she
+sees! She gazes at me with large, evil eyes which bode me ill ... the
+eyes of a bird of prey.... I bend down to her face, to her eyes....
+Again there is the same film, the same blind, dull visage as before....
+
+"Akh!" I think ... "this old woman is my Fate--that Fate which no man
+can escape!
+
+"I cannot get away! I cannot get away!--What madness.... I must make an
+effort." And I dart to one side, in a different direction.
+
+I advance briskly.... But the light footsteps, as before, rustle behind
+me, close, close behind me.... And in front of me again the pit yawns.
+
+Again I turn in another direction.... And again there is the same
+rustling behind me, the same menacing spot in front of me.
+
+And no matter in what direction I dart, like a hare pursued ... it is
+always the same, the same!
+
+"Stay!" I think.--"I will cheat her! I will not go anywhere at
+all!"--and I instantaneously sit down on the ground.
+
+The old woman stands behind me, two paces distant.--I do not hear her,
+but I feel that she is there.
+
+And suddenly I behold that spot which had loomed black in the distance,
+gliding on, creeping up to me itself!
+
+O God! I glance behind me.... The old woman is looking straight at me,
+and her toothless mouth is distorted in a grin....
+
+"Thou canst not escape!"
+
+February, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE DOG
+
+
+There are two of us in the room, my dog and I.... A frightful storm is
+raging out of doors.
+
+The dog is sitting in front of me, and gazing straight into my eyes.
+
+And I, also, am looking him straight in the eye.
+
+He seems to be anxious to say something to me. He is dumb, he has no
+words, he does not understand himself--but I understand him.
+
+I understand that, at this moment, both in him and in me there dwells
+one and the same feeling, that there is no difference whatever between
+us. We are exactly alike; in each of us there burns and glows the
+selfsame tremulous flame.
+
+Death is swooping down upon us, it is waving its cold, broad wings....
+
+"And this is the end!"
+
+Who shall decide afterward, precisely what sort of flame burned in each
+one of us?
+
+No! it is not an animal and a man exchanging glances....
+
+It is two pairs of eyes exactly alike fixed on each other.
+
+And in each of those pairs, in the animal and in the man, one and the
+same life is huddling up timorously to the other.
+
+February, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE RIVAU
+
+
+I had a comrade-rival; not in our studies, not in the service or in
+love; but our views did not agree on any point, and every time we met,
+interminable arguments sprang up.
+
+We argued about art, religion, science, about the life of earth and
+matters beyond the grave,--especially life beyond the grave.
+
+He was a believer and an enthusiast. One day he said to me: "Thou
+laughest at everything; but if I die before thee, I will appear to thee
+from the other world.... We shall see whether thou wilt laugh then."
+
+And, as a matter of fact, he did die before me, while he was still young
+in years; but years passed, and I had forgotten his promise,--his
+threat.
+
+One night I was lying in bed, and could not get to sleep, neither did I
+wish to do so.
+
+It was neither light nor dark in the room; I began to stare into the
+grey half-gloom.
+
+And suddenly it seemed to me that my rival was standing between the two
+windows, and nodding his head gently and sadly downward from above.
+
+I was not frightened, I was not even surprised ... but rising up
+slightly in bed, and propping myself on my elbow, I began to gaze with
+redoubled attention at the figure which had so unexpectedly presented
+itself.
+
+The latter continued to nod its head.
+
+"What is it?" I said at last.--"Art thou exulting? Or art thou
+pitying?--What is this--a warning or a reproach?... Or dost thou wish to
+give me to understand that thou wert in the wrong? That we were both in
+the wrong? What art thou experiencing? The pains of hell? The bliss of
+paradise? Speak at least one word!"
+
+But my rival did not utter a single sound--and only went on nodding his
+head sadly and submissively, as before, downward from above.
+
+I burst out laughing ... he vanished.
+
+February, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEGGAR MAN
+
+
+I was passing along the street when a beggar, a decrepit old man,
+stopped me.
+
+Swollen, tearful eyes, blue lips, bristling rags, unclean sores.... Oh,
+how horribly had poverty gnawed that unhappy being!
+
+He stretched out to me a red, bloated, dirty hand.... He moaned, he
+bellowed for help.
+
+I began to rummage in all my pockets.... Neither purse, nor watch, nor
+even handkerchief did I find.... I had taken nothing with me.
+
+And the beggar still waited ... and extended his hand, which swayed and
+trembled feebly.
+
+Bewildered, confused, I shook that dirty, tremulous hand heartily....
+
+"Blame me not, brother; I have nothing, brother."
+
+The beggar man fixed his swollen eyes upon me; his blue lips smiled--and
+in his turn he pressed my cold fingers.
+
+"Never mind, brother," he mumbled. "Thanks for this also, brother.--This
+also is an alms, brother."
+
+I understood that I had received an alms from my brother.
+
+February, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+"THOU SHALT HEAR THE JUDGMENT OF THE DULLARD...."
+                                              _Pushkin_
+
+
+"Thou shalt hear the judgment of the dullard...." Thou hast always
+spoken the truth, thou great writer of ours; thou hast spoken it this
+time, also.
+
+"The judgment of the dullard and the laughter of the crowd."... Who is
+there that has not experienced both the one and the other?
+
+All this can--and must be borne; and whosoever hath the strength,--let
+him despise it.
+
+But there are blows which beat more painfully on the heart itself.... A
+man has done everything in his power; he has toiled arduously, lovingly,
+honestly.... And honest souls turn squeamishly away from him; honest
+faces flush with indignation at his name. "Depart! Begone!" honest young
+voices shout at him.--"We need neither thee nor thy work, thou art
+defiling our dwelling--thou dost not know us and dost not understand
+us.... Thou art our enemy!"
+
+What is that man to do then? Continue to toil, make no effort to defend
+himself--and not even expect a more just estimate.
+
+In former days tillers of the soil cursed the traveller who brought them
+potatoes in place of bread, the daily food of the poor man.... They
+snatched the precious gift from the hands outstretched to them, flung it
+in the mire, trod it under foot.
+
+Now they subsist upon it--and do not even know the name of their
+benefactor.
+
+So be it! What matters his name to them? He, although he be nameless,
+has saved them from hunger.
+
+Let us strive only that what we offer may be equally useful food.
+
+Bitter is unjust reproach in the mouths of people whom one loves.... But
+even that can be endured....
+
+"Beat me--but hear me out!" said the Athenian chieftain to the Spartan
+chieftain.
+
+"Beat me--but be healthy and full fed!" is what we ought to say.
+
+February, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONTENTED MAN
+
+
+Along a street of the capital is skipping a man who is still young.--His
+movements are cheerful, alert; his eyes are beaming, his lips are
+smiling, his sensitive face is pleasantly rosy.... He is all contentment
+and joy.
+
+What has happened to him? Has he come into an inheritance? Has he been
+elevated in rank? Is he hastening to a love tryst? Or, simply, has he
+breakfasted well, and is it a sensation of health, a sensation of
+full-fed strength which is leaping for joy in all his limbs? Or they may
+have hung on his neck thy handsome, eight-pointed cross, O Polish King
+Stanislaus!
+
+No. He has concocted a calumny against an acquaintance, he has
+assiduously disseminated it, he has heard it--that same calumny--from
+the mouth of another acquaintance--and _has believed it himself_.
+
+Oh, how contented, how good even at this moment is that nice,
+highly-promising young man.
+
+February, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE RULE OF LIFE
+
+
+"If you desire thoroughly to mortify and even to injure an opponent,"
+said an old swindler to me, "reproach him with the very defect or vice
+of which you feel conscious in yourself.--Fly into a rage ... and
+reproach him!
+
+"In the first place, that makes other people think that you do not
+possess that vice.
+
+"In the second place, your wrath may even be sincere.... You may profit
+by the reproaches of your own conscience.
+
+"If, for example, you are a renegade, reproach your adversary with
+having no convictions!
+
+"If you yourself are a lackey in soul, say to him with reproof that he
+is a lackey ... the lackey of civilisation, of Europe, of socialism!"
+
+"You may even say, the lackey of non-lackeyism!" I remarked.
+
+"You may do that also," chimed in the old rascal.
+
+February, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE END OF THE WORLD
+
+A DREAM
+
+
+It seems to me as though I am somewhere in Russia, in the wilds, in a
+plain country house.
+
+The chamber is large, low-ceiled, with three windows; the walls are
+smeared with white paint; there is no furniture. In front of the house
+is a bare plain; gradually descending, it recedes into the distance; the
+grey, monotoned sky hangs over it like a canopy.
+
+I am not alone; half a score of men are with me in the room. All plain
+folk, plainly clad; they are pacing up and down in silence, as though by
+stealth. They avoid one another, and yet they are incessantly exchanging
+uneasy glances.
+
+Not one of them knows why he has got into this house, or who the men are
+with him. On all faces there is disquiet and melancholy ... all, in
+turn, approach the windows and gaze attentively about them, as though
+expecting something from without.
+
+Then again they set to roaming up and down. Among us a lad of short
+stature is running about; from time to time he screams in a shrill,
+monotonous voice: "Daddy, I'm afraid!"--This shrill cry makes me sick at
+heart--and I also begin to be afraid.... Of what? I myself do not know.
+Only I feel that a great, great calamity is on its way, and is drawing
+near.
+
+And the little lad keeps screaming. Akh, if I could only get away from
+here! How stifling it is! How oppressive!... But it is impossible to
+escape.
+
+That sky is like a shroud. And there is no wind.... Is the air dead?
+
+Suddenly the boy ran to the window and began to scream with the same
+plaintive voice as usual: "Look! Look! The earth has fallen in!"
+
+"What? Fallen in?"--In fact: there had been a plain in front of the
+house, but now the house is standing on the crest of a frightful
+mountain!--The horizon has fallen, has gone down, and from the very
+house itself a black, almost perpendicular declivity descends.
+
+We have all thronged to the window.... Horror freezes our
+hearts.--"There it is ... there it is!" whispers my neighbour.
+
+And lo! along the whole distant boundary of the earth something has
+begun to stir, some small, round hillocks have begun to rise and fall.
+
+"It is the sea!" occurs to us all at one and the same moment.--"It will
+drown us all directly.... Only, how can it wax and rise up? On that
+precipice?"
+
+And nevertheless it does wax, and wax hugely.... It is no longer
+separate hillocks which are tumbling in the distance.... A dense,
+monstrous wave engulfs the entire circle of the horizon.
+
+It is flying, flying upon us!--Like an icy hurricane it sweeps on,
+swirling with the outer darkness. Everything round about has begun to
+quiver,--and yonder, in that oncoming mass,--there are crashing and
+thunder, and a thousand-throated, iron barking....
+
+Ha! What a roaring and howling! It is the earth roaring with terror....
+
+It is the end of it! The end of all things!
+
+The boy screamed once more.... I tried to seize hold of my comrades, but
+we, all of us, were already crushed, buried, drowned, swept away by that
+icy, rumbling flood, as black as ink.
+
+Darkness ... eternal darkness!
+
+Gasping for breath, I awoke.
+
+March, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+MASHA
+
+
+When I was living in Petersburg,--many years ago,--whenever I had
+occasion to hire a public cabman I entered into conversation with him.
+
+I was specially fond of conversing with the night cabmen,--poor
+peasants of the suburbs, who have come to town with their ochre-tinted
+little sledges and miserable little nags in the hope of supporting
+themselves and collecting enough money to pay their quit-rent to their
+owners.
+
+So, then, one day I hired such a cabman.... He was a youth of twenty
+years, tall, well-built, a fine, dashing young fellow; he had blue eyes
+and rosy cheeks; his red-gold hair curled in rings beneath a wretched
+little patched cap, which was pulled down over his very eyebrows. And
+how in the world was that tattered little coat ever got upon those
+shoulders of heroic mould!
+
+But the cabman's handsome, beardless face seemed sad and lowering.
+
+I entered into conversation with him. Sadness was discernible in his
+voice also.
+
+"What is it, brother?" I asked him.--"Why art not thou cheerful? Hast
+thou any grief?"
+
+The young fellow did not reply to me at once.
+
+"I have, master, I have," he said at last.--"And such a grief that it
+would be better if I were not alive. My wife is dead."
+
+"Didst thou love her ... thy wife?"
+
+The young fellow turned toward me; only he bent his head a little.
+
+"I did, master. This is the eighth month since ... but I cannot forget.
+It is eating away my heart ... so it is! And why must she die? She was
+young! Healthy!... In one day the cholera settled her."
+
+"And was she of a good disposition?"
+
+"Akh, master!" sighed the poor fellow, heavily.--"And on what friendly
+terms she and I lived together! She died in my absence. When I heard
+here that they had already buried her, I hurried immediately to the
+village, home. It was already after midnight when I arrived. I entered
+my cottage, stopped short in the middle of it, and said so softly:
+'Masha! hey, Masha!' Only a cricket shrilled.--Then I fell to weeping,
+and sat down on the cottage floor, and how I did beat my palm against
+the ground!--'Thy bowels are insatiable!' I said.... 'Thou hast devoured
+her ... devour me also!'--Akh, Masha!"
+
+"Masha," he added in a suddenly lowered voice. And without letting his
+rope reins out of his hands, he squeezed a tear out of his eye with his
+mitten, shook it off, flung it to one side, shrugged his shoulders--and
+did not utter another word.
+
+As I alighted from the sledge I gave him an extra fifteen kopeks. He
+made me a low obeisance, grasping his cap in both hands, and drove off
+at a foot-pace over the snowy expanse of empty street, flooded with the
+grey mist of the January frost.
+
+April, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOOL
+
+
+Once upon a time a fool lived in the world.
+
+For a long time he lived in clover; but gradually rumours began to reach
+him to the effect that he bore the reputation everywhere of a brainless
+ninny.
+
+The fool was disconcerted and began to fret over the question how he was
+to put an end to those unpleasant rumours.
+
+A sudden idea at last illumined his dark little brain.... And without
+the slightest delay he put it into execution.
+
+An acquaintance met him on the street and began to praise a well-known
+artist.... "Good gracious!" exclaimed the fool, "that artist was
+relegated to the archives long ago.... Don't you know that?--I did not
+expect that of you.... You are behind the times."
+
+The acquaintance was frightened, and immediately agreed with the fool.
+
+"What a fine book I have read to-day!" said another acquaintance to him.
+
+"Good gracious!" cried the fool.--"Aren't you ashamed of yourself? That
+book is good for nothing; everybody dropped it in disgust long
+ago.--Don't you know that?--You are behind the times."
+
+And that acquaintance also was frightened and agreed with the fool.
+
+"What a splendid man my friend N. N. is!" said a third acquaintance to
+the fool.--"There's a truly noble being for you!"
+
+"Good gracious!"--exclaimed the fool,--"it is well known that N. N. is a
+scoundrel! He has robbed all his relatives. Who is there that does not
+know it? You are behind the times."
+
+The third acquaintance also took fright and agreed with the fool, and
+renounced his friend. And whosoever or whatsoever was praised in the
+fool's presence, he had the same retort for all.
+
+He even sometimes added reproachfully: "And do you still believe in the
+authorities?"
+
+"A malicious person! A bilious man!" his acquaintances began to say
+about the fool.--"But what a head!"
+
+"And what a tongue!" added others.
+
+"Oh, yes; he is talented!"
+
+It ended in the publisher of a newspaper proposing to the fool that he
+should take charge of his critical department.
+
+And the fool began to criticise everything and everybody, without making
+the slightest change in his methods, or in his exclamations.
+
+Now he, who formerly shrieked against authorities, is an authority
+himself,--and the young men worship him and fear him.
+
+But what are they to do, poor fellows? Although it is not
+proper--generally speaking--to worship ... yet in this case, if one does
+not do it, he will find himself classed among the men who are behind
+the times!
+
+There is a career for fools among cowards.
+
+April, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+AN ORIENTAL LEGEND
+
+
+Who in Bagdad does not know the great Giaffar, the sun of the universe?
+
+One day, many years ago, when he was still a young man, Giaffar was
+strolling in the suburbs of Bagdad.
+
+Suddenly there fell upon his ear a hoarse cry: some one was calling
+desperately for help.
+
+Giaffar was distinguished among the young men of his own age for his
+good sense and prudence; but he had a compassionate heart, and he
+trusted to his strength.
+
+He ran in the direction of the cry, and beheld a decrepit old man pinned
+against the wall of the city by two brigands who were robbing him.
+
+Giaffar drew his sword and fell upon the malefactors. One he slew, the
+other he chased away.
+
+The old man whom he had liberated fell at his rescuer's feet, and
+kissing the hem of his garment, exclaimed: "Brave youth, thy magnanimity
+shall not remain unrewarded. In appearance I am a beggar; but only in
+appearance. I am not a common man.--Come to-morrow morning early to the
+chief bazaar; I will await thee there at the fountain--and thou shalt
+convince thyself as to the justice of my words."
+
+Giaffar reflected: "In appearance this man is a beggar, it is true; but
+all sorts of things happen. Why should not I try the experiment?"--and
+he answered: "Good, my father, I will go."
+
+The old man looked him in the eye and went away.
+
+On the following morning, just as day was breaking, Giaffar set out for
+the bazaar. The old man was already waiting for him, with his elbows
+leaning on the marble basin of the fountain.
+
+Silently he took Giaffar by the hand and led him to a small garden,
+surrounded on all sides by high walls.
+
+In the very centre of this garden, on a green lawn, grew a tree of
+extraordinary aspect.
+
+It resembled a cypress; only its foliage was of azure hue.
+
+Three fruits--three apples--hung on the slender up-curving branches. One
+of medium size was oblong in shape, of a milky-white hue; another was
+large, round, and bright red; the third was small, wrinkled and
+yellowish.
+
+The whole tree was rustling faintly, although there was no wind. It
+tinkled delicately and plaintively, as though it were made of glass; it
+seemed to feel the approach of Giaffar.
+
+"Youth!"--said the old man, "pluck whichever of these fruits thou wilt,
+and know that if thou shalt pluck and eat the white one, thou shalt
+become more wise than all men; if thou shalt pluck and eat the red one,
+thou shalt become as rich as the Hebrew Rothschild; if thou shalt pluck
+and eat the yellow one, thou shalt please old women. Decide! ... and
+delay not. In an hour the fruits will fade, and the tree itself will
+sink into the dumb depths of the earth!"
+
+Giaffar bowed his head and thought.--"What am I to do?" he articulated
+in a low tone, as though arguing with himself.--"If one becomes too
+wise, he will not wish to live, probably; if he becomes richer than all
+men, all will hate him; I would do better to pluck and eat the third,
+the shrivelled apple!"
+
+And so he did; and the old man laughed a toothless laugh and said: "Oh,
+most wise youth! Thou hast chosen the good part!--What use hast thou for
+the white apple? Thou art wiser than Solomon as thou art.--And neither
+dost thou need the red apple.... Even without it thou shalt be rich.
+Only no one will be envious of thy wealth."
+
+"Inform me, old man," said Giaffar, with a start, "where the respected
+mother of our God-saved Caliph dwelleth?"
+
+The old man bowed to the earth, and pointed out the road to the youth.
+
+Who in Bagdad doth not know the sun of the universe, the great, the
+celebrated Giaffar?
+
+April, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+TWO FOUR-LINE STANZAS
+
+
+There existed once a city whose inhabitants were so passionately fond of
+poetry that if several weeks passed and no beautiful new verses had made
+their appearance they regarded that poetical dearth as a public
+calamity.
+
+At such times they donned their worst garments, sprinkled ashes on their
+heads, and gathering in throngs on the public squares, they shed tears,
+and murmured bitterly against the Muse for having abandoned them.
+
+On one such disastrous day the young poet Junius, presented himself on
+the square, filled to overflowing with the sorrowing populace.
+
+With swift steps he ascended a specially-constructed tribune and made a
+sign that he wished to recite a poem.
+
+The lictors immediately brandished their staves. "Silence! Attention!"
+they shouted in stentorian tones.
+
+"Friends! Comrades!" began Junius, in a loud, but not altogether firm
+voice:
+
+    "Friends! Comrades! Ye lovers of verses!
+    Admirers of all that is graceful and fair!
+    Be not cast down by a moment of dark sadness!
+    The longed-for instant will come ... and light
+        will disperse the gloom!"[70]
+
+Junius ceased speaking ... and in reply to him, from all points of the
+square, clamour, whistling, and laughter arose.
+
+All the faces turned toward him flamed with indignation, all eyes
+flashed with wrath, all hands were uplifted, menaced, were clenched into
+fists.
+
+"A pretty thing he has thought to surprise us with!" roared angry
+voices. "Away from the tribune with the talentless rhymster! Away with
+the fool! Hurl rotten apples, bad eggs, at the empty-pated idiot! Give
+us stones! Fetch stones!"
+
+Junius tumbled headlong from the tribune ... but before he had succeeded
+in fleeing to his own house, outbursts of rapturous applause, cries of
+laudation and shouts reached his ear.
+
+Filled with amazement, but striving not to be detected (for it is
+dangerous to irritate an enraged wild beast), Junius returned to the
+square.
+
+And what did he behold?
+
+High above the throng, above its shoulders, on a flat gold shield, stood
+his rival, the young poet Julius, clad in a purple mantle, with a
+laurel wreath on his waving curls.... And the populace round about was
+roaring: "Glory! Glory! Glory to the immortal Julius! He hath comforted
+us in our grief, in our great woe! He hath given us verses sweeter than
+honey, more melodious than the cymbals, more fragrant than the rose,
+more pure than heaven's azure! Bear him in triumph; surround his
+inspired head with a soft billow of incense; refresh his brow with the
+waving of palm branches; lavish at his feet all the spices of Arabia!
+Glory!"
+
+Junius approached one of the glorifiers.--"Inform me, O my
+fellow-townsman! With what verses hath Julius made you happy?--Alas, I
+was not on the square when he recited them! Repeat them, if thou canst
+recall them, I pray thee!"
+
+"Such verses--and not recall them?" briskly replied the man
+interrogated.--"For whom dost thou take me? Listen--and rejoice, rejoice
+together with us!"
+
+'Ye lovers of verses!'--thus began the divine Julius....
+
+    "'Ye lovers of verses! Comrades! Friends!
+    Admirers of all that is graceful, melodious, tender!
+    Be not east down by a moment of heavy grief!
+    The longed-for moment will come--and day will chase away the night!'
+
+"What dost thou think of that?"
+
+"Good gracious!" roared Junius. "Why, those are my lines!--Julius must
+have been in the crowd when I recited them; he heard and repeated them,
+barely altering--and that, of course, not for the better--a few
+expressions!"
+
+"Aha! Now I recognise thee.... Thou art Junius," retorted the citizen
+whom he had accosted, knitting his brows.--"Thou art either envious or a
+fool!... Only consider just one thing, unhappy man! Julius says in such
+lofty style: 'And day will chase away the night!'.... But with thee it
+is some nonsense or other: 'And the light will disperse the
+gloom!?'--What light?! What darkness?!"
+
+"But is it not all one and the same thing...." Junius was beginning....
+
+"Add one word more," the citizen interrupted him, "and I will shout to
+the populace, and it will rend thee asunder."
+
+Junius prudently held his peace, but a grey-haired old man, who had
+overheard his conversation with the citizen, stepped up to the poor
+poet, and laying his hand on his shoulder, said:
+
+"Junius! Thou hast said thy say at the wrong time; but the other man
+said his at the right time.--consequently, he is in the right, while for
+thee there remain the consolations of thine own conscience."
+
+But while his conscience was consoling Junius to the best of its
+ability,--and in a decidedly-unsatisfactory way, if the truth must be
+told,--far away, amid the thunder and patter of jubilation, in the
+golden dust of the all-conquering sun, gleaming with purple, darkling
+with laurel athwart the undulating streams of abundant incense, with
+majestic leisureliness, like an emperor marching to his empire, the
+proudly-erect figure of Julius moved forward with easy grace ... and
+long branches of the palm-tree bent in turn before him, as though
+expressing by their quiet rising, their submissive obeisance, that
+incessantly-renewed adoration which filled to overflowing the hearts of
+his fellow-citizens whom he had enchanted!
+
+April, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPARROW
+
+
+I had returned from the chase and was walking along one of the alleys in
+the garden. My hound was running on in front of me.
+
+Suddenly he retarded his steps and began to crawl stealthily along as
+though he detected game ahead.
+
+I glanced down the alley and beheld a young sparrow, with a yellow ring
+around its beak and down on its head. It had fallen from the nest (the
+wind was rocking the trees of the alley violently), and sat motionless,
+impotently expanding its barely-sprouted little wings.
+
+My hound was approaching it slowly when, suddenly wrenching itself from
+a neighbouring birch, an old black-breasted sparrow fell like a stone in
+front of my dog's very muzzle--and, with plumage all ruffled, contorted,
+with a despairing and pitiful cry, gave a couple of hops in the
+direction of the yawning jaws studded with big teeth.
+
+It had flung itself down to save, it was shielding, its offspring ...
+but the whole of its tiny body was throbbing with fear, its voice was
+wild and hoarse, it was swooning, it was sacrificing itself!
+
+What a huge monster the dog must have appeared to it! And yet it could
+not have remained perched on its lofty, secure bough.... A force greater
+than its own will had hurled it thence.
+
+My Tresor stopped short, retreated.... Evidently he recognised that
+force.
+
+I hastened to call off the discomfited hound, and withdrew with
+reverence.
+
+Yes; do not laugh. I felt reverential before that tiny, heroic bird,
+before its loving impulse.
+
+Love, I thought, is stronger than death.--Only by it, only by love, does
+life support itself and move.
+
+April, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE SKULLS
+
+
+A sumptuous, luxuriously illuminated ball-room; a multitude of
+cavaliers and ladies.
+
+All faces are animated, all speeches are brisk.... A rattling
+conversation is in progress about a well-known songstress. The people
+are lauding her as divine, immortal.... Oh, how finely she had executed
+her last trill that evening!
+
+And suddenly--as though at the wave of a magic wand--from all the heads,
+from all the faces, a thin shell of skin flew off, and instantly there
+was revealed the whiteness of skulls, the naked gums and cheek-bones
+dimpled like bluish lead.
+
+With horror did I watch those gums and cheek-bones moving and
+stirring,--those knobby, bony spheres turning this way and that, as they
+gleamed in the light of the lamps and candles, and smaller spheres--the
+spheres of the eyes bereft of sense--rolling in them.
+
+I dared not touch my own face, I dared not look at myself in a mirror.
+But the skulls continued to turn this way and that, as before.... And
+with the same clatter as before, the brisk tongues, flashing like red
+rags from behind the grinning teeth, murmured on, how wonderfully, how
+incomparably the immortal ... yes, the immortal songstress had executed
+her last trill!
+
+April, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE TOILER AND THE LAZY MAN
+
+A CONVERSATION
+
+
+THE TOILER
+
+Why dost thou bother us? What dost thou want? Thou art not one of us....
+Go away!
+
+THE LAZY MAN[71]
+
+I am one of you, brethren!
+
+THE TOILER
+
+Nothing of the sort; thou art not one of us! What an invention! Just
+look at my hands. Dost thou see how dirty they are? And they stink of
+dung, and tar,--while thy hands are white. And of what do they smell?
+
+THE LAZY MAN--_offering his hands_
+
+Smell.
+
+THE TOILER--_smelling the hands_
+
+What's this? They seem to give off an odour of iron.
+
+THE LAZY MAN
+
+Iron it is. For the last six years I have worn fetters on them.
+
+THE TOILER
+
+And what was that for?
+
+THE LAZY MAN
+
+Because I was striving for your welfare, I wanted to liberate you, the
+coarse, uneducated people; I rebelled against your oppressors, I
+mutinied.... Well, and so they put me in prison.
+
+THE TOILER
+
+They put you in prison? It served you right for rebelling!
+
+    _Two Years Later_
+
+THE SAME TOILER TO ANOTHER TOILER
+
+Hearken, Piotra!... Dost remember one of those white-handed lazy men was
+talking to thee the summer before last?
+
+THE OTHER TOILER
+
+I remember.... What of it?
+
+FIRST TOILER
+
+They're going to hang him to-day, I hear; that's the order which has
+been issued.
+
+SECOND TOILER
+
+Has he kept on rebelling?
+
+FIRST TOILER
+
+He has.
+
+SECOND TOILER
+
+Yes.... Well, see here, brother Mitry: can't we get hold of a bit of
+that rope with which they are going to hang him? Folks say that that
+brings the greatest good luck to a house.
+
+FIRST TOILER
+
+Thou'rt right about that. We must try, brother Piotra.
+
+April, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROSE
+
+
+The last days of August.... Autumn had already come.
+
+The sun had set. A sudden, violent rain, without thunder and without
+lightning, had just swooped down upon our broad plain.
+
+The garden in front of the house burned and smoked, all flooded with the
+heat of sunset and the deluge of rain.
+
+She was sitting at a table in the drawing-room and staring with stubborn
+thoughtfulness into the garden, through the half-open door.
+
+I knew what was going on then in her soul. I knew that after a brief
+though anguished conflict, she would that same instant yield to the
+feeling which she could no longer control.
+
+Suddenly she rose, walked out briskly into the garden and disappeared.
+
+One hour struck ... then another; she did not return.
+
+Then I rose, and emerging from the house, I bent my steps to the alley
+down which--I had no doubt as to that--she had gone.
+
+Everything had grown dark round about; night had already descended. But
+on the damp sand of the path, gleaming scarlet amid the encircling
+gloom, a rounded object was visible.
+
+I bent down. It was a young, barely-budded rose. Two hours before I had
+seen that same rose on her breast.
+
+I carefully picked up the flower which had fallen in the mire, and
+returning to the drawing-room, I laid it on the table, in front of her
+arm-chair.
+
+And now, at last, she returned, and traversing the whole length of the
+room with her light footsteps, she seated herself at the table.
+
+Her face had grown pale and animated; swiftly, with merry confusion, her
+lowered eyes, which seemed to have grown smaller, darted about in all
+directions.
+
+She caught sight of the rose, seized it, glanced at its crumpled petals,
+glanced at me--and her eyes, coming to a sudden halt, glittered with
+tears.
+
+"What are you weeping about?" I asked.
+
+"Why, here, about this rose. Look what has happened to it."
+
+At this point I took it into my head to display profundity of thought.
+
+"Your tears will wash away the mire," I said with a significant
+expression.
+
+"Tears do not wash, tears scorch," she replied, and, turning toward the
+fireplace, she tossed the flower into the expiring flame.
+
+"The fire will scorch it still better than tears," she exclaimed, not
+without audacity,--and her beautiful eyes, still sparkling with tears,
+laughed boldly and happily.
+
+I understood that she had been scorched also.
+
+April, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+IN MEMORY OF J. P. VREVSKY
+
+
+In the mire, on damp, stinking straw, under the pent-house of an old
+carriage-house which had been hastily converted into a field military
+hospital in a ruined Bulgarian hamlet, she had been for more than a
+fortnight dying of typhus fever.
+
+She was unconscious--and not a single physician had even glanced at her;
+the sick soldiers whom she had nursed as long as she could keep on her
+feet rose by turns from their infected lairs, in order to raise to her
+parched lips a few drops of water in a fragment of a broken jug.
+
+She was young, handsome; high society knew her; even dignitaries
+inquired about her. The ladies envied her, the men courted her ... two
+or three men loved her secretly and profoundly. Life smiled upon her;
+but there are smiles which are worse than tears,
+
+A tender, gentle heart ... and such strength, such a thirst for
+sacrifice! To help those who needed help ... she knew no other happiness
+... she knew no other and she tasted no other. Every other happiness
+passed her by. But she had long since become reconciled to that, and all
+flaming with the fire of inextinguishable faith, she dedicated herself
+to the service of her fellow-men. What sacred treasures she held hidden
+there, in the depths of her soul, in her own secret recesses, no one
+ever knew--and now no one will ever know.
+
+And to what end? The sacrifice has been made ... the deed is done.
+
+But it is sorrowful to think that no one said "thank you" even to her
+corpse, although she herself was ashamed of and shunned all thanks.
+
+May her dear shade be not offended by this tardy blossom, which I
+venture to lay upon her grave!
+
+September, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST MEETING
+
+
+We were once close, intimate friends.... But there came an evil moment
+and we parted like enemies.
+
+Many years passed.... And lo! on entering the town where he lived I
+learned that he was hopelessly ill, and wished to see me.
+
+I went to him, I entered his chamber.... Our glances met.
+
+I hardly recognised him. O God! How disease had changed him!
+
+Yellow, shrivelled, with his head completely bald, and a narrow, grey
+beard, he was sitting in nothing but a shirt, cut out expressly.... He
+could not bear the pressure of the lightest garment. Abruptly he
+extended to me his frightfully-thin hand, which looked as though it had
+been gnawed away, with an effort whispered several incomprehensible
+words--whether of welcome or of reproach, who knows? His exhausted chest
+heaved; over the contracted pupils of his small, inflamed eyes two
+scanty tears of martyrdom flowed down.
+
+My heart sank within me.... I sat down on a chair beside him, and
+involuntarily dropping my eyes in the presence of that horror and
+deformity, I also put out my hand.
+
+But it seemed to me that it was not his hand which grasped mine.
+
+It seemed to me as though there were sitting between us a tall, quiet,
+white woman. A long veil enveloped her from head to foot. Her deep, pale
+eyes gazed nowhere; her pale, stern lips uttered no sound....
+
+That woman joined our hands.... She reconciled us forever.
+
+Yes.... It was Death who had reconciled us....
+
+April, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE VISIT
+
+
+I was sitting at the open window ... in the morning, early in the
+morning, on the first of May.
+
+The flush of dawn had not yet begun; but the dark, warm night was
+already paling, already growing chill.
+
+No fog had risen, no breeze was straying, everything was of one hue and
+silent ... but one could scent the approach of the awakening, and in the
+rarefied air the scent of the dew's harsh dampness was abroad.
+
+Suddenly, into my chamber, through the open window, flew a large bird,
+lightly tinkling and rustling.
+
+I started, looked more intently.... It was not a bird: it was a tiny,
+winged woman, clad in a long, close-fitting robe which billowed out at
+the bottom.
+
+She was all grey, the hue of mother-of-pearl; only the inner side of her
+wings glowed with a tender flush of scarlet, like a rose bursting into
+blossom; a garland of lilies-of-the-valley confined the scattered curls
+of her small, round head,--and two peacock feathers quivered amusingly,
+like the feelers of a butterfly, above the fair, rounded little
+forehead.
+
+She floated past a couple of times close to the ceiling: her tiny face
+was laughing; laughing also were her huge, black, luminous eyes. The
+merry playfulness of her capricious flight shivered their diamond rays.
+
+She held in her hand a long frond of a steppe flower--"Imperial
+sceptre"[72] the Russian folk call it; and it does, indeed, resemble a
+sceptre.
+
+As she flew rapidly above me she touched my head with that flower.
+
+I darted toward her.... But she had already fluttered through the
+window, and away she flew headlong....
+
+In the garden, in the wilderness of the lilac-bushes, a turtle-dove
+greeted her with its first cooing; and at the spot where she had
+vanished the milky-white sky flushed a soft crimson.
+
+I recognised thee, goddess of fancy! Thou hast visited me by
+accident--thou hast flown in to young poets.
+
+O poetry! O youth! O virginal beauty of woman! Only for an instant can
+ye gleam before me,--in the early morning of the early spring!
+
+May, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+NECESSITAS--VIS--LIBERTAS
+
+A BAS-RELIEF
+
+
+A tall, bony old woman with an iron face and a dull, impassive gaze is
+walking along with great strides, and pushing before her, with her hand
+as harsh as a stick, another woman.
+
+This woman, of vast size, powerful, corpulent, with the muscles of a
+Hercules, and a tiny head on a bull-like neck-and blind--is pushing on
+in her turn a small, thin young girl.
+
+This girl alone has eyes which see; she resists, turns backward,
+elevates her thin red arms; her animated countenance expresses
+impatience and hardihood.... She does not wish to obey, she does not
+wish to advance in the direction whither she is being impelled ... and,
+nevertheless, she must obey and advance.
+
+    _Necessitas--Vis--Libertas_:
+
+Whoever likes may interpret this.
+
+May, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+ALMS
+
+
+In the vicinity of a great city, on the broad, much-travelled road, an
+aged, ailing man was walking.
+
+He was staggering as he went; his emaciated legs, entangling themselves,
+trailing and stumbling, trod heavily and feebly, exactly as though they
+belonged to some one else; his clothing hung on him in rags; his bare
+head drooped upon his breast.... He was exhausted.
+
+He squatted down on a stone by the side of the road, bent forward,
+propped his elbows on his knees, covered his face with both hands, and
+between his crooked fingers the tears dripped on the dry, grey dust.
+
+He was remembering....
+
+He remembered how he had once been healthy and rich,--and how he had
+squandered his health, and distributed his wealth to others, friends and
+enemies.... And lo! now he had not a crust of bread, and every one had
+abandoned him, his friends even more promptly than his enemies.... Could
+he possibly humble himself to the point of asking alms? And he felt
+bitter and ashamed at heart.
+
+And the tears still dripped and dripped, mottling the grey dust.
+
+Suddenly he heard some one calling him by name. He raised his weary
+head and beheld in front of him a stranger: a face calm and dignified,
+but not stern; eyes not beaming, but bright; a gaze penetrating, but not
+evil.
+
+"Thou hast given away all thy wealth," an even voice made itself
+heard.... "But surely thou art not regretting that thou hast done good?"
+
+"I do not regret it," replied the old man, with a sigh, "only here am I
+dying now."
+
+"And if there had been no beggars in the world to stretch out their
+hands to thee," pursued the stranger, "thou wouldst have had no one to
+whom to show thy beneficence; thou wouldst not have been able to
+exercise thyself therein?"
+
+The old man made no reply, and fell into thought.
+
+"Therefore, be not proud now, my poor man," spoke up the stranger again.
+"Go, stretch out thy hand, afford to other good people the possibility
+of proving by their actions that they are good."
+
+The old man started, and raised his eyes ... but the stranger had
+already vanished,--but far away, on the road, a wayfarer made his
+appearance.
+
+The old man approached him, and stretched out his hand.--The wayfarer
+turned away with a surly aspect and gave him nothing.
+
+But behind him came another, and this one gave the old man a small alms.
+
+And the old man bought bread for himself with the copper coins which had
+been given him, and sweet did the bit which he had begged seem to him,
+and there was no shame in his heart--but, on the contrary, a tranquil
+joy overshadowed him.
+
+May, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE INSECT
+
+
+I dreamed that a score of us were sitting in a large room with open
+windows.
+
+Among us were women, children, old men.... We were all talking about
+some very unfamiliar subject--talking noisily and unintelligibly.
+
+Suddenly, with a harsh clatter, a huge insect, about three inches and a
+half long, flew into the room ... flew in, circled about and alighted on
+the wall.
+
+It resembled a fly or a wasp.--Its body was of a dirty hue; its flat,
+hard wings were of the same colour; it had extended, shaggy claws and a
+big, angular head, like that of a dragon-fly; and that head and the
+claws were bright red, as though bloody.
+
+This strange insect kept incessantly turning its head downward, upward,
+to the right, to the left, and moving its claws about ... then suddenly
+it wrested itself from the wall, flew clattering through the room,--and
+again alighted, again began to move in terrifying and repulsive manner,
+without stirring from the spot. It evoked in all of us disgust, alarm,
+even terror.... None of us had ever seen anything of the sort; we all
+cried: "Expel that monster!" We all flourished our handkerchiefs at it
+from a distance ... for no one could bring himself to approach it ...
+and when the insect had flown in we had all involuntarily got out of the
+way.
+
+Only one of our interlocutors, a pale-faced man who was still young,
+surveyed us all with surprise.--He shrugged his shoulders, he smiled, he
+positively could not understand what had happened to us and why we were
+so agitated. He had seen no insect, he had not heard the ominous clatter
+of its wings.
+
+Suddenly the insect seemed to rivet its attention on him, soared into
+the air, and swooping down upon his head, stung him on the brow, a
+little above the eyes.... The young man emitted a faint cry and fell
+dead.
+
+The dreadful fly immediately flew away.... Only then did we divine what
+sort of a visitor we had had.
+
+May, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+CABBAGE-SOUP
+
+
+The son of a widowed peasant-woman died--a young fellow aged twenty, the
+best labourer in the village.
+
+The lady-proprietor of that village, on learning of the peasant-woman's
+affliction, went to call upon her on the very day of the funeral.
+
+She found her at home.
+
+Standing in the middle of her cottage, in front of the table, she was
+ladling out empty[73] cabbage-soup from the bottom of a smoke-begrimed
+pot, in a leisurely way, with her right hand (her left hung limply by
+her side), and swallowing spoonful after spoonful.
+
+The woman's face had grown sunken and dark; her eyes were red and
+swollen ... but she carried herself independently and uprightly, as in
+church.[74]
+
+"O Lord!" thought the lady; "she can eat at such a moment ... but what
+coarse feelings they have!"
+
+And then the lady-mistress recalled how, when she had lost her own
+little daughter, aged nine months, a few years before, she had refused,
+out of grief, to hire a very beautiful villa in the vicinity of
+Petersburg, and had passed the entire summer in town!--But the
+peasant-woman continued to sip her cabbage-soup.
+
+At last the lady could endure it no longer.--"Tatyana!" said she....
+"Good gracious!--I am amazed! Is it possible that thou didst not love
+thy son? How is it that thy appetite has not disappeared?--How canst
+thou eat that cabbage-soup?"
+
+"My Vasya is dead," replied the woman softly, and tears of suffering
+again began to stream down her sunken cheeks,--"and, of course, my own
+end has come also: my head has been taken away from me while I am still
+alive. But the cabbage-soup must not go to waste; for it is salted"
+
+The lady-mistress merely shrugged her shoulders and went away. She got
+salt cheaply.
+
+May, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE AZURE REALM
+
+
+O azure realm! O realm of azure, light, youth, and happiness! I have
+beheld thee ... in my dreams.
+
+There were several of us in a beautiful, decorated boat. Like the breast
+of a swan the white sail towered aloft beneath fluttering pennants.
+
+I did not know who my companions were; but with all my being I felt that
+they were as young, as merry, as happy as I was!
+
+And I paid no heed to them. All about me I beheld only the shoreless
+azure sea, all covered with a fine rippling of golden scales, and
+over-head an equally shoreless azure sea, and in it, triumphantly and,
+as it were, smilingly, rolled on the friendly sun.
+
+And among us, from time to time, there arose laughter, ringing and
+joyous as the laughter of the gods!
+
+Or suddenly, from some one's lips, flew forth words, verses replete with
+wondrous beauty and with inspired power ... so that it seemed as though
+the very sky resounded in reply to them, and round about the sea
+throbbed with sympathy.... And then blissful silence began again.
+
+Diving lightly through the soft waves, our swift boat glided on. It was
+not propelled by the breeze; it was ruled by our own sportive hearts.
+Whithersoever we wished, thither did it move, obediently, as though it
+were gifted with life.
+
+We encountered islands, magical, half-transparent islands with the hues
+of precious stones, jacinths and emeralds. Intoxicating perfumes were
+wafted from the surrounding shores; some of these islands pelted us with
+a rain of white roses and lilies-of-the-valley; from others there rose
+up suddenly long-winged birds, clothed in rainbow hues.
+
+The birds circled over our heads, the lilies and roses melted in the
+pearly foam, which slipped along the smooth sides of our craft.
+
+In company with the flowers and the birds, sweet, sweet sounds were
+wafted to our ears.... We seemed to hear women's voices in them.... And
+everything round about,--the sky, the sea, the bellying of the sail up
+aloft, the purling of the waves at the stern,--everything spoke of love,
+of blissful love.
+
+And she whom each one of us loved--she was there ... invisibly and near
+at hand. Yet another moment and lo! her eyes would beam forth, her smile
+would blossom out.... Her hand would grasp thy hand, and draw thee after
+her into an unfading paradise!
+
+O azure realm! I have beheld thee ... in my dream!
+
+June, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+TWO RICH MEN
+
+
+When men in my presence extol Rothschild, who out of his vast revenues
+allots whole thousands for the education of children, the cure of the
+sick, the care of the aged, I laud and melt in admiration.
+
+But while I laud and melt I cannot refrain from recalling a
+poverty-stricken peasant's family which received an orphaned niece into
+its wretched, tumble-down little hovel.
+
+"If we take Katka," said the peasant-woman; "we shall spend our last
+kopeks on her, and there will be nothing left wherewith to buy salt for
+our porridge."
+
+"But we will take her ... and unsalted porridge," replied the
+peasant-man, her husband.
+
+Rothschild is a long way behind that peasant-man!
+
+July, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD MAN
+
+
+The dark, distressing days have come....
+
+One's own maladies, the ailments of those dear to him, cold and the
+gloom of old age. Everything which thou hast loved, to which thou hast
+surrendered thyself irrevocably, collapses and falls into ruins. The
+road has taken a turn down hill.
+
+But what is to be done? Grieve? Lament? Thou wilt help neither thyself
+nor others in that way....
+
+On the withered, bent tree the foliage is smaller, more scanty--but the
+verdure is the same as ever.
+
+Do thou also shrivel up, retire into thyself, into thy memories, and
+there, deep, very deep within, at the very bottom of thy concentrated
+soul, thy previous life, accessible to thee alone, will shine forth
+before thee with its fragrant, still fresh verdure, and the caress and
+strength of the springtime!
+
+But have a care ... do not look ahead, poor old man!
+
+July, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE CORRESPONDENT
+
+
+Two friends are sitting at a table and drinking tea.
+
+A sudden noise has arisen in the street. Plaintive moans, violent oaths,
+outbursts of malicious laughter have become audible.
+
+"Some one is being beaten," remarked one of the friends, after having
+cast a glance out of the window.
+
+"A criminal? A murderer?" inquired the other.--"See here, no matter who
+it is, such chastisement without trial is not to be tolerated. Let us go
+and defend him."
+
+"But it is not a murderer who is being beaten."
+
+"Not a murderer? A thief, then? Never mind, let us go, let us rescue him
+from the mob."
+
+"It is not a thief, either."
+
+"Not a thief? Is it, then, a cashier, a railway employee, an army
+contractor, a Russian Maecenas, a lawyer, a well-intentioned editor, a
+public philanthropist?... At any rate, let us go, let us aid him!"
+
+"No ... they are thrashing a correspondent."
+
+"A correspondent?--Well, see here now, let's drink a glass of tea
+first."
+
+July, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+TWO BROTHERS
+
+
+It was a vision....
+
+Two angels presented themselves before me ... two spirits.
+
+I say angels ... spirits, because neither of them had any garments on
+their naked bodies, and from the shoulders of both sprang long, powerful
+wings.
+
+Both are youths. One is rather plump, smooth of skin, with black curls.
+He has languishing brown eyes with thick eyelashes; his gaze is
+ingratiating, cheerful, and eager. A charming, captivating countenance a
+trifle bold, a trifle malicious. His full red lips tremble slightly. The
+youth smiles like one who has authority,--confidently and lazily; a
+sumptuous garland of flowers rests lightly on his shining hair, almost
+touching his velvet eyebrows. The spotted skin of a leopard, pinned with
+a golden dart, hangs lightly from his plump shoulders down upon his
+curving hips. The feathers of his wings gleam with changeable tints of
+rose-colour; their tips are of a brilliant red, just as though they had
+been dipped in fresh, crimson blood. From time to time they palpitate
+swiftly, with a pleasant silvery sound, the sound of rain in springtime.
+
+The other is gaunt and yellow of body. His ribs are faintly discernible
+at every breath. His hair is fair, thin, straight; his eyes are huge,
+round, pale grey in colour ... his gaze is uneasy and strangely bright.
+All his features are sharp-cut: his mouth is small, half open, with
+fish-like teeth; his nose is solid, aquiline; his chin projecting,
+covered with a whitish down. Those thin lips have never once smiled.
+
+It is a regular, terrible, pitiless face! Moreover, the face of the
+first youth,--of the beauty,--although it is sweet and charming, does
+not express any compassion either. Around the head of the second are
+fastened a few empty, broken ears of grain intertwined with withered
+blades of grass. A coarse grey fabric encircles his loins; the wings at
+his back, of a dull, dark-blue colour, wave softly and menacingly.
+
+Both youths appeared to be inseparable companions.
+
+Each leaned on the other's shoulder. The soft little hand of the first
+rested like a cluster of grapes on the harsh collar-bone of the second;
+the slender, bony hand of the second, with its long, thin fingers, lay
+outspread, like a serpent, on the womanish breast of the first.
+
+And I heard a voice. This is what it uttered:
+
+"Before thee stand Love and Hunger---own brothers, the two fundamental
+bases of everything living.
+
+"Everything which lives moves, for the purpose of obtaining food; and
+eats, for the purpose of reproducing itself.
+
+"Love and Hunger have one and the same object; it is necessary that life
+should not cease,--one's own life and the life of others are the same
+thing, the universal life."
+
+August, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE EGOIST
+
+
+He possessed everything which was requisite to make him the scourge of
+his family.
+
+He had been born healthy, he had been born rich--and during the whole
+course of his long life he had remained rich and healthy; he had never
+committed a single crime; he had never stumbled into any blunder; he had
+not made a single slip of the tongue or mistake.
+
+He was irreproachably honest!... And proud in the consciousness of his
+honesty, he crushed every one with it: relatives, friends, and
+acquaintances.
+
+His honesty was his capital ... and he exacted usurious interest from
+it.
+
+Honesty gave him the right to be pitiless and not to do any good deed
+which was not prescribed;--and he was pitiless, and he did no good ...
+because good except by decree is not good.
+
+He never troubled himself about any one, except his own very exemplary
+self, and he was genuinely indignant if others did not take equally
+assiduous care of it!
+
+And, at the same time, he did not consider himself an egoist, and
+upbraided and persecuted egoists and egoism more than anything
+else!--Of course! Egoism in other people interfered with his own.
+
+Not being conscious of a single failing, he did not understand, he did
+not permit, a weakness in any one else. Altogether, he did not
+understand anybody or anything, for he was completely surrounded by
+himself on all sides, above and below, behind and before.
+
+He did not even understand the meaning of forgiveness. He never had had
+occasion to forgive himself.... Then how was he to forgive others?
+
+Before the bar of his own conscience, before the face of his own God,
+he, that marvel, that monster of virtue, rolled up his eyes, and in a
+firm, clear voice uttered: "Yes; I am a worthy, a moral man!"
+
+He repeated these words on his death-bed, and nothing quivered even then
+in his stony heart,--in that heart devoid of a fleck or a crack.
+
+O monstrosity of self-satisfied, inflexible, cheaply-acquired
+virtue--thou art almost more repulsive than the undisguised monstrosity
+of vice!
+
+December, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE SUPREME BEING'S FEAST
+
+
+One day the Supreme Being took it into his head to give a great feast in
+his azure palace.
+
+He invited all the virtues as guests. Only the virtues ... he invited no
+men ... only ladies.
+
+Very many of them assembled, great and small. The petty virtues were
+more agreeable and courteous than the great ones; but all seemed well
+pleased, and chatted politely among themselves, as befits near relatives
+and friends.
+
+But lo! the Supreme Being noticed two very beautiful ladies who,
+apparently, were entirely unacquainted with each other.
+
+The host took one of these ladies by the hand and led her to the other.
+
+"Beneficence!" said he, pointing to the first.
+
+"Gratitude!" he added, pointing to the second.
+
+The two virtues were unspeakably astonished; ever since the world has
+existed--and it has existed a long time--they had never met before.
+
+December, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPHINX
+
+
+Yellowish-grey, friable at the top, firm below, creaking sand ... sand
+without end, no matter in which direction one gazes!
+
+And above this sand, above this sea of dead dust, the huge head of the
+Egyptian Sphinx rears itself aloft.
+
+What is it that those vast, protruding lips, those impassively-dilated,
+up-turned nostrils, and those eyes, those long, half-sleepy,
+half-watchful eyes, beneath the double arch of the lofty brows, are
+trying to say?
+
+For they are trying to say something! They even speak--but only
+[Oe]dipus can solve the riddle and understand their mute speech.
+
+Bah! Yes, I recognise those features ... there is nothing Egyptian about
+the low white forehead, the prominent cheek-bones, the short, straight
+nose, the fine mouth with its white teeth, the soft moustache and
+curling beard,--and those small eyes set far apart ... and on the head
+the cap of hair furrowed with a parting.... Why, it is thou, Karp,
+Sidor, Semyon, thou petty peasant of Yaroslavl, or of Ryazan, my
+fellow-countryman, the kernel of Russia! Is it long since thou didst
+become the Sphinx?
+
+Or dost thou also wish to say something? Yes; and thou also art a
+Sphinx.
+
+And thy eyes--those colourless but profound eyes--speak also.... And
+their speeches are equally dumb and enigmatic.
+
+Only where is thine [Oe]dipus?
+
+Alas! 'Tis not sufficient to don a cap to become thine [Oe]dipus, O
+Sphinx of All the Russias!
+
+December, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+NYMPHS
+
+
+I was standing in front of a chain of beautiful mountains spread out in
+a semi-circle; the young, verdant forest clothed them from summit to
+base. The southern sky hung transparently blue above us; on high the sun
+beamed radiantly; below, half hidden in the grass, nimble brooks were
+babbling.
+
+And there recurred to my mind an ancient legend about how, in the first
+century after the birth of Christ, a Grecian ship was sailing over the
+Aegean Sea.
+
+It was midday.... The weather was calm. And suddenly, high up, over the
+head of the helmsman, some one uttered distinctly: "When thou shalt sail
+past the islands, cry in a loud voice, 'Great Pan is dead!'"
+
+The helmsman was amazed ... and frightened. But when the ship ran past
+the islands he called out: "Great Pan is dead!"
+
+And thereupon, immediately, in answer to his shout, along the whole
+length of the shore (for the island was uninhabited), there resounded
+loud sobbing groans, prolonged wailing cries: "He is dead! Great Pan is
+dead!"
+
+This legend recurred to my mind ... and a strange thought flashed across
+my brain.--"What if I were to shout that call?"
+
+But in view of the exultation which surrounded me I could not think of
+death, and with all the force at my command I shouted: "He is risen!
+Great Pan is risen!"
+
+And instantly,--oh, marvel!--in reply to my exclamation, along the whole
+wide semi-circle of verdant mountains there rolled a vigorous laughter,
+there arose a joyous chattering and splashing. "He is risen! Pan is
+risen!" rustled youthful voices.--Everything there in front of me
+suddenly broke into laughter more brilliant than the sun on high, more
+sportive than the brooks which were babbling beneath the grass. The
+hurried tramp of light footsteps became audible; athwart the green grove
+flitted the marble whiteness of waving tunics, the vivid scarlet of
+naked bodies.... It was nymphs, nymphs, dryads, bacchantes, running down
+from the heights into the plain....
+
+They made their appearance simultaneously along all the borders of the
+forest. Curls fluttered on divine heads, graceful arms uplifted garlands
+and cymbals, and laughter, sparkling, Olympian laughter, rippled and
+rolled among them....
+
+In front floats a goddess. She is taller and handsomer than all the
+rest;--on her shoulders is a quiver; in her hands is a bow; upon her
+curls, caught high, is the silvery sickle of the moon....
+
+Diana, is it thou?
+
+But suddenly the goddess halted ... and immediately, following her
+example, all the nymphs came to a halt also. The ringing laughter died
+away. I saw how the face of the goddess, suddenly rendered dumb, became
+covered with a deathly pallor; I saw how her feet grew petrified, how
+inexpressible terror parted her lips, strained wide her eyes, which were
+fixed on the remote distance.... What had she descried? Where was she
+gazing?
+
+I turned in the direction in which she was gazing....
+
+At the very edge of the sky, beyond the low line of the fields, a golden
+cross was blazing like a spark of fire on the white belfry of a
+Christian church.... The goddess had caught sight of that cross.
+
+I heard behind me a long, uneven sigh, like the throbbing of a broken
+harp-string,--and when I turned round again, no trace of the nymphs
+remained.... The broad forest gleamed green as before, and only in
+spots, athwart the close network of the branches, could tufts of
+something white be seen melting away. Whether these were the tunics of
+the nymphs, or a vapour was rising up from the bottom of the valley, I
+know not.
+
+But how I regretted the vanished goddesses!
+
+December, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+ENEMY AND FRIEND
+
+
+A captive condemned to perpetual incarceration broke out of prison and
+started to run at a headlong pace.... After him, on his very heels,
+darted the pursuit.
+
+He ran with all his might.... His pursuers began to fall behind.
+
+But lo! in front of him was a river with steep banks,--a narrow, but
+deep river.... And he did not know how to swim!
+
+From one shore to the other a thin, rotten board had been thrown. The
+fugitive had already set foot upon it.... But it so happened that just
+at this point, beside the river, his best friend and his most cruel
+enemy were standing.
+
+The enemy said nothing and merely folded his arms; on the other hand,
+the friend shouted at the top of his voice:--"Good heavens! What art
+thou doing? Come to thy senses, thou madman! Dost thou not see that
+the board is completely rotten?--It will break beneath thy weight, and
+thou wilt infallibly perish!"
+
+"But there is no other way of crossing ... and hearest thou the
+pursuit?" groaned in desperation the unhappy wight, as he stepped upon
+the board.
+
+"I will not permit it!... No, I will not permit thee to perish!"--roared
+his zealous friend, snatching the plank from beneath the feet of the
+fugitive.--The latter instantly tumbled headlong into the tumultuous
+waters--and was drowned.
+
+The enemy smiled with satisfaction, and went his way; but the friend sat
+down on the shore and began to weep bitterly over his poor ... poor
+friend!
+
+"He would not heed me! He would not heed me!" he whispered dejectedly.
+
+"However!" he said at last. "He would have been obliged to languish all
+his life in that frightful prison! At all events, he is not suffering
+now! Now he is better off! Evidently, so had his Fate decreed!
+
+"And yet, it is a pity, from a human point of view!"
+
+And the good soul continued to sob inconsolably over his unlucky friend.
+
+December, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+CHRIST
+
+
+I saw myself as a youth, almost a little boy, in a low-ceiled country
+church.--Slender wax tapers burned like red spots in front of the
+ancient holy pictures.
+
+An aureole of rainbow hues encircled each tiny flame.--It was dark and
+dim in the church.... But a mass of people stood in front of me.
+
+All reddish, peasant heads. From time to time they would begin to surge,
+to fall, to rise again, like ripe ears of grain when the summer breeze
+flits across them in a slow wave.
+
+Suddenly some man or other stepped from behind and took up his stand
+alongside me.
+
+I did not turn toward him, but I immediately felt that that man
+was--Christ.
+
+Emotion, curiosity, awe took possession of me simultaneously. I forced
+myself to look at my neighbour.
+
+He had a face like that of everybody else,--a face similar to all human
+faces. His eyes gazed slightly upward, attentively and gently. His lips
+were closed, but not compressed; the upper lip seemed to rest upon the
+lower; his small beard was parted in the middle. His hands were clasped,
+and did not move. And his garments were like those of every one else.
+
+"Christ, forsooth!" I thought to myself. "Such a simple, simple man! It
+cannot be!"
+
+I turned away.--But before I had time to turn my eyes from that simple
+man it again seemed to me that it was Christ in person who was standing
+beside me.
+
+Again I exerted an effort over myself.... And again I beheld the same
+face, resembling all human faces, the same ordinary, although
+unfamiliar, features.
+
+And suddenly dread fell upon me, and I came to myself. Only then did I
+understand that precisely such a face--a face like all human faces--is
+the face of Christ.
+
+December, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+1879-1882
+
+
+
+
+THE STONE
+
+
+Have you seen an old, old stone on the seashore, when the brisk waves
+are beating upon it from all sides, at high tide, on a sunny spring
+day--beating and sparkling and caressing it, and drenching its mossy
+head with crumbling pearls of glittering foam?
+
+The stone remains the same stone, but brilliant colours start forth upon
+its surly exterior.
+
+They bear witness to that distant time when the molten granite was only
+just beginning to harden and was all glowing with fiery hues.
+
+Thus also did young feminine souls recently attack my old heart from all
+quarters,--and beneath their caressing touch it glowed once more with
+colours which faded long ago,--with traces of its pristine fire!
+
+The waves have retreated ... but the colours have not yet grown dim,
+although a keen breeze is drying them.
+
+May, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+DOVES
+
+
+I was standing on the crest of a sloping hill; in front of me lay
+outspread, and motley of hue, the ripe rye, now like a golden, again
+like a silvery sea.
+
+But no surge was coursing across this sea; no sultry breeze was blowing;
+a great thunder-storm was brewing.
+
+Round about me the sun was still shining hotly and dimly; but in the
+distance, beyond the rye, not too far away, a dark-blue thunder-cloud
+lay in a heavy mass over one half of the horizon.
+
+Everything was holding its breath ... everything was languishing beneath
+the ominous gleam of the sun's last rays. Not a single bird was to be
+seen or heard; even the sparrows had hidden themselves. Only somewhere,
+close at hand, a solitary huge leaf of burdock was whispering and
+flapping.
+
+How strongly the wormwood on the border-strips[75] smells! I glanced at
+the blue mass ... and confusion ensued in my soul. "Well, be quick,
+then, be quick!" I thought. "Flash out, ye golden serpent! Rumble, ye
+thunder! Move on, advance, discharge thy water, thou evil thunder-cloud;
+put an end to this painful torment!"
+
+But the storm-cloud did not stir. As before, it continued to crush the
+dumb earth ... and seemed merely to wax larger and darker.
+
+And lo! through its bluish monotony there flashed something smooth and
+even; precisely like a white handkerchief, or a snowball. It was a white
+dove flying from the direction of the village.
+
+It flew, and flew onward, always straight onward ... and vanished behind
+the forest.
+
+Several moments passed--the same cruel silence still reigned.... But
+behold! Now _two_ handkerchiefs are fluttering, _two_ snowballs are
+floating back; it is _two_ white doves wending their way homeward in
+even flight.
+
+And now, at last, the storm has broken loose--and the fun begins!
+
+I could hardly reach home.--The wind shrieked and darted about like a
+mad thing; low-hanging rusty-hued clouds swirled onward, as though rent
+in bits; everything whirled, got mixed up, lashed and rocked with the
+slanting columns of the furious downpour; the lightning flashes blinded
+with their fiery green hue; abrupt claps of thunder were discharged like
+cannon; there was a smell of sulphur....
+
+But under the eaves, on the very edge of a garret window, side by side
+sit the two white doves,--the one which flew after its companion, and
+the one which it brought and, perhaps, saved.
+
+Both have ruffled up their plumage, and each feels with its wing the
+wing of its neighbour....
+
+It is well with them! And it is well with me as I gaze at them....
+Although I am alone ... alone, as always.
+
+May, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+TO-MORROW! TO-MORROW!
+
+
+How empty, and insipid, and insignificant is almost every day which we
+have lived through! How few traces it leaves behind it! In what a
+thoughtlessly-stupid manner have those hours flown past, one after
+another!
+
+And, nevertheless, man desires to exist; he prizes life, he hopes in it,
+in himself, in the future.... Oh, what blessings he expects from the
+future!
+
+And why does he imagine that other future days will not resemble the one
+which has just passed?
+
+But he does not imagine this. On the whole, he is not fond of
+thinking--and it is well that he does not.
+
+"There, now, to-morrow, to-morrow!" he comforts himself--until that
+"to-morrow" over-throws him into the grave.
+
+Well--and once in the grave,--one ceases, willy-nilly, to think.
+
+May, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+NATURE
+
+
+I dreamed that I had entered a vast subterranean chamber with a lofty,
+arched roof. It was completely filled by some sort of even light, also
+subterranean.
+
+In the very centre of the chamber sat a majestic woman in a flowing robe
+green in hue. With her head bowed on her hand, she seemed to be immersed
+in profound meditation.
+
+I immediately understood that this woman was Nature itself,--and
+reverent awe pierced my soul with an instantaneous chill.
+
+I approached the seated woman, and making a respectful obeisance, "O our
+common mother," I exclaimed, "what is the subject of thy meditation? Art
+thou pondering the future destinies of mankind? As to how it is to
+attain the utmost possible perfection and bliss?"
+
+The woman slowly turned her dark, lowering eyes upon me. Her lips moved,
+and a stentorian voice, like unto the clanging of iron, rang out:
+
+"I am thinking how I may impart more power to the muscles in the legs of
+a flea, so that it may more readily escape from its enemies. The
+equilibrium of attack and defence has been destroyed.... It must be
+restored."
+
+"What!" I stammered, in reply.--"So that is what thou art thinking
+about? But are not we men thy favourite children?"
+
+The woman knit her brows almost imperceptibly.--"All creatures are my
+children," she said, "and I look after all of them alike,--and I
+annihilate them in identically the same way."
+
+"But good ... reason ... justice...." I stammered again.
+
+"Those are the words of men," rang out the iron voice. "I know neither
+good nor evil.... Reason is no law to me--and what is justice?--I have
+given thee life,--I take it away and give it to others; whether worms or
+men ... it makes no difference to me.... But in the meantime, do thou
+defend thyself, and hinder me not!"
+
+I was about to answer ... but the earth round about me uttered a dull
+groan and trembled--and I awoke.
+
+August, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+"HANG HIM!"
+
+
+"It happened in the year 1803," began my old friend, "not long before
+Austerlitz. The regiment of which I was an officer was quartered in
+Moravia.
+
+"We were strictly forbidden to harry and oppress the inhabitants; and
+they looked askance on us as it was, although we were regarded as
+allies.
+
+"I had an orderly, a former serf of my mother's, Egor by name. He was an
+honest and peaceable fellow; I had known him from his childhood and
+treated him like a friend.
+
+"One day, in the house where I dwelt, abusive shrieks and howls arose:
+the housewife had been robbed of two hens, and she accused my orderly of
+the theft. He denied it, and called upon me to bear witness whether 'he,
+Egor Avtamonoff, would steal!' I assured the housewife of Egor's
+honesty, but she would listen to nothing.
+
+"Suddenly the energetic trampling of horses' hoofs resounded along the
+street: it was the Commander-in-Chief himself riding by with his staff.
+He was proceeding at a foot-pace,--a fat, pot-bellied man, with drooping
+head and epaulets dangling on his breast.
+
+"The housewife caught sight of him, and flinging herself across his
+horse's path, she fell on her knees and, all distraught, with head
+uncovered, began loudly to complain of my orderly, pointing to him with
+her hand:
+
+"'Sir General!' she shrieked. 'Your Radiance! Judge! Help! Save! This
+soldier has robbed me!'
+
+"Egor was standing on the threshold of the house, drawn up in military
+salute, with his cap in his hand,--and had even protruded his breast and
+turned out his feet, like a sentry,--and not a word did he utter!
+Whether he was daunted by all that mass of generals halting there in the
+middle of the street, or whether he was petrified in the presence of the
+calamity which had overtaken him,--at any rate, there stood my Egor
+blinking his eyes, and white as clay!
+
+"The Commander-in-Chief cast an abstracted and surly glance at him,
+bellowing wrathfully: 'Well, what hast thou to say?'.... Egor stood like
+a statue and showed his teeth! If looked at in profile, it was exactly
+as though the man were laughing.
+
+"Then the Commander-in-Chief said abruptly: 'Hang him!'--gave his horse
+a dig in the ribs and rode on, first at a foot-pace, as before, then at
+a brisk trot. The whole staff dashed after him; only one adjutant,
+turning round in his saddle, took a close look at Egor.
+
+"It was impossible to disobey.... Egor was instantly seized and led to
+execution.
+
+"Thereupon he turned deadly pale, and only exclaimed a couple of times,
+with difficulty, 'Good heavens! Good heavens!'--and then, in a low
+voice--'God sees it was not I!'
+
+"He wept bitterly, very bitterly, as he bade me farewell. I was in
+despair.--'Egor! Egor!' I cried, 'why didst thou say nothing to the
+general?'
+
+"'God sees it was not I,' repeated the poor fellow, sobbing.--The
+housewife herself was horrified. She had not in the least expected such
+a dreadful verdict, and fell to shrieking in her turn. She began to
+entreat each and all to spare him, she declared that her hens had been
+found, that she was prepared to explain everything herself....
+
+"Of course, this was of no use whatsoever. Military regulations, sir!
+Discipline!--The housewife sobbed more and more loudly.
+
+"Egor, whom the priest had already confessed and communicated, turned to
+me:
+
+"'Tell her, Your Well-Born, that she must not do herself an injury....
+For I have already forgiven her.'"
+
+As my friend repeated these last words of his servant, he whispered:
+"Egorushka[76] darling, just man!"--and the tears dripped down his aged
+cheeks.
+
+August, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT SHALL I THINK?...
+
+
+What shall I think when I come to die,--if I am then in a condition to
+think?
+
+Shall I think what a bad use I have made of my life, how I have dozed
+it through, how I have not known how to relish its gifts?
+
+"What? Is this death already? So soon? Impossible! Why, I have not
+succeeded in accomplishing anything yet.... I have only been preparing
+to act!"
+
+Shall I recall the past, pause over the thought of the few bright
+moments I have lived through, over beloved images and faces?
+
+Will my evil deeds present themselves before my memory, and will the
+corrosive grief of a belated repentance descend upon my soul?
+
+Shall I think of what awaits me beyond the grave ... yes, and whether
+anything at all awaits me there?
+
+No ... it seems to me that I shall try not to think, and shall compel my
+mind to busy itself with some nonsense or other, if only to divert my
+own attention from the menacing darkness which looms up black ahead.
+
+In my presence one dying person kept complaining that they would not
+give him red-hot nuts to gnaw ... and only in the depths of his dimming
+eyes was there throbbing and palpitating something, like the wing of a
+bird wounded unto death....
+
+August, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+"HOW FAIR, HOW FRESH WERE THE ROSES"
+
+
+Somewhere, some time, long, long ago, I read a poem. I speedily forgot
+it ... but its first line lingered in my memory:
+
+"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."
+
+It is winter now; the window-panes are coated with ice; in the warm
+chamber a single candle is burning. I am sitting curled up in one
+corner; and in my brain there rings and rings:
+
+"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."
+
+And I behold myself in front of the low window of a Russian house in the
+suburbs. The summer evening is melting and merging into night, there is
+a scent of mignonette and linden-blossoms abroad in the warm air;--and
+in the window, propped on a stiffened arm, and with her head bent on her
+shoulder, sits a young girl, gazing mutely and intently at the sky, as
+though watching for the appearance of the first stars. How ingenuously
+inspired are the thoughtful eyes; how touchingly innocent are the
+parted, questioning lips; how evenly breathes her bosom, not yet fully
+developed and still unagitated by anything; how pure and tender are the
+lines of the young face! I do not dare to address her, but how dear she
+is to me, how violently my heart beats!
+
+"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."
+
+And in the room everything grows darker and darker.... The candle which
+has burned low begins to flicker; white shadows waver across the low
+ceiling; the frost creaks and snarls beyond the wall--and I seem to hear
+a tedious, senile whisper:
+
+"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."
+
+Other images rise up before me.... I hear the merry murmur of family, of
+country life. Two red-gold little heads, leaning against each other,
+gaze bravely at me with their bright eyes; the red cheeks quiver with
+suppressed laughter; their hands are affectionately intertwined; their
+young, kind voices ring out, vying with each other; and a little further
+away, in the depths of a snug room, other hands, also young, are flying
+about, with fingers entangled, over the keys of a poor little old piano,
+and the Lanner waltz cannot drown the grumbling of the patriarchal
+samovar....
+
+"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."
+
+The candle flares up and dies out.... Who is that coughing yonder so
+hoarsely and dully? Curled up in a ring, my aged dog, my sole companion,
+is nestling and quivering at my feet.... I feel cold.... I am shivering
+... and they are all dead ... all dead....
+
+"How fair, how fresh were the roses."
+
+Septembers 1879.
+
+
+
+
+A SEA VOYAGE
+
+
+I sailed from Hamburg to London on a small steamer. There were two of us
+passengers: I and a tiny monkey, a female of the ouistiti breed, which a
+Hamburg merchant was sending as a gift to his English partner.
+
+She was attached by a slender chain to one of the benches on the deck,
+and threw herself about and squeaked plaintively, like a bird.
+
+Every time I walked past she stretched out to me her black, cold little
+hand, and gazed at me with her mournful, almost human little eyes.--I
+took her hand, and she ceased to squeak and fling herself about.
+
+There was a dead calm. The sea spread out around us in a motionless
+mirror of leaden hue. It seemed small; a dense fog lay over it,
+shrouding even the tips of the masts, and blinding and wearying the eyes
+with its soft gloom. The sun hung like a dim red spot in this gloom; but
+just before evening it became all aflame and glowed mysteriously and
+strangely scarlet.
+
+Long, straight folds, like the folds of heavy silken fabrics, flowed
+away from the bow of the steamer, one after another, growing ever wider,
+wrinkling and broadening, becoming smoother at last, swaying and
+vanishing. The churned foam swirled under the monotonous beat of the
+paddle-wheels; gleaming white like milk, and hissing faintly, it was
+broken up into serpent-like ripples, and then flowed together at a
+distance, and vanished likewise, swallowed up in the gloom.
+
+A small bell at the stern jingled as incessantly and plaintively as the
+squeaking cry of the monkey.
+
+Now and then a seal came to the surface, and turning an abrupt
+somersault, darted off beneath the barely-disturbed surface.
+
+And the captain, a taciturn man with a surly, sunburned face, smoked a
+short pipe and spat angrily into the sea, congealed in impassivity.
+
+To all my questions he replied with an abrupt growl. I was compelled,
+willy-nilly, to have recourse to my solitary fellow-traveller--the
+monkey.
+
+I sat down beside her; she ceased to whine, and again stretched out her
+hand to me.
+
+The motionless fog enveloped us both with a soporific humidity; and
+equally immersed in one unconscious thought, we remained there side by
+side, like blood-relatives.
+
+I smile now ... but then another feeling reigned in me.
+
+We are all children of one mother--and it pleased me that the poor
+little beastie should quiet down so confidingly and nestle up to me, as
+though to a relative.
+
+November, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+N. N.
+
+
+Gracefully and quietly dost thou walk along the path of life, without
+tears and without smiles, barely animated by an indifferent attention.
+
+Thou art kind and clever ... and everything is alien to thee--and no one
+is necessary to thee.
+
+Thou art very beautiful--and no one can tell whether thou prizest thy
+beauty or not.--Thou art devoid of sympathy thyself and demandest no
+sympathy.
+
+Thy gaze is profound, and not thoughtful; emptiness lies in that bright
+depth.
+
+Thus do the stately shades pass by without grief and without joy in the
+Elysian Fields, to the dignified sounds of Gluck's melodies.
+
+November, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+STAY!
+
+
+Stay! As I now behold thee remain thou evermore in my memory!
+
+From thy lips the last inspired sound hath burst forth--thine eyes do
+not gleam and flash, they are dusky, weighted with happiness, with the
+blissful consciousness of that beauty to which thou hast succeeded in
+giving expression,--of that beauty in quest of which thou stretchest
+forth, as it were, thy triumphant, thine exhausted hands!
+
+What light, more delicate and pure than the sunlight, hath been diffused
+over all thy limbs, over the tiniest folds of thy garments?
+
+What god, with his caressing inflatus, hath tossed back thy dishevelled
+curls?
+
+His kiss burneth on thy brow, grown pale as marble!
+
+Here it is--the open secret, the secret of poetry, of life, of love!
+Here it is, here it is--immortality! There is no other immortality--and
+no other is needed.--At this moment thou art deathless.
+
+I will pass,--and again thou art a pinch of dust, a woman, a child....
+But what is that to thee!--At this moment thou hast become loftier than
+all transitory, temporal things, thou hast stepped out of their
+sphere.--This _thy_ moment will never end.
+
+Stay! And let me be the sharer of thy immortality, drop into my soul the
+reflection of thine eternity!
+
+November, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+THE MONK
+
+
+I used to know a monk, a hermit, a saint. He lived on the sweetness of
+prayer alone,--and as he quaffed it, he knelt so long on the cold floor
+of the church that his legs below the knee swelled and became like
+posts. He had no sensation in them, he knelt--and prayed.
+
+I understood him--and, perhaps, I envied him; but let him also
+understand me and not condemn me--me, to whom his joys are inaccessible.
+
+He strove to annihilate himself, his hated _ego_; but the fact that I do
+not pray does not arise from self-conceit.
+
+My ego is, perchance, even more burdensome and repulsive to me than his
+is to him.
+
+He found a means of forgetting himself ... and I find a means to do the
+same, but not so constantly.
+
+He does not lie ... and neither do I lie.
+
+November, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+WE SHALL STILL FIGHT ON!
+
+
+What an insignificant trifle can sometimes put the whole man back in
+tune!
+
+Full of thought, I was walking one day along the highway.
+
+Heavy forebodings oppressed my breast; melancholy seized hold upon me.
+
+I raised my head.... Before me, between two rows of lofty poplars, the
+road stretched out into the distance.
+
+Across it, across that same road, a whole little family of sparrows was
+hopping, hopping boldly, amusingly, confidently!
+
+One of them in particular fairly set his wings akimbo, thrusting out his
+crop, and twittering audaciously, as though the very devil was no match
+for him! A conqueror--and that is all there is to be said.
+
+But in the meantime, high up in the sky, was soaring a hawk who,
+possibly, was fated to devour precisely that same conqueror.
+
+I looked, laughed, shook myself--and the melancholy thoughts instantly
+fled. I felt daring, courage, a desire for life.
+
+And let _my_ hawk soar over _me_ if he will....
+
+"We will still fight on, devil take it!"
+
+November, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+PRAYER
+
+
+No matter what a man may pray for he is praying for a miracle.--Every
+prayer amounts to the following: "Great God, cause that two and two may
+not make four."
+
+Only such a prayer is a genuine prayer from a person to a person. To
+pray to the Universal Spirit, to the Supreme Being of Kant, of Hegel--to
+a purified, amorphous God, is impossible and unthinkable.
+
+But can even a personal, living God with a form cause that two and two
+shall not make four?
+
+Every believer is bound to reply, "He can," and is bound to convince
+himself of this.
+
+But what if his reason revolts against such an absurdity?
+
+In that case Shakspeare will come to his assistance: "There are many
+things in the world, friend Horatio...." and so forth.
+
+And if people retort in the name of truth,--all he has to do is to
+repeat the famous question: "What is truth?"
+
+And therefore, let us drink and be merry--and pray.
+
+July, 1881.
+
+
+
+
+THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
+
+
+In days of doubt, in days of painful meditations concerning the
+destinies of my fatherland, thou alone art my prop and my support, O
+great, mighty, just and free Russian language!--Were it not for thee,
+how could one fail to fall into despair at the sight of all that goes on
+at home?--But it is impossible to believe that such a language was not
+bestowed upon a great people!
+
+June, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENDNOTES:
+
+
+[1] See endnote to "Old Portraits," in this volume.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[2] The Vigil-service (consisting of Vespers and Matins, or Compline and
+Matins) may be celebrated in unconsecrated buildings, and the devout not
+infrequently have it, as well as prayer-services, at home.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[3] Meaning the odour of the oil which must be used in preparing food,
+instead of butter, during the numerous fasts.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[4] The custom of thus dressing up as bears, clowns, and so forth, and
+visiting all the houses in the neighbourhood, is still kept up in rustic
+localities. St. Vasily's (Basil's) day falls on January 1.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[5] An arshin is twenty-eight inches.--TRANSLATOR
+
+[6] A park for popular resort in the suburbs of Moscow.--TRANSLATOR
+
+[7] Incorrectly written for Poltava.--TRANSLATOR
+
+[8] The fatter the coachman, the more stylish he is. If he is not fat
+naturally, he adds cushions under his coat.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[9] That is, to the Trinity monastery of the first class founded by St.
+Sergius in 1340. It is situated about forty miles from Moscow, and is
+the most famous monastery in the country next to the Catacombs Monastery
+at Kieff.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[10] Pronounced _Aryol_.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[11] Such a sledge, drawn by the national team of three horses, will
+hold five or six persons closely packed.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[12] The word he used, _mytarstvo_, has a peculiar meaning. It refers
+specifically to the experiences of the soul when it leaves the body.
+According to the teaching of divers ancient fathers of the church, the
+soul, as soon as it leaves the body, is confronted by accusing demons,
+who arraign it with all the sins, great and small, which it has
+committed during its earthly career. If its good deeds, alms, prayers,
+and so forth (added to the grace of God), offset the evil, the demons
+are forced to renounce their claims. These demons assault the soul in
+relays, each "trial," "suffering," or "tribulation" being a _mytarstvo_.
+One ancient authority enumerates twenty such trials. The soul is
+accompanied and defended in its trials by angels, who plead its cause.
+Eventually, they conduct it into the presence of God, who then assigns
+to it a temporary abode of bliss or woe until the day of judgment. The
+derivation of this curious and utterly untranslatable word is as
+follows: _Mytar_ means a publican or tax-gatherer. As the publicans,
+under the Roman sway over the Jews, indulged in various sorts of
+violence, abuses, and inhuman conduct, calling every one to strict
+account, and even stationing themselves at the city gates to intercept
+all who came and went, _mytarstvo_ represents, in general, the taxing or
+testing of the soul, which must pay a ransom before it is released from
+its trials and preliminary tribulations.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[13] A folk-tale narrates how the Tzar Arkhidei obtained his beauteous
+bride by the aid of seven brothers called "The Seven Semyons," who were
+his peasants. The bride was distant a ten years' journey; but each of
+the brothers had a different "trade," by the combined means of which
+they were enabled to overcome time and space and get the bride for their
+master.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[14] The word used in Russian indicates not only that he was a
+hereditary noble, but that his nobility was ancient--a matter of some
+moment in a country where nobility, both personal and hereditary, can be
+won in the service of the state.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[15] The change to _thou_ is made to express disrespect.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[16] A simple card-game.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[17] The word used is _popadya_, the feminine form of _pop(e)_, or
+priest. _Svyashtchennik_ is, however, more commonly used for priest.
+--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[18] June 29 (O. S.), July 12 (N. S.).--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[19] In former days the sons of priests generally became priests. It is
+still so, in a measure.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[20] Therefore, there would be no one to maintain his widow and
+daughters, unless some young man could be found to marry one of the
+daughters, be ordained, take the parish, and assume the support of the
+family.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[21] Parish priests (the White Clergy) must marry before they are
+ordained sub-deacon, and are not allowed to remarry in the Holy Catholic
+Church of the East.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[22] A sourish, non-intoxicating beverage, prepared by putting water on
+rye meal or the crusts of sour black rye bread and allowing it to
+ferment.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[23] One of the ancient religious ballads sung by the "wandering
+cripples." Joseph (son of Jacob) is called by this appellation, and also
+a "tzarevitch," or king's son. For a brief account of these ballads see:
+"The Epic Songs of Russia" (Introduction), and Chapter I in "A Survey of
+Russian Literature" (I. F. Hapgood). This particular ballad is mentioned
+on page 22 of the last-named book.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+(N.B. This note is placed here because there is no other book in English
+where any information whatever can be had concerning these ballads or
+this ballad.--I.F.H.)
+
+[24] Ecclesiastics are regarded as plebeians by the gentry or nobles in
+Russia.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[25] In the Catholic Church of the East the communion is received
+fasting. A little to one side of the priest stands a cleric holding a
+platter of blessed bread, cut in small bits, and a porringer of warm
+water and wine, which (besides their symbolical significance) are taken
+by each communicant after the Holy Elements, in order that there may be
+something interposed between the sacrament and ordinary
+food.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[26] That is, the particle of bread dipped in the wine, which is
+placed in the mouth by the priest with the sacramental spoon.
+--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[27] Turgenieff labelled this story and "A Reckless Character,"
+"Fragments from My Own Memoirs and Those of Other People." In a
+foot-note he begs the reader not to mistake the "I" for the author's own
+personality, as it was adopted merely for convenience of
+narration.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[28] The Russian expression is: "A black cat had run between
+them."--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[29] In Russia a partial second story, over the centre, or the centre
+and ends of the main story, is called thus.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[30] In Russian houses the "hall" is a combined ball-room, music-room,
+play-room, and exercising-ground; not the entrance hall.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[31] We should call such a watch a "turnip."--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[32] The author is slightly sarcastic in the name he has chosen for this
+family, which is derived from _telyega_, a peasant-cart.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[33] St. Petersburg.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[34] Both these are bad omens, according to superstitious
+Russians.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[35] Priests and monks in Russia wear their hair and beards long to
+resemble the pictures of Christ. Missionaries in foreign lands are
+permitted to conform to the custom of the country and cut it
+short.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[36] "Had been educated on copper coins" is the Russian expression. That
+is, had received a cheap education.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[37] The nickname generally applied by the Little Russians to the Great
+Russians.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[38] The racing-drozhky is frequently used in the country. It consists
+of a plank, without springs, mounted on four small wheels of equal size.
+The driver sits flat on the plank, which may or may not be
+upholstered.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[39] The baptismal cross.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[40] The bath-besom is made of birch-twigs with the leaves attached, and
+is soaked in hot water (or in beer) to keep it soft. The massage
+administered with the besom is delightful. The peasants often use besoms
+of nettles, as a luxury. The shredded linden bark is used as a
+sponge.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[41] The great manoeuvre plain, near which the Moscow garrison is
+lodged, in the vicinity of Petrovsky Park and Palace. Here the disaster
+took place during the coronation festivities of the present
+Emperor.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[42] It is very rarely that a bishop performs the marriage ceremony. All
+bishops are monks; and monks are not supposed to perform ceremonies
+connected with the things which they have renounced. The exceptions are
+when monks are appointed parish priests (as in some of the American
+parishes, for instance), and, therefore, must fulfil the obligations of
+a married parish priest; or when the chaplain-monk on war-ships is
+called upon, at times, to minister to scattered Orthodox, in a port
+which has no settled priest.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[43] The Order of St. George, with its black and orange ribbon, must be
+won by great personal bravery--like the Victoria Cross.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[44] Head of the Secret Service under Alexander I.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[45] That is, living too long.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[46] _Sukhoy_, dry; _Sukhikh_, genitive plural (proper names are
+declinable), meaning, "one of the Sukhoys."--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[47] The third from the top in the Table of Ranks instituted by Peter
+the Great.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[48] Corresponding, in a measure, to an American State.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[49] The Great Russians' scornful nickname for a Little
+Russian.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[50] Each coachman has his own pair or troika of horses to attend to,
+and has nothing to do with any other horses which may be in the
+stable.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[51] Yakoff (James) Daniel Bruce, a Russian engineer, of Scottish
+extraction, born in Moscow, 1670, became Grand Master of the Artillery
+in 1711, and died in 1735.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[52] The great cathedral in commemoration of the Russian triumph in
+the war of 1812, which was begun in 1837, and completed in 1883.
+--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[53] _Nyemetz_, "the dumb one," meaning any one unable to speak Russian
+(hence, any foreigner), is the specific word for a German.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[54] Short for Nizhni Novgorod.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[55] The famous letter from the heroine, Tatyana, to the hero, Evgeny
+Onyegin, in Pushkin's celebrated poem. The music to the opera of the
+same name, which has this poem for its basis, is by Tchaikovsky.
+--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[56] Advertisements of theatres, concerts, and amusements in general,
+are not published in the daily papers, but in an _affiche_, printed
+every morning, for which a separate subscription is necessary.
+--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[57] M. E. Saltikoff wrote his famous satires under the name of
+Shtchedrin.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[58] The Little Russians (among other peculiarities of pronunciation
+attached to their dialect) use the guttural instead of the clear
+_i_.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[59] A bishop or priest in the Russian Church is not supposed to speak
+loudly, no matter how fine a voice he may possess. The deacon, on the
+contrary, or the proto-deacon (attached to a cathedral) is supposed to
+have a huge voice, and, especially at certain points, to roar at the top
+of his lungs. He sometimes cracks his voice--which is what the
+sympathetic neighbour was hinting at here.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[60] An image, or holy picture, is _obraz_; the adjective "cultured" is
+derived from the same word in its sense of pattern, model--_obrazovanny_.
+--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[61] Ostrovsky's comedies of life in the merchant class are irresistibly
+amusing, talented, and true to nature.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[62] Turgenieff probably means Grusha (another form for the diminutive
+of Agrippina, in Russian Agrafenya). The play is "Live as You
+Can."--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[63] A full gown gathered into a narrow band just under the armpits and
+suspended over the shoulders by straps of the same.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[64] The eighth from the top in the Table of Ranks won by service to the
+state, which Peter the Great instituted. A sufficiently high grade in
+that table confers hereditary nobility; the lower grades carry only
+personal nobility.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[65] The long Tatar coat, with large sleeves, and flaring, bias
+skirts.---TRANSLATOR.
+
+[66] See note on page 24.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[67] Diminutives of Yakoff, implying great affection.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[68] Mikhail Stasiulevitch.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[69] The favourite decoration in rustic architecture.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[70] These lines do not rhyme in the original.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[71] "The white-handed man" would be the literal
+translation.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[72] The pretty name for what we call mullein.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[73] That is, made without meat.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[74] The ideal bearing in church is described as standing "like a
+candle"; that is, very straight and motionless.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[75] Strips of grass left as boundaries between the tilled fields
+allotted to different peasants.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+[76] The affectionate diminutive.--TRANSLATOR.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Reckless Character, by Ivan Turgenev
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