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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Eve
+by Ivan Turgenev
+Translated by Constance Garnett
+#4 in our series by Ivan Turgenev
+Translated by Constance Garnett
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+Title: On the Eve
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+Translated by Constance Garnett
+
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6902]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on February 10, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE EVE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ON THE EVE
+
+a Novel
+
+BY
+
+IVAN TURGENEV
+
+Translated from the Russian By CONSTANCE GARNETT
+
+[With an introduction by EDWARD GARNETT]
+
+LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1895
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+This exquisite novel, first published in 1859, like so many great
+works of art, holds depths of meaning which at first sight lie veiled
+under the simplicity and harmony of the technique. To the English
+reader _On the Eve_ is a charmingly drawn picture of a quiet Russian
+household, with a delicate analysis of a young girl's soul; but to
+Russians it is also a deep and penetrating diagnosis of the destinies
+of the Russia of the fifties.
+
+Elena, the Russian girl, is the central figure of the novel. In
+comparing her with Turgenev's other women, the reader will remark that
+he is allowed to come into closer spiritual contact with her than even
+with Lisa. The successful portraits of women drawn by men in fiction
+are generally figures for the imagination to play on; however much
+that is told to one about them, the secret springs of their character
+are left a little obscure, but when Elena stands before us we know all
+the innermost secrets of her character. Her strength of will, her
+serious, courageous, proud soul, her capacity for passion, all the
+play of her delicate idealistic nature troubled by the contradictions,
+aspirations, and unhappiness that the dawn of love brings to her, all
+this is conveyed to us by the simplest and the most consummate art.
+The diary (chapter xvi.) that Elena keeps is in itself a masterly
+revelation of a young girl's heart; it has never been equalled by any
+other novelist. How exquisitely Turgenev reveals his characters may be
+seen by an examination of the parts Shubin the artist, and Bersenyev
+the student, play towards Elena. Both young men are in love with her,
+and the description of their after relations as friends, and the
+feelings of Elena towards them, and her own self-communings are
+interwoven with unfaltering skill. All the most complex and baffling
+shades of the mental life, which in the hands of many latter-day
+novelists build up characters far too thin and too unconvincing, in
+the hands of Turgenev are used with deftness and certainty to bring to
+light that great kingdom which is always lying hidden beneath the
+surface, beneath the common-place of daily life. In the difficult art
+of literary perspective, in the effective grouping of contrasts in
+character and the criss-cross of the influence of the different
+individuals, lies the secret of Turgenev's supremacy. As an example
+the reader may note how he is made to judge Elena through six pairs of
+eyes. Her father's contempt for his daughter, her mother's
+affectionate bewilderment, Shubin's petulant criticism, Bersenyev's
+half hearted enthralment, Insarov's recognition, and Zoya's
+indifference, being the facets for converging light on Elena's
+sincerity and depth of soul. Again one may note Turgenev's method for
+rehabilitating Shubin in our eyes; Shubin is simply made to criticise
+Stahov; the thing is done in a few seemingly careless lines, but these
+lines lay bare Shubin's strength and weakness, the fluidity of his
+nature. The reader who does not see the art which underlies almost
+every line of _On the Eve_ is merely paying the highest tribute to that
+art; as often the clear waters of a pool conceal its surprising depth.
+Taking Shubin's character as an example of creative skill, we cannot
+call to mind any instance in the range of European fiction where the
+typical artist mind, on its lighter sides, has been analysed with such
+delicacy and truth as here by Turgenev. Hawthorne and others have
+treated it, but the colour seems to fade from their artist characters
+when a comparison is made between them and Shubin. And yet Turgenev's
+is but a sketch of an artist, compared with, let us say, the admirable
+figure of Roderick Hudson. The irresponsibility, alertness, the
+whimsicality and mobility of Shubin combine to charm and irritate the
+reader in the exact proportion that such a character affects him in
+actual life; there is not the least touch of exaggeration, and all the
+values are kept to a marvel. Looking at the minor characters, perhaps
+one may say that the husband, Stahov, will be the most suggestive, and
+not the least familiar character, to English households. His
+essentially masculine meanness, his self-complacency, his unconscious
+indifference to the opinion of others, his absurdity as '_un pere de
+famille_' is balanced by the foolish affection and jealousy which his
+wife, Anna Vassilyevna, cannot help feeling towards him. The perfect
+balance and duality of Turgenev's outlook is here shown by the equal
+cleverness with which he seizes on and quietly derides the typical
+masculine and typical feminine attitude in such a married life as the
+two Stahovs'.
+
+Turning to the figure of the Bulgarian hero, it is interesting to find
+from the _Souvenirs sur Tourguenev_ (published in 1887) that Turgenev's
+only distinct failure of importance in character drawing, Insarov, was
+not taken from life, but was the legacy of a friend Karateieff, who
+implored Turgenev to work out an unfinished conception. Insarov is a
+figure of wood. He is so cleverly constructed, and the central idea
+behind him is so strong, that his wooden joints move naturally, and
+the spectator has only the instinct, not the certainty, of being
+cheated. The idea he incarnates, that of a man whose soul is aflame
+with patriotism, is finely suggested, but an idea, even a great one,
+does not make an individuality. And in fact Insarov is not a man, he
+is an automaton. To compare Shubin's utterances with his is to
+perceive that there is no spontaneity, no inevitability in Insarov. He
+is a patriotic clock wound up to go for the occasion, and in truth he
+is very useful. Only on his deathbed, when the unexpected happens, and
+the machinery runs down, do we feel moved. Then, he appears more
+striking dead than alive--a rather damning testimony to the power
+Turgenev credits him with. This artistic failure of Turgenev's is, as
+he no doubt recognised, curiously lessened by the fact that young
+girls of Elena's lofty idealistic type are particularly impressed by
+certain stiff types of men of action and great will-power, whose
+capacity for moving straight towards a certain goal by no means
+implies corresponding brain-power. The insight of a Shubin and the
+moral worth of a Bersenyev are not so valuable to the Elenas of this
+world, whose ardent desire to be made good use of, and to seek some
+great end, is best developed by strength of aim in the men they love.
+
+And now to see what the novel before us means to the Russian mind, we
+must turn to the infinitely suggestive background. Turgenev's genius
+was of the same force in politics as in art; it was that of seeing
+aright. He saw his country as it was, with clearer eyes than any man
+before or since. If Tolstoi is a purer native expression of Russia's
+force, Turgenev is the personification of Russian aspiration working
+with the instruments of wide cosmopolitan culture. As a critic of his
+countrymen nothing escaped Turgenev's eye, as a politician he foretold
+nearly all that actually came to pass in his life, and as a consummate
+artist, led first and foremost by his love for his art, his novels are
+undying historical pictures. It is not that there is anything
+allegorical in his novels--allegory is at the furthest pole from his
+method: it is that whenever he created an important figure in fiction,
+that figure is necessarily a revelation of the secrets of the
+fatherland, the soil, the race. Turgenev, in short, was a psychologist
+not merely of men, but of nations; and so the chief figure of _On the
+Eve_, Elena, foreshadows and stands for the rise of young Russia in the
+sixties. Elena is young Russia, and to whom does she turn in her
+prayer for strength? Not to Bersenyev, the philosopher, the dreamer;
+not to Shubin, the man carried outside himself by every passing
+distraction; but to the strong man, Insarov. And here the irony of
+Insarov being made a foreigner, a Bulgarian, is significant of
+Turgenev's distrust of his country's weakness. The hidden meaning of
+the novel is a cry to the coming men to unite their strength against
+the foe without and the foe within the gates; it is an appeal to them
+not only to hasten the death of the old regime of Nicolas I, but an
+appeal to them to conquer their sluggishness, their weakness, and
+their apathy. It is a cry for Men. Turgenev sought in vain in life
+for a type of man to satisfy Russia, and ended by taking no living
+model for his hero, but the hearsay Insarov, a foreigner. Russia has
+not yet produced men of this type. But the artist does not despair of
+the future. Here we come upon one of the most striking figures of
+Turgenev--that of Uvar Ivanovitch. He symbolises the ever-predominant
+type of Russian, the sleepy, slothful Slav of to-day, yesterday, and
+to-morrow. He is the Slav whose inherent force Europe is as ignorant
+of as he is himself. Though he speaks only twenty sentences in the
+book he is a creation of Tolstoian force. His very words are dark and
+of practically no significance. There lies the irony of the portrait.
+The last words of the novel, the most biting surely that Turgenev ever
+wrote, contain the whole essence of _On the Eve_. On the Eve of What?
+one asks. Time has given contradictory answers to the men of all
+parties. The Elenas of to-day need not turn their eyes abroad to find
+their counterpart in spirit; so far at least the pessimists are
+refuted: but the note of death that Turgenev strikes in his marvellous
+chapter on Venice has still for young Russia an ominous echo--so many
+generations have arisen eager, only to be flung aside helpless, that
+one asks, what of the generation that fronts Autocracy to-day?
+
+'Do you remember I asked you, "Will there ever be men among us?" and
+you answered, there will be. O primaeval force! And now from here in
+"my poetic distance" I will ask you again, "What do you say, Uvar
+Ivanovitch, will there be?"
+
+'Uvar Ivanovitch flourished his fingers, and fixed his enigmatical
+stare into the far distance.'
+
+This creation of an universal national type, out of the flesh and
+blood of a fat taciturn country gentleman, brings us to see that
+Turgenev was not merely an artist, but that he was a poet using
+fiction as his medium. To this end it is instructive to compare Jane
+Austen, perhaps the greatest English exponent of the domestic novel,
+with the Russian master, and to note that, while as a novelist she
+emerges favourably from the comparison, she is absolutely wanting in
+his poetic insight. How petty and parochial appears her outlook in
+_Emma_, compared to the wide and unflinching gaze of Turgenev. She
+painted most admirably the English types she knew, and how well she
+knew them! but she failed to correlate them with the national life;
+and yet, while her men and women were acting and thinking, Trafalgar
+and Waterloo were being fought and won. But each of Turgenev's novels
+in some subtle way suggests that the people he introduces are playing
+their little part in a great national drama everywhere around us,
+invisible, yet audible through the clamour of voices near us. And so
+_On the Eve_, the work of a poet, has certain deep notes, which break
+through the harmonious tenor of the whole, and strangely and swiftly
+transfigure the quiet story, troubling us with a dawning consciousness
+of the march of mighty events. Suddenly a strange sense steals upon
+the reader that he is living in a perilous atmosphere, filling his
+heart with foreboding, and enveloping at length the characters
+themselves, all unconsciously awaiting disaster in the sunny woods and
+gardens of Kuntsovo. But not till the last chapters are reached does
+the English reader perceive that in recreating for him the mental
+atmosphere of a single educated Russian household, Turgenev has been
+casting before his eyes the faint shadow of the national drama which
+was indeed played, though left unfinished, on the Balkan battlefields
+of 1876-7. Briefly, Turgenev, in sketching the dawn of love in a young
+girl's soul, has managed faintly, but unmistakably, to make spring and
+flourish in our minds the ineradicable, though hidden, idea at the
+back of Slav thought--the unification of the Slav races. How doubly
+welcome that art should be which can lead us, the foreigners, thus
+straight to the heart of the national secrets of a great people,
+secrets which our own critics and diplomatists must necessarily
+misrepresent. Each of Turgenev's novels may be said to contain a
+light-bringing rejoinder to the old-fashioned criticism of the
+Muscovite, current up to the rise of the Russian novel, and still,
+unfortunately, lingering among us; but _On the Eve_, of all the novels,
+contains perhaps the most instructive political lesson England can
+learn. Europe has always had, and most assuredly England has been
+over-rich in those alarm-monger critics, watchdogs for ever baying at
+Slav cupidity, treachery, intrigue, and so on and so on. It is useful
+to have these well-meaning animals on the political premises, giving
+noisy tongue whenever the Slav stretches out his long arm and opens
+his drowsy eyes, but how rare it is to find a man who can teach us to
+interpret a nation's aspirations, to gauge its inner force, its aim,
+its inevitability. Turgenev gives us such clues. In the respectful, if
+slightly forced, silence that has been imposed by certain recent
+political events on the tribe of faithful watchdogs, it may be
+permitted to one to say, that whatever England's interest may be in
+relation to Russia's development, it is better for us to understand
+the force of Russian aims, before we measure our strength against it
+And a novel, such as On the Eve, though now nearly forty years old,
+and to the short-sighted out of date, reveals in a flash the attitude
+of the Slav towards his political destiny. His aspirations may have to
+slumber through policy or necessity; they may be distorted or
+misrepresented, or led astray by official action, but we confess that
+for us, _On the Eve_ suggests the existence of a mighty lake, whose
+waters, dammed back for a while, are rising slowly, but are still some
+way from the brim. How long will it take to the overflow? Nobody
+knows; but when the long winter of Russia's dark internal policy shall
+be broken up, will the snows, melting on the mountains, stream
+south-west, inundating the Valley of the Danube? Or, as the national
+poet, Pushkin, has sung, will there be a pouring of many Slavonian
+rivulets into the Russian sea, a powerful attraction of the Slav races
+towards a common centre to create an era of peace and development
+within, whereby Russia may rise free and rejoicing to face her great
+destinies? Hard and bitter is the shaping of nations. Uvar Ivanovitch
+still fixes his enigmatical stare into the far distance.
+
+EDWARD GARNETT
+
+January 1895.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NAMES OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK
+
+NIKOLA'I [Nicolas] ARTE'MYEVITCH STA'HOV.
+
+A'NNA VASSI'LYEVNA.
+
+ELE'NA [LE'NOTCHKA, Helene] NIKOLA'EVNA.
+
+ZO'YA [Zoe] NIKI'TISHNA MU'LLER.
+
+ANDRE'I PETRO'VITCH BERSE'NYEV.
+
+PA'VEL [Paul] YA'KOVLITCH (or YA'KOVITCH) SHU'BIN.
+
+DMI'TRI NIKANO'ROVITCH (or NIKANO'RITCH) INSA'ROV.
+
+YEGO'R ANDRE'ITCH KURNATO'VSKY.
+
+UVA'R IVA'NOVITCH STA'HOV.
+
+AUGUSTI'NA CHRISTIA'NOVNA.
+
+A'NNUSHKA.
+
+
+In transcribing the Russian names into English--
+
+a has the sound of a in father.
+e , , .............a in pane.
+i , , .............ee.
+u , ,............. oo.
+y is always consonantal except when it is
+ the last letter of the word.
+g is always hard.
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+On one of the hottest days of the summer of 1853, in the shade of a
+tall lime-tree on the bank of the river Moskva, not far from Kuntsovo,
+two young men were lying on the grass. One, who looked about
+twenty-three, tall and swarthy, with a sharp and rather crooked nose,
+a high forehead, and a restrained smile on his wide mouth, was lying
+on his back and gazing meditatively into the distance, his small grey
+eyes half closed. The other was lying on his chest, his curly, fair
+head propped on his two hands; he, too, was looking away into the
+distance. He was three years older than his companion, but seemed
+much younger. His moustache was only just growing, and his chin was
+covered with a light curly down. There was something childishly
+pretty, something attractively delicate, in the small features of his
+fresh round face, in his soft brown eyes, lovely pouting lips, and
+little white hands. Everything about him was suggestive of the happy
+light-heartedness of perfect health and youth--the carelessness,
+conceit, self-indulgence, and charm of youth. He used his eyes, and
+smiled and leaned his head as boys do who know that people look at
+them admiringly. He wore a loose white coat, made like a blouse, a
+blue kerchief wrapped his slender throat, and a battered straw hat had
+been flung on the grass beside him.
+
+His companion seemed elderly in comparison with him; and no one would
+have supposed, from his angular figure, that he too was happy and
+enjoying himself. He lay in an awkward attitude; his large head--wide
+at the crown and narrower at the base--hung awkwardly on his long neck;
+awkwardness was expressed in the very pose of his hands, of his
+body, tightly clothed in a short black coat, and of his long legs with
+their knees raised, like the hind-legs of a grasshopper. For all that,
+it was impossible not to recognise that he was a man of good education;
+the whole of his clumsy person bore the stamp of good-breeding; and
+his face, plain and even a little ridiculous as it was, showed a
+kindly nature and a thoughtful habit. His name was Andrei Petrovitch
+Bersenyev; his companion, the fair-haired young man, was called Pavel
+Yakovlitch Shubin.
+
+'Why don't you lie on your face, like me?' began Shubin. 'It's ever so
+much nicer so; especially when you kick up your heels and clap them
+together--like this. You have the grass under your nose; when you're
+sick of staring at the landscape you can watch a fat beetle crawling
+on a blade of grass, or an ant fussing about. It's really much nicer.
+But you've taken up a pseudo-classical pose, for all the world like a
+ballet-dancer, when she reclines upon a rock of paste-board. You
+should remember you have a perfect right to take a rest now. It's no
+joking matter to come out third! Take your ease, sir; give up all
+exertion, and rest your weary limbs!'
+
+Shubin delivered this speech through his nose in a half-lazy,
+half-joking voice (spoilt children speak so to friends of the house
+who bring them sweetmeats), and without waiting for an answer he went
+on:
+
+'What strikes me most forcibly in the ants and beetles and other
+worthy insects is their astounding seriousness. They run to and fro
+with such a solemn air, as though their life were something of such
+importance! A man the lord of creation, the highest being, stares at
+them, if you please, and they pay no attention to him. Why, a gnat
+will even settle on the lord of creation's nose, and make use of him
+for food. It's most offensive. And, on the other hand, how is their
+life inferior to ours? And why shouldn't they take themselves
+seriously, if we are to be allowed to take ourselves seriously? There
+now, philosopher, solve that problem for me! Why don't you speak? Eh?'
+
+'What?' said Bersenyev, starting.
+
+'What!' repeated Shubin. 'Your friend lays his deepest thoughts
+before you, and you don't listen to him.'
+
+'I was admiring the view. Look how hot and bright those fields are in
+the sun.' Bersenyev spoke with a slight lisp.
+
+'There's some fine colour laid on there,' observed Shubin. 'Nature's
+a good hand at it, that's the fact!'
+
+Bersenyev shook his head.
+
+'You ought to be even more ecstatic over it than I. It's in your
+line: you're an artist.'
+
+'No; it's not in my line,' rejoined Shubin, putting his hat on the
+back of his head. 'Flesh is my line; my work's with flesh--modelling
+flesh, shoulders, legs, and arms, and here there's no form, no finish;
+it's all over the place. . . . Catch it if you can.'
+
+'But there is beauty here, too,' remarked Bersenyev.--'By the way,
+have you finished your bas-relief?'
+
+'Which one?'
+
+'The boy with the goat.'
+
+'Hang it! Hang it! Hang it!' cried Shubin, drawling--'I looked at
+the genuine old things, the antiques, and I smashed my rubbish to
+pieces. You point to nature, and say "there's beauty here, too." Of
+course, there's beauty in everything, even in your nose there's
+beauty; but you can't try after all kinds of beauty. The ancients,
+they didn't try after it; beauty came down of itself upon their
+creations from somewhere or other--from heaven, I suppose. The whole
+world belonged to them; it's not for us to be so large in our reach;
+our arms are short. We drop our hook into one little pool, and keep
+watch over it. If we get a bite, so much the better, if not----'
+
+Shubin put out his tongue.
+
+'Stop, stop,' said Bensenyev, 'that's a paradox. If you have no
+sympathy for beauty, if you do not love beauty wherever you meet it,
+it will not come to you even in your art. If a beautiful view, if
+beautiful music does not touch your heart; I mean, if you are not
+sympathetic----'
+
+'Ah, you are a confirmed sympathetic!' broke in Shubin, laughing at
+the new title he had coined, while Bersenyev sank into thought.
+
+'No, my dear fellow,' Shubin went on, 'you're a clever person, a
+philosopher, third graduate of the Moscow University; it's dreadful
+arguing with you, especially for an ignoramus like me, but I tell you
+what; besides my art, the only beauty I love is in women ... in
+girls, and even that's recently.'
+
+He turned over on to his back and clasped his hands behind his head.
+
+A few instants passed by in silence. The hush of the noonday heat lay
+upon the drowsy, blazing fields.
+
+'Speaking of women,' Shubin began again, 'how is it no one looks
+after Stahov? Did you see him in Moscow?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'The old fellow's gone clean off his head. He sits for whole days
+together at his Augustina Christianovna's, he's bored to death, but
+still he sits there. They gaze at one another so stupidly. ... It's
+positively disgusting to see them. Man's a strange animal. A man with
+such a home; but no, he must have his Augustina Christianovna! I
+don't know anything more repulsive than her face, just like a duck's!
+The other day I modelled a caricature of her in the style of Dantan.
+It wasn't half bad. I will show it you.'
+
+'And Elena Nikolaevna's bust?' inquired Bersenyev, 'is it getting on?'
+
+'No, my dear boy, it's not getting on. That face is enough to drive
+one to despair. The lines are pure, severe, correct; one would think
+there would be no difficulty in catching a likeness. It's not as easy
+as one would think though. It's like a treasure in a fairy-tale--you
+can't get hold of it. Have you ever noticed how she listens? There's
+not a single feature different, but the whole expression of the eyes
+is constantly changing, and with that the whole face changes. What is
+a sculptor--and a poor one too--to do with such a face? She's a
+wonderful creature--a strange creature,' he added after a brief pause.
+
+'Yes; she is a wonderful girl,' Bersenyev repeated after him.
+
+'And she the daughter of Nikolai Artemyevitch Stahov! And after that
+people talk about blood, about stock! The amusing part of it is that
+she really is his daughter, like him, as well as like her mother, Anna
+Vassilyevna. I respect Anna Vassilyevna from the depths of my heart,
+she's been awfully good to me; but she's no better than a hen. Where
+did Elena get that soul of hers? Who kindled that fire in her?
+There's another problem for you, philosopher!'
+
+But as before, the 'philosopher' made no reply. Bersenyev did not in
+general err on the side of talkativeness, and when he did speak, he
+expressed himself awkwardly, with hesitation, and unnecessary
+gesticulation. And at this time a kind of special stillness had fallen
+on his soul, a stillness akin to lassitude and melancholy. He had not
+long come from town after prolonged hard work, which had absorbed him
+for many hours every day. The inactivity, the softness and purity of
+the air, the consciousness of having attained his object, the
+whimsical and careless talk of his friend, and the image--so suddenly
+called up--of one dear to him, all these impressions different--yet at
+the same time in a way akin--were mingled in him into a single vague
+emotion, which at once soothed and excited him, and robbed him of his
+power. He was a very highly strung young man.
+
+It was cool and peaceful under the lime-tree; the flies and bees
+seemed to hum more softly as they flitted within its circle of shade.
+The fresh fine grass, of purest emerald green, without a tinge of
+gold, did not quiver, the tall flower stalks stood motionless, as
+though enchanted. On the lower twigs of the lime-tree the little
+bunches of yellow flowers hung still as death. At every breath a sweet
+fragrance made its way to the very depths of the lungs, and eagerly
+the lungs inhaled it. Beyond the river in the distance, right up to the
+horizon, all was bright and glowing. At times a slight breeze passed
+over, breaking up the landscape and intensifying the brightness; a
+sunlit vapour hung over the fields. No sound came from the birds; they
+do not sing in the heat of noonday; but the grasshoppers were chirping
+everywhere, and it was pleasant as they sat in the cool and quietness,
+to hear that hot, eager sound of life; it disposed to slumber and
+inclined the heart to reveries.
+
+'Have you noticed,' began Bersenyev, eking out his words with
+gesticulations, 'what a strange feeling nature produces in us?
+Everything in nature is so complete, so defined, I mean to say, so
+content with itself, and we understand that and admire it, and at the
+same time, in me at least, it always excites a kind of restlessness, a
+kind of uneasiness, even melancholy. What is the meaning of it? Is it
+that in the face of nature we are more vividly conscious of all our
+incompleteness, our indefiniteness, or have we little of that content
+with which nature is satisfied, but something else--I mean to say,
+what we need, nature has not?'
+
+'H'm,' replied Shubin, 'I'll tell you, Andrei Petrovitch, what all
+that comes from. You describe the sensations of a solitary man, who
+is not living but only looking on in ecstasy. Why look on? Live,
+yourself, and you will be all right. However much you knock at
+nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words,
+because she is dumb. She will utter a musical sound, or a moan, like a
+harp string, but don't expect a song from her. A living heart,
+now--that will give you your answer--especially a woman's heart. So,
+my dear fellow, I advise you to get yourself some one to share your
+heart, and all your distressing sensations will vanish at once.
+"That's what we need," as you say. This agitation, and melancholy, all
+that, you know, is simply a hunger of a kind. Give the stomach some
+real food, and everything will be right directly. Take your place in
+the landscape, live in the body, my dear boy. And after all, what is
+nature? what's the use of it? Only hear the word, love--what an
+intense, glowing sound it has! Nature--what a cold, pedantic
+expression. And so' (Shubin began humming), 'my greetings to Marya
+Petrovna! or rather,' he added, 'not Marya Petrovna, but it's all the
+same! _Voo me compreny_.'
+
+Bersenyev got up and stood with his chin leaning on his clasped hands.
+'What is there to laugh at?' he said, without looking at his
+companion, 'why should you scoff? Yes, you are right: love is a
+grand word, a grand feeling. . . . But what sort of love do you mean?'
+
+Shubin too, got up. 'What sort? What you like, so long as it's there.
+I will confess to you that I don't believe in the existence of
+different kinds of love. If you are in love----'
+
+'With your whole heart,' put in Bersenyev.
+
+'Well, of course, that's an understood thing; the heart's not an
+apple; you can't divide it. If you're in love, you're justified. And
+I wasn't thinking of scoffing. My heart's as soft at this moment as if
+it had been melted. ... I only wanted to explain why nature has the
+effect on us you spoke of. It's because she arouses in us a need for
+love, and is not capable of satisfying it. Nature is gently driving us
+to other living embraces, but we don't understand, and expect
+something from nature herself. Ah, Andrei, Andrei, this sun, this sky
+is beautiful, everything around us is beautiful, still you are sad;
+but if, at this instant, you were holding the hand of a woman you
+loved, if that hand and the whole woman were yours, if you were even
+seeing with her eyes, feeling not your own isolated emotion, but her
+emotion--nature would not make you melancholy or restless then, and
+you would not be observing nature's beauty; nature herself would be
+full of joy and praise; she would be re-echoing your hymn, because
+then you would have given her--dumb nature--speech!'
+
+Shubin leaped on to his feet and walked twice up and down, but
+Bersenyev bent his head, and his face was overcast by a faint flush.
+
+'I don't altogether agree with you,' he began: 'nature does not always
+urge us ... towards love.' (He could not at once pronounce the word.)
+'Nature threatens us, too; she reminds us of dreadful . . . yes,
+insoluble mysteries. Is she not destined to swallow us up, is she not
+swallowing us up unceasingly? She holds life and death as well; and
+death speaks in her as loudly as life.'
+
+'In love, too, there is both life and death,' interposed Shubin.
+
+'And then,' Bersenyev went on: 'when I, for example, stand in the
+spring in the forest, in a green glade, when I can fancy the romantic
+notes of Oberon's fairy horn' (Bersenyev was a little ashamed when he
+had spoken these words)--'is that, too----'
+
+'The thirst for love, the thirst for happiness, nothing more!' broke
+in Shubin. 'I, too, know those notes, I know the languor and the
+expectation which come upon the soul in the forest's shade, in its
+deep recesses, or at evening in the open fields when the sun sets and
+the river mist rises behind the bushes. But forest, and river, and
+fields, and sky, every cloud and every blade of grass sets me
+expecting, hoping for happiness, I feel the approach, I hear the voice
+of happiness calling in everything. "God of my worship, bright and
+gay!" That was how I tried to begin my sole poem; you must own it's a
+splendid first line, but I could never produce a second. Happiness!
+happiness! as long as life is not over, as long as we have the use of
+all our limbs, as long as we are going up, not down, hill! Damn it
+all!' pursued Shubin with sudden vehemence, 'we are young, and neither
+fools nor monsters; we will conquer happiness for ourselves!'
+
+He shook his curls, and turned a confident almost challenging glance
+upwards to the sky. Bersenyev raised his eyes and looked at him.
+
+'Is there nothing higher than happiness?' he commented softly.
+
+'And what, for instance?' asked Shubin, stopping short.
+
+'Why, for instance, you and I are, as you say, young; we are good
+men, let us suppose; each of us desires happiness for himself. . . .
+But is that word, happiness, one that could unite us, set us both on
+fire, and make us clasp each other's hands? Isn't that word an
+egoistic one; I mean, isn't it a source of disunion?'
+
+'Do you know words, then, that unite men?'
+
+'Yes; and they are not few in number; and you know them, too.'
+
+'Eh? What words?'
+
+'Well, even Art--since you are an artist--Country, Science, Freedom,
+Justice.'
+
+'And what of love?' asked Shubin.
+
+'Love, too, is a word that unites; but not the love you are eager for
+now; the love which is not enjoyment, the love which is
+self-sacrifice.'
+
+Shubin frowned.
+
+'That's all very well for Germans; I want to love for myself; I want
+to be first.'
+
+'To be first,' repeated Bersenyev. 'But it seems to me that to put
+one's-self in the second place is the whole significance of our life.'
+
+'If all men were to act as you advise,' commented Shubin with a
+plaintive expression, 'none on earth would eat pine-apples; every
+one would be offering them to other people.'
+
+'That's as much as to say, pine-apples are not necessary; but you
+need not be alarmed; there will always be plenty of people who like
+them enough to take the bread out of other men's mouths to get them.'
+
+Both friends were silent a little.
+
+'I met Insarov again the other day,' began Bersenyev. 'I invited him
+to stay with me; I really must introduce him to you--and to the
+Stahovs.'
+
+'Who is Insarov? Ah, to be sure, isn't it that Servian or Bulgarian
+you were telling me about? The patriot? Now isn't it he who's at the
+bottom of all these philosophical ideas?'
+
+'Perhaps.'
+
+'Is he an exceptional individual?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Clever? Talented?'
+
+'Clever--talented--I don't know, I don't think so.'
+
+'Not? Then, what is there remarkable in him?'
+
+'You shall see. But now I think it's time to be going. Anna
+Vassilyevna will be waiting for us, very likely. What's the time?'
+
+'Three o'clock. Let us go. How baking it is! This conversation has
+set all my blood aflame. There was a moment when you, too, ... I am
+not an artist for nothing; I observe everything. Confess, you are
+interested in a woman?'
+
+Shubin tried to get a look at Bersenyev's face, but he turned away and
+walked out of the lime-tree's shade. Shubin went after him, moving his
+little feet with easy grace. Bersenyev walked clumsily, with his
+shoulders high and his neck craned forward. Yet, he looked a man of
+finer breeding than Shubin; more of a gentleman, one might say, if
+that word had not been so vulgarised among us.
+
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The young men went down to the river Moskva and walked along its bank.
+There was a breath of freshness from the water, and the soft plash of
+tiny waves caressed the ear.
+
+'I would have another bathe,' said Shubin, 'only I'm afraid of being
+late. Look at the river; it seems to beckon us. The ancient Greeks
+would have beheld a nymph in it. But we are not Greeks, O nymph! we
+are thick-skinned Scythians.'
+
+'We have _roussalkas_,' observed Bersenyev.
+
+'Get along with your _roussalkas!_ What's the use to me--a sculptor--of
+those children of a cold, terror-stricken fancy, those shapes begotten
+in the stifling hut, in the dark of winter nights? I want light,
+space. . . . Good God, when shall I go to Italy? When----'
+
+'To Little Russia, I suppose you mean?'
+
+'For shame, Andrei Petrovitch, to reproach me for an act of
+unpremeditated folly, which I have repented bitterly enough without
+that. Oh, of course, I behaved like a fool; Anna Vassilyevna most
+kindly gave me the money for an expedition to Italy, and I went off to
+the Little Russians to eat dumplings and----'
+
+'Don't let me have the rest, please,' interposed Bersenyev.
+
+'Yet still, I will say, the money was not spent in vain. I saw there
+such types, especially of women. . . . Of course, I know; there is no
+salvation to be found outside of Italy!'
+
+'You will go to Italy,' said Bersenyev, without turning towards him,
+'and will do nothing. You will always be pluming your wings and never
+take flight. We know you!'
+
+'Stavasser has taken flight. . . . And he's not the only one. If I
+don't fly, it will prove that I'm a sea penguin, and have no wings. I
+am stifled here, I want to be in Italy,' pursued Shubin, 'there is
+sunshine, there is beauty.'
+
+A young girl in a large straw hat, with a pink parasol on her
+shoulder, came into sight at that instant, in the little path along
+which the friends were walking.
+
+'But what do I see? Even here, there is beauty--coming to meet us! A
+humble artist's compliments to the enchanting Zoya!' Shubin cried at
+once, with a theatrical flourish of his hat.
+
+The young girl to whom this exclamation referred, stopped, threatening
+him with her finger, and, waiting for the two friends to come up to
+her, she said in a ringing voice:
+
+'Why is it, gentlemen, you don't come in to dinner? It is on the
+table.'
+
+'What do I hear?' said Shubin, throwing his arms up. 'Can it be that
+you, bewitching Zoya, faced such heat to come and look for us? Dare I
+think that is the meaning of your words? Tell me, can it be so? Or
+no, do not utter that word; I shall die of regret on the spot'
+
+'Oh, do leave off, Pavel Yakovlitch,' replied the young girl with some
+annoyance. 'Why will you never talk to me seriously? I shall be
+angry,' she added with a little coquettish grimace, and she pouted.
+
+'You will not be angry with me, ideal Zoya Nikitishna; you would not
+drive me to the dark depths of hopeless despair. And I can't talk to
+you seriously, because I'm not a serious person.'
+
+The young girl shrugged her shoulders, and turned to Bersenyev.
+
+'There, he's always like that; he treats me like a child; and I am
+eighteen. I am grown-up now.'
+
+'O Lord!' groaned Shubin, rolling his eyes upwards; and Bersenyev
+smiled quietly.
+
+The girl stamped with her little foot.
+
+'Pavel Yakovlitch, I shall be angry! _Helene_ was coming with me,' she
+went on, 'but she stopped in the garden. The heat frightened her, but
+I am not afraid of the heat. Come along.'
+
+She moved forward along the path, slightly swaying her slender figure
+at each step, and with a pretty black-mittened little hand pushing her
+long soft curls back from her face.
+
+The friends walked after her (Shubin first pressed his hands, without
+speaking, to his heart, and then flung them higher than his head), and
+in a few instants they came out in front of one of the numerous
+country villas with which Kuntsovo is surrounded. A small wooden house
+with a gable, painted a pink colour, stood in the middle of the
+garden, and seemed to be peeping out innocently from behind the green
+trees. Zoya was the first to open the gate; she ran into the garden,
+crying: 'I have brought the wanderers!' A young girl, with a pale
+and expressive face, rose from a garden bench near the little path,
+and in the doorway of the house appeared a lady in a lilac silk dress,
+holding an embroidered cambric handkerchief over her head to screen it
+from the sun, and smiling with a weary and listless air.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Anna Vassilyevna Stahov--her maiden name was Shubin--had been left, at
+seven years old, an orphan and heiress of a pretty considerable
+property. She had very rich and also very poor relations; the poor
+relations were on her father's, the rich on her mother's side; the
+latter including the senator Volgin and the Princes Tchikurasov.
+Prince Ardalion Tchikurasov, who had been appointed her guardian,
+placed her in the best Moscow boarding-school, and when she left
+school, took her into his own home. He kept open house, and gave balls
+in the winter. Anna Vassilyevna's future husband, Nikolai Artemyevitch
+Stahov, captured her heart at one of these balls when she was arrayed
+in a charming rose-coloured gown, with a wreath of tiny roses. She had
+treasured that wreath all her life. Nikolai Artemyevitch Stahov was
+the son of a retired captain, who had been wounded in 1812, and had
+received a lucrative post in Petersburg. Nikolai Artemyevitch entered
+the School of Cadets at sixteen, and left to go into the Guards. He
+was a handsome, well-made fellow, and reckoned almost the most dashing
+beau at evening parties of the middling sort, which were those he
+frequented for the most part; he had not gained a footing in the best
+society. From his youth he had been absorbed by two ideals: to get
+into the Imperial adjutants, and to make a good marriage; the first
+ideal he soon discarded, but he clung all the more closely to the
+second, and it was with that object that he went every winter to
+Moscow. Nikolai Artemyevitch spoke French fairly, and passed for being
+a philosopher, because he was not a rake. Even while he was no more
+than an ensign, he was given to discussing, persistently, such
+questions as whether it is possible for a man to visit the whole of
+the globe in the course of his whole lifetime, whether it is possible
+for a man to know what is happening at the bottom of the sea; and he
+always maintained the view that these things were impossible.
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch was twenty-five years old when he 'hooked' Anna
+Vassilyevna; he retired from the service and went into the country to
+manage the property. He was soon tired of country life, and as the
+peasants' labour was all commuted for rent he could easily leave the
+estate; he settled in Moscow in his wife's house. In his youth he had
+played no games of any kind, but now he developed a passion for loto,
+and, when loto was prohibited, for whist. At home he was bored; he
+formed a connection with a widow of German extraction, and spent
+almost all his time with her. In the year 1853 he had not moved to
+Kuntsovo; he stopped at Moscow, ostensibly to take advantage of the
+mineral waters; in reality, he did not want to part from his widow.
+He did not, however, have much conversation with her, but argued more
+than ever as to whether one can foretell the weather and such
+questions. Some one had once called him a _frondeur_; he was greatly
+delighted with that name. 'Yes,' he thought, letting the corners of
+his mouth drop complacently and shaking his head, 'I am not easily
+satisfied; you won't take me in.' Nikolai Artemyevitch's _frondeurism_
+consisted in saying, for instance, when he heard the word nerves: 'And
+what do you mean by nerves?' or if some one alluded in his presence to
+the discoveries of astronomy, asking: 'And do you believe in
+astronomy?' When he wanted to overwhelm his opponent completely, he
+said: 'All that is nothing but words.' It must be admitted that to
+many persons remarks of that kind seemed (and still seem) irrefutable
+arguments. But Nikolai Artemyevitch never suspected that Augustina
+Christianovna, in letters to her cousin, Theodolina Peterzelius,
+called him _Mein Pinselchen_.
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch's wife, Anna Vassilyevna, was a thin, little
+woman with delicate features, and a tendency to be emotional and
+melancholy. At school, she had devoted herself to music and reading
+novels; afterwards she abandoned all that. She began to be absorbed
+in dress, and that, too, she gave up. She did, for a time, undertake
+her daughter's education, but she got tired of that too, and handed
+her over to a governess. She ended by spending her whole time in
+sentimental brooding and tender melancholy. The birth of Elena
+Nikolaevna had ruined her health, and she could never have another
+child. Nikolai Artemyevitch used to hint at this fact in justification
+of his intimacy with Augustina Christianovna. Her husband's infidelity
+wounded Anna Vassilyevna deeply; she had been specially hurt by his
+once giving his German woman, on the sly, a pair of grey horses out of
+her (Anna Vassilyevna's) own stable. She had never reproached him to
+his face, but she complained of him secretly to every one in the house
+in turn, even to her daughter. Anna Vassilyevna did not care for going
+out, she liked visitors to come and sit with her and talk to her; she
+collapsed at once when she was left alone. She had a very tender and
+loving heart; life had soon crushed her.
+
+Pavel Yakovlitch Shubin happened to be a distant cousin of hers. His
+father had been a government official in Moscow. His brothers had
+entered cadets' corps; he was the youngest, his mother's darling, and
+of delicate constitution; he stopped at home. They intended him for
+the university, and strained every effort to keep him at the
+gymnasium. From his early years he began to show an inclination for
+sculpture. The ponderous senator, Volgin, saw a statuette of his one
+day at his aunt's--he was then sixteen--and declared that he intended
+to protect this youthful genius. The sudden death of Shubin's father
+very nearly effected a complete transformation in the young man's
+future. The senator, the patron of genius, made him a present of a
+bust of Homer in plaster, and did nothing more. But Anna Vassilyevna
+helped him with money, and at nineteen he scraped through into the
+university in the faculty of medicine. Pavel felt no inclination for
+medical science, but, as the university was then constituted, it was
+impossible for him to enter in any other faculty. Besides, he looked
+forward to studying anatomy. But he did not complete his anatomical
+studies; at the end of the first year, and before the examination, he
+left the university to devote himself exclusively to his vocation. He
+worked zealously, but by fits and starts; he used to stroll about the
+country round Moscow sketching and modelling portraits of peasant
+girls, and striking up acquaintance with all sorts of people, young
+and old, of high and low degree, Italian models and Russian artists.
+He would not hear of the Academy, and recognised no one as a teacher.
+He was possessed of unmistakeable talent; it began to be talked about
+in Moscow. His mother, who came of a good Parisian family, a
+kind-hearted and clever woman, had taught him French thoroughly and
+had toiled and thought for him day and night. She was proud of him,
+and when, while still young in years, she died of consumption, she
+entreated Anna Vassilyevna to take him under her care. He was at that
+time twenty-one. Anna Vassilyevna carried out her last wish; a small
+room in the lodge of the country villa was given up to him.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+'Come to dinner, come along,' said the lady of the house in a
+plaintive voice, and they all went into the dining-room. 'Sit beside
+me, _Zoe_,' added Anna Vassilyevna, 'and you, Helene, take our guest;
+and you, _Paul_, please don't be naughty and tease _Zoe_. My head
+aches to-day.'
+
+Shubin again turned his eyes up to the ceiling; Zoe responded with a
+half-smile. This Zoe, or, to speak more precisely, Zoya Nikitishna
+Mueller, was a pretty, fair-haired, half-Russian German girl, with a
+little nose rather wide at the end, and tiny red lips. She sang
+Russian ballads fairly well and could play various pieces, both lively
+and sentimental, very correctly on the piano. She dressed with taste,
+but in a rather childish style, and even over-precisely. Anna
+Vassilyevna had taken her as a companion for her daughter, and she
+kept her almost constantly at her side. Elena did not complain of that;
+she was absolutely at a loss what to say to Zoya when she happened to
+be left alone with her.
+
+The dinner lasted rather a long time; Bersenyev talked with Elena
+about university life, and his own plans and hopes; Shubin listened
+without speaking, ate with an exaggerated show of greediness, and now
+and then threw comic glances of despair at Zoya, who responded always
+with the same phlegmatic smile. After dinner, Elena with Bersenyev and
+Shubin went into the garden; Zoya looked after them, and, with a
+slight shrug of her shoulders, sat down to the piano. Anna Vassilyevna
+began: 'Why don't you go for a walk, too?' but, without waiting
+for a reply, she added: 'Play me something melancholy.'
+
+'_La derniere pensee de Weber_?' suggested Zoya.
+
+'Ah, yes, Weber,' replied Anna Vassilyevna. She sank into an easy
+chair, and the tears started on to her eyelashes.
+
+Meanwhile, Elena led the two friends to an arbour of acacias, with a
+little wooden table in the middle, and seats round. Shubin looked
+round, and, whispering 'Wait a minute!' he ran off, skipping and
+hopping to his own room, brought back a piece of clay, and began
+modelling a bust of Zoya, shaking his head and muttering and laughing
+to himself.
+
+'At his old tricks again,' observed Elena, glancing at his work. She
+turned to Bersenyev, with whom she was continuing the conversation
+begun at dinner.
+
+'My old tricks!' repeated Shubin. 'It's a subject that's simply
+inexhaustible! To-day, particularly, she drove me out of all
+patience.'
+
+'Why so?' inquired Elena. 'One would think you were speaking of
+some spiteful, disagreeable old woman. She is a pretty young girl.'
+
+'Of course,' Shubin broke in, 'she is pretty, very pretty; I am sure
+that no one who meets her could fail to think: that's some one I
+should like to--dance a polka with; I'm sure, too, that she knows
+that, and is pleased. . . . Else, what's the meaning of those modest
+simpers, that discreet air? There, you know what I mean,' he muttered
+between his teeth. 'But now you're absorbed in something else.'
+
+And breaking up the bust of Zoya, Shubin set hastily to modelling and
+kneading the clay again with an air of vexation.
+
+'So it is your wish to be a professor?' said Elena to Bersenyev.
+
+'Yes,' he answered, squeezing his red hands between his knees.
+'That's my cherished dream. Of course I know very well how far I fall
+short of being--to be worthy of such a high--I mean that I am too
+little prepared, but I hope to get permission for a course of travel
+abroad; I shall pass three or four years in that way, if necessary,
+and then----'
+
+He stopped, dropped his eyes, then quickly raising them again, he gave
+an embarrassed smile and smoothed his hair. When Bersenyev was talking
+to a woman, his words came out more slowly, and he lisped more than
+ever.
+
+'You want to be a professor of history?' inquired Elena.
+
+'Yes, or of philosophy,' he added, in a lower voice--'if that is
+possible.'
+
+'He's a perfect devil at philosophy already,' observed Shubin, making
+deep lines in the clay with his nail. 'What does he want to go abroad
+for?'
+
+'And will you be perfectly contented with such a position?' asked
+Elena, leaning on her elbow and looking him straight in the face.
+
+'Perfectly, Elena Nikolaevna, perfectly. What could be a finer
+vocation? To follow, perhaps, in the steps of Timofay Nikolaevitch
+. . . The very thought of such work fills me with delight and confusion
+. . . yes, confusion . . . which comes from a sense of my own
+deficiency. My dear father consecrated me to this work. . . I shall
+never forget his last words.' . . .
+
+'Your father died last winter?'
+
+'Yes, Elena Nikolaevna, in February.'
+
+'They say,' Elena went on, 'that he left a remarkable work in
+manuscript; is it true?'
+
+'Yes. He was a wonderful man. You would have loved him, Elena
+Nikolaevna.'
+
+'I am sure I should. And what was the subject of the work?'
+
+'To give you an idea of the subject of the work in few words, Elena
+Nikolaevna, would be somewhat difficult. My father was a learned man,
+a Schellingist; he used terms which were not always very clear----'
+
+'Andrei Petrovitch,' interrupted Elena, 'excuse my ignorance, what
+does that mean, a Schellingist?'
+
+Bersenyev smiled slightly.
+
+'A Schellingist means a follower of Schelling, a German philosopher;
+and what the philosophy of Schelling consists in----'
+
+'Andrei Petrovitch!' cried Shubin suddenly, 'for mercy's sake!
+Surely you don't mean to give Elena Nikolaevna a lecture on Schelling?
+Have pity on her!'
+
+'Not a lecture at all,' murmured Bersenyev, turning crimson. 'I
+meant----'
+
+'And why not a lecture?' put in Elena. 'You and I are in need of
+lectures, Pavel Yakovlitch.'
+
+Shubin stared at her, and suddenly burst out laughing.
+
+'What are you laughing at?' she said coldly, and almost sharply.
+
+Shubin did not answer.
+
+'Come, don't be angry,' he said, after a short pause. 'I am sorry.
+But really it's a strange taste, upon my word, to discuss philosophy
+in weather like this under these trees. Let us rather talk of
+nightingales and roses, youthful eyes and smiles.'
+
+'Yes; and of French novels, and of feminine frills and fal-lals,'
+Elena went on.
+
+'Fal-lals, too, of course,' rejoined Shubin, 'if they're pretty.'
+
+'Of course. But suppose we don't want to talk of frills? You are
+always boasting of being a free artist; why do you encroach on the
+freedom of others? And allow me to inquire, if that's your bent of
+mind, why do you attack Zoya? With her it would be peculiarly
+suitable to talk of frills and roses?'
+
+Shubin suddenly fired up, and rose from the garden seat. 'So that's
+it?' he began in a nervous voice. 'I understand your hint; you
+want to send me away to her, Elena Nikolaevna. In other words, I'm
+not wanted here.'
+
+'I never thought of sending you away from here.'
+
+'Do you mean to say,' Shubin continued passionately, 'that I am not
+worthy of other society, that I am her equal; that I am as vain, and
+silly and petty as that mawkish German girl? Is that it?'
+
+Elena frowned. 'You did not always speak like that of her, Pavel
+Yakovlitch,' she remarked.
+
+'Ah! reproaches! reproaches now!' cried Shubin. 'Well, then I
+don't deny there was a moment--one moment precisely, when those fresh,
+vulgar cheeks of hers . . . But if I wanted to repay you with
+reproaches and remind you . . . Good-bye,' he added suddenly, 'I feel
+I shall say something silly.'
+
+And with a blow on the clay moulded into the shape of a head, he ran
+out of the arbour and went off to his room.
+
+'What a baby,' said Elena, looking after him.
+
+'He's an artist,' observed Bersenyev with a quiet smile. 'All artists
+are like that. One must forgive them their caprices. That is their
+privilege.'
+
+'Yes,' replied Elena; 'but Pavel has not so far justified his claim
+to that privilege in any way. What has he done so far? Give me your
+arm, and let us go along the avenue. He was in our way. We were
+talking of your father's works.'
+
+Bersenyev took Elena's arm in his, and walked beside her through the
+garden; but the conversation prematurely broken off was not renewed.
+Bersenyev began again unfolding his views on the vocation of a
+professor, and on his own future career. He walked slowly beside
+Elena, moving awkwardly, awkwardly holding her arm, sometimes jostling
+his shoulder against her, and not once looking at her; but his talk
+flowed more easily, even if not perfectly freely; he spoke simply and
+genuinely, and his eyes, as they strayed slowly over the trunks of the
+trees, the sand of the path and the grass, were bright with the quiet
+ardour of generous emotions, while in his soothed voice there was
+heard the delight of a man who feels that he is succeeding in
+expressing himself to one very dear to him. Elena listened to him very
+attentively, and turning half towards him, did not take her eyes off
+his face, which had grown a little paler--off his eyes, which were
+soft and affectionate, though they avoided meeting her eyes. Her soul
+expanded; and something tender, holy, and good seemed half sinking
+into her heart, half springing up within it.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Shubin did not leave his room before night. It was already quite
+dark; the moon--not yet at the full--stood high in the sky, the milky way
+shone white, and the stars spotted the heavens, when Bersenyev, after
+taking leave of Anna Vassilyevna, Elena, and Zoya, went up to his
+friend's door. He found it locked. He knocked.
+
+'Who is there?' sounded Shubin's voice.
+
+'I,' answered Bersenyev.
+
+'What do you want?'
+
+'Let me in, Pavel; don't be sulky; aren't you ashamed of yourself?'
+
+'I am not sulky; I'm asleep and dreaming about Zoya.'
+
+'Do stop that, please; you're not a baby. Let me in. I want to talk to
+you.'
+
+'Haven't you had talk enough with Elena?'
+
+'Come, come; let me in!' Shubin responded by a pretended snore.
+
+Bersenyev shrugged his shoulders and turned homewards.
+
+The night was warm and seemed strangely still, as though everything
+were listening and expectant; and Bersenyev, enfolded in the still
+darkness, stopped involuntarily; and he, too, listened expectant. On
+the tree-tops near there was a faint stir, like the rustle of a
+woman's dress, awaking in him a feeling half-sweet, half-painful, a
+feeling almost of fright. He felt a tingling in his cheeks, his eyes
+were chill with momentary tears; he would have liked to move quite
+noiselessly, to steal along in secret. A cross gust of wind blew
+suddenly on him; he almost shuddered, and his heart stood still; a
+drowsy beetle fell off a twig and dropped with a thud on the path;
+Bersenyev uttered a subdued 'Ah!' and again stopped. But he began
+to think of Elena, and all these passing sensations vanished at once;
+there remained only the reviving sense of the night freshness, of the
+walk by night; his whole soul was absorbed by the image of the young
+girl. Bersenyev walked with bent head, recalling her words, her
+questions. He fancied he heard the tramp of quick steps behind. He
+listened: some one was running, some one was overtaking him; he
+heard panting, and suddenly from a black circle of shadow cast by a
+huge tree Shubin sprang out before him, quite pale in the light of the
+moon, with no cap on his disordered curls.
+
+'I am glad you came along this path,' he said with an effort. 'I
+should not have slept all night, if I had not overtaken you. Give me
+your hand. Are you going home?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'I will see you home then.'
+
+'But why have you come without a cap on?'
+
+'That doesn't matter. I took off my neckerchief too. It is quite
+warm.'
+
+The friends walked a few paces.
+
+'I was very stupid to-day, wasn't I?' Shubin asked suddenly.
+
+'To speak frankly, you were. I couldn't make you out. I have never
+seen you like that before. And what were you angry about really? Such
+trifles!'
+
+'H'm,' muttered Shubin. 'That's how you put it; but they were not
+trifles to me. You see,' he went on, 'I ought to point out to you
+that I--that--you may think what you please of me--I--well there!
+I'm in love with Elena.'
+
+'You in love with Elena!' repeated Bersenyev, standing still.
+
+'Yes,' pursued Shubin with affected carelessness. 'Does that astonish
+you? I will tell you something else. Till this evening I still had
+hopes that she might come to love me in time. But to-day I have seen
+for certain that there is no hope for me. She is in love with some one
+else.'
+
+'Some one else? Whom?'
+
+'Whom? You!' cried Shubin, slapping Bersenyev on the shoulder.
+
+'Me!'
+
+'You,' repeated Shubin.
+
+Bersenyev stepped back a pace, and stood motionless. Shubin looked
+intently at him.
+
+'And does that astonish you? You are a modest youth. But she loves
+you. You can make your mind easy on that score.'
+
+'What nonsense you talk!' Bersenyev protested at last with an air of
+vexation.
+
+'No, it's not nonsense. But why are we standing still? Let us go on.
+It's easier to talk as we walk. I have known her a long while, and I
+know her well. I cannot be mistaken. You are a man after her own
+heart. There was a time when she found me agreeable; but, in the
+first place, I am too frivolous a young man for her, while you are a
+serious person, you are a morally and physically well-regulated
+person, you--hush, I have not finished, you are a conscientiously
+disposed enthusiast, a genuine type of those devotees of science,
+of whom--no not of whom--whereof the middle class of Russian gentry
+are so justly proud! And, secondly, Elena caught me the other day
+kissing Zoya's arms!'
+
+'Zoya's?'
+
+'Yes, Zoya's. What would you have? She has such fine shoulders.'
+
+'Shoulders?'
+
+'Well there, shoulders and arms, isn't it all the same? Elena caught
+me in this unconstrained proceeding after dinner, and before dinner I
+had been abusing Zoya in her hearing. Elena unfortunately doesn't
+understand how natural such contradictions are. Then you came on the
+scene, you have faith in--what the deuce is it you have faith in? ...
+You blush and look confused, you discuss Schiller and Schelling (she's
+always on the look-out for remarkable men), and so you have won the
+day, and I, poor wretch, try to joke--and all the while----'
+
+Shubin suddenly burst into tears, turned away, and dropping upon the
+ground clutched at his hair.
+
+Bersenyev went up to him.
+
+'Pavel,' he began, 'what childishness this is! Really! what's the
+matter with you to-day? God knows what nonsense you have got into your
+head, and you are crying. Upon my word, I believe you must be putting
+it on.'
+
+Shubin lifted up his head. The tears shone bright on his cheeks in the
+moonlight, but there was a smile on his face.
+
+'Andrei Petrovitch,' he said, 'you may think what you please about me.
+I am even ready to agree with you that I'm hysterical now, but, by
+God, I'm in love with Elena, and Elena loves you. I promised, though,
+to see you home, and I will keep my promise.'
+
+He got up.
+
+'What a night! silvery, dark, youthful! How sweet it must be to-night
+for men who are loved! How sweet for them not to sleep! Will you
+sleep, Andrei Petrovitch?'
+
+Bersenyev made no answer, and quickened his pace.
+
+'Where are you hurrying to?' Shubin went on. 'Trust my words, a night
+like this will never come again in your life, and at home, Schelling
+will keep. It's true he did you good service to-day; but you need not
+hurry for all that. Sing, if you can sing, sing louder than ever; if
+you can't sing, take off your hat, throw up your head, and smile to
+the stars. They are all looking at you, at you alone; the stars never
+do anything but look down upon lovers--that's why they are so
+charming. You are in love, I suppose, Andrei Petrovitch? . . . You don't
+answer me . . . why don't you answer?' Shubin began again: 'Oh, if you
+feel happy, be quiet, be quiet! I chatter because I am a poor devil,
+unloved, I am a jester, an artist, a buffoon; but what unutterable
+ecstasy would I quaff in the night wind under the stars, if I knew
+that I were loved! . . . Bersenyev, are you happy?'
+
+Bersenyev was silent as before, and walked quickly along the smooth
+path. In front, between the trees, glimmered the lights of the little
+village in which he was staying; it consisted of about a dozen small
+villas for summer visitors. At the very beginning of the village, to
+the right of the road, a little shop stood under two spreading
+birch-trees; its windows were all closed already, but a wide patch of
+light fell fan-shaped from the open door upon the trodden grass, and
+was cast upwards on the trees, showing up sharply the whitish
+undersides of the thick growing leaves. A girl, who looked like a
+maid-servant, was standing in the shop with her back against the
+doorpost, bargaining with the shopkeeper; from beneath the red
+kerchief which she had wrapped round her head, and held with bare hand
+under her chin, could just be seen her round cheek and slender throat.
+The young men stepped into the patch of light; Shubin looked into the
+shop, stopped short, and cried 'Annushka!' The girl turned round
+quickly. They saw a nice-looking, rather broad but fresh face, with
+merry brown eyes and black eyebrows. 'Annushka!' repeated Shubin.
+The girl saw him, looked scared and shamefaced, and without finishing
+her purchases, she hurried down the steps, slipped quickly past, and,
+hardly looking round, went along the road to the left. The shopkeeper,
+a puffy man, unmoved by anything in the world, like all country
+shopkeepers gasped and gaped after her, while Shubin turned to
+Bersenyev with the words: 'That's . . . you see . . . there's a
+family here I know . . . so at their house . . . you mustn't imagine'
+. . . and, without finishing his speech, he ran after the retreating
+girl.
+
+'You'd better at least wipe your tears away,' Bersenyev shouted after
+him, and he could not refrain from laughing. But when he got home, his
+face had not a mirthful expression; he laughed no longer. He had not
+for a single instant believed what Shubin had told him, but the words
+he had uttered had sunk deep into his soul.
+
+'Pavel was making a fool of me,' he thought; ' . . . but she will
+love one day . . . whom will she love?'
+
+In Bersenyev's room there was a piano, small, and by no means new, but
+of a soft and sweet tone, though not perfectly in tune. Bersenyev
+sat down to it, and began to strike some chords. Like all Russians of
+good birth, he had studied music in his childhood, and like almost all
+Russian gentlemen, he played very badly; but he loved music
+passionately. Strictly speaking, he did not love the art, the forms in
+which music is expressed (symphonies and sonatas, even operas wearied
+him), but he loved the poetry of music: he loved those vague and
+sweet, shapeless, and all-embracing emotions which are stirred in the
+soul by the combinations and successions of sounds. For more than an
+hour, he did not move from the piano, repeating many times the same
+chords, awkwardly picking out new ones, pausing and melting over the
+minor sevenths. His heart ached, and his eyes more than once filled
+with tears. He was not ashamed of them; he let them flow in the
+darkness. 'Pavel was right,' he thought, 'I feel it; this evening
+will not come again.' At last he got up, lighted a candle, put on his
+dressing-gown, took down from the bookshelf the second volume of
+Raumer's _History of the Hohenstaufen_, and sighing twice, he set to
+work diligently to read it.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Meanwhile, Elena had gone to her room, and sat down at the open
+window, her head resting on her hands. To spend about a quarter of an
+hour every evening at her bedroom window had become a habit with her.
+At this time she held converse with herself, and passed in review the
+preceding day. She had not long reached her twentieth year. She was
+tall, and had a pale and dark face, large grey eyes under arching
+brows, covered with tiny freckles, a perfectly regular forehead and
+nose, tightly compressed lips, and a rather sharp chin. Her hair, of a
+chestnut shade, fell low on her slender neck. In her whole
+personality, in the expression of her face, intent and a little
+timorous, in her clear but changing glance, in her smile, which was,
+as it were, intense, in her soft and uneven voice, there was something
+nervous, electric, something impulsive and hurried, something, in
+fact, which could never be attractive to every one, which even
+repelled some.
+
+Her hands were slender and rosy, with long fingers; her feet were
+slender; she walked swiftly, almost impetuously, her figure bent a
+little forward. She had grown up very strangely; first she idolised
+her father, then she became passionately devoted to her mother, and
+had grown cold to both of them, especially to her father. Of late
+years she had behaved to her mother as to a sick grandmother; while
+her father, who had been proud of her while she had been regarded as
+an exceptional child, had come to be afraid of her when she was grown
+up, and said of her that she was a sort of enthusiastic republican--no
+one could say where she got it from. Weakness revolted her, stupidity
+made her angry, and deceit she could never, never pardon. She was
+exacting beyond all bounds, even her prayers had more than once been
+mingled with reproaches. When once a person had lost her respect--and
+she passed judgment quickly, often too quickly--he ceased to exist for
+her. All impressions cut deeply into her heart; life was bitter
+earnest for her.
+
+The governess to whom Anna Vassilyevna had entrusted the finishing of
+her daughter's education--an education, we may remark in parenthesis,
+which had not even been begun by the languid lady--was a Russian, the
+daughter of a ruined official, educated at a government boarding
+school, a very emotional, soft-hearted, and deceitful creature; she
+was for ever falling in love, and ended in her fiftieth year (when
+Elena was seventeen) by marrying an officer of some sort, who deserted
+her without loss of time. This governess was very fond of literature,
+and wrote verses herself; she inspired Elena with a love of reading,
+but reading alone did not satisfy the girl; from childhood she
+thirsted for action, for active well-doing--the poor, the hungry, and
+the sick absorbed her thoughts, tormented her, and made her heart
+heavy; she used to dream of them, and to ply all her friends with
+questions about them; she gave alms carefully, with unconscious
+solemnity, almost with a thrill of emotion. All ill-used creatures,
+starved dogs, cats condemned to death, sparrows fallen out of the
+nest, even insects and reptiles found a champion and protector in
+Elena; she fed them herself, and felt no repugnance for them. Her
+mother did not interfere with her; but her father used to be very
+indignant with his daughter, for her--as he called it--vulgar
+soft-heartedness, and declared there was not room to move for the cats
+and dogs in the house. 'Lenotchka,' he would shout to her, 'come
+quickly, here's a spider eating a fly; come and save the poor wretch!'
+And Lenotchka, all excitement, would run up, set the fly free, and
+disentangle its legs. 'Well, now let it bite you a little, since you
+are so kind,' her father would say ironically; but she did not hear
+him. At ten years old Elena made friends with a little beggar-girl,
+Katya, and used to go secretly to meet her in the garden, took her
+nice things to eat, and presented her with handkerchiefs and pennies;
+playthings Katya would not take. She would sit beside her on the dry
+earth among the bushes behind a thick growth of nettles; with a
+feeling of delicious humility she ate her stale bread and listened to
+her stories. Katya had an aunt, an ill-natured old woman, who often
+beat her; Katya hated her, and was always talking of how she would run
+away from her aunt and live in '_God's full freedom_'; with secret
+respect and awe Elena drank in these new unknown words, stared
+intently at Katya and everything about her--her quick black, almost
+animal eyes, her sun-burnt hands, her hoarse voice, even her ragged
+clothes--seemed to Elena at such times something particular and
+distinguished, almost holy. Elena went back home, and for long after
+dreamed of beggars and God's freedom; she would dream over plans of
+how she would cut herself a hazel stick, and put on a wallet and run
+away with Katya; how she would wander about the roads in a wreath of
+corn-flowers; she had seen Katya one day in just such a wreath. If, at
+such times, any one of her family came into the room, she would shun
+them and look shy. One day she ran out in the rain to meet Katya, and
+made her frock muddy; her father saw her, and called her a slut and a
+peasant-wench. She grew hot all over, and there was something of
+terror and rapture in her heart Katya often sang some half-brutal
+soldier's song. Elena learnt this song from her. . . . Anna
+Vassilyevna overheard her singing it, and was very indignant.
+
+'Where did you pick up such horrors?' she asked her daughter.
+
+Elena only looked at her mother, and would not say a word; she felt
+that she would let them tear her to pieces sooner than betray her
+secret, and again there was a terror and sweetness in her heart. Her
+friendship with Katya, however, did not last long; the poor little
+girl fell sick of fever, and in a few days she was dead.
+
+Elena was greatly distressed, and spent sleepless nights for long
+after she heard of Katya's death. The last words of the little
+beggar-girl were constantly ringing in her ears, and she fancied that
+she was being called. . . .
+
+The years passed and passed; swiftly and noiselessly, like waters
+running under the snow, Elena's youth glided by, outwardly uneventful,
+inwardly in conflict and emotion. She had no friend; she did not get
+on with any one of all the girls who visited the Stahovs' house. Her
+parents' authority had never weighed heavily on Elena, and from her
+sixteenth year she became absolutely independent; she began to live a
+life of her own, but it was a life of solitude. Her soul glowed, and
+the fire died away again in solitude; she struggled like a bird in a
+cage, and cage there was none; no one oppressed her, no one restrained
+her, while she was torn, and fretted within. Sometimes she did not
+understand herself, was even frightened of herself. Everything that
+surrounded her seemed to her half-senseless, half-incomprehensible.
+'How live without love? and there's no one to love!' she thought; and
+she felt terror again at these thoughts, these sensations. At
+eighteen, she nearly died of malignant fever; her whole
+constitution--naturally healthy and vigorous--was seriously affected,
+and it was long before it could perfectly recover; the last traces of
+the illness disappeared at last, but Elena Nikolaevna's father was
+never tired of talking with some spitefulness of her 'nerves.'
+Sometimes she fancied that she wanted something which no one wanted,
+of which no one in all Russia dreamed. Then she would grow calmer, and
+even laugh at herself, and pass day after day unconcernedly; but
+suddenly some over-mastering, nameless force would surge up within
+her, and seem to clamour for an outlet. The storm passed over, and the
+wings of her soul drooped without flight; but these tempests of
+feeling cost her much. However she might strive not to betray what was
+passing within her, the suffering of the tormented spirit was
+expressed in her even external tranquillity, and her parents were
+often justified in shrugging their shoulders in astonishment, and
+failing to understand her 'queer ways.'
+
+On the day with which our story began, Elena did not leave the window
+till later than usual. She thought much of Bersenyev, and of her
+conversation with him. She liked him; she believed in the warmth of
+his feelings, and the purity of his aims. He had never before talked
+to her as on that evening. She recalled the expression of his timid
+eyes, his smiles--and she smiled herself and fell to musing, but not
+of him. She began to look out into the night from the open window.
+For a long time she gazed at the dark, low-hanging sky; then she got
+up, flung back her hair from her face with a shake of her head, and,
+herself not knowing why, she stretched out to it--to that sky--her
+bare chilled arms; then she dropped them, fell on her knees beside her
+bed, pressed her face into the pillow, and, in spite of all her
+efforts not to yield to the passion overwhelming her, she burst into
+strange, uncomprehending, burning tears.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The next day at twelve o'clock, Bersenyev set off in a return coach to
+Moscow. He had to get some money from the post-office, to buy some
+books, and he wanted to seize the opportunity to see Insarov and have
+some conversation with him. The idea had occurred to Bersenyev, in the
+course of his last conversation with Shubin, to invite Insarov to stay
+with him at his country lodgings. But it was some time before he found
+him out; from his former lodging he had moved to another, which it
+was not easy to discover; it was in the court at the back of a
+squalid stone house, built in the Petersburg style, between Arbaty
+Road and Povarsky Street. In vain Bersenyev wandered from one dirty
+staircase to another, in vain he called first to a doorkeeper, then to
+a passer-by. Porters even in Petersburg try to avoid the eyes of
+visitors, and in Moscow much more so; no one answered Bersenyev's
+call; only an inquisitive tailor, in his shirt sleeves, with a skein
+of grey thread on his shoulder, thrust out from a high casement window
+a dirty, dull, unshorn face, with a blackened eye; and a black and
+hornless goat, clambering up on to a dung heap, turned round, bleated
+plaintively, and went on chewing the cud faster than before. A woman
+in an old cloak, and shoes trodden down at heel, took pity at last on
+Bersenyev and pointed out Insarov's lodging to him. Bersenyev found
+him at home. He had taken a room with the very tailor who had stared
+down so indifferently at the perplexity of a wandering stranger; a
+large, almost empty room, with dark green walls, three square windows,
+a tiny bedstead in one corner, a little leather sofa in another, and a
+huge cage hung up to the very ceiling; in this cage there had once
+lived a nightingale. Insarov came to meet Bersenyev directly he
+crossed the threshold, but he did not exclaim, 'Ah, it's you!' or
+'Good Heavens, what happy chance has brought you?' He did not even
+say, 'How do you do?' but simply pressed his hand and led him up to
+the solitary chair in the room.
+
+'Sit down,' he said, and he seated himself on the edge of the table.
+
+'I am, as you see, still in disorder,' added Insarov, pointing to a
+pile of papers and books on the floor, 'I haven't got settled in as I
+ought. I have not had time yet.'
+
+Insarov spoke Russian perfectly correctly, pronouncing every word
+fully and purely; but his guttural though pleasant voice sounded
+somehow not Russian. Insarov's foreign extraction (he was a Bulgarian
+by birth) was still more clearly marked in his appearance; he was a
+young man of five-and-twenty, spare and sinewy, with a hollow chest
+and knotted fingers; he had sharp features, a hooked nose, blue-black
+hair, a low forehead, small, intent-looking, deep-set eyes, and bushy
+eyebrows; when he smiled, splendid white teeth gleamed for an instant
+between his thin, hard, over-defined lips. He was in a rather old but
+tidy coat, buttoned up to the throat.
+
+'Why did you leave your old lodging?' Bersenyev asked him.
+
+'This is cheaper, and nearer to the university.'
+
+'But now it's vacation. . . . And what could induce you to stay in the
+town in summer! You should have taken a country cottage if you were
+determined to move.'
+
+Insarov made no reply to this remark, and offered Bersenyev a pipe,
+adding: 'Excuse me, I have no cigarettes or cigars.'
+
+Bersenyev began smoking the pipe.
+
+'Here have I,' he went on, 'taken a little house near Kuntsovo, very
+cheap and very roomy. In fact there is a room to spare upstairs.'
+
+Insarov again made no answer.
+
+Bersenyev drew at the pipe: 'I have even been thinking,' he began
+again, blowing out the smoke in a thin cloud, 'that if any one could
+be found--you, for instance, I thought of--who would care, who would
+consent to establish himself there upstairs, how nice it would be!
+What do you think, Dmitri Nikanorovitch?'
+
+Insarov turned his little eyes on him. 'You propose my staying in
+your country house?'
+
+'Yes; I have a room to spare there upstairs.'
+
+'Thanks very much, Andrei Petrovitch; but I expect my means would not
+allow of it.'
+
+'How do you mean?'
+
+'My means would not allow of my living in a country house. It's
+impossible for me to keep two lodgings.'
+
+'But of course I'--Bersenyev was beginning, but he stopped short.
+'You would have no extra expense in that way,' he went on. 'Your
+lodging here would remain for you, let us suppose; but then everything
+there is very cheap; we could even arrange so as to dine, for
+instance, together.'
+
+Insarov said nothing. Bersenyev began to feel awkward.
+
+'You might at least pay me a visit sometime,' he began, after a short
+pause. 'A few steps from me there's a family living with whom I want
+very much to make you acquainted. If only you knew, Insarov, what a
+marvellous girl there is there! There is an intimate friend of mine
+staying there too, a man of great talent; I am sure you would get on
+with him. [The Russian loves to be hospitable--of his friends if he
+can offer nothing else.] Really, you must come. And what would be
+better still, come and stay with me, do. We could work and read
+together. ... I am busy, as you know, with history and philosophy. All
+that would interest you. I have a lot of books.'
+
+Insarov got up and walked about the room. 'Let me know,' he said,
+'how much do you pay for your cottage?'
+
+'A hundred silver roubles.'
+
+'And how many rooms are there?'
+
+'Five.'
+
+'Then one may reckon that one room costs twenty roubles?'
+
+'Yes, one may reckon so. ... But really it's utterly unnecessary for
+me. It simply stands empty.'
+
+'Perhaps so; but listen,' added Insarov, with a decided, but at the
+same time good-natured movement of his head: 'I can only take
+advantage of your offer if you agree to take the sum we have reckoned.
+Twenty roubles I am able to give, the more easily, since, as you say,
+I shall be economising there in other things.'
+
+'Of course; but really I am ashamed to take it.'
+
+'Otherwise it's impossible, Andrei Petrovitch.'
+
+'Well, as you like; but what an obstinate fellow you are!'
+
+Insarov again made no reply.
+
+The young men made arrangements as to the day on which Insarov was to
+move. They called the landlord; at first he sent his daughter, a
+little girl of seven, with a large striped kerchief on her head; she
+listened attentively, almost with awe, to all Insarov said to her, and
+went away without speaking; after her, her mother, a woman far gone
+with child, made her appearance, also wearing a kerchief on her head,
+but a very diminutive one. Insarov informed her that he was going to
+stay at a cottage near Kuntsovo, but should keep on his lodging and
+leave all his things in their keeping; the tailor's wife too seemed
+scared and went away. At last the man himself came in: he seemed to
+understand everything from the first, and only said gloomily: 'Near
+Kuntsovo?' then all at once he opened the door and shouted: 'Are you
+going to keep the lodgings then?' Insarov reassured him. 'Well, one
+must know,' repeated the tailor morosely, as he disappeared.
+
+Bersenyev returned home, well content with the success of his
+proposal. Insarov escorted him to the door with cordial good manners,
+not common in Russia; and, when he was left alone, carefully took off
+his coat, and set to work upon sorting his papers.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+On the evening of the same day, Anna Vassilyevna was sitting in her
+drawing-room and was on the verge of weeping. There were also in the
+room her husband and a certain Uvar Ivanovitch Stahov, a distant
+cousin of Nikolai Artemyevitch, a retired cornet of sixty years old, a
+man corpulent to the point of immobility, with sleepy yellowish eyes,
+and colourless thick lips in a puffy yellow face. Ever since he had
+retired, he had lived in Moscow on the interest of a small capital
+left him by a wife who came of a shopkeeper's family. He did nothing,
+and it is doubtful whether he thought of anything; if he did think, he
+kept his thoughts to himself. Once only in his life he had been
+thrown into a state of excitement and shown signs of animation, and
+that was when he read in the newspapers of a new instrument at the
+Universal Exhibition in London, the 'contro-bombardon,' and became
+very anxious to order this instrument for himself, and even made
+inquiries as to where to send the money and through what office. Uvar
+Ivanovitch wore a loose snuff-coloured coat and a white neckcloth,
+used to eat often and much, and in moments of great perplexity, that
+is to say when it happened to him to express some opinion, he would
+flourish the fingers of his right hand meditatively in the air, with a
+convulsive spasm from the first finger to the little finger, and back
+from the little finger to the first finger, while he articulated with
+effort, 'to be sure . . . there ought to ... in some sort of a way.'
+
+Uvar Ivanovitch was sitting in an easy chair by the window, breathing
+heavily; Nikolai Artemyevitch was pacing with long strides up and
+down the room, his hands thrust into his pockets; his face expressed
+dissatisfaction.
+
+He stood still at last and shook his head. 'Yes;' he began, 'in
+our day young men were brought up differently. Young men did not
+permit themselves to be lacking in respect to their elders. And
+nowadays, I can only look on and wonder. Possibly, I am all wrong, and
+they are quite right; possibly. But still I have my own views of
+things; I was not born a fool. What do you think about it, Uvar
+Ivanovitch?'
+
+Uvar Ivanovitch could only look at him and work his fingers.
+
+'Elena Nikolaevna, for instance,' pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch,
+'Elena Nikolaevna I don't pretend to understand. I am not elevated
+enough for her. Her heart is so large that it embraces all nature down
+to the least spider or frog, everything in fact except her own father.
+Well, that's all very well; I know it, and I don't trouble myself
+about it. For that's nerves and education and lofty aspirations, and
+all that is not in my line. But Mr. Shubin . . . admitting he's a
+wonderful artist--quite exceptional--that, I don't dispute; to show
+want of respect to his elder, a man to whom, at any rate, one may say
+he is under great obligation; that I confess, _dans mon gros bon sens_,
+I cannot pass over. I am not exacting by nature, no, but there is a
+limit to everything.'
+
+Anna Vassilyevna rang the bell in a tremor. A little page came in.
+
+'Why is it Pavel Yakovlitch does not come?' she said, 'what does it
+mean; I call him, and he doesn't come?'
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch shrugged his shoulders.
+
+'And what is the object, may I ask, of your wanting to send for him?
+I don't expect that at all, I don't wish it even!'
+
+'What's the object, Nikolai Artemyevitch? He has disturbed you; very
+likely he has checked the progress of your cure. I want to have an
+explanation with him. I want to know how he has dared to annoy you.'
+
+'I tell you again, that I do not ask that. And what can induce you
+. . . _devant les domestiques_!'
+
+Anna Vassilyevna flushed a little. 'You need not say that, Nikolai
+Artemyevitch. I never . . . _devant les domestiques_ . . . Fedushka, go
+and see you bring Pavel Yakovlitch here at once.'
+
+The little page went off.
+
+'And that's absolutely unnecessary,' muttered Nikolai Artemyevitch
+between his teeth, and he began again pacing up and down the room. 'I
+did not bring up the subject with that object.'
+
+'Good Heavens, Paul must apologise to you.'
+
+'Good Heavens, what are his apologies to me? And what do you mean by
+apologies? That's all words.'
+
+'Why, he must be corrected.'
+
+'Well, you can correct him yourself. He will listen to you sooner
+than to me. For my part I bear him no grudge.'
+
+'No, Nikolai Artemyevitch, you've not been yourself ever since you
+arrived. You have even to my eyes grown thinner lately. I am afraid
+your treatment is doing you no good.'
+
+'The treatment is quite indispensable,' observed Nikolai Artemyevitch,
+'my liver is affected.'
+
+At that instant Shubin came in. He looked tired. A slight almost
+ironical smile played on his lips.
+
+'You asked for me, Anna Vassilyevna?' he observed.
+
+'Yes, certainly I asked for you. Really, Paul, this is dreadful. I am
+very much displeased with you. How could you be wanting in respect to
+Nikolai Artemyevitch?'
+
+'Nikolai Artemyevitch has complained of me to you?' inquired Shubin,
+and with the same smile on his lips he looked at Stahov. The latter
+turned away, dropping his eyes.
+
+'Yes, he complains of you. I don't know what you have done amiss, but
+you ought to apologise at once, because his health is very much
+deranged just now, and indeed we all ought when we are young to treat
+our benefactors with respect.'
+
+'Ah, what logic!' thought Shubin, and he turned to Stahov. 'I am
+ready to apologise to you, Nikolai Artemyevitch,' he said with a
+polite half-bow, 'if I have really offended you in any way.'
+
+'I did not at all ... with that idea,' rejoined Nikolai Artemyevitch,
+still as before avoiding Shubin's eyes. 'However, I will readily
+forgive you, for, as you know, I am not an exacting person.'
+
+'Oh, that admits of no doubt!' said Shubin. 'But allow me to be
+inquisitive; is Anna Vassilyevna aware precisely what constituted my
+offence?'
+
+'No, I know nothing,' observed Anna Vassilyevna, craning forward her
+head expectantly.
+
+'O Good Lord!' exclaimed Nikolai Artemyevitch hurriedly, 'how often
+have I prayed and besought, how often have I said how I hate these
+scenes and explanations! When one's been away an age, and comes home
+hoping for rest--talk of the family circle, _interieur_, being a family
+man--and here one finds scenes and unpleasantnesses. There's not a
+minute of peace. One's positively driven to the club ... or, or
+elsewhere. A man is alive, he has a physical side, and it has its
+claims, but here----'
+
+And without concluding his sentence Nikolai Artemyevitch went quickly
+out, slamming the door.
+
+Anna Vassilyevna looked after him. 'To the club!' she muttered
+bitterly: 'you are not going to the club, profligate? You've no one at
+the club to give away my horses to--horses from my own stable--and the
+grey ones too! My favourite colour. Yes, yes, fickle-hearted man,' she
+went on raising her voice, 'you are not going to the club, As for you,
+Paul,' she pursued, getting up, 'I wonder you're not ashamed. I should
+have thought you would not be so childish. And now my head has begun
+to ache. Where is Zoya, do you know?'
+
+'I think she's upstairs in her room. The wise little fox always hides
+in her hole when there's a storm in the air.'
+
+'Come, please, please!' Anna Vassilyevna began searching about her.
+'Haven't you seen my little glass of grated horse-radish? Paul, be so
+good as not to make me angry for the future.'
+
+'How make you angry, auntie? Give me your little hand to kiss. Your
+horse-radish I saw on the little table in the boudoir.'
+
+'Darya always leaves it about somewhere,' said Anna Vassilyevna, and
+she walked away with a rustle of silk skirts.
+
+Shubin was about to follow her, but he stopped on hearing Uvar
+Ivanovitch's drawling voice behind him.
+
+'I would . . . have given it you . . . young puppy,' the retired
+cornet brought out in gasps.
+
+Shubin went up to him. 'And what have I done, then, most venerable
+Uvar Ivanovitch?'
+
+'How! you are young, be respectful. Yes indeed.'
+
+'Respectful to whom?'
+
+'To whom? You know whom. Ay, grin away.'
+
+Shubin crossed his arms on his breast.
+
+'Ah, you type of the choice element in drama,' he exclaimed, 'you
+primeval force of the black earth, cornerstone of the social fabric!'
+
+Uvar Ivanovitch's fingers began to work. 'There, there, my boy, don't
+provoke me.'
+
+'Here,' pursued Shubin, 'is a gentleman, not young to judge by
+appearances, but what blissful, child-like faith is still hidden in
+him! Respect! And do you know, you primitive creature, what Nikolai
+Artemyevitch was in a rage with me for? Why I spent the whole of this
+morning with him at his German woman's; we were singing the three of
+us--"Do not leave me." You should have heard us--that would have
+moved you. We sang and sang, my dear sir--and well, I got bored; I
+could see something was wrong, there was an alarming tenderness in the
+air. And I began to tease them both. I was very successful. First she
+was angry with me, then with him; and then he got angry with her, and
+told her that he was never happy except at home, and he had a paradise
+there; and she told him he had no morals; and I murmured "Ach!" to
+her in German. He walked off and I stayed behind; he came here, to his
+paradise that's to say, and he was soon sick of paradise, so he set
+to grumbling. Well now, who do you consider was to blame?'
+
+'You, of course,' replied Uvar Ivanovitch.
+
+Shubin stared at him. 'May I venture to ask you, most reverend
+knight-errant,' he began in an obsequious voice, 'these enigmatical
+words you have deigned to utter as the result of some exercise of your
+reflecting faculties, or under the influence of a momentary necessity
+to start the vibration in the air known as sound?'
+
+'Don't tempt me, I tell you,' groaned Uvar Ivanovitch.
+
+Shubin laughed and ran away. 'Hi,' shouted Uvar Ivanovitch a quarter
+of an hour later, 'you there ... a glass of spirits.'
+
+A little page brought the glass of spirits and some salt fish on a
+tray. Uvar Ivanovitch slowly took the glass from the tray and gazed a
+long while with intense attention at it, as though he could not quite
+understand what it was he had in his hand. Then he looked at the page
+and asked him, 'Wasn't his name Vaska?' Then he assumed an air of
+resignation, drank off the spirit, munched the herring and was slowly
+proceeding to get his handkerchief out of his pocket. But the page had
+long ago carried off and put away the tray and the decanter, eaten up
+the remains of the herring and had time to go off to sleep, curled up
+in a great-coat of his master's, while Uvar Ivanovitch still
+continued to hold the handkerchief before him in his opened fingers,
+and with the same intense attention gazed now at the window, now at
+the floor and walls.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Shubin went back to his room in the lodge and was just opening a book,
+when Nikolai Artemyevitch's valet came cautiously into his room and
+handed him a small triangular note, sealed with a thick heraldic
+crest. 'I hope,' he found in the note, 'that you as a man of honour
+will not allow yourself to hint by so much as a single word at a
+certain promissory note which was talked of this morning. You are
+acquainted with my position and my rules, the insignificance of the
+sum in itself and the other circumstances; there are, in fine, family
+secrets which must be respected, and family tranquillity is something
+so sacred that only _etres sans cour_ (among whom I have no reason to
+reckon you) would repudiate it! Give this note back to me.--N. S.'
+
+Shubin scribbled below in pencil: 'Don't excite yourself, I'm not
+quite a sneak yet,' and gave the note back to the man, and again began
+upon the book. But it soon slipped out of his hands. He looked at the
+reddening-sky, at the two mighty young pines standing apart from the
+other trees, thought 'by day pines are bluish, but how magnificently
+green they are in the evening,' and went out into the garden, in the
+secret hope of meeting Elena there. He was not mistaken. Before him
+on a path between the bushes he caught a glimpse of her dress. He went
+after her, and when he was abreast with her, remarked:
+
+'Don't look in my direction, I'm not worth it.'
+
+She gave him a cursory glance, smiled cursorily, and walked on further
+into the depths of the garden. Shubin went after her.
+
+'I beg you not to look at me,' he began, 'and then I address you;
+flagrant contradiction. But what of that? it's not the first time I've
+contradicted myself. I have just recollected that I have never begged
+your pardon as I ought for my stupid behaviour yesterday. You are not
+angry with me, Elena Nikolaevna, are you?'
+
+She stood still and did not answer him at once--not because she was
+angry, but because her thoughts were far away.
+
+'No,' she said at last, 'I am not in the least angry.' Shubin bit his
+lip.
+
+'What an absorbed . . . and what an indifferent face!' he muttered.
+'Elena Nikolaevna,' he continued, raising his voice, 'allow me to
+tell you a little anecdote. I had a friend, and this friend also had a
+friend, who at first conducted himself as befits a gentleman but
+afterwards took to drink. So one day early in the morning, my friend
+meets him in the street (and by that time, note, the acquaintance has
+been completely dropped) meets him and sees he is drunk. My friend
+went and turned his back on him. But he ran up and said, "I would not
+be angry," says he, "if you refused to recognise me, but why should
+you turn your back on me? Perhaps I have been brought to this through
+grief. Peace to my ashes!"'
+
+Shubin paused.
+
+'And is that all?' inquired Elena.
+
+'Yes that's all.'
+
+'I don't understand you. What are you hinting at? You told me just
+now not to look your way.'
+
+'Yes, and now I have told you that it's too bad to turn your back on
+me.'
+
+'But did I?' began Elena.
+
+'Did you not?'
+
+Elena flushed slightly and held out her hand to Shubin. He pressed it
+warmly.
+
+'Here you seem to have convicted me of a bad feeling,' said Elena,
+'but your suspicion is unjust. I was not even thinking of Avoiding you.'
+
+'Granted, granted. But you must acknowledge that at that minute you
+had a thousand ideas in your head of which you would not confide one
+to me. Eh? I've spoken the truth, I'm quite sure?'
+
+'Perhaps so.'
+
+'And why is it? why?'
+
+'My ideas are not clear to myself,' said Elena.
+
+'Then it's just the time for confiding them to some one else,' put in
+Shubin. 'But I will tell you what it really is. You have a bad
+opinion of me.'
+
+'I?'
+
+'Yes you; you imagine that everything in me is half-humbug because I
+am an artist, that I am incapable not only of doing anything--in that
+you are very likely right--but even of any genuine deep feeling; you
+think that I am not capable even of weeping sincerely, that I'm a
+gossip and a slanderer,--and all because I'm an artist. What luckless,
+God-forsaken wretches we artists are after that! You, for instance, I
+am ready to adore, and you don't believe in my repentance.'
+
+'No, Pavel Yakovlitch, I believe in your repentance and I believe in
+your tears. But it seems to me that even your repentance amuses
+you--yes and your tears too.'
+
+Shubin shuddered.
+
+'Well, I see this is, as the doctors say, a hopeless case, _casus
+incurabilis_. There is nothing left but to bow the head and submit.
+And meanwhile, good Heavens, can it be true, can I possibly be
+absorbed in my own egoism when there is a soul like this living at my
+side? And to know that one will never penetrate into that soul, never
+will know why it grieves and why it rejoices, what is working within
+it, what it desires--whither it is going . . . Tell me,' he said after
+a short silence, 'could you never under any circumstances love an
+artist?'
+
+Elena looked straight into his eyes.
+
+'I don't think so, Pavel Yakovlitch; no.'
+
+'Which was to be proved,' said Shubin with comical dejection. 'After
+which I suppose it would be more seemly for me not to intrude on your
+solitary walk. A professor would ask you on what data you founded your
+answer no. I'm not a professor though, but a baby according to your
+ideas; but one does not turn one's back on a baby, remember.
+Good-bye! Peace to my ashes!'
+
+Elena was on the point of stopping him, but after a moment's thought
+she too said:
+
+'Good-bye.'
+
+Shubin went out of the courtyard. At a short distance from the
+Stahov's house he was met by Bersenyev. He was walking with hurried
+steps, his head bent and his hat pushed back on his neck.
+
+'Andrei Petrovitch!' cried Shubin.
+
+He stopped.
+
+'Go on, go on,' continued Shubin, 'I only shouted, I won't detain
+you--and you'd better slip straight into the garden--you'll find
+Elena there, I fancy she's waiting for you . . . she's waiting for
+some one anyway. . . . Do you understand the force of those words:
+she is waiting! And do you know, my dear boy, an astonishing
+circumstance? Imagine, it's two years now that I have been living in
+the same house with her, I'm in love with her, and it's only just
+now, this minute, that I've, not understood, but really seen her. I
+have seen her and I lifted up my hands in amazement. Don't look at me,
+please, with that sham sarcastic smile, which does not suit your sober
+features. Well, now, I suppose you want to remind me of Annushka. What
+of it? I don't deny it. Annushkas are on my poor level. And long life
+to all Annushkas and Zoyas and even Augustina Christianovnas! You go
+to Elena now, and I will make my way to--Annushka, you fancy? No, my
+dear fellow, worse than that; to Prince Tchikurasov. He is a Maecenas
+of a Kazan-Tartar stock, after the style of Volgin. Do you see this
+note of invitation, these letters, R.S.V.P.? Even in the country
+there's no peace for me. Addio!' Bersenyev listened to Shubin's tirade
+in silence, looking as though he were just a little ashamed of him.
+Then he went into the courtyard of the Stahovs' house. And Shubin did
+really go to Prince Tchikurasov, to whom with the most cordial air he
+began saying the most insulting things. The Maecenas of the Tartars of
+Kazan chuckled; the Maecenas's guests laughed, but no one felt merry,
+and every one was in a bad temper when the party broke up. So two
+gentlemen slightly acquainted may be seen when they meet on the Nevsky
+Prospect suddenly grinning at one another and pursing up their eyes
+and noses and cheeks, and then, directly they have passed one another,
+they resume their former indifferent, often cross, and generally
+sickly, expression.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Elena met Bersenyev cordially, though not in the garden, but the
+drawing-room, and at once, almost impatiently, renewed the
+conversation of the previous day. She was alone; Nikolai Artemyevitch
+had quietly slipped away. Anna Vassilyevna was lying down upstairs
+with a wet bandage on her head. Zoya was sitting by her, the folds of
+her skirt arranged precisely about her, and her little hands clasped
+on her knees. Uvar Ivanovitch was reposing in the attic on a wide and
+comfortable divan, known as a 'samo-son' or 'dozer.' Bersenyev
+again mentioned his father; he held his memory sacred. Let us, too,
+say a few words about him.
+
+The owner of eighty-two serfs, whom he set free before his death, an
+old Gottingen student, and disciple of the 'Illuminati,' the author
+of a manuscript work on 'transformations or typifications of the
+spirit in the world'--a work in which Schelling's philosophy,
+Swedenborgianism and republicanism were mingled in the most original
+fashion--Bersenyev's father brought him, while still a boy, to Moscow
+immediately after his mother's death, and at once himself undertook
+his education. He prepared himself for each lesson, exerted himself
+with extraordinary conscientiousness and absolute lack of success: he
+was a dreamer, a bookworm, and a mystic; he spoke in a dull,
+hesitating voice, used obscure and roundabout expressions,
+metaphorical by preference, and was shy even of his son, whom he loved
+passionately. It was not surprising that his son was simply bewildered
+at his lessons, and did not advance in the least. The old man (he was
+almost fifty, he had married late in life) surmised at last that
+things were not going quite right, and he placed his Andrei in a
+school. Andrei began to learn, but he was not removed from his
+father's supervision; his father visited him unceasingly, wearying the
+schoolmaster to death with his instructions and conversation; the
+teachers, too, were bored by his uninvited visits; he was for ever
+bringing them some, as they said, far-fetched books on education.
+Even the schoolboys were embarrassed at the sight of the old man's
+swarthy, pockmarked face, his lank figure, invariably clothed in a
+sort of scanty grey dresscoat. The boys did not suspect then that this
+grim, unsmiling old gentleman, with his crane-like gait and his long
+nose, was at heart troubling and yearning over each one of them almost
+as over his own son. He once conceived the idea of talking to them
+about Washington: 'My young nurslings,' he began, but at the first
+sounds of his strange voice the young nurslings ran away. The good old
+Gottingen student did not lie on a bed of roses; he was for ever
+weighed down by the march of history, by questions and ideas of every
+kind. When young Bersenyev entered the university, his father used to
+drive with him to the lectures, but his health was already beginning
+to break up. The events of the year 1848 shook him to the foundation
+(it necessitated the re-writing of his whole book), and he died in the
+winter of 1853, before his son's time at the university was over, but
+he was able beforehand to congratulate him on his degree, and to
+consecrate him to the service of science. 'I pass on the torch to
+you,' he said to him two hours before his death. 'I held it while I
+could; you, too, must not let the light grow dim before the end.'
+
+Bersenyev talked a long while to Elena of his father. The
+embarrassment he had felt in her presence disappeared, and his lisp
+was less marked. The conversation passed on to the university.
+
+'Tell me,' Elena asked him, 'were there any remarkable men among your
+comrades?'
+
+Bersenyev was again reminded of Shubin's words.
+
+'No, Elena Nikolaevna, to tell you the truth, there was not a single
+remarkable man among us. And, indeed, where are such to be found!
+There was, they say, a good time once in the Moscow university! But
+not now. Now it's a school, not a university. I was not happy with my
+comrades,' he added, dropping his voice.
+
+'Not happy,' murmured Elena.
+
+'But I ought,' continued Bersenyev, 'to make an exception. I know one
+student--it's true he is not in the same faculty--he is certainly a
+remarkable man.'
+
+'What is his name?' Elena inquired with interest.
+
+'Insarov Dmitri Nikanorovitch. He is a Bulgarian.'
+
+'Not a Russian?'
+
+'No, he is not a Russian,'
+
+'Why is he living in Moscow, then?'
+
+'He came here to study. And do you know with what aim he is studying?
+He has a single idea: the liberation of his country. And his story is
+an exceptional one. His father was a fairly well-to-do merchant; he
+came from Tirnova. Tirnova is now a small town, but it was the capital
+of Bulgaria in the old days when Bulgaria was still an independent
+state. He traded with Sophia, and had relations with Russia; his
+sister, Insarov's aunt, is still living in Kiev, married to a senior
+history teacher in the gymnasium there. In 1835, that is to say
+eighteen years ago, a terrible crime was committed; Insarov's mother
+suddenly disappeared without leaving a trace behind; a week later she
+was found murdered.'
+
+Elena shuddered. Bersenyev stopped.
+
+'Go on, go on,' she said.
+
+'There were rumours that she had been outraged and murdered by a
+Turkish aga; her husband, Insarov's father, found out the truth,
+tried to avenge her, but only succeeded in wounding the aga with his
+poniard. . . . He was shot.'
+
+'Shot, and without a trial?'
+
+'Yes. Insarov was just eight years old at the time. He remained in the
+hands of neighbours. The sister heard of the fate of her brother's
+family, and wanted to take the nephew to live with her. They got him
+to Odessa, and from there to Kiev. At Kiev he lived twelve whole
+years. That's how it is he speaks Russian so well.'
+
+'He speaks Russian?'
+
+'Just as we do. When he was twenty (that was at the beginning of the
+year 1848) he began to want to return to his country. He stayed in
+Sophia and Tirnova, and travelled through the length and breadth of
+Bulgaria, spending two years there, and learning his mother tongue
+over again. The Turkish Government persecuted him, and he was
+certainly exposed to great dangers during those two years; I once
+caught sight of a broad scar on his neck, from a wound, no doubt; but
+he does not like to talk about it. He is reserved, too, in his own
+way. I have tried to question him about everything, but I could get
+nothing out of him. He answers by generalities. He's awfully
+obstinate. He returned to Russia again in 1850, to Moscow, with the
+intention of educating himself thoroughly, getting intimate with
+Russians, and then when he leaves the university----'
+
+'What then?' broke in Elena.
+
+'What God wills. It's hard to forecast the future.'
+
+For a while Elena did not take her eyes off Bersenyev.
+
+'You have greatly interested me by what you have told me,' she said.
+'What is he like, this friend of yours; what did you call him,
+Insarov?'
+
+'What shall I say? To my mind, he's good-looking. But you will see
+him for yourself.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'I will bring him here to see you. He is coming to our little village
+the day after tomorrow, and is going to live with me in the same
+lodging.'
+
+'Really? But will he care to come to see us?'
+
+'I should think so. He will be delighted.'
+
+'He isn't proud, then?'
+
+'Not the least. That's to say, he is proud if you like, only not in
+the sense you mean. He will never, for instance, borrow money from
+any one.'
+
+'Is he poor?'
+
+'Yes, he isn't rich. When he went to Bulgaria he collected some relics
+left of his father's property, and his aunt helps him; but it all
+comes to very little.'
+
+'He must have a great deal of character,' observed Elena.
+
+'Yes. He is a man of iron. And at the same time you will see there is
+something childlike and frank, with all his concentration and even his
+reserve. It's true, his frankness is not our poor sort of
+frankness--the frankness of people who have absolutely nothing to
+conceal. . . . But there, I will bring him to see you; wait a
+little.'
+
+'And isn't he shy?' asked Elena again.
+
+'No, he's not shy. It's only vain people who are shy.'
+
+'Why, are you vain?'
+
+He was confused and made a vague gesture with his hands.
+
+'You excite my curiosity,' pursued Elena. 'But tell me, has he not
+taken vengeance on that Turkish aga?'
+
+Bersenyev smiled
+
+'Revenge is only to be found in novels, Elena Nikolaevna; and,
+besides, in twelve years that aga may well be dead.'
+
+'Mr. Insarov has never said anything, though, to you about it?'
+
+'No, never.'
+
+'Why did he go to Sophia?'
+
+'His father used to live there.'
+
+Elena grew thoughtful.
+
+'To liberate one's country!' she said. 'It is terrible even to
+utter those words, they are so grand.'
+
+At that instant Anna Vassilyevna came into the room, and the
+conversation stopped.
+
+Bersenyev was stirred by strange emotions when he returned home that
+evening. He did not regret his plan of making Elena acquainted with
+Insarov, he felt the deep impression made on her by his account of the
+young Bulgarian very natural . . . had he not himself tried to deepen
+that impression! But a vague, unfathomable emotion lurked secretly in
+his heart; he was sad with a sadness that had nothing noble in it.
+This sadness did not prevent him, however, from setting to work on the
+_History of the Hohenstaufen_, and beginning to read it at the very page
+at which he had left off the evening before.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Two days later, Insarov in accordance with his promise arrived at
+Bersenyev's with his luggage. He had no servant; but without any
+assistance he put his room to rights, arranged the furniture, dusted
+and swept the floor. He had special trouble with the writing table,
+which would not fit into the recess in the wall assigned for it; but
+Insarov, with the silent persistence peculiar to him succeeded in
+getting his own way with it. When he had settled in, he asked
+Bersenyev to let him pay him ten roubles in advance, and arming
+himself with a thick stick, set off to inspect the country surrounding
+his new abode. He returned three hours later; and in response to
+Bersenyev's invitation to share his repast, he said that he would not
+refuse to dine with him that day, but that he had already spoken to
+the woman of the house, and would get her to send him up his meals for
+the future.
+
+'Upon my word!' said Bersenyev, 'you will fare very badly; that old
+body can't cook a bit. Why don't you dine with me, we would go halves
+over the cost.'
+
+'My means don't allow me to dine as you do,' Insarov replied with a
+tranquil smile.
+
+There was something in that smile which forbade further insistence;
+Bersenyev did not add a word. After dinner he proposed to Insarov that
+he should take him to the Stahovs; but he replied that he had
+intended to devote the evening to correspondence with his Bulgarians,
+and so he would ask him to put off the visit to the Stahovs till next
+day. Bersenyev was already familiar with Insarov's unbending will;
+but it was only now when he was under the same roof with him, that he
+fully realised at last that Insarov would never alter any decision,
+just in the same way as he would never fail to carry out a promise he
+had given; to Bersenyev--a Russian to his fingertips--this more
+than German exactitude seemed at first odd, and even rather
+ludicrous; but he soon got used to it, and ended by finding it--if not
+deserving of respect--at least very convenient.
+
+The second day after his arrival, Insarov got up at four o'clock in
+the morning, made a round of almost all Kuntsovo, bathed in the river,
+drank a glass of cold milk, and then set to work. And he had plenty of
+work to do; he was studying Russian history and law, and political
+economy, translating the Bulgarian ballads and chronicles, collecting
+materials on the Eastern Question, and compiling a Russian grammar for
+the use of Bulgarians, and a Bulgarian grammar for the use of
+Russians. Bersenyev went up to him and began to discuss Feuerbach.
+Insarov listened attentively, made few remarks, but to the point; it
+was clear from his observations that he was trying to arrive at a
+conclusion as to whether he need study Feuerbach, or whether he could
+get on without him. Bersenyev turned the conversation on to his
+pursuits, and asked him if he could not show him anything. Insarov
+read him his translation of two or three Bulgarian ballads, and was
+anxious to hear his opinion of them. Bersenyev thought the
+translation a faithful one, but not sufficiently spirited. Insarov
+paid close attention to his criticism. From the ballads Bersenyev
+passed on to the present position of Bulgaria, and then for the first
+time he noticed what a change came over Insarov at the mere mention of
+his country: not that his face flushed nor his voice grew louder--no!
+but at once a sense of force and intense onward striving was expressed
+in his whole personality, the lines of his mouth grew harder and less
+flexible, and a dull persistent fire glowed in the depths of his eyes.
+Insarov did not care to enlarge on his own travels in his country;
+but of Bulgaria in general he talked readily with any one. He talked
+at length of the Turks, of their oppression, of the sorrows and
+disasters of his countrymen, and of their hopes: concentrated
+meditation on a single ruling passion could be heard in every word he
+uttered.
+
+'Ah, well, there's no mistake about it,' Bersenyev was reflecting
+meanwhile, 'that Turkish aga, I venture to think, has been punished
+for his father's and mother's death.'
+
+Insarov had not had time to say all he wanted to say, when the door
+opened and Shubin made his appearance.
+
+He came into the room with an almost exaggerated air of ease and
+good-humour; Bersenyev, who knew him well, could see at once that
+something had been jarring on him.
+
+'I will introduce myself without ceremony,' he began with a bright and
+open expression on his face. 'My name is Shubin; I'm a friend of
+this young man here' (he indicated Bersenyev). 'You are Mr. Insarov,
+of course, aren't you?'
+
+'I am Insarov.'
+
+'Then give me your hand and let us be friends. I don't know if
+Bersenyev has talked to you about me, but he has told me a great deal
+about you. You are staying here? Capital! Don't be offended at my
+staring at you so. I'm a sculptor by trade, and I foresee I shall in
+a little time be begging your permission to model your head.'
+
+'My head's at your service,' said Insarov.
+
+'What shall we do to-day, eh?' began Shubin, sitting down suddenly
+on a low chair, with his knees apart and his elbows propped on them.
+'Andrei Petrovitch, has your honour any kind of plan for to-day? It's
+glorious weather; there's a scent of hay and dried strawberries as if
+one were drinking strawberry-tea for a cold. We ought to get up some
+kind of a spree. Let us show the new inhabitant of Kuntsov all its
+numerous beauties.' (Something has certainly upset him, Bersenyev kept
+thinking to himself.) 'Well, why art thou silent, friend Horatio?
+Open your prophetic lips. Shall we go off on a spree, or not?'
+
+'I don't know how Insarov feels,' observed Bersenyev. 'He is just
+getting to work, I fancy.'
+
+Shubin turned round on his chair.
+
+'You want to work?' he inquired, in a somewhat condescending voice.
+
+'No,' answered Insarov; 'to-day I could give up to walking.'
+
+'Ah!' commented Shubin. 'Well, that's delightful. Run along, my
+friend, Andrei Petrovitch, put a hat on your learned head, and let us
+go where our eyes lead us. Our eyes are young--they may lead us far.
+I know a very repulsive little restaurant, where they will give us a
+very beastly little dinner; but we shall be very jolly. Come along.'
+
+Half an hour later they were all three walking along the bank of the
+Moskva. Insarov had a rather queer cap with flaps, over which Shubin
+fell into not very spontaneous raptures. Insarov walked without haste,
+and looked about, breathing, talking, and smiling with the same
+tranquillity; he was giving this day up to pleasure, and enjoying it
+to the utmost. 'Just as well-behaved boys walk out on Sundays,'
+Shubin whispered in Bersenyev's ear. Shubin himself played the fool a
+great deal, ran in front, threw himself into the attitudes of famous
+statues, and turned somersaults on the grass; Insarov's tranquillity
+did not exactly irritate him, but it spurred him on to playing antics.
+'What a fidget you are, Frenchman!' Bersenyev said twice to him.
+'Yes, I am French, half French,' Shubin answered, 'and you hold the
+happy medium between jest and earnest, as a waiter once said to me.'
+The young men turned away from the river and went along a deep and
+narrow ravine between two walls of tall golden rye; a bluish shadow
+was cast on them from the rye on one side; the flashing sunlight
+seemed to glide over the tops of the ears; the larks were singing, the
+quails were calling: on all sides was the brilliant green of the
+grass; a warm breeze stirred and lifted the leaves and shook the heads
+of the flowers. After prolonged wanderings, with rest and chat between
+(Shubin had even tried to play leap-frog with a toothless peasant they
+met, who did nothing but laugh, whatever the gentlemen might do to
+him), the young men reached the 'repulsive little' restaurant: the
+waiter almost knocked each of them over, and did really provide them
+with a very bad dinner with a sort of Balkan wine, which did not,
+however, prevent them from being very jolly, as Shubin had foretold;
+he himself was the loudest and the least jolly. He drank to the
+health of the incomprehensible but great _Venelin_, the health of the
+Bulgarian king Kuma, Huma, or Hroma, who lived somewhere about the
+time of Adam.
+
+'In the ninth century,' Insarov corrected him.
+
+'In the ninth century?' cried Shubin. 'Oh, how delightful!'
+
+Bersenyev noticed that among all his pranks, and jests and gaiety,
+Shubin was constantly, as it were, examining Insarov; he was sounding
+him and was in inward excitement, but Insarov remained as before, calm
+and straightforward.
+
+At last they returned home, changed their dress, and resolved to
+finish the day as they had begun it, by going that evening to the
+Stahovs. Shubin ran on before them to announce their arrival.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+'The conquering hero Insarov will be here directly!' he shouted
+triumphantly, going into the Stahovs' drawing-room, where there
+happened at the instant to be only Elena and Zoya.
+
+'_Wer_?' inquired Zoya in German. When she was taken unawares she always
+used her native language. Elena drew herself up. Shubin looked at her
+with a playful smile on his lips. She felt annoyed, but said nothing.
+
+'You heard,' he repeated, 'Mr. Insarov is coming here.'
+
+'I heard,' she replied; 'and I heard how you spoke of him. I am
+surprised at you, indeed. Mr. Insarov has not yet set foot in the
+house, and you already think fit to turn him into ridicule.'
+
+Shubin was crestfallen at once.
+
+'You are right, you are always right, Elena Nikolaevna,' he muttered;
+'but I meant nothing, on my honour. We have been walking together
+with him the whole day, and he's a capital fellow, I assure you.'
+
+'I didn't ask your opinion about that,' commented Elena, getting up.
+
+'Is Mr. Insarov a young man?' asked Zoya.
+
+'He is a hundred and forty-four,' replied Shubin with an air of
+vexation.
+
+The page announced the arrival of the two friends. They came in.
+Bersenyev introduced Insarov. Elena asked them to sit down, and sat
+down herself, while Zoya went off upstairs; she had to inform Anna
+Vassilyevna of their arrival. A conversation was begun of a rather
+insignificant kind, like all first conversations. Shubin was silently
+watching from a corner, but there was nothing to watch. In Elena he
+detected signs of repressed annoyance against him--Shubin--and that
+was all. He looked at Bersenyev and at Insarov, and compared their
+faces from a sculptor's point of view. 'They are neither of them
+good-looking,' he thought, 'the Bulgarian has a characteristic
+face--there now it's in a good light; the Great-Russian is better
+adapted for painting; there are no lines, there's expression. But, I
+dare say, one might fall in love with either of them. She is not in
+love yet, but she will fall in love with Bersenyev,' he decided to
+himself. Anna Vassilyevna made her appearance in the drawing-room, and
+the conversation took the tone peculiar to summer villas--not the
+country-house tone but the peculiar summer visitor tone. It was a
+conversation diversified by plenty of subjects; but broken by short
+rather wearisome pauses every three minutes. In one of these pauses
+Anna Vassilyevna turned to Zoya. Shubin understood her silent hint,
+and drew a long face, while Zoya sat down to the piano, and played and
+sang all her pieces through. Uvar Ivanovitch showed himself for an
+instant in the doorway, but he beat a retreat, convulsively twitching
+his fingers. Then tea was served; and then the whole party went out
+into the garden. ... It began to grow dark outside, and the guests
+took leave.
+
+Insarov had really made less impression on Elena than she had
+expected, or, speaking more exactly, he had not made the impression
+she had expected. She liked his directness and unconstraint, and she
+liked his face; but the whole character of Insarov--with his calm
+firmness and everyday simplicity--did not somehow accord with the
+image formed in her brain by Bersenyev's account of him. Elena, though
+she did not herself suspect it, had anticipated something more
+fateful. 'But,' she reflected, 'he spoke very little to-day, and I am
+myself to blame for it; I did not question him, we must have patience
+till next time . . . and his eyes are expressive, honest eyes.' She
+felt that she had no disposition to humble herself before him, but
+rather to hold out her hand to him in friendly equality, and she was
+puzzled; this was not how she had fancied men, like Insarov, 'heroes.'
+This last word reminded her of Shubin, and she grew hot and angry, as
+she lay in her bed.
+
+'How did you like your new acquaintances?' Bersenyev inquired of
+Insarov on their way home.
+
+'I liked them very much,' answered Insarov, 'especially the daughter.
+She must be a nice girl. She is excitable, but in her it's a fine kind
+of excitability.'
+
+'You must go and see them a little oftener,' observed Bersenyev.
+
+'Yes, I must,' said Insarov; and he said nothing more all the way
+home. He at once shut himself up in his room, but his candle was
+burning long after midnight.
+
+Bersenyev had had time to read a page of Raumer, when a handful of
+fine gravel came rattling on his window-pane. He could not help
+starting; opening the window he saw Shubin as white as a sheet.
+
+'What an irrepressible fellow you are, you night moth----' Bersenyev
+was beginning.
+
+'Sh--' Shubin cut him short; 'I have come to you in secret, as Max
+went to Agatha I absolutely must say a few words to you alone.'
+
+'Come into the room then.'
+
+'No, that's not necessary,' replied Shubin, and he leaned his elbows
+on the window-sill, 'it's better fun like this, more as if we were in
+Spain. To begin with, I congratulate you, you're at a premium now.
+Your belauded, exceptional man has quite missed fire. That I'll
+guarantee. And to prove my impartiality, listen--here's the sum and
+substance of Mr. Insarov. No talents, none, no poetry, any amount of
+capacity for work, an immense memory, an intellect not deep nor
+varied, but sound and quick, dry as dust, and force, and even the gift
+of the gab when the talk's about his--between ourselves let it be
+said--tedious Bulgaria. What! do you say I am unjust? One remark
+more: you'll never come to Christian names with him, and none ever has
+been on such terms with him. I, of course, as an artist, am hateful
+to him; and I am proud of it. Dry as dust, dry as dust, but he can
+crush all of us to powder. He's devoted to his country--not like our
+empty patriots who fawn on the people; pour into us, they say, thou
+living water! But, of course, his problem is easier, more
+intelligible: he has only to drive the Turks out, a mighty task. But
+all these qualities, thank God, don't please women. There's no
+fascination, no charm about them, as there is about you and me.'
+
+'Why do you bring me in?' muttered Bersenyev. 'And you are wrong in
+all the rest; you are not in the least hateful to him, and with his
+own countrymen he is on Christian name terms--that I know.'
+
+'That's a different matter! For them he's a hero; but, to make a
+confession, I have a very different idea of a hero; a hero ought not
+to be able to talk; a hero should roar like a bull, but when he butts
+with his horns, the walls shake. He ought not to know himself why he
+butts at things, but just to butt at them. But, perhaps, in our days
+heroes of a different stamp are needed.'
+
+'Why are you so taken up with Insarov?' asked Bersenyev. 'Can you
+have run here only to describe his character to me?'
+
+'I came here,' began Shubin, 'because I was very miserable at home.'
+
+'Oh, that's it! Don't you want to have a cry again?'
+
+'You may laugh! I came here because I'm at my wits' end, because I
+am devoured by despair, anger, jealousy.'
+
+'Jealousy? of whom?'
+
+'Of you and him and every one. I'm tortured by the thought that if I
+had understood her sooner, if I had set to work cleverly--But what's
+the use of talking! It must end by my always laughing, playing the
+fool, turning things into ridicule as she says, and then setting to
+and strangling myself.'
+
+'Stuff, you won't strangle yourself,' observed Bersenyev.
+
+'On such a night, of course not; but only let me live on till the
+autumn. On such a night people do die too, but only of happiness. Ah,
+happiness! Every shadow that stretches across the road from every
+tree seems whispering now: "I know where there is happiness . . .
+shall I tell you?" I would ask you to come for a walk, only now you're
+under the influence of prose. Go to sleep, and may your dreams be
+visited by mathematical figures! My heart is breaking. You, worthy
+gentlemen, see a man laughing, and that means to your notions he's all
+right; you can prove to him that he's humbugging himself, that's to
+say, he is not suffering. . . . God bless you!'
+
+Shubin abruptly left the window. 'Annu-shka!' Bersenyev felt an
+impulse to shout after him, but he restrained himself; Shubin had
+really been white with emotion. Two minutes later, Bersenyev even
+caught the sound of sobbing; he got up and opened the window;
+everything was still, only somewhere in the distance some one--a
+passing peasant, probably--was humming 'The Plain of Mozdok.'
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+During the first fortnight of Insarov's stay in the Kuntsovo
+neighbourhood, he did not visit the Stahovs more than four or five
+times; Bersenyev went to see them every day. Elena was always pleased
+to see him, lively and interesting talk always sprang up between them,
+and yet he often went home with a gloomy face. Shubin scarcely showed
+himself; he was working with feverish energy at his art; he either
+stayed locked up in his room, from which he would emerge in a blouse,
+smeared all over with clay, or else he spent days in Moscow where he
+had a studio, to which models and Italian sculptors, his friends and
+teachers, used to come to see him. Elena did not once succeed in
+talking with Insarov, as she would have liked to do; in his absence
+she prepared questions to ask him about many things, but when he came
+she felt ashamed of her plans. Insarov's very tranquillity embarrassed
+her; it seemed to her that she had not the right to force him to speak
+out; and she resolved to wait; for all that, she felt that at every
+visit however trivial might be the words that passed between them, he
+attracted her more and more; but she never happened to be left alone
+with him--and to grow intimate with any one, one must have at least
+one conversation alone with him. She talked a great deal about him to
+Bersenyev. Bersenyev realised that Elena's imagination had been struck
+by Insarov, and was glad that his friend had not 'missed fire' as
+Shubin had asserted. He told her cordially all he knew of him down to
+the minutest details (we often, when we want to please some one, bring
+our friends into our conversation, hardly ever suspecting that we are
+praising ourselves in that way), and only at times, when Elena's pale
+cheeks flushed a little and her eyes grew bright and wide, he felt a
+pang in his heart of that evil pain which he had felt before.
+
+One day Bersenyev came to the Stahovs, not at the customary time, but
+at eleven o'clock in the morning. Elena came down to him in the
+parlour.
+
+'Fancy,' he began with a constrained smile, 'our Insarov has
+disappeared.'
+
+'Disappeared?' said Elena.
+
+'He has disappeared. The day before yesterday he went off somewhere
+and nothing has been seen of him since.'
+
+'He did not tell you where he was going?'
+
+'No.'
+
+Elena sank into a chair.
+
+'He has most likely gone to Moscow,' she commented, trying to seem
+indifferent and at the same time wondering that she should try to seem
+indifferent.
+
+'I don't think so,' rejoined Bersenyev. 'He did not go alone.'
+
+'With whom then?'
+
+'Two people of some sort--his countrymen they must have been--came to
+him the day before yesterday, before dinner.'
+
+'Bulgarians! what makes you think so?'
+
+'Why as far as I could hear, they talked to him in some language I did
+not know, but Slavonic . . . You are always saying, Elena Nikolaevna,
+that there's so little mystery about Insarov; what could be more
+mysterious than this visit? Imagine, they came to him--and then there
+was shouting and quarrelling, and such savage, angry disputing. . . .
+And he shouted too.'
+
+'He shouted too?'
+
+'Yes. He shouted at them. They seemed to be accusing each other. And
+if you could have had a peep at these visitors. They had swarthy,
+heavy faces with high cheek bones and hook noses, both about forty
+years old, shabbily dressed, hot and dusty, looking like workmen--not
+workmen, and not gentlemen--goodness knows what sort of people they
+were.'
+
+'And he went away with them?'
+
+'Yes. He gave them something to eat and went off with them. The woman
+of the house told me they ate a whole huge pot of porridge between the
+two of them. They outdid one another, she said, and gobbled it up like
+wolves.'
+
+Elena gave a faint smile.
+
+'You will see,' she said, 'all this will be explained into something
+very prosaic.'
+
+'I hope it may! But you need not use that word. There is nothing
+prosaic about Insarov, though Shubin does maintain----'
+
+'Shubin!' Elena broke in, shrugging her shoulders. 'But you must
+confess these two good men gobbling up porridge----'
+
+'Even Themistocles had his supper on the eve of Salamis,' observed
+Bersenyev with a smile.
+
+'Yes; but then there was a battle next day. Any way you will let me
+know when he comes back,' said Elena, and she tried to change the
+subject, but the conversation made little progress. Zoya made her
+appearance and began walking about the room on tip-toe, giving them
+thereby to understand that Anna Vassilyevna was not yet awake.
+
+Bersenyev went away.
+
+In the evening of the same day a note from him was brought to Elena.
+'He has come back,' he wrote to her, 'sunburnt and dusty to his very
+eyebrows; but where and why he went I don't know; won't you find out?'
+
+'Won't you find out!' Elena whispered, 'as though he talked to me!'
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+The next day, at two o'clock, Elena was standing in the garden before
+a small kennel, where she was rearing two puppies. (A gardener had
+found them deserted under a hedge, and brought them to the young
+mistress, being told by the laundry-maids that she took pity on beasts
+of all sorts. He was not wrong in his reckoning. Elena had given him
+a quarter-rouble.) She looked into the kennel, assured herself that
+the puppies were alive and well, and that they had been provided with
+fresh straw, turned round, and almost uttered a cry; down an alley
+straight towards her was walking Insarov, alone.
+
+'Good-morning,' he said, coming up to her and taking off his cap. She
+noticed that he certainly had got much sunburnt during the last three
+days. 'I meant to have come here with Andrei Petrovitch, but he was
+rather slow in starting; so here I am without him. There is no one in
+your house; they are all asleep or out of doors, so I came on here.'
+
+'You seem to be apologising,' replied Elena. 'There's no need to do
+that. We are always very glad to see you. Let us sit here on the bench
+in the shade.'
+
+She seated herself. Insarov sat down near her.
+
+'You have not been at home these last days, I think?' she began.
+
+'No,' he answered. 'I went away. Did Andrei Petrovitch tell you?'
+
+Insarov looked at her, smiled, and began playing with his cap. When he
+smiled, his eyes blinked, and his lips puckered up, which gave him a
+very good-humoured appearance.
+
+'Andrei Petrovitch most likely told you too that I went away with
+some--unattractive people,' he said, still smiling.
+
+Elena was a little confused, but she felt at once that Insarov must
+always be told the truth.
+
+'Yes,' she said decisively.
+
+'What did you think of me?' he asked her suddenly.
+
+Elena raised her eyes to him.
+
+'I thought,' she said, 'I thought that you always know what you're
+doing, and you are incapable of doing anything wrong.'
+
+'Well--thanks for that. You see, Elena Nikolaevna,' he began, coming
+closer to her in a confidential way, 'there is a little family of our
+people here; among us there are men of little culture; but all are
+warmly devoted to the common cause. Unluckily, one can never get on
+without dissensions, and they all know me, and trust me; so they sent
+for me to settle a dispute. I went.'
+
+'Was it far from here?'
+
+'I went about fifty miles, to the Troitsky district. There, near the
+monastery, there are some of our people. At any rate, my trouble was
+not thrown away; I settled the matter.'
+
+'And had you much difficulty?'
+
+'Yes. One was obstinate through everything. He did not want to give
+back the money.'
+
+'What? Was the dispute over money?'
+
+'Yes; and a small sum of money too. What did you suppose?'
+
+'And you travelled over fifty miles for such trifling matters? Wasted
+three days?'
+
+'They are not trifling matters, Elena Nikolaevna, when my countrymen
+are involved. It would be wicked to refuse in such cases. I see here
+that you don't refuse help even to puppies, and I think well of you
+for it. And as for the time I have lost, that's no great harm; I will
+make it up later. Our time does not belong to us.'
+
+'To whom does it belong then?'
+
+'Why, to all who need us. I have told you all this on the spur of the
+moment, because I value your good opinion. I can fancy how Andrei
+Petrovitch must have made you wonder!'
+
+'You value my good opinion,' said Elena, in an undertone, 'why?'
+
+Insarov smiled again.
+
+'Because you are a good young lady, not an aristocrat . . . that's
+all.'
+
+A short silence followed.
+
+'Dmitri Nikanorovitch,' said Elena, 'do you know that this is the first
+time you have been so unreserved with me?'
+
+'How's that? I think I have always said everything I thought to you.'
+
+'No, this is the first time, and I am very glad, and I too want to be
+open with you. May I?'
+
+Insarov began to laugh and said: 'You may.'
+
+'I warn you I am very inquisitive.'
+
+'Never mind, tell me.'
+
+'Andrei Petrovitch has told me a great deal of your life, of your
+youth. I know of one event, one awful event. . . . I know you
+travelled afterwards in your own country. . . . Don't answer me for
+goodness sake, if you think my question indiscreet, but I am fretted
+by one idea. . . . Tell me, did you meet that man?'
+
+Elena caught her breath. She felt both shame and dismay at her own
+audacity. Insarov looked at her intently, slightly knitting his
+brows, and stroking his chin with his fingers.
+
+'Elena Nikolaevna,' he began at last, and his voice was much lower
+than usual, which almost frightened Elena, 'I understand what man you
+are referring to. No, I did not meet him, and thank God I did not! I
+did not try to find him. I did not try to find him: not because I did
+not think I had a right to kill him--I would kill him with a very easy
+conscience--but because now is not the time for private revenge, when
+we are concerned with the general national vengeance--or no, that is
+not the right word--when we are concerned with the liberation of a
+people. The one would be a hindrance to the other. In its own time
+that, too, will come . . . that too will come,' he repeated, and he
+shook his head.
+
+Elena looked at him from the side.
+
+'You love your country very dearly?' she articulated timidly.
+
+'That remains to be shown,' he answered. 'When one of us dies for
+her, then one can say he loved his country.'
+
+'So that, if you were cut off all chance of returning to Bulgaria,'
+continued Elena, 'would you be very unhappy in Russia?'
+
+Insarov looked down.
+
+'I think I could not bear that,' he said.
+
+'Tell me,' Elena began again, 'is it difficult to learn Bulgarian?'
+
+'Not at all. It's a disgrace to a Russian not to know Bulgarian. A
+Russian ought to know all the Slavonic dialects. Would you like me to
+bring you some Bulgarian books? You will see how easy it is. What
+ballads we have! equal to the Servian. But stop a minute, I will
+translate to you one of them. It is about . . . But you know a little
+of our history at least, don't you?'
+
+'No, I know nothing of it,' answered
+
+Elena.
+
+'Wait a little and I will bring you a book. You will learn the
+principal facts at least from it. Listen to the ballad then. . . . But
+I had better bring you a written translation, though. I am sure you
+will love us, you love all the oppressed. If you knew what a land of
+plenty ours is! And, meanwhile, it has been downtrodden, it has been
+ravaged,' he went on, with an involuntary movement of his arm, and his
+face darkened; 'we have been robbed of everything; everything, our
+churches, our laws, our lands; the unclean Turks drive us like cattle,
+butcher us----'
+
+'Dmitri Nikanorovitch!' cried Elena.
+
+He stopped.
+
+'I beg your pardon. I can't speak of this coolly. But you asked me
+just now whether I love my country. What else can one love on earth?
+What is the one thing unchanging, what is above all doubts, what is
+it--next to God--one must believe in? And when that country needs.
+. . . Think; the poorest peasant, the poorest beggar in Bulgaria, and I
+have the same desire. All of us have one aim. You can understand what
+strength, what confidence that gives!'
+
+Insarov was silent for an instant; then he began again to talk of
+Bulgaria. Elena listened to him with absorbed, profound, and mournful
+attention. When he had finished, she asked him once more:
+
+'Then you would not stay in Russia for anything?'
+
+And when he went away, for a long time she gazed after him. On that
+day he had become a different man for her. When she walked back with
+him through the garden, he was no longer the man she had met two hours
+before.
+
+From that day he began to come more and more often, and Bersenyev less
+and less often. A strange feeling began to grow up between the two
+friends, of which they were both conscious, but to which they could
+not give a name, and which they feared to analyse. In this way a month
+passed.
+
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Anna Vassilyevna, as the reader knows already, liked staying at home;
+but at times she manifested, quite unexpectedly, an irresistible
+longing for something out of the common, some extraordinary _partie du
+plaisir_, and the more troublesome the _partie du plaisir_ was, the more
+preparations and arrangements it required, and the greater Anna
+Vassilyevna's own agitation over it, the more pleasure it gave her.
+If this mood came upon her in winter, she would order two or three
+boxes to be taken side by side, and, inviting all her acquaintances,
+would set off to the theatre or even to a masquerade; in summer she
+would drive for a trip out of town to some spot as far off as
+possible. The next day she would complain of a headache, groan and
+keep her bed; but within two months the same craving for something
+'out of the common' would break out in her again. That was just what
+happened now. Some one chanced to refer to the beautiful
+scenery of Tsaritsino before her, and Anna Vassilyevna suddenly
+announced an intention of driving to Tsaritsino the day after
+tomorrow. The household was thrown into a state of bustle; a
+messenger galloped off to Moscow for Nikolai Artemyevitch; with him
+galloped the butler to buy wines, pies, and all sorts of provisions;
+Shubin was commissioned to hire an open carriage--the coach alone was
+not enough--and to order relays of horses to be ready; a page was
+twice despatched to Bersenyev and Insarov with two different notes of
+invitation, written by Zoya, the first in Russian, the second in
+French; Anna Vassilyevna herself was busy over the dresses of the
+young ladies for the expedition. Meanwhile the _partie du plaisir_ was
+very near coming to grief. Nikolai Artemyevitch arrived from Moscow in
+a sour, ill-natured, _frondeurish_ frame of mind. He was still sulky
+with Augustina Christianovna; and when he heard what the plan was,
+he flatly declared that he would not go; that to go trotting from
+Kuntsovo to Moscow and from Moscow to Tsaritsino, and then from
+Tsaritsino again to Moscow, from Moscow again to Kuntsovo, was a piece
+of folly; and, 'in fact,' he added, 'let them first prove to my
+satisfaction, that one can be merrier on one spot of the globe than
+another spot, and I will go.' This, of course, no one could prove to
+his satisfaction, and Anna Vassilyevna was ready to throw up the
+_partie du plaisir_ for lack of a solid escort; but she recollected
+Uvar Ivanovitch, and in her distress she sent to his room for him,
+saying: 'a drowning man catches at straws.' They waked him up; he came
+down, listened in silence to Anna Vassilyevna's proposition, and, to
+the general astonishment, with a flourish of his fingers, he consented
+to go. Anna Vassilyevna kissed him on the cheek, and called him a
+darling; Nikolai Artemyevitch smiled contemptuously and said: _quelle
+bourde!_ (he liked on occasions to make use of a 'smart' French word);
+and the following morning the coach and the open carriage,
+well-packed, rolled out of the Stahovs' court-yard. In the coach were
+the ladies, a maid, and Bersenyev; Insarov was seated on the box; and
+in the open carriage were Uvar Ivanovitch and Shubin. Uvar Ivanovitch
+had himself beckoned Shubin to him; he knew that he would tease him
+the whole way, but there existed a queer sort of attachment, marked by
+abusive candour, between the 'primeval force' and the young artist. On
+this occasion, however, Shubin left his fat friend in peace; he was
+absent-minded, silent, and gentle.
+
+The sun stood high in a cloudless blue sky when the carriage drove up
+to the ruins of Tsaritsino Castle, which looked gloomy and menacing,
+even at mid-day. The whole party stepped out on to the grass, and at
+once made a move towards the garden. In front went Elena and Zoya with
+Insarov; Anna Vassilyevna, with an expression of perfect happiness on
+her face, walked behind them, leaning on the arm of Uvar Ivanovitch.
+He waddled along panting, his new straw hat cut his forehead, and his
+feet twinged in his boots, but he was content; Shubin and Bersenyev
+brought up the rear. 'We will form the reserve, my dear boy, like
+veterans,' whispered Shubin to Bersenyev. 'Bulgaria's in it now!' he
+added, indicating Elena with his eyebrows.
+
+The weather was glorious. Everything around was flowering, humming,
+singing; in the distance shone the waters of the lakes; a
+light-hearted holiday mood took possession of all. 'Oh, how beautiful;
+oh, how beautiful!' Anna Vassilyevna repeated incessantly; Uvar
+Ivanovitch kept nodding his head approvingly in response to her
+enthusiastic exclamations, and once even articulated: 'To be sure! to
+be sure!' From time to time Elena exchanged a few words with Insarov;
+Zoya held the brim of her large hat with two fingers while her little
+feet, shod in light grey shoes with rounded toes, peeped coquettishly
+out from under her pink barege dress; she kept looking to each side
+and then behind her. 'Hey!' cried Shubin suddenly in a low voice,
+'Zoya Nikitishna is on the lookout, it seems. I will go to her. Elena
+Nikolaevna despises me now, while you, Andrei Petrovitch, she esteems,
+which comes to the same thing. I am going; I'm tired of being glum. I
+should advise you, my dear fellow, to do some botanising; that's the
+best thing you could hit on in your position; it might be useful, too,
+from a scientific point of view. Farewell!' Shubin ran up to Zoya,
+offered her his arm, and saying: '_Ihre Hand, Madame_' caught hold of
+her hand, and pushed on ahead with her. Elena stopped, called to
+Bersenyev, and also took his arm, but continued talking to Insarov.
+She asked him the words for lily-of-the-valley, clover, oak, lime, and
+so on in his language. . . 'Bulgaria's in it!' thought poor Andrei
+Petrovitch.
+
+Suddenly a shriek was heard in front; every one looked up. Shubin's
+cigar-case fell into a bush, flung by Zoya's hand. 'Wait a minute, I'll
+pay you out!' he shouted, as he crept into the bushes; he found
+his cigar-case, and was returning to Zoya; but he had hardly reached
+her side when again his cigar-case was sent flying across the road.
+Five times this trick was repeated, he kept laughing and threatening
+her, but Zoya only smiled slyly and drew herself together, like a
+little cat. At last he snatched her fingers, and squeezed them so
+tightly that she shrieked, and for a long time afterwards breathed on
+her hand, pretending to be angry, while he murmured something in her
+ears.
+
+'Mischievous things, young people,' Anna Vassilyevna observed gaily to
+Uvar Ivanovitch.
+
+He flourished his fingers in reply.
+
+'What a girl Zoya Nikitishna is!' said Bersenyev to Elena.
+
+'And Shubin? What of him?' she answered.
+
+Meanwhile the whole party went into the arbour, well known as Pleasant
+View arbour, and stopped to admire the view of the Tsaritsino lakes.
+They stretched one behind the other for several miles, overshadowed by
+thick woods. The bright green grass, which covered the hill sloping
+down to the largest lake, gave the water itself an extraordinarily
+vivid emerald colour. Even at the water's edge not a ripple stirred the
+smooth surface. One might fancy it a solid mass of glass lying heavy
+and shining in a huge font; the sky seemed to drop into its depths,
+while the leafy trees gazed motionless into its transparent bosom. All
+were absorbed in long and silent admiration of the view; even Shubin
+was still; even Zoya was impressed. At last, all with one mind, began
+to wish to go upon the water. Shubin, Insarov, and Bersenyev raced
+each other over the grass. They succeeded in finding a large painted
+boat and two boatmen, and beckoned to the ladies. The ladies stepped
+into the boat; Uvar Ivanovitch cautiously lowered himself into it
+after them. Great was the mirth while he got in and took his seat.
+'Look out, master, don't drown us,' observed one of the boatmen, a
+snubnosed young fellow in a gay print shirt. 'Get along, you swell!'
+said Uvar Ivanovitch. The boat pushed off. The young men took up the
+oars, but Insarov was the oniy one of them who could row. Shubin
+suggested that they should sing some Russian song in chorus, and
+struck up: 'Down the river Volga' . . . Bersenyev, Zoya, and even
+Anna Vassilyevna, joined in--Insarov could not sing--but they did not
+keep together; at the third verse the singers were all wrong. Only
+Bersenyev tried to go on in the bass, 'Nothing on the waves is seen,'
+but he, too, was soon in difficulties. The boatmen looked at one
+another and grinned in silence.
+
+'Eh?' said Shubin, turning to them, 'the gentlefolks can't sing,
+you say?' The boy in the print shirt only shook his head. 'Wait a
+little snubnose,' retorted Shubin, 'we will show you. Zoya
+Nikitishna, sing us _Le lac_ of Niedermeyer. Stop rowing!' The wet
+oars stood still, lifted in the air like wings, and their splash died
+away with a tuneful drip; the boat drifted on a little, then stood
+still, rocking lightly on the water like a swan. Zoya affected to
+refuse at first. . . . '_Allons_' said Anna Vassilyevna genially. . . .
+Zoya took off her hat and began to sing: '_O lac, l'annee a peine a
+fini sa carriere_!'
+
+Her small, but pure voice, seemed to dart over the surface of the
+lake; every word echoed far off in the woods; it sounded as though some
+one were singing there, too, in a distinct, but mysterious and
+unearthly voice. When Zoya finished, a loud bravo was heard from an
+arbour near the bank, from which emerged several red-faced Germans who
+were picnicking at Tsaritsino. Several of them had their coats off,
+their ties, and even their waistcoats; and they shouted '_bis!_' with
+such unmannerly insistence that Anna Vassilyevna told the boatmen to
+row as quickly as possible to the other end of the lake. But before
+the boat reached the bank, Uvar Ivanovitch once more succeeded in
+surprising his friends; having noticed that in one part of the wood
+the echo repeated every sound with peculiar distinctness, he suddenly
+began to call like a quail. At first every one was startled, but they
+listened directly with real pleasure, especially as Uvar Ivanovitch
+imitated the quail's cry with great correctness. Spurred on by this,
+he tried mewing like a cat; but this did not go off so well; and after
+one more quail-call, he looked at them all and stopped. Shubin threw
+himself on him to kiss him; he pushed him off. At that instant the
+boat touched the bank, and all the party got out and went on shore.
+
+Meanwhile the coachman, with the groom and the maid, had brought the
+baskets out of the coach, and made dinner ready on the grass under the
+old lime-trees. They sat down round the outspread tablecloth, and fell
+upon the pies and other dainties. They all had excellent appetites,
+while Anna Vassilyevna, with unflagging hospitality, kept urging the
+guests to eat more, assuring them that nothing was more wholesome than
+eating in the open air. She even encouraged Uvar Ivanovitch with such
+assurances. 'Don't trouble about me!' he grunted with his mouth
+full. 'Such a lovely day is a God-send, indeed!' she repeated
+constantly. One would not have known her; she seemed fully twenty
+years younger. Bersenyev said as much to her. 'Yes, yes.' she said;
+'I could hold my own with any one in my day.' Shubin attached himself
+to Zoya, and kept pouring her out wine; she refused it, he pressed
+her, and finished by drinking the glass himself, and again pressing
+her to take another; he also declared that he longed to lay his head
+on her knee; she would on no account permit him 'such a liberty.'
+Elena seemed the most serious of the party, but in her heart there was
+a wonderful sense of peace, such as she had not known for long. She
+felt filled with boundless goodwill and kindness, and wanted to keep
+not only Insarov, but Bersenyev too, always at her side. . . . Andrei
+Petrovitch dimly understood what this meant, and secretly he sighed.
+
+The hours flew by; the evening was coming on. Anna Vassilyevna
+suddenly took alarm. 'Ah, my dear friends, how late it is!' she
+cried. 'All good things must have an end; it's time to go home.' She
+began bustling about, and they all hastened to get up and walk towards
+the castle, where the carriages were. As they walked past the lakes,
+they stopped to admire Tsaritsino for the last time. The landscape on
+all sides was glowing with the vivid hues of early evening; the sky
+was red, the leaves were flashing with changing colours as they
+stirred in the rising wind; the distant waters shone in liquid gold;
+the reddish turrets and arbours scattered about the garden stood out
+sharply against the dark green of the trees. 'Farewell, Tsaritsino, we
+shall not forget to-day's excursion!' observed Anna Vassilyevna. . . .
+But at that instant, and as though in confirmation of her words, a
+strange incident occurred, which certainly was not likely to be
+forgotten,
+
+This was what happened. Anna Vassilyevna had hardly sent her farewell
+greeting to Tsaritsino, when suddenly, a few paces from her, behind a
+high bush of lilac, were heard confused exclamations, shouts, and
+laughter; and a whole mob of disorderly men, the same devotees of
+song who had so energetically applauded Zoya, burst out on the path.
+These musical gentlemen seemed excessively elevated. They stopped at
+the sight of the ladies; but one of them, a man of immense height,
+with a bull neck and a bull's goggle eyes, separated from his
+companions, and, bowing clumsily and staggering unsteadily in his
+gait, approached Anna Vassilyevna, who was petrified with alarm.
+
+'_Bonzhoor, madame_,' he said thickly, 'how are you?'
+
+Anna Vassilyevna started back.
+
+'Why wouldn't you,' continued the giant in vile Russian, 'sing
+again when our party shouted _bis_, and bravo?'
+
+'Yes, why?' came from the ranks of his comrades.
+
+Insarov was about to step forward, but Shubin stopped him, and himself
+screened Anna Vassilyevna.
+
+'Allow me,' he began, 'honoured stranger, to express to you the
+heartfelt amazement, into which you have thrown all of us by your
+conduct. You belong, as far as I can judge, to the Saxon branch of the
+Caucasian race; consequently we are bound to assume your acquaintance
+with the customs of society, yet you address a lady to whom you have
+not been introduced. I assure you that I individually should be
+delighted another time to make your acquaintance, since I observe in
+you a phenomenal development of the muscles, biceps, triceps and
+deltoid, so that, as a sculptor, I should esteem it a genuine
+happiness to have you for a model; but on this occasion kindly leave
+us alone.'
+
+The 'honoured stranger' listened to Shubin's speech, his head held
+contemptuously on one side and his arms akimbo.
+
+'I don't understand what you say,' he commented at last. 'Do you
+suppose I'm a cobbler or a watchmaker? Hey! I'm an officer, an
+official, so there.'
+
+'I don't doubt that----' Shubin was beginning.
+
+'What I say is,' continued the stranger, putting him aside with his
+powerful arm, like a twig out of the path--'why didn't you sing again
+when we shouted _bis_? And I'll go away directly, this minute, only I
+tell you what I want, this fraulein, not that madam, no, not her, but
+this one or that one (he pointed to Elena and Zoya) must give me _einen
+Kuss_, as we say in German, a kiss, in fact; eh? That's not much to
+ask.'
+
+'_Einen Kuss_, that's not much,' came again from the ranks of his
+companions, '_Ih! der Stakramenter!_' cried one tipsy German, bursting
+with laughter.
+
+Zoya clutched at Insarov's arm, but he broke away from her, and stood
+directly facing the insolent giant.
+
+'You will please to move off,' he said in a voice not loud but sharp.
+
+The German gave a heavy laugh, 'Move off? Well, I like that. Can't I
+walk where I please? Move off? Why should I move off?'
+
+'Because you have dared to annoy a lady,' said Insarov, and suddenly
+he turned white, 'because you're drunk.'
+
+'Eh? me drunk? Hear what he says. _Horen Sie das, Herr Provisor_?
+I'm an officer, and he dares . . . Now I demand _satisfaction_. _Einen
+Kuss will ich_.'
+
+'If you come another step nearer----' began Insarov.
+
+'Well? What then'
+
+'I'll throw you in the water!'
+
+'In the water? _Herr Je_! Is that all? Well, let us see that, that
+would be very curious, too.'
+
+The officer lifted his fists and moved forward, but suddenly something
+extraordinary happened. He uttered an exclamation, his whole bulky
+person staggered, rose from the ground, his legs kicking in the air,
+and before the ladies had time to shriek, before any one had time to
+realise how it had happened, the officer's massive figure went plop
+with a heavy splash, and at once disappeared under the eddying water.
+
+'Oh!' screamed the ladies with one voice. '_Mein Gott_!' was heard
+from the other side. An instant passed . . . and a round head, all
+plastered over with wet hair, showed above water, it was blowing
+bubbles, this head; and floundering with two hands just at its very
+lips. 'He will be drowned, save him! save him!' cried Anna Vassilyevna
+to Insarov, who was standing with his legs apart on the bank,
+breathing heavily.
+
+'He will swim out,' he answered with contemptuous and unsympathetic
+indifference. 'Let us go on,' he added, taking Anna Vassilyevna by
+the arm. 'Come, Uvar Ivanovitch, Elena Nikolaevna.'
+
+'A--a--o--o' was heard at that instant, the plaint of the hapless
+German who had managed to get hold of the rushes on the bank.
+
+They all followed Insarov, and had to pass close by the party. But,
+deprived of their leader, the rowdies were subdued and did not utter a
+word; but one, the boldest of them, muttered, shaking his head
+menacingly: 'All right . . . we shall see though . . . after that';
+but one of the others even took his hat off. Insarov struck them as
+formidable, and rightly so; something evil, something dangerous could
+be seen in his face. The Germans hastened to pull out their comrade,
+who, directly he had his feet on dry ground, broke into tearful abuse
+and shouted after the 'Russian scoundrels,' that he would make a
+complaint, that he would go to Count Von Kizerits himself, and so on.
+
+But the 'Russian scoundrels' paid no attention to his vociferations,
+and hurried on as fast as they could to the castle. They were all
+silent, as they walked through the garden, though Anna Vassilyevna
+sighed a little. But when they reached the carriages and stood still,
+they broke into an irrepressible, irresistible fit of Homeric
+laughter. First Shubin exploded, shrieking as if he were mad,
+Bersenyev followed with his gurgling guffaw, then Zoya fell into thin
+tinkling little trills, Anna Vassilyevna too suddenly broke down,
+Elena could not help smiling, and even Insarov at last could not
+resist it. But the loudest, longest, most persistent laugh was Uvar
+Ivanovitch's; he laughed till his sides ached, till he choked and
+panted. He would calm down a little, then would murmur through his
+tears: 'I--thought--what's that splash--and there--he--went plop.' And
+with the last word, forced out with convulsive effort, his whole frame
+was shaking with another burst of laughter. Zoya made him worse. 'I
+saw his legs,' she said, 'kicking in the air.' 'Yes, yes,' gasped Uvar
+Ivanovitch, 'his legs, his legs--and then splash!--there he plopped
+in!'
+
+'And how did Mr. Insarov manage it? why the German was three times
+his size?' said Zoya.
+
+'I'll tell you,' answered Uvar Ivanovitch, rubbing his eyes, 'I
+saw; with one arm about his waist, he tripped him up, and he went plop!
+I heard--a splash--there he went.'
+
+Long after the carriages had started, long after the castle of
+Tsaritsino was out of sight, Uvar Ivanovitch was still unable to
+regain his composure. Shubin, who was again with him in the carriage,
+began to cry shame on him at last.
+
+Insarov felt ashamed. He sat in the coach facing Elena (Bersenyev had
+taken his seat on the box), and he said nothing; she too was silent.
+He thought that she was condemning his action; but she did not condemn
+him. She had been scared at the first minute; then the expression of
+his face had impressed her; afterwards she pondered on it all. It was
+not quite clear to her what the nature of her reflections was. The
+emotion she had felt during the day had passed away; that she
+realised; but its place had been taken by another feeling which she
+did not yet fully understand. The _partie de plaisir_ had been
+prolonged too late; insensibly evening passed into night. The carriage
+rolled swiftly along, now beside ripening cornfields, where the air
+was heavy and fragrant with the smell of wheat; now beside wide
+meadows, from which a sudden wave of freshness blew lightly in the
+face. The sky seemed to lie like smoke over the horizon. At last the
+moon rose, dark and red. Anna Vassilyevna was dozing; Zoya had poked
+her head out of window and was staring at the road. It occurred to
+Elena at last that she had not spoken to Insarov for more than an
+hour. She turned to him with a trifling question; he at once answered
+her, delighted. Dim sounds began stirring indistinctly in the air, as
+though thousands of voices were talking in the distance; Moscow was
+coming to meet them. Lights twinkled afar off; they grew more and
+more frequent; at last there was the grating of the cobbles under
+their wheels. Anna Vassilyevna awoke, every one in the carriage began
+talking, though no one could hear what was said; everything was
+drowned in the rattle of the cobbles under the two carriages, and the
+hoofs of the eight horses. Long and wearisome seemed the journey from
+Moscow to Kuntsovo; all the party were asleep or silent, leaning with
+their heads pressed into their respective corners; Elena did not close
+her eyes; she kept them fixed on Insarov's dimly-outlined figure. A
+mood of sadness had come upon Shubin; the breeze was blowing into his
+eyes and irritating him; he retired into the collar of his cloak and
+was on the point of tears. Uvar Ivanovitch was snoring blissfully,
+rocking from side to side. The carriages came to a standstill at last.
+Two men-servants lifted Anna Vassilyevna out of the carriage; she was
+all to pieces, and at parting from her fellow travellers, announced
+that she was 'nearly dead'; they began thanking her, but she only
+repeated, 'nearly dead.' Elena for the first time pressed Insarov's
+hand at parting, and for a long while she sat at her window before
+undressing; Shubin seized an opportunity to whisper to Bersenyev:
+
+'There, isn't he a hero; he can pitch drunken Germans into the river!'
+
+'While you didn't even do that,' retorted Bersenyev, and he started
+homewards with Insarov.
+
+The dawn was already showing in the sky when the two friends reached
+their lodging. The sun had not yet risen, but already the chill of
+daybreak was in the air, a grey dew covered the grass, and the first
+larks were trilling high, high up in the shadowy infinity of air,
+whence like a solitary eye looked out the great, last star.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Soon after her acquaintance with Insarov, Elena (for the fifth or
+sixth time) began a diary. Here are some extracts from it:
+
+'_June_. . . . Andrei Petrovitch brings me books, but I can't read them.
+I'm ashamed to confess it to him; but I don't like to give back the
+books, tell lies, say I have read them. I feel that would mortify him.
+He is always watching me. He seems devoted to me. A very good man,
+Andrei Petrovitch. . . . What is it I want? Why is my heart so heavy,
+so oppressed? Why do I watch the birds with envy as they fly past? I
+feel that I could fly with them, fly, where I don't know, but far from
+here. And isn't that desire sinful? I have here mother, father, home.
+Don't I love them? No, I don't love them, as I should like to love.
+It's dreadful to put that in words, but it's the truth. Perhaps I am a
+great sinner; perhaps that is why I am so sad, why I have no peace.
+Some hand seems laid on me, weighing me down, as though I were in
+prison, and the walls would fall on me directly. Why is it others
+don't feel this? Whom shall I love, if I am cold to my own people?
+It's clear, papa is right; he reproaches me for loving nothing but
+cats and dogs. I must think about that. I pray very little; I must
+pray. . . . Ah, I think I should know how to love! ... I am still shy
+with Mr. Insarov. I don't know why; I believe I'm not schoolgirlish
+generally, and he is so simple and kind. Sometimes he has a very
+serious face. He can't give much thought to us. I feel that, and am
+ashamed in a way to take up his time. With Andrei Petrovitch it's
+quite a different thing. I am ready to chat with him the whole day
+long. But he too always talks of Insarov. And such terrible facts he
+tells me about him! I saw him in a dream last night with a dagger in
+his hand. And he seemed to say to me, "I will kill you and I will kill
+myself!" What silliness!
+
+'Oh, if some one would say to me: "There, that's what you must do!"
+Being good--isn't much; doing good . . . yes, that's the great
+thing in life. But how is one to do good? Oh, if I could learn to
+control myself! I don't know why I am so often thinking of Mr.
+Insarov. When he comes and sits and listens intently, but makes no
+effort, no exertion himself, I look at him, and feel pleased, and
+that's all, and when he goes, I always go over his words, and feel
+vexed with myself, and upset even. I can't tell why. (He speaks French
+badly and isn't ashamed of it--I like that.) I always think a lot
+about new people, though. As I talked to him, I suddenly was reminded
+of our butler, Vassily, who rescued an old cripple out of a hut that
+was on fire, and was almost killed himself. Papa called him a brave
+fellow, mamma gave him five roubles, and I felt as though I could fall
+at his feet. And he had a simple face--stupid-looking even--and he
+took to drink later on. . . .
+
+'I gave a penny to-day to a beggar woman, and she said to me, "Why are
+you so sorrowful?" I never suspected I looked sorrowful. I think it
+must come from being alone, always alone, for better, for worse!
+There is no one to stretch out a hand to me. Those who come to me, I
+don't want; and those I would choose--pass me by.
+
+'. . . I don't know what's the matter with me to-day; my head is
+confused, I want to fall on my knees and beg and pray for mercy. I
+don't know by whom or how, but I feel as if I were being tortured, and
+inwardly I am shrieking in revolt; I weep and can't be quiet. . . . O
+my God, subdue these outbreaks in me! Thou alone canst aid me, all
+else is useless; my miserable alms-giving, my studies can do nothing,
+nothing, nothing to help me. I should like to go out as a servant
+somewhere, really; that would do me good.
+
+'What is my youth for, what am I living for, why have I a soul, what
+is it all for?
+
+'. . . Insarov, Mr. Insarov--upon my word I don't know how to
+write--still interests me, I should like to know what he has within,
+in his soul? He seems so open, so easy to talk to, but I can see
+nothing. Sometimes he looks at me with such searching eyes--or is that
+my fancy? Paul keeps teasing me. I am angry with Paul. What does he
+want? He's in love with me . . . but his love's no good to me. He's
+in love with Zoya too. I'm unjust to him; he told me yesterday I
+didn't know how to be unjust by halves . . . that's true. It's very
+horrid.
+
+'Ah, I feel one needs unhappiness, or poverty or sickness, or else one
+gets conceited directly.
+
+'. . . What made Andrei Petrovitch tell me to-day about those two
+Bulgarians! He told me it as it were with some intention. What have I
+to do with Mr. Insarov? I feel cross with Andrei Petrovitch.
+
+'. . . I take my pen and don't know how to begin. How unexpectedly he
+began to talk to me in the garden to-day! How friendly and confiding
+he was! How quickly it happened! As if we were old, old friends and
+had only just recognised each other. How could I have not understood
+him before? How near he is to me now! And--what's so wonderful--I feel
+ever so much calmer now. It's ludicrous; yesterday I was angry with
+Andrei Petrovitch, and angry with him, I even called him _Mr. Insarov_,
+and to-day . . . Here at last is a true man; some one one may depend
+upon. He won't tell lies; he's the first man I have met who never
+tells lies; all the others tell lies, everything's lying. Andrei
+Petrovitch, dear good friend, why do I wrong you? No! Andrei
+Petrovitch is more learned than he is, even, perhaps more
+intellectual. But I don't know, he seems so small beside him. When he
+speaks of his country he seems taller, and his face grows handsome,
+and his voice is like steel, and ... no ... it seems as though there
+were no one in the world before whom he would flinch. And he doesn't
+only talk. . . . he has acted and he will act I shall ask him. . . .
+How suddenly he turned to me and smiled! ... It's only brothers that
+smile like that! Ah, how glad I am! When he came the first time, I
+never dreamt that we should so soon get to know each other. And now I
+am even pleased that I remained indifferent to him at first.
+Indifferent? Am I not indifferent then now? . . . It's long since I
+have felt such inward peace. I feel so quiet, so quiet. And there's
+nothing to write? I see him often and that's all. What more is there
+to write?
+
+'. . . Paul shuts himself up, Andrei Petrovitch has taken to coming
+less often. . . . poor fellow! I fancy he . . . But that can never be,
+though. I like talking to Andrei Petrovitch; never a word of self,
+always of something sensible, useful. Very different from Shubin.
+Shubin's as fine as a butterfly, and admires his own finery; which
+butterflies don't do. But both Shubin and Andrei Petrovitch . , . I
+know what I mean.
+
+'. . . He enjoys coming to us, I see that. But why? what does he find
+in me? It's true our tastes are alike; he and I, both of us don't
+care for poetry; neither of us knows anything of art. But how much
+better he is than I! He is calm, I am in perpetual excitement; he
+has chosen his path, his aim--while I--where am I going? where is my
+home? He is calm, but all his thoughts are far away. The time will
+come, and he will leave us for ever, will go home, there over the sea.
+Well? God grant he may! Any way I shall be glad that I knew him, while
+he was here.
+
+'Why isn't he a Russian? No, he could not be Russian.
+
+'Mamma too likes him; she says: an unassuming young man. Dear mamma!
+She does not understand him. Paul says nothing; he guessed I didn't
+like his hints, but he's jealous of him. Spiteful boy! And what right
+has he? Did I ever . . . All that's nonsense! What makes all that
+come into my head?
+
+'. . . Isn't it strange though, that up till now, up to twenty, I have
+never loved any one! I believe that the reason why D.'s (I shall call
+him D.--I like that name Dmitri) soul is so clear, is that he is
+entirely given up to his work, his ideal. What has he to trouble
+about? When any one has utterly . . . utterly . . . given himself up,
+he has little sorrow, he is not responsible for anything. It's not _I_
+want, but _it_ wants. By the way, he and I both love the same flowers.
+I picked a rose this morning, one leaf fell, he picked it up.... I
+gave him the whole rose.
+
+'. . . D. often comes to us. Yesterday he spent the whole evening. He
+wants to teach me Bulgarian. I feel happy with him, quite at home,
+more than at home.
+
+'. . . The days fly past. ... I am happy, and somehow discontent and I
+am thankful to God, and tears are not far off. Oh these hot bright
+days!
+
+'. . . I am still light-hearted as before, and only at times, and only
+a little, sad. I am happy. Am I happy?
+
+'. . . It will be long before I forget the expedition yesterday. What
+strange, new, terrible impressions when he suddenly took that great
+giant and flung him like a ball into the water. I was not frightened
+. . . yet he frightened me. And afterwards--what an angry face, almost
+cruel! How he said, "He will swim out!" It gave me a shock. So I
+did not understand him. And afterwards when they all laughed, when I
+was laughing, how I felt for him! He was ashamed, I felt that he was
+ashamed before me. He told me so afterwards in the carriage in the
+dark, when I tried to get a good view of him and was afraid of him.
+Yes, he is not to be trifled with, and he is a splendid champion. But
+why that wicked look, those trembling lips, that angry fire in his
+eyes? Or is it, perhaps, inevitable? Isn't it possible to be a man, a
+hero, and to remain soft and gentle? "Life is a coarse business," he
+said to me once lately. I repeated that saying to Andrei Petrovitch;
+he did not agree with D. Which of them is right? But the beginning of
+that day! How happy I was, walking beside him, even without speaking.
+. . . But I am glad of what happened. I see that it was quite as it
+should be.
+
+'. . . Restlessness again ... I am not quite well. . . . All these
+days I have written nothing in this book, because I have had no wish
+to write. I felt, whatever I write, it won't be what is in my heart.
+. . . And what is in my heart? I have had a long talk with him, which
+revealed a great deal. He told me his plan (by the way, I know now how
+he got the wound in his neck. . . . Good God! when I think he was
+actually condemned to death, that he was only just saved, that he was
+wounded. . . . ) He prophesies war and will be glad of it. And for all
+that, I never saw D. so depressed. What can he ... he! ... be
+depressed by? Papa arrived home from town and came upon us two. He
+looked rather queerly at us. Andrei Petrovitch came; I noticed he had
+grown very thin and pale. He reproved me, saying I behave too coldly
+and inconsiderately to Shubin. I had utterly forgotten Paul's
+existence. I will see him, and try to smooth over my offence. He is
+nothing to me now . . . nor any one else in the world. Andrei
+Petrovitch talked to me in a sort of commiserating way. What does it
+all mean? Why is everything around me and within me so dark? I feel as
+if about me and within me, something mysterious were happening, for
+which I want to find the right word. ... I did not sleep all night;
+my head aches. What's the good of writing? He went away so quickly
+to-day and I wanted to talk to him. . . . He almost seems to avoid me.
+Yes, he avoids me.
+
+'. . . The word is found, light has dawned on me! My God, have pity
+on me. . . . I love him!'
+
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+On the very day on which Elena had written this last fatal line in her
+diary, Insarov was sitting in Bersenyev's room, and Bersenyev was
+standing before him with a look of perplexity on his face. Insarov had
+just announced his intention of returning to Moscow the next day.
+
+'Upon my word!' cried Bersenyev. 'Why, the finest part of the
+summer is just beginning. What will you do in Moscow? What a sudden
+decision! Or have you had news of some sort?'
+
+'I have had no news,' replied Insarov; 'but on thinking things over, I
+find I cannot stop here.'
+
+'How can that be?'
+
+'Andrei Petrovitch,' said Insarov, 'be so kind . . . don't
+insist, please, I am very sorry myself to be leaving you, but it can't
+be helped.'
+
+Bersenyev looked at him intently.
+
+'I know,' he said at last, 'there's no persuading you. And so, it's a
+settled matter,
+
+'Is it?
+
+'Absolutely settled,' replied Insarov, getting up and going away.
+
+Bersenyev walked about the room, then took his hat and set off for the
+Stahovs.
+
+'You have something to tell me,' Elena said to him, directly they were
+left alone.
+
+'Yes, how did you guess?'
+
+'Never mind; tell me what it is.'
+
+Bersenyev told her of Insarov's intention.
+
+Elena turned white.
+
+'What does it mean?' she articulated with effort
+
+'You know,' observed Bersenyev, 'Dmitri Nikanorovitch does not care to
+give reasons for his actions. But I think ... let us sit down, Elena
+Nikolaevna, you don't seem very well. ... I fancy I can guess what is
+the real cause of this sudden departure.'
+
+'What--what cause?' repeated Elena, and unconsciously she gripped
+tightly Bersenyev's hand in her chill ringers.
+
+'You see,' began Bersenyev, with a pathetic smile, 'how can I explain
+to you? I must go back to last spring, to the time when I began to be
+more intimate with Insarov. I used to meet him then at the house of a
+relative, who had a daughter, a very pretty girl I thought that
+Insarov cared for her, and I told him so. He laughed, and answered
+that I was mistaken, that he was quite heart-whole, but if anything of
+that sort did happen to him, he should run away directly, as he did
+not want, in his own words, for the sake of personal feeling, to be
+false to his cause and his duty. "I am a Bulgarian," he said, "and I
+have no need of a Russian love----"
+
+'Well--so--now you----' whispered Elena. She involuntarily turned away
+her head, like a man expecting a blow, but she still held the hand she
+had clutched.
+
+'I think,' he said, and his own voice sank, 'I think that what I
+fancied then has really happened now.'
+
+'That is--you think--don't torture me!' broke suddenly from
+Elena.
+
+'I think,' Bersenyev continued hurriedly, 'that Insarov is in love now
+with a Russian girl, and he is resolved to go, according to his word.'
+
+Elena clasped his hand still tighter, and her head drooped still
+lower, as if she would hide from other eyes the flush of shame which
+suddenly blazed over her face and neck.
+
+'Andrei Petrovitch, you are kind as an angel,' she said, 'but will he
+come to say goodbye?'
+
+'Yes, I imagine so; he will be sure to come. He wouldn't like to go
+away----'
+
+'Tell him, tell him----'
+
+But here the poor girl broke down; tears rushed streaming from her
+eyes, and she ran out of the room.
+
+'So that's how she loves him,' thought Bersenyev, as he walked slowly
+home. 'I didn't expect that; I didn't think she felt so strongly. I
+am kind, she says:' he pursued his reflections: . . . 'Who can
+tell what feelings, what impulse drove me to tell Elena all that? It
+was not kindness; no, not kindness. It was all the accursed desire to
+make sure whether the dagger is really in the wound. I ought to be
+content. They love each other, and I have been of use to them. . . .
+The future go-between between science and the Russian public Shubin
+calls me; it seems as though it had been decreed at my birth that I
+should be a go-between. But if I'm mistaken? No, I'm not
+mistaken----'
+
+It was bitter for Andrei Petrovitch, and he could not turn his mind to
+Raumer.
+
+The next day at two o'clock Insarov arrived at the Stahovs'. As though
+by express design, there was a visitor in Anna Vassilyevna's
+drawing-room at the time, the wife of a neighbouring chief-priest, an
+excellent and worthy woman, though she had had a little unpleasantness
+with the police, because she thought fit, in the hottest part of the
+day, to bathe in a lake near the road, along which a certain dignified
+general's family used often to be passing. The presence of an outside
+person was at first even a relief to Elena, from whose face every
+trace of colour vanished, directly she heard Insarov's step; but her
+heart sank at the thought that he might go without a word with her
+alone. He, too, seemed confused, and avoided meeting her eyes. 'Surely
+he will not go directly,' thought Elena. Insarov was, in fact, turning
+to take leave of Anna Vassilyevna; Elena hastily rose and called him
+aside to the window. The priest's wife was surprised, and tried to
+turn round; but she was so tightly laced that her stays creaked at
+every movement, and she stayed where she was.
+
+'Listen,' said Elena hurriedly; 'I know what you have come for;
+Andrei Petrovitch told me of your intention, but I beg, I entreat you,
+do not say good-bye to us to-day, but come here to-morrow rather
+earlier, at eleven. I must have a few words with you.'
+
+Insarov bent his head without speaking.
+
+'I will not keep you. . . . You promise me?'
+
+Again Insarov bowed, but said nothing.
+
+'Lenotchka, come here,' said Anna Vassilyevna, 'look, what a
+charming reticule.'
+
+'I worked it myself,' observed the priest's wife.
+
+Elena came away from the window.
+
+Insarov did not stay more than a quarter of an hour at the Stahovs'.
+Elena watched him secretly. He was restless and ill at ease. As
+before, he did not know where to look, and he went away strangely and
+suddenly; he seemed to vanish.
+
+Slowly passed that day for Elena; still more slowly dragged on the
+long, long night. Elena sat on her bed, her arms clasping her knees,
+and her head laid on them; then she walked to the window, pressed her
+burning forehead against the cold glass, and thought and thought,
+going over and over the same thoughts till she was exhausted. Her
+heart seemed turned to stone, she did not feel it, but the veins in
+her head throbbed painfully, her hair stifled her, and her lips were
+dry. 'He will come . . . he did not say good-bye to mamma ... he will
+not deceive me. . . Can Andrei Petrovitch have been right? It cannot
+be. . . He didn't promise to come in words. . . Can I have parted
+from him for ever----?' Those were the thoughts that never left her,
+literally never left her; they did not come and come again; they
+were for ever turning like a mist moving about in her brain. 'He loves
+me!' suddenly flashed through her, setting her whole nature on fire,
+and she gazed fixedly into the darkness; a secret smile parted her
+lips, seen by none, but she quickly shook her head, and clasped her
+hands behind her neck, and again her former thought hung like a mist
+about her. Before morning she undressed and went to bed, but she could
+not sleep. The first fiery ray of sunlight fell upon her room. . .
+'Oh, if he loves me!' she cried suddenly, and unabashed by the light
+shining on her, she opened wide her arms . . . She got up, dressed,
+and went down. No one in the house was awake yet. She went into the
+garden, but in the garden it was peaceful, green, and fresh; the birds
+chirped so confidingly, and the flowers peeped out so gaily that she
+could not bear it. 'Oh!' she thought, 'if it is true, no blade of
+grass is happy as I. But is it true?' She went back to her room and,
+to kill time, she began changing her dress. But everything slipped
+out of her hands, and she was still sitting half-dressed before her
+looking-glass when she was summoned to morning tea. She went down; her
+mother noticed her pallor, but only said: 'How interesting you are
+to-day,' and taking her in in a glance, she added: 'How well that
+dress suits you; you should always put it on when you want to make an
+impression on any one.' Elena made no reply, and sat down in a corner.
+Meanwhile it struck nine o'clock; there were only two haurs now till
+eleven. Elena tried to read, then to sew, then to read again, then she
+vowed to herself to walk a hundred times up and down one alley, and
+paced it a hundred times; then for a long time she watched Anna
+Vassilyevna laying out the cards for patience . . . and looked at the
+clock; it was not yet ten. Shubin came into the drawing-room. She
+tried to talk to him, and begged his pardon, what for she did not know
+herself. . . . Every word she uttered did not cost her effort exactly,
+but roused a kind of amazement in herself. Shubin bent over her. She
+expected ridicule, raised her eyes, and saw before her a sorrowful and
+sympathetic face. . . . She smiled at this face. Shubin, too, smiled
+at her without speaking, and gently left her. She tried to keep him,
+but could not at once remember what to call him. At last it struck
+eleven. Then she began to wait, to wait, and to listen. She could do
+nothing now; she ceased even to think. Her heart was stirred into
+life again, and began beating louder and louder, and strange, to say,
+the time seemed flying by. A quarter of an hour passed, then half an
+hour; a few minutes more, as Elena thought, had passed, when suddenly
+she started; the clock had struck not twelve, but one. 'He is not
+coming; he is going away without saying good-bye.' . . . The blood
+rushed to her head with this thought. She felt that she was gasping
+for breath, that she was on the point of sobbing. . . . She ran to her
+own room, and fell with her face in her clasped hands on to the bed.
+
+For half an hour she lay motionless; the tears flowed through her
+fingers on to the pillow. Suddenly she raised herself and sat up,
+something strange was passing in her, her face changed, her wet eyes
+grew dry and shining, her brows were bent and her lips compressed.
+Another half-hour passed. Elena, for the last time, strained her ears
+to listen: was not that the familiar voice floating up to her? She
+got up, put on her hat and gloves, threw a cape over her shoulders,
+and, slipping unnoticed out of the house, she went with swift steps
+along the road leading to Bersenyev's lodging.
+
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+Elena walked with her head bent and her eyes fixed straight before
+her. She feared nothing, she considered nothing; she wanted to see
+Insarov once more. She went on, not noticing that the sun had long ago
+disappeared behind heavy black clouds, that the wind was roaring by
+gusts in the trees and blowing her dress about her, that the dust had
+suddenly risen and was flying in a cloud along the road. . . . Large
+drops of rain were falling, she did not even notice it; but it fell
+faster and heavier, there were flashes of lightning and peals of
+thunder. Elena stood still looking round. . . . Fortunately for her,
+there was a little old broken-down chapel that had been built over a
+disused well not far from the place where she was overtaken by the
+storm. She ran to it and got under the low roof. The rain fell in
+torrents; the sky was completely overcast. In dumb despair Elena
+stared at the thick network of fast-falling drops. Her last hope of
+getting a sight of Insarov was vanishing. A little old beggar-woman
+came into the chapel, shook herself, said with a curtsy: 'Out of the
+rain, good lady,' and with many sighs and groans sat down on a ledge
+near the well. Elena put her hand into her pocket; the old woman
+noticed this action and a light came into her face, yellow and
+wrinkled now, though once handsome. 'Thank you, dear gracious lady,'
+she was beginning. There happened to be no purse in Elena's pocket,
+but the old woman was still holding out her hand.
+
+'I have no money, grannie,' said Elena, 'but here, take this, it will
+be of use for something.'
+
+She gave her her handkerchief.
+
+'O-oh, my pretty lady,' said the beggar, 'what do you give your
+handkerchief to me for? For a wedding-present to my grandchild when
+she's married? God reward you for your goodness!'
+
+A peal of thunder was heard.
+
+'Lord Jesus Christ,' muttered the beggar-woman, and she crossed
+herself three times. 'Why, haven't I seen you before,' she added after
+a brief pause. 'Didn't you give me alms in Christ's name?'
+
+Elena looked more attentively at the old woman and recognised her.
+
+'Yes, grannie,' she answered, 'wasn't it you asked me why I was so
+sorrowful?'
+
+'Yes, darling, yes. I fancied I knew you. And I think you've a
+heart-ache still. You seem in trouble now. Here's your handkerchief,
+too, wet from tears to be sure. Oh, you young people, you all have the
+same sorrow, a terrible woe it is!'
+
+'What sorrow, grannie?'
+
+'Ah, my good young lady, you can't deceive an old woman like me. I
+know what your heart is heavy over; your sorrow's not an uncommon
+one. Sure, I have been young too, darling. I have been through that
+trouble too. Yes. And I'll tell you something, for your goodness to
+me; you've won a good man, not a light of love, you cling to him
+alone; cling to him stronger than death. If it comes off, it comes
+off,--if not, it's in God's hands. Yes. Why are you wondering at me?
+I'm a fortune-teller. There, I'll carry away your sorrow with your
+handkerchief. I'll carry it away, and it's over. See the rain's
+less; you wait a little longer. It's not the first time I've been wet.
+Remember, darling; you had a sorrow, the sorrow has flown, and
+there's no memory of it. Good Lord, have mercy on us!'
+
+The beggar-woman got up from the edge of the well, went out of the
+chapel, and stole off on her way. Elena stared after her in
+bewilderment. 'What does this mean?' she murmured involuntarily.
+
+The rain grew less and less, the sun peeped out for an instant. Elena
+was just preparing to leave her shelter. . . . Suddenly, ten paces
+from the chapel, she saw Insarov. Wrapt in a cloak he was walking
+along the very road by which Elena had come; he seemed to be hurrying
+home.
+
+She clasped the old rail of the steps for support, and tried to call
+to him, but her voice failed her. . . Insarov had already passed by
+without raising his head.
+
+'Dmitri Nikanorovitch!' she said at last.
+
+Insarov stopped abruptly, looked round. . . . For the first minute he
+did not know Elena, but he went up to her at once. 'You! you here!'
+he cried.
+
+She walked back in silence into the chapel. Insarov followed Elena.
+'You here?' he repeated.
+
+She was still silent, and only gazed upon him with a strange, slow,
+tender look. He dropped his eyes.
+
+'You have come from our house?' she asked.
+
+'No ... not from your house.'
+
+'No?' repeated Elena, and she tried to smile. 'Is that how you keep
+your promises? I have been expecting you ever since the morning.'
+
+'I made no promise yesterday, if you remember, Elena Nikolaevna.'
+
+Again Elena faintly smiled, and she passed her hand over her face.
+Both face and hands were very white.
+
+'You meant, then, to go away without saying good-bye to us?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Insarov in a surly, thick voice.
+
+'What? After our friendship, after the talks, after everything. . . .
+Then if I had not met you here by chance.' (Elena's voice began to
+break, and she paused an instant) . . . 'you would have gone away
+like that, without even shaking hands for the last time, and you would
+not have cared?'
+
+Insarov turned away. 'Elena Nikolaevnas don't talk like that, please.
+I'm not over happy as it is. Believe me, my decision has cost me
+great effort. If you knew----'
+
+'I don't want to know,' Elena interposed with dismay, 'why you are
+going. ... It seems it's necessary. It seems we must part. You would
+not wound your friends without good reason. But, can friends part like
+this? And we are friends, aren't we?'
+
+'No,' said Insarov.
+
+'What?' murmured Elena. Her cheeks were overspread with a faint
+flush.
+
+'That's just why I am going away--because we are not friends. Don't
+force me into saying what I don't want to say, and what I won't say.'
+
+'You used to be so open with me,' said Elena rather reproachfully.
+'Do you remember?'
+
+'I used to be able to be open, then I had nothing to conceal; but
+now----'
+
+'But now?' queried Elena.
+
+'But now . . . now I must go away. Goodbye.'
+
+If, at that instant, Insarov had lifted his eyes to Elena, he would
+have seen that her face grew brighter and brighter as he frowned and
+looked gloomy; but he kept his eyes obstinately fixed on the ground.
+
+'Well, good-bye, Dmitri Nikanorovitch,' she began. 'But at least,
+since we have met, give me your hand now.'
+
+Insarov was stretching out his hand. 'No, I can't even do that,' he
+said, and turned away again.
+
+'You can't?'
+
+'No, I can't. Good-bye.' And he moved away to the entrance of the
+chapel.
+
+'Wait a little longer,' said Elena. 'You seem afraid of me. But I am
+braver than you,' she added, a faint tremor passing suddenly over her
+whole body. 'I can tell you . . . shall I? ... how it was you found me
+here? Do you know where I was going?'
+
+Insarov looked in bewilderment at Elena,
+
+'I was going to you.'
+
+'To me?'
+
+Elena hid her face. 'You mean to force me to say that I love you,'
+she whispered. 'There, I have said it.'
+
+'Elena!' cried Insarov.
+
+She took his hands, looked at him, and fell on his breast.
+
+He held her close to him, and said nothing. There was no need for him
+to tell her he loved her. From that cry alone, from the instant
+transformation of the whole man, from the heaving of the breast to
+which she clung so confidingly, from the touch of his finger tips in
+her hair, Elena could feel that she was loved. He did not speak, and
+she needed no words. 'He is here, he loves me . . . what need of more?'
+The peace of perfect bliss, the peace of the harbour reached after
+storm, of the end attained, that heavenly peace which gives
+significance and beauty even to death, filled her with its divine
+flood. She desired nothing, for she had gained all. 'O my brother,
+my friend, my dear one!' her lips were whispering, while she did not
+know whose was this heart, his or her own, which beat so blissfully,
+and melted against her bosom.
+
+He stood motionless, folding in his strong embrace the young life
+surrendered to him; he felt against his heart this new, infinitely
+precious burden; a passion of tenderness, of gratitude unutterable,
+was crumbling his hard will to dust, and tears unknown till now stood
+in his eyes.
+
+She did not weep; she could only repeat, 'O my friend, my brother!'
+
+'So you will follow me everywhere?' he said to her, a quarter of an
+hour later, still enfolding her and keeping her close to him in his
+arms.
+
+'Everywhere, to the ends of the earth. Where you are, I will be.'
+
+'And you are not deceiving yourself, you know your parents will never
+consent to our marriage?'
+
+'I don't deceive myself; I know that.'
+
+'You know that I'm poor--almost a beggar.'
+
+'I know.'
+
+'That I'm not a Russian, that it won't be my fate to live in Russia,
+that you will have to break all your ties with your country, with your
+people.'
+
+'I know, I know.'
+
+'Do you know, too, that I have given myself up to a difficult,
+thankless cause, that I ... that we shall have to expose ourselves not
+to dangers only, but to privation, humiliation, perhaps----'
+
+'I know, I know all--I love you----'
+
+'That you will have to give up all you are accustomed to, that out
+there alone among strangers, you will be forced perhaps to work----'
+
+She laid her hand on his lips. 'I love you, my dear one.'
+
+He began hotly kissing her slender, rosy hand. Elena did not draw it
+away from his lips, and with a kind of childish delight, with smiling
+curiosity, watched how he covered with kisses, first the palm, then
+the fingers. . . .
+
+All at once she blushed and hid her face upon his breast.
+
+He lifted her head tenderly and looked steadily into her eyes.
+'Welcome, then, my wife, before God and men!'
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+An hour later, Elena, with her hat in one hand, her cape in the other,
+walked slowly into the drawing-room of the villa. Her hair was in
+slight disorder; on each cheek was to be seen a small bright spot of
+colour, the smile would not leave her lips, her eyes were nearly
+shutting and half hidden under the lids; they, too, were smiling.
+She could scarcely move for weariness, and this weariness was pleasant
+to her; everything, indeed, was pleasant to her. Everything seemed
+sweet and friendly to her. Uvar Ivanovitch was sitting at the window;
+she went up to him, laid her hand on his shoulder, stretched a little,
+and involuntarily, as it seemed, she laughed.
+
+'What is it?' he inquired, astonished.
+
+She did not know what to say. She felt inclined to kiss Uvar
+Ivanovitch.
+
+'How he splashed!' she explained at last.
+
+But Uvar Ivanovitch did not stir a muscle, and continued to look with
+amazement at Elena. She dropped her hat and cape on to him.
+
+'Dear Uvar Ivanovitch,' she said, 'I am sleepy and tired,' and again
+she laughed and sank into a low chair near him.
+
+'H'm,' grunted Uvar Ivanovitch, flourishing his fingers, 'then you
+ought--yes----'
+
+Elena was looking round her and thinking, 'From all this I soon must
+part . . . and strange--I have no dread, no doubt, no regret. . . .
+No, I am sorry for mamma.' Then the little chapel rose again before
+her mind, again her voice was echoing in it, and she felt his arms
+about her. Joyously, though faintly, her heart fluttered; weighed
+down by the languor of happiness. The old beggar-woman recurred to her
+mind. 'She did really bear away my sorrow,' she thought. 'Oh, how
+happy I am! how undeservedly! how soon!' If she had let herself go
+in the least she would have melted into sweet, endless tears. She
+could only restrain them by laughing. Whatever attitude she fell into
+seemed to her the easiest, most comfortable possible; she felt as if
+she were being rocked to sleep. All her movements were slow and soft;
+what had become of her awkwardness, her haste? Zoya came in; Elena
+decided that she had never seen a more charming little face; Anna
+Vassilyevna came in; Elena felt a pang--but with what tenderness she
+embraced her mother and kissed her on the forehead near the hair,
+already slightly grey! Then she went away to her own room; how
+everything smiled upon her there! With what a sense of shamefaced
+triumph and tranquillity she sat down on her bed--the very bed on
+which, only three hours ago, she had spent such bitter moments! 'And
+yet, even then, I knew he loved me,' she thought, 'even before . . .
+Ah, no! it's a sin. You are my wife,' she whispered, hiding her face
+in her hands and falling on her knees.
+
+Towards the evening, she grew more thoughtful. Sadness came upon her
+at the thought that she would not soon see Insarov. He could not
+without awakening suspicion remain at Bersenyev's, and so this was
+what he and Elena had resolved on. Insarov was to return to Moscow and
+to come over to visit them twice before the autumn; on her side she
+promised to write him letters, and, if it were possible, to arrange a
+meeting with him somewhere near Kuntsov. She went down to the
+drawing-room to tea, and found there all the household and Shubin, who
+looked at her sharply directly she came in; she tried to talk to him
+in a friendly way as of old, but she dreaded his penetration, she was
+afraid of herself. She felt sure that there was good reason for his
+having left her alone for more than a fortnight. Soon Bersenyev
+arrived, and gave Insarov's respects to Anna Vassilyevna with an
+apology for having gone back to Moscow without calling to take leave
+of her. Insarov's name was for the first time during the day
+pronounced before Elena. She felt that she reddened; she realised at
+the same time that she ought to express regret at the sudden departure
+of such a pleasant acquaintance; but she could not force herself to
+hypocrisy, and continued to sit without stirring or speaking, while
+Anna Vassilyevna sighed and lamented. Elena tried to keep near
+Bersenyev; she was not afraid of him, though he even knew part of her
+secret; she was safe under his wing from Shubin, who still persisted
+in staring at her--not mockingly but attentively. Bersenyev, too, was
+thrown into perplexity during the evening: he had expected to see
+Elena more gloomy. Happily for her, an argument sprang up about art
+between him and Shubin; she moved apart and heard their voices as it
+were through a dream. By degrees, not only they, but the whole room,
+everything surrounding her, seemed like a dream--everything: the
+samovar on the table, and Uvar Ivanovitch's short waistcoat, and
+Zoya's polished finger-nails, and the portrait in oils of the Grand
+Duke Constantine Pavlovitch on the wall; everything retreated,
+everything was wrapped in mist, everything ceased to exist. Only she
+felt sorry for them all. 'What are they living for?' she thought.
+
+'Are you sleepy, Lenotchka?' her mother asked her. She did not hear
+the question.
+
+'A half untrue insinuation, do you say?' These words, sharply
+uttered by Shubin, suddenly awakened Elena's attention. 'Why,' he
+continued, 'the whole sting lies in that. A true insinuation makes one
+wretched--that's unchristian--and to an untrue insinuation a man is
+indifferent--that's stupid, but at a half true one he feels vexed and
+impatient. For instance, if I say that Elena Nikolaevna is in love
+with one of us, what sort of insinuation would that be, eh?'
+
+'Ah, Monsieur Paul,' said Elena, 'I should like to show myself vexed,
+but really I can't. I am so tired.'
+
+'Why don't you go to bed?' observed Anna Vassilyevna, who was always
+drowsy in the evening herself, and consequently always eager to send
+the others to bed. 'Say good-night to me, and go in God's name;
+Andrei Petrovitch will excuse you.'
+
+Elena kissed her mother, bowed to all and went away. Shubin
+accompanied her to the door. 'Elena Nikolaevna,' he whispered to her
+in the doorway, 'you trample on Monsieur Paul, you mercilessly walk
+over him, but Monsieur Paul blesses you and your little feet, and the
+slippers on your little feet, and the soles of your little slippers.'
+
+Elena shrugged her shoulders, reluctantly held out her hand to
+him--not the one Insarov had kissed--and going up to her room, at
+once undressed, got into bed, and fell asleep. She slept a deep,
+unstirring sleep, as even children rarely sleep--the sleep of a child
+convalescent after sickness, when its mother sits near its cradle and
+watches it, and listens to its breathing.
+
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+'Come to my room for a minute,' Shubin said to Bersenyev, directly the
+latter had taken leave of Anna Vassilyevna: 'I have something to
+show you.'
+
+Bersenyev followed him to his attic. He was surprised to see a number
+of studies, statuettes, and busts, covered with damp cloths, set about
+in all the corners of the room.
+
+'Well I see you have been at work in earnest,' he observed to Shubin.
+
+'One must do something,' he answered. 'If one thing doesn't do, one
+must try another. However, like a true Corsican, I am more concerned
+with revenge than with pure art. _Trema, Bisanzia!_'
+
+'I don't understand you,' said Bersenyev.
+
+'Well, wait a minute. Deign to look this way, gracious friend and
+benefactor, my vengeance number one.'
+
+Shubin uncovered one figure, and Bersenyev saw a capital bust of
+Insarov, an excellent likeness. The features of the face had been
+correctly caught by Shubin to the minutest detail, and he had given
+him a fine expression, honest, generous, and bold.
+
+Bersenyev went into raptures over it.
+
+'That's simply exquisite!' he cried. 'I congratulate you. You must
+send it to the exhibition! Why do you call that magnificent work your
+vengeance?'
+
+'Because, sir, I intended to offer this magnificent work as you call
+it to Elena Nikolaevna on her name day. Do you see the allegory? We
+are not blind, we see what goes on about us, but we are gentlemen, my
+dear sir, and we take our revenge like gentlemen. . . . But here,'
+added Shubin, uncovering another figure, 'as the artist according to
+modern aesthetic principles enjoys the enviable privilege of embodying
+in himself every sort of baseness which he can turn into a gem of
+creative art, we in the production of this gem, number two, have taken
+vengeance not as gentlemen, but simply en canaille'
+
+He deftly drew off the cloth, and displayed to Bersenyev's eyes a
+statuette in Dantan's style, also of Insarov. Anything cleverer and
+more spiteful could not be imagined. The young Bulgarian was
+represented as a ram standing on his hind-legs, butting forward with
+his horns. Dull solemnity and aggressiveness, obstinacy, clumsiness
+and narrowness were simply printed on the visage of the 'sire of the
+woolly flock,' and yet the likeness to Insarov was so striking that
+Bersenyev could not help laughing.
+
+'Eh? is it amusing?' said Shubin. 'Do you recognise the hero? Do
+you advise me to send it too to the exhibition? That, my dear fellow,
+I intend as a present for myself on my own name day. . . . Your honour
+will permit me to play the fool.'
+
+And Shubin gave three little leaps, kicking himself behind with his
+heels.
+
+Bersenyev picked up the cloth off the floor--and threw it over the
+statuette.
+
+'Ah, you, magnanimous'--began Shubin. 'Who the devil was it in
+history was so particularly magnanimous? Well, never mind! And now,'
+he continued, with melancholy triumph, uncovering a third rather large
+mass of clay, 'you shall behold something which will show you the
+humility and discernment of your friend. You will realise that he,
+like a true artist again, feels the need and the use of
+self-castigation. Behold!'
+
+The cloth was lifted and Bersenyev saw two heads, modelled side by
+side and close as though growing together. . . . He did not at
+once know what was the subject, but looking closer, he recognised in
+one of them Annushka, in the other Shubin himself. They were, however,
+rather caricatures than portraits. Annushka was represented as a
+handsome fat girl with a low forehead, eyes lost in layers of fat, and
+a saucily turned-up nose. Her thick lips had an insolent curve; her
+whole face expressed sensuality, carelessness, and boldness, not
+without goodnature. Himself Shubin had modelled as a lean emaciated
+rake, with sunken cheeks, his thin hair hanging in weak wisps about
+his face, a meaningless expression in his dim eyes, and his nose sharp
+and thin as a dead man's.
+
+Bersenyev turned away with disgust. 'A nice pair, aren't they, my dear
+fellow?' said Shubin; 'won't you graciously compose a suitable
+title? For the first two I have already thought of titles. On the
+bust shall be inscribed: "A hero resolving to liberate his country."
+On the statuette: "Look out, sausage-eating Germans!" And for this
+work what do you think of "The future of the artist Pavel Yakovlitch
+Shubin?" Will that do?'
+
+'Leave off,' replied Bersenyev. 'Was it worth while to waste your
+time on such a ----' He could not at once fix on a suitable word.
+
+'Disgusting thing, you mean? No, my dear fellow, excuse me, if
+anything ought to go to the exhibition, it's that group.'
+
+'It's simply disgusting,' repeated Bersenyev. 'And besides, it's
+nonsense. You have absolutely no such degrading tendencies to which,
+unhappily, our artists have such a frequent bent. You have simply
+libelled yourself.'
+
+'Do you think so?' said Shubin gloomily. 'I have none of them, and if
+they come upon me, the fault is all one person's. Do you know,' he
+added, tragically knitting his brows, 'that I have been trying
+drinking?'
+
+'Nonsense?'
+
+'Yes, I have, by God,' rejoined Shubin; and suddenly grinning and
+brightening,--'but I didn't like it, my dear boy, the stuff sticks in
+my throat, and my head afterwards is a perfect drum. The great
+Lushtchihin himself--Harlampy Lushtchihin--the greatest drunkard in
+Moscow, and a Great Russian drunkard too, declared there was nothing
+to be made of me. In his words, the bottle does not speak to me.'
+
+Bersenyev was just going to knock the group over but Shubin stopped
+him.
+
+'That'll do, my dear boy, don't smash it; it will serve as a lesson,
+a scare-crow.'
+
+Bersenyev laughed.
+
+'If that's what it is, I will spare your scarecrow then,' he said. And
+now, 'Long live eternal true art!'
+
+'Long live true art!' put in Shubin. 'By art the good is better and
+the bad is not all loss!'
+
+The friends shook hands warmly and parted.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+Elena's first sensation on awakening was one of happy consternation.
+'Is it possible? Is it possible?' she asked herself, and her heart
+grew faint with happiness. Recollections came rushing on her . . . she
+was overwhelmed by them. Then again she was enfolded by the blissful
+peace of triumph. But in the course of the morning, Elena gradually
+became possessed by a spirit of unrest, and for the remainder of the
+day she felt listless and weary. It was true she knew now what she
+wanted, but that made it no easier for her. That never-to-be forgotten
+meeting had cast her for ever out of the old groove; she was no
+longer at the same standpoint, she was far away, and yet everything
+went on about her in its accustomed order, everything pursued its own
+course as though nothing were changed; the old life moved on its old
+way, reckoning on Elena's interest and co-operation as of old. She
+tried to begin a letter to Insarov, but that too was a failure; the
+words came on to paper either lifeless or false. Her diary she had put
+an end to by drawing a thick stroke under the last line. That was the
+past, and every thought, all her soul, was turned now to the future.
+Her heart was heavy. To sit with her mother who suspected nothing, to
+listen to her, answer her and talk to her, seemed to Elena something
+wicked; she felt the presence of a kind of falseness in her, she
+suffered though she had nothing to blush for; more than once an almost
+irresistible desire sprang up in her heart to tell everything without
+reserve, whatever might come of it afterwards. 'Why,' she thought,
+'did not Dmitri take me away then, from that little chapel, wherever
+he wanted to go? Didn't he tell me I was his wife before God? What am
+I here for?' She suddenly began to feel shy of every one, even of Uvar
+Ivanovitch, who was flourishing his fingers in more perplexity than
+ever. Now everything about her seemed neither sweet nor friendly, nor
+even a dream, but, like a nightmare, lay, an immovable dead load, on
+her heart; seeming to reproach her and be indignant with her, and not
+to care to know about her. . . .'You are ours in spite of
+everything,' she seemed to hear. Even her poor pets, her ill-used
+birds and animals looked at her--so at least she fancied--with
+suspicion and hostility. She felt conscience-stricken and ashamed of
+her feelings. 'This is my home after all,' she thought, 'my family, my
+country.' . . . 'No, it's no longer your country, nor your family,'
+another voice affirmed within her. Terror was overmastering her, and
+she was vexed with her own feebleness. The trial was only beginning
+and she was losing patience already. . . Was this what she had
+promised?
+
+She did not soon gain control of herself. But a week passed and then
+another. . . . Elena became a little calmer, and grew used to her new
+position. She wrote two little notes to Insarov, and carried them
+herself to the post: she could not for anything--through shame and
+through pride--have brought herself to confide in a maid. She was
+already beginning to expect him in person. . . . But instead of
+Insarov, one fine morning Nikolai Artemyevitch made his appearance.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+No one in the house of the retired lieutenant of guards, Stahov, had
+ever seen him so sour, and at the same time so self-confident and
+important as on that day. He walked into the drawing-room in his
+overcoat and hat, with long deliberate stride, stamping with his
+heels; he approached the looking-glass and took a long look at himself,
+shaking his head and biting his lips with imperturbable severity. Anna
+Vassilyevna met him with obvious agitation and secret delight (she
+never met him otherwise); he did not even take off his hat, nor greet
+her, and in silence gave Elena his doe-skin glove to kiss. Anna
+Vassilyevna began questioning him about the progress of his cure; he
+made her no reply. Uvar Ivanovitch made his appearance; he glanced at
+him and said, 'bah!' He usually behaved coldly and haughtily to
+Uvar Ivanovitch, though he acknowledged in him 'traces of the true
+Stahov blood.' Almost all Russian families of the nobility are
+convinced, as is well known, of the existence of exceptional
+hereditary characteristics, peculiar to them alone; we have more than
+once heard discussions 'among ourselves' of the Podsalaskinsky
+'noses,' and the 'Perepreyevsky' necks. Zoya came in and sat down
+facing Nikolai Artemyevitch. He grunted, sank into an armchair, asked
+for coffee, and only then took off his hat. Coffee was brought him; he
+drank a cup, and looking at everybody in turn, he growled between his
+teeth, '_Sortes, s'il vous plait_,' and turning to his wife he added,
+'_et vous, madame, restez, je vous prie_.'
+
+They all left the room, except Anna Vassilyevna. Her head was
+trembling with agitation. The solemnity of Nikolai Artemyevitch's
+preparations impressed her. She was expecting something extraordinary.
+
+'What is it?' she cried, directly the door was closed.
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch flung an indifferent glance at Anna Vassilyevna.
+
+'Nothing special; what a way you have of assuming the air of a victim
+at once!' he began, quite needlessly dropping the corners of his
+mouth at every word. 'I only want to forewarn you that we shall have
+a new guest dining here to-day.'
+
+'Who is it?'
+
+'Kurnatovsky, Yegor Andreyevitch. You don't know him. The head
+secretary in the senate.'
+
+'He is to dine with us to-day?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And was it only to tell me this that you made every one go away?'
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch again flung a glance--this time one of irony--at
+Anna Vassilyevna.
+
+'Does that surprise you? Defer your surprise a little.'
+
+He ceased speaking. Anna Vassilyevna too was silent for a little time.
+
+'I could have wished----' she was beginning.
+
+'I know you have always looked on me as an "immoral" man,' began
+Nikolai Artemyevitch suddenly.
+
+'I!' muttered Anna Vassilyevna, astounded.
+
+'And very likely you are right. I don't wish to deny that I have in
+fact sometimes given you just grounds for dissatisfaction' ("my
+greys!" flashed through Anna Vassilyevna's head), 'though you must
+yourself allow, that in the condition, as you are aware, of your
+constitution----'
+
+'And I make no complaint against you, Nikolai Artemyevitch.'
+
+'_C'est possible_. In any case, I have no intention of justifying
+myself. Time will justify me. But I regard it as my duty to prove to
+you that I understand my duties, and know how to care for--for the
+welfare of the family entrusted--entrusted to me.'
+
+'What's the meaning of all this?' Anna Vassilyevna was thinking. (She
+could not guess that the preceding evening at the English club a
+discussion had arisen in a corner of the smoking-room as to the
+incapacity of Russians to make speeches. 'Which of us can speak?
+Mention any one!' one of the disputants had exclaimed. 'Well,
+Stahov, for instance,' had answered the other, pointing to Nikolai
+Artemyevitch, who stood up on the spot almost squealing with delight.)
+
+'For instance,' pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch, 'my daughter Elena.
+Don't you consider that the time has come for her to take a decisive
+step along the path--to be married, I mean to say. All these
+intellectual and philanthropic pursuits are all very well, but only up
+to a certain point, up to a certain age. It's time for her to drop her
+mistiness, to get out of the society of all these artists, scholars,
+and Montenegrins, and do like everybody else.'
+
+'How am I to understand you?' asked Anna Vassilyevna.
+
+'Well, if you will kindly listen,' answered Nikolai Artemyevitch,
+still with the same dropping of the corners of his lips, 'I will tell
+you plainly, without beating about the bush. I have made acquaintance,
+I have become intimate with this young man, Mr. Kurnatovsky, in the
+hope of having him for a son-in-law. I venture to think that when you
+see him, you will not accuse me of partiality or precipitate
+judgment.' (Nikolai Artemyevitch was admiring his own eloquence as he
+talked.) 'Of excellent education--educated in the highest legal
+college--excellent manners, thirty-three years old, and
+upper-secretary, a councillor, and a Stanislas cross on his neck. You,
+I hope, will do me the justice to allow that I do not belong to the
+number of those _peres de famille_ who are mad for position; but you
+yourself told me that Elena Nikolaevna likes practical business men;
+Yegor Andreyevitch is in the first place a business man; now on the
+other side, my daughter has a weakness for generous actions; so let me
+tell you that Yegor Andreyevitch, directly he had attained the
+possibility--you understand me--the possibility of living without
+privation on his salary, at once gave up the yearly income assigned
+him by his father, for the benefit of his brothers.'
+
+'Who is his father?' inquired Anna Vassilyevna.
+
+'His father? His father is a man well-known in his own line, of the
+highest moral character, _un vrai stoicien_, a retired major, I think,
+overseer of all the estates of the Count B----'
+
+'Ah!' observed Anna Vassilyevna.
+
+'Ah! why ah?' interposed Nikolai Artemyevitch. 'Can you be infected
+with prejudice?'
+
+'Why, I said nothing----' Anna Vassilyevna was beginning.
+
+'No, you said, ah!--However that may be, I have thought it well to
+acquaint you with my way of thinking; and I venture to think--I
+venture to hope Mr. Kurnatovsky will be received _a bras ouverts_. He
+is no Montenegrin vagrant.'
+
+'Of course; I need only call Vanka the cook and order a few extra
+dishes.'
+
+'You are aware that I will not enter into that,' said Nikolai
+Artemyevitch; and he got up, put on his hat, and whistling (he had
+heard some one say that whistling was only permissible in a country
+villa and a riding court) went out for a stroll in the garden. Shubin
+watched him out of the little window of his lodge, and in silence put
+out his tongue at him.
+
+At ten minutes to four, a hackney-carriage drove up to the steps of
+the Stahovs's villa, and a man, still young, of prepossessing
+appearance, simply and elegantly dressed, stepped out of it
+and sent up his name. This was Yegor Andreyevitch Kurnatovsky.
+
+This was what, among other things, Elena wrote next day to Insarov:
+
+'Congratulate me, dear Dmitri, I have a suitor. He dined with us
+yesterday: papa made his acquaintance at the English club, I fancy,
+and invited him. Of course he did not come yesterday as a suitor. But
+good mamma, to whom papa had made known his hopes, whispered in my ear
+what this guest was. His name is Yegor Andreyevitch Kurnatovsky; he
+is upper-secretary to the Senate. I will first describe to you his
+appearance. He is of medium height, shorter than you, and a good
+figure; his features are regular, he is close-cropped, and wears large
+whiskers. His eyes are rather small (like yours), brown, and quick;
+he has a flat wide mouth; in his eyes and on his lips there is a
+perpetual sort of official smile; it seems to be always on duty
+there. He behaves very simply and speaks precisely, and everything
+about him is precise; he moves, laughs, and eats as though he were
+doing a duty. "How carefully she has studied him!" you are thinking,
+perhaps, at this minute. Yes; so as to be able to describe him to
+you. And besides, who wouldn't study her suitor! There's something of
+iron in him--and dull and empty at the same time--and honest; they say
+he is really very honest. You, too, are made of iron; but not like
+this man. At dinner he sat next me, and facing us sat Shubin. At first
+the conversation turned on commercial undertakings; they say he is
+very clever in business matters, and was almost throwing up his
+government post to take charge of a large manufacturing business. Pity
+he didn't do it! Then Shubin began to talk about the theatre; Mr.
+Kurnatovsky declared and--I must confess--without false modesty, that
+he has no ideas about art. That reminded me of you--but I thought;
+no, Dmitri and I are ignorant of art in a very different way though.
+This man seemed to mean, "I know nothing of it, and it's quite
+superfluous, still it may be admitted in a well-ordered state." He
+seems, however, to think very little about Petersburg and _comme il
+faut_: he once even called himself one of the proletariat. 'We are
+working people,' he said; I thought if Dmitri had said that, I
+shouldn't have liked it; but he may talk about himself, he may boast
+if he likes. With me he is very attentive; but I kept feeling that a
+very, very condescending superior was talking with me. When he means
+to praise any one, he says So-and-so is a man of principle--that's his
+favourite word. He seems to be self-confident, hardworking, capable of
+self-sacrifice (you see, I am impartial), that's to say, of
+sacrificing his own interest; but he is a great despot. It would be
+woeful to fall into his power! At dinner they began talking about
+bribes.
+
+'"I know," he said, "that in many cases the man who accepts a bribe
+is not to blame; he cannot do otherwise. Still, if he is found out,
+he must be punished without mercy."' I cried, "Punish an innocent
+man!" '"Yes; for the sake of principle." '"What principle?" asked
+Shubin. Kurnatovsky seemed annoyed or surprised, and said, "That
+needs no explanation."
+
+'Papa, who seems to worship him, put in "of course not"; and to my
+vexation the conversation stopped there. In the evening Bersenyev came
+and got into a terrific argument with him. I have never seen our good
+Andrei Petrovitch so excited. Mr. Kurnatovsky did not at all deny the
+utility of science, universities, and so on, but still I understood
+Andrei Petrovitch's indignation. The man looks at it all as a sort of
+gymnastics. Shubin came up to me after dinner, and said, "This fellow
+here and some one else (he can never bring himself to utter your name)
+are both practical men, but see what a difference; there's the real
+living ideal given to life; and here there's not even a feeling of
+duty, simply official honesty and activity without anything inside
+it." Shubin is clever, and I remembered his words to tell you; but to
+my mind there is nothing in common between you. You have _faith_, and
+he has not; for a man cannot _have faith_ in himself only.
+
+'He did not go away till late; but mamma had time to inform me that
+he was pleased with me, and papa is in ecstasies. Did he say, I
+wonder, that I was a woman of principle? I was almost telling mamma
+that I was very sorry, but I had a husband already. Why is it papa
+dislikes you so? Mamma, we could soon manage to bring round.
+
+'Oh, my dear one! I have described this gentleman in such detail to
+deaden my heartache. I don't live without you; I am constantly seeing
+you, hearing you. I look forward to seeing you--only not at our
+house, as you intended--fancy how wretched and ill at ease we should
+be!--but you know where I wrote to you--in that wood. Oh, my dear
+one! How I love you!'
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+Three weeks after Kurnatovsky's first visit, Anna Vassilyevna, to
+Elena's great delight, returned to Moscow, to her large wooden house
+near Prechistenka; a house with columns, white lyres and wreaths over
+every window, with an attic, offices, a palisade, a huge green court,
+a well in the court and a dog's kennel near the well. Anna
+Vassilyevna had never left her country villa so early, but this year
+with the first autumn chills her face swelled; Nikolai Artemyevitch
+for his part, having finished his cure, began to want his wife;
+besides, Augustina Christianovna had gone away on a visit to her
+cousin in Revel; a family of foreigners, known as 'living statues,'
+_des poses plastiques_, had come to Moscow, and the description of them
+in the _Moscow Gazette_ had aroused Anna Vassilyevna's liveliest
+curiosity. In short, to stay longer at the villa seemed inconvenient,
+and even, in Nikolai Artemyevitch's words, incompatible with the
+fulfilment of his 'cherished projects.' The last fortnight seemed very
+long to Elena. Kurnatovsky came over twice on Sundays; on other days
+he was busy. He came really to see Elena, but talked more to Zoya, who
+was much pleased with him. '_Das ist ein Mann_!' she thought to
+herself, as she looked at his full manly face and listened to his
+self-confident, condescending talk. To her mind, no one had such a
+wonderful voice, no one could pronounce so nicely, 'I had the
+hon-our,' or, 'I am most de-lighted.' Insarov did not come to the
+Stahovs, but Elena saw him once in secret in a little copse by the
+Moskva river, where she arranged to meet him. They hardly had time to
+say more than a few words to each other. Shubin returned to Moscow
+with Anna Vassilyevna; Bersenyev, a few days later.
+
+Insarov was sitting in his room, and for the third time looking
+through the letters brought him from Bulgaria by hand; they were
+afraid to send them by post. He was much disturbed by them. Events
+were developing rapidly in the East; the occupation of the
+Principalities by Russian troops had thrown all men's minds into a
+ferment; the storm was growing--already could be felt the breath of
+approaching inevitable war. The fire was kindling all round, and no
+one could foresee how far it would go--where it would stop. Old
+wrongs, long cherished hopes--all were astir again. Insarov's heart
+throbbed eagerly; his hopes too were being realised. 'But is it not
+too soon, will it not be in vain?' he thought, tightly clasping his
+hands. 'We are not ready, but so be it! I must go.'
+
+Something rustled lightly at the door, it flew quickly open, and into
+the room ran Elena.
+
+Insarov, all in a tremor, rushed to her, fell on his knees before her,
+clasped her waist and pressed it close against his head.
+
+'You didn't expect me?' she said, hardly able to draw her breath,
+she had run quickly up the stairs. 'Dear one! dear one!--so this is
+where you live? I've quickly found you. The daughter of your landlord
+conducted me. We arrived the day before yesterday. I meant to write to
+you, but I thought I had better come myself. I have come for a quarter
+of an hour. Get up, shut the door.'
+
+He got up, quickly shut the door, returned to her and took her by the
+hands. He could not speak; he was choking with delight. She looked
+with a smile into his eyes . . . there was such rapture in them . . .
+she felt shy.
+
+'Stay,' she said, fondly taking her hand away from him, 'let me take
+off my hat.'
+
+She untied the strings of her hat, flung it down, slipped the cape off
+her shoulders, tidied her hair, and sat down on the little old sofa.
+Insarov gazed at her, without stirring, like one enchanted.
+
+'Sit down,' she said, not lifting her eyes to him and motioning him to
+a place beside her.
+
+Insarov sat down, not on the sofa, but on the floor at her feet.
+
+'Come, take off my gloves,' she said in an uncertain voice. She felt
+afraid.
+
+He began first to unbutton and then to draw off one glove; he drew it
+half off and greedily pressed his lips to the slender, soft wrist,
+which was white under it.
+
+Elena shuddered, and would have pushed him back with the other hand;
+he began kissing the other hand too. Elena drew it away, he threw back
+his head, she looked into his face, bent above him, and their lips
+touched.
+
+An instant passed . . . she broke away, got up, whispered 'No, no,'
+and went quickly up to the writing-table.
+
+'I am mistress here, you know, so you ought not to have any secrets
+from me,' she said, trying to seem at ease, and standing with her back
+to him. 'What a lot of papers! what are these letters?'
+
+Insarov knitted his brows. 'Those letters?' he said, getting up, 'you
+can read them.'
+
+Elena turned them over in her hand. 'There are so many of them, and
+the writing is so fine, and I have to go directly ... let them be.
+They're not from a rival, eh? ... and they're not in Russian,' she
+added, turning over the thin sheets.
+
+Insarov came close to her and fondly touched her waist. She turned
+suddenly to him, smiled brightly at him and leant against his
+shoulder.
+
+'Those letters are from Bulgaria, Elena; my friends write to me, they
+want me to come.'
+
+'Now? To them?'
+
+'Yes . . . now, while there is still time, while it is still possible
+to come.'
+
+All at once she flung both arms round his neck, 'You will take me
+with you, yes?'
+
+He pressed her to his heart. 'O my sweet girl, O my heroine, how you
+said that! But isn't it wicked, isn't it mad for me, a homeless,
+solitary man, to drag you with me . . . and out there too!'
+
+She shut his mouth. . . . 'Sh--or I shall be angry, and never come to
+see you again. Why isn't it all decided, all settled between us?
+Am I not your wife? Can a wife be parted from her husband?'
+
+'Wives don't go into war,' he said with a half-mournful smile.
+
+'Oh yes, when they can't stay behind, and I cannot stay here?'
+
+'Elena, my angel! . . but think, I have, perhaps, to leave Moscow in a
+fortnight. I can't think of university lectures, or finishing my
+work.'
+
+'What!' interrupted Elena, 'you have to go soon? If you like, I
+will stop at once this minute with you for ever, and not go home,
+shall I? Shall we go at once?'
+
+Insarov clasped her in his arms with redoubled warmth. 'May God so
+reward me then,' he cried, 'if I am doing wrong! From to-day, we are
+one for ever!'
+
+'Am I to stay?' asked Elena.
+
+'No, my pure girl; no, my treasure. You shall go back home to-day,
+only keep yourself in readiness. This is a matter we can't manage
+straight off; we must plan it out well. We want money, a passport----'
+
+'I have money,' put in Elena. 'Eighty roubles.'
+
+'Well, that's not much,' observed Insarov; 'but everything's a
+help.'
+
+'But I can get more. I will borrow. I will ask mamma. . . . No, I
+won't ask mamma for any. . . . But I can sell my watch. ... I have
+earrings, too, and two bracelets . . . and lace.'
+
+'Money's not the chief difficulty, Elena; the passport; your
+passport, how about that?'
+
+'Yes, how about it? Is a passport absolutely necessary?'
+
+'Absolutely.'
+
+Elena laughed. 'What a queer idea! I remember when I was little ... a
+maid of ours ran away. She was caught, and forgiven, and lived with us
+a long while . . . but still every one used to call her Tatyana, the
+runaway. I never thought then that I too might perhaps be a runaway
+like her.'
+
+'Elena, aren't you ashamed?'
+
+'Why? Of course it's better to go with a passport. But if we can't----'
+
+'We will settle all that later, later, wait a little,' said Insarov.
+'Let me look about; let me think a little. We will talk over
+everything together thoroughly. I too have money.'
+
+Elena pushed back the hair that fell over on his forehead.
+
+'O Dmitri! how glorious it will be for us two to set off together!'
+
+'Yes,' said Insarov, 'but there, when we get there----'
+
+'Well?' put in Elena, 'and won't it be glorious to die together too?
+but no, why should we die? We will live, we are young. How old are
+you? Twenty-six?'
+
+'Yes, twenty-six.'
+
+'And I am twenty. There is plenty of time before us. Ah, you tried to
+run away from me? You did not want a Russian's love, you Bulgarian!
+Let me see you trying to escape from me now! What would have become
+of us, if I hadn't come to you then!'
+
+'Elena, you know what forced me to go away.'
+
+'I know; you were in love, and you were afraid. But surely you must
+have suspected that you were loved?'
+
+'I swear on my honour, Elena, I didn't.'
+
+She gave him a quick unexpected kiss. 'There, I love you for that too.
+And goodbye.'
+
+'You can't stop longer?' asked Insarov.
+
+'No, dearest. Do you think it's easy for me to get out alone? The
+quarter of an hour was over long ago.' She put on her cape and hat.
+'And you come to us to-morrow evening. No, the day after to-morrow. We
+shall be constrained and dreary, but we can't help that; at
+least we shall see each other. Good-bye. Let me go.'
+
+He embraced her for the last time. 'Ah, take care, you have broken my
+watch-chain. Oh, what a clumsy boy! There, never mind. It's all the
+better. I will go to Kuznetsky bridge, and leave it to be mended. If I
+am asked, I can say I have been to Kuznetsky bridge.' She held the
+door-handle. 'By-the-way, I forgot to tell you, Monsieur Kurnatovsky
+will certainly make me an offer in a day or two. But the answer I
+shall make him--will be this----' She put the thumb of her left hand
+to the tip of her nose and flourished the other fingers in the air.
+'Good-bye till we see each other again. Now, I know the way ... And
+don't lose any time.'
+
+Elena opened the door a little, listened, turned round to Insarov,
+nodded her head, and glided out of the room.
+
+For a minute Insarov stood before the closed door, and he too
+listened. The door downstairs into the court slammed. He went up to
+the sofa, sat down, and covered his eyes with his hands. Never before
+had anything like this happened to him. 'What have I done to deserve
+such love?' he thought. 'Is it a dream?'
+
+But the delicate scent of mignonette left by Elena in his poor dark
+little room told of her visit. And with it, it seemed that the air was
+still full of the notes of a young voice, and the sound of a light
+young tread, and the warmth and freshness of a young girlish body.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+Insarov decided to await more positive news, and began to make
+preparations for departure. The difficulty was a serious one. For him
+personally there were no obstacles. He had only to ask for a
+passport--but how would it be with Elena? To get her a passport in
+the legal way was impossible. Should he marry her secretly, and should
+they then go and present themselves to the parents? . . . 'They
+would let us go then,' he thought 'But if they did not? We would go
+all the same. But suppose they were to make a complaint . . . if ...
+No, better try to get a passport somehow.'
+
+He decided to consult (of course mentioning no names) one of his
+acquaintances, an attorney, retired from practice, or perhaps struck
+off the rolls, an old and experienced hand at all sorts of clandestine
+business. This worthy person did not live near; Insarov was a whole
+hour in getting to him in a very sorry droshky, and, to make matters
+worse, he did not find him at home; and on his way back got soaked to
+the skin by a sudden downpour of rain. The next morning, in spite of a
+rather severe headache, Insarov set off a second time to call on the
+retired attorney. The retired attorney listened to him attentively,
+taking snuff from a snuff-box decorated with a picture of a
+full-bosomed nymph, and glancing stealthily at his visitor with his
+sly, and also snuff-coloured little eyes; he heard him to the end, and
+then demanded 'greater definiteness in the statement of the facts of
+the case'; and observing that Insarov was unwilling to launch into
+particulars (it was against the grain that he had come to him at all)
+he confined himself to the advice to provide himself above all things
+with 'the needful,' and asked him to come to him again, 'when you
+have,' he added, sniffing at the snuff in the open snuff-box,
+'augmented your confidence and decreased your diffidence' (he talked
+with a broad accent). 'A passport,' he added, as though to himself,
+'is a thing that can be arranged; you go a journey, for instance;
+who's to tell whether you're Marya Bredihin or Karolina Vogel-meier?'
+A feeling of nausea came over Insarov, but he thanked the attorney,
+and promised to come to him again in a day or two.
+
+The same evening he went to the Stahovs. Anna Vassilyevna met him
+cordially, reproached him a little for having quite forgotten them,
+and, finding him pale, inquired especially after his health. Nikolai
+Artemyevitch did not say a single word to him; he only stared at him
+with elaborately careless curiosity; Shubin treated him coldly; but
+Elena astounded him. She was expecting him; she had put on for him
+the very dress she wore on the day of their first interview in the
+chapel; but she welcomed him so calmly, and was so polite and
+carelessly gay, that no one looking at her could have believed that
+this girl's fate was already decided, and that it was only the secret
+consciousness of happy love that gave fire to her features, lightness
+and charm to all her gestures. She poured out tea in Zoya's place,
+jested, chattered; she knew Shubin would be watching her, that
+Insarov was incapable of wearing a mask, and incapable of appearing
+indifferent, and she had prepared herself beforehand. She was not
+mistaken; Shubin never took his eyes off her, and Insarov was very
+silent and gloomy the whole evening. Elena was so happy that she even
+felt an inclination to tease him.
+
+'Oh, by the way,' she said to him suddenly, 'is your plan getting on
+at all?'
+
+Insarov was taken aback.
+
+'What plan?' he said.
+
+'Why, have you forgotten?' she rejoined, laughing in his face; he
+alone could tell the meaning of that happy laugh: 'Your Bulgarian
+selections for Russian readers?'
+
+'_Quelle bourde_!' muttered Nikolai Artemyevitch between his teeth.
+
+Zoya sat down to the piano. Elena gave a just perceptible shrug of the
+shoulders, and with her eyes motioned Insarov to the door. Then she
+twice slowly touched the table with her finger, and looked at him. He
+understood that she was promising to see him in two days, and she gave
+him a quick smile when she saw he understood her. Insarov got up and
+began to take leave; he felt unwell. Kurnatovsky arrived. Nikolai
+Artemyevitch jumped up, raised his right hand higher than his head,
+and softly dropped it into the palm of the chief secretary. Insarov
+would have remained a few minutes longer, to have a look at his rival.
+Elena shook her head unseen; the host did not think it necessary to
+introduce them to one another, and Insarov departed, exchanging one
+last look with Elena. Shubin pondered and pondered, and threw himself
+into a fierce argument with Kurnatovsky on a legislative question,
+about which he had not a single idea.
+
+Insarov did not sleep all night, and in the morning he felt very ill;
+he set to work, however, putting his papers into order and writing
+letters, but his head was heavy and confused. At dinner time he began
+to be in a fever; he could eat nothing. The fever grew rapidly worse
+towards evening; he had aching pains in all his limbs, and a terrible
+headache. Insarov lay down on the very little sofa on which Elena had
+lately sat; he thought: 'It serves me right for going to that old
+rascal,' and he tried to sleep. . . . But the illness had by now
+complete mastery of him. His veins were throbbing violently, his blood
+was on fire, his thoughts were flying round like birds. He sank into
+forgetfulness. He lay like a man felled by a blow on his face, and
+suddenly, it seemed to him, some one was softly laughing and
+whispering over him: he opened his eyes with an effort, the light of
+the flaring candle smote him like a knife. . . . What was it? the old
+attorney was before him in an Oriental silk gown belted with a silk
+handkerchief, as he had seen him the evening before. . . . 'Karolina
+Vogelmeier,' muttered his toothless mouth. Insarov stared, and the
+old man grew wide and thick and tall, he was no longer a man, he was a
+tree. . . . Insarov had to climb along its gnarled branches. He
+clung, and fell with his breast on a sharp stone, and Karolina
+Vogelmeier was sitting on her heels, looking like a pedlar-woman, and
+lisping: 'Pies, pies, pies for sale'; and there were streams of blood
+and swords flashing incessantly. . . . Elena! And everything vanished
+is a crimson chaos,
+
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+'There's some one here looks like a locksmith or something of the
+sort,' Bersenyev was informed the following evening by his servant, who
+was distinguished by a severe deportment and sceptical turn of mind
+towards his master; 'he wants to see you.'
+
+'Ask him in,' said Bersenyev.
+
+The 'locksmith' entered. Bersenyev recognised in him the tailor, the
+landlord of Insarov's lodgings.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked him.
+
+'I came to your honour,' began the tailor, shifting from one foot to
+the other, and at times waving his right hand with his cuff clutched
+in his three last fingers. 'Our lodger, seemingly, is very ill.'
+
+'Insarov?'
+
+'Yes, our lodger, to be sure; yesterday morning he was still on his
+legs, in the evening he asked for nothing but drink; the missis took
+him some water, and at night he began talking away; we could hear him
+through the partition-wall; and this morning he lies without a word
+like a log, and the fever he's in, Lord have mercy on us! I thought,
+upon my word, he'll die for sure; I ought to send word to the police
+station, I thought. For he's so alone; but the missis said: "Go to
+that gentleman," she says, "at whose country place our lodger stayed;
+maybe he'll tell you what to do, or come himself." So I've come to
+your honour, for we can't, so to say----'
+
+Bersenyev snatched up his cap, thrust a rouble into the tailor's hand,
+and at once set off with him post haste to Insarov's lodgings.
+
+He found him lying on the sofa, unconscious and not undressed. His
+face was terribly changed. Bersenyev at once ordered the people of the
+house to undress him and put him to bed, while he rushed off himself
+and returned with a doctor. The doctor prescribed leeches,
+mustard-poultices, and calomel, and ordered him to be bled.
+
+'Is he dangerously ill?' asked Bersenyev.
+
+'Yes, very dangerously,' answered the doctor. 'Severe inflammation of
+the lungs; peripneumonia fully developed, and the brain perhaps
+affected, but the patient is young. His very strength is something
+against him now. I was sent for too late; still we will do all that
+science dictates.'
+
+The doctor was young himself, and still believed in science.
+
+Bersenyev stayed the night. The people of the house seemed kind, and
+even prompt directly there was some one to tell them what was to be
+done. An assistant arrived, and began to carry out the medical
+measures.
+
+Towards morning Insarov revived for a few minutes, recognised
+Bersenyev, asked: 'Am I ill, then?' looked about him with the
+vague, listless bewilderment of a man dangerously ill, and again
+relapsed into unconsciousness. Bersenyev went home, changed his
+clothes, and, taking a few books along with him, he returned to
+Insarov's lodgings. He made up his mind to stay there, at least for a
+time. He shut in Insarov's bed with screens, and arranged a little
+place for himself by the sofa. The day passed slowly and drearily.
+Bersenyev did not leave the room except to get his dinner. The evening
+came. He lighted a candle with a shade, and settled down to a book.
+Everything was still around. Through the partition wall could be heard
+suppressed whispering in the landlord's room, then a yawn, and a sigh.
+Some one sneezed, and was scolded in a whisper; behind the screen was
+heard the patient's heavy, uneven breathing, sometimes broken by a
+short groan, and the uneasy tossing of his head on the pillow. . . .
+Strange fancies came over Bersenyev. He found himself in the room of a
+man whose life was hanging on a thread, the man whom, as he knew,
+Elena loved. . . . He remembered that night when Shubin had overtaken
+him and declared that she loved him, him, Bersenyev! And now. . . .
+'What am I to do now?' he asked himself. 'Let Elena know of his
+illness? Wait a little? This would be worse news for her than what I
+told her once before; strange how fate makes me the go-between between
+them!' He made up his mind that it was better to wait a little. His
+eyes fell on the table covered with heaps of papers. . . 'Will he
+carry out his dreams?' thought Bersenyev. 'Can it be that all will
+come to nothing?' And he was filled with pity for the young life
+struck down, and he vowed to himself to save it.
+
+The night was an uneasy one. The sick man was very delirious. Several
+times Bersenyev got up from his little sofa, approached the bed on
+tip-toe, and listened with a heavy heart to his disconnected
+muttering. Only once Insarov spoke with sudden distinctness: 'I
+won't, I won't, she mustn't. . . .' Bersenyev started and looked at
+Insarov; his face, suffering and death-like at the same time, was
+immovable, and his hands lay powerless. 'I won't,' he repeated,
+scarcely audibly.
+
+The doctor came in the morning, shook his head and wrote fresh
+prescriptions. 'The crisis is a long way off still,' he said, putting
+on his hat.
+
+'And after the crisis?' asked Bersenyev.
+
+'The crisis may end in two ways, _aut Caesar aut nihil_.
+
+The doctor went away. Bersenyev walked a few times up and down the
+street; he felt in need of fresh air. He went back and took up a book
+again. Raumer he had finished long ago; he was now making a study of
+Grote.
+
+Suddenly the door softly creaked, and the head of the landlord's
+daughter, covered as usual with a heavy kerchief, was cautiously
+thrust into the room.
+
+'Here is the lady,' she whispered, 'who gave me a silver piece.'
+
+The child's head vanished quickly, and in its place appeared Elena.
+
+Bersenyev jumped up as if he had been stung; but Elena did not stir,
+nor cry out. It seemed as if she understood everything in a single
+instant. A terrible pallor overspread her face, she went up to the
+screen, looked behind it, threw up her arms, and seemed turned to
+stone.
+
+A moment more and she would have flung herself on Insarov, but
+Bersenyev stopped her. 'What are you doing?' he said in a trembling
+whisper, 'you might be the death of him!'
+
+She was reeling. He led her to the sofa, and made her sit down.
+
+She looked into his face, then her eyes ran over him from head to
+foot, then stared at the floor.
+
+'Will he die?' she asked so coldly and quietly that Bersenyev was
+frightened.
+
+'For God's sake, Elena Nikolaevna,' he began, 'what are you saying? He
+is ill certainly--and rather seriously--but we will save him; I
+promise you that'
+
+'He is unconscious?' she asked in the same tone of voice as before.
+
+'Yes, he is unconscious at present. That's always the case at the
+early stage of these illnesses, but it means nothing, nothing--I
+assure you. Drink some water.'
+
+She raised her eyes to his, and he saw she had not heard his answer.
+
+'If he dies,' she said in the same voice,' I will die too.'
+
+At that instant Insarov uttered a slight moan; she trembled all over,
+clutched at her head, then began untying the strings of her hat.
+
+'What are you doing?' Bersenyev asked her.
+
+'I will stay here.'
+
+'You will stay--for long?'
+
+'I don't know, perhaps all day, the night, always--I don't know.'
+
+'For God's sake, Elena Nikolaevna, control yourself. I could not of
+course have any expectation of seeing you here; but still I--assume
+you have come for a short time. Remember they may miss you at home.'
+
+'What then?'
+
+'They will look for you--find you----'
+
+'What then?'
+
+'Elena Nikolaevna! You see. He cannot now protect you.'
+
+She dropped her head, seemed lost in thought, raised a handkerchief to
+her lips, and convulsive sobs, tearing her by their violence, were
+suddenly wrung from her breast. She threw herself, face downwards, on
+the sofa, trying to stifle them, but still her body heaved and
+throbbed like a captured bird.
+
+'Elena Nikolaevna--for God's sake,' Bersenyev was repeating over her.
+
+'Ah! What is it?' suddenly sounded the voice of Insarov.
+
+Elena started up, and Bersenyev felt rooted to the spot. After waiting
+a little, he went up to the bed. Insarov's head lay on the pillow
+helpless as before; his eyes were closed.
+
+'Is he delirious?' whispered Elena.
+
+'It seems so,' answered Bersenyev, 'but that's nothing; it's always
+so, especially if----'
+
+'When was he taken ill?' Elena broke in.
+
+'The day before yesterday; I have been here since yesterday. Rely on
+me, Elena Nikolaevna. I will not leave him; everything shall be
+done. If necessary, we will have a consultation.'
+
+'He will die without me,' she cried, wringing her hands.
+
+'I give you my word I will let you hear every day how his illness goes
+on, and if there should be immediate danger----'
+
+'Swear you will send for me at once whenever it may be, day or night,
+write a note straight to me--I care for nothing now. Do you hear? you
+promise you will do that?'
+
+'I promise before God'
+
+'Swear it.'
+
+'I swear.'
+
+She suddenly snatched his hand, and before he had time to pull it
+away, she had bent and pressed her lips to it.
+
+'Elena Nikolaevna, what are you----' he stammered.
+
+'No--no--I won't have it----' Insarov muttered indistinctly, and
+sighed painfully.
+
+Elena went up to the screen, her handkerchief pressed between her
+teeth, and bent a long, long look on the sick man. Silent tears rolled
+down her cheeks.
+
+'Elena Nikolaevna,' Bersenyev said to her, 'he might come to himself
+and recognise you; there's no knowing if that wouldn't do harm.
+Besides, from hour to hour I expect the doctor.'
+
+Elena took her hat from the sofa, put it on and stood still. Her eyes
+strayed mournfully over the room. She seemed to be remembering. ...
+
+'I cannot go away,' she whispered at last.
+
+Bersenyev pressed her hand: 'Try to pull yourself together,' he
+said, 'calm yourself; you are leaving him in my care. I will come to
+you this very evening.'
+
+Elena looked at him, said: 'Oh, my good, kind friend!' broke into
+sobs and rushed away.
+
+Bersenyev leaned against the door. A feeling of sorrow and bitterness,
+not without a kind of strange consolation, overcame him. 'My good,
+kind friend!' he thought and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+'Who is here?' he heard Insarov's voice.
+
+Bersenyev went up to him. 'I am here, Dmitri
+Nikanorovitch. How are you? How do you feel?'
+
+'Are you alone?' asked the sick man.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And she?'
+
+'Whom do you mean?' Bersenyev asked almost in dismay.
+
+Insarov was silent. 'Mignonette,' he murmured, and his eyes closed
+again.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+For eight whole days Insarov lay between life and death. The doctor
+was incessantly visiting him, interested as a young man in a difficult
+case. Shubin heard of Insarov's critical position, and made inquiries
+after him. His compatriots--Bulgarians--came; among them Bersenyev
+recognised the two strange figures, who had puzzled him by their
+unexpected visit to the cottage; they all showed genuine sympathy,
+some offered to take Bersenyev's place by the patient's bed-side; but
+he would not consent to that, remembering his promise to Elena. He saw
+her every day and secretly reported to her--sometimes by word of
+mouth, sometimes in a brief note--every detail of the illness. With
+what sinkings of the heart she awaited him, how she listened and
+questioned him! She was always on the point of hastening to Insarov
+herself; but Bersenyev begged her not to do this: Insarov was seldom
+alone. On the first day she knew of his illness she
+herself had almost fallen ill; directly she got home, she shut
+herself up in her room; but she was summoned to dinner, and appeared
+in the dining-room with such a face that Anna Vassilyevna was
+alarmed, and was anxious to put her to bed. Elena succeeded, however,
+in controlling herself. 'If he dies,' she repeated, 'it will be the
+end of me too.' This thought tranquillised her, and enabled her to
+seem indifferent. Besides no one troubled her much; Anna Vassilyevna
+was taken up with her swollen face; Shubin was working furiously;
+Zoya was given up to pensiveness, and disposed to read _Werther_;
+Nikolai Artemyevitch was much displeased at the frequent visits of
+'the scholar,' especially as his 'cherished projects' in regard to
+Kurnatovsky were making no way; the practical chief secretary was
+puzzled and biding his time. Elena did not even thank Bersenyev; there
+are services for which thanks are cruel and shameful. Only once at her
+fourth interview with him--Insarov had passed a very bad night, the
+doctor had hinted at a consultation--only then she reminded him of
+his promise. 'Very well, then let us go,' he said to her. She got up
+and was going to get ready. 'No,' he decided, 'let us wait till
+to-morrow.' Towards evening Insarov was rather better.
+
+For eight days this torture was prolonged. Elena appeared calm; but
+she could eat nothing, and did not sleep at night. There was a dull
+ache in all her limbs; her head seemed full of a sort of dry burning
+smoke. 'Our young lady's wasting like a candle,' her maid said of her.
+
+At last by the ninth day the crisis was passing over. Elena was
+sitting in the drawing-room near Anna Vassilyevna, and, without
+knowing herself what she was doing, was reading her the _Moscow
+Gazette_; Bersenyev came in. Elena glanced at him--how rapid, and
+fearful, and penetrating, and tremulous, was the first glance she
+turned on him every time--and at once she guessed that he brought good
+news. He was smiling; he nodded slightly to her, she got up to go and
+meet him.
+
+'He has regained consciousness, he is saved, he will be quite well
+again in a week,' he whispered to her.
+
+Elena had stretched out her arm as though to ward off a blow, and she
+said nothing, only her lips trembled and a flush of crimson overspread
+her whole face. Bersenyev began to talk to Anna Vassilyevna, and Elena
+went off to her own room, dropped on her knees and fell to praying, to
+thanking God. Light, shining tears trickled down her cheeks. Suddenly
+she was conscious of intense weariness, laid her head down on the
+pillow, whispered 'poor Andrei Petrovitch!' and at once fell asleep
+with wet eheeks and eyelashes. It was long since she had slept or
+wept.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+Bersenyev's words turned out only partly true; the danger was over,
+but Insarov gained strength slowly, and the doctor talked of a
+complete undermining of the whole system. The patient left his bed for
+all that, and began to walk about the room; Bersenyev went home to
+his own lodging, but he came every day to his still feeble friend;
+and every day as before he informed Elena of the state of his health.
+Insarov did not dare to write to her, and only indirectly in his
+conversations with Bersenyev referred to her; but Bersenyev, with
+assumed carelessness, told him about his visits to the Stahovs,
+trying, however, to give him to understand that Elena had been deeply
+distressed, and that now she was calmer. Elena too did not write to
+Insarov; she had a plan in her head.
+
+One day Bersenyev had just informed her with a cheerful face that the
+doctor had already allowed Insarov to eat a cutlet, and that he
+would probably soon go out; she seemed absorbed, dropped her eyes.
+
+'Guess, what I want to say to you,' she said. Bersenyev was confused.
+He understood her.
+
+'I suppose,' he answered, looking away, 'you want to say that you wish
+to see him.'
+
+Elena crimsoned, and scarcely audibly, she breathed, 'Yes.'
+
+'Well, what then? That, I imagine, you can easily do.'--'Ugh!' he
+thought, 'what a loath-some feeling there is in my heart!'
+
+'You mean that I have already before . . .' said Elena. 'But I am
+afraid--now he is, you say, seldom alone.'
+
+'That's not difficult to get over,' replied Bersenyev, still not
+looking at her. 'I, of course, cannot prepare him; but give me a
+note. Who can hinder your writing to him as a good friend, in whom you
+take an interest? There's no harm in that. Appoint--I mean, write to
+him when you will come.
+
+'I am ashamed,' whispered Elena.
+
+'Give me the note, I will take it.'
+
+'There's no need of that, but I wanted to ask you--don't be angry with
+me, Andrei Petrovitch--don't go to him to-morrow!'
+
+Bersenyev bit his lip.
+
+'Ah! yes, I understand; very well, very well,' and, adding two or
+three words more, he quickly took leave.
+
+'So much the better, so much the better,' he thought, as he hurried
+home. 'I have learnt nothing new, but so much the better. What
+possessed me to go hanging on to the edge of another man's happiness?
+I regret nothing; I have done what my conscience told me; but now it
+is over. Let them be! My father was right when he used to say to me:
+"You and I, my dear boy, are not Sybarites, we are not aristocrats,
+we're not the spoilt darlings of fortune and nature, we are not even
+martyrs--we are workmen and nothing more. Put on your leather apron,
+workman, and take your place at your workman's bench, in your dark
+workshop, and let the sun shine on other men! Even our dull life has
+its own pride, its own happiness!"'
+
+The next morning Insarov got a brief note by the post. 'Expect me,'
+Elena wrote to him, 'and give orders for no one to see you. A. P. will
+not come.'
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+Insarov read Elena's note, and at once began to set his room to rights;
+asked his landlady to take away the medicine-glasses, took off his
+dressing-gown and put on his coat. His head was swimming and his heart
+throbbing from weakness and delight. His knees were shaking; he
+dropped on to the sofa, and began to look at his watch. 'It's now a
+quarter to twelve,' he said to himself. 'She can never come before
+twelve: I will think of something else for a quarter of an hour, or I
+shall break down altogether. Before twelve she cannot possibly
+come.'
+
+The door was opened, and in a light silk gown, all pale, all fresh,
+young and joyful, Elena came in, and with a faint cry of delight she
+fell on his breast.
+
+'You are alive, you are mine,' she repeated, embracing and stroking
+his head. He was almost swooning, breathless at such closeness,
+such caresses, such bliss.
+
+She sat down near him, holding him fast, and began to gaze at him with
+that smiling, and caressing, and tender look, only to be seen shining
+in the eyes of a loving woman.
+
+Her face suddenly clouded over.
+
+'How thin you have grown, my poor Dmitri,' she said, passing her hand
+over his neck; 'what a beard you have.'
+
+'And you have grown thin, my poor Elena,' he answered, catching her
+fingers with his lips.
+
+She shook her curls gaily.
+
+'That's nothing. You shall see how soon we'll be strong again! The
+storm has blown over, just as it blew over and passed away that day
+when we met in the chapel. Now we are going to live.'
+
+He answered her with a smile only.
+
+'Ah, what a time we have had, Dmitri, what a cruel time! How can
+people outlive those they love? I knew beforehand what Andrei
+Petrovitch would say to me every day, I did really; my life seemed to
+ebb and flow with yours. Welcome back, my Dmitri!'
+
+He did not know what to say to her. He was longing to throw himself at
+her feet.
+
+'Another thing I observed,' she went on, pushing back his hair--'I
+made so many observations all this time in my leisure--when any one is
+very, very miserable, with what stupid attention he follows everything
+that's going on about him! I really sometimes lost myself in gazing at
+a fly, and all the while such chill and terror in my heart! But that's
+all past, all past, isn't it? Everything's bright in the future, isn't
+it?'
+
+'You are for me in the future,' answered Insarov, 'so it is bright
+for me.'
+
+'And for me too! But do you remember, when I was here, not the last
+time--no, not the last time,' she repeated with an involuntary
+shudder, 'when we were talking, I spoke of death, I don't know why; I
+never suspected then that it was keeping watch on us. But you are well
+now, aren't you?'
+
+'I'm much better, I'm nearly well.'
+
+'You are well, you are not dead. Oh, how happy I am!'
+
+A short silence followed.
+
+'Elena?' said Insarov.
+
+'Well, my dearest?'
+
+'Tell me, did it never occur to you that this illness was sent us as a
+punishment?'
+
+Elena looked seriously at him.
+
+'That idea did come into my head, Dmitri. But I thought: what am I to
+be punished for? What duty have I transgressed, against whom have I
+sinned? Perhaps my conscience is not like other people's, but it was
+silent; or perhaps I am guilty towards you? I hinder you, I stop you.'
+
+'You don't stop me, Elena; we will go together.'
+
+'Yes, Dmitri, let us go together; I will follow you. . . . That is my
+duty. I love you. ... I know no other duty.'
+
+'O Elena!' said Insarov, 'what chains every word of yours fastens
+on me!'
+
+'Why talk of chains?' she interposed. 'We are free people, you and
+I. Yes,' she went on, looking musingly on the floor, while with one
+hand she still stroked his hair, 'I experienced much lately of which
+I had never had any idea! If any one had told me beforehand that I, a
+young lady, well brought up, should go out from home alone on all
+sorts of made-up excuses, and to go where? to a young man's
+lodgings--how indignant I should have been! And that has all come
+about, and I feel no indignation whatever. Really!' she added, and
+turned to Insarov.
+
+He looked at her with such an expression of adoration, that she softly
+dropped her hand from his hair over his eyes.
+
+'Dmitri!' she began again, 'you don't know of course, I saw you
+there in that dreadful bed, I saw you in the clutches of death,
+unconscious.'
+
+'You saw me?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+He was silent for a little. 'And Bersenyev was here?'
+
+She nodded.
+
+Insarov bowed down before her. 'O Elena!' he whispered, 'I don't
+dare to look at you.'
+
+'Why? Andrei Petrovitch is so good. I was not ashamed before him. And
+what have I to be ashamed of? I am ready to tell all the world that I
+am yours. . . . And Andrei Petrovitch I trust like a brother.'
+
+'He saved me!' cried Insarov. 'He is the noblest, kindest of men!'
+
+'Yes . .. And do you know I owe everything to him? Do you know that
+it was he who first told me that you loved me? And if I could tell
+you everything. . . . Yes, he is a noble man.'
+
+Insarov looked steadily at Elena. 'He is in love with you, isn't he?'
+
+Elena dropped her eyes. 'He did love me,' she said in an undertone.
+
+Insarov pressed her hand warmly. 'Oh you Russians,' he said, 'you have
+hearts of pure gold! And he, he has been waiting on me, he has not
+slept at night. And you, you, my angel. . . . No reproaches, no
+hesitations . . . and all this for me, for me----'
+
+'Yes, yes, all for you, because they love you, Ah, Dmitri! How strange
+it is! I think I have talked to you of it before, but it doesn't
+matter, I like to repeat it, and you will like to hear it. When I saw
+you the first time----'
+
+'Why are there tears in your eyes?' Insarov interrupted her.
+
+'Tears? Are there?' She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. 'Oh,
+what a silly boy! He doesn't know yet that people weep from
+happiness. I wanted to tell you: when I saw you the first time, I saw
+nothing special in you, really. I remember, Shubin struck me much more
+at first, though I never loved him, and as for Andrei Petrovitch--oh,
+there was a moment when I thought: isn't this he? And with you there
+was nothing of that sort; but afterwards--afterwards--you took my
+heart by storm!'
+
+'Have pity on me,' began Insarov. He tried to get up, but dropped down
+on to the sofa again at once.
+
+'What's the matter with you?' inquired Elena anxiously.
+
+'Nothing. ... I am still rather weak. I am not strong enough yet for
+such happiness.'
+
+'Then sit quietly. Don't dare to move, don't get excited,' she added,
+threatening him with her finger. 'And why have you left off your
+dressing-gown? It's too soon to begin to be a dandy! Sit down and I
+will tell you stories. Listen and be quiet. To talk much is bad for
+you after your illness.'
+
+She began to talk to him about Shubin, about Kurnatovsky, and what she
+had been doing for the last fortnight, of how war seemed, judging from
+the newspapers, inevitable, and so directly he was perfectly well
+again, he must, without losing a minute, make arrangements for them to
+start. All this she told him sitting beside him, leaning on his
+shoulder. . . .
+
+He listened to her, listened, turning pale and red. Sometimes he tried
+to stop her; suddenly he drew himself up.
+
+'Elena,' he said to her in a strange, hard voice 'leave me, go away.'
+
+'What?' she replied in bewilderment 'You feel ill?' she added
+quickly.
+
+'No . . . I'm all right . . . but, please, leave me now.'
+
+'I don't understand you. You drive me away? . . What are you doing?'
+she said suddenly; he had bent over from the sofa almost to the
+ground, and was pressing her feet to his lips. 'Don't do that,
+Dmitri. . . . Dmitri----'
+
+He got up.
+
+'Then leave me! You see, Elena, when I was taken ill, I did not lose
+consciousness at first; I knew I was on the edge of the abyss;
+even in the fever, in delirium I knew, I felt vaguely that it was
+death coming to me, I took leave of life, of you, of everything; I
+gave up hope. . . . And this return to life so suddenly; this light
+after the darkness, you--you--near me, with me--your voice, your
+breath. . . . It's more than I can stand! I feel I love you
+passionately, I hear you call yourself mine, I cannot answer for
+myself. . . You must go!'
+
+'Dmitri,' whispered Elena, and she nestled her head on his shoulder.
+Only now she understood him.
+
+'Elena,' he went on, 'I love you, you know that; I am ready to give
+my life for you. . . . Why have you come to me now, when I am weak,
+when I can't control myself, when all my blood's on fire . . . you are
+mine, you say . . . you love me------'
+
+'Dmitri,' she repeated; she flushed all over, and pressed still
+closer to him.
+
+'Elena, have pity on me; go away, I feel as if I should die. ... I
+can't stand these violent emotions . . . my whole soul yearns for you
+. . . think, death was almost parting us . . and now you are here, you
+are in my arms . . . Elena----'
+
+She was trembling all over. 'Take me, then,' she whispered scarcely
+above her breath.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch was walking up and down in his study with a scowl
+on his face. Shubin was sitting at the window with his legs crossed,
+tranquilly smoking a cigar.
+
+'Leave off tramping from corner to corner, please,' he observed,
+knocking the ash off his cigar. 'I keep expecting you to speak;
+there's a rick in my neck from watching you. Besides, there's
+something artificial, melodramatic in your striding.'
+
+'You can never do anything but joke,' responded Nikolai Artemyevitch.
+'You won't enter into my position, you refuse to realise that I am
+used to that woman, that I am attached to her in fact, that her
+absence is bound to distress me. Here it's October, winter is upon us.
+. . . What can she be doing in Revel?'
+
+'She must be knitting stockings--for herself; for herself--not for
+you.'
+
+'You may laugh, you may laugh; but I tell you I know no woman like
+her. Such honesty; such disinterestedness.'
+
+'Has she cashed that bill yet?' inquired Shubin.
+
+'Such disinterestedness,' repeated Nikolai Artemyevitch; 'it's
+astonishing. They tell me there are a million other women in the
+world, but I say, show me the million; show me the million, I say;
+_ces femmes, qu'on me les montre_! And she doesn't write--that's
+what's killing me!'
+
+'You're eloquent as Pythagoras,' remarked Shubin; 'but do you know
+what I would advise you?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'When Augustina Christianovna comes back--you take my meaning?'
+
+'Yes, yes; well, what?'
+
+'When you see her again--you follow the line of my thought?'
+
+'Yes, yes, to be sure.'
+
+'Try beating her; see what that would do.'
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch turned away exasperated.
+
+'I thought he was really going to give me some practical advice. But
+what can one expect from him! An artist, a man of no principles----'
+
+'No principles! By the way, I'm told your favourite Mr. Kurnatovsky,
+the man of principle, cleaned you out of a hundred roubles last night.
+That was hardly delicate, you must own now.'
+
+'What of it? We were playing high. Of course, I might expect--but
+they understand so little how to appreciate him in this house----'
+
+'That he thought: get what I can!' put in Shubin: 'whether he's
+to be my father-in-law or not, is still on the knees of the gods, but
+a hundred roubles is worth something to a man who doesn't take
+bribes.'
+
+'Father-in-law! How the devil am I his father-in-law? _Vous revez, mon
+cher_. Of course, any other girl would be delighted with such a suitor.
+Only consider: a man of spirit and intellect, who has gained a
+position in the world, served in two provinces----'
+
+'Led the governor in one of them by the nose,' remarked Shubin.
+
+'Very likely. To be sure, that's how it should be. Practical, a
+business man----'
+
+'And a capital hand at cards,' Shubin remarked again.
+
+'To be sure, and a capital hand at cards. But Elena Nikolaevna. ... Is
+there any understanding her? I should be glad to know if there is any
+one who would undertake to make out what it is she wants. One day
+she's cheerful, another she's dull; all of a sudden she's so thin
+there's no looking at her, and then suddenly she's well again, and all
+without any apparent reason----'
+
+A disagreeable-looking man-servant came in with a cup of coffee, cream
+and sugar on a tray.
+
+'The father is pleased with a suitor,' pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch,
+breaking off a lump of sugar; 'but what is that to the daughter!
+That was all very well in the old patriarchal days, but now we have
+changed all that. _Nous avons change tout ca_. Nowadays a young girl
+talks to any one she thinks fit, reads what she thinks fit; she goes
+about Moscow alone without a groom or a maid, just as in Paris; and
+all that is permitted. The other day I asked, "Where is Elena
+Nikolaevna?" I'm told she has gone out. Where? No one knows. Is
+that--the proper thing?'
+
+'Take your coffee, and let the man go,' said Shubin. 'You say
+yourself that one ought not _devant les domestiques_' he added in an
+undertone.
+
+The servant gave Shubin a dubious look, while Nikolai Artemyevitch
+took the cup of coffee, added some cream, and seized some ten lumps of
+sugar.
+
+'I was just going to say when the servant came in,' he began, 'that I
+count for nothing in this house. That's the long and short of the
+matter. For nowadays every one judges from appearances; one man's an
+empty-headed fool, but gives himself airs of importance, and he's
+respected; while another, very likely, has talents which might--which
+might gain him great distinction, but through modesty----'
+
+'Aren't you a born statesman?' asked Shubin in a jeering voice.
+
+'Give over playing the fool!' Nikolai Artemyevitch cried with heat.
+'You forget yourself! Here you have another proof that I count for
+nothing in this house, nothing!'
+
+'Anna Vassilyevna ill-uses you . . . poor fellow!' said Shubin,
+stretching. 'Ah, Nikolai Artemyevitch, we're a pair of sinners! You
+had much better be getting a little present ready for Anna
+Vassilyevna, It's her birthday in a day or two, and you know how she
+appreciates the least attention on your part.'
+
+'Yes, yes,' answered Nikolai Artemyevitch hastily. 'I'm much obliged
+to you for reminding me. Of course, of course; to be sure. I have a
+little thing, a dressing-case, I bought it the other day at
+Rosenstrauch's; but I don't know really if it will do.'
+
+'I suppose you bought it for her, the lady at Revel?'
+
+'Why, certainly.--I had some idea.'
+
+'Well, in that case, it will be sure to do.' Shubin got up from his
+seat.
+
+'Are we going out this evening, Pavel Yakovlitch, eh?' Nikolai
+Artemyevitch asked with an amicable leer.
+
+'Why yes, you are going to your club.'
+
+'After the club ... after the club.'
+
+Shubin stretched himself again.
+
+'No, Nikolai Artemyevitch, I want to work to-morrow. Another time.'
+And he walked off.
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch scowled, walked twice up and down the room, took
+a velvet box with the dressing-case out of the bureau and looked at it
+a long while, rubbing it with a silk handkerchief. Then he sat down
+before a looking-glass and began carefully arranging his thick black
+hair, turning his head to right and to left with a dignified
+countenance, his tongue pressed into his cheek, never taking his eyes
+off his parting. Some one coughed behind his back; he looked round
+and saw the manservant who had brought him in his coffee.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked him.
+
+'Nikolai Artemyevitch,' said the man with a certain solemnity, 'you
+are our master?'
+
+'I know that; what next!'
+
+'Nikolai Artemyevitch, graciously do not be angry with me; but I,
+having been in your honour's service from a boy, am bound in dutiful
+devotion to bring you----'
+
+'Well what is it?'
+
+The man shifted uneasily as he stood.
+
+'You condescended to say, your honour,' he began, 'that your honour
+did not know where Elena Nikolaevna was pleased to go. I have
+information about that.'
+
+'What lies are you telling, idiot?'
+
+'That's as your honour likes, but T saw our young lady three days ago,
+as she was pleased to go into a house!'
+
+'Where? what? what house?'
+
+'In a house, near Povarsky. Not far from here. I even asked the
+doorkeeper who were the people living there.'
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch stamped with his feet.
+
+'Silence, scoundrel! How dare you? ... Elena Nikolaevna, in the
+goodness of her heart, goes to visit the poor and you ... Be off, fool!'
+
+The terrified servant was rushing to the door.
+
+'Stop!' cried Nikolai Artemyevitch. 'What did the doorkeeper say to
+you?'
+
+'Oh no--nothing--he said nothing--He told me--a stu--student----'
+
+'Silence, scoundrel! Listen, you dirty beast; if you ever breathe a
+word in your dreams even----'
+
+'Mercy on us----'
+
+'Silence! if you blab--if any one--if I find out--you shall find no
+hiding-place even underground! Do you hear? You can go!'
+
+The man vanished.
+
+'Good Heavens, merciful powers! what does it mean?' thought Nikolai
+Artemyevitch when he was left alone. 'What did that idiot tell me?
+Eh? I shall have to find out, though, what house it is, and who lives
+there. I must go myself. Has it come to this! . . . _Un laquais!
+Quelle humiliation!_'
+
+And repeating aloud: '_Un laquais!_' Nikolai Artemyevitch shut the
+dressing-case up in the bureau, and went up to Anna Vassilyevna. He
+found her in bed with her face tied up. But the sight of her
+sufferings only irritated him, and he very soon reduced her to tears.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+Meanwhile the storm gathering in the East was breaking. Turkey had
+declared war on Russia; the time fixed for the evacuation of the
+Principalities had already expired, the day of the disaster of Sinope
+was not far off. The last letters received by Insarov summoned him
+urgently to his country. His health was not yet restored; he coughed,
+suffered from weakness and slight attacks of fever, but he was
+scarcely ever at home. His heart was fired, he no longer thought of
+his illness. He was for ever rushing about Moscow, having secret
+interviews with various persons, writing for whole nights,
+disappearing for whole days; he had informed his landlord that he was
+going away shortly, and had presented him already with his scanty
+furniture. Elena too on her side was getting ready for departure. One
+wet evening she was sitting in her room, and listening with
+involuntary depression to the sighing of the wind, while she hemmed
+handkerchiefs. Her maid came in and told her that her father was in
+her mother's room and sent for her there. 'Your mamma is crying,' she
+whispered after the retreating Elena, 'and your papa is angry.'
+
+Elena gave a slight shrug and went into Anna Vassflyevna's room.
+Nikolai Artemyevitch's kind-hearted spouse was half lying on a
+reclining chair, sniffing a handkerchief steeped in _eau de Cologne_;
+he himself was standing at the hearth, every button buttoned up, in a
+high, hard cravat, with a stiffly starched collar; his deportment had
+a vague suggestion of some parliamentary orator. With an orator's wave
+of the arm he motioned his daughter to a chair, and when she, not
+understanding his gesture, looked inquiringly at him, he brought out
+with dignity, without turning his head: 'I beg you to be seated.'
+Nikolai Artemyevitch always used the formal plural in addressing his
+wife, but only on extraordinary occasions in addressing his daughter.
+
+Elena sat down.
+
+Anna Vassilyevna blew her nose tearfully. Nikolai Artemyevitch thrust
+his fingers between his coat-buttons.
+
+'I sent for you, Elena Nikolaevna,' he began after a protracted
+silence, 'in order to have an explanation with you, or rather in order
+to ask you for an explanation. I am displeased with you--or no--that
+is too little to say: your behaviour is a pain and an outrage to
+me--to me and to your mother--your mother whom you see here.'
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch was giving vent only to the few bass notes in his
+voice. Elena gazed in silence at him, then at Anna Vassilyevna and
+turned pale.
+
+'There was a time,' Nikolai Artemyevitch resumed, 'when daughters did
+not allow themselves to look down on their parents--when the parental
+authority forced the disobedient to tremble. That time has passed,
+unhappily: so at least many persons imagine; but let me tell you,
+there are still laws which do not permit--do not permit--in fact
+there are still laws. I beg you to mark that: there are still
+laws----'
+
+'But, papa,' Elena was beginning.
+
+'I beg you not to interrupt me. Let us turn in thought to the past. I
+and Anna Vassilyevna have performed our duty. I and Anna Vassilyevna
+have spared nothing in your education: neither care nor expense. What
+you have gained from our care--is a different question; but I had the
+right to expect--I and Anna Vassilyevna had the right to expect that
+you would at least hold sacred the principles of morality which we
+have--_que nous avons inculques_, which we have instilled into you, our
+only daughter. We had the right to expect that no new "ideas" could
+touch that, so to speak, holy shrine. And what do we find? I am not
+now speaking of frivolities characteristic of your sex, and age, but
+who could have anticipated that you could so far forget yourself----'
+
+'Papa,' said Elena, 'I know what you are going to say------'
+
+'No, you don't know what I am going to say!' cried Nikolai
+Artemyevitch in a falsetto shriek, suddenly losing the majesty of his
+oratorical pose, the smooth dignity of his speech, and his bass notes.
+'You don't know, vile hussy!'
+
+'For mercy's sake, _Nicolas_,' murmured Anna Vassilyevna, '_vous me
+faites mourir_?'
+
+'Don't tell me _que je vous fais mourir_, Anna Vassilyevna! You can't
+conceive what you will hear directly! Prepare yourself for the worst,
+I warn you!'
+
+Anna Vassilyevna seemed stupefied.
+
+'No,' resumed Nikolai Artemyevitch, turning to Elena, 'you don't know
+what I am going to say!'
+
+'I am to blame towards you----' she began.
+
+'Ah, at last!'
+
+'I am to blame towards you,' pursued Elena, 'for not having long ago
+confessed----'
+
+'But do you know,' Nikolai Artemyevitch interrupted, 'that I can crush
+you with one word?'
+
+Elena raised her eyes to look at him.
+
+'Yes, madam, with one word! It's useless to look at me!' (He
+crossed his arms on his breast.) 'Allow me to ask you, do you know a
+certain house near Povarsky? Have you visited that house?' (He
+stamped.) 'Answer me, worthless girl, and don't try to hide the truth.
+People, people, servants, _madam, de vils laquais_ have seen you, as
+you went in there, to your----'
+
+Elena was crimson, her eyes were blazing.
+
+'I have no need to hide anything,' she declared. 'Yes, I have visited
+that house.'
+
+'Exactly! Do you hear, do you hear, Anna Vassilyevna? And you know,
+I presume, who lives there?'
+
+'Yes, I know; my husband.'
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch's eyes were starting out of his head.
+
+'Your----'
+
+'My husband,' repeated Elena; 'I am married to Dmitri Nikanorovitch
+Insarov.'
+
+'You?--married?'--was all Anna Vassilyevna could articulate.
+
+'Yes, mamma. . . . Forgive me. A fortnight ago, we were secretly
+married.'
+
+Anna Vassilyevna fell back in her chair; Nikolai Artemyevitch stepped
+two paces back.
+
+'Married! To that vagrant, that Montenegrin! the daughter of Nikolai
+Stahov of the higher nobility married to a vagrant, a nobody, without
+her parents' sanction! And you imagine I shall let the matter rest,
+that I shall not make a complaint, that I will allow you--that
+you--that----To the nunnery with you, and he shall go to prison, to
+hard labour! Anna Vassilyevna, inform her at once that you will cut
+off her inheritance!'
+
+'Nikolai Artemyevitch, for God's sake,' moaned Anna Vassilyevna.
+
+'And when and how was this done? Who married you? where? how? Good
+God! what will all our friends think, what will the world say! And
+you, shameless hypocrite, could go on living under your parents' roof
+after such an act! Had you no fear of--the wrath of heaven?'
+
+'Papa' said Elena (she was trembling from head to foot but her voice
+was steady), 'you are at liberty to do with me as you please, but you
+need not accuse me of shamelessness, and hypocrisy. I did not want--to
+give you pain before, but I should have had to tell you all myself in
+a few days, because we are going away--my husband and I--from here
+next week.'
+
+'Going away? Where to?'
+
+'To his own country, to Bulgaria.'
+
+'To the Turks!' cried Anna Vassilyevna and fell into a swoon.
+
+Elena ran to her mother.
+
+'Away!' clamoured Nikolai Artemyevitch, seizing his daughter by the
+arm, 'away, unworthy girl!'
+
+But at that instant the door of the room opened, and a pale face with
+glittering eyes appeared: it was the face of Shubin.
+
+'Nikolai Artemyevitch!' he shouted at the top of his voice, 'Augustina
+Christianovna is here and is asking for you!'
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch turned round infuriated, threatening Shubin with
+his fist; he stood still a minute and rapidly went out of the room.
+
+Elena fell at her mother's feet and embraced her knees.
+
+
+
+Uvar Ivanovitch was lying on his bed. A shirt without a collar,
+fastened with a heavy stud enfolded his thick neck and fell in full
+flowing folds over the almost feminine contours of his chest, leaving
+visible a large cypress-wood cross and an amulet. His ample limbs were
+covered with the lightest bedclothes. On the little table by the
+bedside a candle was burning dimly beside a jug of kvas, and on the
+bed at Uvar ivanovitch's feet was sitting Shubin in a dejected pose.
+
+'Yes,' he was saying meditatively, 'she is married and getting ready
+to go away. Your nephew was bawling and shouting for the benefit of
+the whole house; he had shut himself up for greater privacy in his
+wife's bedroom, but not merely the maids and the footmen, the coachman
+even could hear it all! Now he's just tearing and raving round; he
+all but gave me a thrashing, he's bringing a father's curse on the
+scene now, as cross as a bear with a sore head; but that's of no
+importance. Anna Vassilyevna's crushed, but she's much more
+brokenhearted at her daughter leaving her than at her marriage.'
+
+Uvar Ivanovitch flourished his fingers.
+
+'A mother,' he commented, 'to be sure.'
+
+'Your nephew,' resumed Shubin, 'threatens to lodge a complaint with
+the Metropolitan and the General-Governor and the Minister, but it
+will end by her going. A happy thought to ruin his own daughter! He'll
+crow a little and then lower his colours.'
+
+'They'd no right,' observed Uvar Ivanovitch, and he drank out of the
+jug.
+
+'To be sure. But what a storm of criticism, gossip, and comments will
+be raised in Moscow! She's not afraid of them. . . . Besides she's
+above them. She's going away . . . and it's awful to think where she's
+going--to such a distance, such a wilderness! What future awaits her
+there? I seem to see her setting off from a posting station in a
+snow-storm with thirty degrees of frost. She's leaving her country,
+and her people; but I understand her doing it. Whom is she leaving
+here behind her? What people has she seen? Kurnatovsky and Bersenyev
+and our humble selves; and these are the best she's seen. What is
+there to regret about it? One thing's bad; I'm told her husband--the
+devil, how that word sticks in my throat!--Insarov, I'm told, is
+spitting blood; that's a bad lookout. I saw him the other day: his
+face--you could model Brutus from it straight off. Do you know who
+Brutus was, Uvar Ivanovitch?'
+
+'What is there to know? a man to be sure.'
+
+'Precisely so: he was a "man." Yes he's a wonderful face, but
+unhealthy, very unhealthy.'
+
+'For fighting ... it makes no difference,' observed Uvar Ivanovitch.
+
+'For fighting it makes no difference, certainly; you are pleased to
+express yourself with great justice to-day; but for living it makes
+all the difference. And you see she wants to live with him a little
+while.'
+
+'A youthful affair,' responded Uvar Ivanovitch.
+
+'Yes, a youthful, glorious, bold affair. Death, life, conflict,
+defeat, triumph, love, freedom, country. . . . Good God, grant as much
+to all of us! That's a very different thing from sitting up to one's
+neck in a bog, and pretending it's all the same to you, when in fact
+it really is all the same. While there--the strings are tuned to the
+highest pitch, to play to all the world or to break!'
+
+Shubin's head sank on to his breast.
+
+'Yes,' he resumed, after a prolonged silence, 'Insarov deserves her.
+What nonsense, though! No one deserves her. . . Insarov . . . Insarov
+. . . What's the use of pretended modesty? We'll own he's a fine
+fellow, he stands on his own feet, though up to the present he has
+done no more than we poor sinners; and are we such absolutely
+worthless dirt? Am I such dirt, Uvar Ivanovitch? Has God been hard
+on me in every way? Has He given me no talents, no abilities? Who
+knows, perhaps, the name of Pavel Shubin will in time be a great name?
+You see that bronze farthing there lying on your table. Who knows;
+some day, perhaps in a century, that bronze will go to a statue of
+Pavel Shubin, raised in his honour by a grateful posterity!'
+
+Uvar Ivanovitch leaned on his elbow and stared at the enthusiastic
+artist.
+
+'That's a long way off,' he said at last with his usual gesture;
+'we're speaking of other people, why bring in yourself?'
+
+'O great philosopher of the Russian world!' cried Shubin, 'every
+word of yours is worth its weight in gold, and it's not to me but to
+you a statue ought to be raised, and I would undertake it. There, as
+you are lying now, in that pose; one doesn't know which is uppermost
+in it, sloth or strength! That's how I would cast you in bronze. You
+aimed a just reproach at my egoism and vanity! Yes! yes! it's
+useless talking of one's-self; it's useless bragging. We have no one
+yet, no men, look where you will. Everywhere--either small fry,
+nibblers, Hamlets on a small scale, self-absorbed, or darkness and
+subterranean chaos, or idle babblers and wooden sticks. Or else they
+are like this: they study themselves to the most shameful detail, and
+are for ever feeling the pulse of every sensation and reporting to
+themselves: "That's what I feel, that's what I think." A useful,
+rational occupation! No, if we only had some sensible men among us,
+that girl, that delicate soul, would not have run away from us, would
+not have slipped off like a fish to the water! What's the meaning of
+it, Uvar Ivanovitch? When will our time come? When will men be born
+among us?'
+
+'Give us time,' answered Uvar Ivanovitch; 'they will be----'
+
+'They will be? soil of our country! force of the black earth! thou
+hast said: they will be. Look, I will write down your words. But why
+are you putting out the candle?'
+
+'I'm going to sleep; good-bye.'
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+Shubin had spoken truly. The unexpected news of Elena's marriage
+nearly killed Anna Vassilyevna. She took to her bed. Nikolai
+Artemyevitch insisted on her not admitting her daughter to her
+presence; he seemed to be enjoying the opportunity of showing himself
+in the fullest sense the master of the house, with all the authority
+of the head of the family; he made an incessant uproar in the
+household, storming at the servants, and constantly saying: 'I will
+show you who I am, I will let you know--you wait a little!' While he
+was in the house, Anna Vassilyevna did not see Elena, and had to be
+content with Zoya, who waited on her very devotedly, but kept thinking
+to herself: '_Diesen Insarof vorziehen--und wem?_' But directly Nikolai
+Artemyevitch went out--and that happened pretty often, Augustina
+Christianovna had come back in sober earnest--Elena went to her
+mother, and a long time her mother gazed at her in silence and in
+tears.
+
+This dumb reproach, more deeply than any other, cut Elena to the
+heart; at such moments she felt, not remorse, but a deep, boundless
+pity akin to remorse.
+
+'Mamma, dear mamma!' she would repeat, kissing her hands; 'what
+was I to do? I'm not to blame, I loved him, I could not have acted
+differently. Throw the blame on fate for throwing me with a man whom
+papa doesn't like, and who is taking me away from you.'
+
+'Ah!' Anna Vassilyevna cut her short, 'don't remind me of that.
+When I think where you mean to go, my heart is ready to burst!'
+
+'Dear mamma,' answered Elena, 'be comforted; at least, it might have
+been worse; I might have died.'
+
+'But, as it is, I don't expect to see you again. Either you will end
+your days there in a tent somewhere'--Anna Vassilyevna pictured
+Bulgaria as something after the nature of the Siberian swamps,--'or
+I shall not survive the separation----'
+
+'Don't say that, mamma dearest, we shall see each other again, please
+God. There are towns in Bulgaria just as there are here.'
+
+'Fine towns there, indeed! There is war going on there now; wherever
+you go, I suppose they are firing cannons off all the while . . . Are
+you meaning to set off soon?'
+
+'Soon ... if only papa. He means to appeal to the authorities; he
+threatens to separate us.'
+
+Anna Vassilyevna turned her eyes heavenwards.
+
+'No, Lenotchka, he will not do that. I would not myself have consented
+to this marriage. I would have died first; but what's done can't be
+undone, and I will not let my daughter be disgraced.'
+
+So passed a few days. At last Anna Vassilyevna plucked up her courage,
+and one evening she shut herself up alone with her husband in her
+room. The whole house was hushed to catch every sound. At first
+nothing was to be heard; then Nikolai Artemyevitch's voice began to
+tune up, then a quarrel broke out, shouts were raised, even groans
+were discerned. . . . Already Shubin was plotting with the maids and
+Zoya to rush in to the rescue; but the uproar in the bedroom began by
+degrees to grow less, passed into quiet talk, and ceased. Only from
+time to time a faint sob was to be heard, and then those, too, were
+still. There was the jingling of keys, the creak of a bureau being
+unfastened. . . . The door was opened, and Nikolai Artemyevitch
+appeared. He looked surlily at every one who met him, and went out to
+the club; while Anna Vassilyevna sent for Elena, embraced her warmly,
+and, with bitter tears flowing down her cheeks, she said:
+
+'Everything is settled, he will not make a scandal, and there is
+nothing now to hinder you from going--from abandoning us.'
+
+'You will let Dmitri come to thank you?' Elena begged her mother, as
+soon as the latter had been restored a little.
+
+'Wait a little, my darling, I cannot bear yet to see the man who has
+come between us. We shall have time before you go.'
+
+'Before we go,' repeated Elena mournfully.
+
+Nikolai Artemyevitch had consented 'not to make a scandal,' but Anna
+Vassilyevna did not tell her daughter what a price he had put on his
+consent. She did not tell her that she had promised to pay all his
+debts, and had given him a thousand roubles down on the spot.
+Moreover, he had declared decisively to Anna Vassilyevna that he had
+no wish to meet Insarov, whom he persisted in calling 'the Montenegrin
+vagrant,' and when he got to the club, he began, quite without
+occasion, talking of Elena's marriage, to his partner at cards, a
+retired general of engineers. 'You have heard,' he observed with a
+show of carelessness, 'my daughter, through the higher education, has
+gone and married a student.' The general looked at him through his
+spectacles, muttered, 'H'm!' and asked him what stakes would he play
+for.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+The day of departure drew near. November was already over; the latest
+date for starting had come. Insarov had long ago made his
+preparations, and was burning with anxiety to get out of Moscow as
+soon as possible. And the doctor was urging him on. 'You need a warm
+climate,' he told him; 'you will not get well here.' Elena, too, was
+fretting with impatience; she was worried by Insarov's pallor, and
+his emaciation. She often looked with involuntary terror at his
+changed face. Her position in her parents' house had become
+insupportable. Her mother mourned over her, as over the dead, while
+her father treated her with contemptuous coldness; the approaching
+separation secretly pained him too, but he regarded it as his
+duty--the duty of an offended father--to disguise his feelings, his
+weakness. Anna Vassilyevna at last expressed a wish to see Insarov. He
+was taken up to her secretly by the back stairs. After he had entered
+her room, for a long time she could not speak to him, she could not
+even bring herself to look at him; he sat down near her chair, and
+waited, with quiet respectfulness, for her first word. Elena sat down
+close, and held her mother's hand in hers. At last Anna Vassilyevna
+raised her eyes, saying: 'God is your judge, Dmitri
+Nikanorovitch'--she stopped short: the reproaches died away on her
+lips. 'Why, you are ill,' she cried: 'Elena, your husband's ill!'
+
+'I have been unwell, Anna Vassilyevna,' answered Insarov; 'and even
+now I am not quite strong yet: but I hope my native air will make me
+perfectly well again.'
+
+'Ah--Bulgaria!' murmured Anna Vassilyevna, and she thought: 'Good God,
+a Bulgarian, and dying; a voice as hollow as a drum; and eyes like
+saucers, a perfect skeleton; his coat hanging loose on his shoulders,
+his face as yellow as a guinea, and she's his wife--she loves him--it
+must be a bad dream. But----' she checked herself at once: 'Dmitri
+Nikanorovitch,' she said, 'are you absolutely, absolutely bound to go
+away?'
+
+'Absolutely, Anna Vassilyevna.'
+
+Anna Vassilyevna looked at him.
+
+'Ah, Dmitri Nikanorovitch, God grant you never have to go through what
+I am going through now. But you will promise me to take care of
+her--to love her. You will not have to face poverty while I an,
+living!'
+
+Tears choked her voice. She opened her arms, and Elena and Insarov
+flung themselves into her embrace.
+
+The fatal day had come at last. It had been arranged that Elena should
+say good-bye to her parents at home, and should start on the journey
+from Insarov's lodgings. The departure was fixed for twelve o'clock.
+About a quarter of an hour before the appointed time Bersenyev
+arrived. He had expected to find Insarov's compatriots at his
+lodgings, anxious to see him off; but they had already gone before;
+and with them the two mysterious persons known to the reader (they had
+been witnesses at Insarov's wedding). The tailor met the 'kind
+gentlemen' with a bow; he, presumably, to drown his grief, but
+possibly to celebrate his delight at getting the furniture, had been
+drinking heavily; his wife soon led him away. In the room everything
+was by this time ready; a trunk, tied up with cord, stood on the
+floor. Bersenyev sank into thought: many memories came rushing upon
+him.
+
+Twelve o'clock had long ago struck; and the driver had already
+brought round the horses, but the 'young people' still did not appear.
+At last hurrying steps were heard on the stairs, and Elena came out
+escorted by Insarov and Shubin. Elena's eyes were red; she had left
+her mother lying unconscious; the parting had been terrible. Elena had
+not seen Bersenyev for more than a week: he had been seldom of late at
+the Stahovs'. She had not expected to meet him; and crying, 'You!
+thank you!' she threw herself on his neck; Insarov, too, embraced him.
+A painful silence followed. What could these three say to one another?
+what were they feeling in their hearts? Shubin realised the necessity
+of cutting short everything painful with light words.
+
+'Our trio has come together again,' he began, 'for the last time. Let
+us submit to the decrees of fate; speak of the past with kindness;
+and in God's name go forward to the new life! In God's name, on our
+distant way,' he began to hum, and stopped short. He felt suddenly
+ashamed and awkward. It is a sin to sing where the dead are lying: and
+at that instant, in that room, the past of which he had spoken was
+dying, the past of the people met together in it. It was dying to be
+born again in a new life--doubtless--still it was death.
+
+'Come, Elena,' began Insarov, turning to his wife, 'I think everything
+is done? Everything paid, and everything packed. There's nothing more
+except to take the box down.' He called his landlord.
+
+The tailor came into the room, together with his wife and daughter. He
+listened, slightly reeling, to Insarov's instructions, dragged the box
+up on to his shoulders, and ran quickly down the staircases, tramping
+heavily with his boots.
+
+'Now, after the Russian custom, we must sit down,' observed Insarov.
+
+They all sat down; Bersenyev seated himself on the old sofa, Elena
+sat next him; the landlady and her daughter squatted in the doorway.
+All were silent; all smiled constrainedly, though no one knew why he
+was smiling; each of them wanted to say something at parting, and
+each (except, of course, the landlady and her daughter, they were
+simply rolling their eyes) felt that at such moments it is only
+permissible to utter common-places, that any word of importance, of
+sense, or even of deep feeling, would be somehow out of place, almost
+insincere. Insarov was the first to get up, and he began crossing
+himself. 'Farewell, our little room!' he cried.
+
+Then came kisses, the sounding but cold kisses of leave-taking, good
+wishes--half expressed--for the journey, promises to write, the last,
+half-smothered words of farewell.
+
+Elena, all in tears, had already taken her seat in the sledge; Insarov
+had carefully wrapped her feet up in a rug; Shubin, Bersenyev, the
+landlord, his wife, the little daughter, with the inevitable kerchief
+on her head, the doorkeeper, a workman in a striped bedgown, were all
+standing on the steps, when suddenly a splendid sledge, harnessed with
+spirited horses, flew into the courtyard, and from the sledge, shaking
+the snow off the collar of his cloak, leapt Nikolai Artemyevitch.
+
+'I am not too late, thank God,' he cried, running up to their sledge.
+'Here, Elena, is our last parental benediction,' he said, bending down
+under the hood, and taking from his pocket a little holy image, sewn
+in a velvet bag, he put it round her neck. She began to sob, and kiss
+his hands; and the coachman meantime pulled out of the forepart of
+the sledge a half bottle of champagne, and three glasses.
+
+'Come!' said Nikolai Artemyevitch--and his own tears were trickling on
+to the beaver collar of his cloak--'we must drink to--good
+journey--good wishes----' He began pouring out the champagne: his
+hands were shaking, the foam rose over the edge and fell on to the
+snow. He took one glass, and gave the other two to Elena and Insarov,
+who by now was seated beside hen 'God give you----' began Nikolai
+Artemyevitch, and he could not go on: he drank off the wine; they,
+too, drank off their glasses. 'Now you should drink, gentlemen,' he
+added, turning to Shubin and Bersenyev, but at that instant the driver
+started the horses. Nikolai Artemyevitch ran beside the sledge. 'Mind
+and write to us,' he said in a broken voice. Elena put out her head,
+saying: 'Good-bye, papa, Andrei Petrovitch, Pavel Yakovlitch, good-bye
+all, good-bye, Russia!' and dropped back in her place. The driver
+flourished his whip, and gave a whistle; the sledge, its runners
+crunching on the snow, turned out of the gates to the right and
+disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+It was a bright April day. On the broad lagoon which separates Venice
+from the narrow strip of accumulated sea sand, called the Lido, a
+gondola was gliding--swaying rhythmically at every push made by the
+gondolier as he leaned on the big pole. Under its low awning, on soft
+leather cushions, were sitting Elena and Insarov.
+
+Elena's features had not changed much since the day of her departure
+from Moscow, but their expression was different; it was more
+thoughtful and more severe, and her eyes had a bolder look. Her whole
+figure had grown finer and more mature, and the hair seemed to lie in
+greater thickness and luxuriance along her white brow and her fresh
+cheeks. Only about her lips, when she was not smiling, a scarcely
+perceptible line showed the presence of a hidden constant anxiety. In
+Insarov's face, on the contrary, the expression had remained the same,
+but his features had undergone a cruel change. He had grown thin, old,
+pale and bent; he was constantly coughing a short dry cough, and his
+sunken eyes shone with a strange brilliance. On the way from Russia,
+Insarov had lain ill for almost two months at Vienna, and only at the
+end of March had he been able to come with his wife to Venice; from
+there he was hoping to make his way through Zara to Servia, to
+Bulgaria; the other roads were closed. The war was now at its height
+about the Danube; England and France had declared war on Russia, all
+the Slavonic countries were roused and were preparing for an uprising.
+
+The gondola put in to the inner shore of the Lido. Elena and Insarov
+walked along the narrow sandy road planted with sickly trees (every
+year they plant them and every year they die) to the outer shore of
+the Lido, to the sea.
+
+They walked along the beach. The Adriatic rolled its muddy-blue waves
+before them; they raced into the shore, foaming and hissing, and drew
+back again, leaving fine shells and fragments of seaweed on the beach.
+
+'What a desolate place!' observed Elena 'I'm afraid it's too cold
+for you here, but I guess why you wanted to come here.'
+
+'Cold!' rejoined Insarov with a rapid and bitter smile, 'I shall be a
+fine soldier, if I'm to be afraid of the cold. I came here ... I will
+tell you why. I look across that sea, and I feel as though here, I am
+nearer my country. It is there, you know,' he added, stretching out
+his hand to the East, 'the wind blows from there.'
+
+'Will not this wind bring the ship you are expecting?' said Elena.
+'See, there is a white sail, is not that it?'
+
+Insarov gazed seaward into the distance to where Elena was pointing.
+
+'Renditch promised to arrange everything for us within a week,' he
+said, 'we can rely on him, I think. . . . Did you hear, Elena,' he
+added with sudden animation, 'they say the poor Dalmatian fishermen
+have sacrificed their dredging weights--you know the leads they weigh
+their nets with for letting them down to the bottom--to make bullets!
+They have no money, they only just live by fishing; but they have
+joyfully given up their last property, and now are starving. What a
+nation!'
+
+'_Aufgepasst_!' shouted a haughty voice behind them. The heavy thud of
+horse's hoofs was heard, and an Austrian officer in a short grey tunic
+and a green cap galloped past them--they had scarcely time to get out
+of the way.
+
+Insarov looked darkly after him.
+
+'He was not to blame,' said Elena, 'you know, they have no other place
+where they can ride.'
+
+'He was not to blame,' answered Insarov 'but he made my blood boil
+with his shout, his moustaches, his cap, his whole appearance. Let us
+go back.'
+
+'Yes, let us go back, Dmitri. It's really cold here. You did not take
+care of yourself after your Moscow illness, and you had to pay for
+that at Vienna. Now you must be more cautious.'
+
+Insarov did not answer, but the same bitter smile passed over his
+lips.
+
+'If you like,' Elena went on, 'we will go along to the Canal Grande.
+We have not seen Venice properly, you know, all the while we have been
+here. And in the evening we are going to the theatre; I have two
+tickets for the stalls. They say there's a new opera being given. If
+you like, we will give up to-day to one another; we will forget
+politics and war and everything, we will forget everything but that we
+are alive, breathing, thinking together; that we are one for
+ever--would you like that?'
+
+'If you would like it, Elena,' answered Insarov, 'it follows that I
+should like it too.'
+
+'I knew that,' observed Elena with a smile, 'come, let us go.'
+
+They went back to the gondola, took their seats, told the gondolier to
+take them without hurry along the Canal Grande.
+
+No one who has not seen Venice in April knows all the unutterable
+fascinations of that magic town. The softness and mildness of spring
+harmonise with Venice, just as the glaring sun of summer suits the
+magnificence of Genoa, and as the gold and purple of autumn suits the
+grand antiquity of Rome. The beauty of Venice, like the spring,
+touches the soul and moves it to desire; it frets and tortures the
+inexperienced heart like the promise of a coming bliss, mysterious but
+not elusive. Everything in it is bright, and everything is wrapt in a
+drowsy, tangible mist, as it were, of the hush of love; everything in
+it is so silent, and everything in it is kindly; everything in it is
+feminine, from its name upwards. It has well been given the name of
+'the fair city.' Its masses of palaces and churches stand out light
+and wonderful like the graceful dream of a young god; there is
+something magical, something strange and bewitching in the
+greenish-grey light and silken shimmer of the silent water of the
+canals, in the noiseless gliding of the gondolas, in the absence of
+the coarse din of a town, the coarse rattling, and crashing, and
+uproar. 'Venice is dead, Venice is deserted,' her citizens will tell
+you, but perhaps this last charm--the charm of decay--was not
+vouchsafed her in the very heyday of the flower and majesty of her
+beauty. He who has not seen her, knows her not; neither Canaletto nor
+Guardi (to say nothing of later painters) has been able to convey the
+silvery tenderness of the atmosphere, the horizon so close, yet so
+elusive, the divine harmony of exquisite lines and melting colours.
+One who has outlived his life, who has been crushed by it, should not
+visit Venice; she will be cruel to him as the memory of unfulfilled
+dreams of early days; but sweet to one whose strength is at its full,
+who is conscious of happiness; let him bring his bliss under her
+enchanted skies; and however bright it may be, Venice will make it
+more golden with her unfading splendour.
+
+The gondola in which Insarov and Elena were sitting passed _Riva dei
+Schiavoni_, the palace of the Doges, and Piazzetta, and entered the
+Grand Canal. On both sides stretched marble palaces; they seemed to
+float softly by, scarcely letting the eye seize or absorb their
+beauty. Elena felt herself deeply happy; in the perfect blue of her
+heavens there was only one dark cloud--and it was in the far distance;
+Insarov was much better that day. They glided as far as the acute
+angle of the Rialto and turned back. Elena was afraid of the chill of
+the churches for Insarov; but she remembered the academy delle Belle
+Arti, and told the gondolier to go towards it. They quickly walked
+through all the rooms of that little museum. Being neither
+connoisseurs nor dilettantes, they did not stop before every picture;
+they put no constraint on themselves; a spirit of light-hearted
+gaiety came over them. Everything seemed suddenly very entertaining.
+(Children know this feeling very well.) To the great scandal of three
+English visitors, Elena laughed till she cried over the St Mark of
+Tintoretto, skipping down from the sky like a frog into the water, to
+deliver the tortured slave; Insarov in his turn fell into raptures
+over the back and legs of the sturdy man in the green cloak, who
+stands in the foreground of Titian's Ascension and holds his arms
+outstretched after the Madonna; but the Madonna--a splendid, powerful
+woman, calmly and majestically making her way towards the bosom of God
+the Father--impressed both Insarov and Elena; they liked, too, the
+austere and reverent painting of the elder Cima da Conegliano. As they
+were leaving the academy, they took another look at the Englishmen
+behind them--with their long rabbit-like teeth and drooping
+whiskers--and laughed; they glanced at their gondolier with his
+abbreviated jacket and short breeches--and laughed; they caught sight
+of a woman selling old clothes with a knob of grey hair on the very
+top of her head--and laughed more than ever; they looked into one
+another's face--and went off into peals of laughter, and directly they
+had sat down in the gondola, they clasped each other's hand in a
+close, close grip. They reached their hotel, ran into their room, and
+ordered dinner to be brought in. Their gaiety did not desert them at
+dinner. They pressed each other to eat, drank to the health of their
+friends in Moscow, clapped their hands at the waiter for a delicious
+dish of fish, and kept asking him for live _frutti di mare_; the
+waiter shrugged his shoulders and scraped with his feet, but when he
+had left them, he shook his head and once even muttered with a sigh,
+_poveretti_! (poor things!) After dinner they set off for the theatre.
+
+They were giving an opera of Verdi's, which though, honestly speaking,
+rather vulgar, has already succeeded in making the round of all the
+European theatres, an opera, well-known among Russians, _La Traviata_.
+The season in Venice was over, and none of the singers rose above the
+level of mediocrity; every one shouted to the best of their abilities.
+The part of Violetta was performed by an artist, of no renown, and
+judging by the cool reception given her by the public, not a
+favourite, but she was not destitute of talent. She was a young, and
+not very pretty, black-eyed girl with an unequal and already
+overstrained voice. Her dress was ill-chosen and naively gaudy; her
+hair was hidden in a red net, her dress of faded blue satin was too
+tight for her, and thick Swedish gloves reached up to her sharp
+elbows. Indeed, how could she, the daughter of some Bergamese
+shepherd, know how Parisian _dames aux camelias_ dress! And she did
+not understand how to move on the stage; but there was much truth and
+artless simplicity in her acting, and she sang with that passion of
+expression and rhythm which is only vouchsafed to Italians. Elena and
+Insarov were sitting alone together in a dark box close to the stage;
+the mirthful mood which had come upon them in the academy _delle Belle
+Arti_ had not yet passed off. When the father of the unhappy young man
+who had fallen into the snares of the enchantress came on to the stage
+in a yellow frock-coat and a dishevelled white wig, opened his mouth
+awry, and losing his presence of mind before he had begun, only
+brought out a faint bass _tremolo_, they almost burst into laughter.
+. . . But Violetta's acting impressed them.
+
+'They hardly clap that poor girl at all,' said Elena, 'but I like her
+a thousand times better than some conceited second-rate celebrity who
+would grimace and attitudinise all the while for effect. This girl
+seems as though it were all in earnest; look, she pays no attention to
+the public.'
+
+Insarov bent over the edge of the box, and looked attentively at
+Violetta.
+
+'Yes,' he commented, 'she is in earnest; she's on the brink of the
+grave herself.'
+
+Elena was mute.
+
+The third act began. The curtain rose--Elena shuddered at the sight
+of the bed, the drawn curtains, the glass of medicine, the shaded
+lamps. She recalled the near past. 'What of the future? What of the
+present?' flashed across her mind. As though in response to her
+thought, the artist's mimic cough on the stage was answered in the box
+by the hoarse, terribly real cough of Insarov. Elena stole a glance at
+him, and at once gave her features a calm and untroubled expression;
+Insarov understood her, and he began himself to smile, and softly to
+hum the tune of the song.
+
+But he was soon quiet. Violetta's acting became steadily better, and
+freer. She had thrown aside everything subsidiary, everything
+superfluous, and _found herself_; a rare, a lofty delight for an
+artist! She had suddenly crossed the limit, which it is impossible to
+define, beyond which is the abiding place of beauty. The audience was
+thrilled and astonished. The plain girl with the broken voice began to
+get a hold on it, to master it. And the singer's voice even did not
+sound broken now; it had gained mellowness and strength. Alfredo made
+his entrance; Violetta's cry of happiness almost raised that storm in
+the audience known as _fanatisme_, beside which all the applause of
+our northern audiences is nothing. A brief interval passed--and again
+the audience were in transports. The duet began, the best thing in the
+opera, in which the composer has succeeded in expressing all the
+pathos of the senseless waste of youth, the final struggle of
+despairing, helpless love. Caught up and carried along by the general
+sympathy, with tears of artistic delight and real suffering in her
+eyes, the singer let herself be borne along on the wave of passion
+within her; her face was transfigured, and in the presence of the
+threatening signs of fast approaching death, the words: '_Lascia mi
+vivero--morir si giovane_' (let me live--to die so young!) burst from
+her in such a tempest of prayer rising to heaven, that the whole
+theatre shook with frenzied applause and shouts of delight.
+
+Elena felt cold all over. Softly her hand sought Insarov's, found it,
+and clasped it tightly. He responded to its pressure; but she did not
+look at him, nor he at her. Very different was the clasp of hands
+with which they had greeted each other in the gondola a few hours
+before.
+
+Again they glided along the Canal Grande towards their hotel. Night
+had set in now, a clear, soft night. The same palaces met them, but
+they seemed different. Those that were lighted up by the moon shone
+with pale gold, and in this pale light all details of ornaments and
+lines of windows and balconies seemed lost; they stood out more
+clearly in the buildings that were wrapped in a light veil of unbroken
+shadow. The gondolas, with their little red lamps, seemed to flit past
+more noiselessly and swiftly than ever; their steel beaks flashed
+mysteriously, mysteriously their oars rose and fell over the ripples
+stirred by little silvery fish; here and there was heard the brief,
+subdued call of a gondolier (they never sing now); scarcely another
+sound was to be heard. The hotel where Insarov and Elena were staying
+was on the _Riva dei Schiavoni_; before they reached it they left the
+gondola, and walked several times round the Square of St. Mark, under
+the arches, where numbers of holiday makers were gathered before the
+tiny cafes. There is a special sweetness in wandering alone with one
+you love, in a strange city among strangers; everything seems
+beautiful and full of meaning, you feel peace and goodwill to all men,
+you wish all the same happiness that fills your heart. But Elena could
+not now give herself up without a care to the sense of her happiness;
+her heart could not regain its calm after the emotions that had so
+lately shaken it; and Insarov, as he walked by the palace of the
+Doges, pointed without speaking to the mouths of the Austrian cannons,
+peeping out from the lower arches, and pulled his hat down over his
+eyes. By now he felt tired, and, with a last glance at the church of
+St. Mark, at its cupola, where on the bluish lead bright patches of
+phosphorescent light shone in the rays of the moon, they turned slowly
+homewards.
+
+Their little room looked out on to the lagoon, which stretches from
+the _Riva del Schiavoni_ to the Giudecca. Almost facing their hotel
+rose the slender tower of S. George; high against the sky on the right
+shone the golden ball of the Customs House; and, decked like a bride,
+stood the loveliest of the churches, the _Redentore_ of Palladio;
+on the left were the black masts and rigging of ships, the funnels of
+steamers; a half-furled sail hung in one place like a great wing, and
+the flags scarcely stirred. Insarov sat down at the window, but Elena
+did not let him admire the view for long; he seemed suddenly
+feverish, he was overcome by consuming weakness. She put him to bed,
+and, waiting till he had fallen asleep, she returned to the window.
+Oh, how still and kindly was the night, what dovelike softness
+breathed in the deep-blue air! Every suffering, every sorrow surely
+must be soothed to slumber under that clear sky, under that pure, holy
+light! 'O God,' thought Elena, 'why must there be death, why is there
+separation, and disease and tears? or else, why this beauty, this
+sweet feeling of hope, this soothing sense of an abiding refuge, an
+unchanging support, an everlasting protection? What is the meaning of
+this smiling, blessing sky; this happy, sleeping earth? Can it be
+that all that is only in us, and that outside us is eternal cold and
+silence? Can it be that we are alone . . . alone . . . and there, on
+all sides, in all those unattainable depths and abysses--nothing is
+akin to us; all, all is strange and apart from us? Why, then, have we
+this desire for, this delight in prayer?' (_Morir si giovane_ was
+echoing in her heart.) . . . 'Is it impossible, then, to propitiate,
+to avert, to save . . . O God! is it impossible to believe in
+miracle?' She dropped her head on to her clasped hands. 'Enough,' she
+whispered. 'Indeed enough! I have been happy not for moments only,
+not for hours, not for whole days even, but for whole weeks together.
+And what right had I to happiness?' She felt terror at the thought of
+her happiness. 'What, if that cannot be?' she thought. 'What, if it is
+not granted for nothing? Why, it has been heaven . . . and we are
+mortals, poor sinful mortals. . . . _Morir si giovane_. Oh, dark
+omen, away! It's not only for me his life is needed!
+
+'But what, if it is a punishment,' she thought again; 'what, if we
+must now pay the penalty of our guilt in full? My conscience was
+silent, it is silent now, but is that a proof of innocence? O God, can
+we be so guilty! Canst Thou who hast created this night, this sky,
+wish to punish us for having loved each other? If it be so, if he has
+sinned, if I have sinned,' she added with involuntary force, 'grant
+that he, O God, grant that we both, may die at least a noble, glorious
+death--there, on the plains of his country, not here in this dark
+room.
+
+'And the grief of my poor, lonely mother?' she asked herself, and was
+bewildered, and could find no answer to her question. Elena did not
+know that every man's happiness is built on the unhappiness of
+another, that even his advantage, his comfort, like a statue needs a
+pedestal, the disadvantage, the discomfort of others.
+
+'Renditch!' muttered Insarov in his sleep.
+
+Elena went up to him on tiptoe, bent over him, and wiped the
+perspiration from his face. He tossed a little on his pillow, and was
+still again.
+
+She went back again to the window, and again her thoughts took
+possession of her. She began to argue with herself, to assure herself
+that there was no reason to be afraid. She even began to feel ashamed
+of her weakness. 'Is there any danger? isn't he better?' she
+murmured. 'Why, if we had not been at the theatre to-day, all this
+would never have entered my head.'
+
+At that instant she saw high above the water a white sea-gull; some
+fisherman had scared it, it seemed, for it flew noiselessly with
+uncertain course, as though seeking a spot where it could alight.
+'Come, if it flies here,' thought Elena, 'it will be a good omen.'
+. . . The sea-gull flew round in a circle, folded its wings, and, as
+though it had been shot, dropped with a plaintive cry in the distance
+behind a dark ship. Elena shuddered; then she was ashamed of having
+shuddered, and, without undressing, she lay down on the bed beside
+Insarov, who was breathing quickly and heavily.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+Insarov waked late with a dull pain in his head, and a feeling, as he
+expressed it, of disgusting weakness all over. He got up however.
+
+'Renditch has not come?' was his first question.
+
+'Not yet,' answered Elena, and she handed him the latest number of the
+_Osservatore Triestino_, in which there was much upon the war, the Slav
+Provinces, and the Principalities. Insarov began reading it; she
+busied herself in getting some coffee ready for him. Some one knocked
+at the door.
+
+'Renditch,' both thought at once, but a voice said in Russian, 'May I
+come in?' Elena and Insarov looked at each other in astonishment; and
+without waiting for an answer, an elegantly dressed young man entered
+the room, with a small sharp-featured face, and bright little eyes. He
+was beaming all over, as though he had just won a fortune or heard a
+most delightful piece of news.
+
+Insarov got up from his seat
+
+'You don't recognise me,' began the stranger, going up to him with an
+easy air, and bowing politely to Elena, 'Lupoyarov, do you remember,
+we met at Moscow at the E----'s.'
+
+'Yes, at the E----'s,' replied Insarov.
+
+'To be sure, to be sure! I beg you to present me to your wife. Madam,
+I have always had the profoundest respect for Dmitri Vassilyevitch'
+(he corrected himself)--'for Nikanor Vassilyevitch, and am very happy
+to have the pleasure at last of making your acquaintance. Fancy,' he
+continued, turning to Insarov, 'I only heard yesterday evening that
+you were here. I am staying at this hotel too. What a city! Venice is
+poetry--that's the only word for it! But one thing's really awful:
+the cursed Austrians meeting one at every turn! ah, these Austrians!
+By the way, have you heard, there's been a decisive battle on the
+Danube: three hundred Turkish officers killed, Silistria taken;
+Servia has declared its independence. You, as a patriot, ought to be
+in transports, oughtn't you? Even my Slavonic blood's positively on
+fire! I advise you to be more careful, though; I'm convinced
+there's a watch kept on you. The spies here are something awful! A
+suspicious-looking man came up to me yesterday and asked: "Are you a
+Russian?" I told him I was a Dane. But you seem unwell, dear Nikanor
+Vassilyevitch. You ought to see a doctor; madam, you ought to make
+your husband see a doctor. Yesterday I ran through the palaces and
+churches, as though I were crazy. I suppose you've been in the palace
+of the Doges? What magnificence everywhere! Especially that great hall
+and Marino Faliero's place: there's an inscription: _decapitati pro
+criminibus_. I've been in the famous prisons too; that threw me into
+indignation, you may fancy. I've always, you remember perhaps, taken
+an interest in social questions, and taken sides against
+aristocracy--well, that's where I should like to send the champions of
+aristocracy--to those dungeons. How well Byron said: _I stood in Venice
+on the Bridge of Sighs_; though he was an aristocrat too. I was always
+for progress--the younger generation are all for progress. And what do
+you say to the Anglo-French business? We shall see whether they can do
+much, Boustrapa and Palmerston. You know Palmerston has been made
+Prime Minister. No, say what you like, the Russian fist is not to be
+despised. He's awfully deep that Boustrapa! If you like I will lend
+you _Les Chatiments de Victor Hugo_--it's marvellous--_L'avenir, le
+gendarme de Dieu_--rather boldly written, but what force in it, what
+force! That was a fine saying, too, of Prince Vyazemsky's: "Europe
+repeats: Bash-Kadik-Lar keeping an eye on Sinope." I adore poetry. I
+have Proudhon's last work, too--I have everything. I don't know how
+you feel, but I'm glad of the war; only as I'm not required at home,
+I'm going from here to Florence, and to Rome. France I can't go to--so
+I'm thinking of Spain--the women there, I'm told, are marvellous! only
+such poverty, and so many insects. I would be off to California--we
+Russians are ready to do anything--but I promised an editor to study
+the question of the commerce of the Mediterranean in detail. You will
+say that's an uninteresting, special subject, but that's just what we
+need, specialists; we have philosophised enough, now we need the
+practical, the practical. But you are very unwell, Nikanor
+Vassilyevitch, I am tiring you, perhaps, but still I must stay a
+little longer.'
+
+And for a long time Lupoyarov still babbled on in the same way, and,
+as he went away, he promised to come again.
+
+Worn out by the unexpected visit, Insarov lay down on the sofa. 'So
+this,' he said, mournfully looking at Elena, 'is your younger
+generation! There are plenty who show off, and give themselves airs,
+while at heart they are as empty chatterboxes as that worthy.'
+
+Elena made no reply to her husband; at that instant she was far more
+concerned at Insarov's weakness than at the character of the whole
+younger generation in Russia. She sat down near him, and took up some
+work. He closed his eyes, and lay without moving, white and thin.
+Elena glanced at his sharp profile, at his emaciated hands, and felt a
+sudden pang of terror.
+
+'Dmitri,' she began.
+
+He started. 'Eh? Has Renditch come?'
+
+'Not yet--but what do you think--you are in a fever, you are really
+not quite well, shouldn't we send for a doctor?'
+
+'That wretched gossip has frightened you. There's no necessity. I will
+rest a little, and it will pass off. After dinner we will go out
+again--somewhere.'
+
+Two hours passed. Insarov still lay on the sofa, but he could not
+sleep, though he did not open his eyes. Elena did not leave his side;
+she had dropped her work upon her knee, and did not stir.
+
+'Why don't you go to sleep?' she asked at last.
+
+'Wait a little.' He took her hand, and placed it under his head.
+'There--that is nice. Wake me at once directly Renditch comes. If he
+says the ship is ready, we will start at once. We ought to pack
+everything.'
+
+'Packing won't take long,' answered Elena.
+
+'That fellow babbled something about a battle, about Servia,' said
+Insarov, after a short interval. 'I suppose he made it all up. But we
+must, we must start. We can't lose time. Be ready.'
+
+He fell asleep, and everything was still in the room.
+
+Elena let her head rest against the back of her chair, and gazed a
+long while out of the window. The weather had changed for the worse;
+the wind had risen. Great white clouds were scudding over the sky, a
+slender mast was swaying in the distance, a long streamer, with a red
+cross on it, kept fluttering, falling, and fluttering again. The
+pendulum of the old-fashioned clock ticked drearily, with a kind of
+melancholy whirr. Elena shut her eyes. She had slept badly all night;
+gradually she, too, fell asleep.
+
+She had a strange dream. She thought sha was floating in a boat on the
+Tsaritsino lake with some unknown people. They did not speak, but sat
+motionless, no one was rowing; the boat was moving by itself. Elena
+was not afraid, but she felt dreary; she wanted to know who were these
+people, and why she was with them? She looked and the lake grew
+broader, the banks vanished--now it was not a lake but a stormy sea:
+immense blue silent waves rocked the boat majestically; something
+menacing, roaring was rising from the depths; her unknown companions
+jumped up, shrieking, wringing their hands . . . Elena recognised
+their faces; her father was among them. But a kind of white whirlwind
+came flying over the waves--everything was turning round, everything
+was confounded together.
+
+Elena looked about her; as before, all around was white; but it was
+snow, snow, boundless plains of snow. And she was not now in a boat,
+but travelling, as she had come from Moscow, in a sledge; she was not
+alone; by her side was sitting a little creature muffled in an old
+cloak; Elena looked closely; it was Katya, her poor little friend.
+Elena was seized with terror. 'Why, isn't she dead?' she thought.
+
+'Katya, where are we going together?' Katya did not answer, and
+nestled herself closer in her little cloak; she was freezing. Elena
+too was cold; she looked along the road into the distance; far away a
+town could be seen through the fine drifting snow. High white towers
+with silvery cupolas . . . 'Katya, Katya, is it Moscow? No,' thought
+Elena, 'it is Solovetsky Monastery; it's full of little narrow
+cells like a beehive; it's stifling, cramping there--and Dmitri's
+shut up there. I must rescue him.' . . . Suddenly a grey, yawning
+abyss opened before her. The sledge was falling, Katya was laughing.
+'Elena, Elena!' came a voice from the abyss.
+
+'Elena!' sounded distinctly in her ears. She raised her head quickly,
+turned round, and was stupefied: Insarov, white as snow, the snow of
+her dream, had half risen from the sofa, and was staring at her with
+large, bright, dreadful eyes. His hair hung in disorder on his
+forehead and his lips parted strangely. Horror, mingled with an
+anguish of tenderness, was expressed on his suddenly transfigured
+face.
+
+'Elena!' he articulated, 'I am dying.'
+
+She fell with a scream on her knees, and clung to his breast.
+
+'It's all over,' repeated Insarov: 'I'm dying . . . Good-bye, my poor
+girl! good-bye, my country!' and he fell backwards on to the sofa.
+
+Elena rushed out of the room, began calling for help; a waiter ran
+for a doctor. Elena clung to Insarov.
+
+At that instant in the doorway appeared a broad-shouldered, sunburnt
+man, in a stout frieze coat and a low oil-skin hat. He stood still in
+bewilderment.
+
+'Renditch!' cried Elena, 'it's you! Look, for God's sake, he's ill!
+What's wrong? Good God! He went out yesterday, he was talking to
+me just now.'
+
+Renditch said nothing and only moved on one side. There slipped
+quickly past him a little figure in a wig and spectacles; it was a
+doctor living in the same hotel. He went up to Insarov.
+
+'Signora,' he said, after the lapse of a few minutes, 'the foreign
+gentleman is dead--_il Signore forestiere e morte_--of aneurism in
+combination with disease of the lungs.'
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+The next day, in the same room, Renditch was standing at the window;
+before him, wrapped in a shawl, sat Elena. In the next room, Insarov
+lay in his coffin. Elena's face was both scared and lifeless; two
+lines could be seen on her forehead between her eyebrows; they gave a
+strained expression to her fixed eyes. In the window lay an open
+letter from Anna Vassilyevna. She begged her daughter to come to
+Moscow if only for a month, complained of her loneliness, and of
+Nikolai Artemyevitch, sent greetings to Insarov, inquired after his
+health, and begged him to spare his wife.
+
+Renditch was a Dalmatian, a sailor, with whom Insarov had become
+acquainted during his wanderings in his own country, and whom he had
+sought out in Venice. He was a dry, gruff man, full of daring and
+devoted to the Slavonic cause. He despised the Turks and hated the
+Austrians.
+
+'How long must you remain at Venice?' Elena asked him in Italian. And
+her voice was as lifeless as her face.
+
+'One day for freighting and not to rouse suspicions, and then straight
+to Zara. I shall have sad news for our countrymen. They have long been
+expecting him; they rested their hopes on him.'
+
+'They rested their hopes on him,' Elena repeated mechanically.
+
+'When will you bury him?' asked Renditch.
+
+Elena not at once replied, 'To-morrow.'
+
+'To-morrow? I will stop; I should like to throw a handful of earth
+into his grave. And you will want help. But it would have been better
+for him to lie in Slavonic earth.'
+
+Elena looked at Renditch.
+
+'Captain,' she said, 'take me and him and carry us across to the
+other side of the sea, away from here. Isn't that possible?'
+
+Renditch considered: 'Possible certainly, but difficult. We shall
+have to come into collision with the damned authorities here. But
+supposing we arrange all that and bury him there, how am I to bring
+you back?'
+
+'You need not bring me back.'
+
+'What? where will you stop?'
+
+'I shall find some place for myself; only take us, take me.'
+
+Renditch scratched the back of his head.
+
+'You know best; but it's all very difficult. I will, I will try; and
+you expect me here in two hours' time.'
+
+He went away. Elena passed into the next room, leaned against the
+wall, and for a long time stood there as though turned to stone. Then
+she dropped on her knees, but she could not pray. There was no
+reproach in her heart; she did not dare to question God's will, to
+ask why He had not spared, pitied, saved, why He had punished her
+beyond her guilt, if she were guilty. Each of us is guilty by the fact
+that he lives; and there is no one so great a thinker, so great a
+benefactor of mankind that he might hope to have a right to live for
+the service he has done. . . . Still Elena could not pray; she was a
+stone.
+
+The same night a broad-bottomed boat put off from the hotel where the
+Insarovs lived. In the boat sat Elena with Renditch and beside them
+stood a long box covered with a black cloth. They rowed for about an
+hour, and at last reached a small two-masted ship, which was riding at
+anchor at the very entrance of the harbour. Elena and Renditch got
+into the ship; the sailors carried in the box. At midnight a storm
+had arisen, but early in the morning the ship had passed out of the
+Lido. During the day the storm raged with fearful violence, and
+experienced seamen in Lloyd's offices shook their heads and prophesied
+no good. The Adriatic Sea between Venice, Trieste, and the Dalmatian
+coast is particularly dangerous.
+
+Three weeks after Elena's departure from Vienna, Anna Vassilyevna
+received the following letter in Moscow:--
+
+'My DEAR PARENTS.--I am saying goodbye to you for ever. You will never
+see me again. Dmitri died yesterday. Everything is over for me. To-day
+I am setting off with his body to Zara. I will bury him, and what will
+become of me, I don't know. But now I have no country but Dmitri's
+country. There, they are preparing for revolution, they are getting
+ready for war. I will join the Sisters of Mercy; I will tend the sick
+and the wounded. I don't know what will become of me, but even after
+Dmitri's death, I will be faithful to his memory, to the work of his
+whole life. I have learnt Bulgarian and Servian. Very likely, I shall
+not have strength to live through it all for long--so much the better.
+I have been brought to the edge of the precipice and I must fall over.
+Fate did not bring us together for nothing; who knows?--perhaps I
+killed him; now it is his turn to draw me after him. I sought
+happiness, and I shall find--perhaps death. It seems it was to be
+thus: it seems it was a sin. . . . But death covers all and reconciles
+all; does it not? Forgive me all the suffering I have caused you; it
+was not under my control. But how could I return to Russia; What have
+I to do in Russia?
+
+'Accept my last kisses and blessings, and do not condemn me.
+
+R.'
+
+* * *
+
+Nearly five years have passed since then, and no further news of Elena
+has come. All letters and inquiries were fruitless; in vain did
+Nikolai Artemyevitch himself make a journey to Venice and to Zara
+after peace was concluded. In Venice he learnt what is already known
+to the reader, but in Zara no one could give him any positive
+information about Renditch and the ship he had taken. There were dark
+rumours that some years back, after a great storm, the sea had thrown
+up on shore a coffin in which had been found a man's body . . . But
+according to other more trustworthy accounts this coffin had not been
+thrown up by the sea at all, but had been carried over and buried near
+the shore by a foreign lady, coming from Venice; some added that
+they had seen this lady afterwards in Herzegovina, with the forces
+which were there assembled; they even described her dress, black from
+head to foot However it was, all trace of Elena had disappeared beyond
+recovery for ever; and no one knows whether she is still living,
+whether she is hidden away somewhere, or whether the petty drama of
+life is over--the little ferment of her existence is at an end; and
+she has found death in her turn. It happens at times that a man wakes
+up and asks himself with involuntary horror, 'Can I be already thirty
+. . . forty . . . fifty? How is it life has passed so soon? How is it
+death has moved up so close?' Death is like a fisher who catches fish
+in his net and leaves them for a while in the water; the fish is still
+swimming but the net is round him, and the fisher will draw him
+up--when he thinks fit.
+
+* * *
+
+What became of the other characters of our story?
+
+Anna Vassilyevna is still living; she has aged very much since the
+blow that has fallen on her; is less complaining, but far more
+wretched. Nikolai Artemyevitch, too, has grown older and greyer, and
+has parted from Augustina Christianovna. ... He has taken now to
+abusing everything foreign. His housekeeper, a handsome woman of
+thirty, a Russian, wears silk dresses and gold rings and bracelets.
+Kurnatovsky, like every man of ardent temperament and dark complexion,
+a devoted admirer of pretty blondes, married Zoya; she is in complete
+subjection to him and has even given up thinking in German. Bersenyev
+is in Heidelberg; he has been sent abroad at the expense of
+government; he has visited Berlin and Paris and is not wasting his
+time; he has become a thoroughly efficient professor. The attention
+of the learned public has been caught by his two articles: 'On some
+peculiarities of ancient law as regards judicial sentences,' and 'On
+the significance of cities in civilisation.' It is only a pity that
+both articles are written in rather a heavy style, disfigured by
+foreign words. Shubin is in Rome; he is completely given up to his
+art and is reckoned one of the most remarkable and promising of young
+sculptors. Severe tourists consider that he has not sufficiently
+studied the antique, that he has 'no style,' and reckon him one of
+the French school; he has had a great many orders from the English
+and Americans. Of late, there has been much talk about a Bacchante of
+his; the Russian Count Boboshkin, the well-known millionaire, thought
+of buying it for one thousand scudi, but decided in preference to give
+three thousand to another sculptor, French _pur sang_, for a group
+entitled, 'A youthful shepherdess dying for love in the bosom of the
+Genius of Spring.' Shubin writes from time to time to Uvar Ivanovitch,
+who alone has remained quite unaltered in all respects. 'Do you
+remember,' he wrote to him lately, 'what you said to me that night,
+when poor Elena's marriage was made known, when I was sitting on your
+bed talking to you? Do you remember I asked you, "Will there ever be
+men among us?" and you answered "There will be." O primeval force!
+And now from here in "my poetic distance," I will ask you again:
+"What do you say, Uvar Ivanovitch, will there be?"'
+
+Uvar Ivanovitch flourished his fingers and fixed his enigmatical stare
+into the far distance.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Eve
+by Ivan Turgenev
+Translated by Constance Garnett
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE EVE ***
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