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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Jew And Other Stories, by Ivan Turgenev
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Jew And Other Stories
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+
+Posting Date: April 5, 2014 [EBook #8696]
+Release Date: August, 2005
+First Posted: August 2, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEW AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Garcia, Charles Franks,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE JEW AND OTHER STORIES
+
+BY IVAN TURGENEV
+
+
+
+_Translated from the Russian_
+_By CONSTANCE GARNETT_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF STEPNIAK
+WHOSE LOVE OF TURGENEV
+SUGGESTED THIS TRANSLATION
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+In studying the Russian novel it is amusing to note the childish
+attitude of certain English men of letters to the novel in general,
+their depreciation of its influence and of the public's 'inordinate'
+love of fiction. Many men of letters to-day look on the novel as a mere
+story-book, as a series of light-coloured, amusing pictures for their
+'idle hours,' and on memoirs, biographies, histories, criticism, and
+poetry as the age's _serious_ contribution to literature. Whereas
+the reverse is the case. The most serious and significant of all
+literary forms the modern world has evolved is the novel; and brought to
+its highest development, the novel shares with poetry to-day the honour
+of being the supreme instrument of the great artist's literary skill.
+
+To survey the field of the novel as a mere pleasure-garden marked out
+for the crowd's diversion--a field of recreation adorned here and there
+by the masterpieces of a few great men--argues in the modern critic
+either an academical attitude to literature and life, or a one-eyed
+obtuseness, or merely the usual insensitive taste. The drama in all but
+two countries has been willy-nilly abandoned by artists as a coarse
+playground for the great public's romps and frolics, but the novel can
+be preserved exactly so long as the critics understand that to exercise
+a delicate art is the one _serious_ duty of the artistic life. It
+is no more an argument against the vital significance of the novel that
+tens of thousands of people--that everybody, in fact--should to-day
+essay that form of art, than it is an argument against poetry that for
+all the centuries droves and flocks of versifiers and scribblers and
+rhymesters have succeeded in making the name of poet a little foolish in
+worldly eyes. The true function of poetry! That can only be vindicated
+in common opinion by the severity and enthusiasm of critics in stripping
+bare the false, and in hailing as the true all that is animated by the
+living breath of beauty. The true function of the novel! That can only
+be supported by those who understand that the adequate representation
+and criticism of human life would be impossible for modern men were the
+novel to go the way of the drama, and be abandoned to the mass of vulgar
+standards. That the novel is the most insidious means of mirroring human
+society Cervantes in his great classic revealed to seventeenth-century
+Europe. Richardson and Fielding and Sterne in their turn, as great
+realists and impressionists, proved to the eighteenth century that the
+novel is as flexible as life itself. And from their days to the days of
+Henry James the form of the novel has been adapted by European genius to
+the exact needs, outlook, and attitude to life of each successive
+generation. To the French, especially to Flaubert and Maupassant, must
+be given the credit of so perfecting the novel's technique that it has
+become the great means of cosmopolitan culture. It was, however,
+reserved for the youngest of European literatures, for the Russian
+school, to raise the novel to being the absolute and triumphant
+expression by the national genius of the national soul.
+
+Turgenev's place in modern European literature is best defined by saying
+that while he stands as a great classic in the ranks of the great
+novelists, along with Richardson, Fielding, Scott, Balzac, Dickens,
+Thackeray, Meredith, Tolstoi, Flaubert, Maupassant, he is the greatest
+of them all, in the sense that he is the supreme artist. As has been
+recognised by the best French critics, Turgenev's art is both wider in
+its range and more beautiful in its form than the work of any modern
+European artist. The novel modelled by Turgenev's hands, the Russian
+novel, became _the_ great modern instrument for showing 'the very
+age and body of the time his form and pressure.' To reproduce human life
+in all its subtlety as it moves and breathes before us, and at the same
+time to assess its values by the great poetic insight that reveals man's
+relations to the universe around him,--that is an art only transcended
+by Shakespeare's own in its unique creation of a universe of great human
+types. And, comparing Turgenev with the European masters, we see that if
+he has made the novel both more delicate and more powerful than their
+example shows it, it is because as the supreme artist he filled it with
+the breath of poetry where others in general spoke the word of prose.
+Turgenev's horizon always broadens before our eyes: where Fielding and
+Richardson speak for the country and the town, Turgenev speaks for the
+nation. While Balzac makes defile before us an endless stream of human
+figures, Turgenev's characters reveal themselves as wider apart in the
+range of their spirit, as more mysteriously alive in their inevitable
+essence, than do Meredith's or Flaubert's, than do Thackeray's or
+Maupassant's. Where Tolstoi uses an immense canvas in _War and
+Peace_, wherein Europe may see the march of a whole generation,
+Turgenev in _Fathers and Children_ concentrates in the few words of
+a single character, Bazarov, the essence of modern science's attitude to
+life, that scientific spirit which has transformed both European life
+and thought. It is, however, superfluous to draw further parallels
+between Turgenev and his great rivals. In England alone, perhaps, is it
+necessary to say to the young novelist that the novel can become
+anything, can be anything, according to the hands that use it. In its
+application to life, its future development can by no means be gauged.
+It is the most complex of all literary instruments, the chief method
+to-day of analysing the complexities of modern life. If you love your
+art, if you would exalt it, treat it absolutely seriously. If you would
+study it in its highest form, the form the greatest artist of our time
+has perfected--remember Turgenev.
+
+EDWARD GARNETT.
+
+November 1899.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+THE JEW
+
+AN UNHAPPY GIRL
+
+THE DUELLIST
+
+THREE PORTRAITS
+
+ENOUGH
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE JEW
+
+
+...'Tell us a story, colonel,' we said at last to Nikolai Ilyitch.
+
+The colonel smiled, puffed out a coil of tobacco smoke between his
+moustaches, passed his hand over his grey hair, looked at us and
+considered. We all had the greatest liking and respect for Nikolai
+Ilyitch, for his good-heartedness, common sense, and kindly indulgence
+to us young fellows. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, stoutly-built man;
+his dark face, 'one of the splendid Russian faces,' [Footnote: Lermontov
+in the _Treasurer's Wife_.--AUTHOR'S NOTE.] straight-forward,
+clever glance, gentle smile, manly and mellow voice--everything about
+him pleased and attracted one.
+
+'All right, listen then,' he began.
+
+It happened in 1813, before Dantzig. I was then in the E---- regiment of
+cuirassiers, and had just, I recollect, been promoted to be a cornet. It
+is an exhilarating occupation--fighting; and marching too is good enough
+in its way, but it is fearfully slow in a besieging army. There one sits
+the whole blessed day within some sort of entrenchment, under a tent, on
+mud or straw, playing cards from morning till night. Perhaps, from
+simple boredom, one goes out to watch the bombs and redhot bullets
+flying.
+
+At first the French kept us amused with sorties, but they quickly
+subsided. We soon got sick of foraging expeditions too; we were
+overcome, in fact, by such deadly dulness that we were ready to howl for
+sheer _ennui_. I was not more than nineteen then; I was a healthy
+young fellow, fresh as a daisy, thought of nothing but getting all the
+fun I could out of the French... and in other ways too... you
+understand what I mean... and this is what happened. Having nothing to
+do, I fell to gambling. All of a sudden, after dreadful losses, my luck
+turned, and towards morning (we used to play at night) I had won an
+immense amount. Exhausted and sleepy, I came out into the fresh air, and
+sat down on a mound. It was a splendid, calm morning; the long lines of
+our fortifications were lost in the mist; I gazed till I was weary, and
+then began to doze where I was sitting.
+
+A discreet cough waked me: I opened my eyes, and saw standing before me
+a Jew, a man of forty, wearing a long-skirted grey wrapper, slippers,
+and a black smoking-cap. This Jew, whose name was Girshel, was
+continually hanging about our camp, offering his services as an agent,
+getting us wine, provisions, and other such trifles. He was a thinnish,
+red-haired, little man, marked with smallpox; he blinked incessantly
+with his diminutive little eyes, which were reddish too; he had a long
+crooked nose, and was always coughing.
+
+He began fidgeting about me, bowing obsequiously.
+
+'Well, what do you want?' I asked him at last.
+
+'Oh, I only--I've only come, sir, to know if I can't be of use to your
+honour in some way...'
+
+'I don't want you; you can go.'
+
+'At your honour's service, as you desire.... I thought there might be,
+sir, something....'
+
+'You bother me; go along, I tell you.'
+
+'Certainly, sir, certainly. But your honour must permit me to
+congratulate you on your success....'
+
+'Why, how did you know?'
+
+'Oh, I know, to be sure I do.... An immense sum... immense....Oh! how
+immense....'
+
+Girshel spread out his fingers and wagged his head.
+
+'But what's the use of talking,' I said peevishly; 'what the devil's the
+good of money here?'
+
+'Oh! don't say that, your honour; ay, ay, don't say so. Money's a
+capital thing; always of use; you can get anything for money, your
+honour; anything! anything! Only say the word to the agent, he'll get
+you anything, your honour, anything! anything!'
+
+'Don't tell lies, Jew.'
+
+'Ay! ay!' repeated Girshel, shaking his side-locks. 'Your honour doesn't
+believe me.... Ay... ay....' The Jew closed his eyes and slowly wagged
+his head to right and to left.... 'Oh, I know what his honour the
+officer would like.... I know,... to be sure I do!'
+
+The Jew assumed an exceedingly knowing leer.
+
+'Really!'
+
+The Jew glanced round timorously, then bent over to me.
+
+'Such a lovely creature, your honour, lovely!...' Girshel again closed
+his eyes and shot out his lips.
+
+'Your honour, you've only to say the word... you shall see for
+yourself... whatever I say now, you'll hear... but you won't believe...
+better tell me to show you... that's the thing, that's the thing!'
+
+I did not speak; I gazed at the Jew.
+
+'Well, all right then; well then, very good; so I'll show you then....'
+
+Thereupon Girshel laughed and slapped me lightly on the shoulder, but
+skipped back at once as though he had been scalded.
+
+'But, your honour, how about a trifle in advance?'
+
+'But you 're taking me in, and will show me some scarecrow?'
+
+'Ay, ay, what a thing to say!' the Jew pronounced with unusual warmth,
+waving his hands about. 'How can you! Why... if so, your honour, you
+order me to be given five hundred... four hundred and fifty lashes,' he
+added hurriedly....' You give orders--'
+
+At that moment one of my comrades lifted the edge of his tent and called
+me by name. I got up hurriedly and flung the Jew a gold coin.
+
+'This evening, this evening,' he muttered after me.
+
+I must confess, my friends, I looked forward to the evening with some
+impatience. That very day the French made a sortie; our regiment marched
+to the attack. The evening came on; we sat round the fires... the
+soldiers cooked porridge. My comrades talked. I lay on my cloak, drank
+tea, and listened to my comrades' stories. They suggested a game of
+cards--I refused to take part in it. I felt excited. Gradually the
+officers dispersed to their tents; the fires began to die down; the
+soldiers too dispersed, or went to sleep on the spot; everything was
+still. I did not get up. My orderly squatted on his heels before the
+fire, and was beginning to nod. I sent him away. Soon the whole camp was
+hushed. The sentries were relieved. I still lay there, as it were
+waiting for something. The stars peeped out. The night came on. A long
+while I watched the dying flame.... The last fire went out. 'The damned
+Jew was taking me in,' I thought angrily, and was just going to get up.
+
+'Your honour,'... a trembling voice whispered close to my ear.
+
+I looked round: Girshel. He was very pale, he stammered, and whispered
+something.
+
+'Let's go to your tent, sir.' I got up and followed him. The Jew shrank
+into himself, and stepped warily over the short, damp grass. I observed
+on one side a motionless, muffled-up figure. The Jew beckoned to
+her--she went up to him. He whispered to her, turned to me, nodded his
+head several times, and we all three went into the tent. Ridiculous to
+relate, I was breathless.
+
+'You see, your honour,' the Jew whispered with an effort, 'you see.
+She's a little frightened at the moment, she's frightened; but I've told
+her his honour the officer's a good man, a splendid man.... Don't be
+frightened, don't be frightened,' he went on--'don't be frightened....'
+
+The muffled-up figure did not stir. I was myself in a state of dreadful
+confusion, and didn't know what to say. Girshel too was fidgeting
+restlessly, and gesticulating in a strange way....
+
+'Any way,' I said to him, 'you get out....' Unwillingly, as it seemed,
+Girshel obeyed.
+
+I went up to the muffled-up figure, and gently took the dark hood off
+her head. There was a conflagration in Dantzig: by the faint, reddish,
+flickering glow of the distant fire I saw the pale face of a young
+Jewess. Her beauty astounded me. I stood facing her, and gazed at her in
+silence. She did not raise her eyes. A slight rustle made me look round.
+Girshel was cautiously poking his head in under the edge of the tent. I
+waved my hand at him angrily,... he vanished.
+
+'What's your name?' I said at last.
+
+'Sara,' she answered, and for one instant I caught in the darkness the
+gleam of the whites of her large, long-shaped eyes and little, even,
+flashing teeth.
+
+I snatched up two leather cushions, flung them on the ground, and asked
+her to sit down. She slipped off her shawl, and sat down. She was
+wearing a short Cossack jacket, open in front, with round, chased silver
+buttons, and full sleeves. Her thick black hair was coiled twice round
+her little head. I sat down beside her and took her dark, slender hand.
+She resisted a little, but seemed afraid to look at me, and there was a
+catch in her breath. I admired her Oriental profile, and timidly pressed
+her cold, shaking fingers.
+
+'Do you know Russian?'
+
+'Yes... a little.'
+
+'And do you like Russians?'
+
+'Yes, I like them.'
+
+'Then, you like me too?'
+
+'Yes, I like you.'
+
+I tried to put my arm round her, but she moved away quickly....
+
+'No, no, please, sir, please...'
+
+'Oh, all right; look at me, any way.'
+
+She let her black, piercing eyes rest upon me, and at once turned away
+with a smile, and blushed.
+
+I kissed her hand ardently. She peeped at me from under her eyelids and
+softly laughed.
+
+'What is it?'
+
+She hid her face in her sleeve and laughed more than before.
+
+Girshel showed himself at the entrance of the tent and shook his finger
+at her. She ceased laughing.
+
+'Go away!' I whispered to him through my teeth; 'you make me sick!'
+
+Girshel did not go away.
+
+I took a handful of gold pieces out of my trunk, stuffed them in his
+hand and pushed him out.
+
+'Your honour, me too....' she said.
+
+I dropped several gold coins on her lap; she pounced on them like a cat.
+
+'Well, now I must have a kiss.'
+
+'No, please, please,' she faltered in a frightened and beseeching voice.
+
+'What are you frightened of?'
+
+'I'm afraid.'
+
+'Oh, nonsense....'
+
+'No, please.'
+
+She looked timidly at me, put her head a little on one side and clasped
+her hands. I let her alone.
+
+'If you like... here,' she said after a brief silence, and she raised
+her hand to my lips. With no great eagerness, I kissed it. Sara laughed
+again.
+
+My blood was boiling. I was annoyed with myself and did not know what to
+do. Really, I thought at last, what a fool I am.
+
+I turned to her again.
+
+'Sara, listen, I'm in love with you.'
+
+'I know.'
+
+'You know? And you're not angry? And do you like me too?'
+
+Sara shook her head.
+
+'No, answer me properly.'
+
+'Well, show yourself,' she said.
+
+I bent down to her. Sara laid her hands on my shoulders, began
+scrutinising my face, frowned, smiled.... I could not contain myself,
+and gave her a rapid kiss on her cheek. She jumped up and in one bound
+was at the entrance of the tent.
+
+'Come, what a shy thing you are!'
+
+She did not speak and did not stir.
+
+'Come here to me....'
+
+'No, sir, good-bye. Another time.'
+
+Girshel again thrust in his curly head, and said a couple of words to
+her; she bent down and glided away, like a snake.
+
+I ran out of the tent in pursuit of her, but could not get another
+glimpse of her nor of Girshel.
+
+The whole night long I could not sleep a wink.
+
+The next night we were sitting in the tent of our captain; I was
+playing, but with no great zest. My orderly came in.
+
+'Some one's asking for you, your honour.'
+
+'Who is it?'
+
+'A Jew.'
+
+'Can it be Girshel?' I wondered. I waited till the end of the rubber,
+got up and went out. Yes, it was so; I saw Girshel.
+
+'Well,' he questioned me with an ingratiating smile, 'your honour, are
+you satisfied?'
+
+'Ah, you------!' (Here the colonel glanced round. 'No ladies present, I
+believe.... Well, never mind, any way.') 'Ah, bless you!' I responded,
+'so you're making fun of me, are you?'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'How so, indeed! What a question!'
+
+'Ay, ay, your honour, you 're too bad,' Girshel said reproachfully, but
+never ceasing smiling. 'The girl is young and modest.... You frightened
+her, indeed, you did.'
+
+'Queer sort of modesty! why did she take money, then?'
+
+'Why, what then? If one's given money, why not take it, sir?'
+
+'I say, Girshel, let her come again, and I '11 let you off... only,
+please, don't show your stupid phiz inside my tent, and leave us in
+peace; do you hear?'
+
+Girshel's eyes sparkled.
+
+'What do you say? You like her?'
+
+'Well, yes.'
+
+'She's a lovely creature! there's not another such anywhere. And have
+you something for me now?'
+
+'Yes, here, only listen; fair play is better than gold. Bring her and
+then go to the devil. I'll escort her home myself.'
+
+'Oh, no, sir, no, that's impossible, sir,' the Jew rejoined hurriedly.
+'Ay, ay, that's impossible. I'll walk about near the tent, your honour,
+if you like; I'll... I'll go away, your honour, if you like, a
+little.... I'm ready to do your honour a service.... I'll move away...
+to be sure, I will.'
+
+'Well, mind you do.... And bring her, do you hear?'
+
+'Eh, but she's a beauty, your honour, eh? your honour, a beauty, eh?'
+
+Girshel bent down and peeped into my eyes.
+
+'She's good-looking.'
+
+'Well, then, give me another gold piece.'
+
+I threw him a coin; we parted.
+
+The day passed at last. The night came on. I had been sitting for a long
+while alone in my tent. It was dark outside. It struck two in the town.
+I was beginning to curse the Jew.... Suddenly Sara came in, alone. I
+jumped up took her in my arms... put my lips to her face.... It was cold
+as ice. I could scarcely distinguish her features.... I made her sit
+down, knelt down before her, took her hands, touched her waist.... She
+did not speak, did not stir, and suddenly she broke into loud,
+convulsive sobbing. I tried in vain to soothe her, to persuade her....
+She wept in torrents.... I caressed her, wiped her tears; as before, she
+did not resist, made no answer to my questions and wept--wept, like a
+waterfall. I felt a pang at my heart; I got up and went out of the tent.
+
+Girshel seemed to pop up out of the earth before me.
+
+'Girshel,' I said to him, 'here's the money I promised you. Take Sara
+away.'
+
+The Jew at once rushed up to her. She left off weeping, and clutched
+hold of him.
+
+'Good-bye, Sara,'I said to her. 'God bless you, good-bye. We'll see each
+other again some other time.'
+
+Girshel was silent and bowed humbly. Sara bent down, took my hand and
+pressed it to her lips; I turned away....
+
+For five or six days, my friends, I kept thinking of my Jewess. Girshel
+did not make his appearance, and no one had seen him in the camp. I
+slept rather badly at nights; I was continually haunted by wet, black
+eyes, and long eyelashes; my lips could not forget the touch of her
+cheek, smooth and fresh as a downy plum. I was sent out with a foraging
+party to a village some distance away. While my soldiers were ransacking
+the houses, I remained in the street, and did not dismount from my
+horse. Suddenly some one caught hold of my foot....
+
+'Mercy on us, Sara!'
+
+She was pale and excited.
+
+'Your honour... help us, save us, your soldiers are insulting us....
+Your honour....'
+
+She recognised me and flushed red.
+
+'Why, do you live here?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Where?'
+
+Sara pointed to a little, old house. I set spurs to my horse and
+galloped up. In the yard of the little house an ugly and tattered Jewess
+was trying to tear out of the hands of my long sergeant, Siliavka, three
+hens and a duck. He was holding his booty above his head, laughing; the
+hens clucked and the duck quacked.... Two other cuirassiers were loading
+their horses with hay, straw, and sacks of flour. Inside the house I
+heard shouts and oaths in Little-Russian.... I called to my men and told
+them to leave the Jews alone, not to take anything from them. The
+soldiers obeyed, the sergeant got on his grey mare, Proserpina, or, as
+he called her, 'Prozherpila,' and rode after me into the street.
+
+'Well,' I said to Sara, 'are you pleased with me?'
+
+She looked at me with a smile.
+
+'What has become of you all this time?'
+
+She dropped her eyes.
+
+'I will come to you to-morrow.'
+
+'In the evening?'
+
+'No, sir, in the morning.'
+
+'Mind you do, don't deceive me.'
+
+'No... no, I won't.'
+
+I looked greedily at her. By daylight she seemed to me handsomer than
+ever. I remember I was particularly struck by the even, amber tint of
+her face and the bluish lights in her black hair.... I bent down from my
+horse and warmly pressed her little hand.
+
+'Good-bye, Sara... mind you come.'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+She went home; I told the sergeant to follow me with the party, and
+galloped off.
+
+The next day I got up very early, dressed, and went out of the tent. It
+was a glorious morning; the sun had just risen and every blade of grass
+was sparkling in the dew and the crimson glow. I clambered on to a high
+breastwork, and sat down on the edge of an embrasure. Below me a stout,
+cast-iron cannon stuck out its black muzzle towards the open country. I
+looked carelessly about me... and all at once caught sight of a bent
+figure in a grey wrapper, a hundred paces from me. I recognised Girshel.
+He stood without moving for a long while in one place, then suddenly ran
+a little on one side, looked hurriedly and furtively round... uttered a
+cry, squatted down, cautiously craned his neck and began looking round
+again and listening. I could see all his actions very clearly. He put
+his hand into his bosom, took out a scrap of paper and a pencil, and
+began writing or drawing something. Girshel continually stopped, started
+like a hare, attentively scrutinised everything around him, and seemed
+to be sketching our camp. More than once he hid his scrap of paper, half
+closed his eyes, sniffed at the air, and again set to work. At last, the
+Jew squatted down on the grass, took off his slipper, and stuffed the
+paper in it; but he had not time to regain his legs, when suddenly, ten
+steps from him, there appeared from behind the slope of an earthwork the
+whiskered countenance of the sergeant Siliavka, and gradually the whole
+of his long clumsy figure rose up from the ground. The Jew stood with
+his back to him. Siliavka went quickly up to him and laid his heavy paw
+on his shoulder. Girshel seemed to shrink into himself. He shook like a
+leaf and uttered a feeble cry, like a hare's. Siliavka addressed him
+threateningly, and seized him by the collar. I could not hear their
+conversation, but from the despairing gestures of the Jew, and his
+supplicating appearance, I began to guess what it was. The Jew twice
+flung himself at the sergeant's feet, put his hand in his pocket, pulled
+out a torn check handkerchief, untied a knot, and took out gold
+coins.... Siliavka took his offering with great dignity, but did not
+leave off dragging the Jew by the collar. Girshel made a sudden bound
+and rushed away; the sergeant sped after him in pursuit. The Jew ran
+exceedingly well; his legs, clad in blue stockings, flashed by, really
+very rapidly; but Siliavka after a short run caught the crouching Jew,
+made him stand up, and carried him in his arms straight to the camp. I
+got up and went to meet him.
+
+'Ah! your honour!' bawled Siliavka,--'it's a spy I'm bringing you--a
+spy!...' The sturdy Little-Russian was streaming with perspiration.
+'Stop that wriggling, devilish Jew--now then... you wretch! you'd better
+look out, I'll throttle you!'
+
+The luckless Girshel was feebly prodding his elbows into Siliavka's
+chest, and feebly kicking.... His eyes were rolling convulsively....
+
+'What's the matter?' I questioned Siliavka.
+
+'If your honour'll be so good as to take the slipper off his right
+foot,--I can't get at it.' He was still holding the Jew in his arms.
+
+I took off the slipper, took out of it a carefully folded piece of
+paper, unfolded it, and found an accurate map of our camp. On the margin
+were a number of notes written in a fine hand in the Jews' language.
+
+Meanwhile Siliavka had set Girshel on his legs. The Jew opened his eyes,
+saw me, and flung himself on his knees before me.
+
+Without speaking, I showed him the paper.
+
+'What's this?'
+
+'It's---nothing, your honour. I was only....' His voice broke.
+
+'Are you a spy?'
+
+He did not understand me, muttered disconnected words, pressed my knees
+in terror....
+
+'Are you a spy?'
+
+'I!' he cried faintly, and shook his head. 'How could I? I never did;
+I'm not at all. It's not possible; utterly impossible. I'm
+ready--I'll--this minute--I've money to give... I'll pay for it,' he
+whispered, and closed his eyes.
+
+The smoking-cap had slipped back on to his neck; his reddish hair was
+soaked with cold sweat, and hung in tails; his lips were blue, and
+working convulsively; his brows were contracted painfully; his face was
+drawn....
+
+Soldiers came up round us. I had at first meant to give Girshel a good
+fright, and to tell Siliavka to hold his tongue, but now the affair had
+become public, and could not escape 'the cognisance of the authorities.'
+
+'Take him to the general,' I said to the sergeant.
+
+'Your honour, your honour!' the Jew shrieked in a voice of despair. 'I
+am not guilty... not guilty.... Tell him to let me go, tell him...'
+
+'His Excellency will decide about that,' said Siliavka. 'Come along.'
+
+'Your honour!' the Jew shrieked after me--'tell him! have mercy!'
+
+His shriek tortured me; I hastened my pace. Our general was a man of
+German extraction, honest and good-hearted, but strict in his adherence
+to military discipline. I went into the little house that had been
+hastily put up for him, and in a few words explained the reason of my
+visit. I knew the severity of the military regulations, and so I did not
+even pronounce the word 'spy,' but tried to put the whole affair before
+him as something quite trifling and not worth attention. But, unhappily
+for Girshel, the general put doing his duty higher than pity.
+
+'You, young man,' he said to me in his broken Russian, 'inexperienced
+are. You in military matters yet inexperienced are. The matter, of which
+you to me reported have, is important, very important.... And where is
+this man who taken was? this Jew? where is he?'
+
+I went out and told them to bring in the Jew. They brought in the Jew.
+The wretched creature could scarcely stand up.
+
+'Yes,' pronounced the general, turning to me; 'and where's the plan
+which on this man found was?'
+
+I handed him the paper. The general opened it, turned away again,
+screwed up his eyes, frowned....
+
+'This is most as-ton-ish-ing...' he said slowly. 'Who arrested him?'
+
+'I, your Excellency!' Siliavka jerked out sharply.
+
+'Ah! good! good!... Well, my good man, what do you say in your defence?'
+
+'Your... your... your Excellency,' stammered Girshel, 'I... indeed,...
+your Excellency... I'm not guilty... your Excellency; ask his honour the
+officer.... I'm an agent, your Excellency, an honest agent.'
+
+'He ought to be cross-examined,' the general murmured in an undertone,
+wagging his head gravely. 'Come, how do you explain this, my friend?'
+'I'm not guilty, your Excellency, I'm not guilty.'
+
+'That is not probable, however. You were--how is it said in
+Russian?--taken on the fact, that is, in the very facts!'
+
+'Hear me, your Excellency; I am not guilty.'
+
+'You drew the plan? you are a spy of the enemy?'
+
+'It wasn't me!' Girshel shrieked suddenly; 'not I, your Excellency!'
+
+The general looked at Siliavka.
+
+'Why, he's raving, your Excellency. His honour the officer here took the
+plan out of his slipper.'
+
+The general looked at me. I was obliged to nod assent.
+
+'You are a spy from the enemy, my good man....'
+
+'Not I... not I...' whispered the distracted Jew.
+
+'You have the enemy with similar information before provided?
+Confess....'
+
+'How could I?'
+
+'You will not deceive me, my good man. Are you a spy?'
+
+The Jew closed his eyes, shook his head, and lifted the skirts of his
+gown.
+
+'Hang him,' the general pronounced expressively after a brief
+silence,'according to the law. Where is Mr. Fiodor Schliekelmann?'
+
+They ran to fetch Schliekelmann, the general's adjutant. Girshel began
+to turn greenish, his mouth fell open, his eyes seemed starting out of
+his head. The adjutant came in. The general gave him the requisite
+instructions. The secretary showed his sickly, pock-marked face for an
+instant. Two or three officers peeped into the room inquisitively.
+
+'Have pity, your Excellency,' I said to the general in German as best I
+could; 'let him off....'
+
+'You, young man,' he answered me in Russian, 'I was saying to you, are
+inexperienced, and therefore I beg you silent to be, and me no more to
+trouble.'
+
+Girshel with a shriek dropped at the general's feet.
+
+'Your Excellency, have mercy; I will never again, I will not, your
+Excellency; I have a wife... your Excellency, a daughter... have
+mercy....'
+
+'It's no use!'
+
+'Truly, your Excellency, I am guilty... it's the first time, your
+Excellency, the first time, believe me!'
+
+'You furnished no other documents?'
+
+'The first time, your Excellency,... my wife... my children... have
+mercy....'
+
+'But you are a spy.'
+
+'My wife... your Excellency... my children....'
+
+The general felt a twinge, but there was no getting out of it.
+
+'According to the law, hang the Hebrew,' he said constrainedly, with the
+air of a man forced to do violence to his heart, and sacrifice his
+better feelings to inexorable duty--'hang him! Fiodor Karlitch, I beg
+you to draw up a report of the occurrence....'
+
+A horrible change suddenly came over Girshel. Instead of the ordinary
+timorous alarm peculiar to the Jewish nature, in his face was reflected
+the horrible agony that comes before death. He writhed like a wild beast
+trapped, his mouth stood open, there was a hoarse rattle in his throat,
+he positively leapt up and down, convulsively moving his elbows. He had
+on only one slipper; they had forgotten to put the other on again... his
+gown fell open... his cap had fallen off....
+
+We all shuddered; the general stopped speaking.
+
+'Your Excellency,' I began again, 'pardon this wretched creature.'
+
+'Impossible! It is the law,' the general replied abruptly, and not
+without emotion, 'for a warning to others.'
+
+'For pity's sake....'
+
+'Mr. Cornet, be so good as to return to your post,' said the general,
+and he motioned me imperiously to the door.
+
+I bowed and went out. But seeing that in reality I had no post anywhere,
+I remained at no great distance from the general's house.
+
+Two minutes later Girshel made his appearance, conducted by Siliavka and
+three soldiers. The poor Jew was in a state of stupefaction, and could
+hardly move his legs. Siliavka went by me to the camp, and soon returned
+with a rope in his hands. His coarse but not ill-natured face wore a
+look of strange, exasperated commiseration. At the sight of the rope the
+Jew flung up his arms, sat down, and burst into sobs. The soldiers stood
+silently about him, and stared grimly at the earth. I went up to
+Girshel, addressed him; he sobbed like a baby, and did not even look at
+me. With a hopeless gesture I went to my tent, flung myself on a rug,
+and closed my eyes....
+
+Suddenly some one ran hastily and noisily into my tent. I raised my head
+and saw Sara; she looked beside herself. She rushed up to me, and
+clutched at my hands.
+
+'Come along, come along,' she insisted breathlessly.
+
+'Where? what for? let us stop here.'
+
+'To father, to father, quick... save him... save him!'
+
+'To what father?'
+
+'My father; they are going to hang him....'
+
+'What! is Girshel...?'
+
+'My father... I '11 tell you all about it later,' she added, wringing
+her hands in despair: 'only come... come....'
+
+We ran out of the tent. In the open ground, on the way to a solitary
+birch-tree, we could see a group of soldiers.... Sara pointed to them
+without speaking....
+
+'Stop,' I said to her suddenly: 'where are we running to? The soldiers
+won't obey me.'
+
+Sara still pulled me after her.... I must confess, my head was going
+round.
+
+'But listen, Sara,' I said to her; 'what sense is there in running here?
+It would be better for me to go to the general again; let's go together;
+who knows, we may persuade him.'
+
+Sara suddenly stood still and gazed at me, as though she were crazy.
+
+'Understand me, Sara, for God's sake. I can't do anything for your
+father, but the general can. Let's go to him.'
+
+'But meanwhile they'll hang him,' she moaned....
+
+I looked round. The secretary was standing not far off.
+
+'Ivanov,' I called to him; 'run, please, over there to them, tell them
+to wait a little, say I've gone to petition the general.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+Ivanov ran off.
+
+We were not admitted to the general's presence. In vain I begged,
+persuaded, swore even, at last... in vain, poor Sara tore her hair and
+rushed at the sentinels; they would not let us pass.
+
+Sara looked wildly round, clutched her head in both hands, and ran at
+breakneck pace towards the open country, to her father. I followed her.
+Every one stared at us, wondering.
+
+We ran up to the soldiers. They were standing in a ring, and picture it,
+gentlemen! they were laughing, laughing at poor Girshel. I flew into a
+rage and shouted at them. The Jew saw us and fell on his daughter's
+neck. Sara clung to him passionately.
+
+The poor wretch imagined he was pardoned.... He was just beginning to
+thank me... I turned away.
+
+'Your honour,' he shrieked and wrung his hands; 'I'm not pardoned?'
+
+I did not speak.
+
+'No?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Your honour,' he began muttering; 'look, your honour, look... she, this
+girl, see--you know--she's my daughter.'
+
+'I know,' I answered, and turned away again.
+
+'Your honour,' he shrieked, 'I never went away from the tent! I wouldn't
+for anything...'
+
+He stopped, and closed his eyes for an instant.... 'I wanted your money,
+your honour, I must own... but not for anything....'
+
+I was silent. Girshel was loathsome to me, and she too, his
+accomplice....
+
+'But now, if you save me,' the Jew articulated in a whisper, 'I'll
+command her... I... do you understand?... everything... I'll go to every
+length....'
+
+He was trembling like a leaf, and looking about him hurriedly. Sara
+silently and passionately embraced him.
+
+The adjutant came up to us.
+
+'Cornet,' he said to me; 'his Excellency has given me orders to place
+you under arrest. And you...' he motioned the soldiers to the Jew...
+'quickly.'
+
+Siliavka went up to the Jew.
+
+'Fiodor Karlitch,' I said to the adjutant (five soldiers had come with
+him); 'tell them, at least, to take away that poor girl....'
+
+'Of course. Certainly.'
+
+The unhappy girl was scarcely conscious. Girshel was muttering something
+to her in Yiddish....
+
+The soldiers with difficulty freed Sara from her father's arms, and
+carefully carried her twenty steps away. But all at once she broke from
+their arms and rushed towards Girshel.... Siliavka stopped her. Sara
+pushed him away; her face was covered with a faint flush, her eyes
+flashed, she stretched out her arms.
+
+'So may you be accursed,' she screamed in German; 'accursed, thrice
+accursed, you and all the hateful breed of you, with the curse of Dathan
+and Abiram, the curse of poverty and sterility and violent, shameful
+death! May the earth open under your feet, godless, pitiless,
+bloodthirsty dogs....'
+
+Her head dropped back... she fell to the ground.... They lifted her up
+and carried her away.
+
+The soldiers took Girshel under his arms. I saw then why it was they had
+been laughing at the Jew when I ran up from the camp with Sara. He was
+really ludicrous, in spite of all the horror of his position. The
+intense anguish of parting with life, his daughter, his family, showed
+itself in the Jew in such strange and grotesque gesticulations, shrieks,
+and wriggles that we all could not help smiling, though it was
+horrible--intensely horrible to us too. The poor wretch was half dead
+with terror....
+
+'Oy! oy! oy!' he shrieked: 'oy... wait! I've something to tell you... a
+lot to tell you. Mr. Under-sergeant, you know me. I'm an agent, an
+honest agent. Don't hold me; wait a minute, a little minute, a tiny
+minute--wait! Let me go; I'm a poor Hebrew. Sara... where is Sara? Oh, I
+know, she's at his honour the quarter-lieutenant's.' (God knows why he
+bestowed such an unheard-of grade upon me.) 'Your honour the
+quarter-lieutenant, I'm not going away from the tent.' (The soldiers
+were taking hold of Girshel... he uttered a deafening shriek, and
+wriggled out of their hands.) 'Your Excellency, have pity on the unhappy
+father of a family. I'll give you ten golden pieces, fifteen I'll give,
+your Excellency!...' (They dragged him to the birch-tree.) 'Spare me!
+have mercy! your honour the quarter-lieutenant! your Excellency, the
+general and commander-in-chief!'
+
+They put the noose on the Jew.... I shut my eyes and rushed away.
+
+I remained for a fortnight under arrest. I was told that the widow of
+the luckless Girshel came to fetch away the clothes of the deceased. The
+general ordered a hundred roubles to be given to her. Sara I never saw
+again. I was wounded; I was taken to the hospital, and by the time I was
+well again, Dantzig had surrendered, and I joined my regiment on the
+banks of the Rhine.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN UNHAPPY GIRL
+
+
+Yes, yes, began Piotr Gavrilovitch; those were painful days... and I
+would rather not recall them.... But I have made you a promise; I shall
+have to tell you the whole story. Listen.
+
+
+I
+
+
+I was living at that time (the winter of 1835) in Moscow, in the house
+of my aunt, the sister of my dead mother. I was eighteen; I had only
+just passed from the second into the third course in the faculty 'of
+Language' (that was what it was called in those days) in the Moscow
+University. My aunt was a gentle, quiet woman--a widow. She lived in a
+big, wooden house in Ostozhonka, one of those warm, cosy houses such as,
+I fancy, one can find nowhere else but in Moscow. She saw hardly any
+one, sat from morning till night in the drawing-room with two
+companions, drank the choicest tea, played patience, and was continually
+requesting that the room should be fumigated. Thereupon her companions
+ran into the hall; a few minutes later an old servant in livery would
+bring in a copper pan with a bunch of mint on a hot brick, and stepping
+hurriedly upon the narrow strips of carpet, he would sprinkle the mint
+with vinegar. White fumes always puffed up about his wrinkled face, and
+he frowned and turned away, while the canaries in the dining-room
+chirped their hardest, exasperated by the hissing of the smouldering
+mint.
+
+I was fatherless and motherless, and my aunt spoiled me. She placed the
+whole of the ground floor at my complete disposal. My rooms were
+furnished very elegantly, not at all like a student's rooms in fact:
+there were pink curtains in the bedroom, and a muslin canopy, adorned
+with blue rosettes, towered over my bed. Those rosettes were, I'll own,
+rather an annoyance to me; to my thinking, such 'effeminacies' were
+calculated to lower me in the eyes of my companions. As it was, they
+nicknamed me 'the boarding-school miss.' I could never succeed in
+forcing myself to smoke. I studied--why conceal my shortcomings?--very
+lazily, especially at the beginning of the course. I went out a great
+deal. My aunt had bestowed on me a wide sledge, fit for a general, with
+a pair of sleek horses. At the houses of 'the gentry' my visits were
+rare, but at the theatre I was quite at home, and I consumed masses of
+tarts at the restaurants. For all that, I permitted myself no breach of
+decorum, and behaved very discreetly, _en jeune homme de bonne
+maison_. I would not for anything in the world have pained my kind
+aunt; and besides I was naturally of a rather cool temperament.
+
+
+II
+
+
+From my earliest years I had been fond of chess; I had no idea of the
+science of the game, but I didn't play badly. One day in a cafe, I was
+the spectator of a prolonged contest at chess, between two players, of
+whom one, a fair-haired young man of about five-and-twenty, struck me as
+playing well. The game ended in his favour; I offered to play a match
+with him. He agreed,... and in the course of an hour, beat me easily,
+three times running.
+
+'You have a natural gift for the game,' he pronounced in a courteous
+tone, noticing probably that my vanity was suffering; 'but you don't
+know the openings. You ought to study a chess-book--Allgacir or Petrov.'
+
+'Do you think so? But where can I get such a book?'
+
+'Come to me; I will give you one.'
+
+He gave me his name, and told me where he was living. Next day I went to
+see him, and a week later we were almost inseparable.
+
+
+III
+
+
+My new acquaintance was called Alexander Davidovitch Fustov. He lived
+with his mother, a rather wealthy woman, the widow of a privy
+councillor, but he occupied a little lodge apart and lived quite
+independently, just as I did at my aunt's. He had a post in the
+department of Court affairs. I became genuinely attached to him. I had
+never in my life met a young man more 'sympathetic.' Everything about
+him was charming and attractive: his graceful figure, his bearing, his
+voice, and especially his small, delicate face with the golden-blue
+eyes, the elegant, as it were coquettishly moulded little nose, the
+unchanging amiable smile on the crimson lips, the light curls of soft
+hair over the rather narrow, snow-white brow. Fustov's character was
+remarkable for exceptional serenity, and a sort of amiable, restrained
+affability; he was never pre-occupied, and was always satisfied with
+everything; but on the other hand he was never ecstatic over anything.
+Every excess, even in a good feeling, jarred upon him; 'that's savage,
+savage,' he would say with a faint shrug, half closing his golden eyes.
+Marvellous were those eyes of Fustov's! They invariably expressed
+sympathy, good-will, even devotion. It was only at a later period that I
+noticed that the expression of his eyes resulted solely from their
+setting, that it never changed, even when he was sipping his soup or
+smoking a cigar. His preciseness became a byword between us. His
+grandmother, indeed, had been a German. Nature had endowed him with all
+sorts of talents. He danced capitally, was a dashing horseman, and a
+first-rate swimmer; did carpentering, carving and joinery, bound books
+and cut out silhouettes, painted in watercolours nosegays of flowers or
+Napoleon in profile in a blue uniform; played the zither with feeling;
+knew a number of tricks, with cards and without; and had a fair
+knowledge of mechanics, physics, and chemistry; but everything only up
+to a certain point. Only for languages he had no great facility: even
+French he spoke rather badly. He spoke in general little, and his share
+in our students' discussions was mostly limited to the bright sympathy
+of his glance and smile. To the fair sex Fustov was attractive,
+undoubtedly, but on this subject, of such importance among young people,
+he did not care to enlarge, and fully deserved the nickname given him by
+his comrades, 'the discreet Don Juan.' I was not dazzled by Fustov;
+there was nothing in him to dazzle, but I prized his affection, though
+in reality it was only manifested by his never refusing to see me when I
+called. To my mind Fustov was the happiest man in the world. His life
+ran so very smoothly. His mother, brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles
+all adored him, he was on exceptionally good terms with all of them, and
+enjoyed the reputation of a paragon in his family.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+One day I went round to him rather early and did not find him in his
+study. He called to me from the next room; sounds of panting and
+splashing reached me from there. Every morning Fustov took a cold
+shower-bath and afterwards for a quarter of an hour practised gymnastic
+exercises, in which he had attained remarkable proficiency. Excessive
+anxiety about one's physical health he did not approve of, but he did
+not neglect necessary care. ('Don't neglect yourself, don't over-excite
+yourself, work in moderation,' was his precept.) Fustov had not yet made
+his appearance, when the outer door of the room where I was waiting flew
+wide open, and there walked in a man about fifty, wearing a bluish
+uniform. He was a stout, squarely-built man with milky-whitish eyes in a
+dark-red face and a perfect cap of thick, grey, curly hair. This person
+stopped short, looked at me, opened his mouth wide, and with a metallic
+chuckle, he gave himself a smart slap on his haunch, kicking his leg up
+in front as he did so.
+
+'Ivan Demianitch?' my friend inquired through the door.
+
+'The same, at your service,' the new comer responded. 'What are you up
+to? At your toilette? That's right! that's right!' (The voice of the man
+addressed as Ivan Demianitch had the same harsh, metallic note as his
+laugh.) 'I've trudged all this way to give your little brother his
+lesson; and he's got a cold, you know, and does nothing but sneeze. He
+can't do his work. So I've looked in on you for a bit to warm myself.'
+
+Ivan Demianitch laughed again the same strange guffaw, again dealt
+himself a sounding smack on the leg, and pulling a check handkerchief
+out of his pocket, blew his nose noisily, ferociously rolling his eyes,
+spat into the handkerchief, and ejaculated with the whole force of his
+lungs: 'Tfoo-o-o!'
+
+Fustov came into the room, and shaking hands with both of us, asked us
+if we were acquainted.
+
+'Not a bit of it!' Ivan Demianitch boomed at once: 'the veteran of the
+year twelve has not that honour!'
+
+Fustov mentioned my name first, then, indicating the 'veteran of the
+year twelve,' he pronounced: 'Ivan Demianitch Ratsch, professor of...
+various subjects.'
+
+'Precisely so, various they are, precisely,' Mr. Ratsch chimed in. 'Come
+to think of it, what is there I haven't taught, and that I'm not
+teaching now, for that matter! Mathematics and geography and statistics
+and Italian book-keeping, ha-ha ha-ha! and music! You doubt it, my dear
+sir?'--he pounced suddenly upon me--'ask Alexander Daviditch if I'm not
+first-rate on the bassoon. I should be a poor sort of Bohemian--Czech, I
+should say--if I weren't! Yes, sir, I'm a Czech, and my native place is
+ancient Prague! By the way, Alexander Daviditch, why haven't we seen you
+for so long! We ought to have a little duet... ha-ha! Really!'
+
+'I was at your place the day before yesterday, Ivan Demianitch,' replied
+Fustov.
+
+'But I call that a long while, ha-ha!'
+
+When Mr. Ratsch laughed, his white eyes shifted from side to side in a
+strange, restless way.
+
+'You're surprised, young man, I see, at my behaviour,' he addressed me
+again. 'But that's because you don't understand my temperament. You must
+just ask our good friend here, Alexander Daviditch, to tell you about
+me. What'll he tell you? He'll tell you old Ratsch is a simple,
+good-hearted chap, a regular Russian, in heart, if not in origin, ha-ha!
+At his christening named Johann Dietrich, but always called Ivan
+Demianitch! What's in my mind pops out on my tongue; I wear my heart, as
+they say, on my sleeve. Ceremony of all sorts I know naught about and
+don't want to neither! Can't bear it! You drop in on me one day of an
+evening, and you'll see for yourself. My good woman--my wife, that
+is--has no nonsense about her either; she'll cook and bake you...
+something wonderful! Alexander Daviditch, isn't it the truth I'm
+telling?'
+
+Fustov only smiled, and I remained silent.
+
+'Don't look down on the old fellow, but come round,' pursued Mr. Ratsch.
+'But now...' (he pulled a fat silver watch out of his pocket and put it
+up to one of his goggle eyes)'I'd better be toddling on, I suppose. I've
+another chick expecting me.... Devil knows what I'm teaching him,...
+mythology, by God! And he lives a long way off, the rascal, at the Red
+Gate! No matter; I'll toddle off on foot. Thanks to your brother's
+cutting his lesson, I shall be the fifteen kopecks for sledge hire to
+the good! Ha-ha! A very good day to you, gentlemen, till we meet
+again!... Eh?... We must have a little duet!' Mr. Ratsch bawled from the
+passage putting on his goloshes noisily, and for the last time we heard
+his metallic laugh.
+
+
+V
+
+
+'What a strange man!' I said, turning to Fustov, who had already set to
+work at his turning-lathe. 'Can he be a foreigner? He speaks Russian so
+fluently.'
+
+'He is a foreigner; only he's been thirty years in Russia. As long ago
+as 1802, some prince or other brought him from abroad... in the capacity
+of secretary... more likely, valet, one would suppose. He does speak
+Russian fluently, certainly.'
+
+'With such go, such far-fetched turns and phrases,' I put in.
+
+'Well, yes. Only very unnaturally too. They're all like that, these
+Russianised Germans.'
+
+'But he's a Czech, isn't he?'
+
+'I don't know; may be. He talks German with his wife.'
+
+'And why does he call himself a veteran of the year twelve? Was he in
+the militia, or what?'
+
+'In the militia! indeed! At the time of the fire he remained in Moscow
+and lost all his property.... That was all he did.'
+
+'But what did he stay in Moscow for?'
+
+Fustov still went on with his turning.
+
+'The Lord knows. I have heard that he was a spy on our side; but that
+must be nonsense. But it's a fact that he received compensation from the
+treasury for his losses.'
+
+'He wears some sort of uniform.... I suppose he's in government service
+then?'
+
+'Yes. Professor in the cadet's corps. He has the rank of a petty
+councillor.'
+
+'What's his wife like?'
+
+'A German settled here, daughter of a sausagemaker... or butcher....'
+
+'And do you often go to see him?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What, is it pleasant there?'
+
+'Rather pleasant.'
+
+'Has he any children?'
+
+'Yes. Three by the German, and a son and daughter by his first wife.'
+
+'And how old is the eldest daughter?'
+
+'About five-and-twenty,'
+
+I fancied Fustov bent lower over his lathe, and the wheel turned more
+rapidly, and hummed under the even strokes of his feet.
+
+'Is she good-looking?'
+
+'That's a matter of taste. She has a remarkable face, and she's
+altogether... a remarkable person.'
+
+'Aha!' thought I. Fustov continued his work with special earnestness,
+and to my next question he only responded by a grunt.
+
+'I must make her acquaintance,' I decided.
+
+
+VI
+
+
+A few days later, Fustov and I set off to Mr. Ratsch's to spend the
+evening. He lived in a wooden house with a big yard and garden, in
+Krivoy Place near the Pretchistensky boulevard. He came out into the
+passage, and meeting us with his characteristic jarring guffaw and
+noise, led us at once into the drawing-room, where he presented me to a
+stout lady in a skimpy canvas gown, Eleonora Karpovna, his wife.
+Eleonora Karpovna had most likely in her first youth been possessed of
+what the French for some unknown reason call _beaute du diable_,
+that is to say, freshness; but when I made her acquaintance, she
+suggested involuntarily to the mind a good-sized piece of meat, freshly
+laid by the butcher on a clean marble table. Designedly I used the word
+'clean'; not only our hostess herself seemed a model of cleanliness, but
+everything about her, everything in the house positively shone, and
+glittered; everything had been scoured, and polished, and washed: the
+samovar on the round table flashed like fire; the curtains before the
+windows, the table-napkins were crisp with starch, as were also the
+little frocks and shirts of Mr. Ratsch's four children sitting there,
+stout, chubby little creatures, exceedingly like their mother, with
+coarsely moulded, sturdy faces, curls on their foreheads, and red,
+shapeless fingers. All the four of them had rather flat noses, large,
+swollen-looking lips, and tiny, light-grey eyes.
+
+'Here's my squadron!' cried Mr. Ratsch, laying his heavy hand on the
+children's heads one after another. 'Kolia, Olga, Sashka and Mashka!
+This one's eight, this one's seven, that one's four, and this one's only
+two! Ha! ha! ha! As you can see, my wife and I haven't wasted our time!
+Eh, Eleonora Karpovna?'
+
+'You always say things like that,' observed Eleonora Karpovna and she
+turned away.
+
+'And she's bestowed such Russian names on her squallers!' Mr. Ratsch
+pursued. 'The next thing, she'll have them all baptized into the
+Orthodox Church! Yes, by Jove! She's so Slavonic in her sympathies, 'pon
+my soul, she is, though she is of German blood! Eleonora Karpovna, are
+you Slavonic?'
+
+Eleonora Karpovna lost her temper.
+
+'I'm a petty councillor's wife, that's what I am! And so I'm a Russian
+lady and all you may say....'
+
+'There, the way she loves Russia, it's simply awful!' broke in Ivan
+Demianitch. 'A perfect volcano, ho, ho!'
+
+'Well, and what of it?' pursued Eleonora Karpovna. 'To be sure I love
+Russia, for where else could I obtain noble rank? And my children too
+are nobly born, you know. Kolia, sitze ruhig mit den Fuessen!'
+
+Ratsch waved his hand to her.
+
+'There, there, princess, don't excite yourself! But where's the nobly
+born Viktor? To be sure, he's always gadding about! He'll come across
+the inspector one of these fine days! He'll give him a talking-to! Das
+ist ein Bummler, Fiktor!'
+
+'Dem Fiktov kann ich nicht kommandiren, Ivan Demianitch. Sie wissen
+wohl!' grumbled Eleonora Karpovna.
+
+I looked at Fustov, as though wishing finally to arrive at what induced
+him to visit such people... but at that instant there came into the room
+a tall girl in a black dress, the elder daughter of Mr. Ratsch, to whom
+Fustov had referred.... I perceived the explanation of my friend's
+frequent visits.
+
+
+VII
+
+
+There is somewhere, I remember, in Shakespeare, something about 'a white
+dove in a flock of black crows'; that was just the impression made on me
+by the girl, who entered the room. Between the world surrounding her and
+herself there seemed to be too little in common; she herself seemed
+secretly bewildered and wondering how she had come there. All the
+members of Mr. Ratsch's family looked self-satisfied, simple-hearted,
+healthy creatures; her beautiful, but already careworn, face bore the
+traces of depression, pride and morbidity. The others, unmistakable
+plebeians, were unconstrained in their manners, coarse perhaps, but
+simple; but a painful uneasiness was manifest in all her indubitably
+aristocratic nature. In her very exterior there was no trace of the type
+characteristic of the German race; she recalled rather the children of
+the south. The excessively thick, lustreless black hair, the hollow,
+black, lifeless but beautiful eyes, the low, prominent brow, the
+aquiline nose, the livid pallor of the smooth skin, a certain tragic
+line near the delicate lips, and in the slightly sunken cheeks,
+something abrupt, and at the same time helpless in the movements,
+elegance without gracefulness... in Italy all this would not have struck
+me as exceptional, but in Moscow, near the Pretchistensky boulevard, it
+simply astonished me! I got up from my seat on her entrance; she flung
+me a swift, uneasy glance, and dropping her black eyelashes, sat down
+near the window 'like Tatiana.' (Pushkin's _Oniegin_ was then fresh
+in every one's mind.) I glanced at Fustov, but my friend was standing
+with his back to me, taking a cup of tea from the plump hands of
+Eleonora Karpovna. I noticed further that the girl as she came in seemed
+to bring with her a breath of slight physical chillness.... 'What a
+statue!' was my thought.
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+'Piotr Gavrilitch,' thundered Mr. Ratsch, turning to me, 'let me
+introduce you to my... to my... my number one, ha, ha, ha! to Susanna
+Ivanovna!'
+
+I bowed in silence, and thought at once: 'Why, the name too is not the
+same sort as the others,' while Susanna rose slightly, without smiling
+or loosening her tightly clasped hands.
+
+'And how about the duet?' Ivan Demianitch pursued: 'Alexander Daviditch?
+eh? benefactor! Your zither was left with us, and I've got the bassoon
+out of its case already. Let us make sweet music for the honourable
+company!' (Mr. Ratsch liked to display his Russian; he was continually
+bursting out with expressions, such as those which are strewn broadcast
+about the ultra-national poems of Prince Viazemsky.) 'What do you say?
+Carried?' cried Ivan Demianitch, seeing Fustov made no objection.
+'Kolka, march into the study, and look sharp with the music-stand! Olga,
+this way with the zither! And oblige us with candles for the stands,
+better-half!' (Mr. Ratsch turned round and round in the room like a
+top.) 'Piotr Gavrilitch, you like music, hey? If you don't care for it,
+you must amuse yourself with conversation, only mind, not above a
+whisper! Ha, ha ha! But what ever's become of that silly chap, Viktor?
+He ought to be here to listen too! You spoil him completely, Eleonora
+Karpovna.'
+
+Eleonora Karpovna fired up angrily.
+
+'Aber was kann ich denn, Ivan Demianitch...'
+
+'All right, all right, don't squabble! Bleibe ruhig, hast verstanden?
+Alexander Daviditch! at your service, sir!'
+
+The children had promptly done as their father had told them. The
+music-stands were set up, the music began. I have already mentioned that
+Fustov played the zither extremely well, but that instrument has always
+produced the most distressing impression upon me. I have always fancied,
+and I fancy still, that there is imprisoned in the zither the soul of a
+decrepit Jew money-lender, and that it emits nasal whines and complaints
+against the merciless musician who forces it to utter sounds. Mr.
+Ratsch's performance, too, was not calculated to give me much pleasure;
+moreover, his face became suddenly purple, and assumed a malignant
+expression, while his whitish eyes rolled viciously, as though he were
+just about to murder some one with his bassoon, and were swearing and
+threatening by way of preliminary, puffing out chokingly husky, coarse
+notes one after another. I placed myself near Susanna, and waiting for a
+momentary pause, I asked her if she were as fond of music as her papa.
+
+She turned away, as though I had given her a shove, and pronounced
+abruptly, 'Who?'
+
+'Your father,' I repeated,'Mr. Ratsch.'
+
+'Mr. Ratsch is not my father.'
+
+'Not your father! I beg your pardon... I must have misunderstood... But
+I remember, Alexander Daviditch...'
+
+Susanna looked at me intently and shyly.
+
+'You misunderstood Mr. Fustov. Mr. Ratsch is my stepfather.'
+
+I was silent for a while.
+
+'And you don't care for music?' I began again.
+
+Susanna glanced at me again. Undoubtedly there was something suggesting
+a wild creature in her eyes. She obviously had not expected nor desired
+the continuation of our conversation.
+
+'I did not say that,' she brought out slowly.
+'Troo-too-too-too-too-oo-oo...' the bassoon growled with startling fury,
+executing the final flourishes. I turned round, caught sight of the red
+neck of Mr. Ratsch, swollen like a boa-constrictor's, beneath his
+projecting ears, and very disgusting I thought him.
+
+'But that... instrument you surely do not care for,' I said in an
+undertone.
+
+'No... I don't care for it,' she responded, as though catching my secret
+hint.
+
+'Oho!' thought I, and felt, as it were, delighted at something.
+
+'Susanna Ivanovna,' Eleonora Karpovna announced suddenly in her German
+Russian, 'music greatly loves, and herself very beautifully plays the
+piano, only she likes not to play the piano when she is greatly pressed
+to play.'
+
+Susanna made Eleonora Karpovna no reply--she did not even look at
+her--only there was a faint movement of her eyes, under their dropped
+lids, in her direction. From this movement alone--this movement of her
+pupils--I could perceive what was the nature of the feeling Susanna
+cherished for the second wife of her stepfather.... And again I was
+delighted at something.
+
+Meanwhile the duet was over. Fustov got up and with hesitating footsteps
+approached the window, near which Susanna and I were sitting, and asked
+her if she had received from Lengold's the music that he had promised to
+order her from Petersburg.
+
+'Selections from _Robert le Diable,_' he added, turning to me,
+'from that new opera that every one's making such a fuss about.'
+
+'No, I haven't got it yet,' answered Susanna, and turning round with her
+face to the window she whispered hurriedly. 'Please, Alexander
+Daviditch, I entreat you, don't make me play to-day. I don't feel in the
+mood a bit.'
+
+'What's that? Robert le Diable of Meyer-beer?' bellowed Ivan Demianitch,
+coming up to us: 'I don't mind betting it's a first-class article! He's
+a Jew, and all Jews, like all Czechs, are born musicians. Especially
+Jews. That's right, isn't it, Susanna Ivanovna? Hey? Ha, ha, ha, ha!'
+
+In Mr. Ratsch's last words, and this time even in his guffaw, there
+could be heard something more than his usual bantering tone--the desire
+to wound was evident. So, at least, I fancied, and so Susanna understood
+him. She started instinctively, flushed red, and bit her lower lip. A
+spot of light, like the gleam of a tear, flashed on her eyelash, and
+rising quickly, she went out of the room.
+
+'Where are you off to, Susanna Ivanovna?' Mr. Ratsch bawled after her.
+
+'Let her be, Ivan Demianitch, 'put in Eleonora Karpovna. 'Wenn sie
+einmal so et was im Kopfe hat...'
+
+'A nervous temperament,'Ratsch pronounced, rotating on his heels, and
+slapping himself on the haunch, 'suffers with the _plexus solaris._
+Oh! you needn't look at me like that, Piotr Gavrilitch! I've had a go
+at anatomy too, ha, ha! I'm even a bit of a doctor! You ask Eleonora
+Karpovna... I cure all her little ailments! Oh, I'm a famous hand at
+that!'
+
+'You must for ever be joking, Ivan Demianitch,' the latter responded
+with displeasure, while Fustov, laughing and gracefully swaying to and
+fro, looked at the husband and wife.
+
+'And why not be joking, mein Muetterchen?' retorted Ivan Demianitch.
+'Life's given us for use, and still more for beauty, as some celebrated
+poet has observed. Kolka, wipe your nose, little savage!'
+
+
+IX
+
+
+'I was put in a very awkward position this evening through your doing,'
+I said the same evening to Fustov, on the way home with him. 'You told
+me that that girl--what's her name?--Susanna, was the daughter of Mr.
+Ratsch, but she's his stepdaughter.'
+
+'Really! Did I tell you she was his daughter? But... isn't it all the
+same?'
+
+'That Ratsch,' I went on.... 'O Alexander, how I detest him! Did you
+notice the peculiar sneer with which he spoke of Jews before her? Is
+she... a Jewess?'
+
+Fustov walked ahead, swinging his arms; it was cold, the snow was crisp,
+like salt, under our feet.
+
+'Yes, I recollect, I did hear something of the sort,' he observed at
+last.... 'Her mother, I fancy, was of Jewish extraction.'
+
+'Then Mr. Ratsch must have married a widow the first time?'
+
+'Probably.'
+
+'H'm!... And that Viktor, who didn't come in this evening, is his
+stepson too?'
+
+'No... he's his real son. But, as you know, I don't enter into other
+people's affairs, and I don't like asking questions. I'm not
+inquisitive.'
+
+I bit my tongue. Fustov still pushed on ahead. As we got near home, I
+overtook him and peeped into his face.
+
+'Oh!' I queried, 'is Susanna really so musical?'
+
+Fustov frowned.
+
+'She plays the piano well, 'he said between his teeth. 'Only she's very
+shy, I warn you!' he added with a slight grimace. He seemed to be
+regretting having made me acquainted with her.
+
+I said nothing and we parted.
+
+
+X
+
+
+Next morning I set off again to Fustov's. To spend my mornings at his
+rooms had become a necessity for me. He received me cordially, as usual,
+but of our visit of the previous evening--not a word! As though he had
+taken water into his mouth, as they say. I began turning over the pages
+of the last number of the _Telescope._
+
+A person, unknown to me, came into the room. It turned out to be Mr.
+Ratsch's son, the Viktor whose absence had been censured by his father
+the evening before.
+
+He was a young man, about eighteen, but already looked dissipated and
+unhealthy, with a mawkishly insolent grin on his unclean face, and an
+expression of fatigue in his swollen eyes. He was like his father, only
+his features were smaller and not without a certain prettiness. But in
+this very prettiness there was something offensive. He was dressed in a
+very slovenly way; there were buttons off his undergraduate's coat, one
+of his boots had a hole in it, and he fairly reeked of tobacco.
+
+'How d'ye do,' he said in a sleepy voice, with those peculiar twitchings
+of the head and shoulders which I have always noticed in spoilt and
+conceited young men. 'I meant to go to the University, but here I am.
+Sort of oppression on my chest. Give us a cigar.' He walked right across
+the room, listlessly dragging his feet, and keeping his hands in his
+trouser-pockets, and sank heavily upon the sofa.
+
+'Have you caught cold?' asked Fustov, and he introduced us to each
+other. We were both students, but were in different faculties.
+
+'No!... Likely! Yesterday, I must own...' (here Ratsch junior smiled,
+again not without a certain prettiness, though he showed a set of bad
+teeth) 'I was drunk, awfully drunk. Yes'--he lighted a cigar and cleared
+his throat--'Obihodov's farewell supper.'
+
+'Where's he going?'
+
+'To the Caucasus, and taking his young lady with him. You know the
+black-eyed girl, with the freckles. Silly fool!'
+
+'Your father was asking after you yesterday,' observed Fustov.
+
+Viktor spat aside. 'Yes, I heard about it. You were at our den
+yesterday. Well, music, eh?'
+
+'As usual.'
+
+'And _she_... with a new visitor' (here he pointed with his head in
+my direction) 'she gave herself airs, I'll be bound. Wouldn't play, eh?'
+
+'Of whom are you speaking?' Fustov asked.
+
+'Why, of the most honoured Susanna Ivanovna, of course!'
+
+Viktor lolled still more comfortably, put his arm up round his head,
+gazed at his own hand, and cleared his throat hoarsely.
+
+I glanced at Fustov. He merely shrugged his shoulders, as though giving
+me to understand that it was no use talking to such a dolt.
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Viktor, staring at the ceiling, fell to talking, deliberately and
+through his nose, of the theatre, of two actors he knew, of a certain
+Serafrina Serafrinovna, who had 'made a fool' of him, of the new
+professor, R., whom he called a brute. 'Because, only fancy, what a
+monstrous notion! Every lecture he begins with calling over the
+students' names, and he's reckoned a liberal too! I'd have all your
+liberals locked up in custody!' and turning at last his full face and
+whole body towards Fustov, he brought out in a half-plaintive,
+half-ironical voice: 'I wanted to ask you something, Alexander
+Daviditch.... Couldn't you talk my governor round somehow?... You play
+duets with him, you know.... Here he gives me five miserable blue notes
+a month.... What's the use of that! Not enough for tobacco. And then he
+goes on about my not making debts! I should like to put him in my place,
+and then we should see! I don't come in for pensions, not like _some
+people_.' (Viktor pronounced these last words with peculiar
+emphasis.) 'But he's got a lot of tin, I know! It's no use his whining
+about hard times, there's no taking me in. No fear! He's made a snug
+little pile!'
+
+Fustov looked dubiously at Victor.
+
+'If you like,' he began, 'I'll speak to your father. Or, if you like...
+meanwhile... a trifling sum....'
+
+'Oh, no! Better get round the governor... Though,' added Viktor,
+scratching his nose with all his fingers at once, 'you might hand over
+five-and-twenty roubles, if it's the same to you.... What's the blessed
+total I owe you?'
+
+'You've borrowed eighty-five roubles of me.'
+
+'Yes.... Well, that's all right, then... make it a hundred and ten. I'll
+pay it all in a lump.'
+
+Fustov went into the next room, brought back a twenty-five-rouble note
+and handed it in silence to Viktor. The latter took it, yawned with his
+mouth wide open, grumbled thanks, and, shrugging and stretching, got up
+from the sofa.
+
+'Foo! though... I'm bored,' he muttered, 'might as well turn in to the
+"Italie."'
+
+He moved towards the door.
+
+Fustov looked after him. He seemed to be struggling with himself.
+
+'What pension were you alluding to just now, Viktor Ivanitch?' he asked
+at last.
+
+Viktor stopped in the doorway and put on his cap.
+
+'Oh, don't you know? Susanna Ivanovna's pension.... She gets one. An
+awfully curious story, I can tell you! I'll tell it you one of these
+days. Quite an affair, 'pon my soul, a queer affair. But, I say, the
+governor, you won't forget about the governor, please! His hide is
+thick, of course--German, and it's had a Russian tanning too, still you
+can get through it. Only, mind my step-mother Elenorka's nowhere about!
+Dad's afraid of her, and she wants to keep everything for her brats! But
+there, you know your way about! Good-bye!'
+
+'Ugh, what a low beast that boy is!' cried Fustov, as soon as the door
+had slammed-to.
+
+His face was burning, as though from the fire, and he turned away from
+me. I did not question him, and soon retired.
+
+
+XII
+
+
+All that day I spent in speculating about Fustov, about Susanna, and
+about her relations. I had a vague feeling of something like a family
+drama. As far as I could judge, my friend was not indifferent to
+Susanna. But she? Did she care for him? Why did she seem so unhappy? And
+altogether, what sort of creature was she? These questions were
+continually recurring to my mind. An obscure but strong conviction told
+me that it would be no use to apply to Fustov for the solution of them.
+It ended in my setting off the next day alone to Mr. Ratsch's house.
+
+I felt all at once very uncomfortable and confused directly I found
+myself in the dark little passage. 'She won't appear even, very likely,'
+flashed into my mind. 'I shall have to stop with the repulsive veteran
+and his cook of a wife.... And indeed, even if she does show herself,
+what of it? She won't even take part in the conversation.... She was
+anything but warm in her manner to me the other day. Why ever did I
+come?' While I was making these reflections, the little page ran to
+announce my presence, and in the adjoining room, after two or three
+wondering 'Who is it? Who, do you say?' I heard the heavy shuffling of
+slippers, the folding-door was slightly opened, and in the crack between
+its two halves was thrust the face of Ivan Demianitch, an unkempt and
+grim-looking face. It stared at me and its expression did not
+immediately change.... Evidently, Mr. Ratsch did not at once recognise
+me; but suddenly his cheeks grew rounder, his eyes narrower, and from
+his opening mouth, there burst, together with a guffaw, the exclamation:
+'Ah! my dear sir! Is it you? Pray walk in!'
+
+I followed him all the more unwillingly, because it seemed to me that
+this affable, good-humoured Mr. Ratsch was inwardly wishing me at the
+devil. There was nothing to be done, however. He led me into the
+drawing-room, and in the drawing-room who should be sitting but Susanna,
+bending over an account-book? She glanced at me with her melancholy
+eyes, and very slightly bit the finger-nails of her left hand.... It was
+a habit of hers, I noticed, a habit peculiar to nervous people. There
+was no one else in the room.
+
+'You see, sir,' began Mr. Ratsch, dealing himself a smack on the haunch,
+'what you've found Susanna Ivanovna and me busy upon: we're at our
+accounts. My spouse has no great head for arithmetic, and I, I must own,
+try to spare my eyes. I can't read without spectacles, what am I to do?
+Let the young people exert themselves, ha-ha! That's the proper thing.
+But there's no need of haste.... More haste, worse speed in catching
+fleas, he-he!'
+
+Susanna closed the book, and was about to leave the room.
+
+'Wait a bit, wait a bit,' began Mr. Ratsch. 'It's no great matter if
+you're not in your best dress....' (Susanna was wearing a very old,
+almost childish, frock with short sleeves.) 'Our dear guest is not a
+stickler for ceremony, and I should like just to clear up last week....
+You don't mind?'--he addressed me. 'We needn't stand on ceremony with
+you, eh?'
+
+'Please don't put yourself out on my account!' I cried.
+
+'To be sure, my good friend. As you're aware, the late Tsar Alexey
+Nikolavitch Romanoff used to say, "Time is for business, but a minute
+for recreation!" We'll devote one minute only to that same business...
+ha-ha! What about that thirteen roubles and thirty kopecks?' he added in
+a low voice, turning his back on me.
+
+'Viktor took it from Eleonora Karpovna; he said that it was with your
+leave,' Susanna replied, also in a low voice.
+
+'He said... he said... my leave...' growled Ivan Demianitch. 'I'm on the
+spot myself, I fancy. Might be asked. And who's had that seventeen
+roubles?'
+
+'The upholsterer.'
+
+'Oh... the upholsterer. What's that for?' 'His bill.'
+
+'His bill. Show me!' He pulled the book away from Susanna, and planting
+a pair of round spectacles with silver rims on his nose, he began
+passing his finger along the lines. 'The upholsterer,.. the
+upholsterer... You'd chuck all the money out of doors! Nothing pleases
+you better!... Wie die Croaten! A bill indeed! But, after all,' he added
+aloud, and he turned round facing me again, and pulled the spectacles
+off his nose, 'why do this now? I can go into these wretched details
+later. Susanna Ivanovna, be so good as to put away that account-book,
+and come back to us and enchant our kind guest's ears with your musical
+accomplishments, to wit, playing on the pianoforte... Eh?'
+
+Susanna turned away her head.
+
+'I should be very happy,' I hastily observed; 'it would be a great
+pleasure for me to hear Susanna Ivanovna play. But I would not for
+anything in the world be a trouble...'
+
+'Trouble, indeed, what nonsense! Now then, Susanna Ivanovna, eins, zwei,
+drei!'
+
+Susanna made no response, and went out.
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+I had not expected her to come back; but she quickly reappeared. She had
+not even changed her dress, and sitting down in a corner, she looked
+twice intently at me. Whether it was that she was conscious in my manner
+to her of the involuntary respect, inexplicable to myself, which, more
+than curiosity, more even than sympathy, she aroused in me, or whether
+she was in a softened frame of mind that day, any way, she suddenly went
+to the piano, and laying her hand irresolutely on the keys, and turning
+her head a little over her shoulder towards me, she asked what I would
+like her to play. Before I had time to answer she had seated herself,
+taken up some music, hurriedly opened it, and begun to play. I loved
+music from childhood, but at that time I had but little comprehension of
+it, and very slight knowledge of the works of the great masters, and if
+Mr. Ratsch had not grumbled with some dissatisfaction, 'Aha! wieder
+dieser Beethoven!' I should not have guessed what Susanna had chosen. It
+was, as I found out afterwards, the celebrated sonata in F minor, opus
+57. Susanna's playing impressed me more than I can say; I had not
+expected such force, such fire, such bold execution. At the very first
+bars of the intensely passionate allegro, the beginning of the sonata, I
+felt that numbness, that chill and sweet terror of ecstasy, which
+instantaneously enwrap the soul when beauty bursts with sudden flight
+upon it. I did not stir a limb till the very end. I kept, wanting--and
+not daring--to sigh. I was sitting behind Susanna; I could not see her
+face; I saw only from time to time her long dark hair tossed up and down
+on her shoulders, her figure swaying impulsively, and her delicate arms
+and bare elbows swiftly, and rather angularly, moving. The last notes
+died away. I sighed at last. Susanna still sat before the piano.
+
+'Ja, ja,' observed Mr. Ratsch, who had also, however, listened with
+attention; 'romantische Musik! That's all the fashion nowadays. Only,
+why not play correctly? Eh? Put your finger on two notes at once--what's
+that for? Eh? To be sure, all we care for is to go quickly, quickly!
+Turns it out hotter, eh? Hot pancakes!' he bawled like a street seller.
+
+Susanna turned slightly towards Mr. Ratsch. I caught sight of her face
+in profile. The delicate eyebrow rose high above the downcast eyelid, an
+unsteady flush overspread the cheek, the little ear was red under the
+lock pushed behind it.
+
+'I have heard all the best performers with my own ears,' pursued Mr.
+Ratsch, suddenly frowning, 'and compared with the late Field they were
+all--tfoo! nil! zero!! Das war ein Kerl! Und ein so reines Spiel! And
+his own compositions the finest things! But all those now
+"tloo-too-too," and "tra-ta-ta," are written, I suppose, more for
+beginners. Da braucht man keine Delicatesse! Bang the keys anyhow... no
+matter! It'll turn out some how! Janitscharen Musik! Pugh!' (Ivan
+Demianitch wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.) 'But I don't say
+that for you, Susanna Ivanovna; you played well, and oughtn't to be hurt
+by my remarks.'
+
+'Every one has his own taste,' Susanna said in a low voice, and her lips
+were trembling; 'but your remarks, Ivan Demianitch, you know, cannot
+hurt me.'
+
+'Oh! of course not! Only don't you imagine'--Mr. Ratsch turned to
+me--'don't you imagine, my young friend, that that comes from our
+excessive good-nature and meekness of spirit; it's simply that we fancy
+ourselves so highly exalted that--oo-oo!--we can't keep our cap on our
+head, as the Russian proverb says, and, of course, no criticism can
+touch us. The conceit, my dear sir, the conceit!'
+
+I listened in surprise to Mr. Ratsch. Spite, the bitterest spite, seemed
+as it were boiling over in every word he uttered.... And long it must
+have been rankling! It choked him. He tried to conclude his tirade with
+his usual laugh, and fell into a husky, broken cough instead. Susanna
+did not let drop a syllable in reply to him, only she shook her head,
+raised her face, and clasping her elbows with her hands, stared straight
+at him. In the depths of her fixed, wide-open eyes the hatred of long
+years lay smouldering with dim, unquenchable fire. I felt ill at ease.
+
+'You belong to two different musical generations,' I began, with an
+effort at lightness, wishing by this lightness to suggest that I noticed
+nothing, 'and so it is not surprising that you do not agree in your
+opinions.... But, Ivan Demianitch, you must allow me to take rather...
+the side of the younger generation. I'm an outsider, of course; but I
+must confess nothing in music has ever made such an impression on me as
+the... as what Susanna Ivanovna has just played us.'
+
+Ratsch pounced at once upon me.
+
+'And what makes you suppose,' he roared, still purple from the fit of
+coughing, 'that we want to enlist you on our side? We don't want that at
+all! Freedom for the free, salvation for the saved! But as to the two
+generations, that's right enough; we old folks find it hard to get on
+with you young people, very hard! Our ideas don't agree in anything:
+neither in art, nor in life, nor even in morals; do they, Susanna
+Ivanovna?'
+
+Susanna smiled a contemptuous smile.
+
+'Especially in regard to morals, as you say, our ideas do not agree, and
+cannot agree,' she responded, and something menacing seemed to flit over
+her brows, while her lips were faintly trembling as before.
+
+'Of course! of course!' Ratsch broke in, 'I'm not a philosopher! I'm not
+capable of... rising so superior! I'm a plain man, swayed by
+prejudices--oh yes!'
+
+Susanna smiled again.
+
+'I think, Ivan Demianitch, you too have sometimes been able to place
+yourself above what are called prejudices.'
+
+'Wie so? How so, I mean? I don't know what you mean.'
+
+'You don't know what I mean? Your memory's so bad!'
+
+Mr. Ratsch seemed utterly taken aback.
+
+'I... I...' he repeated, 'I...'
+
+'Yes, you, Mr. Ratsch.'
+
+There followed a brief silence.
+
+'Really, upon my word...' Mr. Ratsch was beginning; 'how dare you...
+such insolence...'
+
+Susanna all at once drew herself up to her full height, and still
+holding her elbows, squeezing them tight, drumming on them with her
+fingers, she stood still facing Ratsch. She seemed to challenge him to
+conflict, to stand up to meet him. Her face was changed; it became
+suddenly, in one instant, extraordinarily beautiful, and terrible too; a
+sort of bright, cold brilliance--the brilliance of steel--gleamed in her
+lustreless eyes; the lips that had been quivering were compressed in one
+straight, mercilessly stern line. Susanna challenged Ratsch, but he
+gazed blankly, and suddenly subsiding into silence, all of a heap, so to
+say, drew his head in, even stepped back a pace. The veteran of the year
+twelve was afraid; there could be no mistake about that.
+
+Susanna slowly turned her eyes from him to me, as though calling upon me
+to witness her victory, and the humiliation of her foe, and, smiling
+once more, she walked out of the room.
+
+The veteran remained a little while motionless in his arm-chair; at
+last, as though recollecting a forgotten part, he roused himself, got
+up, and, slapping me on the shoulder, laughed his noisy guffaw.
+
+'There, 'pon my soul! fancy now, it's over ten years I've been living
+with that young lady, and yet she never can see when I'm joking, and
+when I'm in earnest! And you too, my young friend, are a little puzzled,
+I do believe.... Ha-ha-ha! That's because you don't know old Ratsch!'
+
+'No.... I do know you now,' I thought, not without a feeling of some
+alarm and disgust.
+
+'You don't know the old fellow, you don't know him,' he repeated,
+stroking himself on the stomach, as he accompanied me into the passage.
+'I may be a tiresome person, knocked about by life, ha-ha! But I'm a
+good-hearted fellow, 'pon my soul, I am!'
+
+I rushed headlong from the stairs into the street. I longed with all
+speed to get away from that good-hearted fellow.
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+'They hate one another, that's clear,' I thought, as I returned
+homewards; 'there's no doubt either that he's a wretch of a man, and
+she's a good girl. But what has there been between them? What is the
+reason of this continual exasperation? What was the meaning of those
+hints? And how suddenly it broke out! On such a trivial pretext!'
+
+Next day Fustov and I had arranged to go to the theatre, to see
+Shtchepkin in 'Woe from Wit.' Griboyedov's comedy had only just been
+licensed for performance after being first disfigured by the censors'
+mutilations. We warmly applauded Famusov and Skalozub. I don't remember
+what actor took the part of Tchatsky, but I well remember that he was
+indescribably bad. He made his first appearance in a Hungarian jacket,
+and boots with tassels, and came on later in a frockcoat of the colour
+'flamme du punch,' then in fashion, and the frockcoat looked about as
+suitable as it would have done on our old butler. I recollect too that
+we were all in ecstasies over the ball in the third act. Though,
+probably, no one ever executed such steps in reality, it was accepted as
+correct and I believe it is acted in just the same way to-day. One of
+the guests hopped excessively high, while his wig flew from side to
+side, and the public roared with laughter. As we were coming out of the
+theatre, we jostled against Viktor in a corridor.
+
+'You were in the theatre!' he cried, flinging his arms about. 'How was
+it I didn't see you? I'm awfully glad I met you. You must come and have
+supper with me. Come on; I'll stand the supper!'
+
+Young Ratsch seemed in an excited, almost ecstatic, frame of mind. His
+little eyes darted to and fro; he was grinning, and there were spots of
+red on his face.
+
+'Why this gleefulness?' asked Fustov.
+
+'Why? Wouldn't you like to know, eh?' Viktor drew us a little aside, and
+pulling out of his trouser-pocket a whole bundle of the red and blue
+notes then in use waved them in the air.
+
+Fustov was surprised.
+
+'Has your governor been so liberal?'
+
+Viktor chuckled.
+
+'He liberal! You just try it on!... This morning, relying on your
+intercession, I asked him for cash. What do you suppose the old
+skinflint answered? "I'll pay your debts," says he, "if you like. Up to
+twenty-five roubles inclusive!" Do you hear, inclusive! No, sir, this
+was a gift from God in my destitution. A lucky chance.'
+
+'Been robbing someone?' Fustov hazarded carelessly.
+
+Viktor frowned.
+
+'Robbing, no indeed! I won it, won it from an officer, a guardsman. He
+only arrived from Petersburg yesterday. Such a chain of circumstances!
+It's worth telling... only this isn't the place. Come along to Yar's;
+not a couple of steps. I'll stand the show, as I said!'
+
+We ought, perhaps, to have refused; but we followed without making any
+objection.
+
+
+XV
+
+
+At Yar's we were shown into a private room; supper was served, champagne
+was brought. Viktor related to us, omitting no detail, how he had in a
+certain 'gay' house met this officer of the guards, a very nice chap and
+of good family, only without a hap'orth of brains; how they had made
+friends, how he, the officer that is, had suggested as a joke a game of
+'fools' with Viktor with some old cards, for next to nothing, and with
+the condition that the officer's winnings should go to the benefit of
+Wilhelmina, but Viktor's to his own benefit; how afterwards they had got
+on to betting on the games.
+
+'And I, and I,' cried Viktor, and he jumped up and clapped his hands, 'I
+hadn't more than six roubles in my pocket all the while. Fancy! And at
+first I was completely cleaned out.... A nice position! Only then--in
+answer to whose prayers I can't say--fortune smiled. The other fellow
+began to get hot and kept showing all his cards.... In no time he'd lost
+seven hundred and fifty roubles! He began begging me to go on playing,
+but I'm not quite a fool, I fancy; no, one mustn't abuse such luck; I
+popped on my hat and cut away. So now I've no need to eat humble pie
+with the governor, and can treat my friends.... Hi waiter! Another
+bottle! Gentlemen, let's clink glasses!'
+
+We did clink glasses with Viktor, and continued drinking and laughing
+with him, though his story was by no means to our liking, nor was his
+society a source of any great satisfaction to us either. He began being
+very affable, playing the buffoon, unbending, in fact, and was more
+loathsome than ever. Viktor noticed at last the impression he was making
+on us, and began to get sulky; his remarks became more disconnected and
+his looks gloomier. He began yawning, announced that he was sleepy, and
+after swearing with his characteristic coarseness at the waiter for a
+badly cleaned pipe, he suddenly accosted Fustov, with a challenging
+expression on his distorted face.
+
+'I say, Alexander Daviditch,' said he, 'you tell me, if you please, what
+do you look down on me for?'
+
+'How so?' My friend was momentarily at a loss for a reply.
+
+'I'll tell you how.... I'm very well aware that you look down on me, and
+that person does too' (he pointed at me with his finger), 'so there! As
+though you were yourself remarkable for such high and exalted
+principles, and weren't just as much a sinner as the rest of us. Worse
+even. Still waters... you know the proverb?'
+
+Fustov turned rather red.
+
+'What do you mean by that?' he asked.
+
+'Why, I mean that I'm not blind yet, and I see very clearly everything
+that's going on under my nose.... And I have nothing against it: first
+it's not my principle to interfere, and secondly, my sister Susanna
+Ivanovna hasn't always been so exemplary herself.... Only, why look down
+on me?'
+
+'You don't understand what you're babbling there yourself! You're
+drunk,' said Fustov, taking his overcoat from the wall. 'He's swindled
+some fool of his money, and now he's telling all sorts of lies!'
+
+Viktor continued reclining on the sofa, and merely swung his legs, which
+were hanging over its arm.
+
+'Swindled! Why did you drink the wine, then? It was paid for with the
+money I won, you know. As for lies, I've no need for lying. It's not my
+fault that in her past Susanna Ivanovna...'
+
+'Hold your tongue!' Fustov shouted at him, 'hold your tongue... or...'
+
+'Or what?'
+
+'You'll find out what. Come along, Piotr.'
+
+'Aha!' pursued Viktor; 'our noble-hearted knight takes refuge in flight.
+He doesn't care to hear the truth, that's evident! It stings--the truth
+does, it seems!'
+
+'Come along, Piotr,' Fustov repeated, completely losing his habitual
+coolness and self-possession.
+
+'Let's leave this wretch of a boy!'
+
+'The boy's not afraid of you, do you hear,' Viktor shouted after us, 'he
+despises you, the boy does! Do you hear!'
+
+Fustov walked so quickly along the street that I had difficulty in
+keeping up with him. All at once he stopped short and turned sharply
+back.
+
+'Where are you going?' I asked.
+
+'Oh, I must find out what the idiot.... He's drunk, no doubt, God knows
+what.... Only don't you follow me... we shall see each other to-morrow.
+Good-bye!'
+
+And hurriedly pressing my hand, Fustov set off towards Yar's hotel.
+
+Next day I missed seeing Fustov; and on the day after that, on going to
+his rooms, I learned that he had gone into the country to his uncle's,
+near Moscow. I inquired if he had left no note for me, but no note was
+forth-coming. Then I asked the servant whether he knew how long
+Alexander Daviditch would be away in the country. 'A fortnight, or a
+little more, probably,' replied the man. I took at any rate Fustov's
+exact address, and sauntered home, meditating deeply. This unexpected
+absence from Moscow, in the winter, completed my utter perplexity. My
+good aunt observed to me at dinner that I seemed continually expecting
+something, and gazed at the cabbage pie as though I were beholding it
+for the first time in my life. 'Pierre, vous n'etes pas amoureux?' she
+cried at last, having previously got rid of her companions. But I
+reassured her: no, I was not in love.
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Three days passed. I had a secret prompting to go to the Ratschs'. I
+fancied that in their house I should be sure to find a solution of all
+that absorbed my mind, that I could not make out.... But I should have
+had to meet the veteran.... That thought pulled me up. One tempestuous
+evening--the February wind was howling angrily outside, the frozen snow
+tapped at the window from time to time like coarse sand flung by a
+mighty hand--I was sitting in my room, trying to read. My servant came,
+and, with a mysterious air, announced that a lady wished to see me. I
+was surprised... ladies did not visit me, especially at such a late
+hour; however, I told him to show her in. The door opened and with swift
+step there walked in a woman, muffled up in a light summer cloak and a
+yellow shawl. Abruptly she cast off the cloak and the shawl, which were
+covered with snow, and I saw standing before me Susanna. I was so
+astonished that I did not utter a word, while she went up to the window,
+and leaning her shoulder against the wall, remained motionless; only her
+bosom heaved convulsively and her eyes moved restlessly, and the breath
+came with a faint moan from her white lips. I realised that it was no
+slight trouble that had brought her to me; I realised, for all my youth
+and shallowness, that at that instant before my eyes the fate of a whole
+life was being decided--a bitter and terrible fate.
+
+'Susanna Ivanovna,' I began, 'how...'
+
+She suddenly clutched my hand in her icy fingers, but her voice failed
+her. She gave a broken sigh and looked down. Her heavy coils of black
+hair fell about her face.... The snow had not melted from off it.
+
+'Please, calm yourself, sit down,' I began again, 'see here, on the
+sofa. What has happened? Sit down, I entreat you.'
+
+'No,' she articulated, scarcely audibly, and she sank on to the
+window-seat. 'I am all right here.... Let me be.... You could not
+expect... but if you knew... if I could... if...'
+
+She tried to control herself, but the tears flowed from her eyes with a
+violence that shook her, and sobs, hurried, devouring sobs, filled the
+room. I felt a tightness at my heart.... I was utterly stupefied. I had
+seen Susanna only twice; I had conjectured that she had a hard life, but
+I had regarded her as a proud girl, of strong character, and all at once
+these violent, despairing tears.... Mercy! Why, one only weeps like that
+in the presence of death!
+
+I stood like one condemned to death myself.
+
+'Excuse me,' she said at last, several times, almost angrily, wiping
+first one eye, then the other. 'It'll soon be over. I've come to
+you....' She was still sobbing, but without tears. 'I've come.... You
+know that Alexander Daviditch has gone away?'
+
+In this single question Susanna revealed everything, and she glanced at
+me, as though she would say: 'You understand, of course, you will have
+pity, won't you?' Unhappy girl! There was no other course left her then!
+
+I did not know what answer to make....
+
+'He has gone away, he has gone away... he believed him!' Susanna was
+saying meanwhile. 'He did not care even to question me; he thought I
+should not tell him all the truth, he could think that of me! As though
+I had ever deceived him!'
+
+She bit her lower lip, and bending a little, began to scratch with her
+nail the patterns of ice that covered the window-pane. I went hastily
+into the next room, and sending my servant away, came back at once and
+lighted another candle. I had no clear idea why I was doing all this....
+I was greatly overcome. Susanna was sitting as before on the
+window-seat, and it was at this moment that I noticed how lightly she
+was dressed: a grey gown with white buttons and a broad leather belt,
+that was all. I went up to her, but she did not take any notice of me.
+
+'He believed it,... he believed it,' she whispered, swaying softly from
+side to side. 'He did not hesitate, he dealt me this last... last blow!'
+She turned suddenly to me. 'You know his address?'
+
+'Yes, Susanna Ivanovna.. I learnt it from his servants... at his house.
+He told me nothing of his intention; I had not seen him for two
+days--went to inquire and he had already left Moscow.'
+
+'You know his address?' she repeated. 'Well, write to him then that he
+has killed me. You are a good man, I know. He did not talk to you of me,
+I dare say, but he talked to me about you. Write... ah, write to him to
+come back quickly, if he wants to find me alive!... No! He will not find
+me!...'
+
+Susanna's voice grew quieter at each word, and she was quieter
+altogether. But this calm seemed to me more awful than the previous
+sobs.
+
+'He believed him,...' she said again, and rested her chin on her clasped
+hands.
+
+A sudden squall of wind beat upon the window with a sharp whistle and a
+thud of snow. A cold draught passed over the room.... The candles
+flickered.... Susanna shivered. Again I begged her to sit on the sofa.
+
+'No, no, let me be,' she answered, 'I am all right here. Please.' She
+huddled up to the frozen pane, as though she had found herself a refuge
+in the recesses of the window. 'Please.'
+
+'But you're shivering, you're frozen,' I cried, 'Look, your shoes are
+soaked.'
+
+'Let me be... please...' she whispered,. and closed her eyes.
+
+A panic seized me.
+
+'Susanna Ivanovna!' I almost screamed: 'do rouse yourself, I entreat
+you! What is the matter with you? Why such despair? You will see, every
+thing will be cleared up, some misunderstanding... some unlooked-for
+chance.... You will see, he will soon be back. I will let him know.... I
+will write to him to-day.... But I will not repeat your words.... Is it
+possible!'
+
+'He will not find me,' Susanna murmured, still in the same subdued
+voice. 'Do you suppose I would have come here, to you, to a stranger, if
+I had not known I should not long be living? Ah, all my past has been
+swept away beyond return! You see, I could not bear to die so, in
+solitude, in silence, without saying to some one, "I've lost every
+thing... and I'm dying.... Look!"'
+
+She drew back into her cold little corner.... Never shall I forget that
+head, those fixed eyes with their deep, burnt-out look, those dark,
+disordered tresses against the pale window-pane, even the grey, narrow
+gown, under every fold of which throbbed such young, passionate life!
+
+Unconsciously I flung up my hands.
+
+'You... you die, Susanna Ivanovna! You have only to live.... You must
+live!'
+
+She looked at me.... My words seemed to surprise her.
+
+'Ah, you don't know,' she began, and she softly dropped both her hands.
+'I cannot live, Too much, too much I have had to suffer, too much! I
+lived through it.... I hoped... but now... when even this is
+shattered... when...'
+
+She raised her eyes to the ceiling and seemed to sink into thought. The
+tragic line, which I had once noticed about her lips, came out now still
+more clearly; it seemed to spread across her whole face. It seemed as
+though some relentless hand had drawn it immutably, had set a mark for
+ever on this lost soul.
+
+She was still silent.
+
+'Susanna Ivanovna,' I said, to break that awful silence with anything;
+'he will come back, I assure you!'
+
+Susanna looked at me again.
+
+'What do you say?' she enunciated with visible effort.
+
+'He will come back, Susanna Ivanovna, Alexander will come back!'
+
+'He will come back?' she repeated. 'But even if he did come back, I
+cannot forgive him this humiliation, this lack of faith....'
+
+She clutched at her head.
+
+'My God! my God! what am I saying, and why am I here? What is it all?
+What... what did I come to ask... and whom? Ah, I am going mad!...'
+
+Her eyes came to a rest.
+
+'You wanted to ask me to write to Alexander,' I made haste to remind
+her.
+
+She started.
+
+'Yes, write, write to him... what you like.... And here...' She
+hurriedly fumbled in her pocket and brought out a little manuscript
+book. 'This I was writing for him... before he ran away.... But he
+believed... he believed him!'
+
+I understood that her words referred to Viktor; Susanna would not
+mention him, would not utter his detested name.
+
+'But, Susanna Ivanovna, excuse me,' I began, 'what makes you suppose
+that Alexander Daviditch had any conversation... with that person?'
+
+'What? Why, he himself came to me and told me all about it, and bragged
+of it... and laughed just as his father laughs! Here, here, take it,'
+she went on, thrusting the manuscript into my hand, 'read it, send it to
+him, burn it, throw it away, do what you like, as you please.... But I
+can't die like this with no one knowing.... Now it is time.... I must
+go.'
+
+She got up from the window-seat.... I stopped her.
+
+'Where are you going, Susanna Ivanovna, mercy on us! Listen, what a
+storm is raging! You are so lightly dressed.... And your home is not
+near here. Let me at least go for a carriage, for a sledge....'
+
+'No, no, I want nothing,' she said resolutely, repelling me and taking
+up her cloak and shawl. 'Don't keep me, for God's sake! or... I can't
+answer for anything! I feel an abyss, a dark abyss under my feet....
+Don't come near me, don't touch me!' With feverish haste she put on her
+cloak, arranged her shawl.... 'Good-bye... good-bye.... Oh, my unhappy
+people, for ever strangers, a curse lies upon us! No one has ever cared
+for me, was it likely he...' She suddenly ceased. 'No; one man loved
+me,' she began again, wringing her hands, 'but death is all about me,
+death and no escape! Now it is my turn.... Don't come after me,' she
+cried shrilly. 'Don't come! don't come!'
+
+I was petrified, while she rushed out; and an instant later, I heard the
+slam downstairs of the heavy street door, and the window panes shook
+again under the violent onslaught of the blast.
+
+I could not quickly recover myself. I was only beginning life in those
+days: I had had no experience of passion nor of suffering, and had
+rarely witnessed any manifestation of strong feeling in others.... But
+the sincerity of this suffering, of this passion, impressed me. If it
+had not been for the manuscript in my hands, I might have thought that I
+had dreamed it all--it was all so unlikely, and swooped by like a
+passing storm. I was till midnight reading the manuscript. It consisted
+of several sheets of letter-paper, closely covered with a large,
+irregular writing, almost without an erasure. Not a single line was
+quite straight, and one seemed in every one of them to feel the excited
+trembling of the hand that held the pen. Here follows what was in the
+manuscript. I have kept it to this day.
+
+
+XVII
+
+MY STORY
+
+
+I am this year twenty-eight years old. Here are my earliest
+recollections; I was living in the Tambov province, in the country house
+of a rich landowner, Ivan Matveitch Koltovsky, in a small room on the
+second storey. With me lived my mother, a Jewess, daughter of a dead
+painter, who had come from abroad, a woman always ailing, with an
+extraordinarily beautiful face, pale as wax, and such mournful eyes,
+that sometimes when she gazed long at me, even without looking at her, I
+was aware of her sorrowful, sorrowful eyes, and I would burst into tears
+and rush to embrace her. I had tutors come to me; I had music lessons,
+and was called 'miss.' I dined at the master's table together with my
+mother. Mr. Koltovsky was a tall, handsome old man with a stately
+manner; he always smelt of _ambre_. I stood in mortal terror of him,
+though he called me Suzon and gave me his dry, sinewy hand to kiss under
+its lace-ruffles. With my mother he was elaborately courteous, but he
+talked little even with her. He would say two or three affable words, to
+which she promptly made a hurried answer; and he would be silent and sit
+looking about him with dignity, and slowly picking up a pinch of Spanish
+snuff from his round, golden snuff-box with the arms of the Empress
+Catherine on it.
+
+My ninth year has always remained vivid in my memory.... I learnt then,
+from the maids in the servants' room, that Ivan Matveitch Koltovsky was
+my father, and almost on the same day, my mother, by his command, was
+married to Mr. Ratsch, who was something like a steward to him. I was
+utterly unable to comprehend the possibility of such a thing, I was
+bewildered, I was almost ill, my brain suffered under the strain, my
+mind was overclouded. 'Is it true, is it true, mamma,' I asked her,
+'that scented bogey' (that was my name for Ivan Matveitch) 'is my
+father?' My mother was terribly scared, she shut my mouth.... 'Never
+speak to any one of that, do you hear, Susanna, do you hear, not a
+word!'... she repeated in a shaking voice, pressing my head to her
+bosom.... And I never did speak to any one of it.... That prohibition of
+my mother's I understood.... I understood that I must be silent, that my
+mother begged my forgiveness!
+
+My unhappiness began from that day. Mr. Ratsch did not love my mother,
+and she did not love him. He married her for money, and she was obliged
+to submit. Mr. Koltovsky probably considered that in this way everything
+had been arranged for the best, _la position etait regularisee_. I
+remember the day before the marriage my mother and I--both locked in
+each other's arms--wept almost the whole morning--bitterly,
+bitterly--and silently. It is not strange that she was silent.... What
+could she say to me? But that I did not question her shows that unhappy
+children learn wisdom sooner than happy ones... to their cost.
+
+Mr. Koltovsky continued to interest himself in my education, and even by
+degrees put me on a more intimate footing. He did not talk to me... but
+morning and evening, after flicking the snuff from his jabot with two
+fingers, he would with the same two fingers--always icy cold--pat me on
+the cheek and give me some sort of dark-coloured sweetmeats, also
+smelling of _ambre_, which I never ate. At twelve years old I
+became his reader---_sa petite lectrice_. I read him French books
+of the last century, the memoirs of Saint Simon, of Mably, Renal,
+Helvetius, Voltaire's correspondence, the encyclopedists, of course
+without understanding a word, even when, with a smile and a grimace, he
+ordered me, 'relire ce dernier paragraphe, qui est bien remarquable!'
+Ivan Matveitch was completely a Frenchman. He had lived in Paris till
+the Revolution, remembered Marie Antoinette, and had received an
+invitation to Trianon to see her. He had also seen Mirabeau, who,
+according to his account, wore very large buttons--_exagere en
+tout_, and was altogether a man of _mauvais ton, en depit de sa
+naissance!_ Ivan Matveitch, however, rarely talked of that time; but
+two or three times a year, addressing himself to the crooked old
+emigrant whom he had taken into his house, and called for some unknown
+reason 'M. le Commandeur,' he recited in his deliberate, nasal voice,
+the impromptu he had once delivered at a soiree of the Duchesse de
+Polignac. I remember only the first two lines.... It had reference to a
+comparison between the Russians and the French:
+
+  'L'aigle se plait aux regions austeres
+   Ou le ramier ne saurait habiter...'
+
+
+'Digne de M. de Saint Aulaire!' M. le Commandeur would every time
+exclaim.
+
+Ivan Matveitch looked youngish up to the time of his death: his cheeks
+were rosy, his teeth white, his eyebrows thick and immobile, his eyes
+agreeable and expressive, clear, black eyes, perfect agate. He was not
+at all unreasonable, and was very courteous with every one, even with
+the servants.... But, my God! how wretched I was with him, with what joy
+I always left him, what evil thoughts confounded me in his presence! Ah,
+I was not to blame for them!... I was not to blame for what they had
+made of me....
+
+Mr. Ratsch was, after his marriage, assigned a lodge not far from the
+big house. I lived there with my mother. It was a cheerless life I led
+there. She soon gave birth to a son, Viktor, this same Viktor whom I
+have every right to think and to call my enemy. From the time of his
+birth my mother never regained her health, which had always been weak.
+Mr. Ratsch did not think fit in those days to keep up such a show of
+good spirits as he maintains now: he always wore a morose air and tried
+to pass for a busy, hard-working person. To me he was cruel and rude. I
+felt relief when I retired from Ivan Matveitch's presence; but my own
+home too I was glad to leave.... Unhappy was my youth! For ever tossed
+from one shore to the other, with no desire to anchor at either! I would
+run across the courtyard in winter, through the deep snow, in a thin
+frock--run to the big house to read to Ivan Matveitch, and as it were be
+glad to go.... But when I was there, when I saw those great cheerless
+rooms, the bright-coloured, upholstered furniture, that courteous and
+heartless old man in the open silk wadded jacket, in the white jabot and
+white cravat, with lace ruffles falling over his fingers, with a
+_soupcon_ of powder (so his valet expressed it) on his combed-back
+hair, I felt choked by the stifling scent of _ambre_, and my heart
+sank. Ivan Matveitch usually sat in a large low chair; on the wall
+behind his head hung a picture, representing a young woman, with a
+bright and bold expression of face, dressed in a sumptuous Hebrew
+costume, and simply covered with precious stones, with diamonds.... I
+often stole a glance at this picture, but only later on I learned that
+it was the portrait of my mother, painted by her father at Ivan
+Matveitch's request. She had changed indeed since those days! Well had
+he succeeded in subduing and crushing her! 'And she loved him! Loved
+that old man!' was my thought.... 'How could it be! Love him!' And yet,
+when I recalled some of my mother's glances, some half-uttered phrases
+and unconscious gestures.... 'Yes, yes, she did love him!' I repeated
+with horror. Ah, God, spare others from knowing aught of such feelings!
+
+Every day I read to Ivan Matveitch, sometimes for three or four hours
+together.... So much reading in such a loud voice was harmful to me. Our
+doctor was anxious about my lungs and even once communicated his fears
+to Ivan Matveitch. But the old man only smiled--no; he never smiled, but
+somehow sharpened and moved forward his lips--and told him: 'Vous ne
+savez pas ce qu'il y a de ressources dans cette jeunesse.' 'In former
+years, however, M. le Commandeur,'... the doctor ventured to observe.
+Ivan Matveitch smiled as before. 'Vous revez, mon cher,' he interposed:
+'le commandeur n'a plus de dents, et il crache a chaque mot. J'aime les
+voix jeunes.'
+
+And I still went on reading, though my cough was very troublesome in the
+mornings and at night.... Sometimes Ivan Matveitch made me play the
+piano. But music always had a soporific influence on his nerves. His
+eyes closed at once, his head nodded in time, and only rarely I heard,
+'C'est du Steibelt, n'est-ce pas? Jouez-moi du Steibelt!' Ivan Matveitch
+looked upon Steibelt as a great genius, who had succeeded in overcoming
+in himself 'la grossiere lourdeur des Allemands,' and only found fault
+with him for one thing: 'trop de fougue! trop d'imagination!'... When
+Ivan Matveitch noticed that I was tired from playing he would offer me
+'du cachou de Bologne.' So day after day slipped by....
+
+And then one night--a night never to be forgotten!--a terrible calamity
+fell upon me. My mother died almost suddenly. I was only just fifteen.
+Oh, what a sorrow that was, with what cruel violence it swooped down
+upon me! How terrified I was at that first meeting with death! My poor
+mother! Strange were our relations; we passionately loved each other...
+passionately and hopelessly; we both as it were treasured up and hid
+from each other our common secret, kept obstinately silent about it,
+though we knew all that was passing at the bottom of our hearts! Even of
+the past, of her own early past, my mother never spoke to me, and she
+never complained in words, though her whole being was nothing but one
+dumb complaint. We avoided all conversation of any seriousness. Alas! I
+kept hoping that the hour would come, and she would open her heart at
+last, and I too should speak out, and both of us would be more at
+ease.... But the daily little cares, her irresolute, shrinking temper,
+illnesses, the presence of Mr. Ratsch, and most of all the eternal
+question,--what is the use? and the relentless, unbroken flowing away of
+time, of life.... All was ended as though by a clap of thunder, and the
+words which would have loosed us from the burden of our secret--even the
+last dying words of leave-taking--I was not destined to hear from my
+mother! All that is left in my memory is Mr. Ratsch's calling, 'Susanna
+Ivanovna, go, please, your mother wishes to give you her blessing!' and
+then the pale hand stretched out from the heavy counterpane, the
+agonised breathing, the dying eyes.... Oh, enough! enough!
+
+With what horror, with what indignation and piteous curiosity I looked
+next day, and on the day of the funeral, into the face of my father...
+yes, my father! In my dead mother's writing-case were found his letters.
+I fancied he looked a little pale and drawn... but no! Nothing was
+stirring in that heart of stone. Exactly as before, he summoned me to
+his room, a week later; exactly in the same voice he asked me to read:
+'Si vous le voulez bien, les observations sur l'histoire de France de
+Mably, a la page 74... la ou nous avons ete interrompus.' And he had
+not even had my mother's portrait moved! On dismissing me, he did indeed
+call me to him, and giving me his hand to kiss a second time, he
+observed: 'Suzanne, la mort de votre mere vous a privee de votre appui
+naturel; mais vous pourrez toujours compter sur ma protection,' but with
+the other hand he gave me at once a slight push on the shoulder, and,
+with the sharpening of the corners of the mouth habitual with him, he
+added, 'Allez, mon enfant.' I longed to shriek at him: 'Why, but you
+know you're my father!' but I said nothing and left the room.
+
+Next morning, early, I went to the graveyard. May had come in all its
+glory of flowers and leaves, and a long while I sat on the new grave. I
+did not weep, nor grieve; one thought was filling my brain: 'Do you
+hear, mother? He means to extend his protection to me, too!' And it
+seemed to me that my mother ought not to be wounded by the smile which
+it instinctively called up on my lips.
+
+At times I wonder what made me so persistently desire to wring--not a
+confession... no, indeed! but, at least, one warm word of kinship from
+Ivan Matveitch? Didn't I know what he was, and how little he was like
+all that I pictured in my dreams as a _father_!... But I was so
+lonely, so alone on earth! And then, that thought, ever recurring, gave
+me no rest: 'Did not she love him? She must have loved him for
+something?'
+
+Three years more slipped by. Nothing changed in the monotonous round of
+life, marked out and arranged for us. Viktor was growing into a boy. I
+was eight years older and would gladly have looked after him, but Mr.
+Ratsch opposed my doing so. He gave him a nurse, who had orders to keep
+strict watch that the child was not 'spoilt,' that is, not to allow me
+to go near him. And Viktor himself fought shy of me. One day Mr. Ratsch
+came into my room, perturbed, excited, and angry. On the previous
+evening unpleasant rumours had reached me about my stepfather; the
+servants were talking of his having been caught embezzling a
+considerable sum of money, and taking bribes from a merchant.
+
+'You can assist me,' he began, tapping impatiently on the table with his
+fingers. 'Go and speak for me to Ivan Matveitch.'
+
+'Speak for you? On what ground? What about?'
+
+'Intercede for me.... I'm not like a stranger any way... I'm accused...
+well, the fact is, I may be left without bread to eat, and you, too.'
+
+'But how can I go to him? How can I disturb him?'
+
+'What next! You have a right to disturb him!'
+
+'What right, Ivan Demianitch?'
+
+'Come, no humbug.... He cannot refuse you, for many reasons. Do you mean
+to tell me you don't understand that?'
+
+He looked insolently into my eyes, and I felt my cheeks simply burning.
+Hatred, contempt, rose up within me, surged in a rush upon me, drowning
+me.
+
+'Yes, I understand you, Ivan Demianitch,' I answered at last--my own
+voice seemed strange to me--'and I am not going to Ivan Matveitch, and I
+will not ask him for anything. Bread, or no bread!'
+
+Mr. Ratsch shivered, ground his teeth, and clenched his fists.
+
+'All right, wait a bit, your highness!' he muttered huskily. 'I won't
+forget it!' That same day, Ivan Matveitch sent for him, and, I was told,
+shook his cane at him, the very cane which he had once exchanged with
+the Due de la Rochefoucauld, and cried, 'You be a scoundrel and
+extortioner! I put you outside!' Ivan Matveitch could hardly speak
+Russian at all, and despised our 'coarse jargon,' _ce jargon vulgaire
+et rude_. Some one once said before him, 'That same's self-understood.'
+Ivan Matveitch was quite indignant, and often afterwards quoted the phrase
+as an example of the senselessness and absurdity of the Russian tongue.
+'What does it mean, that same's self-understood?' he would ask in Russian,
+with emphasis on each syllable. 'Why not simply that's understood, and why
+same and self?'
+
+Ivan Matveitch did not, however, dismiss Mr. Ratsch, he did not even
+deprive him of his position. But my stepfather kept his word: he never
+forgot it.
+
+I began to notice a change in Ivan Matveitch. He was low-spirited,
+depressed, his health broke down a little. His fresh, rosy face grew
+yellow and wrinkled; he lost a front tooth. He quite ceased going out,
+and gave up the reception-days he had established for the peasants,
+without the assistance of the priest, _sans le concours du clerge_.
+On such days Ivan Matveitch had been in the habit of going in to the
+peasants in the hall or on the balcony, with a rose in his buttonhole,
+and putting his lips to a silver goblet of vodka, he would make them a
+speech something like this: 'You are content with my actions, even as I
+am content with your zeal, whereat I rejoice truly. We are all _brothers_;
+at our birth we are equal; I drink your health!' He bowed to them, and
+the peasants bowed to him, but only from the waist, no prostrating
+themselves to the ground, that was strictly forbidden. The peasants were
+entertained with good cheer as before, but Ivan Matveitch no longer
+showed himself to his subjects. Sometimes he interrupted my reading with
+exclamations: 'La machine se detraque! Cela se gate!' Even his
+eyes--those bright, stony eyes--began to grow dim and, as it were,
+smaller; he dozed oftener than ever and breathed hard in his sleep. His
+manner with me was unchanged; only a shade of chivalrous deference began
+to be perceptible in it. He never failed to get up--though with
+difficulty--from his chair when I came in, conducted me to the door,
+supporting me with his hand under my elbow, and instead of Suzon began
+to call me sometimes, 'ma chere demoiselle,' sometimes, 'mon Antigone.'
+M. le Commandeur died two years after my mother's death; his death
+seemed to affect Ivan Matveitch far more deeply. A contemporary had
+disappeared: that was what distressed him. And yet in later years M. le
+Commandeur's sole service had consisted in crying, 'Bien joue, mal
+reussi!' every time Ivan Matveitch missed a stroke, playing billiards
+with Mr. Ratsch; though, indeed, too, when Ivan Matveitch addressed him
+at table with some such question as: 'N'est-ce pas, M. le Commandeur,
+c'est Montesquieu qui a dit cela dans ses _Lettres Persanes_?' he had
+still, sometimes dropping a spoonful of soup on his ruffle, responded
+profoundly: 'Ah, Monsieur de Montesquieu? Un grand ecrivain, monsieur,
+un grand ecrivain!' Only once, when Ivan Matveitch told him that 'les
+theophilanthropes ont eu pourtant du bon!' the old man cried in an
+excited voice, 'Monsieur de Kolontouskoi' (he hadn't succeeded in the
+course of twenty years in learning to pronounce his patron's name
+correctly), 'Monsieur de Kolontouskoi! Leur fondateur, l'instigateur de
+cette secte, ce La Reveillere Lepeaux etait un bonnet rouge!' 'Non,
+non,' said Ivan Matveitch, smiling and rolling together a pinch of
+snuff: 'des fleurs, des jeunes vierges, le culte de la Nature... ils out
+eu du bon, ils out eu du bon!'...I was always surprised at the extent of
+Ivan Matveitch's knowledge, and at the uselessness of his knowledge to
+himself.
+
+Ivan Matveitch was perceptibly failing, but he still put a good face on
+it. One day, three weeks before his death, he had a violent attack of
+giddiness just after dinner. He sank into thought, said, 'C'est la fin,'
+and pulling himself together with a sigh, he wrote a letter to
+Petersburg to his sole heir, a brother with whom he had had no
+intercourse for twenty years. Hearing that Ivan Matveitch was unwell, a
+neighbour paid him a visit--a German, a Catholic--once a distinguished
+physician, who was living in retirement in his little place in the
+country. He was very rarely at Ivan Matveitch's, but the latter always
+received him with special deference, and in fact had a great respect for
+him. He was almost the only person in the world he did respect. The old
+man advised Ivan Matveitch to send for a priest, but Ivan Matveitch
+responded that 'ces messieurs et moi, nous n'avons rien a nous dire,'
+and begged him to change the subject. On the neighbour's departure, he
+gave his valet orders to admit no one in future.
+
+Then he sent for me. I was frightened when I saw him; there were blue
+patches under his eyes, his face looked drawn and stiff, his jaw hung
+down. 'Vous voila grande, Suzon,' he said, with difficulty articulating
+the consonants, but still trying to smile (I was then nineteen), 'vous
+allez peut-etre bientot rester seule. Soyez toujours sage et vertueuse.
+C'est la derniere recommandation d'un'--he coughed--'d'un vieillard qui
+vous veut du bien. Je vous ai recommande a mon frere et je ne doute pas
+qu'il ne respecte mes volontes....' He coughed again, and anxiously felt
+his chest. 'Du reste, j'esepre encore pouvoir faire quelque chose pour
+vous... dans mon testament.' This last phrase cut me to the heart, like
+a knife. Ah, it was really too... too contemptuous and insulting! Ivan
+Matveitch probably ascribed to some other feeling--to a feeling of grief
+or gratitude--what was expressed in my face, and as though wishing to
+comfort me, he patted me on the shoulder, at the same time, as usual,
+gently repelling me, and observed: 'Voyons, mon enfant, du courage! Nous
+sommes tous mortels! Et puis il n'y a pas encore de danger. Ce n'est
+qu'une precaution que j'ai cru devoir prendre.... Allez!'
+
+Again, just as when he had summoned me after my mother's death, I longed
+to shriek at him, 'But I'm your daughter! your daughter!' But I thought
+in those words, in that cry of the heart, he would doubtless hear
+nothing but a desire to assert my rights, my claims on his property, on
+his money.... Oh, no, for nothing in the world would I say a word to
+this man, who had not once mentioned my mother's name to me, in whose
+eyes I was of so little account that he did not even trouble himself to
+ascertain whether I was aware of my parentage! Or, perhaps, he
+suspected, even knew it, and did not wish 'to raise a dust' (a favourite
+saying of his, almost the only Russian expression he ever used), did not
+care to deprive himself of a good reader with a young voice! No! no! Let
+him go on wronging his daughter, as he had wronged her mother! Let him
+carry both sins to the grave! I swore it, I swore he should not hear
+from my lips the word which must have something of a sweet and holy
+sound in every ear! I would not say to him father! I would not forgive
+him for my mother and myself! He felt no need of that forgiveness, of
+that name.... It could not be, it could not be that he felt no need of
+it! But he should not have forgiveness, he should not, he should not!
+
+God knows whether I should have kept my vow, and whether my heart would
+not have softened, whether I should not have overcome my shyness, my
+shame, and my pride... but it happened with Ivan Matveitch just as with
+my mother. Death carried him off suddenly, and also in the night. It was
+again Mr. Ratsch who waked me, and ran with me to the big house, to Ivan
+Matveitch's bedroom.... But I found not even the last dying gestures,
+which had left such a vivid impression on my memory at my mother's
+bedside. On the embroidered, lace-edged pillows lay a sort of withered,
+dark-coloured doll, with sharp nose and ruffled grey eyebrows.... I
+shrieked with horror, with loathing, rushed away, stumbled in doorways
+against bearded peasants in smocks with holiday red sashes, and found
+myself, I don't remember how, in the fresh air....
+
+I was told afterwards that when the valet ran into the bedroom, at a
+violent ring of the bell, he found Ivan Matveitch not in the bed, but a
+few feet from it. And that he was sitting huddled up on the floor, and
+that twice over he repeated, 'Well, granny, here's a pretty holiday for
+you!' And that these were his last words. But I cannot believe that. Was
+it likely he would speak Russian at such a moment, and such a homely old
+Russian saying too!
+
+For a whole fortnight afterwards we were awaiting the arrival of the new
+master, Semyon Matveitch Koltovsky. He sent orders that nothing was to
+be touched, no one was to be discharged, till he had looked into
+everything in person. All the doors, all the furniture, drawers,
+tables--all were locked and sealed up. All the servants were downcast
+and apprehensive. I became suddenly one of the most important persons in
+the house, perhaps the most important. I had been spoken of as 'the
+young lady' before; but now this expression seemed to take a new
+significance, and was pronounced with a peculiar emphasis. It began to
+be whispered that 'the old master had died suddenly, and hadn't time to
+send for a priest, indeed and he hadn't been at confession for many a
+long day; but still, a will doesn't take long to make.'
+
+Mr. Ratsch, too, thought well to change his mode of action. He did not
+affect good-nature and friendliness; he knew he would not impose upon
+me, but his face wore an expression of sulky resignation. 'You see, I
+give in,' he seemed to say. Every one showed me deference, and tried to
+please me... while I did not know what to do or how to behave, and could
+only marvel that people failed to perceive how they were hurting me. At
+last Semyon Matveitch arrived.
+
+Semyon Matveitch was ten years younger than Ivan Matveitch, and his
+whole life had taken a completely different turn. He was a government
+official in Petersburg, filling an important position.... He had married
+and been left early a widower; he had one son. In face Semyon Matveitch
+was like his brother, only he was shorter and stouter, and had a round
+bald head, bright black eyes, like Ivan Matveitch's, only more
+prominent, and full red lips. Unlike his brother, whom he spoke of even
+after his death as a French philosopher, and sometimes bluntly as a
+queer fish, Semyon Matveitch almost invariably talked Russian, loudly
+and fluently, and he was constantly laughing, completely closing his
+eyes as he did so and shaking all over in an unpleasant way, as though
+he were shaking with rage. He looked after things very sharply, went
+into everything himself, exacted the strictest account from every one.
+The very first day of his arrival he ordered a service with holy water,
+and sprinkled everything with water, all the rooms in the house, even
+the lofts and the cellars, in order, as he put it, 'radically to expel
+the Voltairean and Jacobin spirit.' In the first week several of Ivan
+Matveitch's favourites were sent to the right-about, one was even
+banished to a settlement, corporal punishment was inflicted on others;
+the old valet--he was a Turk, knew French, and had been given to Ivan
+Matveitch by the late field-marshal Kamensky--received his freedom,
+indeed, but with it a command to be gone within twenty-four hours, 'as
+an example to others.' Semyon Matveitch turned out to be a harsh master;
+many probably regretted the late owner.
+
+'With the old master, Ivan Matveitch,' a butler, decrepit with age,
+wailed in my presence, 'our only trouble was to see that the linen put
+out was clean, and that the rooms smelt sweet, and that the servants'
+voices weren't heard in the passages--God forbid! For the rest, you
+might do as you pleased. The old master never hurt a fly in his life!
+Ah, it's hard times now! It's time to die!'
+
+Rapid, too, was the change in my position, that is to say in the
+position in which I had been placed for a few days against my own
+will.... No sort of will was found among Ivan Matveitch's papers, not a
+line written for my benefit. At once every one seemed in haste to avoid
+me.... I am not speaking of Mr. Ratsch... every one else, too, was angry
+with me, and tried to show their anger, as though I had deceived them.
+
+One Sunday after matins, in which he invariably officiated at the altar,
+Semyon Matveitch sent for me. Till that day I had seen him by glimpses,
+and he seemed not to have noticed me. He received me in his study,
+standing at the window. He was wearing an official uniform with two
+stars. I stood still, near the door; my heart was beating violently from
+fear and from another feeling, vague as yet, but still oppressive. 'I
+wish to see you, young lady,' began Semyon Matveitch, glancing first at
+my feet, and then suddenly into my eyes. The look was like a slap in the
+face. 'I wished to see you to inform you of my decision, and to assure
+you of my unhesitating inclination to be of service to you.' He raised
+his voice. 'Claims, of course, you have none, but as... my brother's
+reader you may always reckon on my... my consideration. I am... of
+course convinced of your good sense and of your principles. Mr. Ratsch,
+your stepfather, has already received from me the necessary
+instructions. To which I must add that your attractive exterior seems to
+me a pledge of the excellence of your sentiments.' Semyon Matveitch went
+off into a thin chuckle, while I... I was not offended exactly... but I
+suddenly felt very sorry for myself... and at that moment I fully
+realised how utterly forsaken and alone I was. Semyon Matveitch went
+with short, firm steps to the table, took a roll of notes out of the
+drawer, and putting it in my hand, he added: 'Here is a small sum from
+me for pocket-money. I won't forget you in future, my pretty; but
+good-bye for the present, and be a good girl.' I took the roll
+mechanically: I should have taken anything he had offered me, and going
+back to my own room, a long while I wept, sitting on my bed. I did not
+notice that I had dropped the roll of notes on the floor. Mr. Ratsch
+found it and picked it up, and, asking me what I meant to do with it,
+kept it for himself.
+
+An important change had taken place in his fortunes too in those days.
+After a few conversations with Semyon Matveitch, he became a great
+favourite, and soon after received the position of head steward. From
+that time dates his cheerfulness, that eternal laugh of his; at first it
+was an effort to adapt himself to his patron... in the end it became a
+habit. It was then, too, that he became a Russian patriot. Semyon
+Matveitch was an admirer of everything national, he called himself 'a
+true Russian bear,' and ridiculed the European dress, which he wore
+however. He sent away to a remote village a cook, on whose training Ivan
+Matveitch had spent vast sums: he sent him away because he had not known
+how to prepare pickled giblets.
+
+Semyon Matveitch used to stand at the altar and join in the responses
+with the deacons, and when the serf-girls were brought together to dance
+and sing choruses, he would join in their songs too, and beat time with
+his feet, and pinch their cheeks.... But he soon went back to
+Petersburg, leaving my stepfather practically in complete control of the
+whole property.
+
+Bitter days began for me.... My one consolation was music, and I gave
+myself up to it with my whole soul. Fortunately Mr. Ratsch was very
+fully occupied, but he took every opportunity to make me feel his
+hostility; as he had promised, he 'did not forget' my refusal. He
+ill-treated me, made me copy his long and lying reports to Semyon
+Matveitch, and correct for him the mistakes in spelling. I was forced to
+obey him absolutely, and I did obey him. He announced that he meant to
+tame me, to make me as soft as silk. 'What do you mean by those mutinous
+eyes?' he shouted sometimes at dinner, drinking his beer, and slapping
+the table with his hand. 'You think, maybe, you're as silent as a sheep,
+so you must be all right.... Oh, no! You'll please look at me like a
+sheep too!' My position became a torture, insufferable,... my heart was
+growing bitter. Something dangerous began more and more frequently to
+stir within it. I passed nights without sleep and without a light,
+thinking, thinking incessantly; and in the darkness without and the
+gloom within, a fearful determination began to shape itself. The arrival
+of Semyon Matveitch gave another turn to my thoughts.
+
+No one had expected him. It turned out that he was retiring in
+unpleasant circumstances; he had hoped to receive the Alexander ribbon,
+and they had presented him with a snuff-box. Discontented with the
+government, which had failed to appreciate his talents, and with
+Petersburg society, which had shown him little sympathy, and did not
+share his indignation, he determined to settle in the country, and
+devote himself to the management of his property. He arrived alone. His
+son, Mihail Semyonitch, arrived later, in the holidays for the New Year.
+My stepfather was scarcely ever out of Semyon Matveitch's room; he still
+stood high in his good graces. He left me in peace; he had no time for
+me then... Semyon Matveitch had taken it into his head to start a paper
+factory. Mr. Ratsch had no knowledge whatever of manufacturing work, and
+Semyon Matveitch was aware of the fact; but then my stepfather was an
+active man (the favourite expression just then), an 'Araktcheev!' That
+was just what Semyon Matveitch used to call him--'my Araktcheev!'
+'That's all I want,' Semyon Matveitch maintained; 'if there is zeal, I
+myself will direct it.' In the midst of his numerous occupations--he had
+to superintend the factory, the estate, the foundation of a
+counting-house, the drawing up of counting-house regulations, the
+creation of new offices and duties--Semyon Matveitch still had time to
+attend to me.
+
+I was summoned one evening to the drawing-room, and set to play the
+piano. Semyon Matveitch cared for music even less than his brother; he
+praised and thanked me, however, and next day I was invited to dine at
+the master's table. After dinner Semyon Matveitch had rather a long
+conversation with me, asked me questions, laughed at some of my replies,
+though there was, I remember, nothing amusing in them, and stared at me
+so strangely... I felt uncomfortable. I did not like his eyes, I did not
+like their open expression, their clear glance.... It always seemed to
+me that this very openness concealed something evil, that under that
+clear brilliance it was dark within in his soul. 'You shall not be my
+reader,' Semyon Matveitch announced to me at last, prinking and setting
+himself to rights in a repulsive way. 'I am, thank God, not blind yet,
+and can read myself; but coffee will taste better to me from your little
+hands, and I shall listen to your playing with pleasure.' From that day
+I always went over to the big house to dinner, and sometimes remained in
+the drawing-room till evening. I too, like my stepfather, was in favour:
+it was not a source of joy for me. Semyon Matveitch, I am bound to own,
+showed me a certain respect, but in the man there was, I felt it,
+something that repelled and alarmed me. And that 'something' showed
+itself not in words, but in his eyes, in those wicked eyes, and in his
+laugh. He never spoke to me of my father, of his brother, and it seemed
+to me that he avoided the subject, not because he did not want to excite
+ambitious ideas or pretensions in me, but from another cause, to which I
+could not give a definite shape, but which made me blush and feel
+bewildered.... Towards Christmas came his son, Mihail Semyonitch.
+
+Ah, I feel I cannot go on as I have begun; these memories are too
+painful. Especially now I cannot tell my story calmly.... But what is
+the use of concealment? I loved Michel, and he loved me.
+
+How it came to pass--I am not going to describe that either. From the
+very evening when he came into the drawing-room--I was at the piano,
+playing a sonata of Weber's when he came in--handsome and slender, in a
+velvet coat lined with sheepskin and high gaiters, just as he was,
+straight from the frost outside, and shaking his snow-sprinkled, sable
+cap, before he had greeted his father, glanced swiftly at me, and
+wondered--I knew that from that evening I could never forget him--I
+could never forget that good, young face. He began to speak... and his
+voice went straight to my heart.... A manly and soft voice, and in every
+sound such a true, honest nature!
+
+Semyon Matveitch was delighted at his son's arrival, embraced him, but
+at once asked, 'For a fortnight, eh? On leave, eh?' and sent me away.
+
+I sat a long while at my window, and gazed at the lights flitting to and
+fro in the rooms of the big house. I watched them, I listened to the
+new, unfamiliar voices; I was attracted by the cheerful commotion, and
+something new, unfamiliar, bright, flitted into my soul too.... The next
+day before dinner I had my first conversation with him. He had come
+across to see my stepfather with some message from Semyon Matveitch, and
+he found me in our little sitting-room. I was getting up to go; he
+detained me. He was very lively and unconstrained in all his movements
+and words, but of superciliousness or arrogance, of the tone of
+Petersburg superiority, there was not a trace in him, and nothing of the
+officer, of the guardsman.... On the contrary, in the very freedom of
+his manner there was something appealing, almost shamefaced, as though
+he were begging you to overlook something. Some people's eyes are never
+laughing, even at the moment of laughter; with _him_ it was the
+lips that almost never changed their beautiful line, while his eyes were
+almost always smiling. So we chatted for about an hour... what about I
+don't remember; I remember only that I looked him straight in the face
+all the while, and oh, how delightfully at ease I felt with him!
+
+In the evening I played on the piano. He was very fond of music, and he
+sat down in a low chair, and laying his curly head on his arm, he
+listened intently. He did not once praise me, but I felt that he liked
+my playing, and I played with ardour. Semyon Matveitch, who was sitting
+near his son, looking through some plans, suddenly frowned. 'Come,
+madam,' he said, smoothing himself down and buttoning himself up, as his
+manner was, 'that's enough; why are you trilling away like a canary?
+It's enough to make one's head ache. For us old folks you wouldn't exert
+yourself so, no fear...' he added in an undertone, and again he sent me
+away. Michel followed me to the door with his eyes, and got up from his
+seat. 'Where are you off to? Where are you off to?' cried Semyon
+Matveitch, and he suddenly laughed, and then said something more... I
+could not catch his words; but Mr. Ratsch, who was present, sitting in a
+corner of the drawing-room (he was always 'present,' and that time he
+had brought in the plans), laughed, and his laugh reached my ears....
+The same thing, or almost the same thing, was repeated the following
+evening... Semyon Matveitch grew suddenly cooler to me.
+
+Four days later I met Michel in the corridor that divided the big house
+in two. He took me by the hand, and led me to a room near the
+dining-room, which was called the portrait gallery. I followed him, not
+without emotion, but with perfect confidence. Even then, I believe, I
+would have followed him to the end of the world, though I had as yet no
+suspicion of all that he was to me. Alas, I loved him with all the
+passion, all the despair of a young creature who not only has no one to
+love, but feels herself an uninvited and unnecessary guest among
+strangers, among enemies!... Michel said to me--and it was strange! I
+looked boldly, directly in his face, while he did not look at me, and
+flushed slightly--he said to me that he understood my position, and
+sympathised with me, and begged me to forgive his father.... 'As far as
+I'm concerned,' he added, 'I beseech you always to trust me, and believe
+me, to me you 're a sister--yes, a sister.' Here he pressed my hand
+warmly. I was confused, it was my turn to look down; I had somehow
+expected something else, some other word. I began to thank him. 'No,
+please,'--he cut me short--'don't talk like that.... But remember, it's
+a brother's duty to defend his sister, and if you ever need protection,
+against any one whatever, rely upon me. I have not been here long, but I
+have seen a good deal already... and among other things, I see through
+your stepfather.' He squeezed my hand again, and left me.
+
+I found out later that Michel had felt an aversion for Mr. Ratsch from
+his very first meeting with him. Mr. Ratsch tried to ingratiate himself
+with him too, but becoming convinced of the uselessness of his efforts,
+promptly took up himself an attitude of hostility to him, and not only
+did not disguise it from Semyon Matveitch, but, on the contrary, lost no
+opportunity of showing it, expressing, at the same time, his regret that
+he had been so unlucky as to displease the young heir. Mr. Ratsch had
+carefully studied Semyon Matveitch's character; his calculations did not
+lead him astray. 'This man's devotion to me admits of no doubt, for the
+very reason that after I am gone he will be ruined; my heir cannot
+endure him.'... This idea grew and strengthened in the old man's head.
+They say all persons in power, as they grow old, are readily caught by
+that bait, the bait of exclusive personal devotion....
+
+Semyon Matveitch had good reason to call Mr. Ratsch his Araktcheev....
+He might well have called him another name too. 'You're not one to make
+difficulties,' he used to say to him. He had begun in this
+condescendingly familiar tone with him from the very first, and my
+stepfather would gaze fondly at Semyon Matveitch, let his head droop
+deprecatingly on one side, and laugh with good-humoured simplicity, as
+though to say, 'Here I am, entirely in your hands.'
+
+Ah, I feel my hands shaking, and my heart's thumping against the table
+on which I write at this moment. It's terrible for me to recall those
+days, and my blood boils.... But I will tell everything to the end... to
+the end!
+
+A new element had come into Mr. Ratsch's treatment of me during my brief
+period of favour. He began to be deferential to me, to be respectfully
+familiar with me, as though I had grown sensible, and become more on a
+level with him. 'You've done with your airs and graces,' he said to me
+one day, as we were going back from the big house to the lodge. 'Quite
+right too! All those fine principles and delicate sentiments--moral
+precepts in fact--are not for us, young lady, they're not for poor
+folks.'
+
+When I had fallen out of favour, and Michel did not think it necessary
+to disguise his contempt for Mr. Ratsch and his sympathy with me, the
+latter suddenly redoubled his severity with me; he was continually
+following me about, as though I were capable of any crime, and must be
+sharply looked after. 'You mind what I say,' he shouted, bursting
+without knocking into my room, in muddy boots and with his cap on his
+head; 'I won't put up with such goings on! I won't stand your stuck-up
+airs! You're not going to impose on me. I'll break your proud spirit.'
+
+And accordingly, one morning he informed me that the decree had gone
+forth from Semyon Matveitch that I was not to appear at the dinner-table
+for the future without special invitation.... I don't know how all this
+would have ended if it had not been for an event which was the final
+turning-point of my destiny....
+
+Michel was passionately fond of horses. He took it into his head to
+break in a young horse, which went well for a while, then began kicking
+and flung him out of the sledge.... He was brought home unconscious,
+with a broken arm and bruises on his chest. His father was
+panic-stricken; he sent for the best doctors from the town. They did a
+great deal for Michel; but he had to lie down for a month. He did not
+play cards, the doctor forbade him to talk, and it was awkward for him
+to read, holding the book up in one hand all the while. It ended by
+Semyon Matveitch sending me in to his son, in my old capacity of reader.
+
+Then followed hours I can never forget! I used to go in to Michel
+directly after dinner, and sit at a little round table in the
+half-darkened window. He used to be lying down in a little room out of
+the drawing-room, at the further end, on a broad leather sofa in the
+Empire style, with a gold bas-relief on its high, straight back. The
+bas-relief represented a marriage procession among the ancients.
+Michel's head, thrown a little back on the pillow, always moved at once,
+and his pale face turned towards me: he smiled, his whole face
+brightened, he flung back his soft, damp curls, and said to me softly,
+'Good-morning, my kind sweet girl.' I took up the book--Walter Scott's
+novels were at the height of their fame in those days--the reading of
+Ivanhoe has left a particularly vivid recollection in my mind.... I
+could not help my voice thrilling and quivering as I gave utterance to
+Rebecca's speeches. I, too, had Jewish blood, and was not my lot like
+hers? Was I not, like Rebecca, waiting on a sick man, dear to me? Every
+time I removed my eyes from the page and lifted them to him, I met his
+eyes with the same soft, bright smile over all his face. We talked very
+little; the door into the drawing-room was invariably open and some one
+was always sitting there; but whenever it was quiet there, I used, I
+don't know why, to cease reading and look intently at Michel, and he
+looked at me, and we both felt happy then and, as it were, glad and
+shamefaced, and everything, everything we told each other then without a
+gesture or a word! Alas! our hearts came together, ran to meet each
+other, as underground streams flow together, unseen, unheard... and
+irresistibly.
+
+'Can you play chess or draughts?' he asked me one day.
+
+'I can play chess a little,' I answered.
+
+'That's good. Tell them to bring a chess-board and push up the table.'
+
+I sat down beside the sofa, my heart was throbbing, I did not dare
+glance at Michel,... Yet from the window, across the room, how freely I
+had gazed at him!
+
+I began to set the chessmen... My fingers shook.
+
+'I suggested it... not for the game,'... Michel said in an undertone,
+also setting the pieces, 'but to have you nearer me.'
+
+I made no answer, but, without asking which should begin, moved a
+pawn... Michel did not move in reply... I looked at him. His head was
+stretched a little forward; pale all over, with imploring eyes he signed
+towards my hand...
+
+Whether I understood him... I don't remember, but something
+instantaneously whirled into my head.... Hesitating, scarcely breathing,
+I took up the knight and moved it right across the board. Michel bent
+down swiftly, and catching my fingers with his lips, and pressing them
+against the board, he began noiselessly and passionately kissing
+them.... I had no power, I had no wish to draw them back; with my other
+hand I hid my face, and tears, as I remember now, cold but blissful...
+oh, what blissful tears!... dropped one by one on the table. Ah, I knew,
+with my whole heart I felt at that moment, all that he was who held my
+hand in his power! I knew that he was not a boy, carried away by a
+momentary impulse, not a Don Juan, not a military Lovelace, but one of
+the noblest, the best of men... and he loved me!
+
+'Oh, my Susanna!' I heard Michel whisper, 'I will never make you shed
+other tears than these.'
+
+He was wrong... he did.
+
+But what use is there in dwelling on such memories... especially,
+especially now?
+
+Michel and I swore to belong to each other. He knew that Semyon
+Matveitch would never let him marry me, and he did not conceal it from
+me. I had no doubt about it myself and I rejoiced, not that he did not
+deceive me--he _could not_ deceive--but that he did not try to
+delude himself. For myself I asked for nothing, and would have followed
+where and how he chose. 'You shall be my wife,' he repeated to me. 'I am
+not Ivanhoe; I know that happiness is not with Lady Rowena.'
+
+Michel soon regained his health. I could not continue going to see him,
+but everything was decided between us. I was already entirely absorbed
+in the future; I saw nothing of what was passing around me, as though I
+were floating on a glorious, calm, but rushing river, hidden in mist.
+But we were watched, we were being spied upon. Once or twice I noticed
+my stepfather's malignant eyes, and heard his loathsome laugh.... But
+that laugh, those eyes as it were emerged for an instant from the
+mist... I shuddered, but forgot it directly, and surrendered myself
+again to the glorious, swift river...
+
+On the day before the departure of Michel--we had planned together that
+he was to turn back secretly on the way and fetch me--I received from
+him through his trusted valet a note, in which he asked me to meet him
+at half-past nine in the summer billiard-room, a large, low-pitched
+room, built on to the big house in the garden. He wrote to me that he
+absolutely must speak with me and arrange things. I had twice already
+met Michel in the billiard-room... I had the key of the outer door. As
+soon as it struck half-past nine I threw a warm wrap over my shoulders,
+stepped quietly out of the lodge, and made my way successfully over the
+crackling snow to the billiard-room. The moon, wrapped in vapour, stood
+a dim blur just over the ridge of the roof, and the wind whistled
+shrilly round the corner of the wall. A shiver passed over me, but I put
+the key into the lock, went into the room, closed the door behind me,
+turned round... A dark figure became visible against one of the walls,
+took a couple of steps forward, stopped...
+
+'Michel,' I whispered.
+
+'Michel is locked up by my orders, and this is I!' answered a voice,
+which seemed to rend my heart...
+
+Before me stood Semyon Matveitch!
+
+I was rushing to escape, but he clutched at my arm.
+
+'Where are you off to, vile hussy?' he hissed. 'You 're quite equal to
+stolen interviews with young fools, so you'll have to be equal to the
+consequences.'
+
+I was numb with horror, but still struggled towards the door... In vain!
+Like iron hooks the ringers of Semyon Matveitch held me tight.
+
+'Let me go, let me go,' I implored at last.
+
+'I tell you you shan't stir!'
+
+Semyon Matveitch forced me to sit down. In the half-darkness I could not
+distinguish his face. I had turned away from him too, but I heard him
+breathing hard and grinding his teeth. I felt neither fear nor despair,
+but a sort of senseless amazement... A captured bird, I suppose, is numb
+like that in the claws of the kite... and Semyon Matveitch's hand, which
+still held me as fast, crushed me like some wild, ferocious claw....
+
+'Aha!' he repeated; 'aha! So this is how it is... so it's come to
+this... Ah, wait a bit!'
+
+I tried to get up, but he shook me with such violence that I almost
+shrieked with pain, and a stream of abuse, insult, and menace burst upon
+me...
+
+'Michel, Michel, where are you? save me,' I moaned.
+
+Semyon Matveitch shook me again... That time I could not control
+myself... I screamed.
+
+That seemed to have some effect on him. He became a little quieter, let
+go my arm, but remained where he was, two steps from me, between me and
+the door.
+
+A few minutes passed... I did not stir; he breathed heavily as before.
+
+'Sit still,' he began at last, 'and answer me. Let me see that your
+morals are not yet utterly corrupt, and that you are still capable of
+listening to the voice of reason. Impulsive folly I can overlook, but
+stubborn obstinacy--never! My son...' there was a catch in his
+breath... 'Mihail Semyonitch has promised to marry you? Hasn't he?
+Answer me! Has he promised, eh?'
+
+I answered, of course, nothing. Semyon Matveitch was almost flying into
+fury again.
+
+'I take your silence as a sign of assent,' he went on, after a brief
+pause. 'And so you were plotting to be my daughter-in-law? A pretty
+notion! But you're not a child of four years old, and you must be fully
+aware that young boobies are never sparing of the wildest promises, if
+only they can gain their ends... but to say nothing of that, could you
+suppose that I--a noble gentleman of ancient family, Semyon Matveitch
+Koltovsky--would ever give my consent to such a marriage? Or did you
+mean to dispense with the parental blessing?... Did you mean to run
+away, get married in secret, and then come back, go through a nice
+little farce, throw yourself at my feet, in the hope that the old man
+will be touched.... Answer me, damn you!'
+
+I only bent my head. He could kill me, but to force me to speak--that
+was not in his power.
+
+He walked up and down a little.
+
+'Come, listen to me,' he began in a calmer voice. 'You mustn't think...
+don't imagine... I see one must talk to you in a different manner.
+Listen; I understand your position. You are frightened, upset.... Pull
+yourself together. At this moment I must seem to you a monster... a
+despot. But put yourself in my position too; how could I help being
+indignant, saying too much? And for all that I have shown you that I am
+not a monster, that I too have a heart. Remember how I treated you on my
+arrival here and afterwards till... till lately... till the illness of
+Mihail Semyonitch. I don't wish to boast of my beneficence, but I should
+have thought simple gratitude ought to have held you back from the
+slippery path on which you were determined to enter!'
+
+Semyon Matveitch walked to and fro again, and standing still patted me
+lightly on the arm, on the very arm which still ached from his violence,
+and was for long after marked with blue bruises.
+
+'To be sure,' he began again, 'we're headstrong... just a little
+headstrong! We don't care to take the trouble to think, we don't care to
+consider what our advantage consists in and where we ought to seek it.
+You ask me: where that advantage lies? You've no need to look far....
+It's, maybe, close at hand.... Here am I now. As a father, as head of
+the family I am bound to be particular.... It's my duty. But I'm a man
+at the same time, and you know that very well. Undoubtedly I'm a
+practical person and of course cannot tolerate any sentimental nonsense;
+expectations that are quite inconsistent with everything, you must of
+course dismiss from your mind for really what sense is there in
+them?--not to speak of the immorality of such a proceeding.... You will
+assuredly realise all this yourself, when you have thought it over a
+little. And I say, simply and straightforwardly, I wouldn't confine
+myself to what I have done for you. I have always been prepared--and I
+am still prepared--to put your welfare on a sound footing, to guarantee
+you a secure position, because I know your value, I do justice to your
+talents, and your intelligence, and in fact... (here Semyon Matveitch
+stooped down to me a little)... you have such eyes that, I confess...
+though I am not a young man, yet to see them quite unmoved... I
+understand... is not an easy matter, not at all an easy matter.'
+
+These words sent a chill through me. I could scarcely believe my ears.
+For the first minute I fancied that Semyon Matveitch meant to bribe me
+to break with Michel, to pay me 'compensation.'... But what was he
+saying? My eyes had begun to get used to the darkness and I could make
+out Semyon Matveitch's face. It was smiling, that old face, and he was
+walking to and fro with little steps, fidgeting restlessly before me....
+
+'Well, what do you say,' he asked at last, 'does my offer please you?'
+
+'Offer?'... I repeated unconsciously,... I simply did not understand a
+word.
+
+Semyon Matveitch laughed... actually laughed his revolting thin laugh.
+
+'To be sure,' he cried, 'you're all alike you young women'--he corrected
+himself--'young ladies... young ladies... you all dream of nothing
+else... you must have young men! You can't live without love! Of course
+not. Well, well! Youth's all very well! But do you suppose that it's
+only young men that can love?... There are some older men, whose hearts
+are warmer... and when once an old man does take a fancy to any one,
+well--he's simply like a rock! It's for ever! Not like these beardless,
+feather-brained young fools! Yes, yes; you mustn't look down on old men!
+They can do so much! You've only to take them the right way! Yes... yes!
+And as for kissing, old men know all about that too, he-he-he...' Semyon
+Matveitch laughed again. 'Come, please... your little hand... just as a
+proof... that's all....'
+
+I jumped up from the chair, and with all my force I gave him a blow in
+the chest. He tottered, he uttered a sort of decrepit, scared sound, he
+almost fell down. There are no words in human language to express how
+loathsome and infinitely vile he seemed to me. Every vestige of fear had
+left me.
+
+'Get away, despicable old man,' broke from my lips; 'get away, Mr.
+Koltovsky, you noble gentleman of ancient family! I, too, am of your
+blood, the blood of the Koltovskys, and I curse the day and the hour
+when I was born of that ancient family!'
+
+'What!... What are you saying!... What!' stammered Semyon Matveitch,
+gasping for breath. 'You dare... at the very minute when I've caught
+you... when you came to meet Misha... eh? eh? eh?'
+
+But I could not stop myself.... Something relentless, desperate was
+roused up within me.
+
+'And you, you, the brother... of your brother, you had the insolence,
+you dared... What did you take me for? Can you be so blind as not to
+have seen long ago the loathing you arouse in me?... You dare use the
+word offer!... Let me out at once, this instant!'
+
+I moved towards the door.
+
+'Oh, indeed! oh, oh! so this is what she says!' Semyon Matveitch piped
+shrilly, in a fit of violent fury, but obviously not able to make up his
+mind to come near me.... 'Wait a bit, Mr. Ratsch, Ivan Demianitch, come
+here!'
+
+The door of the billiard-room opposite the one I was near flew wide
+open, and my stepfather appeared, with a lighted candelabrum in each
+hand. His round, red face, lighted up on both sides, was beaming with
+the triumph of satisfied revenge, and slavish delight at having rendered
+valuable service.... Oh, those loathsome white eyes! when shall I cease
+to behold them?
+
+'Be so good as to take this girl at once,' cried Semyon Matveitch,
+turning to my stepfather and imperiously pointing to me with a shaking
+hand. 'Be so good as to take her home and put her under lock and key...
+so that she... can't stir a finger, so that not a fly can get in to her!
+Till further orders from me! Board up the windows if need be! You'll
+answer for her with your head!'
+
+Mr. Ratsch set the candelabra on the billiard-table, made Semyon
+Matveitch a low bow, and with a slight swagger and a malignant smile,
+moved towards me. A cat, I imagine, approaches a mouse who has no chance
+of escape in that way. All my daring left me in an instant. I knew the
+man was capable of... beating me. I began to tremble; yes; oh, shame! oh
+ignominy! I shivered.
+
+'Now, then, madam,' said Mr. Ratsch, 'kindly come along.'
+
+He took me, without haste, by the arm above the elbow.... He saw that I
+should not resist. Of my own accord I pushed forward towards the door;
+at that instant I had but one thought in my mind, to escape as quickly
+as possible from the presence of Semyon Matveitch.
+
+But the loathsome old man darted up to us from behind, and Ratsch
+stopped me and turned me round face to face with his patron.
+
+'Ah!' the latter shouted, shaking his fist; 'ah! So I'm the brother...
+of my brother, am I? Ties of blood! eh? But a cousin, a first cousin you
+could marry? You could? eh? Take her, you!' he turned to my stepfather.
+'And remember, keep a sharp look-out! The slightest communication with
+her--and no punishment will be too severe.... Take her!'
+
+Mr. Ratsch conducted me to my room. Crossing the courtyard, he said
+nothing, but kept laughing noiselessly to himself. He closed the
+shutters and the doors, and then, as he was finally returning, he bowed
+low to me as he had to Semyon Matveitch, and went off into a ponderous,
+triumphant guffaw!
+
+'Good-night to your highness,' he gasped out, choking: 'she didn't catch
+her fairy prince! What a pity! It wasn't a bad idea in its way! It's a
+lesson for the future: not to keep up correspondence! Ho-ho-ho! How
+capitally it has all turned out though!' He went out, and all of a
+sudden poked his head in at the door. 'Well? I didn't forget you, did I?
+Hey? I kept my promise, didn't I? Ho-ho!' The key creaked in the lock. I
+breathed freely. I had been afraid he would tie my hands... but they
+were my own, they were free! I instantly wrenched the silken cord off my
+dressing-gown, made a noose, and was putting it on my neck, but I flung
+the cord aside again at once. 'I won't please you!' I said aloud. 'What
+madness, really! Can I dispose of my life without Michel's leave, my
+life, which I have surrendered into his keeping? No, cruel wretches! No!
+You have not won your game yet! He will save me, he will tear me out of
+this hell, he... my Michel!'
+
+But then I remembered that he was shut up just as I was, and I flung
+myself, face downwards, on my bed, and sobbed... and sobbed.... And only
+the thought that my tormentor was perhaps at the door, listening and
+triumphing, only that thought forced me to swallow my tears....
+
+I am worn out. I have been writing since morning, and now it is evening;
+if once I tear myself from this sheet of paper, I shall not be capable
+of taking up the pen again.... I must hasten, hasten to the finish! And
+besides, to dwell on the hideous things that followed that dreadful day
+is beyond my strength!
+
+Twenty-four hours later I was taken in a closed cart to an isolated hut,
+surrounded by peasants, who were to watch me, and kept shut up for six
+whole weeks! I was not for one instant alone.... Later on I learnt that
+my stepfather had set spies to watch both Michel and me ever since his
+arrival, that he had bribed the servant, who had given me Michel's note.
+I ascertained too that an awful, heart-rending scene had taken place the
+next morning between the son and the father.... The father had cursed
+him. Michel for his part had sworn he would never set foot in his
+father's house again, and had set off to Petersburg. But the blow aimed
+at me by my stepfather rebounded upon himself. Semyon Matveitch
+announced that he could not have him remaining there, and managing the
+estate any longer. Awkward service, it seems, is an unpardonable
+offence, and some one must be fixed upon to bear the brunt of the
+_scandal_. Semyon Matveitch recompensed Mr. Ratsch liberally,
+however: he gave him the necessary means to move to Moscow and to
+establish himself there. Before the departure for Moscow, I was brought
+back to the lodge, but kept as before under the strictest guard. The
+loss of the 'snug little berth,' of which he was being deprived 'thanks
+to me,' increased my stepfather's vindictive rage against me more than
+ever.
+
+'Why did you make such a fuss?' he would say, almost snorting with
+indignation; 'upon my word! The old chap, of course, got a little too
+hot, was a little too much in a hurry, and so he made a mess of it; now,
+of course, his vanity's hurt, there's no setting the mischief right
+again now! If you'd only waited a day or two, it'd all have been right
+as a trivet; you wouldn't have been kept on dry bread, and I should have
+stayed what I was! Ah, well, women's hair is long... but their wit is
+short! Never mind; I'll be even with you yet, and that pretty young
+gentleman shall smart for it too!'
+
+I had, of course, to bear all these insults in silence. Semyon Matveitch
+I did not once see again. The separation from his son had been a shock
+to him too. Whether he felt remorse or--which is far more likely--wished
+to bind me for ever to my home, to my family--my family!--anyway, he
+assigned me a pension, which was to be paid into my stepfather's hands,
+and to be given to me till I married.... This humiliating alms, this
+pension I still receive... that is to say, Mr. Ratsch receives it for
+me....
+
+We settled in Moscow. I swear by the memory of my poor mother, I would
+not have remained two days, not two hours, with my stepfather, after
+once reaching the town... I would have gone away, not knowing where...
+to the police; I would have flung myself at the feet of the
+governor-general, of the senators; I don't know what I would have done,
+if it had not happened, at the very moment of our starting from the
+country, that the girl who had been our maid managed to give me a letter
+from Michel! Oh, that letter! How many times I read over each line, how
+many times I covered it with kisses! Michel besought me not to lose
+heart, to go on hoping, to believe in his unchanging love; he swore that
+he would never belong to any one but me; he called me his wife, he
+promised to overcome all hindrances, he drew a picture of our future, he
+asked of me only one thing, to be patient, to wait a little....
+
+And I resolved to wait and be patient. Alas! what would I not have
+agreed to, what would I not have borne, simply to do his will! That
+letter became my holy thing, my guiding star, my anchor. Sometimes when
+my stepfather would begin abusing and insulting me, I would softly lay
+my hand on my bosom (I wore Michel's letter sewed into an amulet) and
+only smile. And the more violent and abusive was Mr. Ratsch, the easier,
+lighter, and sweeter was the heart within me.... I used to see, at last,
+by his eyes, that he began to wonder whether I was going out of my
+mind.... Following on this first letter came a second, still more full
+of hope.... It spoke of our meeting soon.
+
+Alas! instead of that meeting there came a morning... I can see Mr.
+Ratsch coming in--and triumph again, malignant triumph, in his face--and
+in his hands a page of the _Invalid_, and there the announcement of
+the death of the Captain of the Guards--Mihail Koltovsky.
+
+What can I add? I remained alive, and went on living in Mr. Ratsch's
+house. He hated me as before--more than before--he had unmasked his
+black soul too much before me, he could not pardon me that. But that was
+of no consequence to me. I became, as it were, without feeling; my own
+fate no longer interested me. To think of him, to think of him! I had no
+interest, no joy, but that. My poor Michel died with my name on his
+lips.... I was told so by a servant, devoted to him, who had been with
+him when he came into the country. The same year my stepfather married
+Eleonora Karpovna. Semyon Matveitch died shortly after. In his will he
+secured to me and increased the pension he had allowed me.... In the
+event of my death, it was to pass to Mr. Ratsch....
+
+Two--three--years passed... six years, seven years.... Life has been
+passing, ebbing away... while I merely watched how it was ebbing. As in
+childhood, on some river's edge one makes a little pond and dams it up,
+and tries in all sorts of ways to keep the water from soaking through,
+from breaking in. But at last the water breaks in, and then you abandon
+all your vain efforts, and you are glad instead to watch all that you
+had guarded ebbing away to the last drop....
+
+So I lived, so I existed, till at last a new, unhoped-for ray of warmth
+and light....'
+
+The manuscript broke off at this word; the following leaves had been
+torn off, and several lines completing the sentence had been crossed
+through and blotted out.
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+The reading of this manuscript so upset me, the impression made by
+Susanna's visit was so great, that I could not sleep all night, and
+early in the morning I sent an express messenger to Fustov with a
+letter, in which I besought him to come to Moscow as soon as possible,
+as his absence might have the most terrible results. I mentioned also my
+interview with Susanna, and the manuscript she had left in my hands.
+After having sent off the letter, I did not go out of the house all day,
+and pondered all the time on what might be happening at the Ratsches'. I
+could not make up my mind to go there myself. I could not help noticing
+though that my aunt was in a continual fidget; she ordered pastilles to
+be burnt every minute, and dealt the game of patience, known as 'the
+traveller,' which is noted as a game in which one can never succeed. The
+visit of an unknown lady, and at such a late hour, had not been kept
+secret from her: her imagination at once pictured a yawning abyss on the
+edge of which I was standing, and she was continually sighing and
+moaning and murmuring French sentences, quoted from a little manuscript
+book entitled _Extraits de Lecture_. In the evening I found on the
+little table at my bedside the treatise of De Girando, laid open at the
+chapter: On the evil influence of the passions. This book had been put
+in my room, at my aunt's instigation of course, by the elder of her
+companions, who was called in the household Amishka, from her
+resemblance to a little poodle of that name, and was a very sentimental,
+not to say romantic, though elderly, maiden lady. All the following day
+was spent in anxious expectation of Fustov's coming, of a letter from
+him, of news from the Ratsches' house... though on what ground could
+they have sent to me? Susanna would be more likely to expect me to visit
+her.... But I positively could not pluck up courage to see her without
+first talking to Fustov. I recalled every expression in my letter to
+him.... I thought it was strong enough; at last, late in the evening, he
+appeared.
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+He came into my room with his habitual, rapid, but deliberate step. His
+face struck me as pale, and though it showed traces of the fatigue of
+the journey, there was an expression of astonishment, curiosity, and
+dissatisfaction--emotions of which he had little experience as a rule. I
+rushed up to him, embraced him, warmly thanked him for obeying me, and
+after briefly describing my conversation with Susanna, handed him the
+manuscript. He went off to the window, to the very window in which
+Susanna had sat two days before, and without a word to me, he fell to
+reading it. I at once retired to the opposite corner of the room, and
+for appearance' sake took up a book; but I must own I was stealthily
+looking over the edge of the cover all the while at Fustov. At first he
+read rather calmly, and kept pulling with his left hand at the down on
+his lip; then he let his hand drop, bent forward and did not stir again.
+His eyes seemed to fly along the lines and his mouth slightly opened. At
+last he finished the manuscript, turned it over, looked round, thought a
+little, and began reading it all through a second time from beginning to
+end. Then he got up, put the manuscript in his pocket and moved towards
+the door; but he turned round and stopped in the middle of the room.
+
+'Well, what do you think?' I began, not waiting for him to speak.
+
+'I have acted wrongly towards her,' Fustov declared thickly. 'I have
+behaved... rashly, unpardonably, cruelly. I believed that... Viktor--'
+
+'What!' I cried; 'that Viktor whom you despise so! But what could he say
+to you?'
+
+Fustov crossed his arms and stood obliquely to me. He was ashamed, I saw
+that.
+
+'Do you remember,' he said with some effort, 'that... Viktor alluded
+to... a pension. That unfortunate word stuck in my head. It's the cause
+of everything. I began questioning him.... Well, and he--'
+
+'What did he say?'
+
+'He told me that the old man... what's his name?... Koltovsky, had
+allowed Susanna that pension because... on account of... well, in fact,
+by way of damages.'
+
+I flung up my hands.
+
+'And you believed him?'
+
+Fustov nodded.
+
+'Yes! I believed him.... He said, too, that with the young one... In
+fact, my behaviour is unjustifiable.'
+
+'And you went away so as to break everything off?'
+
+'Yes; that's the best way... in such cases. I acted savagely, savagely,'
+he repeated.
+
+We were both silent. Each of us felt that the other was ashamed; but it
+was easier for me; I was not ashamed of myself.
+
+
+XX
+
+
+'I would break every bone in that Viktor's body now,' pursued Fustov,
+clenching his teeth, 'if I didn't recognise that I'm in fault. I see now
+what the whole trick was contrived for, with Susanna's marriage they
+would lose the pension.... Wretches!'
+
+I took his hand.
+
+'Alexander,' I asked him, 'have you been to her?'
+
+'No; I came straight to you on arriving. I'll go to-morrow... early
+to-morrow. Things can't be left so. On no account!'
+
+'But you... love her, Alexander?'
+
+Fustov seemed offended.
+
+'Of course I love her. I am very much attached to her.'
+
+'She's a splendid, true-hearted girl!' I cried.
+
+Fustov stamped impatiently.
+
+'Well, what notion have you got in your head? I was prepared to marry
+her--she's been baptized--I'm ready to marry her even now, I'd been
+thinking of it, though she's older than I am.'
+
+At that instant I suddenly fancied that a pale woman's figure was seated
+in the window, leaning on her arms. The lights had burnt down; it was
+dark in the room. I shivered, looked more intently, and saw nothing, of
+course, in the window seat; but a strange feeling, a mixture of horror,
+anguish and pity, came over me.
+
+'Alexander!' I began with sudden intensity, 'I beg you, I implore you,
+go at once to the Ratsches', don't put it off till to-morrow! An inner
+voice tells me that you really ought to see Susanna to-day!'
+
+Fustov shrugged his shoulders.
+
+'What are you talking about, really! It's eleven o'clock now, most
+likely they're all in bed.'
+
+'No matter.... Do go, for goodness' sake! I have a presentiment....
+Please do as I say! Go at once, take a sledge....'
+
+'Come, what nonsense!' Fustov responded coolly; 'how could I go now?
+To-morrow morning I will be there, and everything will be cleared up.'
+
+'But, Alexander, remember, she said that she was dying, that you would
+not find her... And if you had seen her face! Only think, imagine, to
+make up her mind to come to me... what it must have cost her....'
+
+'She's a little high-flown,' observed Fustov, who had apparently
+regained his self-possession completely. 'All girls are like that... at
+first. I repeat, everything will be all right to-morrow. Meanwhile,
+good-bye. I'm tired, and you're sleepy too.'
+
+He took his cap, and went out of the room.
+
+'But you promise to come here at once, and tell me all about it?' I
+called after him.
+
+'I promise.... Good-bye!'
+
+I went to bed, but in my heart I was uneasy, and I felt vexed with my
+friend. I fell asleep late and dreamed that I was wandering with Susanna
+along underground, damp passages of some sort, and crawling along
+narrow, steep staircases, and continually going deeper and deeper down,
+though we were trying to get higher up out into the air. Some one was
+all the while incessantly calling us in monotonous, plaintive tones.
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+Some one's hand lay on my shoulder and pushed it several times.... I
+opened my eyes and in the faint light of the solitary candle, I saw
+Fustov standing before me. He frightened me. He was staggering; his face
+was yellow, almost the same colour as his hair; his lips seemed hanging
+down, his muddy eyes were staring senselessly away. What had become of
+his invariably amiable, sympathetic expression? I had a cousin who from
+epilepsy was sinking into idiocy.... Fustov looked like him at that
+moment.
+
+I sat up hurriedly.
+
+'What is it? What is the matter? Heavens!'
+
+He made no answer.
+
+'Why, what has happened? Fustov! Do speak! Susanna?...'
+
+Fustov gave a slight start.
+
+'She...' he began in a hoarse voice, and broke off.
+
+'What of her? Have you seen her?'
+
+He stared at me.
+
+'She's no more.'
+
+'No more?'
+
+'No. She is dead.'
+
+I jumped out of bed.
+
+'Dead? Susanna? Dead?'
+
+Fustov turned his eyes away again.
+
+'Yes; she is dead; she died at midnight.'
+
+'He's raving!' crossed my mind.
+
+'At midnight! And what's the time now?'
+
+'It's eight o'clock in the morning now.
+
+They sent to tell me. She is to be buried to-morrow.'
+
+I seized him by the hand.
+
+'Alexander, you're not delirious? Are you in your senses?'
+
+'I am in my senses,' he answered. 'Directly I heard it, I came straight
+to you.'
+
+My heart turned sick and numb, as always happens on realising an
+irrevocable misfortune.
+
+'My God! my God! Dead!' I repeated. 'How is it possible? So suddenly! Or
+perhaps she took her own life?'
+
+'I don't know,' said Fustov, 'I know nothing. They told me she died at
+midnight. And to-morrow she will be buried.'
+
+'At midnight!' I thought.... 'Then she was still alive yesterday when I
+fancied I saw her in the window, when I entreated him to hasten to
+her....'
+
+'She was still alive yesterday, when you wanted to send me to Ivan
+Demianitch's,' said Fustov, as though guessing my thought.
+
+'How little he knew her!' I thought again. 'How little we both knew her!
+"High-flown," said he, "all girls are like that."... And at that very
+minute, perhaps, she was putting to her lips... Can one love any one and
+be so grossly mistaken in them?'
+
+Fustov stood stockstill before my bed, his hands hanging, like a guilty
+man.
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+I dressed hurriedly.
+
+'What do you mean to do now, Alexander?' I asked.
+
+He gazed at me in bewilderment, as though marvelling at the absurdity of
+my question. And indeed what was there to do?
+
+'You simply must go to them, though,' I began. 'You're bound to
+ascertain how it happened; there is, possibly, a crime concealed. One
+may expect anything of those people.... It is all to be thoroughly
+investigated. Remember the statement in her manuscript, the pension was
+to cease on her marriage, but in event of her death it was to pass to
+Ratsch. In any case, one must render her the last duty, pay homage to
+her remains!'
+
+I talked to Fustov like a preceptor, like an elder brother. In the midst
+of all that horror, grief, bewilderment, a sort of unconscious feeling
+of superiority over Fustov had suddenly come to the surface in me....
+Whether from seeing him crushed by the consciousness of his fault,
+distracted, shattered, whether that a misfortune befalling a man almost
+always humiliates him, lowers him in the opinion of others, 'you can't
+be much,' is felt, 'if you hadn't the wit to come off better than that!'
+God knows! Any way, Fustov seemed to me almost like a child, and I felt
+pity for him, and saw the necessity of severity. I held out a helping
+hand to him, stooping down to him from above. Only a woman's sympathy is
+free from condescension.
+
+But Fustov continued to gaze with wild and stupid eyes at me--my
+authoritative tone obviously had no effect on him, and to my second
+question, 'You're going to them, I suppose?' he replied--
+
+'No, I'm not going.'
+
+'What do you mean, really? Don't you want to ascertain for yourself, to
+investigate, how, and what? Perhaps, she has left a letter... a document
+of some sort....'
+
+Fustov shook his head.
+
+'I can't go there,' he said. 'That's what I came to you for, to ask you
+to go... for me... I can't... I can't....'
+
+Fustov suddenly sat down to the table, hid his face in both hands, and
+sobbed bitterly.
+
+'Alas, alas!' he kept repeating through his tears; 'alas, poor girl...
+poor girl... I loved... I loved her... alas!'
+
+I stood near him, and I am bound to confess, not the slightest sympathy
+was excited in me by those incontestably sincere sobs. I simply
+marvelled that Fustov could cry _like that_, and it seemed to me
+that _now_ I knew what a small person he was, and that I should, in
+his place, have acted quite differently. What's one to make of it? If
+Fustov had remained quite unmoved, I should perhaps have hated him, have
+conceived an aversion for him, but he would not have sunk in my
+esteem.... He would have kept his prestige. Don Juan would have remained
+Don Juan! Very late in life, and only after many experiences, does a man
+learn, at the sight of a fellow-creature's real failing or weakness, to
+sympathise with him, and help him without a secret self-congratulation
+at his own virtue and strength, but on the contrary, with every humility
+and comprehension of the naturalness, almost the inevitableness, of sin.
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+I was very bold and resolute in sending Fustov to the Ratsches'; but
+when I set out there myself at twelve o'clock (nothing would induce
+Fustov to go with me, he only begged me to give him an exact account of
+everything), when round the corner of the street their house glared at
+me in the distance with a yellowish blur from the coffin candles at one
+of the windows, an indescribable panic made me hold my breath, and I
+would gladly have turned back.... I mastered myself, however, and went
+into the passage. It smelt of incense and wax; the pink cover of the
+coffin, edged with silver lace, stood in a corner, leaning against the
+wall. In one of the adjoining rooms, the dining-room, the monotonous
+muttering of the deacon droned like the buzzing of a bee. From the
+drawing-room peeped out the sleepy face of a servant girl, who murmured
+in a subdued voice, 'Come to do homage to the dead?' She indicated the
+door of the dining-room. I went in. The coffin stood with the head
+towards the door; the black hair of Susanna under the white wreath,
+above the raised lace of the pillow, first caught my eyes. I went up
+sidewards, crossed myself, bowed down to the ground, glanced... Merciful
+God! what a face of agony! Unhappy girl! even death had no pity on her,
+had denied her--beauty, that would be little--even that peace, that
+tender and impressive peace which is often seen on the faces of the
+newly dead. The little, dark, almost brown, face of Susanna recalled the
+visages on old, old holy pictures. And the expression on that face! It
+looked as though she were on the point of shrieking--a shriek of
+despair--and had died so, uttering no sound... even the line between the
+brows was not smoothed out, and the fingers on the hands were bent back
+and clenched. I turned away my eyes involuntarily; but, after a brief
+interval, I forced myself to look, to look long and attentively at her.
+Pity filled my soul, and not pity alone. 'That girl died by violence,' I
+decided inwardly; 'that's beyond doubt.' While I was standing looking at
+the dead girl, the deacon, who on my entrance had raised his voice and
+uttered a few disconnected sounds, relapsed into droning again, and
+yawned twice. I bowed to the ground a second time, and went out into the
+passage.
+
+In the doorway of the drawing-room Mr. Ratsch was already on the
+look-out for me, dressed in a gay-coloured dressing-gown. Beckoning to
+me with his hand, he led me to his own room--I had almost said, to his
+lair. The room, dark and close, soaked through and through with the sour
+smell of stale tobacco, suggested a comparison with the lair of a wolf
+or a fox.
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+'Rupture! rupture of the external... of the external covering.... You
+understand.., the envelopes of the heart!' said Mr. Ratsch, directly the
+door closed. 'Such a misfortune! Only yesterday evening there was
+nothing to notice, and all of a sudden, all in a minute, all was over!
+It's a true saying, "heute roth, morgen todt!" It's true; it's what was
+to be expected. I always expected it. At Tambov the regimental doctor,
+Galimbovsky, Vikenty Kasimirovitch.... you've probably heard of him... a
+first-rate medical man, a specialist--'
+
+'It's the first time I've heard the name,' I observed.
+
+'Well, no matter; any way he was always,' pursued Mr. Ratsch, at first
+in a low voice, and then louder and louder, and, to my surprise, with a
+perceptible German accent, 'he was always warning me: "Ay, Ivan
+Demianitch! ay! my dear boy, you must be careful! Your stepdaughter has
+an organic defect in the heart--hypertrophia cordialis! The least thing
+and there'll be trouble! She must avoid all exciting emotions above
+all.... You must appeal to her reason."... But, upon my word, with a
+young lady... can one appeal to reason? Ha... ha... ha...'
+
+Mr. Ratsch was, through long habit, on the point of laughing, but he
+recollected himself in time, and changed the incipient guffaw into a
+cough.
+
+And this was what Mr. Ratsch said! After all that I had found out about
+him!... I thought it my duty, however, to ask him whether a doctor was
+called in.
+
+Mr. Ratsch positively bounced into the air.
+
+'To be sure there was.... Two were summoned, but it was already
+over--abgemacht! And only fancy, both, as though they were agreeing'
+(Mr. Ratsch probably meant, as though they had agreed), 'rupture!
+rupture of the heart! That's what, with one voice, they cried out. They
+proposed a post-mortem; but I... you understand, did not consent to
+that.'
+
+'And the funeral's to-morrow?' I queried.
+
+'Yes, yes, to-morrow, to-morrow we bury our dear one! The procession
+will leave the house precisely at eleven o'clock in the morning.... From
+here to the church of St. Nicholas on Hen's Legs... what strange names
+your Russian churches do have, you know! Then to the last resting-place
+in mother earth. You will come! We have not been long acquainted, but I
+make bold to say, the amiability of your character and the elevation of
+your sentiments!...'
+
+I made haste to nod my head.
+
+'Yes, yes, yes,' sighed Mr. Ratsch. 'It... it really has been, as they
+say, a thunderbolt from a clear sky! Ein Blitz aus heiterem Himmel!'
+
+'And Susanna Ivanovna said nothing before her death, left nothing?'
+
+'Nothing, positively! Not a scrap of anything! Not a bit of paper! Only
+fancy, when they called me to her, when they waked me up--she was stiff
+already! Very distressing it was for me; she has grieved us all
+terribly! Alexander Daviditch will be sorry too, I dare say, when he
+knows.... They say he is not in Moscow.'
+
+'He did leave town for a few days...' I began.
+
+'Viktor Ivanovitch is complaining they're so long getting his sledge
+harnessed,' interrupted a servant girl coming in--the same girl I had
+seen in the passage. Her face, still looking half-awake, struck me this
+time by the expression of coarse insolence to be seen in servants when
+they know that their masters are in their power, and that they do not
+dare to find fault or be exacting with them.
+
+'Directly, directly,' Ivan Demianitch responded nervously. 'Eleonora
+Karpovna! Leonora! Lenchen! come here!'
+
+There was a sound of something ponderous moving the other side of the
+door, and at the same instant I heard Viktor's imperious call: 'Why on
+earth don't they put the horses in? You don't catch me trudging off to
+the police on foot!'
+
+'Directly, directly,' Ivan Demianitch faltered again. 'Eleonora
+Karpovna, come here!'
+
+'But, Ivan Demianitch,' I heard her voice, 'ich habe keine Toilette
+gemacht!'
+
+'Macht nichts. Komm herein!'
+
+Eleonora Karpovna came in, holding a kerchief over her neck with two
+fingers. She had on a morning wrapper, not buttoned up, and had not yet
+done her hair. Ivan Demianitch flew up to her.
+
+'You hear, Viktor's calling for the horses,' he said, hurriedly pointing
+his finger first to the door, then to the window. 'Please, do see to it,
+as quick as possible! Der Kerl schreit so!'
+
+'Der Viktor schreit immer, Ivan Demianitch, Sie wissen wohl,' responded
+Eleonora Karpovna, 'and I have spoken to the coachman myself, but he's
+taken it into his head to give the horses oats. Fancy, what a calamity
+to happen so suddenly,' she added, turning to me; 'who could have
+expected such a thing of Susanna Ivanovna?'
+
+'I was always expecting it, always!' cried Ratsch, and threw up his
+arms, his dressing-gown flying up in front as he did so, and displaying
+most repulsive unmentionables of chamois leather, with buckles on the
+belt. 'Rupture of the heart! rupture of the external membrane!
+Hypertrophy!'
+
+'To be sure,' Eleonora Karpovna repeated after him, 'hyper... Well, so
+it is. Only it's a terrible, terrible grief to me, I say again...' And
+her coarse-featured face worked a little, her eyebrows rose into the
+shape of triangles, and a tiny tear rolled over her round cheek, that
+looked varnished like a doll's.... 'I'm very sorry that such a young
+person who ought to have lived and enjoyed everything... everything...
+And to fall into despair so suddenly!'
+
+'Na! gut, gut... geh, alte!' Mr. Ratsch cut her short.
+
+'Geh' schon, geh' schon,' muttered Eleonora Karpovna, and she went away,
+still holding the kerchief with her fingers, and shedding tears.
+
+And I followed her. In the passage stood Viktor in a student's coat with
+a beaver collar and a cap stuck jauntily on one side. He barely glanced
+at me over his shoulder, shook his collar up, and did not nod to me, for
+which I mentally thanked him.
+
+I went back to Fustov.
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+I found my friend sitting in a corner of his room with downcast head and
+arms folded across his breast. He had sunk into a state of numbness, and
+he gazed around him with the slow, bewildered look of a man who has
+slept very heavily and has only just been waked. I told him all about my
+visit to Ratsch's, repeated the veteran's remarks and those of his wife,
+described the impression they had made on me and informed him of my
+conviction that the unhappy girl had taken her own life.... Fustov
+listened to me with no change of expression, and looked about him with
+the same bewildered air.
+
+'Did you see her?' he asked me at last.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'In the coffin?'
+
+Fustov seemed to doubt whether Susanna were really dead.
+
+'In the coffin.'
+
+Fustov's face twitched and he dropped his eyes and softly rubbed his
+hands.
+
+'Are you cold?' I asked him.
+
+'Yes, old man, I'm cold,' he answered hesitatingly, and he shook his
+head stupidly.
+
+I began to explain my reasons for thinking that Susanna had poisoned
+herself or perhaps had been poisoned, and that the matter could not be
+left so....
+
+Fustov stared at me.
+
+'Why, what is there to be done?' he said, slowly opening his eyes wide
+and slowly closing them. 'Why, it'll be worse... if it's known about.
+They won't bury her. We must let things... alone.'
+
+This idea, simple as it was, had never entered my head. My friend's
+practical sense had not deserted him.
+
+'When is... her funeral?' he went on.
+
+'To-morrow.'
+
+'Are you going?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'To the house or straight to the church?'
+
+'To the house and to the church too; and from there to the cemetery.'
+
+'But I shan't go... I can't, I can't!' whispered Fustov and began
+crying. It was at these same words that he had broken into sobs in the
+morning. I have noticed that it is often so with weeping; as though to
+certain words, for the most of no great meaning,--but just to these
+words and to no others--it is given to open the fount of tears in a man,
+to break him down, and to excite in him the feeling of pity for others
+and himself... I remember a peasant woman was once describing before me
+the sudden death of her daughter, and she fairly dissolved and could not
+go on with her tale as soon as she uttered the phrase, 'I said to her,
+Fekla. And she says, "Mother, where have you put the salt... the salt...
+sa-alt?"' The word 'salt' overpowered her.
+
+But again, as in the morning, I was but little moved by Fustov's tears.
+I could not conceive how it was he did not ask me if Susanna had not
+left something for him. Altogether their love for one another was a
+riddle to me; and a riddle it remained to me.
+
+After weeping for ten minutes Fustov got up, lay down on the sofa,
+turned his face to the wall, and remained motionless. I waited a little,
+but seeing that he did not stir, and made no answer to my questions, I
+made up my mind to leave him. I am perhaps doing him injustice, but I
+almost believe he was asleep. Though indeed that would be no proof that
+he did not feel sorrow... only his nature was so constituted as to be
+unable to support painful emotions for long... His nature was too
+awfully well-balanced!
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+The next day exactly at eleven o'clock I was at the place. Fine hail was
+falling from the low-hanging sky, there was a slight frost, a thaw was
+close at hand, but there were cutting, disagreeable gusts of wind
+flitting across in the air.... It was the most thoroughly Lenten,
+cold-catching weather. I found Mr. Ratsch on the steps of his house. In
+a black frock-coat adorned with crape, with no hat on his head, he
+fussed about, waved his arms, smote himself on the thighs, shouted up to
+the house, and then down into the street, in the direction of the
+funeral car with a white catafalque, already standing there with two
+hired carriages. Near it four garrison soldiers, with mourning capes
+over their old coats, and mourning hats pulled over their screwed-up
+eyes, were pensively scratching in the crumbling snow with the long
+stems of their unlighted torches. The grey shock of hair positively
+stood up straight above the red face of Mr. Ratsch, and his voice, that
+brazen voice, was cracking from the strain he was putting on it. 'Where
+are the pine branches? pine branches! this way! the branches of pine!'
+he yelled. 'They'll be bearing out the coffin directly! The pine! Hand
+over those pine branches! Look alive!' he cried once more, and dashed
+into the house. It appeared that in spite of my punctuality, I was late:
+Mr. Ratsch had thought fit to hurry things forward. The service in the
+house was already over; the priests--of whom one wore a calotte, and the
+other, rather younger, had most carefully combed and oiled his
+hair--appeared with all their retinue on the steps. The coffin too
+appeared soon after, carried by a coachman, two door-keepers, and a
+water-carrier. Mr. Ratsch walked behind, with the tips of his fingers on
+the coffin lid, continually repeating, 'Easy, easy!' Behind him waddled
+Eleonora Karpovna in a black dress, also adorned with crape, surrounded
+by her whole family; after all of them, Viktor stepped out in a new
+uniform with a sword with crape round the handle. The coffin-bearers,
+grumbling and altercating among themselves, laid the coffin on the
+hearse; the garrison soldiers lighted their torches, which at once began
+crackling and smoking; a stray old woman, who had joined herself on to
+the party, raised a wail; the deacons began to chant, the fine snow
+suddenly fell faster and whirled round like 'white flies.' Mr. Ratsch
+bawled, 'In God's name! start!' and the procession started. Besides Mr.
+Ratsch's family, there were in all five men accompanying the hearse: a
+retired and extremely shabby officer of roads and highways, with a faded
+Stanislas ribbon--not improbably hired--on his neck; the police
+superintendent's assistant, a diminutive man with a meek face and greedy
+eyes; a little old man in a fustian smock; an extremely fat fishmonger
+in a tradesman's bluejacket, smelling strongly of his calling, and I.
+The absence of the female sex (for one could hardly count as such two
+aunts of Eleonora Karpovna, sisters of the sausagemaker, and a hunchback
+old maiden lady with blue spectacles on her blue nose), the absence of
+girl friends and acquaintances struck me at first; but on thinking it
+over I realised that Susanna, with her character, her education, her
+memories, could not have made friends in the circle in which she was
+living. In the church there were a good many people assembled, more
+outsiders than acquaintances, as one could see by the expression of
+their faces. The service did not last long. What surprised me was that
+Mr. Ratsch crossed himself with great fervour, quite as though he were
+of the orthodox faith, and even chimed in with the deacons in the
+responses, though only with the notes not with the words. When at last
+it came to taking leave of the dead, I bowed low, but did not give the
+last kiss. Mr. Ratsch, on the contrary, went through this terrible
+ordeal with the utmost composure, and with a deferential inclination of
+his person invited the officer of the Stanislas ribbon to the coffin, as
+though offering him entertainment, and picking his children up under the
+arms swung them up in turn and held them up to the body. Eleonora
+Karpovna, on taking farewell of Susanna, suddenly broke into a roar that
+filled the church; but she was soon soothed and continually asked in an
+exasperated whisper, 'But where's my reticule?' Viktor held himself
+aloof, and seemed to be trying by his whole demeanour to convey that he
+was out of sympathy with all such customs and was only performing a
+social duty. The person who showed the most sympathy was the little old
+man in the smock, who had been, fifteen years before, a land surveyor in
+the Tambov province, and had not seen Ratsch since then. He did not know
+Susanna at all, but had drunk a couple of glasses of spirits at the
+sideboard before starting. My aunt had also come to the church. She had
+somehow or other found out that the deceased woman was the very lady who
+had paid me a visit, and had been thrown into a state of indescribable
+agitation! She could not bring herself to suspect me of any sort of
+misconduct, but neither could she explain such a strange chain of
+circumstances.... Not improbably she imagined that Susanna had been led
+by love for me to commit suicide, and attired in her darkest garments,
+with an aching heart and tears, she prayed on her knees for the peace of
+the soul of the departed, and put a rouble candle before the picture of
+the Consolation of Sorrow.... 'Amishka' had come with her too, and she
+too prayed, but was for the most part gazing at me, horror-stricken....
+That elderly spinster, alas! did not regard me with indifference. On
+leaving the church, my aunt distributed all her money, more than ten
+roubles, among the poor.
+
+At last the farewell was over. They began closing the coffin. During the
+whole service I had not courage to look straight at the poor girl's
+distorted face; but every time that my eyes passed by it--'he did not
+come, he did not come,' it seemed to me that it wanted to say. They were
+just going to lower the lid upon the coffin. I could not restrain
+myself: I turned a rapid glance on to the dead woman. 'Why did you do
+it?' I was unconsciously asking.... 'He did not come!' I fancied for the
+last time.... The hammer was knocking in the nails, and all was over.
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+We followed the hearse towards the cemetery. We were forty in number, of
+all sorts and conditions, nothing else really than an idle crowd. The
+wearisome journey lasted more than an hour. The weather became worse and
+worse. Halfway there Viktor got into a carriage, but Mr. Ratsch stepped
+gallantly on through the sloppy snow; just so must he have stepped
+through the snow when, after the fateful interview with Semyon
+Matveitch, he led home with him in triumph the girl whose life he had
+ruined for ever. The 'veteran's' hair and eyebrows were edged with snow;
+he kept blowing and uttering exclamations, or manfully drawing deep
+breaths and puffing out his round, dark-red cheeks.... One really might
+have thought he was laughing. 'On my death the pension was to pass to
+Ivan Demianitch'; these words from Susanna's manuscript recurred again
+to my mind. We reached the cemetery at last; we moved up to a freshly
+dug grave. The last ceremony was quickly performed; all were chilled
+through, all were in haste. The coffin slid on cords into the yawning
+hole; they began to throw earth on it. Mr. Ratsch here too showed the
+energy of his spirit, so rapidly, with such force and vigour, did he
+fling clods of earth on to the coffin lid, throwing himself into an
+heroic pose, with one leg planted firmly before him... he could not have
+shown more energy if he had been stoning his bitterest foe. Viktor, as
+before, held himself aloof; he kept muffling himself up in his coat, and
+rubbing his chin in the fur of his collar. Mr. Ratsch's other children
+eagerly imitated their father. Flinging sand and earth was a source of
+great enjoyment to them, for which, of course, they were in no way to
+blame. A mound began to rise up where the hole had been; we were on the
+point of separating, when Mr. Ratsch, wheeling round to the left in
+soldierly fashion, and slapping himself on the thigh, announced to all
+of us 'gentlemen present,' that he invited us, and also the 'reverend
+clergy,' to a 'funeral banquet,' which had been arranged at no great
+distance from the cemetery, in the chief saloon of an extremely superior
+restaurant, 'thanks to the kind offices of our honoured friend Sigismund
+Sigismundovitch.'... At these words he indicated the assistant of the
+police superintendent, and added that for all his grief and his Lutheran
+faith, he, Ivan Demianitch Ratsch, as a genuine Russian, put the old
+Russian usages before everything. 'My spouse,' he cried, 'with the
+ladies that have accompanied her, may go home, while we gentlemen
+commemorate in a modest repast the shade of Thy departed servant!' Mr.
+Ratsch's proposal was received with genuine sympathy; 'the reverend
+clergy' exchanged expressive glances with one another, while the officer
+of roads and highways slapped Ivan Demianitch on the shoulder, and
+called him a patriot and the soul of the company.
+
+We set off all together to the restaurant. In the restaurant, in the
+middle of a long, wide, and quite empty room on the first storey, stood
+two tables laid for dinner, covered with bottles and eatables, and
+surrounded by chairs. The smell of whitewash, mingled with the odours of
+spirits and salad oil, was stifling and oppressive. The police
+superintendent's assistant, as the organiser of the banquet, placed the
+clergy in the seats of honour, near which the Lenten dishes were crowded
+together conspicuously; after the priests the other guests took their
+seats; the banquet began. I would not have used such a festive word as
+banquet by choice, but no other word would have corresponded with the
+real character of the thing. At first the proceedings were fairly quiet,
+even slightly mournful; jaws munched busily, and glasses were emptied,
+but sighs too were audible--possibly sighs of digestion, but possibly
+also of feeling. There were references to death, allusions to the
+brevity of human life, and the fleeting nature of earthly hopes. The
+officer of roads and highways related a military but still edifying
+anecdote. The priest in the calotte expressed his approval, and himself
+contributed an interesting fact from the life of the saint, Ivan the
+Warrior. The priest with the superbly arranged hair, though his
+attention was chiefly engrossed by the edibles, gave utterance to
+something improving on the subject of chastity. But little by little all
+this changed. Faces grew redder, and voices grew louder, and laughter
+reasserted itself; one began to hear disconnected exclamations,
+caressing appellations, after the manner of 'dear old boy,' 'dear heart
+alive,' 'old cock,' and even 'a pig like that'--everything, in fact, of
+which the Russian nature is so lavish, when, as they say, 'it comes
+unbuttoned.' By the time that the corks of home-made champagne were
+popping, the party had become noisy; some one even crowed like a cock,
+while another guest was offering to bite up and swallow the glass out of
+which he had just been drinking. Mr. Ratsch, no longer red but purple,
+suddenly rose from his seat; he had been guffawing and making a great
+noise before, but now he asked leave to make a speech. 'Speak! Out with
+it!' every one roared; the old man in the smock even bawled 'bravo!' and
+clapped his hands... but he was already sitting on the floor. Mr. Ratsch
+lifted his glass high above his head, and announced that he proposed in
+brief but 'impressionable' phrases to refer to the qualities of the
+noble soul which,'leaving here, so to say, its earthly husk (die
+irdische Huelle) has soared to heaven, and plunged...' Mr. Ratsch
+corrected himself: 'and plashed....' He again corrected himself: 'and
+plunged...'
+
+'Father deacon! Reverend sir! My good soul!' we heard a subdued but
+insistent whisper, 'they say you've a devilish good voice; honour us
+with a song, strike up: "We live among the fields!"'
+
+'Sh! sh!... Shut up there!' passed over the lips of the guests.
+
+...'Plunged all her devoted family,' pursued Mr. Ratsch, turning a
+severe glance in the direction of the lover of music, 'plunged all her
+family into the most irreplaceable grief! Yes!' cried Ivan Demianitch,
+'well may the Russian proverb say, "Fate spares not the rod."...'
+
+'Stop! Gentlemen!' shouted a hoarse voice at the end of the table, 'my
+purse has just been stolen!...'
+
+'Ah, the swindler!' piped another voice, and slap! went a box on the
+ear.
+
+Heavens! What followed then! It was as though the wild beast, till then
+only growling and faintly stirring within us, had suddenly broken from
+its chains and reared up, ruffled and fierce in all its hideousness. It
+seemed as though every one had been secretly expecting 'a scandal,' as
+the natural outcome and sequel of a banquet, and all, as it were, rushed
+to welcome it, to support it.... Plates, glasses clattered and rolled
+about, chairs were upset, a deafening din arose, hands were waving in
+the air, coat-tails were flying, and a fight began in earnest.
+
+'Give it him! give it him!' roared like mad my neighbour, the
+fishmonger, who had till that instant seemed to be the most peaceable
+person in the world; it is true he had been silently drinking some dozen
+glasses of spirits. 'Thrash him!...'
+
+Who was to be thrashed, and what he was to be thrashed for, he had no
+idea, but he bellowed furiously.
+
+The police superintendent's assistant, the officer of roads and
+highways, and Mr. Ratsch, who had probably not expected such a speedy
+termination to his eloquence, tried to restore order... but their
+efforts were unavailing. My neighbour, the fishmonger, even fell foul of
+Mr. Ratsch himself.
+
+'He's murdered the young woman, the blasted German,' he yelled at him,
+shaking his fists; 'he's bought over the police, and here he's crowing
+over it!!'
+
+At this point the waiters ran in.... What happened further I don't know;
+I snatched up my cap in all haste, and made off as fast as my legs would
+carry me! All I remember is a fearful crash; I recall, too, the remains
+of a herring in the hair of the old man in the smock, a priest's hat
+flying right across the room, the pale face of Viktor huddled up in a
+corner, and a red beard in the grasp of a muscular hand.... Such were
+the last impressions I carried away of the 'memorial banquet,' arranged
+by the excellent Sigismund Sigismundovitch in honour of poor Susanna.
+
+After resting a little, I set off to see Fustov, and told him all of
+which I had been a witness during that day. He listened to me, sitting
+still, and not raising his head, and putting both hands under his legs,
+he murmured again, 'Ah! my poor girl, my poor girl!' and again lay down
+on the sofa and turned his back on me.
+
+A week later he seemed to have quite got over it, and took up his life
+as before. I asked him for Susanna's manuscript as a keepsake: he gave
+it me without raising any objection.
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+Several years passed by. My aunt was dead; I had left Moscow and settled
+in Petersburg. Fustov too had moved to Petersburg. He had entered the
+department of the Ministry of Finance, but we rarely met and I saw
+nothing much in him then. An official like every one else, and nothing
+more! If he is still living and not married, he is, most likely,
+unchanged to this day; he carves and carpenters and uses dumb-bells, and
+is as much a lady-killer as ever, and sketches Napoleon in a blue
+uniform in the albums of his lady friends. It happened that I had to go
+to Moscow on business. In Moscow I learned, with considerable surprise,
+that the fortunes of my former acquaintance, Mr. Ratsch, had taken an
+adverse turn. His wife had, indeed, presented him with twins, two boys,
+whom as a true Russian he had christened Briacheslav and Viacheslav, but
+his house had been burnt down, he had been forced to retire from his
+position, and worst of all, his eldest son, Viktor, had become
+practically a permanent inmate of the debtors' prison. During my stay in
+Moscow, among a company at a friendly gathering, I chanced to hear an
+allusion made to Susanna, and a most slighting, most insulting allusion!
+I did all I could to defend the memory of the unhappy girl, to whom fate
+had denied even the charity of oblivion, but my arguments did not make
+much impression on my audience. One of them, a young student poet, was,
+however, a little moved by my words. He sent me next day a poem, which I
+have forgotten, but which ended in the following four lines:
+
+  'Her tomb lies cold, forlorn, but even death
+   Her gentle spirit's memory cannot save
+   From the sly voice of slander whispering on,
+   Withering the flowers on her forsaken tomb....'
+
+
+I read these lines and unconsciously sank into musing. Susanna's image
+rose before me; once more I seemed to see the frozen window in my room;
+I recalled that evening and the blustering snowstorm, and those words,
+those sobs.... I began to ponder how it was possible to explain
+Susanna's love for Fustov, and why she had so quickly, so impulsively
+given way to despair, as soon as she saw herself forsaken. How was it
+she had had no desire to wait a little, to hear the bitter truth from
+the lips of the man she loved, to write to him, even? How could she
+fling herself at once headlong into the abyss? Because she was
+passionately in love with Fustov, I shall be told; because she could not
+bear the slightest doubt of his devotion, of his respect for her.
+Perhaps; or perhaps because she was not at all so passionately in love
+with Fustov; that she did not deceive herself about him, but simply
+rested her last hopes on him, and could not get over the thought that
+even this man had at once, at the first breath of slander, turned away
+from her with contempt! Who can say what killed her; wounded pride, or
+the wretchedness of her helpless position, or the very memory of that
+first, noble, true-hearted nature to whom she had so joyfully pledged
+herself in the morning of her early days, who had so deeply trusted her,
+and so honoured her? Who knows; perhaps at the very instant when I
+fancied that her dead lips were murmuring, 'he did not come!' her soul
+was rejoicing that she had gone herself to him, to her Michel? The
+secrets of human life are great, and love itself, the most impenetrable
+of those secrets.... Anyway, to this day, whenever the image of Susanna
+rises before me, I cannot overcome a feeling of pity for her, and of
+angry reproach against fate, and my lips whisper instinctively, 'Unhappy
+girl! unhappy girl!'
+
+1868.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DUELLIST
+
+
+I
+
+
+A regiment of cuirassiers was quartered in 1829 in the village of
+Kirilovo, in the K--- province. That village, with its huts and
+hay-stacks, its green hemp-patches, and gaunt willows, looked from a
+distance like an island in a boundless sea of ploughed, black-earth
+fields. In the middle of the village was a small pond, invariably
+covered with goose feathers, with muddy, indented banks; a hundred paces
+from the pond, on the other side of the road, rose the wooden
+manor-house, long, empty, and mournfully slanting on one side. Behind
+the house stretched the deserted garden; in the garden grew old
+apple-trees that bore no fruit, and tall birch-trees, full of rooks'
+nests. At the end of the principal garden-walk, in a little house, once
+the bath-house, lived a decrepit old steward. Every morning, gasping and
+groaning, he would, from years of habit, drag himself across the garden
+to the seignorial apartments, though there was nothing to take care of
+in them except a dozen white arm-chairs, upholstered in faded stuff, two
+podgy chests on carved legs with copper handles, four pictures with
+holes in them, and one black alabaster Arab with a broken nose. The
+owner of the house, a careless young man, lived partly at Petersburg,
+partly abroad, and had completely forgotten his estate. It had come to
+him eight years before, from a very old uncle, once noted all over the
+countryside for his excellent liqueurs. The empty, dark-green bottles
+are to this day lying about in the storeroom, in company with rubbish of
+all sorts, old manuscript books in parti-coloured covers, scantily
+filled with writing, old-fashioned glass lustres, a nobleman's uniform
+of the Catherine period, a rusty sabre with a steel handle and so forth.
+In one of the lodges of the great house the colonel himself took up his
+abode. He was a married man, tall, sparing of his words, grim and
+sleepy. In another lodge lived the regimental adjutant, an emotional
+person of fine sentiments and many perfumes, fond of flowers and female
+society. The social life of the officers of this regiment did not differ
+from any other kind of society. Among their number were good people and
+bad, clever and silly.... One of them, a certain Avdey Ivanovitch
+Lutchkov, staff captain, had a reputation as a duellist. Lutchkov was a
+short and not thick-set man; he had a small, yellowish, dry face, lank,
+black hair, unnoticeable features, and dark, little eyes. He had early
+been left an orphan, and had grown up among privations and hardships.
+For weeks together he would be quiet enough,... and then all at once--as
+though he were possessed by some devil--he would let no one alone,
+annoying everybody, staring every one insolently in the face; trying, in
+fact, to pick a quarrel. Avdey Ivanovitch did not, however, hold aloof
+from intercourse with his comrades, but he was not on intimate terms
+with any one but the perfumed adjutant. He did not play cards, and did
+not drink spirits.
+
+In the May of 1829, not long before the beginning of the manoeuvres,
+there joined the regiment a young cornet, Fyodor Fedorovitch Kister, a
+Russian nobleman of German extraction, very fair-haired and very modest,
+cultivated and well read. He had lived up to his twentieth year in the
+home of his fathers, under the wings of his mother, his grandmother, and
+his two aunts. He was going into the army in deference solely to the
+wishes of his grandmother, who even in her old age could not see a white
+plumed helmet without emotion.... He served with no special enthusiasm
+but with energy, as it were conscientiously doing his duty. He was not a
+dandy, but was always cleanly dressed and in good taste. On the day of
+his arrival Fyodor Fedoritch paid his respects to his superior officers,
+and then proceeded to arrange his quarters. He had brought with him some
+cheap furniture, rugs, shelves, and so forth. He papered all the walls
+and the doors, put up some screens, had the yard cleaned, fixed up a
+stable, and a kitchen, even arranged a place for a bath.... For a whole
+week he was busily at work; but it was a pleasure afterwards to go into
+his room. Before the window stood a neat table, covered with various
+little things; in one corner was a set of shelves for books, with busts
+of Schiller and Goethe; on the walls hung maps, four Grevedon heads, and
+guns; near the table was an elegant row of pipes with clean mouthpieces;
+there was a rug in the outer room; all the doors shut and locked; the
+windows were hung with curtains. Everything in Fyodor Fedoritch's room
+had a look of cleanliness and order.
+
+It was quite a different thing in his comrades' quarters. Often one
+could scarcely make one's way across the muddy yard; in the outer room,
+behind a canvas screen, with its covering peeling off it, would lie
+stretched the snoring orderly; on the floor rotten straw; on the stove,
+boots and a broken jam-pot full of blacking; in the room itself a warped
+card-table, marked with chalk; on the table, glasses, half-full of cold,
+dark-brown tea; against the wall, a wide, rickety, greasy sofa; on the
+window-sills, tobacco-ash.... In a podgy, clumsy arm-chair one would
+find the master of the place in a grass-green dressing-gown with crimson
+plush facings and an embroidered smoking-cap of Asiatic extraction, and
+a hideously fat, unpleasant dog in a stinking brass collar would be
+snoring at his side.... All the doors always ajar....
+
+Fyodor Fedoritch made a favourable impression on his new comrades. They
+liked him for his good-nature, modesty, warm-heartedness, and natural
+inclination for everything beautiful, for everything, in fact, which in
+another officer they might, very likely, have thought out of place. They
+called Kister a young lady, and were kind and gentle in their manners
+with him. Avdey Ivanovitch was the only one who eyed him dubiously. One
+day after drill Lutchkov went up to him, slightly pursing up his lips
+and inflating his nostrils:
+
+'Good-morning, Mr. Knaster.'
+
+Kister looked at him in some perplexity.
+
+'A very good day to you, Mr. Knaster,' repeated Lutchkov.
+
+'My name's Kister, sir.'
+
+'You don't say so, Mr. Knaster.'
+
+Fyodor Fedoritch turned his back on him and went homewards. Lutchkov
+looked after him with a grin.
+
+Next day, directly after drill he went up to Kister again.
+
+'Well, how are you getting on, Mr. Kinderbalsam?'
+
+Kister was angry, and looked him straight in the face. Avdey
+Ivanovitch's little bilious eyes were gleaming with malignant glee.
+
+'I'm addressing you, Mr. Kinderbalsam!'
+
+'Sir,' Fyodor Fedoritch replied, 'I consider your joke stupid and
+ill-bred--do you hear?--stupid and ill-bred.'
+
+'When shall we fight?' Lutchkov responded composedly.
+
+'When you like,... to-morrow.'
+
+Next morning they fought a duel. Lutchkov wounded Kister slightly, and
+to the extreme astonishment of the seconds went up to the wounded man,
+took him by the hand and begged his pardon. Kister had to keep indoors
+for a fortnight. Avdey Ivanovitch came several times to ask after him
+and on Fyodor Fedoritch's recovery made friends with him. Whether he was
+pleased by the young officer's pluck, or whether a feeling akin to
+remorse was roused in his soul--it's hard to say... but from the time of
+his duel with Kister, Avdey Ivanovitch scarcely left his side, and
+called him first Fyodor, and afterwards simply Fedya. In his presence he
+became quite another man and--strange to say!--the change was not in his
+favour. It did not suit him to be gentle and soft. Sympathy he could not
+call forth in any one anyhow; such was his destiny! He belonged to that
+class of persons to whom has somehow been granted the privilege of
+authority over others; but nature had denied him the gifts essential for
+the justification of such a privilege. Having received no education, not
+being distinguished by intelligence, he ought not to have revealed
+himself; possibly his malignancy had its origin in his consciousness of
+the defects of his bringing up, in the desire to conceal himself
+altogether under one unchanging mask. Avdey Ivanovitch had at first
+forced himself to despise people, then he began to notice that it was
+not a difficult matter to intimidate them, and he began to despise them
+in reality. Lutchkov enjoyed cutting short by his very approach all but
+the most vulgar conversation. 'I know nothing, and have learned nothing,
+and I have no talents,' he said to himself; 'and so you too shall know
+nothing and not show off your talents before me....' Kister, perhaps,
+had made Lutchkov abandon the part he had taken up--just because before
+his acquaintance with him, the bully had never met any one genuinely
+idealistic, that is to say, unselfishly and simple-heartedly absorbed in
+dreams, and so, indulgent to others, and not full of himself.
+
+Avdey Ivanovitch would come sometimes to Kister, light a pipe and
+quietly sit down in an arm-chair. Lutchkov was not in Kister's company
+abashed by his own ignorance; he relied--and with good reason--on his
+German modesty.
+
+'Well,' he would begin, 'what did you do yesterday? Been reading, I'll
+bet, eh?'
+
+'Yes, I read....'
+
+'Well, and what did you read? Come, tell away, old man, tell away.'
+Avdey Ivanovitch kept up his bantering tone to the end.
+
+'I read Kleist's _Idyll_. Ah, what a fine thing it is! If you don't
+mind, I'll translate you a few lines....' And Kister translated with
+fervour, while Lutchkov, wrinkling up his forehead and compressing his
+lips, listened attentively.... 'Yes, yes,' he would repeat hurriedly,
+with a disagreeable smile,'it's fine... very fine... I remember, I've
+read it... very fine.'
+
+'Tell me, please,' he added affectedly, and as it were reluctantly,
+'what's your view of Louis the Fourteenth?'
+
+And Kister would proceed to discourse upon Louis the Fourteenth, while
+Lutchkov listened, totally failing to understand a great deal,
+misunderstanding a part... and at last venturing to make a remark....
+This threw him into a cold sweat; 'now, if I'm making a fool of myself,'
+he thought. And as a fact he often did make a fool of himself. But
+Kister was never off-hand in his replies; the good-hearted youth was
+inwardly rejoicing that, as he thought, the desire for enlightenment was
+awakened in a fellow-creature. Alas! it was from no desire for
+enlightenment that Avdey Ivanovitch questioned Kister; God knows why he
+did! Possibly he wished to ascertain for himself what sort of head he,
+Lutchkov, had, whether it was really dull, or simply untrained. 'So I
+really am stupid,' he said to himself more than once with a bitter
+smile; and he would draw himself up instantly and look rudely and
+insolently about him, and smile malignantly to himself if he caught some
+comrade dropping his eyes before his glance. 'All right, my man, you're
+so learned and well educated,...' he would mutter between his teeth.
+'I'll show you... that's all....'
+
+The officers did not long discuss the sudden friendship of Kister and
+Lutchkov; they were used to the duellist's queer ways. 'The devil's made
+friends with the baby,' they said.... Kister was warm in his praises of
+his friend on all hands; no one disputed his opinion, because they were
+afraid of Lutchkov; Lutchkov himself never mentioned Kister's name
+before the others, but he dropped his intimacy with the perfumed
+adjutant.
+
+
+II
+
+
+The landowners of the South of Russia are very keen on giving balls,
+inviting officers to their houses, and marrying off their daughters.
+
+About seven miles from the village of Kirilovo lived just such a country
+gentleman, a Mr. Perekatov, the owner of four hundred souls, and a
+fairly spacious house. He had a daughter of eighteen, Mashenka, and a
+wife, Nenila Makarievna. Mr. Perekatov had once been an officer in the
+cavalry, but from love of a country life and from indolence he had
+retired and had begun to live peaceably and quietly, as landowners of
+the middling sort do live. Nenila Makarievna owed her existence in a not
+perfectly legitimate manner to a distinguished gentleman of Moscow.
+
+Her protector had educated his little Nenila very carefully, as it is
+called, in his own house, but got her off his hands rather hurriedly, at
+the first offer, as a not very marketable article. Nenila Makarievna was
+ugly; the distinguished gentleman was giving her no more than ten
+thousand as dowry; she snatched eagerly at Mr. Perekatov. To Mr.
+Perekatov it seemed extremely gratifying to marry a highly educated,
+intellectual young lady... who was, after all, so closely related to so
+illustrious a personage. This illustrious personage extended his
+patronage to the young people even after the marriage, that is to say,
+he accepted presents of salted quails from them and called Perekatov 'my
+dear boy,' and sometimes simply, 'boy.' Nenila Makarievna took complete
+possession of her husband, managed everything, and looked after the
+whole property--very sensibly, indeed; far better, any way, than Mr.
+Perekatov could have done. She did not hamper her partner's liberty too
+much; but she kept him well in hand, ordered his clothes herself, and
+dressed him in the English style, as is fitting and proper for a country
+gentleman. By her instructions, Mr. Perekatov grew a little Napoleonic
+beard on his chin, to cover a large wart, which looked like an over-ripe
+raspberry. Nenila Makarievna, for her part, used to inform visitors that
+her husband played the flute, and that all flute-players always let the
+beard grow under the lower lip; they could hold their instrument more
+comfortably. Mr. Perekatov always, even in the early morning, wore a
+high, clean stock, and was well combed and washed. He was, moreover,
+well content with his lot; he dined very well, did as he liked, and
+slept all he could. Nenila Makarievna had introduced into her household
+'foreign ways,' as the neighbours used to say; she kept few servants,
+and had them neatly dressed. She was fretted by ambition; she wanted at
+least to be the wife of the marshal of the nobility of the district; but
+the gentry of the district, though they dined at her house to their
+hearts' content, did not choose her husband, but first the retired
+premier-major Burkolts, and then the retired second major Burundukov.
+Mr. Perekatov seemed to them too extreme a product of the capital.
+
+Mr. Perekatov's daughter, Mashenka, was in face like her father. Nenila
+Makarievna had taken the greatest pains with her education. She spoke
+French well, and played the piano fairly. She was of medium height,
+rather plump and white; her rather full face was lighted up by a kindly
+and merry smile; her flaxen, not over-abundant hair, her hazel eyes, her
+pleasant voice--everything about her was gently pleasing, and that was
+all. On the other hand the absence of all affectation and
+conventionality, an amount of culture exceptional in a country girl, the
+freedom of her expressions, the quiet simplicity of her words and looks
+could not but be striking in her. She had developed at her own free
+will; Nenila Makarievna did not keep her in restraint.
+
+One morning at twelve o'clock the whole family of the Perekatovs were in
+the drawing-room. The husband in a round green coat, a high check
+cravat, and pea-green trousers with straps, was standing at the window,
+very busily engaged in catching flies. The daughter was sitting at her
+embroidery frame; her small dimpled little hand rose and fell slowly and
+gracefully over the canvas. Nenila Makarievna was sitting on the sofa,
+gazing in silence at the floor.
+
+'Did you send an invitation to the regiment at Kirilovo, Sergei
+Sergeitch?' she asked her husband.
+
+'For this evening? To be sure I did, ma chere.' (He was under the
+strictest orders not to call her 'little mother.') 'To be sure!'
+
+'There are positively no gentlemen,' pursued Nenila Makarievna. 'Nobody
+for the girls to dance with.'
+
+Her husband sighed, as though crushed by the absence of partners.
+
+'Mamma,' Masha began all at once, 'is Monsieur Lutchkov asked?'
+
+'What Lutchkov?'
+
+'He's an officer too. They say he's a very interesting person.'
+
+'How's that?'
+
+'Oh, he's not good-looking and he's not young, but every one's afraid of
+him. He's a dreadful duellist.' (Mamma frowned a little.) 'I should so
+like to see him.'
+
+Sergei Sergeitch interrupted his daughter.
+
+'What is there to see in him, my darling? Do you suppose he must look
+like Lord Byron?' (At that time we were only just beginning to talk
+about Lord Byron.) 'Nonsense! Why, I declare, my dear, there was a time
+when I had a terrible character as a fighting man.'
+
+Masha looked wonderingly at her parent, laughed, then jumped up and
+kissed him on the cheek. His wife smiled a little, too... but Sergei
+Sergeitch had spoken the truth.
+
+'I don't know if that gentleman is coming,' observed Nenila Makarievna.
+'Possibly he may come too.'
+
+The daughter sighed.
+
+'Mind you don't go and fall in love with him,' remarked Sergei
+Sergeitch. 'I know you girls are all like that nowadays--so--what shall
+I say?--romantic...'
+
+'No,' Masha responded simply.
+
+Nenila Makarievna looked coldly at her husband. Sergei Sergeitch played
+with his watch-chain in some embarrassment, then took his wide-brimmed,
+English hat from the table, and set off to see after things on the
+estate.
+
+His dog timidly and meekly followed him. As an intelligent animal, she
+was well aware that her master was not a person of very great authority in
+the house, and behaved herself accordingly with modesty and circumspection.
+
+Nenila Makarievna went up to her daughter, gently raised her head, and
+looked affectionately into her eyes. 'Will you tell me when you fall in
+love?' she asked.
+
+Masha kissed her mother's hand, smiling, and nodded her head several
+times in the affirmative.
+
+'Mind you do,' observed Nenila Makarievna, stroking her cheek, and she
+went out after her husband. Masha leaned back in her chair, dropped her
+head on her bosom, interlaced her fingers, and looked long out of
+window, screwing up her eyes... A slight flush passed over her fresh
+cheeks; with a sigh she drew herself up, was setting to work again, but
+dropped her needle, leaned her face on her hand, and biting the tips of
+her nails, fell to dreaming... then glanced at her own shoulder, at her
+outstretched hand, got up, went to the window, laughed, put on her hat
+and went out into the garden.
+
+That evening at eight o'clock, the guests began to arrive. Madame
+Perekatov with great affability received and 'entertained' the ladies,
+Mashenka the girls; Sergei Sergeitch talked about the crops with the
+gentlemen and continually glanced towards his wife. Soon there arrived
+the young dandies, the officers, intentionally a little late; at last
+the colonel himself, accompanied by his adjutants, Kister and Lutchkov.
+He presented them to the lady of the house. Lutchkov bowed without
+speaking, Kister muttered the customary 'extremely delighted'... Mr.
+Perekatov went up to the colonel, pressed his hand warmly and looked him
+in the face with great cordiality. The colonel promptly looked
+forbidding. The dancing began. Kister asked Mashenka for a dance. At
+that time the _Ecossaise_ was still flourishing.
+
+'Do tell me, please,' Masha said to him, when, after galloping twenty
+times to the end of the room, they stood at last, the first couple, 'why
+isn't your friend dancing?'
+
+'Which friend?'
+
+Masha pointed with the tip of her fan at Lutchkov.
+
+'He never dances,' answered Kister.
+
+'Why did he come then?'
+
+Kister was a little disconcerted. 'He wished to have the pleasure...'
+
+Mashenka interrupted him. 'You've not long been transferred into our
+regiment, I think?'
+
+'Into your regiment,' observed Kister, with a smile: 'no, not long.'
+
+'Aren't you dull here?'
+
+'Oh no... I find such delightful society here... and the scenery!'...
+Kister launched into eulogies of the scenery. Masha listened to him,
+without raising her head. Avdey Ivanovitch was standing in a corner,
+looking indifferently at the dancers.
+
+'How old is Mr. Lutchkov?' she asked suddenly.
+
+'Oh... thirty-five, I fancy,' answered Kister.
+
+'They say he's a dangerous man... hot-tempered,' Masha added hurriedly.
+
+'He is a little hasty... but still, he's a very fine man.'
+
+'They say every one's afraid of him.'
+
+Kister laughed.
+
+'And you?'
+
+'I'm a friend of his.'
+
+'Really?'
+
+'Your turn, your turn,' was shrieked at them from all sides. They
+started and began galloping again right across the room.
+
+'Well, I congratulate you,' Kister said to Lutchkov, going up to him
+after the dance; 'the daughter of the house does nothing but ask
+questions about you.'
+
+'Really?' Lutchkov responded scornfully.
+
+'On my honour! And you know she's extremely nice-looking; only look at
+her.'
+
+'Which of them is she?'
+
+Kister pointed out Masha.
+
+'Ah, not bad.' And Lutchkov yawned.
+
+'Cold-hearted person!' cried Kister, and he ran off to ask another girl
+to dance.
+
+Avdey Ivanovitch was extremely delighted at the fact Kister had
+mentioned to him, though he did yawn, and even yawned loudly. To arouse
+curiosity flattered his vanity intensely: love he despised--in
+words--but inwardly he was himself aware that it would be a hard and
+difficult task for him to win love.... A hard and difficult task for him
+to win love, but easy and simple enough to wear a mask of indifference,
+of silent haughtiness. Avdey Ivanovitch was unattractive and no longer
+young; but on the other hand he enjoyed a terrible reputation--and
+consequently he had every right to pose. He was used to the bitter,
+unspoken enjoyment of grim loneliness. It was not the first time he had
+attracted the attention of women; some had even tried to get upon more
+friendly terms with him, but he repelled their advances with exasperated
+obstinacy; he knew that sentiment was not in his line (during tender
+interviews, avowals, he first became awkward and vulgar, and, through
+anger, rude to the point of grossness, of insult); he remembered that
+the two or three women with whom he had at different times been on a
+friendly footing had rapidly grown cool to him after the first moment of
+closer intimacy, and had of their own impulse made haste to get away
+from him... and so he had at last schooled himself to remain an enigma,
+and to scorn what destiny had denied him.... This is, I fancy, the only
+sort of scorn people in general do feel. No sort of frank, spontaneous,
+that is to say good, demonstration of passion suited Lutchkov; he was
+bound to keep a continual check on himself, even when he was angry.
+Kister was the only person who was not disgusted when Lutchkov broke
+into laughter; the kind-hearted German's eyes shone with the generous
+delight of sympathy, when he read Avdey his favourite passages from
+Schiller, while the bully would sit facing him with lowering looks, like
+a wolf.... Kister danced till he was worn out, Lutchkov never left his
+corner, scowled, glanced stealthily at Masha, and meeting her eyes, at
+once threw an expression of indifference into his own. Masha danced
+three times with Kister. The enthusiastic youth inspired her with
+confidence. She chatted with him gaily enough, but at heart she was not
+at ease. Lutchkov engrossed her thoughts.
+
+A mazurka tune struck up. The officers fell to bounding up and down,
+tapping with their heels, and tossing the epaulettes on their shoulders;
+the civilians tapped with their heels too. Lutchkov still did not stir
+from his place, and slowly followed the couples with his eyes, as they
+whirled by. Some one touched his sleeve... he looked round; his
+neighbour pointed him out Masha. She was standing before him with
+downcast eyes, holding out her hand to him. Lutchkov for the first
+moment gazed at her in perplexity, then he carelessly took off his
+sword, threw his hat on the floor, picked his way awkwardly among the
+arm-chairs, took Masha by the hand, and went round the circle, with no
+capering up and down nor stamping, as it were unwillingly performing an
+unpleasant duty.... Masha's heart beat violently.
+
+'Why don't you dance?' she asked him at last.
+
+'I don't care for it,' answered Lutchkov.
+
+'Where's your place?'
+
+'Over there.'
+
+Lutchkov conducted Masha to her chair, coolly bowed to her and coolly
+returned to his corner... but there was an agreeable stirring of the
+spleen within him.
+
+Kister asked Masha for a dance.
+
+'What a strange person your friend is!'
+
+'He does interest you...' said Fyodor Fedoritch, with a sly twinkle of
+his blue and kindly eyes.
+
+'Yes... he must be very unhappy.'
+
+'He unhappy? What makes you suppose so?' And Fyodor Fedoritch laughed.
+
+'You don't know... you don't know...' Masha solemnly shook her head with
+an important air.
+
+'Me not know? How's that?'...
+
+Masha shook her head again and glanced towards Lutchkov. Avdey
+Ivanovitch noticed the glance, shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly,
+and walked away into the other room.
+
+
+III
+
+
+Several months had passed since that evening. Lutchkov had not once been
+at the Perekatovs'. But Kister visited them pretty often. Nenila
+Makarievna had taken a fancy to him, but it was not she that attracted
+Fyodor Fedoritch. He liked Masha. Being an inexperienced person who had
+not yet talked himself out, he derived great pleasure from the
+interchange of ideas and feelings, and he had a simple-hearted faith in
+the possibility of a calm and exalted friendship between a young man and
+a young girl.
+
+One day his three well-fed and skittish horses whirled him rapidly along
+to Mr. Perekatov's house. It was a summer day, close and sultry. Not a
+cloud anywhere. The blue of the sky was so thick and dark on the horizon
+that the eye mistook it for storm-cloud. The house Mr. Perekatov had
+erected for a summer residence had been, with the foresight usual in the
+steppes, built with every window directly facing the sun. Nenila
+Makarievna had every shutter closed from early morning. Kister walked
+into the cool, half-dark drawing-room. The light lay in long lines on
+the floor and in short, close streaks on the walls. The Perekatov family
+gave Fyodor Fedoritch a friendly reception. After dinner Nenila
+Makarievna went away to her own room to lie down; Mr. Perekatov settled
+himself on the sofa in the drawing-room; Masha sat near the window at
+her embroidery frame, Kister facing her. Masha, without opening her
+frame, leaned lightly over it, with her head in her hands. Kister began
+telling her something; she listened inattentively, as though waiting for
+something, looked from time to time towards her father, and all at once
+stretched out her hand.
+
+'Listen, Fyodor Fedoritch... only speak a little more softly... papa's
+asleep.'
+
+Mr. Perekatov had indeed as usual dropped asleep on the sofa, with his
+head hanging and his mouth a little open.
+
+'What is it?' Kister inquired with curiosity.
+
+'You will laugh at me.'
+
+'Oh, no, really!...'
+
+Masha let her head sink till only the upper part of her face remained
+uncovered by her hands and in a half whisper, not without hesitation,
+asked Kister why it was he never brought Mr. Lutchkov with him. It was
+not the first time Masha had mentioned him since the ball.... Kister did
+not speak. Masha glanced timorously over her interlaced fingers.
+
+'May I tell you frankly what I think?' Kister asked her.
+
+'Oh, why not? of course.'
+
+'It seems to me that Lutchkov has made a great impression on you.'
+
+'No!' answered Masha, and she bent over, as though wishing to examine
+the pattern more closely; a narrow golden streak of light lay on her
+hair; 'no... but...'
+
+'Well, but?' said Kister, smiling.
+
+'Well, don't you see,' said Masha, and she suddenly lifted her head, so
+that the streak of light fell straight in her eyes; 'don't you see...
+he...'
+
+'He interests you....'
+
+'Well... yes...' Masha said slowly; she flushed a little, turned her
+head a little away and in that position went on talking. 'There is
+something about him so... There, you're laughing at me,' she added
+suddenly, glancing swiftly at Fyodor Fedoritch.
+
+Fyodor Fedoritch smiled the gentlest smile imaginable.
+
+'I tell you everything, whatever comes into my head,' Masha went on: 'I
+know that you are a very'... (she nearly said great) 'good friend of
+mine.'
+
+Kister bowed. Masha ceased speaking, and shyly held out her hand to him;
+Fyodor Fedoritch pressed the tips of her fingers respectfully.
+
+'He must be a very queer person!' observed Masha, and again she propped
+her elbows on the frame.
+
+'Queer?'
+
+'Of course; he interests me just because he is queer!' Masha added
+slily.
+
+'Lutchkov is a noble, a remarkable man,' Kister rejoined solemnly. 'They
+don't know him in our regiment, they don't appreciate him, they only see
+his external side. He's embittered, of course, and strange and
+impatient, but his heart is good.'
+
+Masha listened greedily to Fyodor Fedoritch.
+
+'I will bring him to see you, I'll tell him there's no need to be afraid
+of you, that it's absurd for him to be so shy... I'll tell him... Oh!
+yes, I know what to say... Only you mustn't suppose, though, that I
+would...' (Kister was embarrassed, Masha too was embarrassed.)...
+'Besides, after all, of course you only... like him....'
+
+'Of course, just as I like lots of people.'
+
+Kister looked mischievously at her.
+
+'All right, all right,' he said with a satisfied air; 'I'll bring him to
+you....'
+
+'Oh, no....'
+
+'All right, I tell you it will be all right.... I'll arrange
+everything.'
+
+'You are so...' Masha began with a smile, and she shook her finger at
+him. Mr. Perekatov yawned and opened his eyes.
+
+'Why, I almost think I've been asleep,' he muttered with surprise. This
+doubt and this surprise were repeated daily. Masha and Kister began
+discussing Schiller.
+
+Fyodor Fedoritch was not however quite at ease; he felt something like a
+stir of envy within him... and was generously indignant with himself.
+Nenila Makarievna came down into the drawing-room. Tea was brought in.
+Mr. Perekatov made his dog jump several times over a stick, and then
+explained he had taught it everything himself, while the dog wagged its
+tail deferentially, licked itself and blinked. When at last the great
+heat began to lessen, and an evening breeze blew up, the whole family
+went out for a walk in the birch copse. Fyodor Fedoritch was continually
+glancing at Masha, as though giving her to understand that he would
+carry out her behests; Masha felt at once vexed with herself, and happy
+and uncomfortable. Kister suddenly, apropos of nothing, plunged into a
+rather high-flown discourse upon love in the abstract, and upon
+friendship... but catching Nenila Makarievna's bright and vigilant eye
+he, as abruptly, changed the subject. The sunset was brilliant and
+glowing. A broad, level meadow lay outstretched before the birch copse.
+Masha took it into her head to start a game of 'catch-catch.'
+Maid-servants and footmen came out; Mr. Perekatov stood with his wife,
+Kister with Masha. The maids ran with deferential little shrieks; Mr.
+Perekatov's valet had the temerity to separate Nenila Makarievna from
+her spouse; one of the servant-girls respectfully paired off with her
+master; Fyodor Fedoritch was not parted from Masha. Every time as he
+regained his place, he said two or three words to her; Masha, all
+flushed with running, listened to him with a smile, passing her hand
+over her hair. After supper, Kister took leave.
+
+It was a still, starlight night. Kister took off his cap. He was
+excited; there was a lump in his throat. 'Yes,' he said at last, almost
+aloud; 'she loves him: I will bring them together; I will justify her
+confidence in me.' Though there was as yet nothing to prove a definite
+passion for Lutchkov on Masha's part, though, according to her own
+account, he only excited her curiosity, Kister had by this time made up
+a complete romance, and worked out his own duty in the matter. He
+resolved to sacrifice his feelings--the more readily as 'so far I have
+no other sentiment for her but sincere devotion,' thought he. Kister
+really was capable of sacrificing himself to friendship, to a recognised
+duty. He had read a great deal, and so fancied himself a person of
+experience and even of penetration; he had no doubt of the truth of his
+suppositions; he did not suspect that life is endlessly varied, and
+never repeats itself. Little by little, Fyodor Fedoritch worked himself
+into a state of ecstasy. He began musing with emotion on his mission. To
+be the mediator between a shy, loving girl and a man possibly embittered
+only because he had never once in his life loved and been loved; to
+bring them together; to reveal their own feelings to them, and then to
+withdraw, letting no one know the greatness of his sacrifice, what a
+splendid feat! In spite of the coolness of the night, the simple-hearted
+dreamer's face burned....
+
+Next day he went round to Lutchkov early in the morning.
+
+Avdey Ivanovitch was, as usual, lying on the sofa, smoking a pipe.
+Kister greeted him.
+
+'I was at the Perekatovs yesterday,' he said with some solemnity.
+
+'Ah!' Lutchkov responded indifferently, and he yawned.
+
+'Yes. They are splendid people.'
+
+'Really?'
+
+'We talked about you.'
+
+'Much obliged; with which of them was that?'
+
+'With the old people... and the daughter too.'
+
+'Ah! that... little fat thing?'
+
+'She's a splendid girl, Lutchkov.'
+
+'To be sure, they're all splendid.'
+
+'No, Lutchkov, you don't know her. I have never met such a clever, sweet
+and sensitive girl.'
+
+Lutchkov began humming through his nose:
+
+  'In the Hamburg Gazette,
+   You've read, I dare say,
+   How the year before last,
+   Munich gained the day....'
+
+
+'But I assure you....'
+
+'You 're in love with her, Fedya,' Lutchkov remarked sarcastically.
+
+'Not at all. I never even thought of it.'
+
+'Fedya, you're in love with her!'
+
+'What nonsense! As if one couldn't...'
+
+'You're in love with her, friend of my heart, beetle on my hearth,'
+Avdey Ivanovitch chanted drawling.
+
+'Ah, Avdey, you really ought to be ashamed!' Kister said with vexation.
+
+With any one else Lutchkov would thereupon have kept on more than
+before; Kister he did not tease. 'Well, well, sprechen Sie deutsch, Ivan
+Andreitch,' he muttered in an undertone, 'don't be angry.'
+
+'Listen, Avdey,' Kister began warmly, and he sat down beside him. 'You
+know I care for you.' (Lutchkov made a wry face.) 'But there's one
+thing, I'll own, I don't like about you... it's just that you won't make
+friends with any one, that you will stick at home, and refuse all
+intercourse with nice people. Why, there are nice people in the world,
+hang it all! Suppose you have been deceived in life, have been
+embittered, what of it; there's no need to rush into people's arms, of
+course, but why turn your back on everybody? Why, you'll cast me off
+some day, at that rate, I suppose.'
+
+Lutchkov went on smoking coolly.
+
+'That's how it is no one knows you... except me; goodness knows what
+some people think of you... Avdey!' added Kister after a brief silence;
+'do you disbelieve in virtue, Avdey?'
+
+'Disbelieve... no, I believe in it,'... muttered Lutchkov.
+
+Kister pressed his hand feelingly.
+
+'I want,' he went on in a voice full of emotion, 'to reconcile you with
+life. You will grow happier, blossom out... yes, blossom out. How I
+shall rejoice then! Only you must let me dispose of you now and then, of
+your time. To-day it's--what? Monday... to-morrow's Tuesday... on
+Wednesday, yes, on Wednesday we'll go together to the Perekatovs'. They
+will be so glad to see you... and we shall have such a jolly time
+there... and now let me have a pipe.'
+
+Avdey Ivanovitch lay without budging on the sofa, staring at the
+ceiling. Kister lighted a pipe, went to the window, and began drumming
+on the panes with his fingers.
+
+'So they've been talking about me?' Avdey asked suddenly.
+
+'They have,' Kister responded with meaning.
+
+'What did they say?'
+
+'Oh, they talked. There're very anxious to make your acquaintance.'
+
+'Which of them's that?'
+
+'I say, what curiosity!'
+
+Avdey called his servant, and ordered his horse to be saddled.
+
+'Where are you off to?'
+
+'The riding-school.'
+
+'Well, good-bye. So we're going to the Perekatovs', eh?'
+
+'All right, if you like,' Lutchkov said lazily, stretching.
+
+'Bravo, old man!' cried Kister, and he went out into the street,
+pondered, and sighed deeply.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Masha was just approaching the drawing-room door when the arrival of
+Kister and Lutchkov was announced. She promptly returned to her own
+room, and went up to the looking-glass.... Her heart was throbbing
+violently. A girl came to summon her to the drawing-room. Masha drank a
+little water, stopped twice on the stairs, and at last went down. Mr.
+Perekatov was not at home. Nenila Makarievna was sitting on the sofa;
+Lutchkov was sitting in an easy-chair, wearing his uniform, with his hat
+on his knees; Kister was near him. They both got up on Masha's
+entrance--Kister with his usual friendly smile, Lutchkov with a solemn
+and constrained air. She bowed to them in confusion, and went up to her
+mother. The first ten minutes passed off favourably. Masha recovered
+herself, and gradually began to watch Lutchkov. To the questions
+addressed to him by the lady of the house, he answered briefly, but
+uneasily; he was shy, like all egoistic people. Nenila Makarievna
+suggested a stroll in the garden to her guests, but did not herself go
+beyond the balcony. She did not consider it essential never to lose
+sight of her daughter, and to be constantly hobbling after her with a
+fat reticule in her hands, after the fashion of many mothers in the
+steppes. The stroll lasted rather a long while. Masha talked more with
+Kister, but did not dare to look either at him or at Lutchkov. Avdey
+Ivanovitch did not address a remark to her; Kister's voice showed
+agitation. He laughed and chattered a little over-much.... They reached
+the stream. A couple of yards or so from the bank there was a
+water-lily, which seemed to rest on the smooth surface of the water,
+encircled by its broad, round leaves.
+
+'What a beautiful flower!' observed Masha.
+
+She had hardly uttered these words when Lutchkov pulled out his sword,
+clutched with one hand at the frail twigs of a willow, and, bending his
+whole body over the water, cut off the head of the flower. 'It's deep
+here, take care!' Masha cried in terror. Lutchkov with the tip of his
+sword brought the flower to the bank, at her very feet. She bent down,
+picked up the flower, and gazed with tender, delighted amazement at
+Avdey. 'Bravo!' cried Kister. 'And I can't swim...' Lutchkov observed
+abruptly. Masha did not like that remark. 'What made him say that?' she
+wondered.
+
+Lutchkov and Kister remained at Mr. Perekatov's till the evening.
+Something new and unknown was passing in Masha's soul; a dreamy
+perplexity was reflected more than once in her face. She moved somehow
+more slowly, she did not flush on meeting her mother's eyes--on the
+contrary, she seemed to seek them, as though she would question her.
+During the whole evening, Lutchkov paid her a sort of awkward attention;
+but even this awkwardness gratified her innocent vanity. When they had
+both taken leave, with a promise to come again in a few days, she
+quietly went off to her own room, and for a long while, as it were, in
+bewilderment she looked about her. Nenila Makarievna came to her, kissed
+and embraced her as usual. Masha opened her lips, tried to say
+something--and did not utter a word. She wanted to confess---she did not
+know what. Her soul was gently wandering in dreams. On the little table
+by her bedside the flower Lutchkov had picked lay in water in a clean
+glass. Masha, already in bed, sat up cautiously, leaned on her elbow,
+and her maiden lips softly touched the fresh white petals....
+
+'Well,' Kister questioned his friend next day, 'do you like the
+Perekatovs? Was I right? eh? Tell me.'
+
+Lutchkov did not answer.
+
+'No, do tell me, do tell me!'
+
+'Really, I don't know.'
+
+'Nonsense, come now!'
+
+'That... what's her name... Mashenka's all right; not bad-looking.'
+
+'There, you see...' said Kister--and he said no more.
+
+Five days later Lutchkov of his own accord suggested that they should
+call on the Perekatovs.
+
+Alone he would not have gone to see them; in Fyodor Fedoritch's absence
+he would have had to keep up a conversation, and that he could not do,
+and as far as possible avoided.
+
+On the second visit of the two friends, Masha was much more at her ease.
+She was by now secretly glad that she had not disturbed her mamma by an
+uninvited avowal. Before dinner, Avdey had offered to try a young horse,
+not yet broken in, and, in spite of its frantic rearing, he mastered it
+completely. In the evening he thawed, and fell into joking and
+laughing--and though he soon pulled himself up, yet he had succeeded in
+making a momentary unpleasant impression on Masha. She could not yet be
+sure herself what the feeling exactly was that Lutchkov excited in her,
+but everything she did not like in him she set down to the influence of
+misfortune, of loneliness.
+
+
+V
+
+
+The friends began to pay frequent visits to the Perekatovs'. Kister's
+position became more and more painful. He did not regret his action...
+no, but he desired at least to cut short the time of his trial. His
+devotion to Masha increased daily; she too felt warmly towards him; but
+to be nothing more than a go-between, a confidant, a friend even--it's a
+dreary, thankless business! Coldly idealistic people talk a great deal
+about the sacredness of suffering, the bliss of suffering... but to
+Kister's warm and simple heart his sufferings were not a source of any
+bliss whatever. At last, one day, when Lutchkov, ready dressed, came to
+fetch him, and the carriage was waiting at the steps, Fyodor Fedoritch,
+to the astonishment of his friend, announced point-blank that he should
+stay at home. Lutchkov entreated him, was vexed and angry... Kister
+pleaded a headache. Lutchkov set off alone.
+
+The bully had changed in many ways of late. He left his comrades in
+peace, did not annoy the novices, and though his spirit had not
+'blossomed out,' as Kister had foretold, yet he certainly had toned down
+a little. He could not have been called 'disillusioned' before--he had
+seen and experienced almost nothing--and so it is not surprising that
+Masha engrossed his thoughts. His heart was not touched though; only his
+spleen was satisfied. Masha's feelings for him were of a strange kind.
+She almost never looked him straight in the face; she could not talk to
+him.... When they happened to be left alone together, Masha felt
+horribly awkward. She took him for an exceptional man, and felt overawed
+by him and agitated in his presence, fancied she did not understand him,
+and was unworthy of his confidence; miserably, drearily--but
+continually--she thought of him. Kister's society, on the contrary,
+soothed her and put her in a good humour, though it neither overjoyed
+nor excited her. With him she could chatter away for hours together,
+leaning on his arm, as though he were her brother, looking
+affectionately into his face, and laughing with his laughter--and she
+rarely thought of him. In Lutchkov there was something enigmatic for the
+young girl; she felt that his soul was 'dark as a forest,' and strained
+every effort to penetrate into that mysterious gloom.... So children
+stare a long while into a deep well, till at last they make out at the
+very bottom the still, black water.
+
+On Lutchkov's coming into the drawing-room alone, Masha was at first
+scared... but then she felt delighted. She had more than once fancied
+that there existed some sort of misunderstanding between Lutchkov and
+her, that he had not hitherto had a chance of revealing himself.
+Lutchkov mentioned the cause of Kister's absence; the parents expressed
+their regret, but Masha looked incredulously at Avdey, and felt faint
+with expectation. After dinner they were left alone; Masha did not know
+what to say, she sat down to the piano; her fingers flitted hurriedly
+and tremblingly over the keys; she was continually stopping and waiting
+for the first word... Lutchkov did not understand nor care for music.
+Masha began talking to him about Rossini (Rossini was at that time just
+coming into fashion) and about Mozart.... Avdey Ivanovitch responded:
+'Quite so,' 'by no means,' 'beautiful,' 'indeed,' and that was all.
+Masha played some brilliant variations on one of Rossini's airs.
+Lutchkov listened and listened... and when at last she turned to him,
+his face expressed such unfeigned boredom, that Masha jumped up at once
+and closed the piano. She went up to the window, and for a long while
+stared into the garden; Lutchkov did not stir from his seat, and still
+remained silent. Impatience began to take the place of timidity in
+Masha's soul. 'What is it?' she wondered, 'won't you... or can't you?'
+It was Lutchkov's turn to feel shy. He was conscious again of his
+miserable, overwhelming diffidence; already he was raging!... 'It was
+the devil's own notion to have anything to do with the wretched girl,'
+he muttered to himself.... And all the while how easy it was to touch
+Masha's heart at that instant! Whatever had been said by such an
+extraordinary though eccentric man, as she imagined Lutchkov, she would
+have understood everything, have excused anything, have believed
+anything.... But this burdensome, stupid silence! Tears of vexation were
+standing in her eyes. 'If he doesn't want to be open, if I am really not
+worthy of his confidence, why does he go on coming to see us? Or perhaps
+it is that I don't set the right way to work to make him reveal
+himself?'... And she turned swiftly round, and glanced so inquiringly,
+so searchingly at him, that he could not fail to understand her glance,
+and could not keep silence any longer....
+
+'Marya Sergievna,' he pronounced falteringly; 'I... I've... I ought to
+tell you something....'
+
+'Speak,' Masha responded rapidly.
+
+Lutchkov looked round him irresolutely.
+
+'I can't now...'
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'I should like to speak to you... alone....'
+
+'Why, we are alone now.'
+
+'Yes... but... here in the house....'
+
+Masha was at her wits' end.... 'If I refuse,' she thought, 'it's all
+over.'... Curiosity was the ruin of Eve....
+
+'I agree,' she said at last.
+
+'When then? Where?'
+
+Masha's breathing came quickly and unevenly.
+
+'To-morrow... in the evening. You know the copse above the Long
+Meadow?'...
+
+'Behind the mill?'
+
+Masha nodded.
+
+'What time?'
+
+'Wait...'
+
+She could not bring out another word; her voice broke... she turned pale
+and went quickly out of the room.
+
+A quarter of an hour later, Mr. Perekatov, with his characteristic
+politeness, conducted Lutchkov to the hall, pressed his hand feelingly,
+and begged him 'not to forget them'; then, having let out his guest, he
+observed with dignity to the footman that it would be as well for him to
+shave, and without awaiting a reply, returned with a careworn air to his
+own room, with the same careworn air sat down on the sofa, and
+guilelessly dropped asleep on the spot.
+
+'You're a little pale to-day,' Nenila Makarievna said to her daughter,
+on the evening of the same day. 'Are you quite well?'
+
+'Yes, mamma.'
+
+Nenila Makarievna set straight the kerchief on the girl's neck.
+
+'You are very pale; look at me,' she went on, with that motherly
+solicitude in which there is none the less audible a note of parental
+authority: 'there, now, your eyes look heavy too. You're not well,
+Masha.'
+
+'My head does ache a little,' said Masha, to find some way of escape.
+
+'There, I knew it.' Nenila Makarievna put some scent on Masha's
+forehead. 'You're not feverish, though.'
+
+Masha stooped down, and picked a thread off the floor.
+
+Nenila Makarievna's arms lay softly round Masha's slender waist.
+
+'It seems to me you have something you want to tell me,' she said
+caressingly, not loosing her hands.
+
+Masha shuddered inwardly.
+
+'I? Oh, no, mamma.'
+
+Masha's momentary confusion did not escape her mother's attention.
+
+'Oh, yes, you do.... Think a little.'
+
+But Masha had had time to regain her self-possession, and instead of
+answering, she kissed her mother's hand with a laugh.
+
+'And so you've nothing to tell me?'
+
+'No, really, nothing.'
+
+'I believe you,' responded Nenila Makarievna, after a short silence. 'I
+know you keep nothing secret from me.... That's true, isn't it?'
+
+'Of course, mamma.'
+
+Masha could not help blushing a little, though.
+
+'You do quite rightly. It would be wrong of you to keep anything from
+me.... You know how I love you, Masha.'
+
+'Oh yes, mamma.'
+
+And Masha hugged her.
+
+'There, there, that's enough.' (Nenila Makarievna walked about the
+room.) 'Oh tell me,' she went on in the voice of one who feels that the
+question asked is of no special importance; 'what were you talking about
+with Avdey Ivanovitch to-day?'
+
+'With Avdey Ivanovitch?' Masha repeated serenely. 'Oh, all sorts of
+things....'
+
+'Do you like him?'
+
+'Oh yes, I like him.'
+
+'Do you remember how anxious you were to get to know him, how excited
+you were?'
+
+Masha turned away and laughed.
+
+'What a strange person he is!' Nenila Makarievna observed
+good-humouredly.
+
+Masha felt an inclination to defend Lutchkov, but she held her tongue.
+
+'Yes, of course,' she said rather carelessly; 'he is a queer fish, but
+still he's a nice man!'
+
+'Oh, yes!... Why didn't Fyodor Fedoritch come?'
+
+'He was unwell, I suppose. Ah! by the way, Fyodor Fedoritch wanted to
+make me a present of a puppy.... Will you let me?'
+
+'What? Accept his present?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Of course.'
+
+'Oh, thank you!' said Masha, 'thank you, thank you!'
+
+Nenila Makarievna got as far as the door and suddenly turned back again.
+
+'Do you remember your promise, Masha?'
+
+'What promise?'
+
+'You were going to tell me when you fall in love.'
+
+'I remember.'
+
+'Well... hasn't the time come yet?' (Masha laughed musically.) 'Look
+into my eyes.'
+
+Masha looked brightly and boldly at her mother.
+
+'It can't be!' thought Nenila Makarievna, and she felt reassured. 'As if
+she could deceive me!... How could I think of such a thing!... She's
+still a perfect baby....'
+
+She went away....
+
+'But this is really wicked,' thought Masha.
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Kister had already gone to bed when Lutchkov came into his room. The
+bully's face never expressed _one_ feeling; so it was now: feigned
+indifference, coarse delight, consciousness of his own superiority... a
+number of different emotions were playing over his features.
+
+'Well, how was it? how was it?' Kister made haste to question him.
+
+'Oh! I went. They sent you greetings.'
+
+'Well? Are they all well?'
+
+'Of course, why not?'
+
+'Did they ask why I didn't come?'
+
+'Yes, I think so.'
+
+Lutchkov stared at the ceiling and hummed out of tune. Kister looked
+down and mused.
+
+'But, look here,' Lutchkov brought out in a husky, jarring voice,
+'you're a clever fellow, I dare say, you're a cultured fellow, but
+you're a good bit out in your ideas sometimes for all that, if I may
+venture to say so.'
+
+'How do you mean?'
+
+'Why, look here. About women, for instance. How you're always cracking
+them up! You're never tired of singing their praises! To listen to you,
+they're all angels.... Nice sort of angels!'
+
+'I like and respect women, but------'
+
+'Oh, of course, of course,' Avdey cut him short. 'I am not going to
+argue with you. That's quite beyond me! I'm a plain man.'
+
+'I was going to say that... But why just to-day... just now,... are you
+talking about women?'
+
+'Oh, nothing!' Avdey smiled with great meaning. 'Nothing!'
+
+Kister looked searchingly at his friend. He imagined (simple heart!)
+that Masha had been treating him badly; had been torturing him, perhaps,
+as only women can....
+
+'You are feeling hurt, my poor Avdey; tell me...'
+
+Lutchkov went off into a chuckle.
+
+'Oh, well, I don't fancy I've much to feel hurt about,' he said, in a
+drawling tone, complacently stroking his moustaches. 'No, only, look
+here, Fedya,' he went on with the manner of a preceptor, 'I was only
+going to point out that you're altogether out of it about women, my lad.
+You believe me, Fedya, they 're all alike. One's only got to take a
+little trouble, hang about them a bit, and you've got things in your own
+hands. Look at Masha Perekatov now....'
+
+'Oh!'
+
+Lutchkov tapped his foot on the floor and shook his head.
+
+'Is there anything so specially attractive about me, hey? I shouldn't
+have thought there was anything. There isn't anything, is there? And
+here, I've a clandestine appointment for to-morrow.'
+
+Kister sat up, leaned on his elbow, and stared in amazement at Lutchkov.
+
+'For the evening, in a wood...' Avdey Ivanovitch continued serenely.
+'Only don't you go and imagine it means much. It's only a bit of fun.
+It's slow here, don't you know. A pretty little girl,... well, says I,
+why not? Marriage, of course, I'm not going in for... but there, I like
+to recall my young days. I don't care for hanging about petticoats--but
+I may as well humour the baggage. We can listen to the nightingales
+together. Of course, it's really more in your line; but the wench has no
+eyes, you see. I should have thought I wasn't worth looking at beside
+you.'
+
+Lutchkov talked on a long while. But Kister did not hear him. His head
+was going round. He turned pale and passed his hand over his face.
+Lutchkov swayed up and down in his low chair, screwed up his eyes,
+stretched, and putting down Kister's emotion to jealousy, was almost
+gasping with delight. But it was not jealousy that was torturing Kister;
+he was wounded, not by the fact itself, but by Avdey's coarse
+carelessness, his indifferent and contemptuous references to Masha. He
+was still staring intently at the bully, and it seemed as if for the
+first time he was thoroughly seeing his face. So this it was he had been
+scheming for! This for which he had sacrificed his own inclinations!
+Here it was, the blessed influence of love.
+
+'Avdey... do you mean to say you don't care for her?' he muttered at
+last.
+
+'O innocence! O Arcadia!' responded Avdey, with a malignant chuckle.
+
+Kister in the goodness of his heart did not give in even then; perhaps,
+thought he, Avdey is in a bad temper and is 'humbugging' from old
+habit... he has not yet found a new language to express new feelings.
+And was there not in himself some other feeling lurking under his
+indignation? Did not Lutchkov's avowal strike him so unpleasantly simply
+because it concerned Masha? How could one tell, perhaps Lutchkov really
+was in love with her.... Oh, no! no! a thousand times no! That man in
+love?... That man was loathsome with his bilious, yellow face, his
+nervous, cat-like movements, crowing with conceit... loathsome! No, not
+in such words would Kister have uttered to a devoted friend the secret
+of his love.... In overflowing happiness, in dumb rapture, with bright,
+blissful tears in his eyes would he have flung himself on his bosom....
+
+'Well, old man,' queried Avdey, 'own up now you didn't expect it, and
+now you feel put out. Eh? jealous? Own up, Fedya. Eh? eh?'
+
+Kister was about to speak out, but he turned with his face to the wall.
+'Speak openly... to him? Not for anything!' he whispered to himself. 'He
+wouldn't understand me... so be it! He supposes none but evil feelings
+in me--so be it!...'
+
+Avdey got up.
+
+'I see you're sleepy,' he said with assumed sympathy: 'I don't want to
+be in your way. Pleasant dreams, my boy... pleasant dreams!'
+
+And Lutchkov went away, very well satisfied with himself.
+
+Kister could not get to sleep before the morning. With feverish
+persistence he turned over and over and thought over and over the same
+single idea--an occupation only too well known to unhappy lovers.
+
+'Even if Lutchkov doesn't care for her,' he mused, 'if she has flung
+herself at his head, anyway he ought not even with me, with his friend,
+to speak so disrespectfully, so offensively of her! In what way is she
+to blame? How could any one have no feeling for a poor, inexperienced
+girl?
+
+'But can she really have a secret appointment with him? She has--yes,
+she certainly has. Avdey's not a liar, he never tells a lie. But perhaps
+it means nothing, a mere freak....
+
+'But she does not know him.... He is capable, I dare say, of insulting
+her. After to-day, I wouldn't answer for anything.... And wasn't it I
+myself that praised him up and exalted him? Wasn't it I who excited her
+curiosity?... But who could have known this? Who could have foreseen
+it?...
+
+'Foreseen what? Has he so long ceased to be my friend?... But, after
+all, was he ever my friend? What a disenchantment! What a lesson!'
+
+All the past turned round and round before Kister's eyes. 'Yes, I did
+like him,' he whispered at last. 'Why has my liking cooled so
+suddenly?... And do I dislike him? No, why did I ever like him? I
+alone?'
+
+Kister's loving heart had attached itself to Avdey for the very reason
+that all the rest avoided him. But the good-hearted youth did not know
+himself how great his good-heartedness was.
+
+'My duty,' he went on, 'is to warn Marya Sergievna. But how? What right
+have I to interfere in other people's affairs, in other people's love?
+How do I know the nature of that love? Perhaps even in Lutchkov.... No,
+no!' he said aloud, with irritation, almost with tears, smoothing out
+his pillow, 'that man's stone....
+
+'It is my own fault... I have lost a friend.... A precious friend,
+indeed! And she's not worth much either!... What a sickening egoist I
+am! No, no! from the bottom of my soul I wish them happiness....
+Happiness! but he is laughing at her!... And why does he dye his
+moustaches? I do, really, believe he does.... Ah, how ridiculous I am!'
+he repeated, as he fell asleep.
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The next morning Kister went to call on the Perekatovs. When they met,
+Kister noticed a great change in Masha, and Masha, too, found a change
+in him, but neither spoke of it. The whole morning they both, contrary
+to their habit, felt uncomfortable. Kister had prepared at home a number
+of hints and phrases of double meaning and friendly counsels... but all
+this previous preparation turned out to be quite thrown away. Masha was
+vaguely aware that Kister was watching her; she fancied that he
+pronounced some words with intentional significance; but she was
+conscious, too, of her own excitement, and did not trust her own
+observations. 'If only he doesn't mean to stay till evening!' was what
+she was thinking incessantly, and she tried to make him realise that he
+was not wanted. Kister, for his part, took her awkwardness and her
+uneasiness for obvious signs of love, and the more afraid he was for her
+the more impossible he found it to speak of Lutchkov; while Masha
+obstinately refrained from uttering his name. It was a painful
+experience for poor Fyodor Fedoritch. He began at last to understand his
+own feelings. Never had Masha seemed to him more charming. She had, to
+all appearances, not slept the whole night. A faint flush stood in
+patches on her pale face; her figure was faintly drooping; an
+unconscious, weary smile never left her lips; now and then a shiver ran
+over her white shoulders; a soft light glowed suddenly in her eyes, and
+quickly faded away. Nenila Makarievna came in and sat with them, and
+possibly with intention mentioned Avdey Ivanovitch. But in her mother's
+presence Masha was armed _jusqu'aux dents,_ as the French say, and
+she did not betray herself at all. So passed the whole morning.
+
+'You will dine with us?' Nenila Makarievna asked Kister.
+
+Masha turned away.
+
+'No,' Kister said hurriedly, and he glanced towards Masha. 'Excuse me...
+duties of the service...'
+
+Nenila Makarievna duly expressed her regret. Mr. Perekatov, following
+her lead, also expressed something or other. 'I don't want to be in the
+way,' Kister wanted to say to Masha, as he passed her, but he bowed down
+and whispered instead: 'Be happy... farewell... take care of
+yourself...' and was gone.
+
+Masha heaved a sigh from the bottom of her heart, and then felt
+panic-stricken at his departure. What was it fretting her? Love or
+curiosity? God knows; but, we repeat, curiosity alone was enough to
+ruin Eve.
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Long Meadow was the name of a wide, level stretch of ground on the right
+of the little stream Sniezhinka, nearly a mile from the Perekatovs'
+property. The left bank, completely covered by thick young oak bushes,
+rose steeply up over the stream, which was almost overgrown with willow
+bushes, except for some small 'breeding-places,' the haunts of wild
+ducks. Half a mile from the stream, on the right side of Long Meadow,
+began the sloping, undulating uplands, studded here and there with old
+birch-trees, nut bushes, and guelder-roses.
+
+The sun was setting. The mill rumbled and clattered in the distance,
+sounding louder or softer according to the wind. The seignorial drove of
+horses was lazily wandering about the meadows; a shepherd walked,
+humming a tune, after a flock of greedy and timorous sheep; the
+sheepdogs, from boredom, were running after the crows. Lutchkov walked
+up and down in the copse, with his arms folded. His horse, tied up near
+by, more than once whinnied in response to the sonorous neighing of the
+mares and fillies in the meadow. Avdey was ill-tempered and shy, as
+usual. Not yet convinced of Masha's love, he felt wrathful with her and
+annoyed with himself... but his excitement smothered his annoyance. He
+stopped at last before a large nut bush, and began with his riding-whip
+switching off the leaves at the ends of the twigs....
+
+He heard a light rustle... he raised his head.... Ten paces from him
+stood Masha, all flushed from her rapid walk, in a hat, but with no
+gloves, in a white dress, with a hastily tied kerchief round her neck.
+She dropped her eyes instantly, and softly nodded....
+
+Avdey went awkwardly up to her with a forced smile.
+
+'How happy I am...' he was beginning, scarcely audibly.
+
+'I am very glad... to meet you...' Masha interrupted breathlessly. 'I
+usually walk here in the evening... and you...'
+
+But Lutchkov had not the sense even to spare her modesty, to keep up her
+innocent deception.
+
+'I believe, Marya Sergievna,' he pronounced with dignity, 'you yourself
+suggested...'
+
+'Yes... yes...' rejoined Masha hurriedly. 'You wished to see me, you
+wanted...' Her voice died away.
+
+Lutchkov did not speak. Masha timidly raised her eyes.
+
+'Excuse me,' he began, not looking at her, 'I'm a plain man, and not
+used to talking freely... to ladies... I... I wished to tell you... but,
+I fancy, you 're not in the humour to listen to me....'
+
+'Speak.'
+
+'Since you tell me to... well, then, I tell you frankly that for a long
+while now, ever since I had the honour of making your acquaintance...'
+
+Avdey stopped. Masha waited for the conclusion of his sentence.
+
+'I don't know, though, what I'm telling you all this for.... There's no
+changing one's destiny...'
+
+'How can one know?...'
+
+'I know!' responded Avdey gloomily. 'I am used to facing its blows!'
+
+It struck Masha that this was not exactly the befitting moment for
+Lutchkov to rail against destiny.
+
+'There are kind-hearted people in the world,' she observed with a smile;
+'some even too kind....'
+
+'I understand you, Marya Sergievna, and believe me, I appreciate your
+friendliness... I... I... You won't be angry?'
+
+'No.... What do you want to say?'
+
+'I want to say... that I think you charming... Marya Sergievna, awfully
+charming....'
+
+'I am very grateful to you,' Masha interrupted him; her heart was aching
+with anticipation and terror. 'Ah, do look, Mr. Lutchkov,' she went
+on--'look, what a view!'
+
+She pointed to the meadow, streaked with long, evening shadows, and
+flushed red with the sunset.
+
+Inwardly overjoyed at the abrupt change in the conversation, Lutchkov
+began admiring the view. He was standing near Masha....
+
+'You love nature?' she asked suddenly, with a rapid turn of her little
+head, looking at him with that friendly, inquisitive, soft glance, which
+is a gift only vouchsafed to young girls.
+
+'Yes... nature... of course...' muttered Avdey. 'Of course... a stroll's
+pleasant in the evening, though, I confess, I'm a soldier, and fine
+sentiments are not in my line.'
+
+Lutchkov often repeated that he 'was a soldier.' A brief silence
+followed. Masha was still looking at the meadow.
+
+'How about getting away?' thought Avdey. 'What rot it is, though! Come,
+more pluck!... Marya Sergievna...' he began, in a fairly resolute voice.
+
+Masha turned to him.
+
+'Excuse me,' he began, as though in joke, 'but let me on my side know
+what you think of me, whether you feel at all... so to say,... amiably
+disposed towards my person?'
+
+'Mercy on us, how uncouth he is!' Masha said to herself. 'Do you know,
+Mr. Lutchkov,' she answered him with a smile, 'it's not always easy to
+give a direct answer to a direct question.'
+
+'Still...'
+
+'But what is it to you?'
+
+'Oh, really now, I want to know...'
+
+'But... Is it true that you are a great duellist? Tell me, is it true?'
+said Masha, with shy curiosity. 'They do say you have killed more than
+one man?'
+
+'It has happened so,' Avdey responded indifferently, and he stroked his
+moustaches.
+
+Masha looked intently at him.
+
+'This hand then...' she murmured. Meanwhile Lutchkov's blood had caught
+fire. For more than a quarter of an hour a young and pretty girl had
+been moving before his eyes.
+
+'Marya Sergievna,' he began again, in a sharp and strange voice, 'you
+know my feelings now, you know what I wanted to see you for.... You've
+been so kind.... You tell me, too, at last what I may hope for....'
+
+Masha twisted a wildflower in her hands.... She glanced sideways at
+Lutchkov, flushed, smiled, said,' What nonsense you do talk,' and gave
+him the flower.
+
+Avdey seized her hand.
+
+'And so you love me!' he cried.
+
+Masha turned cold all over with horror. She had not had the slightest
+idea of making a declaration of love to Avdey: she was not even sure
+herself as yet whether she did care for him, and here he was
+forestalling her, forcing her to speak out--he must be misunderstanding
+her then.... This idea flashed quicker than lightning into Masha's head.
+She had never expected such a speedy _denouement._... Masha, like
+an inquisitive child, had been asking herself all day: 'Can it be that
+Lutchkov cares for me?' She had dreamed of a delightful evening walk, a
+respectful and tender dialogue; she had fancied how she would flirt with
+him, make the wild creature feel at home with her, permit him at parting
+to kiss her hand... and instead of that...
+
+Instead of that, she was suddenly aware of Avdey's rough moustaches on
+her cheek....
+
+'Let us be happy,' he was whispering: 'there's no other happiness on
+earth!'
+
+Masha shuddered, darted horror-stricken on one side, and pale all over,
+stopped short, one hand leaning on a birch-tree. Avdey was terribly
+confused.
+
+'Excuse me,' he muttered, approaching her, 'I didn't expect really...'
+
+Masha gazed at him, wide-eyed and speechless... A disagreeable smile
+twisted his lips... patches of red came out on his face....
+
+'What are you afraid of?' he went on; 'it's no such great matter....
+Why, we understand each other... and so....'
+
+Masha did not speak.
+
+'Come, stop that!... that's all nonsense! it's nothing but...' Lutchkov
+stretched out his hand to her.
+
+Masha recollected Kister, his 'take care of yourself,' and, sinking with
+terror, in a rather shrill voice screamed, 'Taniusha!'
+
+From behind a nutbush emerged the round face of her maid.... Avdey was
+completely disconcerted. Reassured by the presence of her hand-maiden,
+Masha did not stir. But the bully was shaking all over with rage; his
+eyes were half closed; he clenched his fists and laughed nervously.
+
+'Bravo! bravo! Clever trick--no denying that!' he cried out.
+
+Masha was petrified.
+
+'So you took every care, I see, to be on the safe side, Marya Sergievna!
+Prudence is never thrown away, eh? Upon my word! Nowadays young ladies
+see further than old men. So this is all your love amounts to!'
+
+'I don't know, Mr. Lutchkov, who has given you any right to speak about
+love... what love?'
+
+'Who? Why, you yourself!' Lutchkov cut her short: 'what next!' He felt
+he was ship-wrecking the whole business, but he could not restrain
+himself.
+
+'I have acted thoughtlessly,' said Masha.... 'I yielded to your request,
+relying upon your _delicatesse_... but you don't know French... on
+your courtesy, I mean....'
+
+Avdey turned pale. Masha had stung him to the quick.
+
+'I don't know French... may be; but I know... I know very well that you
+have been amusing yourself at my expense.'
+
+'Not at all, Avdey Ivanovitch... indeed, I'm very sorry...'
+
+'Oh, please, don't talk about being sorry for me,' Avdey cut her short
+peremptorily; 'spare me that, anyway!'
+
+'Mr. Lutchkov...'
+
+'Oh, you needn't put on those grand-duchess airs... It's trouble thrown
+away! you don't impress me.'
+
+Masha stepped back a pace, turned swiftly round and walked away.
+
+'Won't you give me a message for your friend, your shepherd lad, your
+tender sweet-heart, Kister,' Avdey shouted after her. He had lost his
+head. 'Isn't he the happy man?'...
+
+Masha made him no reply, and hurriedly, gladly retreated. She felt light
+at heart, in spite of her fright and excitement. She felt as though she
+had waked up from a troubled sleep, had stepped out of a dark room into
+air and sunshine.... Avdey glared about him like a madman; in speechless
+frenzy he broke a young tree, jumped on to his mare, and so viciously
+drove the spurs into her, so mercilessly pulled and tugged at the reins
+that the wretched beast galloped six miles in a quarter of an hour and
+almost expired the same night.
+
+Kister waited for Lutchkov in vain till midnight, and next morning he
+went round himself to see him. The orderly informed Fyodor Fedoritch
+that his master was lying down and had given orders that he would see no
+one. 'He won't see me even?'. 'Not even your honour.' Kister walked
+twice up and down the street, tortured by the keenest apprehensions, and
+then went home again. His servant handed him a note.
+
+'From whom?'
+
+'From the Perekatovs. Artiomka the postillion brought it.'
+
+Kister's hands began to tremble.
+
+'He had orders to give you their greetings. He had orders to wait for
+your answer. Am I to give Artiomka some vodka?'
+
+Kister slowly unfolded the note, and read as follows:
+
+'DEAR GOOD FYODOR FEDORITCH,--I want very, very much to see you.
+Come to-day, if you can. Don't refuse my request, I entreat you,
+for the sake of our old friendship. If only you knew... but you
+shall know everything. Good-bye for a little while,--eh?
+
+MARIE.
+
+'P.S.--Be sure to come to-morrow.'
+
+
+'So your honour, am I to give Artiomka some vodka?'
+
+Kister turned a long, bewildered stare at his servant's countenance,
+and went out without uttering a word.
+
+'The master has told me to get you some vodka, and to have a drink
+with you,' said Kister's servant to Artiomka the postillion.
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Masha came with such a bright and grateful face to meet Kister, when he
+came into the drawing-room, she pressed his hand so warmly and
+affectionately, that his heart throbbed with delight, and a weight
+seemed rolled from his mind. Masha did not, however, say a single word,
+and she promptly left the room. Sergei Sergeitch was sitting on the
+sofa, playing patience. Conversation sprang up. Sergei Sergeitch had not
+yet succeeded with his usual skill in bringing the conversation round
+from all extraneous topics to his dog, when Masha reappeared, wearing a
+plaid silk sash, Kister's favourite sash. Nenila Makarievna came in and
+gave Fyodor Fedoritch a friendly greeting. At dinner they were all
+laughing and making jokes; even Sergei Sergeitch plucked up spirit and
+described one of the merriest pranks of his youthful days, hiding his
+head from his wife like an ostrich, as he told the story.
+
+'Let us go for a walk, Fyodor Fedoritch,' Masha said to Kister after
+dinner with that note of affectionate authority in her voice which is,
+as it were, conscious that you will gladly submit to it. 'I want to talk
+to you about something very, very important,' she added with enchanting
+solemnity, as she put on her suede gloves. 'Are you coming with us,
+_maman_?'
+
+'No,' answered Nenila Makarievna.
+
+'But we are not going into the garden.'
+
+'Where then?'
+
+'To Long Meadow, to the copse.'
+
+'Take Taniusha with you.'
+
+'Taniusha, Taniusha!' Masha cried musically, flitting lightly as a bird
+from the room.
+
+A quarter of an hour later Masha walked with Kister into the Long
+Meadow. As she passed the cattle, she gave a piece of bread to her
+favourite cow, patted it on the head and made Kister stroke it. Masha
+was in great good humour and chatted merrily. Kister responded
+willingly, though he awaited explanations with impatience.... Taniusha
+walked behind at a respectful distance, only from time to time stealing
+a sly glance at her young lady.
+
+'You're not angry with me, Fyodor Fedoritch?' queried Masha.
+
+'With you, Marya Sergievna? Why, whatever for?'
+
+'The day before yesterday... don't you remember?'
+
+'You were out of humour... that was all.'
+
+'What are we walking in single file for? Give me your arm. That's
+right.... You were out of humour too.'
+
+'Yes, I was too.'
+
+'But to-day I'm in good humour, eh?'
+
+'Yes, I think so, to-day...'
+
+'And do you know why? Because...'
+
+Masha nodded her head gravely. 'Well, I know why.... Because I am with
+you,' she added, not looking at Kister.
+
+Kister softly pressed her hand.
+
+'But why don't you question me?...' Masha murmured in an undertone.
+
+'What about?'
+
+'Oh, don't pretend... about my letter.'
+
+'I was waiting for...'
+
+'That's just why I am happy with you,' Masha interrupted him
+impulsively: 'because you are a gentle, good-hearted person, because you
+are incapable... _parceque vous avez de la delicatesse_. One can
+say that to you: you understand French.'
+
+Kister did understand French, but he did not in the least understand
+Masha.
+
+'Pick me that flower, that one... how pretty it is!' Masha admired it,
+and suddenly, swiftly withdrawing her hand from his arm, with an anxious
+smile she began carefully sticking the tender stalk in the buttonhole of
+Kister's coat. Her slender fingers almost touched his lips. He looked at
+the fingers and then at her. She nodded her head to him as though to say
+'you may.'... Kister bent down and kissed the tips of her gloves.
+
+Meanwhile they drew near the already familiar copse. Masha became
+suddenly more thoughtful, and at last kept silent altogether. They came
+to the very place where Lutchkov had waited for her. The trampled grass
+had not yet grown straight again; the broken sapling had not yet
+withered, its little leaves were only just beginning to curl up and
+fade. Masha stared about her, and turned quickly to Kister.
+
+'Do you know why I have brought you here?'
+
+'No, I don't.'
+
+'Don't you know? Why is it you haven't told me anything about your
+friend Lutchkov to-day? You always praise him so...'
+
+Kister dropped his eyes, and did not speak.
+
+'Do you know,' Masha brought out with some effort, 'that I made... an
+appointment... to meet him here... yesterday?'
+
+'I know that,' Kister rejoined hurriedly.
+
+'You know it?... Ah! now I see why the day before yesterday... Mr.
+Lutchkov was in a hurry it seems to boast of his _conquest_.'
+
+Kister was about to answer....
+
+'Don't speak, don't say anything in opposition.... I know he's your
+friend. You are capable of taking his part. You knew, Kister, you
+knew.... How was it you didn't prevent me from acting so stupidly? Why
+didn't you box my ears, as if I were a child? You knew... and didn't you
+care?'
+
+'But what right had I...'
+
+'What right!... the right of a friend. But he too is your friend.... I'm
+ashamed, Kister.... He your friend.... That man behaved to me yesterday,
+as if...'
+
+Masha turned away. Kister's eyes flamed; he turned pale.
+
+'Oh, never mind, don't be angry.... Listen, Fyodor Fedoritch, don't be
+angry. It's all for the best. I am very glad of yesterday's
+explanation... yes, that's just what it was,' added Masha. 'What do you
+suppose I am telling you about it for? To complain of Mr. Lutchkov?
+Nonsense! I've forgotten about him. But I have done you a wrong, my good
+friend.... I want to speak openly to you, to ask your forgiveness...
+your advice. You have accustomed me to frankness; I am at ease with
+you.... You are not a Mr. Lutchkov!'
+
+'Lutchkov is clumsy and coarse,' Kister brought out with difficulty;
+'but...'
+
+'Why _but_? Aren't you ashamed to say _but_? He is coarse,
+_and_ clumsy, _and_ ill-natured, _and_ conceited.... Do
+you hear?--_and_, not _but_.'
+
+'You are speaking under the influence of anger, Marya Sergievna,' Kister
+observed mournfully.
+
+'Anger? A strange sort of anger! Look at me; are people like this when
+they 're angry? Listen,' pursued Masha; 'you may think what you like of
+me... but if you imagine I am flirting with you to-day from pique,
+well... well...' (tears stood in her eyes)'I shall be angry in earnest.'
+
+'Do be open with me, Marya Sergievna...'
+
+'O, silly fellow! how slow you are! Why, look at me, am I not open with
+you, don't you see right through me?'
+
+'Oh, very well... yes; I believe you,' Kister said with a smile, seeing
+with what anxious insistence she tried to catch his eyes. 'But tell me,
+what induced you to arrange to meet Lutchkov?'
+
+'What induced me? I really don't know. He wanted to speak to me alone. I
+fancied he had never had time, never had an opportunity to speak freely.
+He has spoken freely now! Do you know, he may be an extraordinary man,
+but he's a fool, really.... He doesn't know how to put two words
+together. He's simply an ignoramus. Though, indeed, I don't blame him
+much... he might suppose I was a giddy, mad, worthless girl. I hardly
+ever talked to him.... He did excite my curiosity, certainly, but I
+imagined that a man who was worthy of being your friend...'
+
+'Don't, please, speak of him as my friend,' Kister interposed.
+
+'No, no, I don't want to separate you.'
+
+'Oh, my God, for you I'm ready to sacrifice more than a friend....
+Everything is over between me and Mr. Lutchkov,' Kister added hurriedly.
+
+Masha looked intently into his face.
+
+'Well, enough of him,' she said. 'Don't let us talk of him. It's a
+lesson to me for the future. It's I that am to blame. For several months
+past I have almost every day seen a man who is good, clever, bright,
+friendly who...' (Masha was confused, and stammered) 'who, I think,
+cared... a little... for me too... and I like a fool,' she went on
+quickly, 'preferred to him... no, no, I didn't prefer him, but...'
+
+She drooped her head, and ceased speaking in confusion.
+
+Kister was in a sort of terror. 'It can't be!' he kept repeating to
+himself.
+
+'Marya Sergievna!' he began at last.
+
+Masha lifted her head, and turned upon him eyes heavy with unshed tears.
+
+'You don't guess of whom I am speaking?' she asked.
+
+Scarcely daring to breathe, Kister held out his hand. Masha at once
+clutched it warmly.
+
+'You are my friend as before, aren't you?... Why don't you answer?'
+
+'I am your friend, you know that,' he murmured.
+
+'And you are not hard on me? You forgive me?... You understand me?
+You're not laughing at a girl who made an appointment only yesterday
+with one man, and to-day is talking to another, as I am talking to
+you.... You're not laughing at me, are you?...' Masha's face glowed
+crimson, she clung with both hands to Kister's hand....
+
+'Laugh at you,' answered Kister: 'I... I... why, I love you... I love
+you,' he cried.
+
+Masha hid her face.
+
+'Surely you've long known that I love you, Marya Sergievna?'
+
+
+X
+
+
+Three weeks after this interview, Kister was sitting alone in his room,
+writing the following letter to his mother:--
+
+Dearest Mother!--I make haste to share my great happiness with you; I am
+going to get married. This news will probably only surprise you from my
+not having, in my previous letters, even hinted at so important a change
+in my life--and you know that I am used to sharing all my feelings, my
+joys and my sorrows, with you. My reasons for silence are not easy to
+explain to you. To begin with, I did not know till lately that I was
+loved; and on my own side too, it is only lately that I have realised
+myself all the strength of my own feeling. In one of my first letters
+from here, I wrote to you of our neighbours, the Perekatovs; I am
+engaged to their only daughter, Marya. I am thoroughly convinced that we
+shall both be happy. My feeling for her is not a fleeting passion, but a
+deep and genuine emotion, in which friendship is mingled with love. Her
+bright, gentle disposition is in perfect harmony with my tastes. She is
+well-educated, clever, plays the piano splendidly.... If you could only
+see her! I enclose her portrait sketched by me. I need hardly say she is
+a hundred times better-looking than her portrait. Masha loves you
+already, like a daughter, and is eagerly looking forward to seeing you.
+I mean to retire, to settle in the country, and to go in for farming.
+Mr. Perekatov has a property of four hundred serfs in excellent
+condition. You see that even from the material point of view, you cannot
+but approve of my plans. I will get leave and come to Moscow and to you.
+Expect me in a fortnight, not later. My own dearest mother, how happy I
+am!... Kiss me...' and so on.
+
+Kister folded and sealed the letter, got up, went to the window, lighted
+a pipe, thought a little, and returned to the table. He took out a small
+sheet of notepaper, carefully dipped his pen into the ink, but for a
+long while he did not begin to write, knitted his brows, lifted his eyes
+to the ceiling, bit the end of his pen.... At last he made up his mind,
+and in the course of a quarter of an hour he had composed the following:
+
+'Dear Avdey Ivanovitch,--Since the day of your last visit (that is, for
+three weeks) you have sent me no message, have not said a word to me,
+and have seemed to avoid meeting me. Every one is, undoubtedly, free to
+act as he pleases; you have chosen to break off our acquaintance, and I
+do not, believe me, in addressing you intend to reproach you in any way.
+It is not my intention or my habit to force myself upon any one
+whatever; it is enough for me to feel that I am not to blame in the
+matter. I am writing to you now from a feeling of duty. I have made an
+offer to Marya Sergievna Perekatov, and have been accepted by her, and
+also by her parents. I inform _you_ of this fact--directly and
+immediately--to avoid any kind of misapprehension or suspicion. I
+frankly confess, sir, that I am unable to feel great concern about the
+good opinion of a man who himself shows so little concern for the
+opinions and feelings of other people, and I am writing to you solely
+because I do not care in this matter even to appear to have acted or to
+be acting underhandedly. I make bold to say, you know me, and will not
+ascribe my present action to any other lower motive. Addressing you for
+the last time, I cannot, for the sake of our old friendship, refrain
+from wishing you all good things possible on earth.--I remain,
+sincerely, your obedient servant, Fyodor Kister.'
+
+Fyodor Fedoritch despatched this note to the address, changed his
+uniform, and ordered his carriage to be got ready. Light-hearted and
+happy, he walked up and down his little room humming, even gave two
+little skips in the air, twisted a book of songs into a roll, and was
+tying it up with blue ribbon.... The door opened, and Lutchkov, in a
+coat without epaulettes, with a cap on his head, came into the room.
+Kister, astounded, stood still in the middle of the room, without
+finishing the bow he was tying.
+
+'So you're marrying the Perekatov girl?' queried Avdey in a calm voice.
+
+Kister fired up.
+
+'Sir,' he began; 'decent people take off their caps and say good-morning
+when they come into another man's room.'
+
+'Beg pardon,' the bully jerked out; and he took off his cap.
+'Good-morning.'
+
+'Good-morning, Mr. Lutchkov. You ask me if I am about to marry Miss
+Perekatov? Haven't you read my letter, then?'
+
+'I have read your letter. You're going to get married. I congratulate
+you.'
+
+'I accept your congratulation, and thank you for it. But I must be
+starting.'
+
+'I should like to have a few words of explanation with you, Fyodor
+Fedoritch.'
+
+'By all means, with pleasure,' responded the good-natured fellow. 'I
+must own I was expecting such an explanation. Your behaviour to me has
+been so strange, and I think, on my side, I have not deserved... at
+least, I had no reason to expect... But won't you sit down? Wouldn't you
+like a pipe?'
+
+Lutchkov sat down. There was a certain weariness perceptible in his
+movements. He stroked his moustaches and lifted his eyebrows.
+
+'I say, Fyodor Fedoritch,' he began at last; 'why did you keep it up
+with me so long?...'
+
+'How do you mean?'
+
+'Why did you pose as such... a disinterested being, when you were just
+such another as all the rest of us sinners all the while?'
+
+'I don't understand you.... Can I have wounded you in some way?...'
+
+'You don't understand me... all right. I'll try and speak more plainly.
+Just tell me, for instance, openly, Have you had a liking for the
+Perekatov girl all along, or is it a case of sudden passion?'
+
+'I should prefer, Avdey Ivanitch, not to discuss with you my relations
+with Marya Sergievna,' Kister responded coldly.
+
+'Oh, indeed! As you please. Only you'll kindly allow me to believe that
+you've been humbugging me.'
+
+Avdey spoke very deliberately and emphatically.
+
+'You can't believe that, Avdey Ivanitch; you know me.'
+
+'I know you?... who knows you? The heart of another is a dark forest,
+and the best side of goods is always turned uppermost. I know you read
+German poetry with great feeling and even with tears in your eyes; I
+know that you've hung various maps on your walls; I know you keep your
+person clean; that I know,... but beyond that, I know nothing...'
+
+Kister began to lose his temper.
+
+'Allow me to inquire,' he asked at last, 'what is the object of your
+visit? You have sent no message to me for three weeks, and now you come
+to me, apparently with the intention of jeering at me. I am not a boy,
+sir, and I do not allow any one...'
+
+'Mercy on us,' Lutchkov interrupted him; 'mercy on us, Fyodor Fedoritch,
+who would venture to jeer at you? It's quite the other way; I've come to
+you with a most humble request, that is, that you'd do me the favour to
+explain your behaviour to me. Allow me to ask you, wasn't it you who
+forced me to make the acquaintance of the Perekatov family? Didn't you
+assure your humble servant that it would make his soul blossom into
+flower? And lastly, didn't you throw me with the virtuous Marya
+Sergievna? Why am I not to presume that it's to _you_ I'm indebted
+for that final agreeable scene, of which you have doubtless been
+informed in befitting fashion? An engaged girl, of course, tells her
+betrothed of everything, especially of her _innocent_ indiscretions.
+How can I help supposing that it's thanks to you I've been made such a
+terrific fool of? You took such a mighty interest in my "blossoming out,"
+you know!'
+
+Kister walked up and down the room.
+
+'Look here, Lutchkov,' he said at last; 'if you really--joking
+apart--are convinced of what you say, which I confess I don't believe,
+then let me tell you, it's shameful and wicked of you to put such an
+insulting construction on my conduct and intentions. I don't want to
+justify myself... I appeal to your own conscience, to your memory.'
+
+'Yes; I remember you were continually whispering with Marya Sergievna.
+Besides that, let me ask you another question: Weren't you at the
+Perekatovs' after a certain conversation with me, after that evening
+when I like a fool chattered to you, thinking you my greatest friend, of
+the meeting she'd arranged?'
+
+'What! you suspect me...'
+
+'I suspect other people of nothing,' Avdey cut him short with cutting
+iciness, 'of which I would not suspect myself; but I have the weakness
+to suppose that other men are no better than I am.'
+
+'You are mistaken,' Kister retorted emphatically; 'other men are better
+than you.'
+
+'I congratulate them upon it,' Lutchkov dropped carelessly; 'but...'
+
+'But remember,' broke in Kister, now in his turn thoroughly infuriated,
+'in what terms you spoke of... of that meeting... of... But these
+explanations are leading to nothing, I see.... Think what you choose of
+me, and act as you think best.'
+
+'Come, that's better,' observed Avdey. 'At last you're beginning to
+speak plainly.'
+
+'As you think best,' repeated Kister.
+
+'I understand your position, Fyodor Fedoritch,' Avdey went on with an
+affectation of sympathy; 'it's disagreeable, certainly. A man has been
+acting, acting a part, and no one has recognised him as a humbug; and
+all of a sudden...'
+
+'If I could believe,' Kister interrupted, setting his teeth, 'that it
+was wounded love that makes you talk like this, I should feel sorry for
+you; I could excuse you.... But in your abuse, in your false charges, I
+hear nothing but the shriek of mortified pride... and I feel no sympathy
+for you.... You have deserved what you've got.'
+
+'Ugh, mercy on us, how the fellow talks!' Avdey murmured. 'Pride,' he
+went on; 'may be; yes, yes, my pride, as you say, has been mortified
+intensely and insufferably. But who isn't proud? Aren't you? Yes, I'm
+proud, and for instance, I permit no one to feel sorry for me....'
+
+'You don't permit it!' Kister retorted haughtily. 'What an expression,
+sir! Don't forget, the tie between us you yourself have broken. I must
+beg you to behave with me as with a complete outsider.'
+
+'Broken! Broken the tie between us!' repeated Avdey. 'Understand me; I
+have sent you no message, and have not been to see you because I was
+sorry for you; you must allow me to be sorry for you, since you 're
+sorry for me!... I didn't want to put you in a false position, to make
+your conscience prick.... You talk of a tie between us... as though you
+could remain my friend as before your marriage! Rubbish! Why, you were
+only friendly with me before to gloat over your fancied superiority...'
+
+Avdey's duplicity overwhelmed, confounded Kister.
+
+'Let us end this unpleasant conversation!' he cried at last. 'I must own
+I don't see why you've been pleased to come to me.'
+
+'You don't see what I've come to you for?' Avdey asked inquiringly.
+
+'I certainly don't see why.'
+
+'N--o?'
+
+'No, I tell you...'
+
+'Astonishing!... This is astonishing! Who'd have thought it of a fellow
+of your intelligence!'
+
+'Come, speak plainly...'
+
+'I have come, Mr. Kister,' said Avdey, slowly rising to his feet, 'I
+have come to challenge you to a duel. Do you understand now? I want to
+fight you. Ah! you thought you could get rid of me like that! Why,
+didn't you know the sort of man you have to do with? As if I'd allow...'
+
+'Very good,' Kister cut in coldly and abruptly. 'I accept your
+challenge. Kindly send me your second.'
+
+'Yes, yes,' pursued Avdey, who, like a cat, could not bear to let his
+victim go so soon: 'it'll give me great pleasure I'll own to put a
+bullet into your fair and idealistic countenance to-morrow.'
+
+'You are abusive after a challenge, it seems,' Kister rejoined
+contemptuously. 'Be so good as to go. I'm ashamed of you.'
+
+'Oh, to be sure, _delicatesse_!... Ah, Marya Sergievna, I don't
+know French!' growled Avdey, as he put on his cap. 'Till we meet again,
+Fyodor Fedoritch!'
+
+He bowed and walked out.
+
+Kister paced several times up and down the room. His face burned, his
+breast heaved violently. He felt neither fear nor anger; but it sickened
+him to think what this man really was that he had once looked upon as a
+friend. The idea of the duel with Lutchkov was almost pleasant to
+him.... Once get free from the past, leap over this rock in his path,
+and then to float on an untroubled tide... 'Good,' he thought, 'I shall
+be fighting to win my happiness.' Masha's image seemed to smile to him,
+to promise him success. 'I'm not going to be killed! not I!' he repeated
+with a serene smile. On the table lay the letter to his mother.... He
+felt a momentary pang at his heart. He resolved any way to defer sending
+it off. There was in Kister that quickening of the vital energies of
+which a man is aware in face of danger. He calmly thought over all the
+possible results of the duel, mentally placed Masha and himself in all
+the agonies of misery and parting, and looked forward to the future with
+hope. He swore to himself not to kill Lutchkov... He felt irresistibly
+drawn to Masha. He paused a second, hurriedly arranged things, and
+directly after dinner set off to the Perekatovs. All the evening Kister
+was in good spirits, perhaps in too good spirits.
+
+Masha played a great deal on the piano, felt no foreboding of evil, and
+flirted charmingly with him. At first her unconsciousness wounded him,
+then he took Masha's very unconsciousness as a happy omen, and was
+rejoiced and reassured by it. She had grown fonder and fonder of him
+every day; happiness was for her a much more urgent need than passion.
+Besides, Avdey had turned her from all exaggerated desires, and she
+renounced them joyfully and for ever. Nenila Makarievna loved Kister
+like a son. Sergei Sergeitch as usual followed his wife's lead.
+
+'Till we meet,' Masha said to Kister, following him into the hall and
+gazing at him with a soft smile, as he slowly and tenderly kissed her
+hands.
+
+'Till we meet,' Fyodor Fedoritch repeated confidently; 'till we meet.'
+
+But when he had driven half a mile from the Perekatovs' house, he stood
+up in the carriage, and with vague uneasiness began looking for the
+lighted windows.... All in the house was dark as in the tomb.
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Next day at eleven o'clock in the morning Kister's second, an old major
+of tried merit, came for him. The good old man growled to himself, bit
+his grey moustaches, and wished Avdey Ivanovitch everything
+unpleasant.... The carriage was brought to the door. Kister handed the
+major two letters, one for his mother, the other for Masha.
+
+'What's this for?'
+
+'Well, one can never tell...'
+
+'Nonsense! we'll shoot him like a partridge...'
+
+'Any way it's better...'
+
+The major with vexation stuffed the two letters in the side pocket of
+his coat.
+
+'Let us start.'
+
+They set off. In a small copse, a mile and a half from the village of
+Kirilovo, Lutchkov was awaiting them with his former friend, the
+perfumed adjutant. It was lovely weather, the birds were twittering
+peacefully; not far from the copse a peasant was tilling the ground.
+While the seconds were marking out the distance, fixing the barrier,
+examining and loading the pistols, the opponents did not even glance at
+one another.... Kister walked to and fro with a careless air, swinging a
+flower he had gathered; Avdey stood motionless, with folded arms and
+scowling brow. The decisive moment arrived. 'Begin, gentlemen!' Kister
+went rapidly towards the barrier, but he had not gone five steps before
+Avdey fired, Kister started, made one more step forward, staggered. His
+head sank... His knees bent under him... He fell like a sack on the
+grass. The major rushed up to him.... 'Is it possible?' whispered the
+dying man.
+
+Avdey went up to the man he had killed. On his gloomy and sunken face
+was a look of savage, exasperated regret.... He looked at the adjutant
+and the major, bent his head like a guilty man, got on his horse without
+a word, and rode slowly straight to the colonel's quarters.
+
+Masha... is living to this day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THREE PORTRAITS
+
+
+'Neighbours' constitute one of the most serious drawbacks of life in the
+country. I knew a country gentleman of the Vologodsky district, who used
+on every suitable occasion to repeat the following words, 'Thank God, I
+have no neighbours,' and I confess I could not help envying that happy
+mortal. My own little place is situated in one of the most thickly
+peopled provinces of Russia. I am surrounded by a vast number of dear
+neighbours, from highly respectable and highly respected country
+gentlemen, attired in ample frockcoats and still more ample waistcoats,
+down to regular loafers, wearing jackets with long sleeves and a
+so-called shooting-bag on their back. In this crowd of gentlefolks I
+chanced, however, to discover one very pleasant fellow. He had served in
+the army, had retired and settled for good and all in the country.
+According to his story, he had served for two years in the B------
+regiment. But I am totally unable to comprehend how that man could have
+performed any sort of duty, not merely for two years, but even for two
+days. He was born 'for a life of peace and country calm,' that is to
+say, for lazy, careless vegetation, which, I note parenthetically, is
+not without great and inexhaustible charms. He possessed a very fair
+property, and without giving too much thought to its management, spent
+about ten thousand roubles a year, had obtained an excellent cook--my
+friend was fond of good fare--and ordered too from Moscow all the newest
+French books and magazines. In Russian he read nothing but the reports
+of his bailiff, and that with great difficulty. He used, when he did not
+go out shooting, to wear a dressing-gown from morning till dinner-time
+and at dinner. He would look through plans of some sort, or go round to
+the stables or to the threshing barn, and joke with the peasant women,
+who, to be sure, in his presence wielded their flails in leisurely
+fashion. After dinner my friend would dress very carefully before the
+looking-glass, and drive off to see some neighbour possessed of two or
+three pretty daughters. He would flirt serenely and unconcernedly with
+one of them, play blind-man's-buff with them, return home rather late
+and promptly fall into a heroic sleep. He could never be bored, for he
+never gave himself up to complete inactivity; and in the choice of
+occupations he was not difficult to please, and was amused like a child
+with the smallest trifle. On the other hand, he cherished no particular
+attachment to life, and at times, when he chanced to get a glimpse of
+the track of a wolf or a fox, he would let his horse go at full gallop
+over such ravines that to this day I cannot understand how it was he did
+not break his neck a hundred times over. He belonged to that class of
+persons who inspire in one the idea that they do not know their own
+value, that under their appearance of indifference strong and violent
+passions lie concealed. But he would have laughed in one's face if he
+could have guessed that one cherished such an opinion of him. And indeed
+I must own I believe myself that even supposing my friend had had in
+youth some strong impulse, however vague, towards what is so sweetly
+called 'higher things,' that impulse had long, long ago died out. He was
+rather stout and enjoyed superb health. In our day one cannot help
+liking people who think little about themselves, because they are
+exceedingly rare... and my friend had almost forgotten his own
+personality. I fancy, though, that I have said too much about him
+already, and my prolixity is the more uncalled for as he is not the hero
+of my story. His name was Piotr Fedorovitch Lutchinov.
+
+One autumn day there were five of us, ardent sportsmen, gathered
+together at Piotr Fedorovitch's. We had spent the whole morning out, had
+run down a couple of foxes and a number of hares, and had returned home
+in that supremely agreeable frame of mind which comes over every
+well-regulated person after a successful day's shooting. It grew dusk.
+The wind was frolicking over the dark fields and noisily swinging the
+bare tops of the birches and lime-trees round Lutchinov's house. We
+reached the house, got off our horses.... On the steps I stood still and
+looked round: long storm-clouds were creeping heavily over the grey sky;
+a dark-brown bush was writhing in the wind, and murmuring plaintively;
+the yellow grass helplessly and forlornly bowed down to the earth;
+flocks of thrushes were fluttering in the mountain-ashes among the
+bright, flame-coloured clusters of berries. Among the light brittle
+twigs of the birch-trees blue-tits hopped whistling. In the village
+there was the hoarse barking of dogs. I felt melancholy... but it was
+with a genuine sense of comfort that I walked into the dining-room. The
+shutters were closed; on a round table, covered with a tablecloth of
+dazzling whiteness, amid cut-glass decanters of red wine, there were
+eight lighted candles in silver candlesticks; a fire glowed cheerfully
+on the hearth, and an old and very stately-looking butler, with a huge
+bald head, wearing an English dress, stood before another table on which
+was pleasingly conspicuous a large soup-tureen, encircled by light
+savoury-smelling steam. In the hall we passed by another venerable man,
+engaged in icing champagne--'according to the strictest rules of the
+art.' The dinner was, as is usual in such cases, exceedingly pleasant.
+We laughed and talked of the incidents of the day's shooting, and
+recalled with enthusiasm two glorious 'runs.' After dining pretty
+heartily, we settled comfortably into ample arm-chairs round the fire; a
+huge silver bowl made its appearance on the table, and in a few minutes
+the white flame of the burning rum announced our host's agreeable
+intention 'to concoct a punch.' Piotr Fedoritch was a man of some taste;
+he was aware, for instance, that nothing has so fatal an influence on
+the fancy as the cold, steady, pedantic light of a lamp, and so he gave
+orders that only two candles should be left in the room. Strange
+half-shadows quivered on the walls, thrown by the fanciful play of the
+fire in the hearth and the flame of the punch... a soft, exceedingly
+agreeable sense of soothing comfort replaced in our hearts the somewhat
+boisterous gaiety that had reigned at dinner.
+
+Conversations have their destinies, like books, as the Latin proverb
+says, like everything in the world. Our conversation that evening was
+particularly many-sided and lively. From details it passed to rather
+serious general questions, and lightly and casually came back to the
+daily incidents of life.... After chatting a good deal, we suddenly all
+sank into silence. At such times they say an angel of peace is flying
+over.
+
+I cannot say why my companions were silent, but I held my tongue because
+my eyes had suddenly come to rest on three dusty portraits in black
+wooden frames. The colours were rubbed and cracked in places, but one
+could still make out the faces. The portrait in the centre was that of a
+young woman in a white gown with lace ruffles, her hair done up high, in
+the style of the eighties of last century. On her right, upon a
+perfectly black background, there stood out the full, round face of a
+good-natured country gentleman of five-and-twenty, with a broad, low
+brow, a thick nose, and a good-humoured smile. The French powdered
+coiffure was utterly out of keeping with the expression of his Slavonic
+face. The artist had portrayed him wearing a long loose coat of crimson
+colour with large paste buttons; in his hand he was holding some
+unlikely-looking flower. The third portrait, which was the work of some
+other more skilful hand, represented a man of thirty, in the green
+uniform, with red facings, of the time of Catherine, in a white shirt,
+with a fine cambric cravat. One hand leaned on a gold-headed cane, the
+other lay on his shirt front. His dark, thinnish face was full of
+insolent haughtiness. The fine long eyebrows almost grew together over
+the pitch-black eyes, about the thin, scarcely discernible lips played
+an evil smile.
+
+'Why do you keep staring at those faces?' Piotr Fedoritch asked me.
+
+'Oh, I don't know!' I answered, looking at him.
+
+'Would you care to hear a whole story about those three persons?'
+
+'Oh, please tell it,' we all responded with one voice.
+
+Piotr Fedoritch got up, took a candle, carried it to the portraits, and
+in the tone of a showman at a wild beast show, 'Gentlemen!' he boomed,
+'this lady was the adopted child of my great-grandfather, Olga Ivanovna
+N.N., called Lutchinov, who died forty years ago unmarried. This
+gentleman,' he pointed to the portrait of a man in uniform, 'served as a
+lieutenant in the Guards, Vassily Ivanovitch Lutchinov, expired by the
+will of God in the year seventeen hundred and ninety. And this
+gentleman, to whom I have not the honour of being related, is a certain
+Pavel Afanasiitch Rogatchov, serving nowhere, as far as I'm aware....
+Kindly take note of the hole in his breast, just on the spot where the
+heart should be. That hole, you see, a regular three-sided hole, would
+be hardly likely to have come there by chance.... Now, 'he went on in
+his usual voice, 'kindly seat yourselves, arm yourselves with patience,
+and listen.'
+
+Gentlemen! (he began) I come of a rather old family. I am not proud of
+my descent, seeing that my ancestors were all fearful prodigals. Though
+that reproach cannot indeed be made against my great-grandfather, Ivan
+Andreevitch Lutchinov; on the contrary, he had the character of being
+excessively careful, even miserly--at any rate, in the latter years of
+his life. He spent his youth in Petersburg, and lived through the reign
+of Elizabeth. In Petersburg he married, and had by his wife, my
+great-grandmother, four children, three sons, Vassily, Ivan, and Pavel,
+my grandfather, and one daughter, Natalia. In addition, Ivan Andreevitch
+took into his family the daughter of a distant relation, a nameless and
+destitute orphan--Olga Ivanovna, of whom I spoke just now. My
+great-grandfather's serfs were probably aware of his existence, for they
+used (when nothing particularly unlucky occurred) to send him a trifling
+rent, but they had never seen his face. The village of Lutchinovka,
+deprived of the bodily presence of its lord, was flourishing
+exceedingly, when all of a sudden one fine morning a cumbrous old family
+coach drove into the village and stopped before the elder's hut. The
+peasants, alarmed at such an unheard-of occurrence, ran up and saw their
+master and mistress and all their young ones, except the eldest,
+Vassily, who was left behind in Petersburg. From that memorable day down
+to the very day of his death, Ivan Andreevitch never left Lutchinovka.
+He built himself a house, the very house in which I have the pleasure of
+conversing with you at this moment. He built a church too, and began
+living the life of a country gentleman. Ivan Andreevitch was a man of
+immense height, thin, silent, and very deliberate in all his movements.
+He never wore a dressing-gown, and no one but his valet had ever seen
+him without powder. Ivan Andreevitch usually walked with his hands
+clasped behind his back, turning his head at each step. Every day he
+used to walk in a long avenue of lime-trees, which he had planted with
+his own hand; and before his death he had the pleasure of enjoying the
+shade of those trees. Ivan Andreevitch was exceedingly sparing of his
+words; a proof of his taciturnity is to be found in the remarkable fact
+that in the course of twenty years he had not said a single word to his
+wife, Anna Pavlovna. His relations with Anna Pavlovna altogether were of
+a very curious sort. She directed the whole management of the household;
+at dinner she always sat beside her husband--he would mercilessly have
+chastised any one who had dared to say a disrespectful word to her--and
+yet he never spoke to her, never touched her hand. Anna Pavlovna was a
+pale, broken-spirited woman, completely crushed. She prayed every day on
+her knees in church, and she never smiled. There was a rumour that they
+had formerly, that is, before they came into the country, lived on very
+cordial terms with one another. They did say too that Anna Pavlovna had
+been untrue to her matrimonial vows; that her conduct had come to her
+husband's knowledge.... Be that as it may, any way Ivan Andreevitch,
+even when dying, was not reconciled to her. During his last illness, she
+never left him; but he seemed not to notice her. One night, Anna
+Pavlovna was sitting in Ivan Andreevitch's bedroom--he suffered from
+sleeplessness--a lamp was burning before the holy picture. My
+grandfather's servant, Yuditch, of whom I shall have to say a few words
+later, went out of the room. Anna Pavlovna got up, crossed the room, and
+sobbing flung herself on her knees at her husband's bedside, tried to
+say something--stretched out her hands... Ivan Andreevitch looked at
+her, and in a faint voice, but resolutely, called, 'Boy!' The servant
+went in; Anna Pavlovna hurriedly rose, and went back, tottering, to her
+place.
+
+Ivan Andreevitch's children were exceedingly afraid of him. They grew up
+in the country, and were witnesses of Ivan Andreevitch's strange
+treatment of his wife. They all loved Anna Pavlovna passionately, but
+did not dare to show their love. She seemed of herself to hold aloof
+from them.... You remember my grandfather, gentlemen; to the day of his
+death he always walked on tiptoe, and spoke in a whisper... such is the
+force of habit! My grandfather and his brother, Ivan Ivanovitch, were
+simple, good-hearted people, quiet and depressed. My grand'tante Natalia
+married, as you are aware, a coarse, dull-witted man, and all her life
+she cherished an unutterable, slavish, sheep-like passion for him. But
+their brother Vassily was not of that sort. I believe I said that Ivan
+Andreevitch had left him in Petersburg. He was then twelve. His father
+confided him to the care of a distant kinsman, a man no longer young, a
+bachelor, and a terrible Voltairean.
+
+Vassily grew up and went into the army. He was not tall, but was
+well-built and exceedingly elegant; he spoke French excellently, and was
+renowned for his skilful swordsmanship. He was considered one of the
+most brilliant young men of the beginning of the reign of Catherine. My
+father used often to tell me that he had known more than one old lady
+who could not refer to Vassily Ivanovitch Lutchinov without heartfelt
+emotion. Picture to yourselves a man endowed with exceptional strength
+of will, passionate and calculating, persevering and daring, reserved in
+the extreme, and--according to the testimony of all his
+contemporaries--fascinatingly, captivatingly attractive. He had no
+conscience, no heart, no principle, though no one could have called him
+positively a bad-hearted man. He was vain, but knew how to disguise his
+vanity, and passionately cherished his independence. When Vassily
+Ivanovitch would half close his black eyes, smiling affectionately, when
+he wanted to fascinate any one, they say it was impossible to resist him;
+and even people, thoroughly convinced of the coldness and hardness of
+his heart, were more than once vanquished by the bewitching power of his
+personal influence. He served his own interests devotedly, and made
+other people, too, work for his advantage; and he was always successful
+in everything, because he never lost his head, never disdained using
+flattery as a means, and well understood how to use it.
+
+Ten years after Ivan Andreevitch had settled in the country, he came for
+a four months' visit to Lutchinovka, a brilliant officer of the Guards,
+and in that time succeeded positively in turning the head of the grim
+old man, his father. Strange to say, Ivan Andreevitch listened with
+enjoyment to his son's stories of some of his _conquests_. His
+brothers were speechless in his presence, and admired him as a being of
+a higher order. And Anna Pavlovna herself became almost fonder of him
+than any of her other children who were so sincerely devoted to her.
+
+Vassily Ivanovitch had come down into the country primarily to visit his
+people, but also with the second object of getting as much money as
+possible from his father. He lived sumptuously in the glare of publicity
+in Petersburg, and had made a mass of debts. He had no easy task to get
+round his father's miserliness, and though Ivan Andreevitch gave him on
+this one visit probably far more money than he gave all his other
+children together during twenty years spent under his roof, Vassily
+followed the well-known Russian rule, 'Get what you can!'
+
+Ivan Andreevitch had a servant called Yuditch, just such another tall,
+thin, taciturn person as his master. They say that this man Yuditch was
+partly responsible for Ivan Andreevitch's strange behaviour with Anna
+Pavlovna; they say he discovered my great-grandmother's guilty intrigue
+with one of my great-grandfather's dearest friends. Most likely Yuditch
+deeply regretted his ill-timed jealousy, for it would be difficult to
+conceive a more kind-hearted man. His memory is held in veneration by
+all my house-serfs to this day. My great-grandfather put unbounded
+confidence in Yuditch. In those days landowners used to have money, but
+did not put it into the keeping of banks, they kept it themselves in
+chests, under their floors, and so on. Ivan Andreevitch kept all his
+money in a great wrought-iron coffer, which stood under the head of his
+bed. The key of this coffer was intrusted to Yuditch. Every evening as
+he went to bed Ivan Andreevitch used to bid him open the coffer in his
+presence, used to tap in turn each of the tightly filled bags with a
+stick, and every Saturday he would untie the bags with Yuditch, and
+carefully count over the money. Vassily heard of all these doings, and
+burned with eagerness to overhaul the sacred coffer. In the course of
+five or six days he had _softened_ Yuditch, that is, he had worked
+on the old man till, as they say, he worshipped the ground his young
+master trod on. Having thus duly prepared him, Vassily put on a careworn
+and gloomy air, for a long while refused to answer Yuditch's questions,
+and at last told him that he had lost at play, and should make an end of
+himself if he could not get money somehow. Yuditch broke into sobs,
+flung himself on his knees before him, begged him to think of God, not
+to be his own ruin. Vassily locked himself in his room without uttering
+a word. A little while after he heard some one cautiously knocking at
+his door; he opened it, and saw in the doorway Yuditch pale and
+trembling, with the key in his hand. Vassily took in the whole position
+at a glance. At first, for a long while, he refused to take it. With
+tears Yuditch repeated, 'Take it, your honour, graciously take it!'...
+Vassily at last agreed. This took place on Monday. The idea occurred to
+Vassily to replace the money taken out with broken bits of crockery. He
+reckoned on Ivan Andreevitch's tapping the bags with his stick, and not
+noticing the hardly perceptible difference in the sound, and by Saturday
+he hoped to obtain and to replace the sum in the coffer. As he planned,
+so he did. His father did not, in fact, notice anything. But by Saturday
+Vassily had not procured the money; he had hoped to win the sum from a
+rich neighbour at cards, and instead of that, he lost it all. Meantime,
+Saturday had come; it came at last to the turn of the bags filled with
+broken crocks. Picture, gentlemen, the amazement of Ivan Andreevitch!
+
+'What does this mean?' he thundered. Yuditch was silent.
+
+'You stole the money?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'Then some one took the key from you?'
+
+'I didn't give the key to any one.'
+
+'Not to any one? Well then, you are the thief. Confess!'
+
+'I am not a thief, Ivan Andreevitch.'
+
+'Where the devil did these potsherds come from then? So you're deceiving
+me! For the last time I tell you--confess!' Yuditch bowed his head and
+folded his hands behind his back.
+
+'Hi, lads!' shrieked Ivan Andreevitch in a voice of frenzy. 'A stick!'
+
+'What, beat... me?' murmured Yuditch.
+
+'Yes, indeed! Are you any better than the rest? You are a thief! O
+Yuditch! I never expected such dishonesty of you!'
+
+'I have grown grey in your service, Ivan Andreevitch,' Yuditch
+articulated with effort.
+
+'What have I to do with your grey hairs? Damn you and your service!'
+
+The servants came in.
+
+'Take him, do, and give it him thoroughly.' Ivan Andreevitch's lips were
+white and twitching. He walked up and down the room like a wild beast in
+a small cage.
+
+The servants did not dare to carry out his orders.
+
+'Why are you standing still, children of Ham? Am I to undertake him
+myself, eh?'
+
+Yuditch was moving towards the door....
+
+'Stay!' screamed Ivan Andreevitch. 'Yuditch, for the last time I tell
+you, I beg you, Yuditch, confess!'
+
+'I can't!' moaned Yuditch.
+
+'Then take him, the sly old fox! Flog him to death! His blood be on my
+head!' thundered the infuriated old man. The flogging began.... The door
+suddenly opened, and Vassily came in. He was almost paler than his
+father, his hands were shaking, his upper lip was lifted, and laid bare
+a row of even, white teeth.
+
+'I am to blame,' he said in a thick but resolute voice. 'I took the
+money.'
+
+The servants stopped.
+
+'You! what? you, Vaska! without Yuditch's consent?'
+
+'No!' said Yuditch, 'with my consent. I gave Vassily Ivanovitch the key
+of my own accord. Your honour, Vassily Ivanovitch! why does your honour
+trouble?'
+
+'So this is the thief!' shrieked Ivan Andreevitch. 'Thanks, Vassily,
+thanks! But, Yuditch, I'm not going to forgive you anyway. Why didn't
+you tell me all about it directly? Hey, you there! why are you standing
+still? do you too resist my authority? Ah, I'll settle things with you,
+my pretty gentleman!' he added, turning to Vassily.
+
+The servants were again laying hands on Yuditch....
+
+'Don't touch him!' murmured Vassily through his teeth. The men did not
+heed him. 'Back!' he shrieked and rushed upon them.... They stepped
+back.
+
+'Ah! mutiny!' moaned Ivan Andreevitch, and, raising his stick, he
+approached his son. Vassily leaped back, snatched at the handle of his
+sword, and bared it to half its length. Every one was trembling. Anna
+Pavlovna, attracted by the noise, showed herself at the door, pale and
+scared.
+
+A terrible change passed over the face of Ivan Andreevitch. He tottered,
+dropped the stick, and sank heavily into an arm-chair, hiding his face
+in both hands. No one stirred, all stood rooted to the spot, Vassily
+like the rest. He clutched the steel sword-handle convulsively, and his
+eyes glittered with a weary, evil light....
+
+'Go, all of you... all, out,' Ivan Andreevitch brought out in a low
+voice, not taking his hands from his face.
+
+The whole crowd went out. Vassily stood still in the doorway, then
+suddenly tossed his head, embraced Yuditch, kissed his mother's hand...
+and two hours later he had left the place. He went back to Petersburg.
+
+In the evening of the same day Yuditch was sitting on the steps of the
+house serfs' hut. The servants were all round him, sympathising with him
+and bitterly reproaching their young master.
+
+'That's enough, lads,' he said to them at last, 'give over... why do you
+abuse him? He himself, the young master, I dare say is not very happy at
+his audacity....'
+
+In consequence of this incident, Vassily never saw his father again.
+Ivan Andreevitch died without him, and died probably with such a load of
+sorrow on his heart as God grant none of us may ever know. Vassily
+Ivanovitch, meanwhile, went into the world, enjoyed himself in his own
+way, and squandered money recklessly. How he got hold of the money, I
+cannot tell for certain. He had obtained a French servant, a very smart
+and intelligent fellow, Bourcier, by name. This man was passionately
+attached to him and aided him in all his numerous manoeuvres. I do not
+intend to relate in detail all the exploits of my grand-uncle; he was
+possessed of such unbounded daring, such serpent-like resource, such
+inconceivable wiliness, such a fine and ready wit, that I must own I can
+understand the complete sway that unprincipled person exercised even
+over the noblest natures.
+
+Soon after his father's death, in spite of his wiliness, Vassily
+Ivanovitch was challenged by an injured husband. He fought a duel,
+seriously wounded his opponent, and was forced to leave the capital; he
+was banished to his estate, and forbidden to leave it. Vassily
+Ivanovitch was thirty years old. You may easily imagine, gentlemen, with
+what feelings he left the brilliant life in the capital that he was used
+to, and came into the country. They say that he got out of the hooded
+cart several times on the road, flung himself face downwards in the snow
+and cried. No one in Lutchinovka would have known him as the gay and
+charming Vassily Ivanovitch they had seen before. He did not talk to any
+one; went out shooting from morning to night; endured his mother's timid
+caresses with undisguised impatience, and was merciless in his ridicule
+of his brothers, and of their wives (they were both married by that
+time)....
+
+I have not so far, I think, told you anything about Olga Ivanovna. She
+had been brought as a tiny baby to Lutchinovka; she all but died on the
+road. Olga Ivanovna was brought up, as they say, in the fear of God and
+her betters. It must be admitted that Ivan Andreevitch and Anna Pavlovna
+both treated her as a daughter. But there lay hid in her soul a faint
+spark of that fire which burned so fiercely in Vassily Ivanovitch. While
+Ivan Andreevitch's own children did not dare even to wonder about the
+cause of the strange, dumb feud between their parents, Olga was from her
+earliest years disturbed and tormented by Anna Pavlovna's position. Like
+Vassily, she loved independence; any restriction fretted her. She was
+devoted with her whole soul to her benefactress; old Lutchinov she
+detested, and more than once, sitting at table, she shot such black
+looks at him, that even the servant handing the dishes felt
+uncomfortable. Ivan Andreevitch never noticed these glances, for he
+never took the slightest notice of his family.
+
+At first Anna Pavlovna had tried to eradicate this hatred, but some bold
+questions of Olga's forced her to complete silence. The children of Ivan
+Andreevitch adored Olga, and the old lady too was fond of her, but not
+with a very ardent affection.
+
+Long continued grieving had crushed all cheerfulness and every strong
+feeling in that poor woman; nothing is so clear a proof of Vassily's
+captivating charm as that he had made even his mother love him
+passionately. Demonstrations of tenderness on the part of children were
+not in the spirit of the age, and so it is not to be wondered at that
+Olga did not dare to express her devotion, though she always kissed Anna
+Pavlovna's hand with special reverence, when she said good-night to her.
+Twenty years later, Russian girls began to read romances of the class of
+_The Adventures of Marquis Glagol, Fanfan and Lolotta, Alexey or the
+Cottage in the Forest_; they began to play the clavichord and to sing
+songs in the style of the once very well-known:
+
+  'Men like butterflies in sunshine
+   Flutter round us opening blossoms,' etc.
+
+
+But in the seventies of last century (Olga Ivanovna was born in 1757)
+our country beauties had no notion of such accomplishments. It is
+difficult for us now to form a clear conception of the Russian miss of
+those days. We can indeed judge from our grandmothers of the degree of
+culture of girls of noble family in the time of Catherine; but how is
+one to distinguish what they had gradually gained in the course of their
+long lives from what they were in the days of their youth?
+
+Olga Ivanovna spoke French a little, but with a strong Russian accent:
+in her day there was as yet no talk of French emigrants. In fact, with
+all her fine qualities, she was still pretty much of a savage, and I
+dare say in the simplicity of her heart, she had more than once
+chastised some luckless servant girl with her own hands....
+
+Some time before Vassily Ivanovitch's arrival, Olga Ivanovna had been
+betrothed to a neighbour, Pavel Afanasievitch Rogatchov, a very
+good-natured and straightforward fellow. Nature had forgotten to put any
+spice of ill-temper into his composition. His own serfs did not obey
+him, and would sometimes all go off, down to the least of them, and
+leave poor Rogatchov without any dinner... but nothing could trouble the
+peace of his soul. From his childhood he had been stout and indolent,
+had never been in the government service, and was fond of going to
+church and singing in the choir. Look, gentlemen, at this round,
+good-natured face; glance at this mild, beaming smile... don't you
+really feel it reassuring, yourselves? His father used at long intervals
+to drive over to Lutchinovka, and on holidays used to bring with him his
+Pavlusha, whom the little Lutchinovs teased in every possible way.
+Pavlusha grew up, began driving over to call on Ivan Andreevitch on his
+own account, fell in love with Olga Ivanovna, and offered her his hand
+and heart--not to her personally, but to her benefactors. Her
+benefactors gave their consent. They never even thought of asking Olga
+Ivanovna whether she liked Rogatchov. In those days, in the words of my
+grandmother, 'such refinements were not the thing.' Olga soon got used
+to her betrothed, however; it was impossible not to feel fond of such a
+gentle and amiable creature. Rogatchov had received no education
+whatever; his French consisted of the one word _bonjour_, and he
+secretly considered even that word improper. But some jocose person had
+taught him the following lines, as a French song: 'Sonitchka, Sonitchka!
+Ke-voole-voo-de-mwa--I adore you--me-je-ne-pyoo-pa....' This supposed
+song he always used to hum to himself when he felt in good spirits. His
+father was also a man of incredible good-nature, always wore a long
+nankin coat, and whatever was said to him he responded with a smile.
+From the time of Pavel Afanasievitch's betrothal, both the Rogatchovs,
+father and son, had been tremendously busy. They had been having their
+house entirely transformed adding various 'galleries,' talking in a
+friendly way with the workmen, encouraging them with drinks. They had
+not yet completed all these additions by the winter; they put off the
+wedding till the summer. In the summer Ivan Andreevitch died; the
+wedding was deferred till the following spring. In the winter Vassily
+Ivanovitch arrived. Rogatchov was presented to him; he received him
+coldly and contemptuously, and as time went on, he, so alarmed him by
+his haughty behaviour that poor Rogatchov trembled like a leaf at the
+very sight of him, was tongue-tied and smiled nervously. Vassily once
+almost annihilated him altogether--by making him a bet, that he,
+Rogatchov, was not able to stop smiling. Poor Pavel Afanasievitch almost
+cried with, embarrassment, but--actually!--a smile, a stupid, nervous
+smile refused to leave his perspiring face! Vassily toyed deliberately
+with the ends of his neckerchief, and looked at him with supreme
+contempt. Pavel Afanasievitch's father heard too of Vassily's presence,
+and after an interval of a few days--'for the sake of greater
+formality'--he sallied off to Lutchinovka with the object of
+'felicitating our honoured guest on his advent to the halls of his
+ancestors.' Afanasey Lukitch was famed all over the countryside for his
+eloquence--that is to say, for his capacity for enunciating without
+faltering a rather long and complicated speech, with a sprinkling of
+bookish phrases in it. Alas! on this occasion he did not sustain his
+reputation; he was even more disconcerted than his son, Pavel
+Afanasievitch; he mumbled something quite inarticulate, and though he
+had never been used to taking vodka, he at once drained a glass 'to
+carry things off'--he found Vassily at lunch,--tried at least to clear
+his throat with some dignity, and did not succeed in making the
+slightest sound. On their way home, Pavel Afanasievitch whispered to his
+parent, 'Well, father?' Afanasey Lukitch responded angrily also in a
+whisper, 'Don't speak of it!'
+
+The Rogatchovs began to be less frequent visitors at Lutchinovka. Though
+indeed they were not the only people intimidated by Vassily; he awakened
+in his own brothers, in their wives, in Anna Pavlovna herself, an
+instinctive feeling of uneasiness and discomfort... they tried to avoid
+him in every way they could. Vassily must have noticed this, but
+apparently had no intention of altering his behaviour to them. Suddenly,
+at the beginning of the spring, he became once more the charming,
+attractive person they had known of old...
+
+The first symptom of this sudden transformation was Vassily's unexpected
+visit to the Rogatchovs. Afanasey Lukitch, in particular, was fairly
+disconcerted at the sight of Lutchinov's carriage, but his dismay very
+quickly vanished. Never had Vassily been more courteous and delightful.
+He took young Rogatchov by the arm, went with him to look at the new
+buildings, talked to the carpenters, made some suggestions, with his own
+hands chopped a few chips off with the axe, asked to be shown Afanasey
+Lukitch's stud horses, himself trotted them out on a halter, and
+altogether so affected the good-hearted children of the steppes by his
+gracious affability that they both embraced him more than once. At home,
+too, Vassily managed, in the course of a few days, to turn every one's
+head just as before. He contrived all sorts of laughable games, got hold
+of musicians, invited the ladies and gentlemen of the neighbourhood,
+told the old ladies the scandals of the town in the most amusing way,
+flirted a little with the young ones, invented unheard-of diversions,
+fireworks and such things, in short, he put life into every thing and
+every one. The melancholy, gloomy house of the Lutchinovs was suddenly
+converted into a noisy, brilliant, enchanted palace of which the whole
+countryside was talking. This sudden transformation surprised many and
+delighted all. All sorts of rumours began to be whispered about.
+Sagacious persons opined that Vassily Ivanovitch had till then been
+crushed under the weight of some secret trouble, that he saw chances of
+returning to the capital... but the true cause of Vassily Ivanovitch's
+metamorphosis was guessed by no one.
+
+Olga Ivanovna, gentlemen, was rather pretty; though her beauty consisted
+rather in the extraordinary softness and freshness of her shape, in the
+quiet grace of her movements than in the strict regularity of her
+features. Nature had bestowed on her a certain independence; her
+bringing up--she had grown up without father or mother--had developed in
+her reserve and determination. Olga did not belong to the class of quiet
+and tame-spirited young ladies; but only one feeling had reached its
+full possibilities in her as yet--hatred for her benefactor. Other more
+feminine passions might indeed flare up in Olga Ivanovna's heart with
+abnormal and painful violence... but she had not the cold pride, nor the
+intense strength of will, nor the self-centred egoism, without which any
+passion passes quickly away.
+
+The first rush of feeling in such half-active, half-passive natures is
+sometimes extremely violent; but they give way very quickly, especially
+when it is a question of relentless conformity with accepted principles;
+they are afraid of consequences.... And yet, gentlemen, I will frankly
+confess, women of that sort always make the strongest impression on me.
+... (At these words the speaker drank a glass of water. Rubbish!
+rubbish! thought I, looking at his round chin; nothing in the world
+makes a strong impression on you, my dear fellow!)
+
+Piotr Fedoritch resumed: Gentlemen, I believe in blood, in race. Olga
+Ivanovna had more blood than, for instance, her foster sister, Natalia.
+How did this blood show itself, do you ask? Why, in everything; in the
+lines of her hands, in her lips, in the sound of her voice, in her
+glance, in her carriage, in her hair, in the very folds of her gown. In
+all these trifles there lay hid something special, though I am bound to
+admit that the--how can one express it?--_la distinction_, which
+had fallen to Olga Pavlovna's share would not have attracted Vassily's
+notice had he met her in Petersburg. But in the country, in the wilds,
+she not only caught his attention, she was positively the sole cause of
+the transformation of which I have just been speaking.
+
+Consider the position. Vassily Ivanovitch liked to enjoy life; he could
+not but be bored in the country; his brothers were good-natured fellows,
+but extremely limited people: he had nothing in common with them. His
+sister, Natalia, with the assistance of her husband, had brought into
+the world in the course of three years no less than four babies; between
+her and Vassily was a perfect gulf.... Anna Pavlovna went to church,
+prayed, fasted, and was preparing herself for death. There remained only
+Olga--a fresh, shy, pretty girl.... Vassily did not notice her at
+first... indeed, who does notice a dependant, an orphan girl kept from
+charity in the house?... One day, at the very beginning of spring,
+Vassily was walking about the garden, and with his cane slashing off the
+heads of the dandelions, those stupid yellow flowers, which come out
+first in such numbers in the meadows, as soon as they begin to grow
+green. He was walking in the garden in front of the house; he lifted his
+head, and caught sight of Olga Ivanovna.
+
+She was sitting sideways at the window, dreamily stroking a tabby
+kitten, who, purring and blinking, nestled on her lap, and with great
+satisfaction held up her little nose into the rather hot spring
+sunshine. Olga Ivanovna was wearing a white morning gown, with short
+sleeves; her bare, pale-pink, girlish shoulders and arms were a picture
+of freshness and health. A little red cap discreetly restrained her
+thick, soft, silky curls. Her face was a little flushed; she was only
+just awake. Her slender, flexible neck bent forward so charmingly; there
+was such seductive negligence, such modesty in the restful pose of her
+figure, free from corsets, that Vassily Ivanovitch (a great
+connoisseur!) halted involuntarily and peeped in. It suddenly occurred
+to him that Olga Ivanovna ought not to be left in her primitive
+ignorance; that she might with time be turned into a very sweet and
+charming woman. He stole up to the window, stretched up on tiptoe, and
+imprinted a silent kiss on Olga Ivanovna's smooth, white arm, a little
+below the elbow.
+
+Olga shrieked and jumped up, the kitten put its tail in the air and
+leaped into the garden. Vassily Ivanovitch with a smile kept her by the
+arm.... Olga flushed all over, to her ears; he began to rally her on her
+alarm... invited her to come a walk with him. But Olga Ivanovna became
+suddenly conscious of the negligence of her attire, and 'swifter than
+the swift red deer' she slipped away into the next room.
+
+The very same day Vassily set off to the Rogatchovs. He was suddenly
+happy and light-hearted. Vassily was not in love with Olga, no! the word
+'love' is not to be used lightly.... He had found an occupation, had set
+himself a task, and rejoiced with the delight of a man of action. He did
+not even remember that she was his mother's ward, and another man's
+betrothed. He never for one instant deceived himself; he was fully aware
+that it was not for her to be his wife.... Possibly there was passion to
+excuse him--not a very elevated nor noble passion, truly, but still a
+fairly strong and tormenting passion. Of course he was not in love like
+a boy; he did not give way to vague ecstasies; he knew very well what he
+wanted and what he was striving for.
+
+Vassily was a perfect master of the art of winning over, in the shortest
+time, any one however shy or prejudiced against him. Olga soon ceased to
+be shy with him. Vassily Ivanovitch led her into a new world. He ordered
+a clavichord for her, gave her music lessons (he himself played fairly
+well on the flute), read books aloud to her, had long conversations with
+her.... The poor child of the steppes soon had her head turned
+completely. Vassily dominated her entirely. He knew how to tell her of
+what had been till then unknown to her, and to tell her in a language
+she could understand. Olga little by little gained courage to express
+all her feelings to him: he came to her aid, helped her out with the
+words she could not find, did not alarm her, at one moment kept her
+back, at another encouraged her confidences.... Vassily busied himself
+with her education from no disinterested desire to awaken and develop
+her talents. He simply wanted to draw her a little closer to himself;
+and he knew too that an innocent, shy, but vain young girl is more
+easily seduced through the mind than the heart. Even if Olga had been an
+exceptional being, Vassily would never have perceived it, for he treated
+her like a child. But as you are aware, gentlemen, there was nothing
+specially remarkable in Olga. Vassily tried all he could to work on her
+imagination, and often in the evening she left his side with such a
+whirl of new images, phrases and ideas in her head that she could not
+sleep all night, but lay breathing uneasily and turning her burning
+cheeks from side to side on the cool pillows, or got up, went to the
+window and gazed fearfully and eagerly into the dark distance. Vassily
+filled every moment of her life; she could not think of any one else. As
+for Rogatchov, she soon positively ceased to notice his existence.
+Vassily had the tact and shrewdness not to talk to Olga in his presence;
+but he either made him laugh till he was ready to cry, or arranged some
+noisy entertainment, a riding expedition, a boating party by night with
+torches and music--he did not in fact let Pavel Afanasievitch have a
+chance to think clearly.
+
+But in spite of all Vassily Ivanovitch's tact, Rogatchov dimly felt that
+he, Olga's betrothed and future husband, had somehow become as it were
+an outsider to her... but in the boundless goodness of his heart, he was
+afraid of wounding her by reproaches, though he sincerely loved her and
+prized her affection. When left alone with her, he did not know what to
+say, and only tried all he could to follow her wishes. Two months passed
+by. Every trace of self-reliance, of will, disappeared at last in Olga.
+Rogatchov, feeble and tongue-tied, could be no support to her. She had
+no wish even to resist the enchantment, and with a sinking heart she
+surrendered unconditionally to Vassily....
+
+Olga Ivanovna may very likely then have known something of the bliss of
+love; but it was not for long. Though Vassily--for lack of other
+occupation--did not drop her, and even attached himself to her and
+looked after her fondly, Olga herself was so utterly distraught that she
+found no happiness even in love and yet could not tear herself away from
+Vassily. She began to be frightened at everything, did not dare to
+think, could talk of nothing, gave up reading, and was devoured by
+misery. Sometimes Vassily succeeded in carrying her along with him and
+making her forget everything and every one. But the very next day he
+would find her pale, speechless, with icy hands, and a fixed smile on
+her lips.... There followed a time of some difficulty for Vassily; but
+no difficulties could dismay him. He concentrated himself like a skilled
+gambler. He could not in the least rely upon Olga Ivanovna; she was
+continually betraying herself, turning pale, blushing, weeping... her
+new part was utterly beyond her powers. Vassily toiled for two: in his
+restless and boisterous gaiety, only an experienced observer could have
+detected something strained and feverish. He played his brothers,
+sisters, the Rogatchovs, the neighbours, like pawns at chess. He was
+everlastingly on the alert. Not a single glance, a single movement, was
+lost on him, yet he appeared the most heedless of men. Every morning he
+faced the fray, and every evening he scored a victory. He was not the
+least oppressed by such a fearful strain of activity. He slept four
+hours out of the twenty-four, ate very little, and was healthy, fresh,
+and good-humoured.
+
+Meantime the wedding-day was approaching. Vassily succeeded in
+persuading Pavel Afanasievitch himself of the necessity of delay. Then
+he despatched him to Moscow to make various purchases, while he was
+himself in correspondence with friends in Petersburg. He took all this
+trouble, not so much from sympathy for Olga Ivanovna, as from a natural
+bent and liking for bustle and agitation.... Besides, he was beginning
+to be sick of Olga Ivanovna, and more than once after a violent outbreak
+of passion for her, he would look at her, as he sometimes did at
+Rogatchov. Lutchinov always remained a riddle to every one. In the
+coldness of his relentless soul you felt the presence of a strange
+almost southern fire, and even in the wildest glow of passion a breath
+of icy chill seemed to come from the man.
+
+Before other people he supported Olga Ivanovna as before. But when they
+were alone, he played with her like a cat with a mouse, or frightened
+her with sophistries, or was wearily, malignantly bored, or again flung
+himself at her feet, swept her away, like a straw in a hurricane... and
+there was no feigning at such moments in his passion... he really was
+moved himself.
+
+One day, rather late in the evening, Vassily was sitting alone in his
+room, attentively reading over the last letters he had received from
+Petersburg, when suddenly he heard a faint creak at the door, and Olga
+Ivanovna's maid, Palashka, came in.
+
+'What do you want?' Vassily asked her rather crossly.
+
+'My mistress begs you to come to her.'
+
+'I can't just now. Go along.... Well what are you standing there for?'
+he went on, seeing that Palashka did not go away.
+
+'My mistress told me to say that she very particularly wants to see
+you,' she said.
+
+'Why, what's the matter?'
+
+'Would your honour please to see for yourself....'
+
+Vassily got up, angrily flung the letters into a drawer, and went in to
+Olga Ivanovna. She was sitting alone in a corner, pale and passive.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked her, not quite politely.
+
+Olga looked at him and closed her eyes.
+
+'What's the matter? what is it, Olga?'
+
+He took her hand.... Olga Ivanovna's hand was cold as ice... She tried
+to speak... and her voice died away. The poor woman had no possible
+doubt of her condition left her.
+
+Vassily was a little disconcerted. Olga Ivanovna's room was a couple of
+steps from Anna Pavlovna's bedroom. Vassily cautiously sat down by Olga,
+kissed and chafed her hands, comforted her in whispers. She listened to
+him, and silently, faintly, shuddered. In the doorway stood Palashka,
+stealthily wiping her eyes. In the next room they heard the heavy, even
+ticking of the clock, and the breathing of some one asleep. Olga
+Ivanovna's numbness dissolved at last into tears and stifled sobs. Tears
+are like a storm; after them one is always calmer. When Olga Ivanovna
+had quieted down a little, and only sobbed convulsively at intervals,
+like a child, Vassily knelt before her with caresses and tender
+promises, soothed her completely, gave her something to drink, put her
+to bed, and went away. He did not undress all night; wrote two or three
+letters, burnt two or three papers, took out a gold locket containing
+the portrait of a black-browed, black-eyed woman with a bold, voluptuous
+face, scrutinised her features slowly, and walked up and down the room
+pondering.
+
+Next day, at breakfast, he saw with extreme displeasure poor Olga's red
+and swollen eyes and pale, agitated face. After breakfast he proposed a
+stroll in the garden to her. Olga followed Vassily, like a submissive
+sheep. When two hours afterwards she came in from the garden she quite
+broke down; she told Anna Pavlovna she was unwell, and went to lie down
+on her bed. During their walk Vassily had, with a suitable show of
+remorse, informed her that he was secretly married--he was really as
+much a bachelor as I am. Olga Ivanovna did not fall into a swoon--people
+don't fall into swoons except on the stage--but she turned all at once
+stony, though she herself was so far from hoping to marry Vassily
+Ivanovitch that she was even afraid to think about it. Vassily had begun
+to explain to her the inevitableness of her parting from him and
+marrying Rogatchov. Olga Ivanovna looked at him in dumb horror. Vassily
+talked in a cool, business-like, practical way, blamed himself,
+expressed his regret, but concluded all his remarks with the following
+words: 'There's no going back on the past; we've got to act.'
+
+Olga was utterly overwhelmed; she was filled with terror and shame; a
+dull, heavy despair came upon her; she longed for death, and waited in
+agony for Vassily's decision.
+
+'We must confess everything to my mother,' he said to her at last.
+
+Olga turned deadly pale; her knees shook under her.
+
+'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid,' repeated Vassily, 'trust to me, I
+won't desert you... I will make everything right... rely upon me.'
+
+The poor woman looked at him with love... yes, with love, and deep, but
+hopeless devotion.
+
+'I will arrange everything, everything,' Vassily said to her at
+parting... and for the last time he kissed her chilly hands....
+
+Next morning--Olga Ivanovna had only just risen from her bed--her door
+opened... and Anna Pavlovna appeared in the doorway. She was supported
+by Vassily. In silence she got as far as an arm-chair, and in silence
+she sat down. Vassily stood at her side. He looked composed; his brows
+were knitted and his lips slightly parted. Anna Pavlovna, pale,
+indignant, angry, tried to speak, but her voice failed her. Olga
+Ivanovna glanced in horror from her benefactress to her lover, with a
+terrible sinking at her heart... she fell on her knees with a shriek in
+the middle of the room, and hid her face in her hands.
+
+'Then it's true... is it true?' murmured Anna Pavlovna, and bent down to
+her.... 'Answer!' she went on harshly, clutching Olga by the arm.
+
+'Mother!' rang out Vassily's brazen voice, 'you promised me not to be
+hard on her.'
+
+'I want... confess... confess... is it true? is it true?'
+
+'Mother... remember...' Vassily began deliberately.
+
+This one word moved Anna Pavlovna greatly. She leaned back in her chair,
+and burst into sobs.
+
+Olga Ivanovna softly raised her head, and would have flung herself at
+the old lady's feet, but Vassily kept her back, raised her from the
+ground, and led her to another arm-chair. Anna Pavlovna went on weeping
+and muttering disconnected words....
+
+'Come, mother,' began Vassily, 'don't torment yourself, the trouble may
+yet be set right.... If Rogatchov...'
+
+Olga Ivanovna shuddered, and drew herself up.
+
+'If Rogatchov,' pursued Vassily, with a meaning glance at Olga Ivanovna,
+'imagines that he can disgrace an honourable family with impunity...'
+
+Olga Ivanovna was overcome with horror.
+
+'In my house,' moaned Anna Pavlovna.
+
+'Calm yourself, mother. He took advantage of her innocence, her youth,
+he--you wish to say something'--he broke off, seeing that Olga made a
+movement towards him....
+
+Olga Ivanovna sank back in her chair.
+
+'I will go at once to Rogatchov. I will make him marry her this very
+day. You may be sure I will not let him make a laughing-stock of us....'
+
+'But... Vassily Ivanovitch... you...' whispered Olga.
+
+He gave her a prolonged, cold stare. She sank into silence again.
+
+'Mother, give me your word not to worry her before I return. Look, she
+is half dead. And you, too, must rest. Rely upon me; I answer for
+everything; in any case, wait till I return. I tell you again, don't
+torture her, or yourself, and trust to me.'
+
+He went to the door and stopped. 'Mother,' said he, 'come with me, leave
+her alone, I beg of you.'
+
+Anna Pavlovna got up, went up to the holy picture, bowed down to the
+ground, and slowly followed her son. Olga Ivanovna, without a word or a
+movement, looked after them.
+
+Vassily turned back quickly, snatched her hand, whispered in her ear,
+'Rely on me, and don't betray us,' and at once withdrew.... 'Bourcier!'
+he called, running swiftly down the stairs, 'Bourcier!'
+
+A quarter of an hour later he was sitting in his carriage with his
+valet.
+
+That day the elder Rogatchov was not at home. He had gone to the
+district town to buy cloth for the liveries of his servants. Pavel
+Afanasievitch was sitting in his own room, looking through a collection
+of faded butterflies. With lifted eyebrows and protruding lips, he was
+carefully, with a pin, turning over the fragile wings of a 'night
+sphinx' moth, when he was suddenly aware of a small but heavy hand on
+his shoulder. He looked round. Vassily stood before him.
+
+'Good-morning, Vassily Ivanovitch,' he said in some amazement.
+
+Vassily looked at him, and sat down on a chair facing him.
+
+Pavel Afanasievitch was about to smile... but he glanced at Vassily, and
+subsided with his mouth open and his hands clasped.
+
+'Tell me, Pavel Afanasievitch,' said Vassily suddenly, 'are you meaning
+to dance at your _wedding soon?_'
+
+'I?... soon... of course... for my part... though as you and your sister
+... I, for my part, am ready to-morrow even.'
+
+'Very good, very good. You're a very impatient person, Pavel
+Afanasievitch.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Let me tell you,' pursued Vassily Ivanovitch, getting up, 'I know all;
+you understand me, and I order you without delay to-morrow to marry
+Olga.'
+
+'Excuse me, excuse me,' objected Rogatchov, not rising from his seat;
+'you order me. I sought Olga Ivanovna's hand of myself and there's no
+need to give me orders.... I confess, Vassily Ivanovitch, I don't quite
+understand you.'
+
+'You don't understand me?'
+
+'No, really, I don't understand you.'
+
+'Do you give me your word to marry her to-morrow?'
+
+'Why, mercy on us, Vassily Ivanovitch... haven't you yourself put off
+our wedding more than once? Except for you it would have taken place
+long ago. And now I have no idea of breaking it off. What is the meaning
+of your threats, your insistence?'
+
+Pavel Afanasievitch wiped the sweat off his face.
+
+'Do you give me your word? Say yes or no!' Vassily repeated
+emphatically.
+
+'Excuse me... I will... but...'
+
+'Very good. Remember then... She has confessed everything.'
+
+'Who has confessed?'
+
+'Olga Ivanovna.'
+
+'Why, what has she confessed?'
+
+'Why, what are you pretending to me for, Pavel Afanasievitch? I'm not a
+stranger to you.'
+
+'What am I pretending? I don't understand you, I don't, I positively
+don't understand a word. What could Olga Ivanovna confess?'
+
+'What? You are really too much! You know what.'
+
+'May God slay me...'
+
+'No, I'll slay you, if you don't marry her... do you understand?'
+
+'What!...' Pavel Afanasievitch jumped up and stood facing Vassily. 'Olga
+Ivanovna... you tell me...'
+
+'You're a clever fellow, you are, I must own'--Vassily with a smile
+patted him on the shoulder--'though you do look so innocent.'
+
+'Good God!... You'll send me out of my mind.... What do you mean,
+explain, for God's sake!'
+
+Vassily bent down and whispered something in his ear.
+
+Rogatchov cried out, 'What!...!?'
+
+Vassily stamped.
+
+'Olga Ivanovna? Olga?...'
+
+'Yes... your betrothed...'
+
+'My betrothed... Vassily Ivanovitch... she... she... Why, I never wish
+to see her again,' cried Pavel Afanasievitch. 'Good-bye to her for ever!
+What do you take me for? I'm being duped... I'm being duped... Olga
+Ivanovna, how wrong of you, have you no shame?...' (Tears gushed from
+his eyes.) 'Thanks, Vassily Ivanovitch, thanks very much... I never
+wish to see her again now! no! no! don't speak of her.... Ah, merciful
+Heavens! to think I have lived to see this! Oh, very well, very well!'
+
+'That's enough nonsense,' Vassily Ivanovitch observed coldly. 'Remember,
+you've given me your word: the wedding's to-morrow.'
+
+'No, that it won't be! Enough of that, Vassily Ivanovitch. I say again,
+what do you take me for? You do me too much honour. I'm humbly obliged.
+Excuse me.'
+
+'As you please!' retorted Vassily. 'Get your sword.'
+
+'Sword... what for?'
+
+'What for?... I'll show you what for.'
+
+Vassily drew out his fine, flexible French sword and bent it a little
+against the floor.
+
+'You want... to fight... me?'
+
+'Precisely so.'
+
+'But, Vassily Ivanovitch, put yourself in my place! How can I, only
+think, after what you have just told me.... I'm a man of honour, Vassily
+Ivanovitch, a nobleman.'
+
+'You're a nobleman, you're a man of honour, so you'll be so good as to
+fight with me.'
+
+'Vassily Ivanovitch!'
+
+'You are frightened, I think, Mr. Rogatchov.'
+
+'I'm not in the least frightened, Vassily Ivanovitch. You thought you
+would frighten me, Vassily Ivanovitch. I'll scare him, you thought, he's
+a coward, and he'll agree to anything directly... No, Vassily
+Ivanovitch, I am a nobleman as much as you are, though I've not had city
+breeding, and you won't succeed in frightening me into anything, excuse
+me.'
+
+'Very good,' retorted Vassily; 'where is your sword then?'
+
+'Eroshka!' shouted Pavel Afanasievitch. A servant came in.
+
+'Get me the sword--there--you know, in the loft... make haste....'
+
+Eroshka went out. Pavel Afanasievitch suddenly became exceedingly pale,
+hurriedly took off his dressing-gown, put on a reddish coat with big
+paste buttons... twisted a cravat round his neck... Vassily looked at
+him, and twiddled the fingers of his right hand.
+
+'Well, are we to fight then, Pavel Afanasievitch?'
+
+'Let's fight, if we must fight,' replied Rogatchov, and hurriedly
+buttoned up his shirt.
+
+'Ay, Pavel Afanasievitch, you take my advice, marry her... what is it to
+you... And believe me, I'll...'
+
+'No, Vassily Ivanovitch,' Rogatchov interrupted him. 'You'll kill me or
+maim me, I know, but I'm not going to lose my honour; if I'm to die
+then I must die.'
+
+Eroshka came in, and trembling, gave Rogatchov a wretched old sword in a
+torn leather scabbard. In those days all noblemen wore swords with
+powder, but in the steppes they only put on powder twice a year. Eroshka
+moved away to the door and burst out crying. Pavel Afanasievitch pushed
+him out of the room.
+
+'But, Vassily Ivanovitch,' he observed with some embarrassment, 'I can't
+fight with you on the spot: allow me to put off our duel till to-morrow.
+My father is not at home, and it would be as well for me to put my
+affairs in order to--to be ready for anything.'
+
+'I see you're beginning to feel frightened again, sir.'
+
+'No, no, Vassily Ivanovitch; but consider yourself...'
+
+'Listen!' shouted Lutchinov, 'you drive me out of patience.... Either
+give me your word to marry her at once, or fight...or I'll thrash you
+with my cane like a coward,--do you understand?'
+
+'Come into the garden,' Rogatchov answered through his teeth.
+
+But all at once the door opened, and the old nurse, Efimovna, utterly
+distracted, broke into the room, fell on her knees before Rogatchov, and
+clasped his legs....
+
+'My little master!' she wailed, 'my nursling... what is it you are
+about? Will you be the death of us poor wretches, your honour? Sure,
+he'll kill you, darling! Only you say the word, you say the word, and
+we'll make an end of him, the insolent fellow.... Pavel Afanasievitch,
+my baby-boy, for the love of God!'
+
+A number of pale, excited faces showed in the door...there was even the
+red beard of the village elder...
+
+'Let me go, Efimovna, let me go!' muttered Rogatchov.
+
+'I won't, my own, I won't. What are you about, sir, what are you about?
+What'll Afanasey Lukitch say? Why, he'll drive us all out of the light
+of day.... Why are you fellows standing still? Take the uninvited guest
+in hand and show him out of the house, so that not a trace be left of
+him.'
+
+'Rogatchov!' Vassily Ivanovitch shouted menacingly.
+
+'You are crazy, Efimovna, you are shaming me, come, come...' said Pavel
+Afanasievitch. 'Go away, go away, in God's name, and you others, off
+with you, do you hear?...'
+
+Vassily Ivanovitch moved swiftly to the open window, took out a small
+silver whistle, blew lightly... Bourcier answered from close by.
+Lutchinov turned at once to Pavel Afanasievitch.
+
+'What's to be the end of this farce?'
+
+'Vassily Ivanovitch, I will come to you to-morrow. What can I do with
+this crazy old woman?...'
+
+'Oh, I see it's no good wasting words on you,' said Vassily, and he
+swiftly raised his cane...
+
+Pavel Afanasievitch broke loose, pushed Efimovna away, snatched up the
+sword, and rushed through another door into the garden.
+
+Vassily dashed after him. They ran into a wooden summerhouse, painted
+cunningly after the Chinese fashion, shut themselves in, and drew their
+swords. Rogatchov had once taken lessons in fencing, but now he was
+scarcely capable of drawing a sword properly. The blades crossed.
+Vassily was obviously playing with Rogatchov's sword. Pavel
+Afanasievitch was breathless and pale, and gazed in consternation into
+Lutchinov's face.
+
+Meanwhile, screams were heard in the garden; a crowd of people were
+running to the summerhouse. Suddenly Rogatchov heard the heart-rending
+wail of old age...he recognised the voice of his father. Afanasey
+Lukitch, bare-headed, with dishevelled hair, was running in front of
+them all, frantically waving his hands....
+
+With a violent and unexpected turn of the blade Vassily sent the sword
+flying out of Pavel Afanasievitch's hand.
+
+'Marry her, my boy,' he said to him: 'give over this foolery!'
+
+'I won't marry her,' whispered Rogatchov, and he shut his eyes, and
+shook all over.
+
+Afanasey Lukitch began banging at the door of the summerhouse.
+
+'You won't?' shouted Vassily.
+
+Rogatchov shook his head.
+
+'Well, damn you, then!'
+
+Poor Pavel Afanasievitch fell dead: Lutchinov's sword stabbed him to the
+heart... The door gave way; old Rogatchov burst into the summerhouse,
+but Vassily had already jumped out of window...
+
+Two hours later he went into Olga Ivanovna's room... She rushed in
+terror to meet him... He bowed to her in silence; took out his sword and
+pierced Pavel Afanasievitch's portrait in the place of the heart. Olga
+shrieked and fell unconscious on the floor... Vassily went in to Anna
+Pavlovna. He found her in the oratory. 'Mother,' said he, 'we are
+avenged.' The poor old woman shuddered and went on praying.
+
+Within a week Vassily had returned to Petersburg, and two years later he
+came back stricken with paralysis--tongue-tied. He found neither Anna
+Pavlovna nor Olga living, and soon after died himself in the arms of
+Yuditch, who fed him like a child, and was the only one who could
+understand his incoherent stuttering.
+
+1846.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENOUGH
+
+A FRAGMENT FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A DEAD ARTIST
+
+
+I
+
+II
+
+III
+
+
+'Enough,' I said to myself as I moved with lagging steps over the steep
+mountainside down to the quiet little brook. 'Enough,' I said again, as
+I drank in the resinous fragrance of the pinewood, strong and pungent in
+the freshness of falling evening. 'Enough,' I said once more, as I sat
+on the mossy mound above the little brook and gazed into its dark,
+lingering waters, over which the sturdy reeds thrust up their pale green
+blades.... 'Enough.'
+
+No more struggle, no more strain, time to draw in, time to keep firm
+hold of the head and to bid the heart be silent. No more to brood over
+the voluptuous sweetness of vague, seductive ecstasy, no more to run
+after each fresh form of beauty, no more to hang over every tremour of
+her delicate, strong wings.
+
+All has been felt, all has been gone through... I am weary. What to me
+now that at this moment, larger, fiercer than ever, the sunset floods
+the heavens as though aflame with some triumphant passion? What to me
+that, amid the soft peace and glow of evening, suddenly, two paces
+hence, hidden in a thick bush's dewy stillness, a nightingale has sung
+his heart out in notes magical as though no nightingale had been on
+earth before him, and he first sang the first song of first love? All
+this was, has been, has been again, and is a thousand times
+repeated--and to think that it will last on so to all eternity--as
+though decreed, ordained--it stirs one's wrath! Yes... wrath!
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Ah, I am grown old! Such thoughts would never have come to me once--in
+those happy days of old, when I too was aflame like the sunset and my
+heart sang like the nightingale.
+
+There is no hiding it--everything has faded about me, all life has
+paled. The light that gives life's colours depth and meaning--the light
+that comes out of the heart of man--is dead within me.... No, not dead
+yet--it feebly smoulders on, giving no light, no warmth.
+
+Once, late in the night in Moscow, I remember I went up to the grating
+window of an old church, and leaned against the faulty pane. It was dark
+under the low arched roof--a forgotten lamp shed a dull red light upon
+the ancient picture; dimly could be discerned the lips only of the
+sacred face--stern and sorrowful. The sullen darkness gathered about it,
+ready it seemed to crush under its dead weight the feeble ray of
+impotent light.... Such now in my heart is the light; and such the
+darkness.
+
+
+V
+
+
+And this I write to thee, to thee, my one never forgotten friend, to
+thee, my dear companion, whom I have left for ever, but shall not cease
+to love till my life's end.... Alas! thou knowest what parted us. But
+that I have no wish to speak of now. I have left thee... but even here,
+in these wilds, in this far-off exile, I am all filled through and
+through with thee; as of old I am in thy power, as of old I feel the
+sweet burden of thy hand on my bent head!
+
+For the last time I drag myself from out the grave of silence in which I
+am lying now. I turn a brief and softened gaze on all my past... our
+past.... No hope and no return; but no bitterness is in my heart and no
+regret, and clearer than the blue of heaven, purer than the first snow
+on mountain tops, fair memories rise up before me like the forms of
+departed gods.... They come, not thronging in crowds, in slow procession
+they follow one another like those draped Athenian figures we admired so
+much--dost thou remember?--in the ancient bas-reliefs in the Vatican.
+
+
+VI
+
+
+I have spoken of the light that comes from the heart of man, and sheds
+brightness on all around him... I long to talk with thee of the time
+when in my heart too that light burned bright with blessing... Listen...
+and I will fancy thee sitting before me, gazing up at me with those
+eyes--so fond yet stern almost in their intentness. O eyes, never to be
+forgotten! On whom are they fastened now? Who folds in his heart thy
+glance--that glance that seems to flow from depths unknown even as
+mysterious springs--like ye, both clear and dark--that gush out into
+some narrow, deep ravine under the frowning cliffs.... Listen.
+
+
+VII
+
+
+It was at the end of March before Annunciation, soon after I had seen
+thee for the first time and--not yet dreaming of what thou wouldst be to
+me--already, silently, secretly, I bore thee in my heart. I chanced to
+cross one of the great rivers of Russia. The ice had not yet broken up,
+but looked swollen and dark; it was the fourth day of thaw. The snow was
+melting everywhere--steadily but slowly; there was the running of water
+on all sides; a noiseless wind strayed in the soft air. Earth and sky
+alike were steeped in one unvarying milky hue; there was not fog nor was
+there light; not one object stood out clear in the general whiteness,
+everything looked both close and indistinct. I left my cart far behind
+and walked swiftly over the ice of the river, and except the muffled
+thud of my own steps heard not a sound. I went on enfolded on all sides
+by the first breath, the first thrill, of early spring... and gradually
+gaining force with every step, with every movement forwards, a glad
+tremour sprang up and grew, all uncomprehended within me... it drew me
+on, it hastened me, and so strong was the flood of gladness within me,
+that I stood still at last and with questioning eyes looked round me, as
+I would seek some outer cause of my mood of rapture.... All was soft,
+white, slumbering, but I lifted my eyes; high in the heavens floated a
+flock of birds flying back to us.... 'Spring! welcome spring!' I shouted
+aloud: 'welcome, life and love and happiness!' And at that instance,
+with sweetly troubling shock, suddenly like a cactus flower thy image
+blossomed aflame within me, blossomed and grew, bewilderingly fair and
+radiant, and I knew that I love thee, thee only--that I am all filled
+full of thee....
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+I think of thee... and many other memories, other pictures float before
+me with thee everywhere, at every turn of my life I meet thee. Now an
+old Russian garden rises up before me on the slope of a hillside,
+lighted up by the last rays of the summer sun. Behind the silver poplars
+peeps out the wooden roof of the manor-house with a thin curl of reddish
+smoke above the white chimney, and in the fence a little gate stands
+just ajar, as though some one had drawn it to with faltering hand; and I
+stand and wait and gaze at that gate and the sand of the garden
+path--wonder and rapture in my heart. All that I behold seems new and
+different; over all a breath of some glad, brooding mystery, and already
+I catch the swift rustle of steps, and I stand intent and alert as a
+bird with wings folded ready to take flight anew, and my heart burns and
+shudders in joyous dread before the approaching, the alighting
+rapture....
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Then I see an ancient cathedral in a beautiful, far-off land. In rows
+kneel the close packed people; a breath of prayerful chill, of something
+grave and melancholy is wafted from the high, bare roof, from the huge,
+branching columns. Thou standest at my side, mute, apart, as though
+knowing me not. Each fold of thy dark cloak hangs motionless as carved
+in stone. Motionless, too, lie the bright patches cast by the stained
+windows at thy feet on the worn flags. And lo, violently thrilling the
+incense-clouded air, thrilling us within, rolled out the mighty flood of
+the organ's notes... and I saw thee paler, rigid--thy glance caressed
+me, glided higher and rose heavenwards--while to me it seemed none but
+an immortal soul could look so, with such eyes...
+
+
+X
+
+
+Another picture comes back to me.
+
+No old-world temple subdues us with its stern magnificence; the low
+walls of a little snug room shut us off from the whole world. What am I
+saying? We are alone, alone in the whole world; except us two there is
+nothing living--outside these friendly walls darkness and death and
+emptiness... It is not the wind that howls without, not the rain
+streaming in floods; without, Chaos wails and moans, his sightless eyes
+are weeping. But with us all is peaceful and light and warm and
+welcoming; something droll, something of childish innocence, like a
+butterfly--isn't it so?--flutters about us. We nestle close to one
+another, we lean our heads together and both read a favourite book. I
+feel the delicate vein beating in thy soft forehead; I hear that thou
+livest, thou hearest that I am living, thy smile is born on my face
+before it is on thine, thou makest mute answer to my mute question, thy
+thoughts, my thoughts are like the two wings of one bird, lost in the
+infinite blue... the last barriers have fallen--and so soothed, so
+deepened is our love, so utterly has all apartness vanished that we have
+no need for word or look to pass between us.... Only to breathe, to
+breathe together is all we want, to be together and scarcely to be
+conscious that we are together....
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Or last of all, there comes before me that bright September when we
+walked through the deserted, still flowering garden of a forsaken palace
+on the bank of a great river--not Russian--under the soft brilliance of
+the cloudless sky. Oh, how put into words what we felt! The endlessly
+flowing river, the solitude and peace and bliss, and a kind of
+voluptuous melancholy, and the thrill of rapture, the unfamiliar
+monotonous town, the autumn cries of the jackdaws in the high sun-lit
+treetops, and the tender words and smiles and looks, long, soft,
+piercing to the very in-most soul, and the beauty, beauty in our lives,
+about us, on all sides--it is above words. Oh, the bench on which we sat
+in silence with heads bowed down under the weight of feeling--I cannot
+forget it till the hour I die! How delicious were those few strangers
+passing us with brief greetings and kind faces, and the great quiet
+boats floating by (in one--dost thou remember?--stood a horse pensively
+gazing at the gliding water), the baby prattle of the tiny ripples by
+the bank, and the very bark of the distant dogs across the water, the
+very shouts of the fat officer drilling the red-faced recruits yonder,
+with outspread arms and knees crooked like grasshoppers!... We both felt
+that better than those moments nothing in the world had been or would be
+for us, that all else... But why compare? Enough... enough... Alas! yes:
+enough.
+
+
+XII
+
+
+For the last time I give myself up to those memories and bid them
+farewell for ever. So a miser gloating over his hoard, his gold, his
+bright treasure, covers it over in the damp, grey earth; so the wick of
+a smouldering lamp flickers up in a last bright flare and sinks into
+cold ash. The wild creature has peeped out from its hole for the last
+time at the velvet grass, the sweet sun, the blue, kindly waters, and
+has huddled back into the depths, curled up, and gone to sleep. Will he
+have glimpses even in sleep of the sweet sun and the grass and the blue
+kindly water?...
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Sternly, remorselessly, fate leads each of us, and only at the first,
+absorbed in details of all sorts, in trifles, in ourselves, we are not
+aware of her harsh hand. While one can be deceived and has no shame in
+lying, one can live and there is no shame in hoping. Truth, not the full
+truth, of that, indeed, we cannot speak, but even that little we can
+reach locks up our lips at once, ties our hands, leads us to 'the No.'
+Then one way is left a man to keep his feet, not to fall to pieces, not
+to sink into the mire of self-forgetfulness... of self-contempt,--calmly
+to turn away from all, to say 'enough!' and folding impotent arms upon
+the empty breast, to save the last, the sole honour he can attain to,
+the dignity of knowing his own nothingness; that dignity at which Pascal
+hints when calling man a thinking reed he says that if the whole
+universe crushed him, he, that reed, would be higher than the universe,
+because he would know it was crushing him, and it would know it not. A
+poor dignity! A sorry consolation! Try your utmost to be penetrated by
+it, to have faith in it, you, whoever you may be, my poor brother, and
+there's no refuting those words of menace:
+
+  'Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
+   That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
+   And then is heard no more: it is a tale
+   Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
+   Signifying nothing.'
+
+
+I quoted these lines from _Macbeth_, and there came back to my mind
+the witches, phantoms, apparitions.... Alas! no ghosts, no fantastic,
+unearthly powers are terrible; there are no terrors in the Hoffmann
+world, in whatever form it appears.... What is terrible is that there is
+nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting
+and degradingly inane. Once one is soaked through and through with that
+knowledge, once one has tasted of that bitter, no honey more seems
+sweet, and even the highest, sweetest bliss, the bliss of love, of
+perfect nearness, of complete devotion--even that loses all its magic;
+all its dignity is destroyed by its own pettiness, its brevity. Yes; a
+man loved, glowed with passion, murmured of eternal bliss, of undying
+raptures, and lo, no trace is left of the very worm that devoured the
+last relic of his withered tongue. So, on a frosty day in late autumn,
+when all is lifeless and dumb in the bleached grey grass, on the bare
+forest edge, if the sun but come out for an instant from the fog and
+turn one steady glance on the frozen earth, at once the gnats swarm up
+on all sides; they sport in the warm rays, bustle, flutter up and down,
+circle round one another... The sun is hidden--the gnats fall in a
+feeble shower, and there is the end of their momentary life.
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+But are there no great conceptions, no great words of consolation:
+patriotism, right, freedom, humanity, art? Yes; those words there are,
+and many men live by them and for them. And yet it seems to me that if
+Shakespeare could be born again he would have no cause to retract his
+Hamlet, his Lear. His searching glance would discover nothing new in
+human life: still the same motley picture--in reality so little
+complex--would unroll before him in its terrifying sameness. The same
+credulity and the same cruelty, the same lust of blood, of gold, of
+filth, the same vulgar pleasures, the same senseless sufferings in the
+name... why, in the name of the very same shams that Aristophanes jeered
+at two thousand years ago, the same coarse snares in which the
+many-headed beast, the multitude, is caught so easily, the same workings
+of power, the same traditions of slavishness, the same innateness of
+falsehood--in a word, the same busy squirrel's turning in the same old
+unchanged wheel.... Again Shakespeare would set Lear repeating his
+cruel: 'None doth offend,' which in other words means: 'None is without
+offence.' and he too would say 'enough!' he too would turn away. One
+thing perhaps, may be: in contrast to the gloomy tragic tyrant Richard,
+the great poet's ironic genius would want to paint a newer type, the
+tyrant of to-day, who is almost ready to believe in his own virtue, and
+sleeps well of nights, or finds fault with too sumptuous a dinner at the
+very time when his half-crushed victims try to find comfort in picturing
+him, like Richard, haunted by the phantoms of those he has ruined...
+
+But to what end?
+
+Why prove--picking out, too, and weighing words, smoothing and rounding
+off phrases--why prove to gnats that they are really gnats?
+
+
+XV
+
+
+But art?... beauty?... Yes, these are words of power; they are more
+powerful, may be, than those I have spoken before. Venus of Milo is, may
+be, more real than Roman law or the principles of 1789. It may be
+objected--how many times has the retort been heard!--that beauty itself
+is relative; that by the Chinese it is conceived as quite other than the
+European's ideal.... But it is not the relativity of art confounds me;
+its transitoriness, again its brevity, its dust and ashes--that is what
+robs me of faith and courage. Art at a given moment is more powerful,
+may be, than nature; for in nature is no symphony of Beethoven, no
+picture of Ruysdaeel, no poem of Goethe, and only dull-witted pedants or
+disingenuous chatterers can yet maintain that art is the imitation of
+nature. But at the end of all, nature is inexorable; she has no need to
+hurry, and sooner or later she takes her own. Unconsciously and
+inflexibly obedient to laws, she knows not art, as she knows not
+freedom, as she knows not good; from all ages moving, from all ages
+changing, she suffers nothing immortal, nothing unchanging.... Man is
+her child; but man's work--art--is hostile to her, just because it
+strives to be unchanging and immortal. Man is the child of nature; but
+she is the universal mother, and she has no preferences; all that exists
+in her lap has arisen only at the cost of something else, and must in
+its time yield its place to something else. She creates destroying, and
+she cares not whether she creates or she destroys--so long as life be
+not exterminated, so long as death fall not short of his dues.... And so
+just as serenely she hides in mould the god-like shape of Phidias's Zeus
+as the simplest pebble, and gives the vile worm for food the priceless
+verse of Sophokles. Mankind, 'tis true, jealously aid her in her work of
+of slaughter; but is it not the same elemental force, the force of
+nature, that finds vent in the fist of the barbarian recklessly smashing
+the radiant brow of Apollo, in the savage yells with which he casts in
+the fire the picture of Apelles? How are we, poor folks, poor artists to
+be a match for this deaf, dumb, blind force who triumphs not even in her
+conquests, but goes onward, onward, devouring all things? How stand
+against those coarse and mighty waves, endlessly, unceasingly moving
+upward? How have faith in the value and dignity of the fleeting images,
+that in the dark, on the edge of the abyss, we shape out of dust for an
+instant?
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+All this is true,... but only the transient is beautiful, said Schiller;
+and nature in the incessant play of her rising, vanishing forms is not
+averse to beauty. Does not she carefully deck the most fleeting of her
+children--the petals of the flowers, the wings of the butterfly--in the
+fairest hues, does she not give them the most exquisite lines? Beauty
+needs not to live for ever to be eternal--one instant is enough for her.
+Yes; that may be is true--but only there where personality is not, where
+man is not, where freedom is not; the butterfly's wing spoiled appears
+again and again for a thousand years as the same wing of the same
+butterfly; there sternly, fairly, impersonally necessity completes her
+circle... but man is not repeated like the butterfly, and the work of
+his hands, his art, his spontaneous creation once destroyed is lost for
+ever.... To him alone is it vouchsafed to create... but strange and
+dreadful it is to pronounce: we are creators... for one hour--as there
+was, in the tale, a caliph for an hour. In this is our pre-eminence--and
+our curse; each of those 'creators' himself, even he and no other, even
+this _I_ is, as it were, constructed with certain aim, on lines
+laid down beforehand; each more or less dimly is aware of his
+significance, is aware that he is innately something noble, eternal--and
+lives, and must live in the moment and for the moment.[1] Sit in the mud,
+my friend, and aspire to the skies! The greatest among us are just those
+who more deeply than all others have felt this rooted contradiction;
+though if so, it may be asked, can such words be used as greatest, great?
+
+[Footnote 1: One cannot help recalling here Mephistopheles's words
+to Faust:--
+
+  'Er (Gott) findet sich in einem ewgen Glanze,
+   Uns hat er in die Finsterniss gebracht--
+   Und euch taugt einzig Tag und Nacht.'
+                                        --AUTHOR'S NOTE.]
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+What is to be said of those to whom, with all goodwill, one cannot apply
+such terms, even in the sense given them by the feeble tongue of man?
+What can one say of the ordinary, common, second-rate, third-rate
+toilers--whatsoever they may be--statesmen, men of science,
+artists--above all, artists? How conjure them to shake off their numb
+indolence, their weary stupor, how draw them back to the field of
+battle, if once the conception has stolen into their brains of the
+nullity of everything human, of every sort of effort that sets before
+itself a higher aim than the mere winning of bread? By what crowns can
+they be lured for whom laurels and thorns alike are valueless? For what
+end will they again face the laughter of 'the unfeeling crowd' or 'the
+judgment of the fool'--of the old fool who cannot forgive them from
+turning away from the old bogies--of the young fool who would force them
+to kneel with him, to grovel with him before the new, lately discovered
+idols? Why should they go back again into that jostling crowd of
+phantoms, to that market-place where seller and buyer cheat each other
+alike, where is noise and clamour, and all is paltry and worthless? Why
+'with impotence in their bones' should they struggle back into that
+world where the peoples, like peasant boys on a holiday, are tussling in
+the mire for handfuls of empty nutshells, or gape in open-mouthed
+adoration before sorry tinsel-decked pictures, into that world where
+only that is living which has no right to live, and each, stifling self
+with his own shouting, hurries feverishly to an unknown, uncomprehended
+goal? No... no.... Enough... enough... enough!
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+...The rest is silence. [Footnote: English in the original.--TRANSLATOR'S
+NOTE.]
+
+1864.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Jew And Other Stories, by Ivan Turgenev
+
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