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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Torrents of Spring, by Ivan Turgenev
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+Title: The Torrents of Spring
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+
+Release Date: February, 2006  [EBook #9911]
+[This file was first posted on October 30, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE TORRENTS OF SPRING ***
+
+
+
+
+E-text prepared by Keren Vergon, William Flis, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+BY IVAN TURGENEV
+
+Translated from the Russian
+
+BY CONSTANCE GARNETT
+
+1897
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+FIRST LOVE
+
+MUMU
+
+
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+
+  'Years of gladness,
+    Days of joy,
+  Like the torrents of spring
+    They hurried away.'
+
+--_From an Old Ballad_.
+
+
+... At two o'clock in the night he had gone back to his study. He had
+dismissed the servant after the candles were lighted, and throwing
+himself into a low chair by the hearth, he hid his face in both hands.
+
+Never had he felt such weariness of body and of spirit. He had passed
+the whole evening in the company of charming ladies and cultivated
+men; some of the ladies were beautiful, almost all the men were
+distinguished by intellect or talent; he himself had talked with great
+success, even with brilliance ... and, for all that, never yet had
+the _taedium vitae_ of which the Romans talked of old, the 'disgust
+for life,' taken hold of him with such irresistible, such suffocating
+force. Had he been a little younger, he would have cried with misery,
+weariness, and exasperation: a biting, burning bitterness, like
+the bitter of wormwood, filled his whole soul. A sort of clinging
+repugnance, a weight of loathing closed in upon him on all sides like
+a dark night of autumn; and he did not know how to get free from this
+darkness, this bitterness. Sleep it was useless to reckon upon; he
+knew he should not sleep.
+
+He fell to thinking ... slowly, listlessly, wrathfully. He thought of
+the vanity, the uselessness, the vulgar falsity of all things human.
+All the stages of man's life passed in order before his mental gaze
+(he had himself lately reached his fifty-second year), and not one
+found grace in his eyes. Everywhere the same ever-lasting pouring of
+water into a sieve, the ever-lasting beating of the air, everywhere
+the same self-deception--half in good faith, half conscious--any toy
+to amuse the child, so long as it keeps him from crying. And then, all
+of a sudden, old age drops down like snow on the head, and with it the
+ever-growing, ever-gnawing, and devouring dread of death ... and the
+plunge into the abyss! Lucky indeed if life works out so to the end!
+May be, before the end, like rust on iron, sufferings, infirmities
+come.... He did not picture life's sea, as the poets depict it,
+covered with tempestuous waves; no, he thought of that sea as a
+smooth, untroubled surface, stagnant and transparent to its darkest
+depths. He himself sits in a little tottering boat, and down below
+in those dark oozy depths, like prodigious fishes, he can just make
+out the shapes of hideous monsters: all the ills of life, diseases,
+sorrows, madness, poverty, blindness.... He gazes, and behold, one
+of these monsters separates itself off from the darkness, rises
+higher and higher, stands out more and more distinct, more and more
+loathsomely distinct.... An instant yet, and the boat that bears him
+will be overturned! But behold, it grows dim again, it withdraws,
+sinks down to the bottom, and there it lies, faintly stirring in the
+slime.... But the fated day will come, and it will overturn the boat.
+
+He shook his head, jumped up from his low chair, took two turns up and
+down the room, sat down to the writing-table, and opening one drawer
+after another, began to rummage among his papers, among old letters,
+mostly from women. He could not have said why he was doing it; he was
+not looking for anything--he simply wanted by some kind of external
+occupation to get away from the thoughts oppressing him. Opening
+several letters at random (in one of them there was a withered flower
+tied with a bit of faded ribbon), he merely shrugged his shoulders,
+and glancing at the hearth, he tossed them on one side, probably with
+the idea of burning all this useless rubbish. Hurriedly, thrusting his
+hands first into one, and then into another drawer, he suddenly opened
+his eyes wide, and slowly bringing out a little octagonal box of
+old-fashioned make, he slowly raised its lid. In the box, under two
+layers of cotton wool, yellow with age, was a little garnet cross.
+
+For a few instants he looked in perplexity at this cross--suddenly
+he gave a faint cry.... Something between regret and delight was
+expressed in his features. Such an expression a man's face wears when
+he suddenly meets some one whom he has long lost sight of, whom he has
+at one time tenderly loved, and who suddenly springs up before his
+eyes, still the same, and utterly transformed by the years.
+
+He got up, and going back to the hearth, he sat down again in the
+arm-chair, and again hid his face in his hands.... 'Why to-day? just
+to-day?' was his thought, and he remembered many things, long since
+past.
+
+This is what he remembered....
+
+But first I must mention his name, his father's name and his surname.
+He was called Dimitri Pavlovitch Sanin.
+
+Here follows what he remembered.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was the summer of 1840. Sanin was in his twenty-second year, and he
+was in Frankfort on his way home from Italy to Russia. He was a man of
+small property, but independent, almost without family ties. By the
+death of a distant relative, he had come into a few thousand roubles,
+and he had decided to spend this sum abroad before entering the
+service, before finally putting on the government yoke, without which
+he could not obtain a secure livelihood. Sanin had carried out this
+intention, and had fitted things in to such a nicety that on the day
+of his arrival in Frankfort he had only just enough money left to take
+him back to Petersburg. In the year 1840 there were few railroads in
+existence; tourists travelled by diligence. Sanin had taken a place in
+the '_bei-wagon_'; but the diligence did not start till eleven o'clock
+in the evening. There was a great deal of time to be got through
+before then. Fortunately it was lovely weather, and Sanin after dining
+at a hotel, famous in those days, the White Swan, set off to stroll
+about the town. He went in to look at Danneker's Ariadne, which he did
+not much care for, visited the house of Goethe, of whose works he had,
+however, only read _Werter_, and that in the French translation. He
+walked along the bank of the Maine, and was bored as a well-conducted
+tourist should be; at last at six o'clock in the evening, tired, and
+with dusty boots, he found himself in one of the least remarkable
+streets in Frankfort. That street he was fated not to forget long,
+long after. On one of its few houses he saw a signboard: 'Giovanni
+Roselli, Italian confectionery,' was announced upon it. Sanin went
+into it to get a glass of lemonade; but in the shop, where, behind
+the modest counter, on the shelves of a stained cupboard, recalling
+a chemist's shop, stood a few bottles with gold labels, and as many
+glass jars of biscuits, chocolate cakes, and sweetmeats--in this room,
+there was not a soul; only a grey cat blinked and purred, sharpening
+its claws on a tall wicker chair near the window and a bright patch
+of colour was made in the evening sunlight, by a big ball of red wool
+lying on the floor beside a carved wooden basket turned upside down. A
+confused noise was audible in the next room. Sanin stood a moment, and
+making the bell on the door ring its loudest, he called, raising his
+voice, 'Is there no one here?' At that instant the door from an inner
+room was thrown open, and Sanin was struck dumb with amazement.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+A young girl of nineteen ran impetuously into the shop, her dark curls
+hanging in disorder on her bare shoulders, her bare arms stretched out
+in front of her. Seeing Sanin, she rushed up to him at once, seized
+him by the hand, and pulled him after her, saying in a breathless
+voice, 'Quick, quick, here, save him!' Not through disinclination
+to obey, but simply from excess of amazement, Sanin did not at once
+follow the girl. He stood, as it were, rooted to the spot; he had
+never in his life seen such a beautiful creature. She turned towards
+him, and with such despair in her voice, in her eyes, in the gesture
+of her clenched hand, which was lifted with a spasmodic movement to
+her pale cheek, she articulated, 'Come, come!' that he at once darted
+after her to the open door.
+
+In the room, into which he ran behind the girl, on an old-fashioned
+horse-hair sofa, lay a boy of fourteen, white all over--white, with
+a yellowish tinge like wax or old marble--he was strikingly like the
+girl, obviously her brother. His eyes were closed, a patch of shadow
+fell from his thick black hair on a forehead like stone, and delicate,
+motionless eyebrows; between the blue lips could be seen clenched
+teeth. He seemed not to be breathing; one arm hung down to the floor,
+the other he had tossed above his head. The boy was dressed, and his
+clothes were closely buttoned; a tight cravat was twisted round his
+neck.
+
+The girl rushed up to him with a wail of distress. 'He is dead, he is
+dead!' she cried; 'he was sitting here just now, talking to me--and
+all of a sudden he fell down and became rigid.... My God! can nothing
+be done to help him? And mamma not here! Pantaleone, Pantaleone, the
+doctor!' she went on suddenly in Italian. 'Have you been for the
+doctor?'
+
+'Signora, I did not go, I sent Luise,' said a hoarse voice at the
+door, and a little bandy-legged old man came hobbling into the room in
+a lavender frock coat with black buttons, a high white cravat, short
+nankeen trousers, and blue worsted stockings. His diminutive little
+face was positively lost in a mass of iron-grey hair. Standing up in
+all directions, and falling back in ragged tufts, it gave the old
+man's figure a resemblance to a crested hen--a resemblance the more
+striking, that under the dark-grey mass nothing could be distinguished
+but a beak nose and round yellow eyes.
+
+'Luise will run fast, and I can't run,' the old man went on in
+Italian, dragging his flat gouty feet, shod in high slippers with
+knots of ribbon. 'I've brought some water.'
+
+In his withered, knotted fingers, he clutched a long bottle neck.
+
+'But meanwhile Emil will die!' cried the girl, and holding out her
+hand to Sanin, 'O, sir, O _mein Herr_! can't you do something for
+him?'
+
+'He ought to be bled--it's an apoplectic fit,' observed the old man
+addressed as Pantaleone.
+
+Though Sanin had not the slightest notion of medicine, he knew one
+thing for certain, that boys of fourteen do not have apoplectic fits.
+
+'It's a swoon, not a fit,' he said, turning to Pantaleone. 'Have you
+got any brushes?'
+
+The old man raised his little face. 'Eh?'
+
+'Brushes, brushes,' repeated Sanin in German and in French. 'Brushes,'
+he added, making as though he would brush his clothes.
+
+The little old man understood him at last.
+
+'Ah, brushes! _Spazzette_! to be sure we have!'
+
+'Bring them here; we will take off his coat and try rubbing him.'
+
+'Good ... _Benone_! And ought we not to sprinkle water on his head?'
+
+'No ... later on; get the brushes now as quick as you can.'
+
+Pantaleone put the bottle on the floor, ran out and returned at once
+with two brushes, one a hair-brush, and one a clothes-brush. A curly
+poodle followed him in, and vigorously wagging its tail, it looked up
+inquisitively at the old man, the girl, and even Sanin, as though it
+wanted to know what was the meaning of all this fuss.
+
+Sanin quickly took the boy's coat off, unbuttoned his collar, and
+pushed up his shirt-sleeves, and arming himself with a brush, he
+began brushing his chest and arms with all his might. Pantaleone as
+zealously brushed away with the other--the hair-brush--at his boots
+and trousers. The girl flung herself on her knees by the sofa, and,
+clutching her head in both hands, fastened her eyes, not an eyelash
+quivering, on her brother.
+
+Sanin rubbed on, and kept stealing glances at her. Mercy! what a
+beautiful creature she was!
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Her nose was rather large, but handsome, aquiline-shaped; her upper
+lip was shaded by a light down; but then the colour of her face,
+smooth, uniform, like ivory or very pale milky amber, the wavering
+shimmer of her hair, like that of the Judith of Allorio in the
+Palazzo-Pitti; and above all, her eyes, dark-grey, with a black ring
+round the pupils, splendid, triumphant eyes, even now, when terror and
+distress dimmed their lustre.... Sanin could not help recalling the
+marvellous country he had just come from.... But even in Italy he had
+never met anything like her! The girl drew slow, uneven breaths; she
+seemed between each breath to be waiting to see whether her brother
+would not begin to breathe.
+
+Sanin went on rubbing him, but he did not only watch the girl. The
+original figure of Pantaleone drew his attention too. The old man was
+quite exhausted and panting; at every movement of the brush he hopped
+up and down and groaned noisily, while his immense tufts of hair,
+soaked with perspiration, flapped heavily from side to side, like the
+roots of some strong plant, torn up by the water.
+
+'You'd better, at least, take off his boots,' Sanin was just saying to
+him.
+
+The poodle, probably excited by the unusualness of all the
+proceedings, suddenly sank on to its front paws and began barking.
+
+'_Tartaglia--canaglia_!' the old man hissed at it. But at that instant
+the girl's face was transformed. Her eyebrows rose, her eyes grew
+wider, and shone with joy.
+
+Sanin looked round ... A flush had over-spread the lad's face; his
+eyelids stirred ... his nostrils twitched. He drew in a breath through
+his still clenched teeth, sighed....
+
+'Emil!' cried the girl ... 'Emilio mio!'
+
+Slowly the big black eyes opened. They still had a dazed look, but
+already smiled faintly; the same faint smile hovered on his pale lips.
+Then he moved the arm that hung down, and laid it on his chest.
+
+'Emilio!' repeated the girl, and she got up. The expression on her
+face was so tense and vivid, that it seemed that in an instant either
+she would burst into tears or break into laughter.
+
+'Emil! what is it? Emil!' was heard outside, and a neatly-dressed lady
+with silvery grey hair and a dark face came with rapid steps into the
+room.
+
+A middle-aged man followed her; the head of a maid-servant was visible
+over their shoulders.
+
+The girl ran to meet them.
+
+'He is saved, mother, he is alive!' she cried, impulsively embracing
+the lady who had just entered.
+
+'But what is it?' she repeated. 'I come back ... and all of a sudden I
+meet the doctor and Luise ...'
+
+The girl proceeded to explain what had happened, while the doctor went
+up to the invalid who was coming more and more to himself, and was
+still smiling: he seemed to be beginning to feel shy at the commotion
+he had caused.
+
+'You've been using friction with brushes, I see,' said the doctor to
+Sanin and Pantaleone, 'and you did very well.... A very good idea ...
+and now let us see what further measures ...'
+
+He felt the youth's pulse. 'H'm! show me your tongue!'
+
+The lady bent anxiously over him. He smiled still more ingenuously,
+raised his eyes to her, and blushed a little.
+
+It struck Sanin that he was no longer wanted; he went into the shop.
+But before he had time to touch the handle of the street-door, the
+girl was once more before him; she stopped him.
+
+'You are going,' she began, looking warmly into his face; 'I will not
+keep you, but you must be sure to come to see us this evening: we are
+so indebted to you--you, perhaps, saved my brother's life, we want to
+thank you--mother wants to. You must tell us who you are, you must
+rejoice with us ...'
+
+'But I am leaving for Berlin to-day,' Sanin faltered out.
+
+'You will have time though,' the girl rejoined eagerly. 'Come to us
+in an hour's time to drink a cup of chocolate with us. You promise? I
+must go back to him! You will come?'
+
+What could Sanin do?
+
+'I will come,' he replied.
+
+The beautiful girl pressed his hand, fluttered away, and he found
+himself in the street.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+When Sanin, an hour and a half later, returned to the Rosellis' shop
+he was received there like one of the family. Emilio was sitting on
+the same sofa, on which he had been rubbed; the doctor had prescribed
+him medicine and recommended 'great discretion in avoiding strong
+emotions' as being a subject of nervous temperament with a tendency to
+weakness of the heart. He had previously been liable to fainting-fits;
+but never had he lost consciousness so completely and for so long.
+However, the doctor declared that all danger was over. Emil, as
+was only suitable for an invalid, was dressed in a comfortable
+dressing-gown; his mother wound a blue woollen wrap round his neck;
+but he had a cheerful, almost a festive air; indeed everything had
+a festive air. Before the sofa, on a round table, covered with a
+clean cloth, towered a huge china coffee-pot, filled with fragrant
+chocolate, and encircled by cups, decanters of liqueur, biscuits
+and rolls, and even flowers; six slender wax candles were burning
+in two old-fashioned silver chandeliers; on one side of the sofa,
+a comfortable lounge-chair offered its soft embraces, and in this
+chair they made Sanin sit. All the inhabitants of the confectioner's
+shop, with whom he had made acquaintance that day, were present, not
+excluding the poodle, Tartaglia, and the cat; they all seemed happy
+beyond expression; the poodle positively sneezed with delight, only
+the cat was coy and blinked sleepily as before. They made Sanin tell
+them who he was, where he came from, and what was his name; when
+he said he was a Russian, both the ladies were a little surprised,
+uttered ejaculations of wonder, and declared with one voice that he
+spoke German splendidly; but if he preferred to speak French, he
+might make use of that language, as they both understood it and spoke
+it well. Sanin at once availed himself of this suggestion. 'Sanin!
+Sanin!' The ladies would never have expected that a Russian surname
+could be so easy to pronounce. His Christian name--'Dimitri'--they
+liked very much too. The elder lady observed that in her youth she had
+heard a fine opera--Demetrio e Polibio'--but that 'Dimitri' was much
+nicer than 'Demetrio.' In this way Sanin talked for about an hour. The
+ladies on their side initiated him into all the details of their own
+life. The talking was mostly done by the mother, the lady with grey
+hair. Sanin learnt from her that her name was Leonora Roselli; that
+she had lost her husband, Giovanni Battista Roselli, who had settled
+in Frankfort as a confectioner twenty--five years ago; that Giovanni
+Battista had come from Vicenza and had been a most excellent, though
+fiery and irascible man, and a republican withal! At those words
+Signora Roselli pointed to his portrait, painted in oil-colours, and
+hanging over the sofa. It must be presumed that the painter, 'also
+a republican!' as Signora Roselli observed with a sigh, had not
+fully succeeded in catching a likeness, for in his portrait the late
+Giovanni Battista appeared as a morose and gloomy brigand, after the
+style of Rinaldo Rinaldini! Signora Roselli herself had come from
+'the ancient and splendid city of Parma where there is the wonderful
+cupola, painted by the immortal Correggio!' But from her long
+residence in Germany she had become almost completely Germanised.
+Then she added, mournfully shaking her head, that all she had left
+was _this_ daughter and _this_ son (pointing to each in turn with her
+finger); that the daughter's name was Gemma, and the son's Emilio;
+that they were both very good and obedient children--especially Emilio
+... ('Me not obedient!' her daughter put in at that point. 'Oh,
+you're a republican, too!' answered her mother). That the business,
+of course, was not what it had been in the days of her husband, who
+had a great gift for the confectionery line ... ('_Un grand uomo_!'
+Pantaleone confirmed with a severe air); but that still, thank God,
+they managed to get along!
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Gemma listened to her mother, and at one minute laughed, then sighed,
+then patted her on the shoulder, and shook her finger at her, and then
+looked at Sanin; at last, she got up, embraced her mother and kissed
+her in the hollow of her neck, which made the latter laugh extremely
+and shriek a little. Pantaleone too was presented to Sanin. It
+appeared he had once been an opera singer, a baritone, but had long
+ago given up the theatre, and occupied in the Roselli family a
+position between that of a family friend and a servant. In spite of
+his prolonged residence in Germany, he had learnt very little German,
+and only knew how to swear in it, mercilessly distorting even the
+terms of abuse. '_Ferroflucto spitchebubbio_' was his favourite
+epithet for almost every German. He spoke Italian with a perfect
+accent--for was he not by birth from Sinigali, where may be heard
+'_lingua toscana in bocca romana_'! Emilio, obviously, played the
+invalid and indulged himself in the pleasant sensations of one who has
+only just escaped a danger or is returning to health after illness;
+it was evident, too, that the family spoiled him. He thanked Sanin
+bashfully, but devoted himself chiefly to the biscuits and sweetmeats.
+Sanin was compelled to drink two large cups of excellent chocolate,
+and to eat a considerable number of biscuits; no sooner had he
+swallowed one than Gemma offered him another--and to refuse was
+impossible! He soon felt at home: the time flew by with incredible
+swiftness. He had to tell them a great deal--about Russia in general,
+the Russian climate, Russian society, the Russian peasant--and
+especially about the Cossacks; about the war of 1812, about Peter the
+Great, about the Kremlin, and the Russian songs and bells. Both ladies
+had a very faint conception of our vast and remote fatherland; Signora
+Roselli, or as she was more often called, Frau Lenore, positively
+dumfoundered Sanin with the question, whether there was still existing
+at Petersburg the celebrated house of ice, built last century, about
+which she had lately read a very curious article in one of her
+husband's books, '_Bettezze delle arti_.' And in reply to Sanin's
+exclamation, 'Do you really suppose that there is never any summer in
+Russia?' Frau Lenore replied that till then she had always pictured
+Russia like this--eternal snow, every one going about in furs, and all
+military men, but the greatest hospitality, and all the peasants very
+submissive! Sanin tried to impart to her and her daughter some more
+exact information. When the conversation touched on Russian music,
+they begged him at once to sing some Russian air and showed him a
+diminutive piano with black keys instead of white and white instead
+of black. He obeyed without making much ado and accompanying himself
+with two fingers of the right hand and three of the left (the first,
+second, and little finger) he sang in a thin nasal tenor, first 'The
+Sarafan,' then 'Along a Paved Street.' The ladies praised his voice
+and the music, but were more struck with the softness and sonorousness
+of the Russian language and asked for a translation of the text. Sanin
+complied with their wishes--but as the words of 'The Sarafan,' and
+still more of 'Along a Paved Street' (_sur une rue pavee une jeune
+fille allait a l'eau_ was how he rendered the sense of the original)
+were not calculated to inspire his listeners with an exalted idea
+of Russian poetry, he first recited, then translated, and then sang
+Pushkin's, 'I remember a marvellous moment,' set to music by Glinka,
+whose minor bars he did not render quite faithfully. Then the ladies
+went into ecstasies. Frau Lenore positively discovered in Russian
+a wonderful likeness to the Italian. Even the names Pushkin (she
+pronounced it Pussekin) and Glinka sounded somewhat familiar to her.
+Sanin on his side begged the ladies to sing something; they too did
+not wait to be pressed. Frau Lenore sat down to the piano and sang
+with Gemma some duets and 'stornelle.' The mother had once had a fine
+contralto; the daughter's voice was not strong, but was pleasing.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+But it was not Gemma's voice--it was herself Sanin was admiring. He
+was sitting a little behind and on one side of her, and kept thinking
+to himself that no palm-tree, even in the poems of Benediktov--the
+poet in fashion in those days--could rival the slender grace of her
+figure. When, at the most emotional passages, she raised her eyes
+upwards--it seemed to him no heaven could fail to open at such a look!
+Even the old man, Pantaleone, who with his shoulder propped against
+the doorpost, and his chin and mouth tucked into his capacious cravat,
+was listening solemnly with the air of a connoisseur--even he was
+admiring the girl's lovely face and marvelling at it, though one would
+have thought he must have been used to it! When she had finished the
+duet with her daughter, Frau Lenore observed that Emilio had a fine
+voice, like a silver bell, but that now he was at the age when the
+voice changes--he did, in fact, talk in a sort of bass constantly
+falling into falsetto--and that he was therefore forbidden to sing;
+but that Pantaleone now really might try his skill of old days in
+honour of their guest! Pantaleone promptly put on a displeased air,
+frowned, ruffled up his hair, and declared that he had given it all
+up long ago, though he could certainly in his youth hold his own,
+and indeed had belonged to that great period, when there were real
+classical singers, not to be compared to the squeaking performers of
+to-day! and a real school of singing; that he, Pantaleone Cippatola of
+Varese, had once been brought a laurel wreath from Modena, and that
+on that occasion some white doves had positively been let fly in the
+theatre; that among others a Russian prince Tarbusky--'_il principe
+Tarbusski_'--with whom he had been on the most friendly terms, had
+after supper persistently invited him to Russia, promising him
+mountains of gold, mountains!... but that he had been unwilling to
+leave Italy, the land of Dante--_il paese del Dante!_ Afterward, to
+be sure, there came ... unfortunate circumstances, he had himself
+been imprudent.... At this point the old man broke off, sighed
+deeply twice, looked dejected, and began again talking of the
+classical period of singing, of the celebrated tenor Garcia, for
+whom he cherished a devout, unbounded veneration. 'He was a man!'
+he exclaimed. 'Never had the great Garcia (_il gran Garcia_)
+demeaned himself by singing falsetto like the paltry tenors of
+to-day--_tenoracci_; always from the chest, from the chest, _voce di
+petto, si!_' and the old man aimed a vigorous blow with his little
+shrivelled fist at his own shirt-front! 'And what an actor! A volcano,
+_signori miei_, a volcano, _un Vesuvio_! I had the honour and the
+happiness of singing with him in the _opera dell' illustrissimo
+maestro_ Rossini--in Otello! Garcia was Otello,--I was Iago--and
+when he rendered the phrase':--here Pantaleone threw himself into an
+attitude and began singing in a hoarse and shaky, but still moving
+voice:
+
+  "L'i ... ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato
+  lo piu no ... no ... no ... non temero!"
+
+The theatre was all a-quiver, _signori miei_! though I too did not
+fall short, I too after him.
+
+  "L'i ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato
+  Temer piu non davro!"
+
+And all of a sudden, he crashed like lightning, like a tiger:
+_Morro!... ma vendicato ..._ Again when he was singing ... when he was
+singing that celebrated air from "_Matrimonio segreto_," _Pria che
+spunti_ ... then he, _il gran Garcia_, after the words, "_I cavalli
+di galoppo_"--at the words, "_Senza posa cacciera_,"--listen, how
+stupendous, _come e stupendo_! At that point he made ...' The old man
+began a sort of extraordinary flourish, and at the tenth note broke
+down, cleared his throat, and with a wave of his arm turned away,
+muttering, 'Why do you torment me?' Gemma jumped up at once and
+clapping loudly and shouting, bravo!... bravo!... she ran to the poor
+old super-annuated Iago and with both hands patted him affectionately
+on the shoulders. Only Emil laughed ruthlessly. _Cet age est sans
+pitie_--that age knows no mercy--Lafontaine has said already.
+
+Sanin tried to soothe the aged singer and began talking to him
+in Italian--(he had picked up a smattering during his last tour
+there)--began talking of '_paese del Dante, dove il si suona_.' This
+phrase, together with '_Lasciate ogni speranza_,' made up the whole
+stock of poetic Italian of the young tourist; but Pantaleone was
+not won over by his blandishments. Tucking his chin deeper than ever
+into his cravat and sullenly rolling his eyes, he was once more
+like a bird, an angry one too,--a crow or a kite. Then Emil, with a
+faint momentary blush, such as one so often sees in spoilt children,
+addressing his sister, said if she wanted to entertain their guest,
+she could do nothing better than read him one of those little comedies
+of Malz, that she read so nicely. Gemma laughed, slapped her brother
+on the arm, exclaimed that he 'always had such ideas!' She went
+promptly, however, to her room, and returning thence with a small
+book in her hand, seated herself at the table before the lamp, looked
+round, lifted one finger as much as to say, 'hush!'--a typically
+Italian gesture--and began reading.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Malz was a writer flourishing at Frankfort about 1830, whose short
+comedies, written in a light vein in the local dialect, hit off local
+Frankfort types with bright and amusing, though not deep, humour.
+It turned out that Gemma really did read excellently--quite like an
+actress in fact. She indicated each personage, and sustained the
+character capitally, making full use of the talent of mimicry she had
+inherited with her Italian blood; she had no mercy on her soft voice
+or her lovely face, and when she had to represent some old crone in
+her dotage, or a stupid burgomaster, she made the drollest grimaces,
+screwing up her eyes, wrinkling up her nose, lisping, squeaking....
+She did not herself laugh during the reading; but when her audience
+(with the exception of Pantaleone: he had walked off in indignation
+so soon as the conversation turned _o quel ferroflucto Tedesco_)
+interrupted her by an outburst of unanimous laughter, she dropped the
+book on her knee, and laughed musically too, her head thrown back, and
+her black hair dancing in little ringlets on her neck and her shaking
+shoulders. When the laughter ceased, she picked up the book at once,
+and again resuming a suitable expression, began the reading seriously.
+Sanin could not get over his admiration; he was particularly
+astonished at the marvellous way in which a face so ideally beautiful
+assumed suddenly a comic, sometimes almost a vulgar expression. Gemma
+was less successful in the parts of young girls--of so-called '_jeunes
+premieres_'; in the love-scenes in particular she failed; she was
+conscious of this herself, and for that reason gave them a faint shade
+of irony as though she did not quite believe in all these rapturous
+vows and elevated sentiments, of which the author, however, was
+himself rather sparing--so far as he could be.
+
+Sanin did not notice how the evening was flying by, and only
+recollected the journey before him when the clock struck ten. He
+leaped up from his seat as though he had been stung.
+
+'What is the matter?' inquired Frau Lenore.
+
+'Why, I had to start for Berlin to-night, and I have taken a place in
+the diligence!'
+
+'And when does the diligence start?'
+
+'At half-past ten!'
+
+'Well, then, you won't catch it now,' observed Gemma; 'you must stay
+... and I will go on reading.'
+
+'Have you paid the whole fare or only given a deposit?' Frau Lenore
+queried.
+
+'The whole fare!' Sanin said dolefully with a gloomy face.
+
+Gemma looked at him, half closed her eyes, and laughed, while her
+mother scolded her:
+
+'The young gentleman has paid away his money for nothing, and you
+laugh!'
+
+'Never mind,' answered Gemma; 'it won't ruin him, and we will try and
+amuse him. Will you have some lemonade?'
+
+Sanin drank a glass of lemonade, Gemma took up Malz once more; and all
+went merrily again.
+
+The clock struck twelve. Sanin rose to take leave.
+
+'You must stay some days now in Frankfort,' said Gemma: 'why should
+you hurry away? It would be no nicer in any other town.' She paused.
+'It wouldn't, really,' she added with a smile. Sanin made no reply,
+and reflected that considering the emptiness of his purse, he would
+have no choice about remaining in Frankfort till he got an answer from
+a friend in Berlin, to whom he proposed writing for money.
+
+'Yes, do stay,' urged Frau Lenore too. 'We will introduce you to Mr.
+Karl Klueber, who is engaged to Gemma. He could not come to-day, as he
+was very busy at his shop ... you must have seen the biggest draper's
+and silk mercer's shop in the _Zeile_. Well, he is the manager there.
+But he will be delighted to call on you himself.'
+
+Sanin--heaven knows why--was slightly disconcerted by this piece of
+information. 'He's a lucky fellow, that fiance!' flashed across his
+mind. He looked at Gemma, and fancied he detected an ironical look in
+her eyes. He began saying good-bye.
+
+'Till to-morrow? Till to-morrow, isn't it?' queried Frau Lenore.
+
+'Till to-morrow!' Gemma declared in a tone not of interrogation, but
+of affirmation, as though it could not be otherwise.
+
+'Till to-morrow!' echoed Sanin.
+
+Emil, Pantaleone, and the poodle Tartaglia accompanied him to the
+corner of the street. Pantaleone could not refrain from expressing his
+displeasure at Gemma's reading.
+
+'She ought to be ashamed! She mouths and whines, _una caricatura_!
+She ought to represent Merope or Clytemnaestra--something grand,
+tragic--and she apes some wretched German woman! I can do that ...
+_merz, kerz, smerz_,' he went on in a hoarse voice poking his face
+forward, and brandishing his fingers. Tartaglia began barking at him,
+while Emil burst out laughing. The old man turned sharply back.
+
+Sanin went back to the White Swan (he had left his things there in the
+public hall) in a rather confused frame of mind. All the talk he had
+had in French, German, and Italian was ringing in his ears.
+
+'Engaged!' he whispered as he lay in bed, in the modest apartment
+assigned to him. 'And what a beauty! But what did I stay for?'
+
+Next day he sent a letter to his friend in Berlin.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+He had not finished dressing, when a waiter announced the arrival
+of two gentlemen. One of them turned out to be Emil; the other, a
+good-looking and well-grown young man, with a handsome face, was Herr
+Karl Klueber, the betrothed of the lovely Gemma.
+
+One may safely assume that at that time in all Frankfort, there was
+not in a single shop a manager as civil, as decorous, as dignified,
+and as affable as Herr Klueber. The irreproachable perfection of his
+get-up was on a level with the dignity of his deportment, with the
+elegance--a little affected and stiff, it is true, in the English
+style (he had spent two years in England)--but still fascinating,
+elegance of his manners! It was clear from the first glance that this
+handsome, rather severe, excellently brought-up and superbly washed
+young man was accustomed to obey his superior and to command his
+inferior, and that behind the counter of his shop he must infallibly
+inspire respect even in his customers! Of his supernatural honesty
+there could never be a particle of doubt: one had but to look at his
+stiffly starched collars! And his voice, it appeared, was just what
+one would expect; deep, and of a self-confident richness, but not too
+loud, with positively a certain caressing note in its timbre. Such a
+voice was peculiarly fitted to give orders to assistants under his
+control: 'Show the crimson Lyons velvet!' or, 'Hand the lady a chair!'
+
+Herr Klueber began with introducing himself; as he did so, he bowed
+with such loftiness, moved his legs with such an agreeable air, and
+drew his heels together with such polished courtesy that no one could
+fail to feel, 'that man has both linen and moral principles of the
+first quality!' The finish of his bare right hand--(the left, in a
+suede glove, held a hat shining like a looking-glass, with the right
+glove placed within it)--the finish of the right hand, proffered
+modestly but resolutely to Sanin, surpassed all belief; each
+finger-nail was a perfection in its own way! Then he proceeded
+to explain in the choicest German that he was anxious to express
+his respect and his indebtedness to the foreign gentleman who had
+performed so signal a service to his future kinsman, the brother of
+his betrothed; as he spoke, he waved his left hand with the hat in it
+in the direction of Emil, who seemed bashful and turning away to the
+window, put his finger in his mouth. Herr Klueber added that he should
+esteem himself happy should he be able in return to do anything for
+the foreign gentleman. Sanin, with some difficulty, replied, also
+in German, that he was delighted ... that the service was not worth
+speaking of ... and he begged his guests to sit down. Herr Klueber
+thanked him, and lifting his coat-tails, sat down on a chair; but he
+perched there so lightly and with such a transitory air that no one
+could fail to realise, 'this man is sitting down from politeness,
+and will fly up again in an instant.' And he did in fact fly up again
+quickly, and advancing with two discreet little dance-steps, he
+announced that to his regret he was unable to stay any longer, as he
+had to hasten to his shop--business before everything! but as the next
+day was Sunday, he had, with the consent of Frau Lenore and Fraeulein
+Gemma, arranged a holiday excursion to Soden, to which he had the
+honour of inviting the foreign gentleman, and he cherished the hope
+that he would not refuse to grace the party with his presence. Sanin
+did not refuse so to grace it; and Herr Klueber repeating once more his
+complimentary sentiments, took leave, his pea-green trousers making a
+spot of cheerful colour, and his brand-new boots squeaking cheerfully
+as he moved.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Emil, who had continued to stand with his face to the window, even
+after Sanin's invitation to him to sit down, turned round directly his
+future kinsman had gone out, and with a childish pout and blush, asked
+Sanin if he might remain a little while with him. 'I am much better
+to-day,' he added, 'but the doctor has forbidden me to do any work.'
+
+'Stay by all means! You won't be in the least in my way,' Sanin cried
+at once. Like every true Russian he was glad to clutch at any excuse
+that saved him from the necessity of doing anything himself.
+
+Emil thanked him, and in a very short time he was completely at home
+with him and with his room; he looked at all his things, asked him
+about almost every one of them, where he had bought it, and what was
+its value. He helped him to shave, observing that it was a mistake not
+to let his moustache grow; and finally told him a number of details
+about his mother, his sister, Pantaleone, the poodle Tartaglia, and
+all their daily life. Every semblance of timidity vanished in Emil; he
+suddenly felt extraordinarily attracted to Sanin--not at all because
+he had saved his life the day before, but because he was such a nice
+person! He lost no time in confiding all his secrets to Sanin. He
+expatiated with special warmth on the fact that his mother was set
+on making him a shopkeeper, while he _knew_, knew for certain, that
+he was born an artist, a musician, a singer; that Pantaleone even
+encouraged him, but that Herr Klueber supported mamma, over whom he had
+great influence; that the very idea of his being a shopkeeper really
+originated with Herr Klueber, who considered that nothing in the world
+could compare with trade! To measure out cloth--and cheat the public,
+extorting from it '_Narren--oder Russen Preise_' (fools'--or Russian
+prices)--that was his ideal! [Footnote: In former days--and very
+likely it is not different now--when, from May onwards, a great number
+of Russians visited Frankfort, prices rose in all the shops, and were
+called 'Russians',' or, alas! 'fools' prices.']
+
+'Come! now you must come and see us!' he cried, directly Sanin had
+finished his toilet and written his letter to Berlin.
+
+'It's early yet,' observed Sanin.
+
+'That's no matter,' replied Emil caressingly. 'Come along! We'll go to
+the post--and from there to our place. Gemma will be so glad to see
+you! You must have lunch with us.... You might say a word to mamma
+about me, my career....'
+
+'Very well, let's go,' said Sanin, and they set off.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Gemma certainly was delighted to see him, and Frau Lenore gave him a
+very friendly welcome; he had obviously made a good impression on both
+of them the evening before. Emil ran to see to getting lunch ready,
+after a preliminary whisper, 'don't forget!' in Sanin's ear.
+
+'I won't forget,' responded Sanin.
+
+Frau Lenore was not quite well; she had a sick headache, and,
+half-lying down in an easy chair, she tried to keep perfectly still.
+Gemma wore a full yellow blouse, with a black leather belt round the
+waist; she too seemed exhausted, and was rather pale; there were dark
+rings round her eyes, but their lustre was not the less for it; it
+added something of charm and mystery to the classical lines of her
+face. Sanin was especially struck that day by the exquisite beauty of
+her hands; when she smoothed and put back her dark, glossy tresses he
+could not take his eyes off her long supple fingers, held slightly
+apart from one another like the hand of Raphael's Fornarina.
+
+It was very hot out-of-doors; after lunch Sanin was about to take
+leave, but they told him that on such a day the best thing was to stay
+where one was, and he agreed; he stayed. In the back room where he was
+sitting with the ladies of the household, coolness reigned supreme;
+the windows looked out upon a little garden overgrown with acacias.
+Multitudes of bees, wasps, and humming beetles kept up a steady,
+eager buzz in their thick branches, which were studded with golden
+blossoms; through the half-drawn curtains and the lowered blinds this
+never-ceasing hum made its way into the room, telling of the sultry
+heat in the air outside, and making the cool of the closed and snug
+abode seem the sweeter.
+
+Sanin talked a great deal, as on the day before, but not of Russia,
+nor of Russian life. Being anxious to please his young friend, who
+had been sent off to Herr Klueber's immediately after lunch, to
+acquire a knowledge of book-keeping, he turned the conversation on
+the comparative advantages and disadvantages of art and commerce. He
+was not surprised at Frau Lenore's standing up for commerce--he had
+expected that; but Gemma too shared her opinion.
+
+'If one's an artist, and especially a singer,' she declared with a
+vigorous downward sweep of her hand, 'one's got to be first-rate!
+Second-rate's worse than nothing; and who can tell if one will
+arrive at being first-rate?' Pantaleone, who took part too in the
+conversation--(as an old servant and an old man he had the privilege
+of sitting down in the presence of the ladies of the house; Italians
+are not, as a rule, strict in matters of etiquette)--Pantaleone, as a
+matter of course, stood like a rock for art. To tell the truth, his
+arguments were somewhat feeble; he kept expatiating for the most part
+on the necessity, before all things, of possessing '_un certo estro
+d'inspirazione_'--a certain force of inspiration! Frau Lenore remarked
+to him that he had, to be sure, possessed such an '_estro_'--and
+yet ... 'I had enemies,' Pantaleone observed gloomily. 'And how do
+you know that Emil will not have enemies, even if this "_estro_" is
+found in him?' 'Very well, make a tradesman of him, then,' retorted
+Pantaleone in vexation; 'but Giovan' Battista would never have done
+it, though he was a confectioner himself!' 'Giovan' Battista, my
+husband, was a reasonable man, and even though he was in his youth led
+away ...' But the old man would hear nothing more, and walked away,
+repeating reproachfully, 'Ah! Giovan' Battista!...' Gemma exclaimed
+that if Emil felt like a patriot, and wanted to devote all his powers
+to the liberation of Italy, then, of course, for such a high and holy
+cause he might sacrifice the security of the future--but not for the
+theatre! Thereupon Frau Lenore became much agitated, and began to
+implore her daughter to refrain at least from turning her brother's
+head, and to content herself with being such a desperate republican
+herself! Frau Lenore groaned as she uttered these words, and began
+complaining of her head, which was 'ready to split.' (Frau Lenore, in
+deference to their guest, talked to her daughter in French.)
+
+Gemma began at once to wait upon her; she moistened her forehead with
+eau-de-Cologne, gently blew on it, gently kissed her cheek, made her
+lay her head on a pillow, forbade her to speak, and kissed her again.
+Then, turning to Sanin, she began telling him in a half-joking,
+half-tender tone what a splendid mother she had, and what a beauty she
+had been. '"Had been," did I say? she is charming now! Look, look,
+what eyes!'
+
+Gemma instantly pulled a white handkerchief out of her pocket, covered
+her mother's face with it, and slowly drawing it downwards, gradually
+uncovered Frau Lenore's forehead, eyebrows, and eyes; she waited a
+moment and asked her to open them. Her mother obeyed; Gemma cried
+out in ecstasy (Frau Lenore's eyes really were very beautiful), and
+rapidly sliding the handkerchief over the lower, less regular part of
+the face, fell to kissing her again. Frau Lenore laughed, and turning
+a little away, with a pretence of violence, pushed her daughter away.
+She too pretended to struggle with her mother, and lavished caresses
+on her--not like a cat, in the French manner, but with that special
+Italian grace in which is always felt the presence of power.
+
+At last Frau Lenore declared she was tired out ... Then Gemma at once
+advised her to have a little nap, where she was, in her chair, 'and
+I and the Russian gentleman--"_avec le monsieur russe_"--will be as
+quiet, as quiet ... as little mice ... "_comme des petites souris_."'
+Frau Lenore smiled at her in reply, closed her eyes, and after a few
+sighs began to doze. Gemma quickly dropped down on a bench beside her
+and did not stir again, only from time to time she put a finger of
+one hand to her lips--with the other hand she was holding up a pillow
+behind her mother's head--and said softly, 'sh-sh!' with a sidelong
+look at Sanin, if he permitted himself the smallest movement. In the
+end he too sank into a kind of dream, and sat motionless as though
+spell-bound, while all his faculties were absorbed in admiring the
+picture presented him by the half-dark room, here and there spotted
+with patches of light crimson, where fresh, luxuriant roses stood in
+the old-fashioned green glasses, and the sleeping woman with demurely
+folded hands and kind, weary face, framed in the snowy whiteness
+of the pillow, and the young, keenly-alert and also kind, clever,
+pure, and unspeakably beautiful creature with such black, deep,
+overshadowed, yet shining eyes.... What was it? A dream? a fairy
+tale? And how came _he_ to be in it?
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The bell tinkled at the outer door. A young peasant lad in a fur
+cap and a red waistcoat came into the shop from the street. Not one
+customer had looked into it since early morning ... 'You see how much
+business we do!' Frau Lenore observed to Sanin at lunch-time with a
+sigh. She was still asleep; Gemma was afraid to take her arm from the
+pillow, and whispered to Sanin: 'You go, and mind the shop for me!'
+Sanin went on tiptoe into the shop at once. The boy wanted a quarter
+of a pound of peppermints. 'How much must I take?' Sanin whispered
+from the door to Gemma. 'Six kreutzers!' she answered in the same
+whisper. Sanin weighed out a quarter of a pound, found some paper,
+twisted it into a cone, tipped the peppermints into it, spilt them,
+tipped them in again, spilt them again, at last handed them to the
+boy, and took the money.... The boy gazed at him in amazement,
+twisting his cap in his hands on his stomach, and in the next room,
+Gemma was stifling with suppressed laughter. Before the first customer
+had walked out, a second appeared, then a third.... 'I bring luck,
+it's clear!' thought Sanin. The second customer wanted a glass of
+orangeade, the third, half-a-pound of sweets. Sanin satisfied their
+needs, zealously clattering the spoons, changing the saucers, and
+eagerly plunging his fingers into drawers and jars. On reckoning up,
+it appeared that he had charged too little for the orangeade, and
+taken two kreutzers too much for the sweets. Gemma did not cease
+laughing softly, and Sanin too was aware of an extraordinary lightness
+of heart, a peculiarly happy state of mind. He felt as if he had
+for ever been standing behind the counter and dealing in orangeade
+and sweetmeats, with that exquisite creature looking at him through
+the doorway with affectionately mocking eyes, while the summer sun,
+forcing its way through the sturdy leafage of the chestnuts that grew
+in front of the windows, filled the whole room with the greenish-gold
+of the midday light and shade, and the heart grew soft in the sweet
+languor of idleness, carelessness, and youth--first youth!
+
+A fourth customer asked for a cup of coffee; Pantaleone had to be
+appealed to. (Emil had not yet come back from Herr Klueber's shop.)
+Sanin went and sat by Gemma again. Frau Lenore still went on sleeping,
+to her daughter's great delight. 'Mamma always sleeps off her sick
+headaches,' she observed. Sanin began talking--in a whisper, of
+course, as before--of his minding the shop; very seriously inquired
+the price of various articles of confectionery; Gemma just as
+seriously told him these prices, and meanwhile both of them were
+inwardly laughing together, as though conscious they were playing
+in a very amusing farce. All of a sudden, an organ-grinder in the
+street began playing an air from the Freischuetz: '_Durch die Felder,
+durch die Auen_ ...' The dance tune fell shrill and quivering on
+the motionless air. Gemma started ... 'He will wake mamma!' Sanin
+promptly darted out into the street, thrust a few kreutzers into
+the organ-grinder's hand, and made him cease playing and move away.
+When he came back, Gemma thanked him with a little nod of the head,
+and with a pensive smile she began herself just audibly humming
+the beautiful melody of Weber's, in which Max expresses all the
+perplexities of first love. Then she asked Sanin whether he knew
+'Freischuetz,' whether he was fond of Weber, and added that though
+she was herself an Italian, she liked _such_ music best of all. From
+Weber the conversation glided off on to poetry and romanticism, on to
+Hoffmann, whom every one was still reading at that time.
+
+And Frau Lenore still slept, and even snored just a little, and the
+sunbeams, piercing in narrow streaks through the shutters, were
+incessantly and imperceptibly shifting and travelling over the floor,
+the furniture, Gemma's dress, and the leaves and petals of the
+flowers.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+It appeared that Gemma was not very fond of Hoffmann, that she even
+thought him ... tedious! The fantastic, misty northern element in
+his stories was too remote from her clear, southern nature. 'It's
+all fairy-tales, all written for children!' she declared with some
+contempt. She was vaguely conscious, too, of the lack of poetry in
+Hoffmann. But there was one of his stories, the title of which she
+had forgotten, which she greatly liked; more precisely speaking, it
+was only the beginning of this story that she liked; the end she had
+either not read or had forgotten. The story was about a young man who
+in some place, a sort of restaurant perhaps, meets a girl of striking
+beauty, a Greek; she is accompanied by a mysterious and strange,
+wicked old man. The young man falls in love with the girl at first
+sight; she looks at him so mournfully, as though beseeching him to
+deliver her.... He goes out for an instant, and, coming back into the
+restaurant, finds there neither the girl nor the old man; he rushes
+off in pursuit of her, continually comes upon fresh traces of her,
+follows them up, and can never by any means come upon her anywhere.
+The lovely girl has vanished for him for ever and ever, and he is
+never able to forget her imploring glance, and is tortured by the
+thought that all the happiness of his life, perhaps, has slipped
+through his fingers.
+
+Hoffmann does not end his story quite in that way; but so it had taken
+shape, so it had remained, in Gemma's memory.
+
+'I fancy,' she said, 'such meetings and such partings happen oftener
+in the world than we suppose.'
+
+Sanin was silent ... and soon after he began talking ... of Herr
+Klueber. It was the first time he had referred to him; he had not once
+remembered him till that instant.
+
+Gemma was silent in her turn, and sank into thought, biting the nail
+of her forefinger and fixing her eyes away. Then she began to speak in
+praise of her betrothed, alluded to the excursion he had planned for
+the next day, and, glancing swiftly at Sanin, was silent again.
+
+Sanin did not know on what subject to turn the conversation.
+
+Emil ran in noisily and waked Frau Lenore ... Sanin was relieved by
+his appearance.
+
+Frau Lenore got up from her low chair. Pantaleone came in and
+announced that dinner was ready. The friend of the family, ex-singer,
+and servant also performed the duties of cook.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Sanin stayed on after dinner too. They did not let him go, still on
+the same pretext of the terrible heat; and when the heat began to
+decrease, they proposed going out into the garden to drink coffee in
+the shade of the acacias. Sanin consented. He felt very happy. In the
+quietly monotonous, smooth current of life lie hid great delights,
+and he gave himself up to these delights with zest, asking nothing
+much of the present day, but also thinking nothing of the morrow, nor
+recalling the day before. How much the mere society of such a girl as
+Gemma meant to him! He would shortly part from her and, most likely,
+for ever; but so long as they were borne, as in Uhland's song, in
+one skiff over the sea of life, untossed by tempest, well might
+the traveller rejoice and be glad. And everything seemed sweet
+and delightful to the happy voyager. Frau Lenore offered to play
+against him and Pantaleone at 'tresette,' instructed him in this not
+complicated Italian game, and won a few kreutzers from him, and he
+was well content. Pantaleone, at Emil's request, made the poodle,
+Tartaglia, perform all his tricks, and Tartaglia jumped over a stick
+'spoke,' that is, barked, sneezed, shut the door with his nose,
+fetched his master's trodden-down slippers; and, finally, with an
+old cap on his head, he portrayed Marshal Bernadotte, subjected to
+the bitterest upbraidings by the Emperor Napoleon on account of his
+treachery. Napoleon's part was, of course, performed by Pantaleone,
+and very faithfully he performed it: he folded his arms across his
+chest, pulled a cocked hat over his eyes, and spoke very gruffly and
+sternly, in French--and heavens! what French! Tartaglia sat before his
+sovereign, all huddled up, with dejected tail, and eyes blinking and
+twitching in confusion, under the peak of his cap which was stuck on
+awry; from time to time when Napoleon raised his voice, Bernadotte
+rose on his hind paws. '_Fuori, traditore!_' cried Napoleon at last,
+forgetting in the excess of his wrath that he had to sustain his role
+as a Frenchman to the end; and Bernadotte promptly flew under the
+sofa, but quickly darted out again with a joyful bark, as though to
+announce that the performance was over. All the spectators laughed,
+and Sanin more than all.
+
+Gemma had a particularly charming, continual, soft laugh, with very
+droll little shrieks.... Sanin was fairly enchanted by that laugh--he
+could have kissed her for those shrieks!
+
+Night came on at last. He had in decency to take leave! After saying
+good-bye several times over to every one, and repeating several times
+to all, 'till to-morrow!'--Emil he went so far as to kiss--Sanin
+started home, carrying with him the image of the young girl, at one
+time laughing, at another thoughtful, calm, and even indifferent--but
+always attractive! Her eyes, at one time wide open, clear and bright
+as day, at another time half shrouded by the lashes and deep and dark
+as night, seemed to float before his eyes, piercing in a strange sweet
+way across all other images and recollections.
+
+Of Herr Klueber, of the causes impelling him to remain in Frankfort--in
+short, of everything that had disturbed his mind the evening
+before--he never thought once.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+We must, however, say a few words about Sanin himself.
+
+In the first place, he was very, very good-looking. A handsome,
+graceful figure, agreeable, rather unformed features, kindly bluish
+eyes, golden hair, a clear white and red skin, and, above all, that
+peculiar, naively-cheerful, confiding, open, at the first glance,
+somewhat foolish expression, by which in former days one could
+recognise directly the children of steady-going, noble families,
+'sons of their fathers,' fine young landowners, born and reared in
+our open, half-wild country parts,--a hesitating gait, a voice with a
+lisp, a smile like a child's the minute you looked at him ... lastly,
+freshness, health, softness, softness, softness,--there you have the
+whole of Sanin. And secondly, he was not stupid and had picked up a
+fair amount of knowledge. Fresh he had remained, for all his foreign
+tour; the disturbing emotions in which the greater part of the young
+people of that day were tempest-tossed were very little known to him.
+
+Of late years, in response to the assiduous search for 'new types,'
+young men have begun to appear in our literature, determined at
+all hazards to be 'fresh'... as fresh as Flensburg oysters, when
+they reach Petersburg.... Sanin was not like them. Since we have
+had recourse already to simile, he rather recalled a young, leafy,
+freshly-grafted apple-tree in one of our fertile orchards--or
+better still, a well-groomed, sleek, sturdy-limbed, tender young
+'three-year-old' in some old-fashioned seignorial stud stable, a
+young horse that they have hardly begun to break in to the traces....
+Those who came across Sanin in later years, when life had knocked him
+about a good deal, and the sleekness and plumpness of youth had long
+vanished, saw in him a totally different man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day Sanin was still in bed when Emil, in his best clothes, with
+a cane in his hand and much pomade on his head, burst into his room,
+announcing that Herr Klueber would be here directly with the carriage,
+that the weather promised to be exquisite, that they had everything
+ready by now, but that mamma was not going, as her head was bad again.
+He began to hurry Sanin, telling him that there was not a minute to
+lose.... And Herr Klueber did, in fact, find Sanin still at his toilet.
+He knocked at the door, came in, bowed with a bend from the waist,
+expressed his readiness to wait as long as might be desired, and
+sat down, his hat balanced elegantly on his knees. The handsome
+shop-manager had got himself up and perfumed himself to excess: his
+every action was accompanied by a powerful whiff of the most refined
+aroma. He arrived in a comfortable open carriage--one of the kind
+called landau--drawn by two tall and powerful but not well-shaped
+horses. A quarter of an hour later Sanin, Klueber, and Emil, in this
+same carriage, drew up triumphantly at the steps of the confectioner's
+shop. Madame Roselli resolutely refused to join the party; Gemma
+wanted to stay with her mother; but she simply turned her out.
+
+'I don't want any one,' she declared; 'I shall go to sleep. I would
+send Pantaleone with you too, only there would be no one to mind the
+shop.'
+
+'May we take Tartaglia?' asked Emil.
+
+'Of course you may.'
+
+Tartaglia immediately scrambled, with delighted struggles, on to the
+box and sat there, licking himself; it was obviously a thing he was
+accustomed to. Gemma put on a large straw hat with brown ribbons; the
+hat was bent down in front, so as to shade almost the whole of her
+face from the sun. The line of shadow stopped just at her lips; they
+wore a tender maiden flush, like the petals of a centifoil rose, and
+her teeth gleamed stealthily--innocently too, as when children smile.
+Gemma sat facing the horses, with Sanin; Klueber and Emil sat opposite.
+The pale face of Frau Lenore appeared at the window; Gemma waved her
+handkerchief to her, and the horses started.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Soden is a little town half an hour's distance from Frankfort. It lies
+in a beautiful country among the spurs of the Taunus Mountains, and
+is known among us in Russia for its waters, which are supposed to be
+beneficial to people with weak lungs. The Frankforters visit it more
+for purposes of recreation, as Soden possesses a fine park and various
+'wirthschaften,' where one may drink beer and coffee in the shade
+of the tall limes and maples. The road from Frankfort to Soden runs
+along the right bank of the Maine, and is planted all along with fruit
+trees. While the carriage was rolling slowly along an excellent road,
+Sanin stealthily watched how Gemma behaved to her betrothed; it was
+the first time he had seen them together. _She_ was quiet and simple
+in her manner, but rather more reserved and serious than usual; _he_
+had the air of a condescending schoolmaster, permitting himself and
+those under his authority a discreet and decorous pleasure. Sanin saw
+no signs in him of any marked attentiveness, of what the French call
+'_empressement_,' in his demeanour to Gemma. It was clear that Herr
+Klueber considered that it was a matter settled once for all, and
+that therefore he saw no reason to trouble or excite himself. But
+his condescension never left him for an instant! Even during a long
+ramble before dinner about the wooded hills and valleys behind Soden,
+even when enjoying the beauties of nature, he treated nature itself
+with the same condescension, through which his habitual magisterial
+severity peeped out from time to time. So, for example, he observed
+in regard to one stream that it ran too straight through the glade,
+instead of making a few picturesque curves; he disapproved, too, of
+the conduct of a bird--a chaffinch--for singing so monotonously.
+Gemma was not bored, and even, apparently, was enjoying herself; but
+Sanin did not recognise her as the Gemma of the preceding days; it
+was not that she seemed under a cloud--her beauty had never been more
+dazzling--but her soul seemed to have withdrawn into herself. With her
+parasol open and her gloves still buttoned up, she walked sedately,
+deliberately, as well-bred young girls walk, and spoke little.
+Emil, too, felt stiff, and Sanin more so than all. He was somewhat
+embarrassed too by the fact that the conversation was all the time
+in German. Only Tartaglia was in high spirits! He darted, barking
+frantically, after blackbirds, leaped over ravines, stumps and roots,
+rushed headlong into the water, lapped at it in desperate haste, shook
+himself, whining, and was off like an arrow, his red tongue trailing
+after him almost to his shoulder. Herr Klueber, for his part, did
+everything he supposed conducive to the mirthfulness of the company;
+he begged them to sit down in the shade of a spreading oak-tree, and
+taking out of a side pocket a small booklet entitled, '_Knallerbsen;
+oder du sollst und wirst lachen!_' (Squibs; or you must and shall
+laugh!) began reading the funny anecdotes of which the little book was
+full. He read them twelve specimens; he aroused very little mirth,
+however; only Sanin smiled, from politeness, and he himself, Herr
+Klueber, after each anecdote, gave vent to a brief, business-like, but
+still condescending laugh. At twelve o'clock the whole party returned
+to Soden to the best tavern there.
+
+They had to make arrangements about dinner. Herr Klueber proposed
+that the dinner should be served in a summer-house closed in on all
+sides--'_im Gartensalon_'; but at this point Gemma rebelled and
+declared that she would have dinner in the open air, in the garden, at
+one of the little tables set before the tavern; that she was tired of
+being all the while with the same faces, and she wanted to see fresh
+ones. At some of the little tables, groups of visitors were already
+sitting.
+
+While Herr Klueber, yielding condescendingly to 'the caprice of his
+betrothed,' went off to interview the head waiter, Gemma stood
+immovable, biting her lips and looking on the ground; she was
+conscious that Sanin was persistently and, as it were, inquiringly
+looking at her--it seemed to enrage her. At last Herr Klueber returned,
+announced that dinner would be ready in half an hour, and proposed
+their employing the interval in a game of skittles, adding that this
+was very good for the appetite, he, he, he! Skittles he played in
+masterly fashion; as he threw the ball, he put himself into amazingly
+heroic postures, with artistic play of the muscles, with artistic
+flourish and shake of the leg. In his own way he was an athlete--and
+was superbly built! His hands, too, were so white and handsome, and he
+wiped them on such a sumptuous, gold-striped, Indian bandana!
+
+The moment of dinner arrived, and the whole party seated themselves at
+the table.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Who does not know what a German dinner is like? Watery soup with
+knobby dumplings and pieces of cinnamon, boiled beef dry as cork,
+with white fat attached, slimy potatoes, soft beetroot and mashed
+horseradish, a bluish eel with French capers and vinegar, a roast
+joint with jam, and the inevitable '_Mehlspeise_,' something of the
+nature of a pudding with sourish red sauce; but to make up, the beer
+and wine first-rate! With just such a dinner the tavernkeeper at
+Soden regaled his customers. The dinner, itself, however, went off
+satisfactorily. No special liveliness was perceptible, certainly;
+not even when Herr Klueber proposed the toast 'What we like!' (Was
+wir lieben!) But at least everything was decorous and seemly. After
+dinner, coffee was served, thin, reddish, typically German coffee.
+Herr Klueber, with true gallantry, asked Gemma's permission to smoke a
+cigar.... But at this point suddenly something occurred, unexpected,
+and decidedly unpleasant, and even unseemly!
+
+At one of the tables near were sitting several officers of the
+garrison of the Maine. From their glances and whispering together
+it was easy to perceive that they were struck by Gemma's beauty;
+one of them, who had probably stayed in Frankfort, stared at her
+persistently, as at a figure familiar to him; he obviously knew who
+she was. He suddenly got up, and glass in hand--all the officers
+had been drinking hard, and the cloth before them was crowded with
+bottles--approached the table at which Gemma was sitting. He was
+a very young flaxen-haired man, with a rather pleasing and even
+attractive face, but his features were distorted with the wine he had
+drunk, his cheeks were twitching, his blood-shot eyes wandered, and
+wore an insolent expression. His companions at first tried to hold him
+back, but afterwards let him go, interested apparently to see what he
+would do, and how it would end. Slightly unsteady on his legs, the
+officer stopped before Gemma, and in an unnaturally screaming voice,
+in which, in spite of himself, an inward struggle could be discerned,
+he articulated, 'I drink to the health of the prettiest confectioner
+in all Frankfort, in all the world (he emptied his glass), and in
+return I take this flower, picked by her divine little fingers!' He
+took from the table a rose that lay beside Gemma's plate. At first she
+was astonished, alarmed, and turned fearfully white ... then alarm
+was replaced by indignation; she suddenly crimsoned all over, to her
+very hair--and her eyes, fastened directly on the offender, at the
+same time darkened and flamed, they were filled with black gloom, and
+burned with the fire of irrepressible fury. The officer must have been
+confused by this look; he muttered something unintelligible, bowed,
+and walked back to his friends. They greeted him with a laugh, and
+faint applause.
+
+Herr Klueber rose spasmodically from his seat, drew himself up to his
+full height, and putting on his hat pronounced with dignity, but not
+too loud, 'Unheard of! Unheard of! Unheard of impertinence!' and at
+once calling up the waiter, in a severe voice asked for the bill ...
+more than that, ordered the carriage to be put to, adding that it was
+impossible for respectable people to frequent the establishment if
+they were exposed to insult! At those words Gemma, who still sat in
+her place without stirring--her bosom was heaving violently--Gemma
+raised her eyes to Herr Klueber ... and she gazed as intently, with the
+same expression at him as at the officer. Emil was simply shaking with
+rage.
+
+'Get up, _mein Fraeulein_,' Klueber admonished her with the same
+severity, 'it is not proper for you to remain here. We will go inside,
+in the tavern!'
+
+Gemma rose in silence; he offered her his arm, she gave him hers, and
+he walked into the tavern with a majestic step, which became, with his
+whole bearing, more majestic and haughty the farther he got from the
+place where they had dined. Poor Emil dragged himself after them.
+
+But while Herr Klueber was settling up with the waiter, to whom, by way
+of punishment, he gave not a single kreutzer for himself, Sanin with
+rapid steps approached the table at which the officers were sitting,
+and addressing Gemma's assailant, who was at that instant offering her
+rose to his companions in turns to smell, he uttered very distinctly
+in French, 'What you have just done, sir, is conduct unworthy of an
+honest man, unworthy of the uniform you wear, and I have come to tell
+you you are an ill-bred cur!' The young man leaped on to his feet, but
+another officer, rather older, checked him with a gesture, made him
+sit down, and turning to Sanin asked him also in French, 'Was he a
+relation, brother, or betrothed of the girl?'
+
+'I am nothing to her at all,' cried Sanin, 'I am a Russian, but I
+cannot look on at such insolence with indifference; but here is my
+card and my address; _monsieur l'officier_ can find me.'
+
+As he uttered these words, Sanin threw his visiting-card on the table,
+and at the same moment hastily snatched Gemma's rose, which one of the
+officers sitting at the table had dropped into his plate. The young
+man was again on the point of jumping up from the table, but his
+companion again checked him, saying, 'Doenhof, be quiet! Doenhof, sit
+still.' Then he got up himself, and putting his hand to the peak of
+his cap, with a certain shade of respectfulness in his voice and
+manner, told Sanin that to-morrow morning an officer of the regiment
+would have the honour of calling upon him. Sanin replied with a short
+bow, and hurriedly returned to his friends.
+
+Herr Klueber pretended he had not noticed either Sanin's absence
+nor his interview with the officers; he was urging on the coachman,
+who was putting in the horses, and was furiously angry at his
+deliberateness. Gemma too said nothing to Sanin, she did not even
+look at him; from her knitted brows, from her pale and compressed
+lips, from her very immobility it could be seen that she was suffering
+inwardly. Only Emil obviously wanted to speak to Sanin, wanted to
+question him; he had seen Sanin go up to the officers, he had seen him
+give them something white--a scrap of paper, a note, or a card.... The
+poor boy's heart was beating, his cheeks burned, he was ready to throw
+himself on Sanin's neck, ready to cry, or to go with him at once to
+crush all those accursed officers into dust and ashes! He controlled
+himself, however, and did no more than watch intently every movement
+of his noble Russian friend.
+
+The coachman had at last harnessed the horses; the whole party
+seated themselves in the carriage. Emil climbed on to the box, after
+Tartaglia; he was more comfortable there, and had not Klueber, whom he
+could hardly bear the sight of, sitting opposite to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The whole way home Herr Klueber discoursed ... and he discoursed alone;
+no one, absolutely no one, opposed him, nor did any one agree with
+him. He especially insisted on the point that they had been wrong
+in not following his advice when he suggested dining in a shut-up
+summer-house. There no unpleasantness could have occurred! Then
+he expressed a few decided and even liberal sentiments on the
+unpardonable way in which the government favoured the military,
+neglected their discipline, and did not sufficiently consider
+the civilian element in society (_das buergerliche Element in der
+Societaet_!), and foretold that in time this cause would give rise to
+discontent, which might well pass into revolution, of which (here
+he dropped a sympathetic though severe sigh) France had given them
+a sorrowful example! He added, however, that he personally had the
+greatest respect for authority, and never ... no, never!... could be a
+revolutionist--but he could not but express his ... disapprobation at
+the sight of such licence! Then he made a few general observations on
+morality and immorality, good-breeding, and the sense of dignity.
+
+During all these lucubrations, Gemma, who even while they were walking
+before dinner had not seemed quite pleased with Herr Klueber, and had
+therefore held rather aloof from Sanin, and had been, as it were,
+embarrassed by his presence--Gemma was unmistakably ashamed of her
+betrothed! Towards the end of the drive she was positively wretched,
+and though, as before, she did not address a word to Sanin, she
+suddenly flung an imploring glance at him.... He, for his part, felt
+much more sorry for her than indignant with Herr Klueber; he was even
+secretly, half-consciously, delighted at what had happened in the
+course of that day, even though he had every reason to expect a
+challenge next morning.
+
+This miserable _partie de plaisir_ came to an end at last. As he
+helped Gemma out of the carriage at the confectionery shop, Sanin
+without a word put into her hand the rose he had recovered. She
+flushed crimson, pressed his hand, and instantly hid the rose. He
+did not want to go into the house, though the evening was only just
+beginning. She did not even invite him. Moreover Pantaleone, who came
+out on the steps, announced that Frau Lenore was asleep. Emil took a
+shy good-bye of Sanin; he felt as it were in awe of him; he greatly
+admired him. Klueber saw Sanin to his lodging, and took leave of him
+stiffly. The well-regulated German, for all his self-confidence, felt
+awkward. And indeed every one felt awkward.
+
+But in Sanin this feeling of awkwardness soon passed off. It was
+replaced by a vague, but pleasant, even triumphant feeling. He walked
+up and down his room, whistling, and not caring to think about
+anything, and was very well pleased with himself.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+'I will wait for the officer's visit till ten o'clock,' he reflected
+next morning, as he dressed,' and then let him come and look for me!'
+But Germans rise early: it had not yet struck nine when the waiter
+informed Sanin that the Herr Seconde Lieutenant von Richter wished
+to see him. Sanin made haste to put on his coat, and told him to ask
+him up. Herr Richter turned out, contrary to Sanin's expectation, to
+be a very young man, almost a boy. He tried to give an expression of
+dignity to his beardless face, but did not succeed at all: he could
+not even conceal his embarrassment, and as he sat down on a chair, he
+tripped over his sword, and almost fell. Stammering and hesitating, he
+announced to Sanin in bad French that he had come with a message from
+his friend, Baron von Doenhof; that this message was to demand from
+Herr von Sanin an apology for the insulting expressions used by him
+on the previous day; and in case of refusal on the part of Herr von
+Sanin, Baron von Doenhof would ask for satisfaction. Sanin replied that
+he did not mean to apologise, but was ready to give him satisfaction.
+Then Herr von Richter, still with the same hesitation, asked with
+whom, at what time and place, should he arrange the necessary
+preliminaries. Sanin answered that he might come to him in two hours'
+time, and that meanwhile, he, Sanin, would try and find a second.
+('Who the devil is there I can have for a second?' he was thinking to
+himself meantime.) Herr von Richter got up and began to take leave
+... but at the doorway he stopped, as though stung by a prick of
+conscience, and turning to Sanin observed that his friend, Baron von
+Doenhof, could not but recognise ... that he had been ... to a certain
+extent, to blame himself in the incident of the previous day, and
+would, therefore, be satisfied with slight apologies ('_des exghizes
+lecheres_.') To this Sanin replied that he did not intend to make any
+apology whatever, either slight or considerable, since he did not
+consider himself to blame. 'In that case,' answered Herr von Richter,
+blushing more than ever,' you will have to exchange friendly
+shots--_des goups de bisdolet a l'amiaple_!'
+
+'I don't understand that at all,' observed Sanin; 'are we to fire in
+the air or what?'
+
+'Oh, not exactly that,' stammered the sub-lieutenant, utterly
+disconcerted, 'but I supposed since it is an affair between men of
+honour ... I will talk to your second,' he broke off, and went away.
+
+Sanin dropped into a chair directly he had gone, and stared at the
+floor. 'What does it all mean? How is it my life has taken such a turn
+all of a sudden? All the past, all the future has suddenly vanished,
+gone,--and all that's left is that I am going to fight some one about
+something in Frankfort.' He recalled a crazy aunt of his who used to
+dance and sing:
+
+  'O my lieutenant!
+  My little cucumber!
+  My little love!
+  Dance with me, my little dove!'
+
+And he laughed and hummed as she used to: 'O my lieutenant! Dance with
+me, little dove!' 'But I must act, though, I mustn't waste time,' he
+cried aloud--jumped up and saw Pantaleone facing him with a note in
+his hand.
+
+'I knocked several times, but you did not answer; I thought you
+weren't at home,' said the old man, as he gave him the note. 'From
+Signorina Gemma.'
+
+Sanin took the note, mechanically, as they say, tore it open, and
+read it. Gemma wrote to him that she was very anxious--about he knew
+what--and would be very glad to see him at once.
+
+'The Signorina is anxious,' began Pantaleone, who obviously knew what
+was in the note, 'she told me to see what you are doing and to bring
+you to her.'
+
+Sanin glanced at the old Italian, and pondered. A sudden idea flashed
+upon his brain. For the first instant it struck him as too absurd to
+be possible.
+
+'After all ... why not?' he asked himself.
+
+'M. Pantaleone!' he said aloud.
+
+The old man started, tucked his chin into his cravat and stared at
+Sanin.
+
+'Do you know,' pursued Sanin,' what happened yesterday?'
+
+Pantaleone chewed his lips and shook his immense top-knot of hair.
+'Yes.'
+
+(Emil had told him all about it directly he got home.)
+
+'Oh, you know! Well, an officer has just this minute left me. That
+scoundrel challenges me to a duel. I have accepted his challenge. But
+I have no second. Will _you_ be my second?'
+
+Pantaleone started and raised his eyebrows so high that they were lost
+under his overhanging hair.
+
+'You are absolutely obliged to fight?' he said at last in Italian;
+till that instant he had made use of French.
+
+'Absolutely. I can't do otherwise--it would mean disgracing myself for
+ever.'
+
+'H'm. If I don't consent to be your second you will find some one
+else.'
+
+'Yes ... undoubtedly.'
+
+Pantaleone looked down. 'But allow me to ask you, Signor de Tsanin,
+will not your duel throw a slur on the reputation of a certain lady?'
+
+'I don't suppose so; but in any case, there's no help for it.'
+
+'H'm!' Pantaleone retired altogether into his cravat. 'Hey, but that
+_ferroflucto Klueberio_--what's he about?' he cried all of a sudden,
+looking up again.
+
+'He? Nothing.'
+
+'_Che_!' Pantaleone shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. 'I have, in
+any case, to thank you,' he articulated at last in an unsteady voice
+'that even in my present humble condition you recognise that I am a
+gentleman--_un galant'uomo_! In that way you have shown yourself to be
+a real _galant'uomo_. But I must consider your proposal.'
+
+'There's no time to lose, dear Signor Ci ... cippa ...'
+
+'Tola,' the old man chimed in. 'I ask only for one hour for
+reflection.... The daughter of my benefactor is involved in this....
+And, therefore, I ought, I am bound, to reflect!... In an hour, in
+three-quarters of an hour, you shall know my decision.'
+
+'Very well; I will wait.'
+
+'And now ... what answer am I to give to Signorina Gemma?'
+
+Sanin took a sheet of paper, wrote on it, 'Set your mind at rest, dear
+friend; in three hours' time I will come to you, and everything shall
+be explained. I thank you from my heart for your sympathy,' and handed
+this sheet to Pantaleone.
+
+He put it carefully into his side-pocket, and once more repeating 'In
+an hour!' made towards the door; but turning sharply back, ran up to
+Sanin, seized his hand, and pressing it to his shirt-front, cried,
+with his eyes to the ceiling: 'Noble youth! Great heart! (_Nobil
+giovanotto! Gran cuore!_) permit a weak old man (_a un vecchiotto!_)
+to press your valorous right hand (_la vostra valorosa destra!_)' Then
+he skipped back a pace or two, threw up both hands, and went away.
+
+Sanin looked after him ... took up the newspaper and tried to read.
+But his eyes wandered in vain over the lines: he understood nothing.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+An hour later the waiter came in again to Sanin, and handed him
+an old, soiled visiting-card, on which were the following words:
+'Pantaleone Cippatola of Varese, court singer (_cantante di camera_)
+to his Royal Highness the Duke of Modena'; and behind the waiter in
+walked Pantaleone himself. He had changed his clothes from top to toe.
+He had on a black frock coat, reddish with long wear, and a white
+pique waistcoat, upon which a pinch-beck chain meandered playfully; a
+heavy cornelian seal hung low down on to his narrow black trousers. In
+his right hand he carried a black beaver hat, in his left two stout
+chamois gloves; he had tied his cravat in a taller and broader bow
+than ever, and had stuck into his starched shirt-front a pin with a
+stone, a so-called 'cat's eye.' On his forefinger was displayed a
+ring, consisting of two clasped hands with a burning heart between
+them. A smell of garments long laid by, a smell of camphor and of musk
+hung about the whole person of the old man; the anxious solemnity of
+his deportment must have struck the most casual spectator! Sanin rose
+to meet him.
+
+'I am your second,' Pantaleone announced in French, and he bowed
+bending his whole body forward, and turning out his toes like a
+dancer. 'I have come for instructions. Do you want to fight to the
+death?'
+
+'Why to the death, my dear Signor Cippatola? I will not for any
+consideration take back my words--but I am not a bloodthirsty
+person!... But come, wait a little, my opponent's second will be here
+directly. I will go into the next room, and you can make arrangements
+with him. Believe me I shall never forget your kindness, and I thank
+you from my heart.'
+
+'Honour before everything!' answered Pantaleone, and he sank into
+an arm-chair, without waiting for Sanin to ask him to sit down. 'If
+that _ferroflucto spitchebubbio_,' he said, passing from French into
+Italian, 'if that counter-jumper Klueberio could not appreciate his
+obvious duty or was afraid, so much the worse for him!... A cheap
+soul, and that's all about it!... As for the conditions of the duel, I
+am your second, and your interests are sacred to me!... When I lived
+in Padua there was a regiment of the white dragoons stationed there,
+and I was very intimate with many of the officers!... I was quite
+familiar with their whole code. And I used often to converse on these
+subjects with your principe Tarbuski too.... Is this second to come
+soon?'
+
+'I am expecting him every minute--and here he comes,' added Sanin,
+looking into the street.
+
+Pantaleone got up, looked at his watch, straightened his topknot of
+hair, and hurriedly stuffed into his shoe an end of tape which was
+sticking out below his trouser-leg, and the young sub-lieutenant came
+in, as red and embarrassed as ever.
+
+Sanin presented the seconds to each other. 'M. Richter,
+sous-lieutenant, M. Cippatola, artiste!' The sub-lieutenant was
+slightly disconcerted by the old man's appearance ... Oh, what would
+he have said had any one whispered to him at that instant that the
+'artist' presented to him was also employed in the culinary art! But
+Pantaleone assumed an air as though taking part in the preliminaries
+of duels was for him the most everyday affair: probably he was
+assisted at this juncture by the recollections of his theatrical
+career, and he played the part of second simply as a part. Both he and
+the sub-lieutenant were silent for a little.
+
+'Well? Let us come to business!' Pantaleone spoke first, playing with
+his cornelian seal.
+
+'By all means,' responded the sub-lieutenant, 'but ... the presence of
+one of the principals ...'
+
+'I will leave you at once, gentlemen,' cried Sanin, and with a bow he
+went away into the bedroom and closed the door after him.
+
+He flung himself on the bed and began thinking of Gemma ... but the
+conversation of the seconds reached him through the shut door. It was
+conducted in the French language; both maltreated it mercilessly,
+each after his own fashion. Pantaleone again alluded to the dragoons
+in Padua, and Principe Tarbuski; the sub-lieutenant to '_exghizes
+lecheres_' and '_goups de bistolet a l'amiaple_.' But the old man
+would not even hear of any _exghizes_! To Sanin's horror, he suddenly
+proceeded to talk of a certain young lady, an innocent maiden, whose
+little finger was worth more than all the officers in the world ...
+(_oune zeune damigella innoucenta, qu'a elle sola dans soun peti doa
+vale pin que tout le zouffissie del mondo_.'), and repeated several
+times with heat: 'It's shameful! it's shameful!' (_E ouna onta, ouna
+onta_!) The sub-lieutenant at first made him no reply, but presently
+an angry quiver could be heard in the young man's voice, and he
+observed that he had not come there to listen to sermonising.
+
+'At your age it is always a good thing to hear the truth!' cried
+Pantaleone.
+
+The debate between the seconds several times became stormy; it lasted
+over an hour, and was concluded at last on the following conditions:
+'Baron von Doenhof and M. de Sanin to meet the next day at ten o'clock
+in a small wood near Hanau, at the distance of twenty paces; each to
+have the right to fire twice at a signal given by the seconds, the
+pistols to be single-triggered and not rifle-barrelled.' Herr von
+Richter withdrew, and Pantaleone solemnly opened the bedroom door, and
+after communicating the result of their deliberations, cried again:
+'_Bravo Russo_! _Bravo giovanotto_! You will be victor!'
+
+A few minutes later they both set off to the Rosellis' shop. Sanin, as
+a preliminary measure, had exacted a promise from Pantaleone to keep
+the affair of the duel a most profound secret. In reply, the old man
+had merely held up his finger, and half closing his eyes, whispered
+twice over, _Segredezza_! He was obviously in good spirits, and even
+walked with a freer step. All these unusual incidents, unpleasant
+though they might be, carried him vividly back to the time when he
+himself both received and gave challenges--only, it is true, on the
+stage. Baritones, as we all know, have a great deal of strutting and
+fuming to do in their parts.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Emil ran out to meet Sanin--he had been watching for his arrival over
+an hour--and hurriedly whispered into his ear that his mother knew
+nothing of the disagreeable incident of the day before, that he must
+not even hint of it to her, and that he was being sent to Klueber's
+shop again!... but that he wouldn't go there, but would hide
+somewhere! Communicating all this information in a few seconds, he
+suddenly fell on Sanin's shoulder, kissed him impulsively, and rushed
+away down the street. Gemma met Sanin in the shop; tried to say
+something and could not. Her lips were trembling a little, while her
+eyes were half-closed and turned away. He made haste to soothe her by
+the assurance that the whole affair had ended ... in utter nonsense.
+
+'Has no one been to see you to-day?' she asked.
+
+'A person did come to me and we had an explanation, and we ... we came
+to the most satisfactory conclusion.'
+
+Gemma went back behind the counter.
+
+'She does not believe me!' he thought ... he went into the next room,
+however, and there found Frau Lenore.
+
+Her sick headache had passed off, but she was in a depressed state of
+mind. She gave him a smile of welcome, but warned him at the same time
+that he would be dull with her to-day, as she was not in a mood to
+entertain him. He sat down beside her, and noticed that her eyelids
+were red and swollen.
+
+'What is wrong, Frau Lenore? You've never been crying, surely?'
+
+'Oh!' she whispered, nodding her head towards the room where her
+daughter was.
+
+'Don't speak of it ... aloud.'
+
+'But what have you been crying for?'
+
+'Ah, M'sieu Sanin, I don't know myself what for!'
+
+'No one has hurt your feelings?'
+
+'Oh no!... I felt very low all of a sudden. I thought of Giovanni
+Battista ... of my youth ... Then how quickly it had all passed away.
+I have grown old, my friend, and I can't reconcile myself to that
+anyhow. I feel I'm just the same as I was ... but old age--it's here!
+it is here!' Tears came into Frau Lenore's eyes. 'You look at me, I
+see, and wonder.... But you will get old too, my friend, and will find
+out how bitter it is!'
+
+Sanin tried to comfort her, spoke of her children, in whom her own
+youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring
+that she was fishing for compliments ... but she quite seriously
+begged him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for
+such a sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or
+cure; one has to wait till it passes off of itself. He proposed a game
+of tresette, and he could have thought of nothing better. She agreed
+at once and seemed to get more cheerful.
+
+Sanin played with her until dinner-time and after dinner Pantaleone
+too took a hand in the game. Never had his topknot hung so low over
+his forehead, never had his chin retreated so far into his cravat!
+Every movement was accompanied by such intense solemnity that as one
+looked at him the thought involuntarily arose, 'What secret is that
+man guarding with such determination?' But _segredezza_! _segredezza_!
+
+During the whole of that day he tried in every possible way to show
+the profoundest respect for Sanin; at table, passing by the ladies, he
+solemnly and sedately handed the dishes first to him; when they were
+at cards he intentionally gave him the game; he announced, apropos of
+nothing at all, that the Russians were the most great-hearted, brave,
+and resolute people in the world!
+
+'Ah, you old flatterer!' Sanin thought to himself.
+
+And he was not so much surprised at Signora Roselli's unexpected state
+of mind, as at the way her daughter behaved to him. It was not that
+she avoided him ... on the contrary she sat continually a little
+distance from him, listened to what he said, and looked at him;
+but she absolutely declined to get into conversation with him, and
+directly he began talking to her, she softly rose from her place, and
+went out for some instants. Then she came in again, and again seated
+herself in some corner, and sat without stirring, seeming meditative
+and perplexed ... perplexed above all. Frau Lenore herself noticed
+at last, that she was not as usual, and asked her twice what was the
+matter.
+
+'Nothing,' answered Gemma; 'you know I am sometimes like this.'
+
+'That is true,' her mother assented.
+
+So passed all that long day, neither gaily nor drearily--neither
+cheerfully nor sadly. Had Gemma been different--Sanin ... who
+knows?... might not perhaps have been able to resist the temptation
+for a little display--or he might simply have succumbed to melancholy
+at the possibility of a separation for ever.... But as he did not
+once succeed in getting a word with Gemma, he was obliged to confine
+himself to striking minor chords on the piano for a quarter of an hour
+before evening coffee.
+
+Emil came home late, and to avoid questions about Herr Klueber, beat a
+hasty retreat. The time came for Sanin too to retire.
+
+He began saying good-bye to Gemma. He recollected for some reason
+Lensky's parting from Olga in _Oniegin_. He pressed her hand warmly,
+and tried to get a look at her face, but she turned a little away and
+released her fingers.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+It was bright starlight when he came out on the steps. What
+multitudes of stars, big and little, yellow, red, blue and white were
+scattered over the sky! They seemed all flashing, swarming, twinkling
+unceasingly. There was no moon in the sky, but without it every object
+could be clearly discerned in the half-clear, shadowless twilight.
+Sanin walked down the street to the end ... He did not want to go home
+at once; he felt a desire to wander about a little in the fresh air.
+He turned back and had hardly got on a level with the house, where was
+the Rosellis' shop, when one of the windows looking out on the street,
+suddenly creaked and opened; in its square of blackness--there was
+no light in the room--appeared a woman's figure, and he heard his
+name--'Monsieur Dimitri!'
+
+He rushed at once up to the window ... Gemma! She was leaning with her
+elbows on the window-sill, bending forward.
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' she began in a cautious voice, 'I have been
+wanting all day long to give you something ... but I could not make
+up my mind to; and just now, seeing you, quite unexpectedly again, I
+thought that it seems it is fated' ...
+
+Gemma was forced to stop at this word. She could not go on; something
+extraordinary happened at that instant.
+
+All of a sudden, in the midst of the profound stillness, over the
+perfectly unclouded sky, there blew such a violent blast of wind, that
+the very earth seemed shaking underfoot, the delicate starlight seemed
+quivering and trembling, the air went round in a whirlwind. The wind,
+not cold, but hot, almost sultry, smote against the trees, the roof
+of the house, its walls, and the street; it instantaneously snatched
+off Sanin's hat, crumpled up and tangled Gemma's curls. Sanin's head
+was on a level with the window-sill; he could not help clinging close
+to it, and Gemma clutched hold of his shoulders with both hands, and
+pressed her bosom against his head. The roar, the din, and the rattle
+lasted about a minute.... Like a flock of huge birds the revelling
+whirlwind darted revelling away. A profound stillness reigned once
+more.
+
+Sanin raised his head and saw above him such an exquisite, scared,
+excited face, such immense, large, magnificent eyes--it was such a
+beautiful creature he saw, that his heart stood still within him, he
+pressed his lips to the delicate tress of hair, that had fallen on his
+bosom, and could only murmur, 'O Gemma!'
+
+'What was that? Lightning?' she asked, her eyes wandering afar, while
+she did not take her bare arms from his shoulder.
+
+'Gemma!' repeated Sanin.
+
+She sighed, looked around behind her into the room, and with a rapid
+movement pulling the now faded rose out of her bodice, she threw it to
+Sanin.
+
+'I wanted to give you this flower.'
+
+He recognised the rose, which he had won back the day before....
+
+But already the window had slammed-to, and through the dark pane
+nothing could be seen, no trace of white.
+
+Sanin went home without his hat.... He did not even notice that he had
+lost it.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+It was quite morning when he fell asleep. And no wonder! In the
+blast of that instantaneous summer hurricane, he had almost as
+instantaneously felt, not that Gemma was lovely, not that he liked
+her--that he had known before ... but that he almost ... loved her!
+As suddenly as that blast of wind, had love pounced down upon him.
+And then this senseless duel! He began to be tormented by mournful
+forebodings. And even suppose they didn't kill him.... What could come
+of his love for this girl, another man's betrothed? Even supposing
+this 'other man' was no danger, that Gemma herself would care for him,
+or even cared for him already ... What would come of it? How ask what!
+Such a lovely creature!...
+
+He walked about the room, sat down to the table, took a sheet of
+paper, traced a few lines on it, and at once blotted them out....
+He recalled Gemma's wonderful figure in the dark window, in the
+starlight, set all a-fluttering by the warm hurricane; he remembered
+her marble arms, like the arms of the Olympian goddesses, felt their
+living weight on his shoulders.... Then he took the rose she had
+thrown him, and it seemed to him that its half-withered petals exhaled
+a fragrance of her, more delicate than the ordinary scent of the rose.
+
+'And would they kill him straight away or maim him?'
+
+He did not go to bed, and fell asleep in his clothes on the sofa.
+
+Some one slapped him on the shoulder.... He opened his eyes, and saw
+Pantaleone.
+
+'He sleeps like Alexander of Macedon on the eve of the battle of
+Babylon!' cried the old man.
+
+'What o'clock is it?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'A quarter to seven; it's a two hours' drive to Hanau, and we must
+be the first on the field. Russians are always beforehand with their
+enemies! I have engaged the best carriage in Frankfort!'
+
+Sanin began washing. 'And where are the pistols?'
+
+'That _ferroflucto Tedesco_ will bring the pistols. He'll bring a
+doctor too.'
+
+Pantaleone was obviously putting a good face on it as he had done the
+day before; but when he was seated in the carriage with Sanin, when
+the coachman had cracked his whip and the horses had started off at a
+gallop, a sudden change came over the old singer and friend of Paduan
+dragoons. He began to be confused and positively faint-hearted.
+Something seemed to have given way in him, like a badly built wall.
+
+'What are we doing, my God, _Santissima Madonna!_' he cried in an
+unexpectedly high pipe, and he clutched at his head. 'What am I about,
+old fool, madman, _frenetico_?'
+
+Sanin wondered and laughed, and putting his arm lightly round
+Pantaleone's waist, he reminded him of the French proverb: '_Le vin
+est tire--il faut le boire_.'
+
+'Yes, yes,' answered the old man, 'we will drain the cup together to
+the dregs--but still I'm a madman! I'm a madman! All was going on so
+quietly, so well ... and all of a sudden: ta-ta-ta, tra-ta-ta!'
+
+'Like the _tutti_ in the orchestra,' observed Sanin with a forced
+smile. 'But it's not your fault.'
+
+'I know it's not. I should think not indeed! And yet ... such insolent
+conduct! _Diavolo, diavolo_!' repeated Pantaleone, sighing and shaking
+his topknot.
+
+The carriage still rolled on and on.
+
+It was an exquisite morning. The streets of Frankfort, which were just
+beginning to show signs of life, looked so clean and snug; the windows
+of the houses glittered in flashes like tinfoil; and as soon as the
+carriage had driven beyond the city walls, from overhead, from a blue
+but not yet glaring sky, the larks' loud trills showered down in
+floods. Suddenly at a turn in the road, a familiar figure came from
+behind a tall poplar, took a few steps forward and stood still. Sanin
+looked more closely.... Heavens! it was Emil!
+
+'But does he know anything about it?' he demanded of Pantaleone.
+
+'I tell you I'm a madman,' the poor Italian wailed despairingly,
+almost in a shriek. 'The wretched boy gave me no peace all night, and
+this morning at last I revealed all to him!'
+
+'So much for your _segredezza_!' thought Sanin. The carriage had got
+up to Emil. Sanin told the coachman to stop the horses, and called the
+'wretched boy' up to him. Emil approached with hesitating steps, pale
+as he had been on the day he fainted. He could scarcely stand.
+
+'What are you doing here?' Sanin asked him sternly. 'Why aren't you at
+home?'
+
+'Let ... let me come with you,' faltered Emil in a trembling voice,
+and he clasped his hands. His teeth were chattering as in a fever. 'I
+won't get in your way--only take me.'
+
+'If you feel the very slightest affection or respect for me,' said
+Sanin, 'you will go at once home or to Herr Klueber's shop, and you
+won't say one word to any one, and will wait for my return!'
+
+'Your return,' moaned Emil--and his voice quivered and broke, 'but if
+you're--'
+
+'Emil!' Sanin interrupted--and he pointed to the coachman, 'do control
+yourself! Emil, please, go home! Listen to me, my dear! You say you
+love me. Well, I beg you!' He held out his hand to him. Emil bent
+forward, sobbed, pressed it to his lips, and darting away from the
+road, ran back towards Frankfort across country.
+
+'A noble heart too,' muttered Pantaleone; but Sanin glanced severely
+at him.... The old man shrank into the corner of the carriage. He was
+conscious of his fault; and moreover, he felt more and more bewildered
+every instant; could it really be he who was acting as second, who had
+got horses, and had made all arrangements, and had left his peaceful
+abode at six o'clock? Besides, his legs were stiff and aching.
+
+Sanin thought it as well to cheer him up, and he chanced on the very
+thing, he hit on the right word.
+
+'Where is your old spirit, Signor Cippatola? Where is _il antico
+valor_?'
+
+Signor Cippatola drew himself up and scowled '_Il antico valor_?' he
+boomed in a bass voice. '_Non e ancora spento_ (it's not all lost
+yet), _il antico valor!_'
+
+He put himself in a dignified attitude, began talking of his career,
+of the opera, of the great tenor Garcia--and arrived at Hanau a hero.
+
+After all, if you think of it, nothing is stronger in the world ...
+and weaker--than a word!
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+The copse in which the duel was to take place was a quarter of a mile
+from Hanau. Sanin and Pantaleone arrived there first, as the latter
+had predicted; they gave orders for the carriage to remain outside
+the wood, and they plunged into the shade of the rather thick and
+close-growing trees. They had to wait about an hour.
+
+The time of waiting did not seem particularly disagreeable to Sanin;
+he walked up and down the path, listened to the birds singing, watched
+the dragonflies in their flight, and like the majority of Russians in
+similar circumstances, tried not to think. He only once dropped into
+reflection; he came across a young lime-tree, broken down, in all
+probability by the squall of the previous night. It was unmistakably
+dying ... all the leaves on it were dead. 'What is it? an omen?'
+was the thought that flashed across his mind; but he promptly began
+whistling, leaped over the very tree, and paced up and down the path.
+As for Pantaleone, he was grumbling, abusing the Germans, sighing
+and moaning, rubbing first his back and then his knees. He even
+yawned from agitation, which gave a very comic expression to his tiny
+shrivelled-up face. Sanin could scarcely help laughing when he looked
+at him.
+
+They heard, at last, the rolling of wheels along the soft road. 'It's
+they!' said Pantaleone, and he was on the alert and drew himself up,
+not without a momentary nervous shiver, which he made haste, however,
+to cover with the ejaculation 'B-r-r!' and the remark that the morning
+was rather fresh. A heavy dew drenched the grass and leaves, but the
+sultry heat penetrated even into the wood.
+
+Both the officers quickly made their appearance under its arched
+avenues; they were accompanied by a little thick-set man, with a
+phlegmatic, almost sleepy, expression of face--the army doctor. He
+carried in one hand an earthenware pitcher of water--to be ready for
+any emergency; a satchel with surgical instruments and bandages hung
+on his left shoulder. It was obvious that he was thoroughly used to
+such excursions; they constituted one of the sources of his income;
+each duel yielded him eight gold crowns--four from each of the
+combatants. Herr von Richter carried a case of pistols, Herr von
+Doenhof--probably considering it the thing--was swinging in his hand a
+little cane.
+
+'Pantaleone!' Sanin whispered to the old man; 'if ... if I'm
+killed--anything may happen--take out of my side pocket a
+paper--there's a flower wrapped up in it--and give the paper to
+Signorina Gemma. Do you hear? You promise?'
+
+The old man looked dejectedly at him, and nodded his head
+affirmatively.... But God knows whether he understood what Sanin was
+asking him to do.
+
+The combatants and the seconds exchanged the customary bows; the
+doctor alone did not move as much as an eyelash; he sat down yawning
+on the grass, as much as to say, 'I'm not here for expressions of
+chivalrous courtesy.' Herr von Richter proposed to Herr 'Tshibadola'
+that he should select the place; Herr 'Tshibadola' responded, moving
+his tongue with difficulty--'the wall' within him had completely given
+way again. 'You act, my dear sir; I will watch....'
+
+And Herr von Richter proceeded to act. He picked out in the wood close
+by a very pretty clearing all studded with flowers; he measured out
+the steps, and marked the two extreme points with sticks, which he cut
+and pointed. He took the pistols out of the case, and squatting on his
+heels, he rammed in the bullets; in short, he fussed about and exerted
+himself to the utmost, continually mopping his perspiring brow with a
+white handkerchief. Pantaleone, who accompanied him, was more like a
+man frozen. During all these preparations, the two principals stood at
+a little distance, looking like two schoolboys who have been punished,
+and are sulky with their tutors.
+
+The decisive moment arrived.... 'Each took his pistol....'
+
+But at this point Herr von Richter observed to Pantaleone that it was
+his duty, as the senior second, according to the rules of the duel,
+to address a final word of advice and exhortation to be reconciled
+to the combatants, before uttering the fatal 'one! two! three!'; that
+although this exhortation had no effect of any sort and was, as a
+rule, nothing but an empty formality, still, by the performance of
+this formality, Herr Cippatola would be rid of a certain share of
+responsibility; that, properly speaking, such an admonition formed the
+direct duty of the so-called 'impartial witness' (_unpartheiischer
+Zeuge_) but since they had no such person present, he, Herr von
+Richter, would readily yield this privilege to his honoured colleague.
+Pantaleone, who had already succeeded in obliterating himself behind
+a bush, so as not to see the offending officer at all, at first made
+out nothing at all of Herr von Richter's speech, especially, as it
+had been delivered through the nose, but all of a sudden he started,
+stepped hurriedly forward, and convulsively thumping at his chest, in
+a hoarse voice wailed out in his mixed jargon: '_A la la la ... Che
+bestialita! Deux zeun ommes comme ca que si battono--perche? Che
+diavolo? An data a casa!_'
+
+'I will not consent to a reconciliation,' Sanin intervened hurriedly.
+
+'And I too will not,' his opponent repeated after him.
+
+'Well, then shout one, two, three!' von Richter said, addressing the
+distracted Pantaleone. The latter promptly ducked behind the bush
+again, and from there, all huddled together, his eyes screwed up, and
+his head turned away, he shouted at the top of his voice: '_Una ...
+due ... tre!_'
+
+The first shot was Sanin's, and he missed. His bullet went
+ping against a tree. Baron von Doenhof shot directly after
+him--intentionally, to one side, into the air.
+
+A constrained silence followed.... No one moved. Pantaleone uttered a
+faint moan.
+
+'Is it your wish to go on?' said Doenhof.
+
+'Why did you shoot in the air?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'That's nothing to do with you.'
+
+'Will you shoot in the air the second time?' Sanin asked again.
+
+'Possibly: I don't know.'
+
+'Excuse me, excuse me, gentlemen ...' began von Richter; 'duellists
+have not the right to talk together. That's out of order.'
+
+'I decline my shot,' said Sanin, and he threw his pistol on the
+ground.
+
+'And I too do not intend to go on with the duel,' cried Doenhof, and he
+too threw his pistol on the ground. 'And more than that, I am prepared
+to own that I was in the wrong--the day before yesterday.'
+
+He moved uneasily, and hesitatingly held out his hand. Sanin went
+rapidly up to him and shook it. Both the young men looked at each
+other with a smile, and both their faces flushed crimson.
+
+'_Bravi! bravi!_' Pantaleone roared suddenly as if he had gone mad,
+and clapping his hands, he rushed like a whirlwind from behind the
+bush; while the doctor, who had been sitting on one side on a felled
+tree, promptly rose, poured the water out of the jug and walked off
+with a lazy, rolling step out of the wood.
+
+'Honour is satisfied, and the duel is over!' von Richter announced.
+
+'_Fuori!_' Pantaleone boomed once more, through old associations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had exchanged bows with the officers, and taken his seat in
+the carriage, Sanin certainly felt all over him, if not a sense of
+pleasure, at least a certain lightness of heart, as after an operation
+is over; but there was another feeling astir within him too, a feeling
+akin to shame.... The duel, in which he had just played his part,
+struck him as something false, a got-up formality, a common officers'
+and students' farce. He recalled the phlegmatic doctor, he recalled
+how he had grinned, that is, wrinkled up his nose when he saw him
+coming out of the wood almost arm-in-arm with Baron Doenhof. And
+afterwards when Pantaleone had paid him the four crowns due to him ...
+Ah! there was something nasty about it!
+
+Yes, Sanin was a little conscience-smitten and ashamed ... though, on
+the other hand, what was there for him to have done? Could he have
+left the young officer's insolence unrebuked? could he have behaved
+like Herr Klueber? He had stood up for Gemma, he had championed her ...
+that was so; and yet, there was an uneasy pang in his heart, and he
+was conscience--smitten, and even ashamed.
+
+Not so Pantaleone--he was simply in his glory! He was suddenly
+possessed by a feeling of pride. A victorious general, returning from
+the field of battle he has won, could not have looked about him with
+greater self-satisfaction. Sanin's demeanour during the duel filled
+him with enthusiasm. He called him a hero, and would not listen to his
+exhortations and even his entreaties. He compared him to a monument
+of marble or of bronze, with the statue of the commander in Don Juan!
+For himself he admitted he had been conscious of some perturbation
+of mind, 'but, of course, I am an artist,' he observed; 'I have a
+highly-strung nature, while you are the son of the snows and the
+granite rocks.'
+
+Sanin was positively at a loss how to quiet the jubilant artist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost at the same place in the road where two hours before they had
+come upon Emil, he again jumped out from behind a tree, and, with a
+cry of joy upon his lips, waving his cap and leaping into the air,
+he rushed straight at the carriage, almost fell under the wheel,
+and, without waiting for the horses to stop, clambered up over the
+carriage-door and fairly clung to Sanin.
+
+'You are alive, you are not wounded!' he kept repeating. 'Forgive me,
+I did not obey you, I did not go back to Frankfort ... I could not! I
+waited for you here ... Tell me how was it? You ... killed him?'
+
+Sanin with some difficulty pacified Emil and made him sit down.
+
+With great verbosity, with evident pleasure, Pantaleone communicated
+to him all the details of the duel, and, of course, did not omit to
+refer again to the monument of bronze and the statue of the commander.
+He even rose from his seat and, standing with his feet wide apart to
+preserve his equilibrium, folding his arm on his chest and looking
+contemptuously over his shoulder, gave an ocular representation of the
+commander--Sanin! Emil listened with awe, occasionally interrupting
+the narrative with an exclamation, or swiftly getting up and as
+swiftly kissing his heroic friend.
+
+The carriage wheels rumbled over the paved roads of Frankfort, and
+stopped at last before the hotel where Sanin was living.
+
+Escorted by his two companions, he went up the stairs, when suddenly a
+woman came with hurried steps out of the dark corridor; her face was
+hidden by a veil, she stood still, facing Sanin, wavered a little,
+gave a trembling sigh, at once ran down into the street and vanished,
+to the great astonishment of the waiter, who explained that 'that
+lady had been for over an hour waiting for the return of the foreign
+gentleman.' Momentary as was the apparition, Sanin recognised Gemma.
+He recognised her eyes under the thick silk of her brown veil.
+
+'Did Fraeulein Gemma know, then?'... he said slowly in a displeased
+voice in German, addressing Emil and Pantaleone, who were following
+close on his heels.
+
+Emil blushed and was confused.
+
+'I was obliged to tell her all,' he faltered; 'she guessed, and I
+could not help it.... But now that's of no consequence,' he hurried to
+add eagerly, 'everything has ended so splendidly, and she has seen you
+well and uninjured!'
+
+Sanin turned away.
+
+'What a couple of chatterboxes you are!' he observed in a tone of
+annoyance, as he went into his room and sat down on a chair.
+
+'Don't be angry, please,' Emil implored.
+
+'Very well, I won't be angry'--(Sanin was not, in fact, angry--and,
+after all, he could hardly have desired that Gemma should know nothing
+about it). 'Very well ... that's enough embracing. You get along now.
+I want to be alone. I'm going to sleep. I'm tired.'
+
+'An excellent idea!' cried Pantaleone. 'You need repose! You have
+fully earned it, noble signor! Come along, Emilio! On tip-toe! On
+tip-toe! Sh--sh--sh!'
+
+When he said he wanted to go to sleep, Sanin had simply wished to get
+rid of his companions; but when he was left alone, he was really aware
+of considerable weariness in all his limbs; he had hardly closed his
+eyes all the preceding night, and throwing himself on his bed he fell
+immediately into a sound sleep.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+He slept for some hours without waking. Then he began to dream that
+he was once more fighting a duel, that the antagonist standing facing
+him was Herr Klueber, and on a fir-tree was sitting a parrot, and this
+parrot was Pantaleone, and he kept tapping with his beak: one, one,
+one!
+
+'One ... one ... one!' he heard the tapping too distinctly; he opened
+his eyes, raised his head ... some one was knocking at his door.
+
+'Come in!' called Sanin.
+
+The waiter came in and answered that a lady very particularly wished
+to see him.
+
+'Gemma!' flashed into his head ... but the lady turned out to be her
+mother, Frau Lenore.
+
+Directly she came in, she dropped at once into a chair and began to
+cry.
+
+'What is the matter, my dear, good Madame Roselli?' began Sanin,
+sitting beside her and softly touching her hand. 'What has happened?
+calm yourself, I entreat you.'
+
+'Ah, Herr Dimitri, I am very ... very miserable!'
+
+'You are miserable?'
+
+'Ah, very! Could I have foreseen such a thing? All of a sudden, like
+thunder from a clear sky ...'
+
+She caught her breath.
+
+'But what is it? Explain! Would you like a glass of water?'
+
+'No, thank you.' Frau Lenore wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and
+began to cry with renewed energy. 'I know all, you see! All!'
+
+'All? that is to say?'
+
+'Everything that took place to-day! And the cause ... I know that too!
+You acted like an honourable man; but what an unfortunate combination
+of circumstances! I was quite right in not liking that excursion to
+Soden ... quite right!' (Frau Lenore had said nothing of the sort
+on the day of the excursion, but she was convinced now that she had
+foreseen 'all' even then.) 'I have come to you as to an honourable
+man, as to a friend, though I only saw you for the first time five
+days ago.... But you know I am a widow, a lonely woman.... My
+daughter ...'
+
+Tears choked Frau Lenore's voice. Sanin did not know what to think.
+'Your daughter?' he repeated.
+
+'My daughter, Gemma,' broke almost with a groan from Frau Lenore,
+behind the tear-soaked handkerchief, 'informed me to-day that she
+would not marry Herr Klueber, and that I must refuse him!'
+
+Sanin positively started back a little; he had not expected that.
+
+'I won't say anything now,' Frau Lenore went on, 'of the disgrace
+of it, of its being something unheard of in the world for a girl to
+jilt her betrothed; but you see it's ruin for us, Herr Dimitri!' Frau
+Lenore slowly and carefully twisted up her handkerchief in a tiny,
+tiny little ball, as though she would enclose all her grief within it.
+'We can't go on living on the takings of our shop, Herr Dimitri! and
+Herr Klueber is very rich, and will be richer still. And what is he to
+be refused for? Because he did not defend his betrothed? Allowing that
+was not very handsome on his part, still, he's a civilian, has not had
+a university education, and as a solid business man, it was for him
+to look with contempt on the frivolous prank of some unknown little
+officer. And what sort of insult was it, after all, Herr Dimitri?'
+
+'Excuse me, Frau Lenore, you seem to be blaming me.'
+
+'I am not blaming you in the least, not in the least! You're quite
+another matter; you are, like all Russians, a military man ...'
+
+'Excuse me, I'm not at all ...'
+
+'You're a foreigner, a visitor, and I'm grateful to you,' Frau Lenore
+went on, not heeding Sanin. She sighed, waved her hands, unwound her
+handkerchief again, and blew her nose. Simply from the way in which
+her distress expressed itself, it could be seen that she had not been
+born under a northern sky.
+
+'And how is Herr Klueber to look after his shop, if he is to fight
+with his customers? It's utterly inconsistent! And now I am to send
+him away! But what are we going to live on? At one time we were the
+only people that made angel cakes, and nougat of pistachio nuts, and
+we had plenty of customers; but now all the shops make angel cakes!
+Only consider; even without this, they'll talk in the town about your
+duel ... it's impossible to keep it secret. And all of a sudden, the
+marriage broken off! It will be a scandal, a scandal! Gemma is a
+splendid girl, she loves me; but she's an obstinate republican, she
+doesn't care for the opinion of others. You're the only person that
+can persuade her!'
+
+Sanin was more amazed than ever. 'I, Frau Lenore?'
+
+'Yes, you alone ... you alone. That's why I have come to you; I could
+not think of anything else to do! You are so clever, so good! You
+have fought in her defence. She will trust you! She is bound to trust
+you--why, you have risked your life on her account! You will make her
+understand, for I can do nothing more; you make her understand that
+she will bring ruin on herself and all of us. You saved my son--save
+my daughter too! God Himself sent you here ... I am ready on my knees
+to beseech you....' And Frau Lenore half rose from her seat as though
+about to fall at Sanin's feet.... He restrained her.
+
+'Frau Lenore! For mercy's sake! What are you doing?'
+
+She clutched his hand impulsively. 'You promise ...'
+
+'Frau Lenore, think a moment; what right have I ...'
+
+'You promise? You don't want me to die here at once before your eyes?'
+
+Sanin was utterly nonplussed. It was the first time in his life he had
+had to deal with any one of ardent Italian blood.
+
+'I will do whatever you like,' he cried. 'I will talk to Fraeulein
+Gemma....'
+
+Frau Lenore uttered a cry of delight.
+
+'Only I really can't say what result will come of it ...'
+
+'Ah, don't go back, don't go back from your words!' cried Frau Lenore
+in an imploring voice; 'you have already consented! The result is
+certain to be excellent. Any way, _I_ can do nothing more! She won't
+listen to _me_!'
+
+'Has she so positively stated her disinclination to marry Herr
+Klueber?' Sanin inquired after a short silence.
+
+'As if she'd cut the knot with a knife! She's her father all over,
+Giovanni Battista! Wilful girl!'
+
+'Wilful? Is she!' ... Sanin said slowly. 'Yes ... yes ... but she's
+an angel too. She will mind you. Are you coming soon? Oh, my dear
+Russian friend!' Frau Lenore rose impulsively from her chair, and as
+impulsively clasped the head of Sanin, who was sitting opposite her.
+'Accept a mother's blessing--and give me some water!'
+
+Sanin brought Signora Roselli a glass of water, gave her his word of
+honour that he would come directly, escorted her down the stairs to
+the street, and when he was back in his own room, positively threw up
+his arms and opened his eyes wide in his amazement.
+
+'Well,' he thought, 'well, _now_ life is going round in a whirl! And
+it's whirling so that I'm giddy.' He did not attempt to look within,
+to realise what was going on in himself: it was all uproar and
+confusion, and that was all he knew! What a day it had been! His lips
+murmured unconsciously: 'Wilful ... her mother says ... and I have got
+to advise her ... her! And advise her what?'
+
+Sanin, really, was giddy, and above all this whirl of shifting
+sensations and impressions and unfinished thoughts, there floated
+continually the image of Gemma, the image so ineffaceably impressed on
+his memory on that hot night, quivering with electricity, in that dark
+window, in the light of the swarming stars!
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+With hesitating footsteps Sanin approached the house of Signora
+Roselli. His heart was beating violently; he distinctly felt, and even
+heard it thumping at his side. What should he say to Gemma, how should
+he begin? He went into the house, not through the shop, but by the
+back entrance. In the little outer room he met Frau Lenore. She was
+both relieved and scared at the sight of him.
+
+'I have been expecting you,' she said in a whisper, squeezing his hand
+with each of hers in turn. 'Go into the garden; she is there. Mind, I
+rely on you!'
+
+Sanin went into the garden.
+
+Gemma was sitting on a garden-seat near the path, she was sorting a
+big basket full of cherries, picking out the ripest, and putting them
+on a dish. The sun was low--it was seven o'clock in the evening--and
+there was more purple than gold in the full slanting light with which
+it flooded the whole of Signora Roselli's little garden. From time
+to time, faintly audibly, and as it were deliberately, the leaves
+rustled, and belated bees buzzed abruptly as they flew from one
+flower to the next, and somewhere a dove was cooing a never-changing,
+unceasing note. Gemma had on the same round hat in which she had
+driven to Soden. She peeped at Sanin from under its turned-down brim,
+and again bent over the basket.
+
+Sanin went up to Gemma, unconsciously making each step shorter, and
+... and ... and nothing better could he find to say to her than to ask
+why was she sorting the cherries.
+
+Gemma was in no haste to reply.
+
+'These are riper,' she observed at last, 'they will go into jam, and
+those are for tarts. You know the round sweet tarts we sell?'
+
+As she said those words, Gemma bent her head still lower, and her
+right hand with two cherries in her fingers was suspended in the air
+between the basket and the dish.
+
+'May I sit by you?' asked Sanin.
+
+'Yes.' Gemma moved a little along on the seat. Sanin placed himself
+beside her. 'How am I to begin?' was his thought. But Gemma got him
+out of his difficulty.
+
+'You have fought a duel to-day,' she began eagerly, and she turned
+all her lovely, bashfully flushing face to him--and what depths of
+gratitude were shining in those eyes! 'And you are so calm! I suppose
+for you danger does not exist?'
+
+'Oh, come! I have not been exposed to any danger. Everything went off
+very satisfactorily and inoffensively.'
+
+Gemma passed her finger to right and to left before her eyes ... Also
+an Italian gesture. 'No! no! don't say that! You won't deceive me!
+Pantaleone has told me everything!'
+
+'He's a trustworthy witness! Did he compare me to the statue of the
+commander?'
+
+'His expressions may be ridiculous, but his feeling is not ridiculous,
+nor is what you have done to-day. And all that on my account ... for
+me ... I shall never forget it.'
+
+'I assure you, Fraeulein Gemma ...'
+
+'I shall never forget it,' she said deliberately; once more she looked
+intently at him, and turned away.
+
+He could now see her delicate pure profile, and it seemed to him that
+he had never seen anything like it, and had never known anything like
+what he was feeling at that instant. His soul was on fire.
+
+'And my promise!' flashed in among his thoughts.
+
+'Fraeulein Gemma ...' he began after a momentary hesitation.
+
+'What?'
+
+She did not turn to him, she went on sorting the cherries, carefully
+taking them by their stalks with her finger-tips, assiduously picking
+out the leaves.... But what a confiding caress could be heard in that
+one word,
+
+'What?'
+
+'Has your mother said nothing to you ... about ...'
+
+'About?'
+
+'About me?'
+
+Gemma suddenly flung back into the basket the cherries she had taken.
+
+'Has she been talking to you?' she asked in her turn.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What has she been saying to you?'
+
+'She told me that you ... that you have suddenly decided to change
+... your former intention.' Gemma's head was bent again. She vanished
+altogether under her hat; nothing could be seen but her neck, supple
+and tender as the stalk of a big flower.
+
+'What intentions?'
+
+'Your intentions ... relative to ... the future arrangement of your
+life.'
+
+'That is ... you are speaking ... of Herr Klueber?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Mamma told you I don't want to be Herr Klueber's wife?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Gemma moved forward on the seat. The basket tottered, fell ... a few
+cherries rolled on to the path. A minute passed by ... another.
+
+'Why did she tell you so?' he heard her voice saying. Sanin as before
+could only see Gemma's neck. Her bosom rose and fell more rapidly than
+before.
+
+'Why? Your mother thought that as you and I, in a short time, have
+become, so to say, friends, and you have some confidence in me, I am
+in a position to give you good advice--and you would mind what I say.'
+
+Gemma's hands slowly slid on to her knees. She began plucking at the
+folds of her dress.
+
+'What advice will you give me, Monsieur Dimitri?' she asked, after a
+short pause.
+
+Sanin saw that Gemma's fingers were trembling on her knees.... She was
+only plucking at the folds of her dress to hide their trembling. He
+softly laid his hand on those pale, shaking fingers.
+
+'Gemma,' he said, 'why don't you look at me?' She instantly tossed her
+hat back on to her shoulder, and bent her eyes upon him, confiding and
+grateful as before. She waited for him to speak.... But the sight of
+her face had bewildered, and, as it were, dazed him. The warm glow of
+the evening sun lighted up her youthful head, and the expression of
+that head was brighter, more radiant than its glow.
+
+'I will mind what you say, Monsieur Dimitri,' she said, faintly
+smiling, and faintly arching her brows; 'but what advice do you give
+me?'
+
+'What advice?' repeated Sanin. 'Well, you see, your mother considers
+that to dismiss Herr Klueber simply because he did not show any special
+courage the day before yesterday ...'
+
+'Simply because?' said Gemma. She bent down, picked up the basket, and
+set it beside her on the garden seat.
+
+'That ... altogether ... to dismiss him, would be, on your part
+... unreasonable; that it is a step, all the consequences of which
+ought to be thoroughly weighed; that in fact the very position of
+your affairs imposes certain obligations on every member of your
+family ...'
+
+'All that is mamma's opinion,' Gemma interposed; 'those are her words;
+but what is your opinion?'
+
+'Mine?' Sanin was silent for a while. He felt a lump rising in his
+throat and catching at his breath. 'I too consider,' he began with an
+effort ...
+
+Gemma drew herself up. 'Too? You too?'
+
+'Yes ... that is ...' Sanin was unable, positively unable to add a
+single word more.
+
+'Very well,' said Gemma. 'If you, as a friend, advise me to change my
+decision--that is, not to change my former decision--I will think it
+over.' Not knowing what she was doing, she began to tip the cherries
+back from the plate into the basket.... 'Mamma hopes that I will mind
+what you say. Well ... perhaps I really will mind what you say.'
+
+'But excuse me, Fraeulein Gemma, I should like first to know what
+reason impelled you ...'
+
+'I will mind what you say,' Gemma repeated, her face right up to her
+brows was working, her cheeks were white, she was biting her lower
+lip. 'You have done so much for me, that I am bound to do as you wish;
+bound to carry out your wishes. I will tell mamma ... I will think
+again. Here she is, by the way, coming here.'
+
+Frau Lenore did in fact appear in the doorway leading from the house
+to the garden. She was in an agony of impatience; she could not
+keep still. According to her calculations, Sanin must long ago have
+finished all he had to say to Gemma, though his conversation with her
+had not lasted a quarter of an hour.
+
+'No, no, no, for God's sake, don't tell her anything yet,' Sanin
+articulated hurriedly, almost in alarm. 'Wait a little ... I will tell
+you, I will write to you ... and till then don't decide on anything
+... wait!'
+
+He pressed Gemma's hand, jumped up from the seat, and to Frau Lenore's
+great amazement, rushed past her, and raising his hat, muttered
+something unintelligible--and vanished.
+
+She went up to her daughter.
+
+'Tell me, please, Gemma...'
+
+The latter suddenly got up and hugged her. 'Dear mamma, can you wait a
+little, a tiny bit ... till to-morrow? Can you? And till to-morrow not
+a word?... Ah!...'
+
+She burst into sudden happy tears, incomprehensible to herself. This
+surprised Frau Lenore, the more as the expression of Gemma's face was
+far from sorrowful,--rather joyful in fact.
+
+'What is it?' she asked. 'You never cry and here, all at once ...'
+
+'Nothing, mamma, never mind! you only wait. We must both wait a
+little. Don't ask me anything till to-morrow--and let us sort the
+cherries before the sun has set.'
+
+'But you will be reasonable?'
+
+'Oh, I'm very reasonable!' Gemma shook her head significantly. She
+began to make up little bunches of cherries, holding them high above
+her flushed face. She did not wipe away her tears; they had dried of
+themselves.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Almost running, Sanin returned to his hotel room. He felt, he knew
+that only there, only by himself, would it be clear to him at last
+what was the matter, what was happening to him. And so it was;
+directly he had got inside his room, directly he had sat down to the
+writing-table, with both elbows on the table and both hands pressed to
+his face, he cried in a sad and choked voice, 'I love her, love her
+madly!' and he was all aglow within, like a fire when a thick layer
+of dead ash has been suddenly blown off. An instant more ... and he
+was utterly unable to understand how he could have sat beside her
+... her!--and talked to her and not have felt that he worshipped the
+very hem of her garment, that he was ready as young people express
+it 'to die at her feet.' The last interview in the garden had decided
+everything. Now when he thought of her, she did not appear to him with
+blazing curls in the shining starlight; he saw her sitting on the
+garden-seat, saw her all at once tossing back her hat, and gazing at
+him so confidingly ... and the tremor and hunger of love ran through
+all his veins. He remembered the rose which he had been carrying about
+in his pocket for three days: he snatched it out, and pressed it with
+such feverish violence to his lips, that he could not help frowning
+with the pain. Now he considered nothing, reflected on nothing, did
+not deliberate, and did not look forward; he had done with all his
+past, he leaped forward into the future; from the dreary bank of his
+lonely bachelor life he plunged headlong into that glad, seething,
+mighty torrent--and little he cared, little he wished to know, where
+it would carry him, or whether it would dash him against a rock! No
+more the soft-flowing currents of the Uhland song, which had lulled
+him not long ago ... These were mighty, irresistible torrents! They
+rush flying onwards and he flies with them....
+
+He took a sheet of paper, and without blotting out a word, almost with
+one sweep of the pen, wrote as follows:--
+
+'DEAR GEMMA,--You know what advice I undertook to give you, what your
+mother desired, and what she asked of me; but what you don't know and
+what I must tell you now is, that I love you, love you with all the
+ardour of a heart that loves for the first time! This passion has
+flamed up in me suddenly, but with such force that I can find no words
+for it! When your mother came to me and asked me, it was still only
+smouldering in me, or else I should certainly, as an honest man, have
+refused to carry out her request.... The confession I make you now is
+the confession of an honest man. You ought to know whom you have to do
+with--between us there should exist no misunderstandings. You see that
+I cannot give you any advice.... I love you, love you, love you--and I
+have nothing else--either in my head or in my heart!!
+
+'DM. SANIN.'
+
+When he had folded and sealed this note, Sanin was on the point of
+ringing for the waiter and sending it by him.... 'No!' he thought, 'it
+would be awkward.... By Emil? But to go to the shop, and seek him out
+there among the other employes, would be awkward too. Besides, it's
+dark by now, and he has probably left the shop.' Reflecting after this
+fashion, Sanin put on his hat, however, and went into the street; he
+turned a corner, another, and to his unspeakable delight, saw Emil
+before him. With a satchel under his arm, and a roll of papers in his
+hand, the young enthusiast was hurrying home.
+
+'They may well say every lover has a lucky star,' thought Sanin, and
+he called to Emil.
+
+The latter turned and at once rushed to him.
+
+Sanin cut short his transports, handed him the note, and explained to
+whom and how he was to deliver it.... Emil listened attentively.
+
+'So that no one sees?' he inquired, assuming an important and
+mysterious air, that said, 'We understand the inner meaning of it
+all!'
+
+'Yes, my friend,' said Sanin and he was a little disconcerted;
+however, he patted Emil on the cheek.... 'And if there should be an
+answer.... You will bring me the answer, won't you? I will stay at
+home.'
+
+'Don't worry yourself about that!' Emil whispered gaily; he ran off,
+and as he ran nodded once more to him.
+
+Sanin went back home, and without lighting a candle, flung himself
+on the sofa, put his hands behind his head, and abandoned himself to
+those sensations of newly conscious love, which it is no good even to
+describe. One who has felt them knows their languor and sweetness; to
+one who has felt them not, one could never make them known.
+
+The door opened--Emil's head appeared.
+
+'I have brought it,' he said in a whisper: 'here it is--the answer!'
+
+He showed and waved above his head a folded sheet of paper.
+
+Sanin leaped up from the sofa and snatched it out of Emil's hand.
+Passion was working too powerfully within him: he had no thought of
+reserve now, nor of the observance of a suitable demeanour--even
+before this boy, her brother. He would have been scrupulous, he would
+have controlled himself--if he could!
+
+He went to the window, and by the light of a street lamp which stood
+just opposite the house, he read the following lines:--
+
+I beg you, I beseech you--_don't come to see us, don't show yourself
+all day to-morrow_. It's necessary, absolutely necessary for me,
+and then everything shall be settled. I know you will not say no,
+because ...
+
+'GEMMA.'
+
+Sanin read this note twice through. Oh, how touchingly sweet and
+beautiful her handwriting seemed to him! He thought a little, and
+turning to Emil, who, wishing to give him to understand what a
+discreet young person he was, was standing with his face to the wall,
+and scratching on it with his finger-nails, he called him aloud by
+name.
+
+Emil ran at once to Sanin. 'What do you want me to do?'
+
+'Listen, my young friend...'
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' Emil interrupted in a plaintive voice, 'why do you
+address me so formally?'
+
+Sanin laughed. 'Oh, very well. Listen, my dearest boy--(Emil gave a
+little skip of delight)--listen; _there_ you understand, there, you
+will say, that everything shall be done exactly as is wished--(Emil
+compressed his lips and nodded solemnly)--and as for me ... what are
+you doing to-morrow, my dear boy?'
+
+'I? what am I doing? What would you like me to do?'
+
+'If you can, come to me early in the morning--and we will walk about
+the country round Frankfort till evening.... Would you like to?'
+
+Emil gave another little skip. 'I say, what in the world could be
+jollier? Go a walk with you--why, it's simply glorious! I'll be sure
+to come!'
+
+'And if they won't let you?'
+
+'They will let me!'
+
+'Listen ... Don't say _there_ that I asked you to come for the whole
+day.'
+
+'Why should I? But I'll get away all the same! What does it matter?'
+
+Emil warmly kissed Sanin, and ran away.
+
+Sanin walked up and down the room a long while, and went late to bed.
+He gave himself up to the same delicate and sweet sensations, the same
+joyous thrill at facing a new life. Sanin was very glad that the idea
+had occurred to him to invite Emil to spend the next day with him; he
+was like his sister. 'He will recall her,' was his thought.
+
+But most of all, he marvelled how he could have been yesterday other
+than he was to-day. It seemed to him that he had loved Gemma for all
+time; and that he had loved her just as he loved her to-day.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+At eight o'clock next morning, Emil arrived at Sanin's hotel leading
+Tartaglia by a string. Had he sprung of German parentage, he could
+not have shown greater practicality. He had told a lie at home; he
+had said he was going for a walk with Sanin till lunch-time, and then
+going to the shop. While Sanin was dressing, Emil began to talk to
+him, rather hesitatingly, it is true, about Gemma, about her rupture
+with Herr Klueber; but Sanin preserved an austere silence in reply, and
+Emil, looking as though he understood why so serious a matter should
+not be touched on lightly, did not return to the subject, and only
+assumed from time to time an intense and even severe expression.
+
+After drinking coffee, the two friends set off together--on foot,
+of course--to Hausen, a little village lying a short distance from
+Frankfort, and surrounded by woods. The whole chain of the Taunus
+mountains could be seen clearly from there. The weather was lovely;
+the sunshine was bright and warm, but not blazing hot; a fresh wind
+rustled briskly among the green leaves; the shadows of high, round
+clouds glided swiftly and smoothly in small patches over the earth.
+The two young people soon got out of the town, and stepped out boldly
+and gaily along the well-kept road. They reached the woods, and
+wandered about there a long time; then they lunched very heartily at
+a country inn; then climbed on to the mountains, admired the views,
+rolled stones down and clapped their hands, watching the queer droll
+way in which the stones hopped along like rabbits, till a man passing
+below, unseen by them, began abusing them in a loud ringing voice.
+Then they lay full length on the short dry moss of yellowish-violet
+colour; then they drank beer at another inn; ran races, and tried for
+a wager which could jump farthest. They discovered an echo, and began
+to call to it; sang songs, hallooed, wrestled, broke up dry twigs,
+decked their hats with fern, and even danced. Tartaglia, as far as he
+could, shared in all these pastimes; he did not throw stones, it is
+true, but he rolled head over heels after them; he howled when they
+were singing, and even drank beer, though with evident aversion;
+he had been trained in this art by a student to whom he had once
+belonged. But he was not prompt in obeying Emil--not as he was with
+his master Pantaleone--and when Emil ordered him to 'speak,' or to
+'sneeze,' he only wagged his tail and thrust out his tongue like a
+pipe.
+
+The young people talked, too. At the beginning of the walk, Sanin, as
+the elder, and so more reflective, turned the conversation on fate and
+predestination, and the nature and meaning of man's destiny; but the
+conversation quickly took a less serious turn. Emil began to question
+his friend and patron about Russia, how duels were fought there, and
+whether the women there were beautiful, and whether one could learn
+Russian quickly, and what he had felt when the officer took aim
+at him. Sanin, on his side, questioned Emil about his father, his
+mother, and in general about their family affairs, trying every time
+not to mention Gemma's name--and thinking only of her. To speak more
+precisely, it was not of her he was thinking, but of the morrow, the
+mysterious morrow which was to bring him new, unknown happiness! It
+was as though a veil, a delicate, bright veil, hung faintly fluttering
+before his mental vision; and behind this veil he felt ... felt the
+presence of a youthful, motionless, divine image, with a tender smile
+on its lips, and eyelids severely--with affected seventy--downcast.
+And this image was not the face of Gemma, it was the face of happiness
+itself! For, behold, at last _his_ hour had come, the veil had
+vanished, the lips were parting, the eyelashes are raised--his
+divinity has looked upon him--and at once light as from the sun,
+and joy and bliss unending! He dreamed of this morrow--and his soul
+thrilled with joy again in the melting torture of ever-growing
+expectation!
+
+And this expectation, this torture, hindered nothing. It accompanied
+every action, and did not prevent anything. It did not prevent him
+from dining capitally at a third inn with Emil; and only occasionally,
+like a brief flash of lightning, the thought shot across him, What
+if any one in the world knew? This suspense did not prevent him from
+playing leap-frog with Emil after dinner. The game took place on an
+open green lawn. And the confusion, the stupefaction of Sanin may be
+imagined! At the very moment when, accompanied by a sharp bark from
+Tartaglia, he was flying like a bird, with his legs outspread over
+Emil, who was bent double, he suddenly saw on the farthest border of
+the lawn two officers, in whom he recognised at once his adversary and
+his second, Herr von Doenhof and Herr von Richter! Each of them had
+stuck an eyeglass in his eye, and was staring at him, chuckling!...
+Sanin got on his feet, turned away hurriedly, put on the coat he had
+flung down, jerked out a word to Emil; the latter, too, put on his
+jacket, and they both immediately made off.
+
+It was late when they got back to Frankfort. 'They'll scold me,' Emil
+said to Sanin as he said good-bye to him. 'Well, what does it matter?
+I've had such a splendid, splendid day!'
+
+When he got home to his hotel, Sanin found a note there from Gemma.
+She fixed a meeting with him for next day, at seven o'clock in the
+morning, in one of the public gardens which surround Frankfort on all
+sides.
+
+How his heart throbbed! How glad he was that he had obeyed her so
+unconditionally! And, my God, what was promised ... what was not
+promised, by that unknown, unique, impossible, and undubitably certain
+morrow!
+
+He feasted his eyes on Gemma's note. The long, elegant tail of the
+letter G, the first letter of her name, which stood at the bottom of
+the sheet, reminded him of her lovely fingers, her hand.... He thought
+that he had not once touched that hand with his lips.... 'Italian
+women,' he mused, 'in spite of what's said of them, are modest and
+severe.... And Gemma above all! Queen ... goddess ... pure, virginal
+marble....'
+
+'But the time will come; and it is not far off....' There was that
+night in Frankfort one happy man.... He slept; but he might have said
+of himself in the words of the poet:
+
+  'I sleep ... but my watchful heart sleeps not.'
+
+And it fluttered as lightly as a butterfly flutters his wings, as he
+stoops over the flowers in the summer sunshine.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+At five o'clock Sanin woke up, at six he was dressed, at half-past
+six he was walking up and down the public garden within sight of the
+little arbour which Gemma had mentioned in her note. It was a still,
+warm, grey morning. It sometimes seemed as though it were beginning
+to rain; but the outstretched hand felt nothing, and only looking at
+one's coat-sleeve, one could see traces of tiny drops like diminutive
+beads, but even these were soon gone. It seemed there had never been
+a breath of wind in the world. Every sound moved not, but was shed
+around in the stillness. In the distance was a faint thickening of
+whitish mist; in the air there was a scent of mignonette and white
+acacia flowers.
+
+In the streets the shops were not open yet, but there were already
+some people walking about; occasionally a solitary carriage rumbled
+along ... there was no one walking in the garden. A gardener was in a
+leisurely way scraping the path with a spade, and a decrepit old woman
+in a black woollen cloak was hobbling across the garden walk. Sanin
+could not for one instant mistake this poor old creature for Gemma;
+and yet his heart leaped, and he watched attentively the retreating
+patch of black.
+
+Seven! chimed the clock on the tower. Sanin stood still. Was it
+possible she would not come? A shiver of cold suddenly ran through
+his limbs. The same shiver came again an instant later, but from a
+different cause. Sanin heard behind him light footsteps, the light
+rustle of a woman's dress.... He turned round: she!
+
+Gemma was coming up behind him along the path. She was wearing a grey
+cape and a small dark hat. She glanced at Sanin, turned her head away,
+and catching him up, passed rapidly by him.
+
+'Gemma,' he articulated, hardly audibly.
+
+She gave him a little nod, and continued to walk on in front. He
+followed her.
+
+He breathed in broken gasps. His legs shook under him.
+
+Gemma passed by the arbour, turned to the right, passed by a small
+flat fountain, in which the sparrows were splashing busily, and, going
+behind a clump of high lilacs, sank down on a bench. The place was
+snug and hidden. Sanin sat down beside her.
+
+A minute passed, and neither he nor she uttered a word. She did not
+even look at him; and he gazed not at her face, but at her clasped
+hands, in which she held a small parasol. What was there to tell, what
+was there to say, which could compare, in importance, with the simple
+fact of their presence there, together, alone, so early, so close to
+each other.
+
+'You ... are not angry with me?' Sanin articulated at last.
+
+It would have been difficult for Sanin to have said anything more
+foolish than these words ... he was conscious of it himself.... But,
+at any rate, the silence was broken.
+
+'Angry?' she answered. 'What for? No.'
+
+'And you believe me?' he went on.
+
+'In what you wrote?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Gemma's head sank, and she said nothing. The parasol slipped out of
+her hands. She hastily caught it before it dropped on the path.
+
+'Ah, believe me! believe what I wrote to you!' cried Sanin; all his
+timidity suddenly vanished, he spoke with heat; 'if there is truth
+on earth--sacred, absolute truth--it's that I love, love you
+passionately, Gemma.'
+
+She flung him a sideway, momentary glance, and again almost dropped
+the parasol.
+
+'Believe me! believe me!' he repeated. He besought her, held out his
+hands to her, and did not dare to touch her. 'What do you want me to
+do ... to convince you?'
+
+She glanced at him again.
+
+'Tell me, Monsieur Dimitri,' she began; 'the day before yesterday,
+when you came to talk to me, you did not, I imagine, know then ... did
+not feel ...'
+
+'I felt it,' Sanin broke in; 'but I did not know it. I have loved you
+from the very instant I saw you; but I did not realise at once what
+you had become to me! And besides, I heard that you were solemnly
+betrothed.... As far as your mother's request is concerned--in the
+first place, how could I refuse?--and secondly, I think I carried out
+her request in such a way that you could guess....'
+
+They heard a heavy tread, and a rather stout gentleman with a knapsack
+over his shoulder, apparently a foreigner, emerged from behind the
+clump, and staring, with the unceremoniousness of a tourist, at the
+couple sitting on the garden-seat, gave a loud cough and went on.
+
+'Your mother,' Sanin began, as soon as the sound of the heavy
+footsteps had ceased, 'told me your breaking off your engagement would
+cause a scandal'--Gemma frowned a little--that I was myself in part
+responsible for unpleasant gossip, and that ... consequently ... I
+was, to some extent, under an obligation to advise you not to break
+with your betrothed, Herr Klueber....'
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' said Gemma, and she passed her hand over her hair
+on the side turned towards Sanin, 'don't, please, call Herr Klueber my
+betrothed. I shall never be his wife. I have broken with him.'
+
+'You have broken with him? when?'
+
+'Yesterday.'
+
+'You saw him?'
+
+'Yes. At our house. He came to see us.'
+
+'Gemma? Then you love me?'
+
+She turned to him.
+
+'Should ... I have come here, if not?' she whispered, and both her
+hands fell on the seat.
+
+Sanin snatched those powerless, upturned palms, and pressed them to
+his eyes, to his lips.... Now the veil was lifted of which he had
+dreamed the night before! Here was happiness, here was its radiant
+form!
+
+He raised his head, and looked at Gemma, boldly and directly. She,
+too, looked at him, a little downwards. Her half-shut eyes faintly
+glistened, dim with light, blissful tears. Her face was not smiling
+... no! it laughed, with a blissful, noiseless laugh.
+
+He tried to draw her to him, but she drew back, and never ceasing to
+laugh the same noiseless laugh, shook her head. 'Wait a little,' her
+happy eyes seemed to say.
+
+'O Gemma!' cried Sanin: 'I never dreamed that you would love me!'
+
+'I did not expect this myself,' Gemma said softly.
+
+'How could I ever have dreamed,' Sanin went on, 'when I came to
+Frankfort, where I only expected to remain a few hours, that I should
+find here the happiness of all my life!'
+
+'All your life? Really?' queried Gemma.
+
+'All my life, for ever and ever!' cried Sanin with fresh ardour.
+
+The gardener's spade suddenly scraped two paces from where they were
+sitting.
+
+'Let's go home,' whispered Gemma: 'we'll go together--will you?'
+
+If she had said to him at that instant 'Throw yourself in the sea,
+will you?' he would have been flying headlong into the ocean before
+she had uttered the last word.
+
+They went together out of the garden and turned homewards, not by the
+streets of the town, but through the outskirts.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+Sanin walked along, at one time by Gemma's side, at another time a
+little behind her. He never took his eyes off her and never ceased
+smiling. She seemed to hasten ... seemed to linger. As a matter of
+fact, they both--he all pale, and she all flushed with emotion--were
+moving along as in a dream. What they had done together a few instants
+before--that surrender of each soul to another soul--was so intense,
+so new, and so moving; so suddenly everything in their lives had been
+changed and displaced that they could not recover themselves, and were
+only aware of a whirlwind carrying them along, like the whirlwind
+on that night, which had almost flung them into each other's arms.
+Sanin walked along, and felt that he even looked at Gemma with other
+eyes; he instantly noted some peculiarities in her walk, in her
+movements,--and heavens! how infinitely sweet and precious they were
+to him! And she felt that that was how he was looking at her.
+
+Sanin and she were in love for the first time; all the miracles of
+first love were working in them. First love is like a revolution; the
+uniformly regular routine of ordered life is broken down and shattered
+in one instant; youth mounts the barricade, waves high its bright
+flag, and whatever awaits it in the future--death or a new life--all
+alike it goes to meet with ecstatic welcome.
+
+'What's this? Isn't that our old friend?' said Sanin, pointing to a
+muffled-up figure, which hurriedly slipped a little aside as though
+trying to remain unobserved. In the midst of his abundant happiness he
+felt a need to talk to Gemma, not of love--that was a settled thing
+and holy--but of something else.
+
+'Yes, it's Pantaleone,' Gemma answered gaily and happily. 'Most likely
+he has been following me ever since I left home; all day yesterday he
+kept watching every movement I made ... He guesses!'
+
+'He guesses!' Sanin repeated in ecstasy. What could Gemma have said at
+which he would not have been in ecstasy?
+
+Then he asked her to tell him in detail all that had passed the day
+before.
+
+And she began at once telling him, with haste, and confusion, and
+smiles, and brief sighs, and brief bright looks exchanged with Sanin.
+She said that after their conversation the day before yesterday,
+mamma had kept trying to get out of her something positive; but that
+she had put off Frau Lenore with a promise to tell her her decision
+within twenty-four hours; how she had demanded this limit of time
+for herself, and how difficult it had been to get it; how utterly
+unexpectedly Herr Klueber had made his appearance more starched and
+affected than ever; how he had given vent to his indignation at the
+childish, unpardonable action of the Russian stranger--'he meant
+your duel, Dimitri,'--which he described as deeply insulting to him,
+Klueber, and how he had demanded that 'you should be at once refused
+admittance to the house, Dimitri.' 'For,' he had added--and here
+Gemma slightly mimicked his voice and manner--'"it casts a slur on
+my honour; as though I were not able to defend my betrothed, had
+I thought it necessary or advisable! All Frankfort will know by
+to-morrow that an outsider has fought a duel with an officer on
+account of my betrothed--did any one ever hear of such a thing! It
+tarnishes my honour!" Mamma agreed with him--fancy!--but then I
+suddenly told him that he was troubling himself unnecessarily about
+his honour and his character, and was unnecessarily annoyed at the
+gossip about his betrothed, for I was no longer betrothed to him and
+would never be his wife! I must own, I had meant to talk to you first
+... before breaking with him finally; but he came ... and I could not
+restrain myself. Mamma positively screamed with horror, but I went
+into the next room and got his ring--you didn't notice, I took it off
+two days ago--and gave it to him. He was fearfully offended, but as he
+is fearfully self-conscious and conceited, he did not say much, and
+went away. Of course I had to go through a great deal with mamma, and
+it made me very wretched to see how distressed she was, and I thought
+I had been a little hasty; but you see I had your note, and even apart
+from it I knew ...'
+
+'That I love you,' put in Sanin.
+
+'Yes ... that you were in love with me.'
+
+So Gemma talked, hesitating and smiling and dropping her voice or
+stopping altogether every time any one met them or passed by. And
+Sanin listened ecstatically, enjoying the very sound of her voice, as
+the day before he had gloated over her handwriting.
+
+'Mamma is very much distressed,' Gemma began again, and her words
+flew very rapidly one after another; 'she refuses to take into
+consideration that I dislike Herr Klueber, that I never was betrothed
+to him from love, but only because of her urgent entreaties....
+She suspects--you, Dimitri; that's to say, to speak plainly, she's
+convinced I'm in love with you, and she is more unhappy about it
+because only the day before yesterday nothing of the sort had occurred
+to her, and she even begged you to advise me.... It was a strange
+request, wasn't it? Now she calls you ... Dimitri, a hypocrite and
+a cunning fellow, says that you have betrayed her confidence, and
+predicts that you will deceive me....'
+
+'But, Gemma,' cried Sanin, 'do you mean to say you didn't tell
+her?...'
+
+'I told her nothing! What right had I without consulting you?'
+
+Sanin threw up his arms. 'Gemma, I hope that now, at least, you will
+tell all to her and take me to her.... I want to convince your mother
+that I am not a base deceiver!'
+
+Sanin's bosom fairly heaved with the flood of generous and ardent
+emotions.
+
+Gemma looked him full in the face. 'You really want to go with me
+now to mamma? to mamma, who maintains that ... all this between us
+is impossible--and can never come to pass?' There was one word Gemma
+could not bring herself to utter.... It burnt her lips; but all the
+more eagerly Sanin pronounced it.
+
+'Marry you, Gemma, be your husband--I can imagine no bliss greater!'
+
+To his love, his magnanimity, his determination--he was aware of no
+limits now.
+
+When she heard those words, Gemma, who had stopped still for an
+instant, went on faster than ever.... She seemed trying to run away
+from this too great and unexpected happiness! But suddenly her
+steps faltered. Round the corner of a turning, a few paces from
+her, in a new hat and coat, straight as an arrow and curled like a
+poodle--emerged Herr Klueber. He caught sight of Gemma, caught sight
+of Sanin, and with a sort of inward snort and a backward bend of his
+supple figure, he advanced with a dashing swing to meet them. Sanin
+felt a pang; but glancing at Klueber's face, to which its owner
+endeavoured, as far as in him lay, to give an expression of scornful
+amazement, and even commiseration, glancing at that red-cheeked,
+vulgar face, he felt a sudden rush of anger, and took a step forward.
+
+Gemma seized his arm, and with quiet decision, giving him hers, she
+looked her former betrothed full in the face.... The latter screwed up
+his face, shrugged his shoulders, shuffled to one side, and muttering
+between his teeth, 'The usual end to the song!' (Das alte Ende vom
+Liede!)--walked away with the same dashing, slightly skipping gait.
+
+'What did he say, the wretched creature?' asked Sanin, and would have
+rushed after Klueber; but Gemma held him back and walked on with him,
+not taking away the arm she had slipped into his.
+
+The Rosellis' shop came into sight. Gemma stopped once more.
+
+'Dimitri, Monsieur Dimitri,' she said, 'we are not there yet, we have
+not seen mamma yet.... If you would rather think a little, if ... you
+are still free, Dimitri!'
+
+In reply Sanin pressed her hand tightly to his bosom, and drew her on.
+
+'Mamma,' said Gemma, going with Sanin to the room where Frau Lenore
+was sitting, 'I have brought the real one!'
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+If Gemma had announced that she had brought with her cholera or death
+itself, one can hardly imagine that Frau Lenore could have received
+the news with greater despair. She immediately sat down in a corner,
+with her face to the wall, and burst into floods of tears, positively
+wailed, for all the world like a Russian peasant woman on the grave of
+her husband or her son. For the first minute Gemma was so taken aback
+that she did not even go up to her mother, but stood still like a
+statue in the middle of the room; while Sanin was utterly stupefied,
+to the point of almost bursting into tears himself! For a whole hour
+that inconsolable wail went on--a whole hour! Pantaleone thought it
+better to shut the outer door of the shop, so that no stranger should
+come; luckily, it was still early. The old man himself did not know
+what to think, and in any case, did not approve of the haste with
+which Gemma and Sanin had acted; he could not bring himself to blame
+them, and was prepared to give them his support in case of need:
+he greatly disliked Klueber! Emil regarded himself as the medium of
+communication between his friend and his sister, and almost prided
+himself on its all having turned out so splendidly! He was positively
+unable to conceive why Frau Lenore was so upset, and in his heart he
+decided on the spot that women, even the best of them, suffer from a
+lack of reasoning power! Sanin fared worst of all. Frau Lenore rose to
+a howl and waved him off with her hands, directly he approached her;
+and it was in vain that he attempted once or twice to shout aloud,
+standing at a distance, 'I ask you for your daughter's hand!' Frau
+Lenore was particularly angry with herself. 'How could she have been
+so blind--have seen nothing? Had my Giovann' Battista been alive,'
+she persisted through her tears, 'nothing of this sort would have
+happened!' 'Heavens, what's it all about?' thought Sanin; 'why, it's
+positively senseless!' He did not dare to look at Gemma, nor could she
+pluck up courage to lift her eyes to him. She restricted herself to
+waiting patiently on her mother, who at first repelled even her....
+
+At last, by degrees, the storm abated. Frau Lenore gave over weeping,
+permitted Gemma to bring her out of the corner, where she sat huddled
+up, to put her into an arm-chair near the window, and to give her some
+orange-flower water to drink. She permitted Sanin--not to approach
+... oh, no!--but, at any rate, to remain in the room--she had kept
+clamouring for him to go away--and did not interrupt him when he
+spoke. Sanin immediately availed himself of the calm as it set in, and
+displayed an astounding eloquence. He could hardly have explained his
+intentions and emotions with more fire and persuasive force even to
+Gemma herself. Those emotions were of the sincerest, those intentions
+were of the purest, like Almaviva's in the _Barber of Seville_. He
+did not conceal from Frau Lenore nor from himself the disadvantageous
+side of those intentions; but the disadvantages were only apparent!
+It is true he was a foreigner; they had not known him long, they knew
+nothing positive about himself or his means; but he was prepared to
+bring forward all the necessary evidence that he was a respectable
+person and not poor; he would refer them to the most unimpeachable
+testimony of his fellow-countrymen! He hoped Gemma would be happy with
+him, and that he would be able to make up to her for the separation
+from her own people!... The allusion to 'separation'--the mere word
+'separation'--almost spoiled the whole business.... Frau Lenore began
+to tremble all over and move about uneasily.... Sanin hastened to
+observe that the separation would only be temporary, and that, in
+fact, possibly it would not take place at all!
+
+Sanin's eloquence was not thrown away. Frau Lenore began to glance at
+him, though still with bitterness and reproach, no longer with the
+same aversion and fury; then she suffered him to come near her, and
+even to sit down beside her (Gemma was sitting on the other side);
+then she fell to reproaching him,--not in looks only, but in words,
+which already indicated a certain softening of heart; she fell to
+complaining, and her complaints became quieter and gentler; they were
+interspersed with questions addressed at one time to her daughter, and
+at another to Sanin; then she suffered him to take her hand and did
+not at once pull it away ... then she wept again, but her tears were
+now quite of another kind.... Then she smiled mournfully, and lamented
+the absence of Giovanni Battista, but quite on different grounds from
+before.... An instant more and the two criminals, Sanin and Gemma,
+were on their knees at her feet, and she was laying her hands on their
+heads in turn; another instant and they were embracing and kissing
+her, and Emil, his face beaming rapturously, ran into the room and
+added himself to the group so warmly united.
+
+Pantaleone peeped into the room, smiled and frowned at the same time,
+and going into the shop, opened the front door.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+The transition from despair to sadness, and from that to 'gentle
+resignation,' was accomplished fairly quickly in Frau Lenore; but
+that gentle resignation, too, was not slow in changing into a
+secret satisfaction, which was, however, concealed in every way and
+suppressed for the sake of appearances. Sanin had won Frau Lenore's
+heart from the first day of their acquaintance; as she got used to
+the idea of his being her son-in-law, she found nothing particularly
+distasteful in it, though she thought it her duty to preserve
+a somewhat hurt, or rather careworn, expression on her face.
+Besides, everything that had happened the last few days had been so
+extraordinary.... One thing upon the top of another. As a practical
+woman and a mother, Frau Lenore considered it her duty also to put
+Sanin through various questions; and Sanin, who, on setting out that
+morning to meet Gemma, had not a notion that he should marry her--it
+is true he did not think of anything at all at that time, but simply
+gave himself up to the current of his passion--Sanin entered, with
+perfect readiness, one might even say with zeal, into his part--the
+part of the betrothed lover, and answered all her inquiries
+circumstantially, exactly, with alacrity. When she had satisfied
+herself that he was a real nobleman by birth, and had even expressed
+some surprise that he was not a prince, Frau Lenore assumed a serious
+air and 'warned him betimes' that she should be quite unceremoniously
+frank with him, as she was forced to be so by her sacred duty as a
+mother! To which Sanin replied that he expected nothing else from her,
+and that he earnestly begged her not to spare him!
+
+Then Frau Lenore observed that Herr Klueber--as she uttered the name,
+she sighed faintly, tightened her lips, and hesitated--Herr Klueber,
+Gemma's former betrothed, already possessed an income of eight
+thousand guldens, and that with every year this sum would rapidly be
+increased; and what was his, Herr Sanin's income? 'Eight thousand
+guldens,' Sanin repeated deliberately.... 'That's in our money ...
+about fifteen thousand roubles.... My income is much smaller. I have
+a small estate in the province of Tula.... With good management, it
+might yield--and, in fact, it could not fail to yield--five or six
+thousand ... and if I go into the government service, I can easily get
+a salary of two thousand a year.'
+
+'Into the service in Russia?' cried Frau Lenore, 'Then I must part
+with Gemma!'
+
+'One might be able to enter in the diplomatic service,' Sanin put
+in; 'I have some connections.... There one's duties lie abroad. Or
+else, this is what one might do, and that's much the best of all:
+sell my estate and employ the sum received for it in some profitable
+undertaking; for instance, the improvement of your shop.' Sanin was
+aware that he was saying something absurd, but he was possessed by an
+incomprehensible recklessness! He looked at Gemma, who, ever since
+the 'practical' conversation began, kept getting up, walking about
+the room, and sitting down again--he looked at her--and no obstacle
+existed for him, and he was ready to arrange everything at once in the
+best way, if only she were not troubled!
+
+'Herr Klueber, too, had intended to give me a small sum for the
+improvement of the shop,' Lenore observed after a slight hesitation.
+
+'Mother! for mercy's sake, mother!' cried Gemma in Italian.
+
+'These things must be discussed in good time, my daughter,' Frau
+Lenore replied in the same language. She addressed herself again to
+Sanin, and began questioning him as to the laws existing in Russia
+as to marriage, and whether there were no obstacles to contracting
+marriages with Catholics as in Prussia. (At that time, in 1840,
+all Germany still remembered the controversy between the Prussian
+Government and the Archbishop of Cologne upon mixed marriages.)
+When Frau Lenore heard that by marrying a Russian nobleman, her
+daughter would herself become of noble rank, she evinced a certain
+satisfaction. 'But, of course, you will first have to go to Russia?'
+
+'Why?'
+
+'Why? Why, to obtain the permission of your Tsar.'
+
+Sanin explained to her that that was not at all necessary ... but that
+he might certainly have to go to Russia for a very short time before
+his marriage--(he said these words, and his heart ached painfully,
+Gemma watching him, knew it was aching, and blushed and grew
+dreamy)--and that he would try to take advantage of being in his own
+country to sell his estate ... in any case he would bring back the
+money needed.
+
+'I would ask you to bring me back some good Astrakhan lambskin for
+a cape,' said Frau Lenore. 'They're wonderfully good, I hear, and
+wonderfully cheap!'
+
+'Certainly, with the greatest pleasure, I will bring some for you and
+for Gemma!' cried Sanin.
+
+'And for me a morocco cap worked in silver,' Emil interposed, putting
+his head in from the next room.
+
+'Very well, I will bring it you ... and some slippers for Pantaleone.'
+
+'Come, that's nonsense, nonsense,' observed Frau Lenore. 'We are
+talking now of serious matters. But there's another point,' added the
+practical lady. 'You talk of selling your estate. But how will you do
+that? Will you sell your peasants then, too?'
+
+Sanin felt something like a stab at his heart. He remembered that in
+a conversation with Signora Roselli and her daughter about serfdom,
+which, in his own words, aroused his deepest indignation, he had
+repeatedly assured them that never on any account would he sell his
+peasants, as he regarded such a sale as an immoral act.
+
+'I will try and sell my estate to some man I know something of,'
+he articulated, not without faltering, 'or perhaps the peasants
+themselves will want to buy their freedom.'
+
+'That would be best of all,' Frau Lenore agreed. 'Though indeed
+selling live people ...'
+
+'_Barbari_!' grumbled Pantaleone, who showed himself behind Emil in
+the doorway, shook his topknot, and vanished.
+
+'It's a bad business!' Sanin thought to himself, and stole a look
+at Gemma. She seemed not to have heard his last words. 'Well, never
+mind!' he thought again. In this way the practical talk continued
+almost uninterruptedly till dinner-time. Frau Lenore was completely
+softened at last, and already called Sanin 'Dimitri,' shook her finger
+affectionately at him, and promised she would punish him for his
+treachery. She asked many and minute questions about his relations,
+because 'that too is very important'; asked him to describe the
+ceremony of marriage as performed by the ritual of the Russian Church,
+and was in raptures already at Gemma in a white dress, with a gold
+crown on her head.
+
+'She's as lovely as a queen,' she murmured with motherly pride,'
+indeed there's no queen like her in the world!'
+
+'There is no one like Gemma in the world!' Sanin chimed in.
+
+'Yes; that's why she is Gemma!' (Gemma, as every one knows, means in
+Italian a precious stone.)
+
+Gemma flew to kiss her mother.... It seemed as if only then she
+breathed freely again, and the load that had been oppressing her
+dropped from off her soul.
+
+Sanin felt all at once so happy, his heart was filled with such
+childish gaiety at the thought, that here, after all, the dreams had
+come true to which he had abandoned himself not long ago in these very
+rooms, his whole being was in such a turmoil that he went quickly
+out into the shop. He felt a great desire, come what might, to sell
+something in the shop, as he had done a few days before.... 'I have a
+full right to do so now!' he felt. 'Why, I am one of the family now!'
+And he actually stood behind the counter, and actually kept shop, that
+is, sold two little girls, who came in, a pound of sweets, giving them
+fully two pounds, and only taking half the price from them.
+
+At dinner he received an official position, as betrothed, beside
+Gemma. Frau Lenore pursued her practical investigations. Emil kept
+laughing and urging Sanin to take him with him to Russia. It was
+decided that Sanin should set off in a fortnight. Only Pantaleone
+showed a somewhat sullen face, so much so that Frau Lenore reproached
+him. 'And he was his second!' Pantaleone gave her a glance from under
+his brows.
+
+Gemma was silent almost all the time, but her face had never been
+lovelier or brighter. After dinner she called Sanin out a minute into
+the garden, and stopping beside the very garden-seat where she had
+been sorting the cherries two days before, she said to him. 'Dimitri,
+don't be angry with me; but I must remind you once more that you are
+not to consider yourself bound ...'
+
+He did not let her go on....
+
+Gemma turned away her face. 'And as for what mamma spoke of, do you
+remember, the difference of our religion--see here!...'
+
+She snatched the garnet cross that hung round her neck on a thin cord,
+gave it a violent tug, snapped the cord, and handed him the cross.
+
+'If I am yours, your faith is my faith!' Sanin's eyes were still wet
+when he went back with Gemma into the house.
+
+By the evening everything went on in its accustomed way. They even
+played a game of _tresette_.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+Sanin woke up very early. He found himself at the highest pinnacle of
+human happiness; but it was not that prevented him from sleeping; the
+question, the vital, fateful question--how he could dispose of his
+estate as quickly and as advantageously as possible--disturbed his
+rest. The most diverse plans were mixed up in his head, but nothing
+had as yet come out clearly. He went out of the house to get air and
+freshen himself. He wanted to present himself to Gemma with a project
+ready prepared and not without.
+
+What was the figure, somewhat ponderous and thick in the legs, but
+well-dressed, walking in front of him, with a slight roll and waddle
+in his gait? Where had he seen that head, covered with tufts of flaxen
+hair, and as it were set right into the shoulders, that soft cushiony
+back, those plump arms hanging straight down at his sides? Could it be
+Polozov, his old schoolfellow, whom he had lost sight of for the last
+five years? Sanin overtook the figure walking in front of him, turned
+round.... A broad, yellowish face, little pig's eyes, with white
+lashes and eyebrows, a short flat nose, thick lips that looked glued
+together, a round smooth chin, and that expression, sour, sluggish,
+and mistrustful--yes; it was he, it was Ippolit Polozov!
+
+'Isn't my lucky star working for me again?' flashed through Sanin's
+mind.
+
+'Polozov! Ippolit Sidorovitch! Is it you?'
+
+The figure stopped, raised his diminutive eyes, waited a little, and
+ungluing his lips at last, brought out in a rather hoarse falsetto,
+'Dimitri Sanin?'
+
+'That's me!' cried Sanin, and he shook one of Polozov's hands; arrayed
+in tight kid-gloves of an ashen-grey colour, they hung as lifeless as
+before beside his barrel-shaped legs. 'Have you been here long? Where
+have you come from? Where are you stopping?'
+
+'I came yesterday from Wiesbaden,' Polozov replied in deliberate
+tones, 'to do some shopping for my wife, and I'm going back to
+Wiesbaden to-day.'
+
+'Oh, yes! You're married, to be sure, and they say, to such a beauty!'
+
+Polozov turned his eyes away. 'Yes, they say so.'
+
+Sanin laughed. 'I see you're just the same ... as phlegmatic as you
+were at school.'
+
+'Why should I be different?'
+
+'And they do say,' Sanin added with special emphasis on the word 'do,'
+'that your wife is very rich.'
+
+'They say that too.'
+
+'Do you mean to say, Ippolit Sidorovitch, you are not certain on that
+point?'
+
+'I don't meddle, my dear Dimitri ... Pavlovitch? Yes, Pavlovitch!--in
+my wife's affairs.'
+
+'You don't meddle? Not in any of her affairs?'
+
+Polozov again shifted his eyes. 'Not in any, my boy. She does as she
+likes, and so do I.'
+
+'Where are you going now?' Sanin inquired.
+
+'I'm not going anywhere just now; I'm standing in the street and
+talking to you; but when we've finished talking, I'm going back to my
+hotel, and am going to have lunch.'
+
+'Would you care for my company?'
+
+'You mean at lunch?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Delighted, it's much pleasanter to eat in company. You're not a great
+talker, are you?'
+
+'I think not.'
+
+'So much the better.'
+
+Polozov went on. Sanin walked beside him. And Sanin
+speculated--Polozov's lips were glued together, again he snorted
+heavily, and waddled along in silence--Sanin speculated in what way
+had this booby succeeded in catching a rich and beautiful wife. He
+was not rich himself, nor distinguished, nor clever; at school he had
+passed for a dull, slow-witted boy, sleepy, and greedy, and had borne
+the nickname 'driveller.' It was marvellous!
+
+'But if his wife is very rich, they say she's the daughter of some
+sort of a contractor, won't she buy my estate? Though he does say he
+doesn't interfere in any of his wife's affairs, that passes belief,
+really! Besides, I will name a moderate, reasonable price! Why not
+try? Perhaps, it's all my lucky star.... Resolved! I'll have a try!'
+
+Polozov led Sanin to one of the best hotels in Frankfort, in which
+he was, of course, occupying the best apartments. On the tables and
+chairs lay piles of packages, cardboard boxes, and parcels. 'All
+purchases, my boy, for Maria Nikolaevna!' (that was the name of the
+wife of Ippolit Sidorovitch). Polozov dropped into an arm-chair,
+groaned, 'Oh, the heat!' and loosened his cravat. Then he rang up the
+head-waiter, and ordered with intense care a very lavish luncheon.
+'And at one, the carriage is to be ready! Do you hear, at one o'clock
+sharp!'
+
+The head-waiter obsequiously bowed, and cringingly withdrew.
+
+Polozov unbuttoned his waistcoat. From the very way in which he raised
+his eyebrows, gasped, and wrinkled up his nose, one could see that
+talking would be a great labour to him, and that he was waiting in
+some trepidation to see whether Sanin was going to oblige him to
+use his tongue, or whether he would take the task of keeping up the
+conversation on himself.
+
+Sanin understood his companion's disposition of mind, and so he did
+not burden him with questions; he restricted himself to the most
+essential. He learnt that he had been for two years in the service (in
+the Uhlans! how nice he must have looked in the short uniform jacket!)
+that he had married three years before, and had now been for two years
+abroad with his wife, 'who is now undergoing some sort of cure at
+Wiesbaden,' and was then going to Paris. On his side too, Sanin did
+not enlarge much on his past life and his plans; he went straight to
+the principal point--that is, he began talking of his intention of
+selling his estate.
+
+Polozov listened to him in silence, his eyes straying from time to
+time to the door, by which the luncheon was to appear. The luncheon
+did appear at last. The head-waiter, accompanied by two other
+attendants, brought in several dishes under silver covers.
+
+'Is the property in the Tula province?' said Polozov, seating himself
+at the table, and tucking a napkin into his shirt collar.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'In the Efremovsky district ... I know it.'
+
+'Do you know my place, Aleksyevka?' Sanin asked, sitting down too at
+the table.
+
+'Yes, I know it.' Polozov thrust in his mouth a piece of omelette
+with truffles. 'Maria Nikolaevna, my wife, has an estate in that
+neighbourhood.... Uncork that bottle, waiter! You've a good piece of
+land, only your peasants have cut down the timber. Why are you selling
+it?'
+
+'I want the money, my friend. I would sell it cheap. Come, you might
+as well buy it ... by the way.'
+
+Polozov gulped down a glass of wine, wiped his lips with the napkin,
+and again set to work chewing slowly and noisily.
+
+'Oh,' he enunciated at last.... 'I don't go in for buying estates;
+I've no capital. Pass the butter. Perhaps my wife now would buy it.
+You talk to her about it. If you don't ask too much, she's not above
+thinking of that.... What asses these Germans are, really! They can't
+cook fish. What could be simpler, one wonders? And yet they go on
+about "uniting the Fatherland." Waiter, take away that beastly stuff!'
+
+'Does your wife really manage ... business matters herself?' Sanin
+inquired.
+
+'Yes. Try the cutlets--they're good. I can recommend them. I've told
+you already, Dimitri Pavlovitch, I don't interfere in any of my wife's
+concerns, and I tell you so again.'
+
+Polozov went on munching.
+
+'H'm.... But how can I have a talk with her, Ippolit Sidorovitch?'
+
+'It's very simple, Dimitri Pavlovitch. Go to Wiesbaden. It's not far
+from here. Waiter, haven't you any English mustard? No? Brutes! Only
+don't lose any time. We're starting the day after to-morrow. Let me
+pour you out a glass of wine; it's wine with a bouquet--no vinegary
+stuff.'
+
+Polozov's face was flushed and animated; it was never animated but
+when he was eating--or drinking.
+
+'Really, I don't know, how that could be managed,' Sanin muttered.
+
+'But what makes you in such a hurry about it all of a sudden?'
+
+'There is a reason for being in a hurry, brother.'
+
+'And do you need a lot of money?'
+
+'Yes, a lot. I ... how can I tell you? I propose ... getting married.'
+
+Polozov set the glass he had been lifting to his lips on the table.
+
+'Getting married!' he articulated in a voice thick with astonishment,
+and he folded his podgy hands on his stomach. 'So suddenly?'
+
+'Yes ... soon.'
+
+'Your intended is in Russia, of course?'
+
+'No, not in Russia.'
+
+'Where then?'
+
+'Here in Frankfort.'
+
+'And who is she?'
+
+'A German; that is, no--an Italian. A resident here.'
+
+'With a fortune?'
+
+'No, without a fortune.'
+
+'Then I suppose your love is very ardent?'
+
+'How absurd you are! Yes, very ardent.'
+
+'And it's for that you must have money?'
+
+'Well, yes ... yes, yes.'
+
+Polozov gulped down his wine, rinsed his mouth, and washed his hands,
+carefully wiped them on the napkin, took out and lighted a cigar.
+Sanin watched him in silence.
+
+'There's one means,' Polozov grunted at last, throwing his head back,
+and blowing out the smoke in a thin ring. 'Go to my wife. If she
+likes, she can take all the bother off your hands.'
+
+'But how can I see your wife? You say you are starting the day after
+to-morrow?'
+
+Polozov closed his eyes.
+
+'I'll tell you what,' he said at last, rolling the cigar in his lips,
+and sighing. 'Go home, get ready as quick as you can, and come here.
+At one o'clock I am going, there's plenty of room in my carriage. I'll
+take you with me. That's the best plan. And now I'm going to have a
+nap. I must always have a nap, brother, after a meal. Nature demands
+it, and I won't go against it And don't you disturb me.'
+
+Sanin thought and thought, and suddenly raised his head; he had made
+up his mind.
+
+'Very well, agreed, and thank you. At half-past twelve I'll be
+here, and we'll go together to Wiesbaden. I hope your wife won't be
+angry....'
+
+But Polozov was already snoring. He muttered, 'Don't disturb me!' gave
+a kick, and fell asleep, like a baby.
+
+Sanin once more scanned his clumsy figure, his head, his neck, his
+upturned chin, round as an apple, and going out of the hotel, set off
+with rapid strides to the Rosellis' shop. He had to let Gemma know.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+He found her in the shop with her mother. Frau Lenore was stooping
+down, measuring with a big folding foot-rule the space between the
+windows. On seeing Sanin, she stood up, and greeted him cheerfully,
+though with a shade of embarrassment.
+
+'What you said yesterday,' she began, 'has set my head in a whirl with
+ideas as to how we could improve our shop. Here, I fancy we might put
+a couple of cupboards with shelves of looking-glass. You know, that's
+the fashion nowadays. And then ...'
+
+'Excellent, excellent,' Sanin broke in, 'we must think it all over....
+But come here, I want to tell you something.' He took Frau Lenpre and
+Gemma by the arm, and led them into the next room. Frau Lenore was
+alarmed, and the foot-rule slipped out of her hands. Gemma too was
+almost frightened, but she took an intent look at Sanin, and was
+reassured. His face, though preoccupied, expressed at the same time
+keen self-confidence and determination. He asked both the women to sit
+down, while he remained standing before them, and gesticulating with
+his hands and ruffling up his hair, he told them all his story; his
+meeting with Polozov, his proposed expedition to Wiesbaden, the chance
+of selling the estate. 'Imagine my happiness,' he cried in conclusion:
+'things have taken such a turn that I may even, perhaps, not have
+to go to Russia! And we can have our wedding much sooner than I had
+anticipated!'
+
+'When must you go?' asked Gemma.
+
+'To-day, in an hour's time; my friend has ordered a carriage--he will
+take me.'
+
+'You will write to us?'
+
+'At once! directly I have had a talk with this lady, I will write.'
+
+'This lady, you say, is very rich?' queried the practical Frau Lenore.
+
+'Exceedingly rich! her father was a millionaire, and he left
+everything to her.'
+
+'Everything--to her alone? Well, that's so much the better for you.
+Only mind, don't let your property go too cheap! Be sensible and
+firm. Don't let yourself be carried away! I understand your wishing
+to be Gemma's husband as soon as possible ... but prudence before
+everything! Don't forget: the better price you get for your estate,
+the more there will be for you two, and for your children.'
+
+Gemma turned away, and Sanin gave another wave of his hand. 'You can
+rely on my prudence, Frau Lenore! Indeed, I shan't do any bargaining
+with her. I shall tell her the fair price; if she'll give it--good; if
+not, let her go.'
+
+'Do you know her--this lady?' asked Gemma.
+
+'I have never seen her.'
+
+'And when will you come back?'
+
+'If our negotiations come to nothing--the day after to-morrow; if they
+turn out favourably, perhaps I may have to stay a day or two longer.
+In any case I shall not linger a minute beyond what's necessary. I am
+leaving my heart here, you know! But I have said what I had to say to
+you, and I must run home before setting off too.... Give me your hand
+for luck, Frau Lenore--that's what we always do in Russia.'
+
+'The right or the left?'
+
+'The left, it's nearer the heart. I shall reappear the day after
+to-morrow with my shield or on it! Something tells me I shall come
+back in triumph! Good-bye, my good dear ones....'
+
+He embraced and kissed Frau Lenore, but he asked Gemma to follow him
+into her room--for just a minute--as he must tell her something of
+great importance. He simply wanted to say good-bye to her alone. Frau
+Lenore saw that, and felt no curiosity as to the matter of such great
+importance.
+
+Sanin had never been in Gemma's room before. All the magic of love,
+all its fire and rapture and sweet terror, seemed to flame up and
+burst into his soul, directly he crossed its sacred threshold.... He
+cast a look of tenderness about him, fell at the sweet girl's feet and
+pressed his face against her waist....
+
+'You are mine,' she whispered: 'you will be back soon?'
+
+'I am yours. I will come back,' he declared, catching his breath.
+
+'I shall be longing for you back, my dear one!'
+
+A few instants later Sanin was running along the street to his
+lodging. He did not even notice that Pantaleone, all dishevelled, had
+darted out of the shop-door after him, and was shouting something to
+him and was shaking, as though in menace, his lifted hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Exactly at a quarter to one Sanin presented himself before Polozov.
+The carriage with four horses was already standing at the hotel gates.
+On seeing Sanin, Polozov merely commented, 'Oh! you've made up your
+mind?' and putting on his hat, cloak, and over-shoes, and stuffing
+cotton-wool into his ears, though it was summer-time, went out on to
+the steps. The waiters, by his directions, disposed all his numerous
+purchases in the inside of the carriage, lined the place where he
+was to sit with silk cushions, bags, and bundles, put a hamper of
+provisions for his feet to rest on, and tied a trunk on to the box.
+Polozov paid with a liberal hand, and supported by the deferential
+door-keeper, whose face was still respectful, though he was unseen
+behind him, he climbed gasping into the carriage, sat down,
+disarranged everything about him thoroughly, took out and lighted a
+cigar, and only then extended a finger to Sanin, as though to say,
+'Get in, you too!' Sanin placed himself beside him. Polozov sent
+orders by the door-keeper to the postillion to drive carefully--if he
+wanted drinks; the carriage steps grated, the doors slammed, and the
+carriage rolled off.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+It takes less than an hour in these days by rail from Frankfort to
+Wiesbaden; at that time the extra post did it in three hours. They
+changed horses five times. Part of the time Polozov dozed and part of
+the time he simply shook from side to side, holding a cigar in his
+teeth; he talked very little; he did not once look out of the window;
+picturesque views did not interest them; he even announced that
+'nature was the death of him!' Sanin did not speak either, nor did he
+admire the scenery; he had no thought for it. He was all absorbed in
+reflections and memories. At the stations Polozov paid with exactness,
+took the time by his watch, and tipped the postillions--more or
+less--according to their zeal. When they had gone half way, he took
+two oranges out of the hamper of edibles, and choosing out the better,
+offered the other to Sanin. Sanin looked steadily at his companion,
+and suddenly burst out laughing.
+
+'What are you laughing at?' the latter inquired, very carefully
+peeling his orange with his short white nails.
+
+'What at?' repeated Sanin. 'Why, at our journey together.'
+
+'What about it?' Polozov inquired again, dropping into his mouth one
+of the longitudinal sections into which an orange parts.
+
+'It's so very strange. Yesterday I must confess I thought no more of
+you than of the Emperor of China, and to-day I'm driving with you to
+sell my estate to your wife, of whom, too, I have not the slightest
+idea.'
+
+'Anything may happen,' responded Polozov. 'When you've lived a bit
+longer, you won't be surprised at anything. For instance, can you
+fancy me riding as an orderly officer? But I did, and the Grand Duke
+Mihail Pavlovitch gave the order, 'Trot! let him trot, that fat
+cornet! Trot now! Look sharp!'
+
+Sanin scratched behind his ear.
+
+'Tell me, please, Ippolit Sidorovitch, what is your wife like? What is
+her character? It's very necessary for me to know that, you see.'
+
+'It was very well for him to shout, "Trot!"' Polozov went on with
+sudden vehemence, 'But me! how about me? I thought to myself, "You
+can take your honours and epaulettes--and leave me in peace!" But ...
+you asked about my wife? What my wife is? A person like any one else.
+Don't wear your heart upon your sleeve with her--she doesn't like
+that. The great thing is to talk a lot to her ... something for her to
+laugh at. Tell her about your love, or something ... but make it more
+amusing, you know.'
+
+'How more amusing?'
+
+'Oh, you told me, you know, that you were in love, wanting to get
+married. Well, then, describe that.'
+
+Sanin was offended. 'What do you find laughable in that?'
+
+Polozov only rolled his eyes. The juice from the orange was trickling
+down his chin.
+
+'Was it your wife sent you to Frankfort to shop for her?' asked Sanin
+after a short time.
+
+'Yes, it was she.'
+
+'What are the purchases?'
+
+'Toys, of course.'
+
+'Toys? have you any children?'
+
+Polozov positively moved away from Sanin.
+
+'That's likely! What do I want with children? Feminine fallals ...
+finery. For the toilet.'
+
+'Do you mean to say you understand such things?'
+
+'To be sure I do.'
+
+'But didn't you tell me you didn't interfere in any of your wife's
+affairs?'
+
+'I don't in any other. But this ... is no consequence. To pass the
+time--one may do it. And my wife has confidence in my taste. And I'm a
+first-rate hand at bargaining.'
+
+Polozov began to speak by jerks; he was exhausted already. 'And is
+your wife very rich?'
+
+'Rich; yes, rather! Only she keeps the most of it for herself.'
+
+'But I expect you can't complain either?'
+
+'Well, I'm her husband. I'm hardly likely not to get some benefit from
+it! And I'm of use to her. With me she can do just as she likes! I'm
+easy-going!'
+
+Polozov wiped his face with a silk handkerchief and puffed painfully,
+as though to say, 'Have mercy on me; don't force me to utter another
+word. You see how hard it is for me.'
+
+Sanin left him in peace, and again sank into meditation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hotel in Wiesbaden, before which the carriage stopped, was exactly
+like a palace. Bells were promptly set ringing in its inmost recesses;
+a fuss and bustle arose; men of good appearance in black frock-coats
+skipped out at the principal entrance; a door-keeper who was a blaze
+of gold opened the carriage doors with a flourish.
+
+Like some triumphant general Polozov alighted and began to ascend a
+staircase strewn with rugs and smelling of agreeable perfumes. To
+him flew up another man, also very well dressed but with a Russian
+face--his valet. Polozov observed to him that for the future he
+should always take him everywhere with him, for the night before at
+Frankfort, he, Polozov, had been left for the night without hot water!
+The valet portrayed his horror on his face, and bending down quickly,
+took off his master's goloshes.
+
+'Is Maria Nikolaevna at home?' inquired Polozov.
+
+'Yes, sir. Madam is pleased to be dressing. Madam is pleased to be
+dining to-night at the Countess Lasunsky's.'
+
+'Ah! there?... Stay! There are things there in the carriage; get them
+all yourself and bring them up. And you, Dmitri Pavlovitch,' added
+Polozov, 'take a room for yourself and come in in three-quarters of an
+hour. We will dine together.'
+
+Polozov waddled off, while Sanin asked for an inexpensive room for
+himself; and after setting his attire to rights, and resting a
+little, he repaired to the immense apartment occupied by his Serenity
+(Durchlaucht) Prince von Polozov.
+
+He found this 'prince' enthroned in a luxurious velvet arm-chair in
+the middle of a most magnificent drawing-room. Sanin's phlegmatic
+friend had already had time to have a bath and to array himself in a
+most sumptuous satin dressing-gown; he had put a crimson fez on his
+head. Sanin approached him and scrutinised him for some time. Polozov
+was sitting rigid as an idol; he did not even turn his face in his
+direction, did not even move an eyebrow, did not utter a sound. It was
+truly a sublime spectacle! After having admired him for a couple of
+minutes, Sanin was on the point of speaking, of breaking this hallowed
+silence, when suddenly the door from the next room was thrown open,
+and in the doorway appeared a young and beautiful lady in a white
+silk dress trimmed with black lace, and with diamonds on her arms and
+neck--Maria Nikolaevna Polozov. Her thick fair hair fell on both sides
+of her head, braided, but not fastened up into a knot.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+'Ah, I beg your pardon!' she said with a smile half-embarrassed,
+half-ironical, instantly taking hold of one end of a plait of her hair
+and fastening on Sanin her large, grey, clear eyes.
+
+'I did not think you had come yet.'
+
+'Sanin, Dmitri Pavlovitch--known him from a boy,' observed Polozov, as
+before not turning towards him and not getting up, but pointing at him
+with one finger.
+
+'Yes.... I know.... You told me before. Very glad to make your
+acquaintance. But I wanted to ask you, Ippolit Sidorovitch.... My maid
+seems to have lost her senses to-day ...'
+
+'To do your hair up?'
+
+'Yes, yes, please. I beg your pardon,' Maria Nikolaevna repeated with
+the same smile. She nodded to Sanin, and turning swiftly, vanished
+through the doorway, leaving behind her a fleeting but graceful
+impression of a charming neck, exquisite shoulders, an exquisite
+figure.
+
+Polozov got up, and rolling ponderously, went out by the same door.
+
+Sanin did not doubt for a single second that his presence in 'Prince
+Polozov's' drawing-room was a fact perfectly well known to its
+mistress; the whole point of her entry had been the display of her
+hair, which was certainly beautiful. Sanin was inwardly delighted
+indeed at this freak on the part of Madame Polozov; if, he thought,
+she is anxious to impress me, to dazzle me, perhaps, who knows, she
+will be accommodating about the price of the estate. His heart was so
+full of Gemma that all other women had absolutely no significance for
+him; he hardly noticed them; and this time he went no further than
+thinking, 'Yes, it was the truth they told me; that lady's really
+magnificent to look at!'
+
+But had he not been in such an exceptional state of mind he would most
+likely have expressed himself differently; Maria Nikolaevna Polozov,
+by birth Kolishkin, was a very striking personality. And not that she
+was of a beauty to which no exception could be taken; traces of her
+plebeian origin were rather clearly apparent in her. Her forehead was
+low, her nose rather fleshy and turned up; she could boast neither
+of the delicacy of her skin nor of the elegance of her hands and
+feet--but what did all that matter? Any one meeting her would not,
+to use Pushkin's words, have stood still before 'the holy shrine of
+beauty,' but before the sorcery of a half-Russian, half-Gipsy woman's
+body in its full flower and full power ... and he would have been
+nothing loath to stand still!
+
+But Gemma's image preserved Sanin like the three-fold armour of which
+the poets sing.
+
+Ten minutes later Maria Nikolaevna appeared again, escorted by her
+husband. She went up to Sanin ... and her walk was such that some
+eccentrics of that--alas!--already, distant day, were simply crazy
+over her walk alone. 'That woman, when she comes towards one, seems as
+though she is bringing all the happiness of one's life to meet one,'
+one of them used to say. She went up to Sanin, and holding out her
+hand to him, said in her caressing and, as it were, subdued voice in
+Russian, 'You will wait for me, won't you? I'll be back soon.'
+
+Sanin bowed respectfully, while Maria Nikolaevna vanished behind the
+curtain over the outside door; and as she vanished turned her head
+back over her shoulder, and smiled again, and again left behind her
+the same impression of grace.
+
+When she smiled, not one and not two, but three dimples came out on
+each cheek, and her eyes smiled more than her lips--long, crimson,
+juicy lips with two tiny moles on the left side of them.
+
+Polozov waddled into the room and again established himself in the
+arm-chair. He was speechless as before; but from time to time a queer
+smile puffed out his colourless and already wrinkled cheeks. He looked
+like an old man, though he was only three years older than Sanin.
+
+The dinner with which he regaled his guest would of course have
+satisfied the most exacting gourmand, but to Sanin it seemed endless,
+insupportable! Polozov ate slowly, 'with feeling, with judgment,
+with deliberation,' bending attentively over his plate, and sniffing
+at almost every morsel. First he rinsed his mouth with wine, then
+swallowed it and smacked his lips.... Over the roast meat he suddenly
+began to talk--but of what? Of merino sheep, of which he was intending
+to order a whole flock, and in such detail, with such tenderness,
+using all the while endearing pet names for them. After drinking a cup
+of coffee, hot to boiling point (he had several times in a voice of
+tearful irritation mentioned to the waiter that he had been served the
+evening before with coffee, cold--cold as ice!) and bitten off the end
+of a Havannah cigar with his crooked yellow teeth, he dropped off, as
+his habit was, into a nap, to the intense delight of Sanin, who began
+walking up and down with noiseless steps on the soft carpet, and
+dreaming of his life with Gemma and of what news he would bring back
+to her. Polozov, however, awoke, as he remarked himself, earlier than
+usual--he had slept only an hour and a half--and after drinking a
+glass of iced seltzer water, and swallowing eight spoonfuls of jam,
+Russian jam, which his valet brought him in a dark-green genuine
+'Kiev' jar, and without which, in his own words, he could not live,
+he stared with his swollen eyes at Sanin and asked him wouldn't he
+like to play a game of 'fools' with him. Sanin agreed readily; he
+was afraid that Polozov would begin talking again about lambs and
+ewes and fat tails. The host and the visitor both adjourned to the
+drawing-room, the waiter brought in the cards, and the game began,
+not,--of course, for money.
+
+At this innocent diversion Maria Nikolaevna found them on her return
+from the Countess Lasunsky's. She laughed aloud directly she came into
+the room and saw the cards and the open card-table. Sanin jumped up,
+but she cried, 'Sit still; go on with the game. I'll change my dress
+directly and come back to you,' and vanished again with a swish of her
+dress, pulling off her gloves as she went.
+
+She did in fact return very soon. Her evening dress she had exchanged
+for a full lilac silk tea-gown, with open hanging sleeves; a thick
+twisted cord was fastened round her waist. She sat down by her
+husband, and, waiting till he was left 'fool,' said to him, 'Come,
+dumpling, that's enough!' (At the word 'dumpling' Sanin glanced at her
+in surprise, and she smiled gaily, answering his look with a look,
+and displaying all the dimples on her cheeks.) 'I see you are sleepy;
+kiss my hand and get along; and Monsieur Sanin and I will have a chat
+together alone.'
+
+'I'm not sleepy,' observed Polozov, getting up ponderously from his
+easy-chair; 'but as for getting along, I'm ready to get along and to
+kiss your hand.' She gave him the palm of her hand, still smiling and
+looking at Sanin.
+
+Polozov, too, looked at him, and went away without taking leave of
+him.
+
+'Well, tell me, tell me,' said Maria Nikolaevna eagerly, setting both
+her bare elbows on the table and impatiently tapping the nails of one
+hand against the nails of the other, 'Is it true, they say, you are
+going to be married?'
+
+As she said these words, Maria Nikolaevna positively bent her head a
+little on one side so as to look more intently and piercingly into
+Sanin's eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+The free and easy deportment of Madame Polozov would probably for the
+first moment have disconcerted Sanin--though he was not quite a novice
+and had knocked about the world a little--if he had not again seen in
+this very freedom and familiarity a good omen for his undertaking.
+'We must humour this rich lady's caprices,' he decided inwardly; and
+as unconstrainedly as she had questioned him he answered, 'Yes; I am
+going to be married.'
+
+'To whom? To a foreigner?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Did you get acquainted with her lately? In Frankfort?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And what is she? May I know?'
+
+'Certainly. She is a confectioner's daughter.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna opened her eyes wide and lifted her eyebrows.
+
+'Why, this is delightful,' she commented in a drawling voice; 'this is
+exquisite! I imagined that young men like you were not to be met with
+anywhere in these days. A confectioner's daughter!'
+
+'I see that surprises you,' observed Sanin with some dignity; 'but in
+the first place, I have none of these prejudices ...'
+
+'In the first place, it doesn't surprise me in the least,' Maria
+Nikolaevna interrupted; 'I have no prejudices either. I'm the daughter
+of a peasant myself. There! what can you say to that? What does
+surprise and delight me is to have come across a man who's not afraid
+to love. You do love her, I suppose?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Is she very pretty?'
+
+Sanin was slightly stung by this last question.... However, there was
+no drawing back.
+
+'You know, Maria Nikolaevna,' he began, 'every man thinks the face
+of his beloved better than all others; but my betrothed is really
+beautiful.'
+
+'Really? In what style? Italian? antique?'
+
+'Yes; she has very regular features.'
+
+'You have not got her portrait with you?'
+
+'No.' (At that time photography was not yet talked off. Daguerrotypes
+had hardly begun to be common.)
+
+'What's her name?'
+
+'Her name is Gemma.'
+
+'And yours?'
+
+'Dimitri.'
+
+'And your father's?'
+
+'Pavlovitch.'
+
+'Do you know,' Maria Nikolaevna said, still in the same drawling
+voice, 'I like you very much, Dimitri Pavlovitch. You must be an
+excellent fellow. Give me your hand. Let us be friends.'
+
+She pressed his hand tightly in her beautiful, white, strong fingers.
+Her hand was a little smaller than his hand, but much warmer and
+smoother and whiter and more full of life.
+
+'Only, do you know what strikes me?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'You won't be angry? No? You say she is betrothed to you. But was that
+... was that quite necessary?'
+
+Sanin frowned. 'I don't understand you, Maria Nikolaevna.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna gave a soft low laugh, and shaking her head tossed
+back the hair that was falling on her cheeks. 'Decidedly--he's
+delightful,' she commented half pensively, half carelessly. 'A perfect
+knight! After that, there's no believing in the people who maintain
+that the race of idealists is extinct!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna talked Russian all the time, an astonishingly pure
+true Moscow Russian, such as the people, not the nobles speak.
+
+'You've been brought up at home, I expect, in a God-fearing, old
+orthodox family?' she queried. 'You're from what province?'
+
+'Tula.'
+
+'Oh! so we're from the same part. My father ... I daresay you know who
+my father was?'
+
+'Yes, I know.'
+
+'He was born in Tula.... He was a Tula man. Well ... well. Come, let
+us get to business now.'
+
+'That is ... how come to business? What do you mean to say by that?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna half-closed her eyes. 'Why, what did you come here
+for?' (when she screwed up her eyes, their expression became very
+kindly and a little bantering, when she opened them wide, into their
+clear, almost cold brilliancy, there came something-ill-natured
+... something menacing. Her eyes gained a peculiar beauty from her
+eyebrows, which were thick, and met in the centre, and had the
+smoothness of sable fur). 'Don't you want me to buy your estate? You
+want money for your nuptials? Don't you?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And do you want much?'
+
+'I should be satisfied with a few thousand francs at first. Your
+husband knows my estate. You can consult him--I would take a very
+moderate price.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna tossed her head from left to right. '_In the first
+place_,' she began in deliberate tones, drumming with the tips of
+her fingers on the cuff of Sanin's coat, 'I am not in the habit of
+consulting my husband, except about matters of dress--he's my right
+hand in that; _and in the second place_, why do you say that you will
+fix a low price? I don't want to take advantage of your being very
+much in love at the moment, and ready to make any sacrifices....
+I won't accept sacrifices of any kind from you. What? Instead of
+encouraging you ... come, how is one to express it properly?--in your
+noble sentiments, eh? am I to fleece you? that's not my way. I can be
+hard on people, on occasion--only not in that way.'
+
+Sanin was utterly unable to make out whether she was laughing at him
+or speaking seriously, and only said to himself: 'Oh, I can see one
+has to mind what one's about with you!'
+
+A man-servant came in with a Russian samovar, tea-things, cream,
+biscuits, etc., on a big tray; he set all these good things on the
+table between Sanin and Madame Polozov, and retired.
+
+She poured him out a cup of tea. 'You don't object?' she queried, as
+she put sugar in his cup with her fingers ... though sugar-tongs were
+lying close by.
+
+'Oh, please!... From such a lovely hand ...'
+
+He did not finish his phrase, and almost choked over a sip of tea,
+while she watched him attentively and brightly.
+
+'I spoke of a moderate price for my land,' he went on, 'because as you
+are abroad just now, I can hardly suppose you have a great deal of
+cash available, and in fact, I feel myself that the sale ... the
+purchase of my land, under such conditions is something exceptional,
+and I ought to take that into consideration.'
+
+Sanin got confused, and lost the thread of what he was saying, while
+Maria Nikolaevna softly leaned back in her easy-chair, folded her
+arms, and watched him with the same attentive bright look. He was
+silent at last.
+
+'Never mind, go on, go on,' she said, as it were coming to his aid;
+'I'm listening to you. I like to hear you; go on talking.'
+
+Sanin fell to describing his estate, how many acres it contained, and
+where it was situated, and what were its agricultural advantages,
+and what profit could be made from it ... he even referred to the
+picturesque situation of the house; while Maria Nikolaevna still
+watched him, and watched more and more intently and radiantly, and her
+lips faintly stirred, without smiling: she bit them. He felt awkward
+at last; he was silent a second time.
+
+'Dimitri Pavlovitch' began Maria Nikolaevna, and sank into thought
+again.... 'Dimitri Pavlovitch,' she repeated.... 'Do you know what:
+I am sure the purchase of your estate will be a very profitable
+transaction for me, and that we shall come to terms; but you must give
+me two days.... Yes, two days' grace. You are able to endure two days'
+separation from your betrothed, aren't you? Longer I won't keep you
+against your will--I give you my word of honour. But if you want five
+or six thousand francs at once, I am ready with great pleasure to let
+you have it as a loan, and then we'll settle later.'
+
+Sanin got up. 'I must thank you, Maria Nikolaevna, for your
+kindhearted and friendly readiness to do a service to a man almost
+unknown to you. But if that is your decided wish, then I prefer to
+await your decision about my estate--I will stay here two days.'
+
+'Yes; that is my wish, Dimitri Pavlovitch. And will it be very hard
+for you? Very? Tell me.'
+
+'I love my betrothed, Maria Nikolaevna, and to be separated from her
+is hard for me.'
+
+'Ah! you're a heart of gold!' Maria Nikolaevna commented with a sigh.
+'I promise not to torment you too much. Are you going?'
+
+'It is late,' observed Sanin.
+
+'And you want to rest after your journey, and your game of "fools"
+with my husband. Tell me, were you a great friend of Ippolit
+Sidorovitch, my husband?'
+
+'We were educated at the same school.'
+
+'And was he the same then?'
+
+'The same as what?' inquired Sanin. Maria Nikolaevna burst out
+laughing, and laughed till she was red in the face; she put her
+handkerchief to her lips, rose from her chair, and swaying as though
+she were tired, went up to Sanin, and held out her hand to him.
+
+He bowed over it, and went towards the door.
+
+'Come early to-morrow--do you hear?' she called after him. He looked
+back as he went out of the room, and saw that she had again dropped
+into an easy-chair, and flung both arms behind her head. The loose
+sleeves of her tea-gown fell open almost to her shoulders, and it was
+impossible not to admit that the pose of the arms, that the whole
+figure, was enchantingly beautiful.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+Long after midnight the lamp was burning in Sanin's room. He sat down
+to the table and wrote to 'his Gemma.' He told her everything; he
+described the Polozovs--husband and wife--but, more than all, enlarged
+on his own feelings, and ended by appointing a meeting with her in
+three days!!! (with three marks of exclamation). Early in the morning
+he took this letter to the post, and went for a walk in the garden
+of the Kurhaus, where music was already being played. There were few
+people in it as yet; he stood before the arbour in which the orchestra
+was placed, listened to an adaptation of airs from 'Robert le Diable,'
+and after drinking some coffee, turned into a solitary side walk, sat
+down on a bench, and fell into a reverie. The handle of a parasol
+gave him a rapid, and rather vigorous, thump on the shoulder. He
+started.... Before him in a light, grey-green barege dress, in a white
+tulle hat, and _suede_ gloves, stood Maria Nikolaevna, fresh and rosy
+as a summer morning, though the languor of sound unbroken sleep had
+not yet quite vanished from her movements and her eyes.
+
+'Good-morning,' she said. 'I sent after you to-day, but you'd already
+gone out. I've only just drunk my second glass--they're making me
+drink the water here, you know--whatever for, there's no telling ...
+am I not healthy enough? And now I have to walk for a whole hour. Will
+you be my companion? And then we'll have some coffee.'
+
+'I've had some already,' Sanin observed, getting up; 'but I shall be
+very glad to have a walk with you.'
+
+'Very well, give me your arm then; don't be afraid: your betrothed is
+not here--she won't see you.'
+
+Sanin gave a constrained smile. He experienced a disagreeable
+sensation every time Maria Nikolaevna referred to Gemma. However, he
+made haste to bend towards her obediently.... Maria Nikolaevna's arm
+slipped slowly and softly into his arm, and glided over it, and seemed
+to cling tight to it.
+
+'Come--this way,' she said to him, putting up her open parasol over
+her shoulder. 'I'm quite at home in this park; I will take you to the
+best places. And do you know what? (she very often made use of this
+expression), we won't talk just now about that sale, we'll have a
+thorough discussion of that after lunch; but you must tell me now
+about yourself ... so that I may know whom I have to do with. And
+afterwards, if you like, I will tell you about myself. Do you agree?'
+
+'But, Maria Nikolaevna, what interest can there be for you ...'
+
+'Stop, stop. You don't understand me. I don't want to flirt with you.'
+Maria Nikolaevna shrugged her shoulders. 'He's got a betrothed like an
+antique statue, is it likely I am going to flirt with him? But you've
+something to sell, and I'm the purchaser. I want to know what your
+goods are like. Well, of course, you must show what they are like.
+I don't only want to know what I'm buying, but whom I'm buying
+from. That was my father's rule. Come, begin ... come, if not from
+childhood--come now, have you been long abroad? And where have you
+been up till now? Only don't walk so fast, we're in no hurry.'
+
+'I came here from Italy, where I spent several months.'
+
+'Ah, you feel, it seems, a special attraction towards everything
+Italian. It's strange you didn't find your lady-love there. Are you
+fond of art? of pictures? or more of music?'
+
+'I am fond of art.... I like everything beautiful.'
+
+'And music?'
+
+'I like music too.'
+
+'Well, I don't at all. I don't care for anything but Russian
+songs--and that in the country and in the spring--with dancing, you
+know ... red shirts, wreaths of beads, the young grass in the meadows,
+the smell of smoke ... delicious! But we weren't talking of me. Go on,
+tell me.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna walked on, and kept looking at Sanin. She was
+tall--her face was almost on a level with his face.
+
+He began to talk--at first reluctantly, unskilfully--but afterwards
+he talked more freely, chattered away in fact. Maria Nikolaevna was
+a very good listener; and moreover she seemed herself so frank, that
+she led others unconsciously on to frankness. She possessed that
+great gift of 'intimateness'--_le terrible don de la familiarite_--to
+which Cardinal Retz refers. Sanin talked of his travels, of his life
+in Petersburg, of his youth.... Had Maria Nikolaevna been a lady
+of fashion, with refined manners, he would never have opened out
+so; but she herself spoke of herself as a 'good fellow,' who had
+no patience with ceremony of any sort; it was in those words that
+she characterised herself to Sanin. And at the same time this 'good
+fellow' walked by his side with feline grace, slightly bending towards
+him, and peeping into his face; and this 'good fellow' walked in the
+form of a young feminine creature, full of the tormenting, fiery, soft
+and seductive charm, of which--for the undoing of us poor weak sinful
+men--only Slav natures are possessed, and but few of them, and those
+never of pure Slav blood, with no foreign alloy. Sanin's walk with
+Maria Nikolaevna, Sanin's talk with Maria Nikolaevna lasted over an
+hour. And they did not stop once; they kept walking about the endless
+avenues of the park, now mounting a hill and admiring the view as
+they went, and now going down into the valley, and getting hidden in
+the thick shadows,--and all the while arm-in-arm. At times Sanin felt
+positively irritated; he had never walked so long with Gemma, his
+darling Gemma ... but this lady had simply taken possession of him,
+and there was no escape! 'Aren't you tired?' he said to her more
+than once. 'I never get tired,' she answered. Now and then they met
+other people walking in the park; almost all of them bowed--some
+respectfully, others even cringingly. To one of them, a very handsome,
+fashionably dressed dark man, she called from a distance with the best
+Parisian accent, '_Comte, vous savez, il ne faut pas venir me voir--ni
+aujourd'hui ni demain_.' The man took off his hat, without speaking,
+and dropped a low bow.
+
+'Who's that?' asked Sanin with the bad habit of asking questions
+characteristic of all Russians.
+
+'Oh, a Frenchman, there are lots of them here ... He's dancing
+attendance on me too. It's time for our coffee, though. Let's go home;
+you must be hungry by this time, I should say. My better half must
+have got his eye-peeps open by now.'
+
+'Better half! Eye-peeps!' Sanin repeated to himself ... 'And speaks
+French so well ... what a strange creature!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Maria Nikolaevna was not mistaken. When she went back into the hotel
+with Sanin, her 'better half or 'dumpling' was already seated, the
+invariable fez on his head, before a table laid for breakfast.
+
+'I've been waiting for you!' he cried, making a sour face. 'I was on
+the point of having coffee without you.'
+
+'Never mind, never mind,' Maria Nikolaevna responded cheerfully. 'Are
+you angry? That's good for you; without that you'd turn into a mummy
+altogether. Here I've brought a visitor. Make haste and ring! Let us
+have coffee--the best coffee--in Saxony cups on a snow-white cloth!'
+
+She threw off her hat and gloves, and clapped her hands.
+
+Polozov looked at her from under his brows.
+
+'What makes you so skittish to-day, Maria Nikolaevna?' he said in an
+undertone.
+
+'That's no business of yours, Ippolit Sidoritch! Ring! Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, sit down and have some coffee for the second time. Ah, how
+nice it is to give orders! There's no pleasure on earth like it!'
+
+'When you're obeyed,' grumbled her husband again.
+
+'Just so, when one's obeyed! That's why I'm so happy! Especially with
+you. Isn't it so, dumpling? Ah, here's the coffee.'
+
+On the immense tray, which the waiter brought in, there lay also a
+playbill. Maria Nikolaevna snatched it up at once.
+
+'A drama!' she pronounced with indignation, 'a German drama.
+No matter; it's better than a German comedy. Order a box for
+me--_baignoire_--or no ... better the _Fremden-Loge_,' she turned to
+the waiter. 'Do you hear: the _Fremden-Loge_ it must be!'
+
+'But if the _Fremden-Loge_ has been already taken by his excellency,
+the director of the town (_seine Excellenz der Herr Stadt-Director_),'
+the waiter ventured to demur.
+
+'Give his excellency ten _thalers_, and let the box be mine! Do you
+hear!'
+
+The waiter bent his head humbly and mournfully.
+
+'Dimitri Pavlovitch, you will go with me to the theatre? the German
+actors are awful, but you will go ... Yes? Yes? How obliging you are!
+Dumpling, are you not coming?
+
+'You settle it,' Polozov observed into the cup he had lifted to his
+lips.
+
+'Do you know what, you stay at home. You always go to sleep at the
+theatre, and you don't understand much German. I'll tell you what
+you'd better do, write an answer to the overseer--you remember, about
+our mill ... about the peasants' grinding. Tell him that I won't have
+it, and I won't and that's all about it! There's occupation for you
+for the whole evening.'
+
+'All right,' answered Polozov.
+
+'Well then, that's first-rate. You're a darling. And now, gentlemen,
+as we have just been speaking of my overseer, let's talk about our
+great business. Come, directly the waiter has cleared the table,
+you shall tell me all, Dimitri Pavlovitch, about your estate, what
+price you will sell it for, how much you want paid down in advance,
+everything, in fact! (At last, thought Sanin, thank God!) You have
+told me something about it already, you remember, you described your
+garden delightfully, but dumpling wasn't here.... Let him hear, he
+may pick a hole somewhere! I'm delighted to think that I can help you
+to get married, besides, I promised you that I would go into your
+business after lunch, and I always keep my promises, isn't that the
+truth, Ippolit Sidoritch?'
+
+Polozov rubbed his face with his open hand. 'The truth's the truth.
+You don't deceive any one.'
+
+'Never! and I never will deceive any one. Well, Dimitri Pavlovitch,
+expound the case as we express it in the senate.'
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+Sanin proceeded to expound his case, that is to say, again, a second
+time, to describe his property, not touching this time on the beauties
+of nature, and now and then appealing to Polozov for confirmation of
+his 'facts and figures.' But Polozov simply gasped and shook his head,
+whether in approval or disapproval, it would have puzzled the devil,
+one might fancy, to decide. However, Maria Nikolaevna stood in no need
+of his aid. She exhibited commercial and administrative abilities that
+were really astonishing! She was familiar with all the ins-and-outs of
+farming; she asked questions about everything with great exactitude,
+went into every point; every word of hers went straight to the root
+of the matter, and hit the nail on the head. Sanin had not expected
+such a close inquiry, he had not prepared himself for it. And this
+inquiry lasted for fully an hour and a half. Sanin experienced all
+the sensations of the criminal on his trial, sitting on a narrow
+bench confronted by a stern and penetrating judge. 'Why, it's
+a cross-examination!' he murmured to himself dejectedly. Maria
+Nikolaevna kept laughing all the while, as though it were a joke; but
+Sanin felt none the more at ease for that; and when in the course of
+the 'cross-examination' it turned out that he had not clearly realised
+the exact meaning of the words 'repartition' and 'tilth,' he was in a
+cold perspiration all over.
+
+'Well, that's all right!' Maria Nikolaevna decided at last. 'I know
+your estate now ... as well as you do. What price do you suggest per
+soul?' (At that time, as every one knows, the prices of estates were
+reckoned by the souls living as serfs on them.)
+
+'Well ... I imagine ... I could not take less than five hundred
+roubles for each,' Sanin articulated with difficulty. O Pantaleone,
+Pantaleone, where were you! This was when you ought to have cried
+again, 'Barbari!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her eyes upwards as though she were
+calculating.
+
+'Well?' she said at last. 'I think there's no harm in that price.
+But I reserved for myself two days' grace, and you must wait till
+to-morrow. I imagine we shall come to an arrangement, and then you
+will tell me how much you want paid down. And now, _basta cosi_!'
+she cried, noticing Sanin was about to make some reply. 'We've spent
+enough time over filthy lucre ... _a demain les affaires_. Do you
+know what, I'll let you go now ... (she glanced at a little enamelled
+watch, stuck in her belt) ... till three o'clock ... I must let you
+rest. Go and play roulette.'
+
+'I never play games of chance,' observed Sanin.
+
+'Really? Why, you're a paragon. Though I don't either. It's stupid
+throwing away one's money when one's no chance. But go into the
+gambling saloon, and look at the faces. Very comic ones there are
+there. There's one old woman with a rustic headband and a moustache,
+simply delicious! Our prince there's another, a good one too. A
+majestic figure with a nose like an eagle's, and when he puts down a
+_thaler_, he crosses himself under his waistcoat. Read the papers,
+go a walk, do what you like, in fact. But at three o'clock I expect
+you ... _de pied ferme_. We shall have to dine a little earlier. The
+theatre among these absurd Germans begins at half-past six. She held
+out her hand. '_Sans rancune, n'est-ce pas?_'
+
+'Really, Maria Nikolaevna, what reason have I to be annoyed?'
+
+'Why, because I've been tormenting you. Wait a little, you'll see.
+There's worse to come,' she added, fluttering her eyelids, and all her
+dimples suddenly came out on her flushing cheeks. 'Till we meet!'
+
+Sanin bowed and went out. A merry laugh rang out after him, and in
+the looking-glass which he was passing at that instant, the following
+scene was reflected: Maria Nikolaevna had pulled her husband's fez
+over his eyes, and he was helplessly struggling with both hands.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+Oh, what a deep sigh of delight Sanin heaved, when he found himself
+in his room! Indeed, Maria Nikolaevna had spoken the truth, he
+needed rest, rest from all these new acquaintances, collisions,
+conversations, from this suffocating atmosphere which was affecting
+his head and his heart, from this enigmatical, uninvited intimacy with
+a woman, so alien to him! And when was all this taking place? Almost
+the day after he had learnt that Gemma loved him, after he had become
+betrothed to her. Why, it was sacrilege! A thousand times he mentally
+asked forgiveness of his pure chaste dove, though he could not really
+blame himself for anything; a thousand times over he kissed the cross
+she had given him. Had he not the hope of bringing the business, for
+which he had come to Wiesbaden, to a speedy and successful conclusion,
+he would have rushed off headlong, back again, to sweet Frankfort, to
+that dear house, now his own home, to her, to throw himself at her
+loved feet.... But there was no help for it! The cup must be drunk
+to the dregs, he must dress, go to dinner, and from there to the
+theatre.... If only she would let him go to-morrow!
+
+One other thing confounded him, angered him; with love, with
+tenderness, with grateful transport he dreamed of Gemma, of their life
+together, of the happiness awaiting him in the future, and yet this
+strange woman, this Madame Polozov persistently floated--no! not
+floated, poked herself, so Sanin with special vindictiveness expressed
+it--_poked herself_ in and faced his eyes, and he could not rid
+himself of her image, could not help hearing her voice, recalling her
+words, could not help being aware even of the special scent, delicate,
+fresh and penetrating, like the scent of yellow lilies, that was
+wafted from her garments. This lady was obviously fooling him, and
+trying in every way to get over him ... what for? what did she want?
+Could it be merely the caprice of a spoiled, rich, and most likely
+unprincipled woman? And that husband! What a creature he was! What
+were his relations with her? And why would these questions keep coming
+into his head, when he, Sanin, had really no interest whatever in
+either Polozov or his wife? Why could he not drive away that intrusive
+image, even when he turned with his whole soul to another image,
+clear and bright as God's sunshine? How, through those almost divine
+features, dare _those others_ force themselves upon him? And not only
+that; those other features smiled insolently at him. Those grey,
+rapacious eyes, those dimples, those snake-like tresses, how was it
+all that seemed to cleave to him, and to shake it all off, and fling
+it away, he was unable, had not the power?
+
+Nonsense! nonsense! to-morrow it would all vanish and leave no
+trace.... But would she let him go to-morrow?
+
+Yes.... All these question he put to himself, but the time was moving
+on to three o'clock, and he put on a black frockcoat and after a turn
+in the park, went in to the Polozovs!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He found in their drawing-room a secretary of the legation, a very
+tall light-haired German, with the profile of a horse, and his hair
+parted down the back of his head (at that time a new fashion), and ...
+oh, wonder! whom besides? Von Doenhof, the very officer with whom he
+had fought a few days before! He had not the slightest expectation of
+meeting him there and could not help being taken aback. He greeted
+him, however.
+
+'Are you acquainted?' asked Maria Nikolaevna who had not failed to
+notice Sanin's embarrassment.
+
+'Yes ... I have already had the honour,' said Doenhof, and bending a
+little aside, in an undertone he added to Maria Nikolaevna, with a
+smile, 'The very man ... your compatriot ... the Russian ...'
+
+'Impossible!' she exclaimed also in an undertone; she shook her finger
+at him, and at once began to bid good-bye both to him and the long
+secretary, who was, to judge by every symptom, head over ears in love
+with her; he positively gaped every time he looked at her. Doenhof
+promptly took leave with amiable docility, like a friend of the family
+who understands at half a word what is expected of him; the secretary
+showed signs of restiveness, but Maria Nikolaevna turned him out
+without any kind of ceremony.
+
+'Get along to your sovereign mistress,' she said to him (there was
+at that time in Wiesbaden a certain princess di Monaco, who looked
+surprisingly like a _cocotte_ of the poorer sort); 'what do you want
+to stay with a plebeian like me for?'
+
+'Really, dear madam,' protested the luckless secretary,' all the
+princesses in the world....'
+
+But Maria Nikolaevna was remorseless, and the secretary went away,
+parting and all.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna was dressed that day very much 'to her advantage,'
+as our grandmothers used to say. She wore a pink glace silk dress,
+with sleeves _a la Fontange_, and a big diamond in each ear. Her eyes
+sparkled as much as her diamonds; she seemed in a good humour and in
+high spirits.
+
+She made Sanin sit beside her, and began talking to him about Paris,
+where she was intending to go in a few days, of how sick she was of
+Germans, how stupid they were when they tried to be clever, and how
+inappropriately clever sometimes when they were stupid; and suddenly,
+point-blank, as they say--_a brule pourpoint_--asked him, was it true
+that he had fought a duel with the very officer who had been there
+just now, only a few days ago, on account of a lady?
+
+'How did you know that?' muttered Sanin, dumfoundered.
+
+'The earth is full of rumours, Dimitri Pavlovitch; but anyway, I know
+you were quite right, perfectly right, and behaved like a knight. Tell
+me, was that lady your betrothed?'
+
+Sanin slightly frowned ...
+
+'There, I won't, I won't,' Maria Nikolaevna hastened to say. 'You
+don't like it, forgive me, I won't do it, don't be angry!' Polozov
+came in from the next room with a newspaper in his hand. 'What do you
+want? Or is dinner ready?'
+
+'Dinner'll be ready directly, but just see what I've read in the
+_Northern Bee_ ... Prince Gromoboy is dead.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna raised her head.
+
+'Ah! I wish him the joys of Paradise! He used,' she turned to Sanin,
+'to fill all my rooms with camellias every February on my birthday,
+But it wasn't worth spending the winter in Petersburg for that. He
+must have been over seventy, I should say?' she said to her husband.
+
+'Yes, he was. They describe his funeral in the paper. All the court
+were present. And here's a poem too, of Prince Kovrizhkin's on the
+occasion.'
+
+'That's nice!'
+
+'Shall I read them? The prince calls him the good man of wise
+counsel.'
+
+'No, don't. The good man of wise counsel? He was simply the goodman
+of Tatiana Yurevna. Come to dinner. Life is for the living. Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, your arm.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dinner was, as on the day before, superb, and the meal was a very
+lively one. Maria Nikolaevna knew how to tell a story ... a rare gift
+in a woman, and especially in a Russian one! She did not restrict
+herself in her expressions; her countrywomen received particularly
+severe treatment at her hands. Sanin was more than once set laughing
+by some bold and well-directed word. Above all, Maria Nikolaevna
+had no patience with hypocrisy, cant, and humbug. She discovered it
+almost everywhere. She, as it were, plumed herself on and boasted of
+the humble surroundings in which she had begun life. She told rather
+queer anecdotes of her relations in the days of her childhood, spoke
+of herself as quite as much of a clodhopper as Natalya Kirilovna
+Narishkin. It became apparent to Sanin that she had been through a
+great deal more in her time than the majority of women of her age.
+
+Polozov ate meditatively, drank attentively, and only occasionally
+cast first on his wife, then on Sanin, his lightish, dim-looking, but,
+in reality, very keen eyes.
+
+'What a clever darling you are!' cried Maria Nikolaevna, turning to
+him; 'how well you carried out all my commissions in Frankfort! I
+could give you a kiss on your forehead for it, but you're not very
+keen after kisses.'
+
+'I'm not,' responded Polozov, and he cut a pine-apple with a silver
+knife.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna looked at him and drummed with her fingers on the
+table. 'So our bet's on, isn't it?' she said significantly. 'Yes, it's
+on.'
+
+'All right. You'll lose it.'
+
+Polozov stuck out his chin. 'Well, this time you mustn't be too
+sanguine, Maria Nikolaevna, maybe you will lose.'
+
+'What is the bet? May I know?' asked Sanin.
+
+'No ... not now,' answered Maria Nikolaevna, and she laughed.
+
+It struck seven. The waiter announced that the carriage was ready.
+Polozov saw his wife out, and at once waddled back to his easy-chair.
+
+'Mind now! Don't forget the letter to the overseer,' Maria Nikolaevna
+shouted to him from the hall.
+
+'I'll write, don't worry yourself. I'm a business-like person.'
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+
+In the year 1840, the theatre at Wiesbaden was a poor affair even
+externally, and its company, for affected and pitiful mediocrity, for
+studious and vulgar commonplaceness, not one hair's-breadth above the
+level, which might be regarded up to now as the normal one in all
+German theatres, and which has been displayed in perfection lately by
+the company in Carlsruhe, under the 'illustrious' direction of Herr
+Devrient. At the back of the box taken for her 'Serenity Madame von
+Polozov' (how the waiter devised the means of getting it, God knows,
+he can hardly have really bribed the stadt-director!) was a little
+room, with sofas all round it; before she went into the box, Maria
+Nikolaevna asked Sanin to draw up the screen that shut the box off
+from the theatre.
+
+'I don't want to be seen,' she said, 'or else they'll be swarming
+round directly, you know.' She made him sit down beside her with his
+back to the house so that the box seemed to be empty. The orchestra
+played the overture from the _Marriage of Figaro_. The curtain rose,
+the play began.
+
+It was one of those numerous home-raised products in which well-read
+but talentless authors, in choice, but dead language, studiously and
+cautiously enunciated some 'profound' or 'vital and palpitating'
+idea, portrayed a so-called tragic conflict, and produced dulness ...
+an Asiatic dulness, like Asiatic cholera. Maria Nikolaevna listened
+patiently to half an act, but when the first lover, discovering the
+treachery of his mistress (he was dressed in a cinnamon-coloured
+coat with 'puffs' and a plush collar, a striped waistcoat with
+mother-of-pearl buttons, green trousers with straps of varnished
+leather, and white chamois leather gloves), when this lover pressed
+both fists to his bosom, and poking his two elbows out at an acute
+angle, howled like a dog, Maria Nikolaevna could not stand it.
+
+'The humblest French actor in the humblest little provincial town acts
+better and more naturally than the highest German celebrity,' she
+cried in indignation; and she moved away and sat down in the little
+room at the back. 'Come here,' she said to Sanin, patting the sofa
+beside her. 'Let's talk.'
+
+Sanin obeyed.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna glanced at him. 'Ah, I see you're as soft as silk!
+Your wife will have an easy time of it with you. That buffoon,' she
+went on, pointing with her fan towards the howling actor (he was
+acting the part of a tutor), 'reminded me of my young days; I, too,
+was in love with a teacher. It was my first ... no, my second passion.
+The first time I fell in love with a young monk of the Don monastery.
+I was twelve years old. I only saw him on Sundays. He used to wear
+a short velvet cassock, smelt of lavender water, and as he made his
+way through the crowd with the censer, used to say to the ladies in
+French, "_Pardon, excusez_" but never lifted his eyes, and he had
+eyelashes like that!' Maria Nikolaevna marked off with the nail of her
+middle finger quite half the length of the little finger and showed
+Sanin. 'My tutor was called--Monsieur Gaston! I must tell you he was
+an awfully learned and very severe person, a Swiss,--and with such an
+energetic face! Whiskers black as pitch, a Greek profile, and lips
+that looked like cast iron! I was afraid of him! He was the only man I
+have ever been afraid of in my life. He was tutor to my brother, who
+died ... was drowned. A gipsy woman has foretold a violent death for
+me too, but that's all moonshine. I don't believe in it. Only fancy
+Ippolit Sidoritch with a dagger!'
+
+'One may die from something else than a dagger,' observed Sanin.
+
+'All that's moonshine! Are you superstitious? I'm not a bit. What is
+to be, will be. Monsieur Gaston used to live in our house, in the room
+over my head. Sometimes I'd wake up at night and hear his footstep--he
+used to go to bed very late--and my heart would stand still with
+veneration, or some other feeling. My father could hardly read and
+write himself, but he gave us an excellent education. Do you know, I
+learnt Latin!'
+
+'You? learnt Latin?'
+
+'Yes; I did. Monsieur Gaston taught me. I read the _AEneid_ with him.
+It's a dull thing, but there are fine passages. Do you remember when
+Dido and AEneas are in the forest?...'
+
+'Yes, yes, I remember,' Sanin answered hurriedly. He had long ago
+forgotten all his Latin, and had only very faint notions about the
+_AEneid_.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna glanced at him, as her way was, a little from one
+side and looking upwards. 'Don't imagine, though, that I am very
+learned. Mercy on us! no; I'm not learned, and I've no talents of any
+sort. I scarcely know how to write ... really; I can't read aloud; nor
+play the piano, nor draw, nor sew--nothing! That's what I am--there
+you have me!'
+
+She threw out her hands. 'I tell you all this,' she said, 'first,
+so as not to hear those fools (she pointed to the stage where at
+that instant the actor's place was being filled by an actress, also
+howling, and also with her elbows projecting before her) and secondly,
+because I'm in your debt; you told me all about yourself yesterday.'
+
+'It was your pleasure to question me,' observed Sanin.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna suddenly turned to him. 'And it's not your pleasure
+to know just what sort of woman I am? I can't wonder at it, though,'
+she went on, leaning back again on the sofa cushions. 'A man just
+going to be married, and for love, and after a duel.... What thoughts
+could he have for anything else?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna relapsed into dreamy silence, and began biting the
+handle of her fan with her big, but even, milkwhite teeth.
+
+And Sanin felt mounting to his head again that intoxication which he
+had not been able to get rid of for the last two days.
+
+The conversation between him and Maria Nikolaevna was carried on in an
+undertone, almost in a whisper, and this irritated and disturbed him
+the more....
+
+When would it all end?
+
+Weak people never put an end to things themselves--they always wait
+for the end.
+
+Some one sneezed on the stage; this sneeze had been put into the play
+by the author as the 'comic relief' or 'element'; there was certainly
+no other comic element in it; and the audience made the most of it;
+they laughed.
+
+This laugh, too, jarred upon Sanin.
+
+There were moments when he actually did not know whether he was
+furious or delighted, bored or amused. Oh, if Gemma could have seen
+him!
+
+'It's really curious,' Maria Nikolaevna began all at once. 'A man
+informs one and in such a calm voice, "I am going to get married"; but
+no one calmly says to one, "I'm going to throw myself in the water."
+And yet what difference is there? It's curious, really.'
+
+Annoyance got the upper hand of Sanin. 'There's a great difference,
+Maria Nikolaevna! It's not dreadful at all to throw oneself in the
+water if one can swim; and besides ... as to the strangeness of
+marriages, if you come to that ...'
+
+He stopped short abruptly and bit his tongue.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna slapped her open hand with her fan.
+
+'Go on, Dimitri Pavlovitch, go on--I know what you were going to say.
+"If it comes to that, my dear madam, Maria Nikolaevna Polozov," you
+were going to say, "anything more curious than _your_ marriage it
+would be impossible to conceive.... I know your husband well, from a
+child!" That's what you were going to say, you who can swim!'
+
+'Excuse me,' Sanin was beginning....
+
+'Isn't it the truth? Isn't it the truth?' Maria Nikolaevna pronounced
+insistently.
+
+'Come, look me in the face and tell me I was wrong!'
+
+Sanin did not know what to do with his eyes. 'Well, if you like; it's
+the truth, if you absolutely insist upon it,' he said at last.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna shook her head. 'Quite so, quite so. Well, and did
+you ask yourself, you who can swim, what could be the reason of such
+a strange ... step on the part of a woman, not poor ... and not a
+fool ... and not ugly? All that does not interest you, perhaps, but
+no matter. I'll tell you the reason not this minute, but directly the
+_entr'acte_ is over. I am in continual uneasiness for fear some one
+should come in....'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna had hardly uttered this last word when the outer door
+actually was half opened, and into the box was thrust a head--red,
+oily, perspiring, still young, but toothless; with sleek long hair,
+a pendent nose, huge ears like a bat's, with gold spectacles on
+inquisitive dull eyes, and a _pince-nez_ over the spectacles. The head
+looked round, saw Maria Nikolaevna, gave a nasty grin, nodded.... A
+scraggy neck craned in after it....
+
+Maria Nikolaevna shook her handkerchief at it. 'I'm not at home! _Ich
+bin nicht zu Hause, Herr P....! Ich bin nicht zu Hause.... Ksh-sk!
+ksh-sh-sh!_'
+
+The head was disconcerted, gave a forced laugh, said with a sort of
+sob, in imitation of Liszt, at whose feet he had once reverently
+grovelled, '_Sehr gut, sehr gut!_' and vanished.
+
+'What is that object?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'Oh, a Wiesbaden critic. A literary man or a flunkey, as you like. He
+is in the pay of a local speculator here, and so is bound to praise
+everything and be ecstatic over every one, though for his part he is
+soaked through and through with the nastiest venom, to which he does
+not dare to give vent. I am afraid he's an awful scandalmonger; he'll
+run at once to tell every one I'm in the theatre. Well, what does it
+matter?'
+
+The orchestra played through a waltz, the curtain floated up again....
+The grimacing and whimpering began again on the stage.
+
+'Well,' began Maria Nikolaevna, sinking again on to the sofa. 'Since
+you are here and obliged to sit with me, instead of enjoying the
+society of your betrothed--don't turn away your eyes and get cross--I
+understand you, and have promised already to let you go to the other
+end of the earth--but now hear my confession. Do you care to know what
+I like more than anything?'
+
+'Freedom,' hazarded Sanin.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna laid her hand on his hand.
+
+'Yes, Dimitri Pavlovitch,' she said, and in her voice there was a note
+of something special, a sort of unmistakable sincerity and gravity,
+'freedom, more than all and before all. And don't imagine I am
+boasting of this--there is nothing praiseworthy in it; only it's _so_
+and always will be _so_ with me to the day of my death. I suppose it
+must have been that I saw a great deal of slavery in my childhood and
+suffered enough from it. Yes, and Monsieur Gaston, my tutor, opened
+my eyes too. Now you can, perhaps, understand why I married Ippolit
+Sidoritch: with him I'm free, perfectly free as air, as the wind....
+And I knew that before marriage; I knew that with him I should be a
+free Cossack!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna paused and flung her fan aside.
+
+'I will tell you one thing more; I have no distaste for reflection ...
+it's amusing, and indeed our brains are given us for that; but on the
+consequences of what I do I never reflect, and if I suffer I don't
+pity myself--not a little bit; it's not worth it. I have a favourite
+saying: _Cela ne tire pas a consequence_,--I don't know how to say
+that in Russian. And after all, what does _tire a consequence_? I
+shan't be asked to give an account of myself here, you see--in this
+world; and up there (she pointed upwards with her finger), well, up
+there--let them manage as best they can. When they come to judge me
+up there, _I_ shall not be _I_! Are you listening to me? Aren't you
+bored?'
+
+Sanin was sitting bent up. He raised his head. 'I'm not at all bored,
+Maria Nikolaevna, and I am listening to you with curiosity. Only I ...
+confess ... I wonder why you say all this to me?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna edged a little away on the sofa.
+
+'You wonder?... Are you slow to guess? Or so modest?'
+
+Sanin lifted his head higher than before.
+
+'I tell you all this,' Maria Nikolaevna continued in an unmoved tone,
+which did not, however, at all correspond with the expression of her
+face, 'because I like you very much; yes, don't be surprised, I'm not
+joking; because since I have met you, it would be painful to me that
+you had a disagreeable recollection of me ... not disagreeable even,
+that I shouldn't mind, but untrue. That's why I have made you come
+here, and am staying alone with you and talking to you so openly....
+Yes, yes, openly. I'm not telling a lie. And observe, Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, I know you're in love with another woman, that you're
+going to be married to her.... Do justice to my disinterestedness!
+Though indeed it's a good opportunity for you to say in your turn:
+_Cela ne tire pas a consequence_!'
+
+She laughed, but her laugh suddenly broke off, and she stayed
+motionless, as though her own words had suddenly struck her, and in
+her eyes, usually so gay and bold, there was a gleam of something like
+timidity, even like sadness.
+
+'Snake! ah, she's a snake!' Sanin was thinking meanwhile; 'but what a
+lovely snake!'
+
+'Give me my opera-glass,' Maria Nikolaevna said suddenly. 'I want to
+see whether this _jeune premiere_ really is so ugly. Upon my word, one
+might fancy the government appointed her in the interests of morality,
+so that the young men might not lose their heads over her.'
+
+Sanin handed her the opera-glass, and as she took it from him,
+swiftly, but hardly audibly, she snatched his hand in both of hers.
+
+'Please don't be serious,' she whispered with a smile. 'Do you know
+what, no one can put fetters on me, but then you see I put no fetters
+on others. I love freedom, and I don't acknowledge duties--not only
+for myself. Now move to one side a little, and let us listen to the
+play.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her opera-glass upon the stage, and Sanin
+proceeded to look in the same direction, sitting beside her in the
+half dark of the box, and involuntarily drinking in the warmth and
+fragrance of her luxurious body, and as involuntarily turning over
+and over in his head all she had said during the evening--especially
+during the last minutes.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+
+The play lasted over an hour longer, but Maria Nikolaevna and Sanin
+soon gave up looking at the stage. A conversation sprang up between
+them again, and went on the same lines as before; only this time Sanin
+was less silent. Inwardly he was angry with himself and with Maria
+Nikolaevna; he tried to prove to her all the inconsistency of her
+'theory,' as though she cared for theories! He began arguing with her,
+at which she was secretly rejoiced; if a man argues, it means that he
+is giving in or will give in. He had taken the bait, was giving way,
+had left off keeping shyly aloof! She retorted, laughed, agreed, mused
+dreamily, attacked him ... and meanwhile his face and her face were
+close together, his eyes no longer avoided her eyes.... Those eyes
+of hers seemed to ramble, seemed to hover over his features, and he
+smiled in response to them--a smile of civility, but still a smile.
+It was so much gained for her that he had gone off into abstractions,
+that he was discoursing upon truth in personal relations, upon
+duty, the sacredness of love and marriage.... It is well known that
+these abstract propositions serve admirably as a beginning ... as a
+starting-point....
+
+People who knew Maria Nikolaevna well used to maintain that when her
+strong and vigorous personality showed signs of something soft and
+modest, something almost of maidenly shamefacedness, though one
+wondered where she could have got it from ... then ... then, things
+were taking a dangerous turn.
+
+Things had apparently taken such a turn for Sanin.... He would have
+felt contempt for himself, if he could have succeeded in concentrating
+his attention for one instant; but he had not time to concentrate his
+mind nor to despise himself.
+
+She wasted no time. And it all came from his being so very
+good-looking! One can but exclaim, No man knows what may be his making
+or his undoing!
+
+The play was over. Maria Nikolaevna asked Sanin to put on her shawl
+and did not stir, while he wrapped the soft fabric round her really
+queenly shoulders. Then she took his arm, went out into the corridor,
+and almost cried out aloud. At the very door of the box Doenhof sprang
+up like some apparition; while behind his back she got a glimpse of
+the figure of the Wiesbaden critic. The 'literary man's' oily face was
+positively radiant with malignancy.
+
+'Is it your wish, madam, that I find you your carriage?' said
+the young officer addressing Maria Nikolaevna with a quiver of
+ill-disguised fury in his voice.
+
+'No, thank you,' she answered ... 'my man will find it. Stop!' she
+added in an imperious whisper, and rapidly withdrew drawing Sanin
+along with her.
+
+'Go to the devil! Why are you staring at me?' Doenhof roared suddenly
+at the literary man. He had to vent his feelings upon some one!
+
+'_Sehr gut! sehr gut!_' muttered the literary man, and shuffled off.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna's footman, waiting for her in the entrance, found her
+carriage in no time. She quickly took her seat in it; Sanin leapt in
+after her. The doors were slammed to, and Maria Nikolaevna exploded in
+a burst of laughter.
+
+'What are you laughing at?' Sanin inquired.
+
+'Oh, excuse me, please ... but it struck me: what if Doenhof were to
+have another duel with you ... on my account.... wouldn't that be
+wonderful?'
+
+'Are you very great friends with him?' Sanin asked.
+
+'With him? that boy? He's one of my followers. You needn't trouble
+yourself about him!'
+
+'Oh, I'm not troubling myself at all.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna sighed. 'Ah, I know you're not. But listen, do you
+know what, you're such a darling, you mustn't refuse me one last
+request. Remember in three days' time I am going to Paris, and you are
+returning to Frankfort.... Shall we ever meet again?'
+
+'What is this request?'
+
+'You can ride, of course?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, then, to-morrow morning I'll take you with me, and we'll go a
+ride together out of the town. We'll have splendid horses. Then we'll
+come home, wind up our business, and amen! Don't be surprised, don't
+tell me it's a caprice, and I'm a madcap--all that's very likely--but
+simply say, I consent.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her face towards him. It was dark in the
+carriage, but her eyes glittered even in the darkness.
+
+'Very well, I consent,' said Sanin with a sigh.
+
+'Ah! You sighed!' Maria Nikolaevna mimicked him. 'That means to say,
+as you've begun, you must go on to the bitter end. But no, no....
+You're charming, you're good, and I'll keep my promise. Here's my
+hand, without a glove on it, the right one, for business. Take it, and
+have faith in its pressure. What sort of a woman I am, I don't know;
+but I'm an honest fellow, and one can do business with me.'
+
+Sanin, without knowing very well what he was doing, lifted the hand to
+his lips. Maria Nikolaevna softly took it, and was suddenly still, and
+did not speak again till the carriage stopped.
+
+She began getting out.... What was it? Sanin's fancy? or did he really
+feel on his cheek a swift burning kiss?
+
+'Till to-morrow!' whispered Maria Nikolaevna on the steps, in the
+light of the four tapers of a candelabrum, held up on her appearance
+by the gold-laced door-keeper. She kept her eyes cast down. 'Till
+to-morrow!'
+
+When he got back to his room, Sanin found on the table a letter from
+Gemma. He felt a momentary dismay, and at once made haste to rejoice
+over it to disguise his dismay from himself. It consisted of a few
+lines. She was delighted at the 'successful opening of negotiations,'
+advised him to be patient, and added that all at home were well, and
+were already rejoicing at the prospect of seeing him back again. Sanin
+felt the letter rather stiff, he took pen and paper, however ... and
+threw it all aside again. 'Why write? I shall be back myself to-morrow
+... it's high time!'
+
+He went to bed immediately, and tried to get to sleep as quickly as
+possible. If he had stayed up and remained on his legs, he would
+certainly have begun thinking about Gemma, and he was for some reason
+... ashamed to think of her. His conscience was stirring within him.
+But he consoled himself with the reflection that to-morrow it would
+all be over for ever, and he would take leave for good of this
+feather-brained lady, and would forget all this rotten idiocy!...
+
+Weak people in their mental colloquies, eagerly make use of strong
+expressions.
+
+_Et puis ... cela ne tire pas a consequence!_
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+
+Such were Sanin's thoughts, as he went to bed; but what he thought
+next morning when Maria Nikolaevna knocked impatiently at his door
+with the coral handle of her riding-whip, when he saw her in the
+doorway, with the train of a dark-blue riding habit over her arm, with
+a man's small hat on her thickly coiled curls, with a veil thrown
+back over her shoulder, with a smile of invitation on her lips, in
+her eyes, over all her face--what he thought then--history does not
+record.
+
+'Well? are you ready?' rang out a joyous voice.
+
+Sanin buttoned his coat, and took his hat in silence. Maria Nikolaevna
+flung him a bright look, nodded to him, and ran swiftly down the
+staircase. And he ran after her.
+
+The horses were already waiting in the street at the steps. There
+were three of them, a golden chestnut thorough-bred mare, with a
+thin-lipped mouth, that showed the teeth, with black prominent eyes,
+and legs like a stag's, rather thin but beautifully shaped, and full
+of fire and spirit, for Maria Nikolaevna; a big, powerful, rather
+thick-set horse, raven black all over, for Sanin; the third horse was
+destined for the groom. Maria Nikolaevna leaped adroitly on to her
+mare, who stamped and wheeled round, lifting her tail, and sinking
+on to her haunches. But Maria Nikolaevna, who was a first-rate
+horse-woman, reined her in; they had to take leave of Polozov, who in
+his inevitable fez and in an open dressing-gown, came out on to the
+balcony, and from there waved a _batiste_ handkerchief, without the
+faintest smile, rather a frown, in fact, on his face. Sanin too
+mounted his horse; Maria Nikolaevna saluted Polozov with her whip,
+then gave her mare a lash with it on her arched and flat neck. The
+mare reared on her hind legs, made a dash forward, moving with a smart
+and shortened step, quivering in every sinew, biting the air and
+snorting abruptly. Sanin rode behind, and looked at Maria Nikolaevna;
+her slender supple figure, moulded by close-fitting but easy stays,
+swayed to and fro with self-confident grace and skill. She turned her
+head and beckoned him with her eyes alone. He came alongside of her.
+
+'See now, how delightful it is,' she said. 'I tell you at the last,
+before parting, you are charming, and you shan't regret it.'
+
+As she uttered those last words, she nodded her head several times as
+if to confirm them and make him feel their full weight.
+
+She seemed so happy that Sanin was simply astonished; her face even
+wore at times that sedate expression which children sometimes have
+when they are very ... very much pleased.
+
+They rode at a walking pace for the short distance to the city walls,
+but then started off at a vigorous gallop along the high road. It was
+magnificent, real summer weather; the wind blew in their faces, and
+sang and whistled sweetly in their ears. They felt very happy; the
+sense of youth, health and life, of free eager onward motion, gained
+possession of both; it grew stronger every instant.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna reined in her mare, and again went at a walking pace;
+Sanin followed her example.
+
+'This,' she began with a deep blissful sigh, 'this now is the only
+thing worth living for. When you succeed in doing what you want to,
+what seemed impossible--come, enjoy it, heart and soul, to the last
+drop!' She passed her hand across her throat. 'And how good and kind
+one feels oneself then! I now, at this moment ... how good I feel!
+I feel as if I could embrace the whole world! No, not the whole
+world.... That man now I couldn't.' She pointed with her whip at a
+poorly dressed old man who was stealing along on one side. 'But I
+am ready to make him happy. Here, take this,' she shouted loudly in
+German, and she flung a net purse at his feet. The heavy little bag
+(leather purses were not thought of at that time) fell with a ring
+on to the road. The old man was astounded, stood still, while Maria
+Nikolaevna chuckled, and put her mare into a gallop.
+
+'Do you enjoy riding so much?' Sanin asked, as he overtook her.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna reined her mare in once more: only in this way could
+she bring her to a stop.
+
+'I only wanted to get away from thanks. If any one thanks me, he
+spoils my pleasure. You see I didn't do that for his sake, but for my
+own. How dare he thank me? I didn't hear what you asked me.'
+
+'I asked ... I wanted to know what makes you so happy to-day.'
+
+'Do you know what,' said Maria Nikolaevna; either she had again not
+heard Sanin's question, or she did not consider it necessary to answer
+it. 'I'm awfully sick of that groom, who sticks up there behind us,
+and most likely does nothing but wonder when we gentlefolks are going
+home again. How shall we get rid of him?' She hastily pulled a little
+pocket-book out of her pocket. 'Send him back to the town with a note?
+No ... that won't do. Ah! I have it! What's that in front of us? Isn't
+it an inn?'
+
+Sanin looked in the direction she pointed. 'Yes, I believe it is an
+inn.'
+
+'Well, that's first-rate. I'll tell him to stop at that inn and drink
+beer till we come back.'
+
+'But what will he think?'
+
+'What does it matter to us? Besides, he won't think at all; he'll
+drink beer--that's all. Come, Sanin (it was the first time she had
+used his surname alone), on, gallop!'
+
+When they reached the inn, Maria Nikolaevna called the groom up
+and told him what she wished of him. The groom, a man of English
+extraction and English temperament, raised his hand to the beak of his
+cap without a word, jumped off his horse, and took him by the bridle.
+
+'Well, now we are free as the birds of the air!' cried Maria
+Nikolaevna. 'Where shall we go. North, south, east, or west? Look--I'm
+like the Hungarian king at his coronation (she pointed her whip in
+each direction in turn). All is ours! No, do you know what: see, those
+glorious mountains--and that forest! Let's go there, to the mountains,
+to the mountains!'
+
+'_In die Berge wo die Freiheit thront!_'
+
+She turned off the high-road and galloped along a narrow untrodden
+track, which certainly seemed to lead straight to the hills. Sanin
+galloped after her.
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+
+This track soon changed into a tiny footpath, and at last disappeared
+altogether, and was crossed by a stream. Sanin counselled turning
+back, but Maria Nikolaevna said, 'No! I want to get to the mountains!
+Let's go straight, as the birds fly,' and she made her mare leap the
+stream. Sanin leaped it too. Beyond the stream began a wide meadow,
+at first dry, then wet, and at last quite boggy; the water oozed up
+everywhere, and stood in pools in some places. Maria Nikolaevna rode
+her mare straight through these pools on purpose, laughed, and said,
+'Let's be naughty children.'
+
+'Do you know,' she asked Sanin, 'what is meant by pool-hunting?'
+
+'Yes,' answered Sanin.
+
+'I had an uncle a huntsman,' she went on.
+
+'I used to go out hunting with him--in the spring. It was delicious!
+Here we are now, on the pools with you. Only, I see, you're a Russian,
+and yet mean to marry an Italian. Well, that's your sorrow. What's
+that? A stream again! Gee up!'
+
+The horse took the leap, but Maria Nikolaevna's hat fell off her head,
+and her curls tumbled loose over her shoulders. Sanin was just going
+to get off his horse to pick up the hat, but she shouted to him,
+'Don't touch it, I'll get it myself,' bent low down from the saddle,
+hooked the handle of her whip into the veil, and actually did get the
+hat. She put it on her head, but did not fasten up her hair, and again
+darted off, positively holloaing. Sanin dashed along beside her, by
+her side leaped trenches, fences, brooks, fell in and scrambled out,
+flew down hill, flew up hill, and kept watching her face. What a face
+it was! It was all, as it were, wide open: wide-open eyes, eager,
+bright, and wild; lips, nostrils, open too, and breathing eagerly; she
+looked straight before her, and it seemed as though that soul longed
+to master everything it saw, the earth, the sky, the sun, the air
+itself; and would complain of one thing only--that dangers were so
+few, and all she could overcome. 'Sanin!' she cried, 'why, this is
+like Buerger's Lenore! Only you're not dead--eh? Not dead ... I am
+alive!' She let her force and daring have full fling. It seemed not an
+Amazon on a galloping horse, but a young female centaur at full speed,
+half-beast and half-god, and the sober, well-bred country seemed
+astounded, as it was trampled underfoot in her wild riot!
+
+Maria Nikolaevna at last drew up her foaming and bespattered mare; she
+was staggering under her, and Sanin's powerful but heavy horse was
+gasping for breath.
+
+'Well, do you like it?' Maria Nikolaevna asked in a sort of exquisite
+whisper.
+
+'I like it!' Sanin echoed back ecstatically. And his blood was on
+fire.
+
+'This isn't all, wait a bit.' She held out her hand. Her glove was
+torn across.
+
+'I told you I would lead you to the forest, to the mountains.... Here
+they are, the mountains!' The mountains, covered with tall forest,
+rose about two hundred feet from the place they had reached in their
+wild ride. 'Look, here is the road; let us turn into it--and forwards.
+Only at a walk. We must let our horses get their breath.'
+
+They rode on. With one vigorous sweep of her arm Maria Nikolaevna
+flung back her hair. Then she looked at her gloves and took them off.
+'My hands will smell of leather,' she said, 'you won't mind that, eh?'
+... Maria Nikolaevna smiled, and Sanin smiled too. Their mad gallop
+together seemed to have finally brought them together and made them
+friends.
+
+'How old are you?' she asked suddenly.
+
+'Twenty-two.'
+
+'Really? I'm twenty-two too. A nice age. Add both together and you're
+still far off old age. It's hot, though. Am I very red, eh?'
+
+'Like a poppy!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna rubbed her face with her handkerchief. 'We've only
+to get to the forest and there it will be cool. Such an old forest is
+like an old friend. Have you any friends?'
+
+Sanin thought a little. 'Yes ... only few. No real ones.'
+
+'I have; real ones--but not old ones. This is a friend too--a horse.
+How carefully it carries one! Ah, but it's splendid here! Is it
+possible I am going to Paris the day after to-morrow?'
+
+'Yes ... is it possible?' Sanin chimed in.
+
+'And you to Frankfort?'
+
+'I am certainly going to Frankfort.'
+
+'Well, what of it? Good luck go with you! Anyway, to-day's ours ...
+ours ... ours!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The horses reached the forest's edge and pushed on into the forest.
+The broad soft shade of the forest wrapt them round on all sides.
+
+'Oh, but this is paradise!' cried Maria Nikolaevna. 'Further, deeper
+into the shade, Sanin!'
+
+The horses moved slowly on, 'deeper into the shade,' slightly swaying
+and snorting. The path, by which they had come in, suddenly turned
+off and plunged into a rather narrow gorge. The smell of heather and
+bracken, of the resin of the pines, and the decaying leaves of last
+year, seemed to hang, close and drowsy, about it. Through the clefts
+of the big brown rocks came strong currents of fresh air. On both
+sides of the path rose round hillocks covered with green moss.
+
+'Stop!' cried Maria Nikolaevna, 'I want to sit down and rest on this
+velvet. Help me to get off.'
+
+Sanin leaped off his horse and ran up to her. She leaned on both his
+shoulders, sprang instantly to the ground, and seated herself on one
+of the mossy mounds. He stood before her, holding both the horses'
+bridles in his hand.
+
+She lifted her eyes to him.... 'Sanin, are you able to forget?'
+
+Sanin recollected what had happened yesterday ... in the carriage.
+'What is that--a question ... or a reproach?'
+
+'I have never in my life reproached any one for anything. Do you
+believe in magic?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'In magic?--you know what is sung of in our ballads--our Russian
+peasant ballads?'
+
+'Ah! That's what you're speaking of,' Sanin said slowly.
+
+'Yes, that's it. I believe in it ... and you will believe in it.'
+
+'Magic is sorcery ...' Sanin repeated, 'Anything in the world is
+possible. I used not to believe in it--but I do now. I don't know
+myself.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna thought a moment and looked about her. 'I fancy this
+place seems familiar to me. Look, Sanin, behind that bushy oak--is
+there a red wooden cross, or not?'
+
+Sanin moved a few steps to one side. 'Yes, there is.' Maria Nikolaevna
+smiled. 'Ah, that's good! I know where we are. We haven't got lost as
+yet. What's that tapping? A wood-cutter?'
+
+Sanin looked into the thicket. 'Yes ... there's a man there chopping
+up dry branches.'
+
+'I must put my hair to rights,' said Maria Nikolaevna. 'Else he'll see
+me and be shocked.' She took off her hat and began plaiting up her
+long hair, silently and seriously. Sanin stood facing her ... All the
+lines of her graceful limbs could be clearly seen through the dark
+folds of her habit, dotted here and there with tufts of moss.
+
+One of the horses suddenly shook itself behind Sanin's back; he
+himself started and trembled from head to foot. Everything was in
+confusion within him, his nerves were strung up like harpstrings. He
+might well say he did not know himself.... He really was bewitched.
+His whole being was filled full of one thing ... one idea, one desire.
+Maria Nikolaevna turned a keen look upon him.
+
+'Come, now everything's as it should be,' she observed, putting on her
+hat. 'Won't you sit down? Here! No, wait a minute ... don't sit down!
+What's that?'
+
+Over the tree-tops, over the air of the forest, rolled a dull
+rumbling.
+
+'Can it be thunder?'
+
+'I think it really is thunder,' answered Sanin.
+
+'Oh, this is a treat, a real treat! That was the only thing wanting!'
+The dull rumble was heard a second time, rose, and fell in a crash.
+'Bravo! Bis! Do you remember I spoke of the _AEneid_ yesterday? They
+too were overtaken by a storm in the forest, you know. We must be off,
+though.' She rose swiftly to her feet. 'Bring me my horse.... Give me
+your hand. There, so. I'm not heavy.'
+
+She hopped like a bird into the saddle. Sanin too mounted his horse.
+
+'Are you going home?' he asked in an unsteady voice.
+
+'Home indeed!' she answered deliberately and picked up the reins.
+'Follow me,' she commanded almost roughly. She came out on to the road
+and passing the red cross, rode down into a hollow, clambered up again
+to a cross road, turned to the right and again up the mountainside....
+She obviously knew where the path led, and the path led farther and
+farther into the heart of the forest. She said nothing and did not
+look round; she moved imperiously in front and humbly and submissively
+he followed without a spark of will in his sinking heart. Rain began
+to fall in spots. She quickened her horse's pace, and he did not
+linger behind her. At last through the dark green of the young firs
+under an overhanging grey rock, a tumbledown little hut peeped out at
+him, with a low door in its wattle wall.... Maria Nikolaevna made
+her mare push through the fir bushes, leaped off her, and appearing
+suddenly at the entrance to the hut, turned to Sanin, and whispered
+'AEneas.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four hours later, Maria Nikolaevna and Sanin, accompanied by the
+groom, who was nodding in the saddle, returned to Wiesbaden, to the
+hotel. Polozov met his wife with the letter to the overseer in his
+hand. After staring rather intently at her, he showed signs of some
+displeasure on his face, and even muttered, 'You don't mean to say
+you've won your bet?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna simply shrugged her shoulders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The same day, two hours later, Sanin was standing in his own room
+before her, like one distraught, ruined....
+
+'Where are you going, dear?' she asked him. 'To Paris, or to
+Frankfort?'
+
+'I am going where you will be, and will be with you till you drive me
+away,' he answered with despair and pressed close to him the hands
+of his sovereign. She freed her hands, laid them on his head, and
+clutched at his hair with her fingers. She slowly turned over and
+twisted the unresisting hair, drew herself up, her lips curled with
+triumph, while her eyes, wide and clear, almost white, expressed
+nothing but the ruthlessness and glutted joy of conquest. The hawk, as
+it clutches a captured bird, has eyes like that.
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+
+This was what Dimitri Sanin remembered when in the stillness of his
+room turning over his old papers he found among them a garnet cross.
+The events we have described rose clearly and consecutively before his
+mental vision.... But when he reached the moment when he addressed
+that humiliating prayer to Madame Polozov, when he grovelled at her
+feet, when his slavery began, he averted his gaze from the images he
+had evoked, he tried to recall no more. And not that his memory failed
+him, oh no! he knew only too well what followed upon that moment, but
+he was stifled by shame, even now, so many years after; he dreaded
+that feeling of self-contempt, which he knew for certain would
+overwhelm him, and like a torrent, flood all other feelings if he did
+not bid his memory be still. But try as he would to turn away from
+these memories, he could not stifle them entirely. He remembered the
+scoundrelly, tearful, lying, pitiful letter he had sent to Gemma, that
+never received an answer.... See her again, go back to her, after such
+falsehood, such treachery, no! no! he could not, so much conscience
+and honesty was left in him. Moreover, he had lost every trace of
+confidence in himself, every atom of self-respect; he dared not rely
+on himself for anything. Sanin recollected too how he had later
+on--oh, ignominy!--sent the Polozovs' footman to Frankfort for his
+things, what cowardly terror he had felt, how he had had one thought
+only, to get away as soon as might be to Paris--to Paris; how in
+obedience to Maria Nikolaevna, he had humoured and tried to please
+Ippolit Sidoritch and been amiable to Doenhof, on whose finger he
+noticed just such an iron ring as Maria Nikolaevna had given him!!!
+Then followed memories still worse, more ignominious ... the waiter
+hands him a visiting card, and on it is the name, 'Pantaleone
+Cippatola, court singer to His Highness the Duke of Modena!' He hides
+from the old man, but cannot escape meeting him in the corridor, and
+a face of exasperation rises before him under an upstanding topknot
+of grey hair; the old eyes blaze like red-hot coals, and he hears
+menacing cries and curses: '_Maledizione!_' hears even the terrible
+words: '_Codardo! Infame traditore!_' Sanin closes his eyes, shakes
+his head, turns away again and again, but still he sees himself
+sitting in a travelling carriage on the narrow front seat ... In the
+comfortable places facing the horses sit Maria Nikolaevna and Ippolit
+Sidoritch, the four horses trotting all together fly along the paved
+roads of Wiesbaden to Paris! to Paris! Ippolit Sidoritch is eating a
+pear which Sanin has peeled for him, while Maria Nikolaevna watches
+him and smiles at him, her bondslave, that smile he knows already, the
+smile of the proprietor, the slave-owner.... But, good God, out there
+at the corner of the street not far from the city walls, wasn't it
+Pantaleone again, and who with him? Can it be Emilio? Yes, it was
+he, the enthusiastic devoted boy! Not long since his young face had
+been full of reverence before his hero, his ideal, but now his pale
+handsome face, so handsome that Maria Nikolaevna noticed him and poked
+her head out of the carriage window, that noble face is glowing with
+anger and contempt; his eyes, so like _her_ eyes! are fastened upon
+Sanin, and the tightly compressed lips part to revile him....
+
+And Pantaleone stretches out his hand and points Sanin out to
+Tartaglia standing near, and Tartaglia barks at Sanin, and the very
+bark of the faithful dog sounds like an unbearable reproach....
+Hideous!
+
+And then, the life in Paris, and all the humiliations, all the
+loathsome tortures of the slave, who dare not be jealous or complain,
+and who is cast aside at last, like a worn-out garment....
+
+Then the going home to his own country, the poisoned, the devastated
+life, the petty interests and petty cares, bitter and fruitless
+regret, and as bitter and fruitless apathy, a punishment not apparent,
+but of every minute, continuous, like some trivial but incurable
+disease, the payment farthing by farthing of the debt, which can never
+be settled....
+
+The cup was full enough.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How had the garnet cross given Sanin by Gemma existed till now, why
+had he not sent it back, how had it happened that he had never come
+across it till that day? A long, long while he sat deep in thought,
+and taught as he was by the experience of so many years, he still
+could not comprehend how he could have deserted Gemma, so tenderly and
+passionately loved, for a woman he did not love at all.... Next day he
+surprised all his friends and acquaintances by announcing that he was
+going abroad.
+
+The surprise was general in society. Sanin was leaving Petersburg, in
+the middle of the winter, after having only just taken and furnished a
+capital flat, and having even secured seats for all the performances
+of the Italian Opera, in which Madame Patti ... Patti, herself,
+herself, was to take part! His friends and acquaintances wondered;
+but it is not human nature as a rule to be interested long in other
+people's affairs, and when Sanin set off for abroad, none came to the
+railway station to see him off but a French tailor, and he only in
+the hope of securing an unpaid account '_pour un saute-en-barque en
+velours noir tout a fait chic_.'
+
+
+
+
+XLIV
+
+
+Sanin told his friends he was going abroad, but he did not say where
+exactly: the reader will readily conjecture that he made straight for
+Frankfort. Thanks to the general extension of railways, on the fourth
+day after leaving Petersburg he was there. He had not visited the
+place since 1840. The hotel, the White Swan, was standing in its old
+place and still flourishing, though no longer regarded as first class.
+The _Zeile_, the principal street of Frankfort was little changed,
+but there was not only no trace of Signora Roselli's house, the very
+street in which it stood had disappeared. Sanin wandered like a man in
+a dream about the places once so familiar, and recognised nothing; the
+old buildings had vanished; they were replaced by new streets of huge
+continuous houses and fine villas; even the public garden, where that
+last interview with Gemma had taken place, had so grown up and altered
+that Sanin wondered if it really were the same garden. What was he to
+do? How and where could he get information? Thirty years, no little
+thing! had passed since those days. No one to whom he applied had
+even heard of the name Roselli; the hotel-keeper advised him to have
+recourse to the public library, there, he told him, he would find
+all the old newspapers, but what good he would get from that, the
+hotel-keeper owned he didn't see. Sanin in despair made inquiries
+about Herr Klueber. That name the hotel-keeper knew well, but there too
+no success awaited him. The elegant shop-manager, after making much
+noise in the world and rising to the position of a capitalist, had
+speculated, was made bankrupt, and died in prison.... This piece of
+news did not, however, occasion Sanin the slightest regret. He was
+beginning to feel that his journey had been rather precipitate....
+But, behold, one day, as he was turning over a Frankfort directory,
+he came on the name: Von Doenhof, retired major. He promptly took a
+carriage and drove to the address, though why was this Von Doenhof
+certain to be that Doenhof, and why even was the right Doenhof likely
+to be able to tell him any news of the Roselli family? No matter, a
+drowning man catches at straws.
+
+Sanin found the retired major von Doenhof at home, and in the
+grey-haired gentleman who received him he recognised at once his
+adversary of bygone days. Doenhof knew him too, and was positively
+delighted to see him; he recalled to him his young days, the escapades
+of his youth. Sanin heard from him that the Roselli family had long,
+long ago emigrated to America, to New York; that Gemma had married a
+merchant; that he, Doenhof, had an acquaintance also a merchant, who
+would probably know her husband's address, as he did a great deal of
+business with America. Sanin begged Doenhof to consult this friend,
+and, to his delight, Doenhof brought him the address of Gemma's
+husband, Mr. Jeremy Slocum, New York, Broadway, No. 501. Only this
+address dated from the year 1863.
+
+'Let us hope,' cried Doenhof, 'that our Frankfort belle is still alive
+and has not left New York! By the way,' he added, dropping his voice,
+'what about that Russian lady, who was staying, do you remember, about
+that time at Wiesbaden--Madame von Bo ... von Bolozov, is she still
+living?'
+
+'No,' answered Sanin, 'she died long ago.' Doenhof looked up, but
+observing that Sanin had turned away and was frowning, he did not say
+another word, but took his leave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That same day Sanin sent a letter to Madame Gemma Slocum, at New York.
+In the letter he told her he was writing to her from Frankfort, where
+he had come solely with the object of finding traces of her, that
+he was very well aware that he was absolutely without a right to
+expect that she would answer his appeal; that he had not deserved her
+forgiveness, and could only hope that among happy surroundings she had
+long ago forgotten his existence. He added that he had made up his
+mind to recall himself to her memory in consequence of a chance
+circumstance which had too vividly brought back to him the images
+of the past; he described his life, solitary, childless, joyless;
+he implored her to understand the grounds that had induced him to
+address her, not to let him carry to the grave the bitter sense of his
+own wrongdoing, expiated long since by suffering, but never forgiven,
+and to make him happy with even the briefest news of her life in the
+new world to which she had gone away. 'In writing one word to me,'
+so Sanin ended his letter, 'you will be doing a good action worthy
+of your noble soul, and I shall thank you to my last breath. I am
+stopping here at the _White Swan_ (he underlined those words) and
+shall wait, wait till spring, for your answer.'
+
+He despatched this letter, and proceeded to wait. For six whole weeks
+he lived in the hotel, scarcely leaving his room, and resolutely
+seeing no one. No one could write to him from Russia nor from
+anywhere; and that just suited his mood; if a letter came addressed to
+him he would know at once that it was the one he was waiting for.
+He read from morning till evening, and not journals, but serious
+books--historical works. These prolonged studies, this stillness, this
+hidden life, like a snail in its shell, suited his spiritual condition
+to perfection; and for this, if nothing more, thanks to Gemma! But was
+she alive? Would she answer?
+
+At last a letter came, with an American postmark, from New York,
+addressed to him. The handwriting of the address on the envelope was
+English.... He did not recognise it, and there was a pang at his
+heart. He could not at once bring himself to break open the envelope.
+He glanced at the signature--Gemma! The tears positively gushed from
+his eyes: the mere fact that she signed her name, without a surname,
+was a pledge to him of reconciliation, of forgiveness! He unfolded the
+thin sheet of blue notepaper: a photograph slipped out. He made haste
+to pick it up--and was struck dumb with amazement: Gemma, Gemma
+living, young as he had known her thirty years ago! The same eyes,
+the same lips, the same form of the whole face! On the back of the
+photograph was written, 'My daughter Mariana.' The whole letter was
+very kind and simple. Gemma thanked Sanin for not having hesitated to
+write to her, for having confidence in her; she did not conceal from
+him that she had passed some painful moments after his disappearance,
+but she added at once that for all that she considered--and had always
+considered--her meeting him as a happy thing, seeing that it was that
+meeting which had prevented her from becoming the wife of Mr. Klueber,
+and in that way, though indirectly, had led to her marriage with her
+husband, with whom she had now lived twenty-eight years, in perfect
+happiness, comfort, and prosperity; their house was known to every
+one in New York. Gemma informed Sanin that she was the mother of five
+children, four sons and one daughter, a girl of eighteen, engaged
+to be married, and her photograph she enclosed as she was generally
+considered very like her mother. The sorrowful news Gemma kept for the
+end of the letter. Frau Lenore had died in New York, where she had
+followed her daughter and son-in-law, but she had lived long enough to
+rejoice in her children's happiness and to nurse her grandchildren.
+Pantaleone, too, had meant to come out to America, but he had died on
+the very eve of leaving Frankfort. 'Emilio, our beloved, incomparable
+Emilio, died a glorious death for the freedom of his country in
+Sicily, where he was one of the "Thousand" under the leadership of the
+great Garibaldi; we all bitterly lamented the loss of our priceless
+brother, but, even in the midst of our tears, we were proud of
+him--and shall always be proud of him--and hold his memory sacred!
+His lofty, disinterested soul was worthy of a martyr's crown!' Then
+Gemma expressed her regret that Sanin's life had apparently been
+so unsuccessful, wished him before everything peace and a tranquil
+spirit, and said that she would be very glad to see him again, though
+she realised how unlikely such a meeting was....
+
+We will not attempt to describe the feelings Sanin experienced as
+he read this letter. For such feelings there is no satisfactory
+expression; they are too deep and too strong and too vague for any
+word. Only music could reproduce them.
+
+Sanin answered at once; and as a wedding gift to the young girl, sent
+to 'Mariana Slocum, from an unknown friend,' a garnet cross, set in a
+magnificent pearl necklace. This present, costly as it was, did not
+ruin him; during the thirty years that had elapsed since his first
+visit to Frankfort, he had succeeded in accumulating a considerable
+fortune. Early in May he went back to Petersburg, but hardly for long.
+It is rumoured that he is selling all his lands and preparing to go to
+America.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST LOVE
+
+
+The party had long ago broken up. The clock struck half-past twelve.
+There was left in the room only the master of the house and Sergei
+Nikolaevitch and Vladimir Petrovitch.
+
+The master of the house rang and ordered the remains of the supper
+to be cleared away. 'And so it's settled,' he observed, sitting back
+farther in his easy-chair and lighting a cigar; 'each of us is to tell
+the story of his first love. It's your turn, Sergei Nikolaevitch.'
+
+Sergei Nikolaevitch, a round little man with a plump,
+light-complexioned face, gazed first at the master of the house, then
+raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'I had no first love,' he said at
+last; 'I began with the second.'
+
+'How was that?'
+
+'It's very simple. I was eighteen when I had my first flirtation
+with a charming young lady, but I courted her just as though it
+were nothing new to me; just as I courted others later on. To speak
+accurately, the first and last time I was in love was with my nurse
+when I was six years old; but that's in the remote past. The details
+of our relations have slipped out of my memory, and even if I
+remembered them, whom could they interest?'
+
+'Then how's it to be?' began the master of the house. 'There was
+nothing much of interest about my first love either; I never fell
+in love with any one till I met Anna Nikolaevna, now my wife,--and
+everything went as smoothly as possible with us; our parents arranged
+the match, we were very soon in love with each other, and got married
+without loss of time. My story can be told in a couple of words. I
+must confess, gentlemen, in bringing up the subject of first love, I
+reckoned upon you, I won't say old, but no longer young, bachelors.
+Can't you enliven us with something, Vladimir Petrovitch?'
+
+'My first love, certainly, was not quite an ordinary one,' responded,
+with some reluctance, Vladimir Petrovitch, a man of forty, with black
+hair turning grey.
+
+'Ah!' said the master of the house and Sergei Nikolaevitch with one
+voice: 'So much the better.... Tell us about it.'
+
+'If you wish it ... or no; I won't tell the story; I'm no hand at
+telling a story; I make it dry and brief, or spun out and affected. If
+you'll allow me, I'll write out all I remember and read it you.'
+
+His friends at first would not agree, but Vladimir Petrovitch insisted
+on his own way. A fortnight later they were together again, and
+Vladimir Petrovitch kept his word.
+
+His manuscript contained the following story:--
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+I was sixteen then. It happened in the summer of 1833.
+
+I lived in Moscow with my parents. They had taken a country house for
+the summer near the Kalouga gate, facing the Neskutchny gardens. I
+was preparing for the university, but did not work much and was in no
+hurry.
+
+No one interfered with my freedom. I did what I liked, especially
+after parting with my last tutor, a Frenchman who had never been able
+to get used to the idea that he had fallen 'like a bomb' (_comme
+une bombe_) into Russia, and would lie sluggishly in bed with an
+expression of exasperation on his face for days together. My father
+treated me with careless kindness; my mother scarcely noticed me,
+though she had no children except me; other cares completely absorbed
+her. My father, a man still young and very handsome, had married her
+from mercenary considerations; she was ten years older than he. My
+mother led a melancholy life; she was for ever agitated, jealous and
+angry, but not in my father's presence; she was very much afraid of
+him, and he was severe, cold, and distant in his behaviour.... I
+have never seen a man more elaborately serene, self-confident, and
+commanding.
+
+I shall never forget the first weeks I spent at the country house.
+The weather was magnificent; we left town on the 9th of May, on St.
+Nicholas's day. I used to walk about in our garden, in the Neskutchny
+gardens, and beyond the town gates; I would take some book with
+me--Keidanov's Course, for instance--but I rarely looked into it, and
+more often than anything declaimed verses aloud; I knew a great deal
+of poetry by heart; my blood was in a ferment and my heart ached--so
+sweetly and absurdly; I was all hope and anticipation, was a little
+frightened of something, and full of wonder at everything, and was
+on the tiptoe of expectation; my imagination played continually,
+fluttering rapidly about the same fancies, like martins about a
+bell-tower at dawn; I dreamed, was sad, even wept; but through the
+tears and through the sadness, inspired by a musical verse, or the
+beauty of evening, shot up like grass in spring the delicious sense of
+youth and effervescent life.
+
+I had a horse to ride; I used to saddle it myself and set off alone
+for long rides, break into a rapid gallop and fancy myself a knight at
+a tournament. How gaily the wind whistled in my ears! or turning my
+face towards the sky, I would absorb its shining radiance and blue
+into my soul, that opened wide to welcome it.
+
+I remember that at that time the image of woman, the vision of love,
+scarcely ever arose in definite shape in my brain; but in all I
+thought, in all I felt, lay hidden a half-conscious, shamefaced
+presentiment of something new, unutterably sweet, feminine....
+
+This presentiment, this expectation, permeated my whole being; I
+breathed in it, it coursed through my veins with every drop of blood
+... it was destined to be soon fulfilled.
+
+The place, where we settled for the summer, consisted of a wooden
+manor-house with columns and two small lodges; in the lodge on
+the left there was a tiny factory for the manufacture of cheap
+wall-papers.... I had more than once strolled that way to look at
+about a dozen thin and dishevelled boys with greasy smocks and worn
+faces, who were perpetually jumping on to wooden levers, that pressed
+down the square blocks of the press, and so by the weight of their
+feeble bodies struck off the variegated patterns of the wall-papers.
+The lodge on the right stood empty, and was to let. One day--three
+weeks after the 9th of May--the blinds in the windows of this lodge
+were drawn up, women's faces appeared at them--some family had
+installed themselves in it. I remember the same day at dinner, my
+mother inquired of the butler who were our new neighbours, and hearing
+the name of the Princess Zasyekin, first observed with some respect,
+'Ah! a princess!' ... and then added, 'A poor one, I suppose?'
+
+'They arrived in three hired flies,' the butler remarked
+deferentially, as he handed a dish: 'they don't keep their own
+carriage, and the furniture's of the poorest.'
+
+'Ah,' replied my mother, 'so much the better.'
+
+My father gave her a chilly glance; she was silent.
+
+Certainly the Princess Zasyekin could not be a rich woman; the lodge
+she had taken was so dilapidated and small and low-pitched that
+people, even moderately well-off in the world, would hardly have
+consented to occupy it. At the time, however, all this went in at one
+ear and out at the other. The princely title had very little effect on
+me; I had just been reading Schiller's _Robbers_.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I was in the habit of wandering about our garden every evening on the
+look-out for rooks. I had long cherished a hatred for those wary, sly,
+and rapacious birds. On the day of which I have been speaking, I went
+as usual into the garden, and after patrolling all the walks without
+success (the rooks knew me, and merely cawed spasmodically at a
+distance), I chanced to go close to the low fence which separated our
+domain from the narrow strip of garden stretching beyond the lodge to
+the right, and belonging to it. I was walking along, my eyes on the
+ground. Suddenly I heard a voice; I looked across the fence, and was
+thunder-struck.... I was confronted with a curious spectacle.
+
+A few paces from me on the grass between the green raspberry bushes
+stood a tall slender girl in a striped pink dress, with a white
+kerchief on her head; four young men were close round her, and she
+was slapping them by turns on the forehead with those small grey
+flowers, the name of which I don't know, though they are well known to
+children; the flowers form little bags, and burst open with a pop when
+you strike them against anything hard. The young men presented their
+foreheads so eagerly, and in the gestures of the girl (I saw her in
+profile), there was something so fascinating, imperious, caressing,
+mocking, and charming, that I almost cried out with admiration and
+delight, and would, I thought, have given everything in the world on
+the spot only to have had those exquisite fingers strike me on the
+forehead. My gun slipped on to the grass, I forgot everything, I
+devoured with my eyes the graceful shape and neck and lovely arms and
+the slightly disordered fair hair under the white kerchief, and the
+half-closed clever eye, and the eyelashes and the soft cheek beneath
+them....
+
+'Young man, hey, young man,' said a voice suddenly near me: 'is it
+quite permissible to stare so at unknown young ladies?'
+
+I started, I was struck dumb.... Near me, the other side of the fence,
+stood a man with close-cropped black hair, looking ironically at me.
+At the same instant the girl too turned towards me.... I caught sight
+of big grey eyes in a bright mobile face, and the whole face suddenly
+quivered and laughed, there was a flash of white teeth, a droll
+lifting of the eyebrows.... I crimsoned, picked up my gun from the
+ground, and pursued by a musical but not ill-natured laugh, fled to
+my own room, flung myself on the bed, and hid my face in my hands. My
+heart was fairly leaping; I was greatly ashamed and overjoyed; I felt
+an excitement I had never known before.
+
+After a rest, I brushed my hair, washed, and went downstairs to tea.
+The image of the young girl floated before me, my heart was no longer
+leaping, but was full of a sort of sweet oppression.
+
+'What's the matter?' my father asked me all at once: 'have you killed
+a rook?'
+
+I was on the point of telling him all about it, but I checked myself,
+and merely smiled to myself. As I was going to bed, I rotated--I don't
+know why--three times on one leg, pomaded my hair, got into bed, and
+slept like a top all night. Before morning I woke up for an instant,
+raised my head, looked round me in ecstasy, and fell asleep again.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+'How can I make their acquaintance?' was my first thought when I waked
+in the morning. I went out in the garden before morning tea, but I
+did not go too near the fence, and saw no one. After drinking tea,
+I walked several times up and down the street before the house, and
+looked into the windows from a distance.... I fancied her face at a
+curtain, and I hurried away in alarm.
+
+'I must make her acquaintance, though,' I thought, pacing distractedly
+about the sandy plain that stretches before Neskutchny park ... 'but
+how, that is the question.' I recalled the minutest details of our
+meeting yesterday; I had for some reason or other a particularly vivid
+recollection of how she had laughed at me.... But while I racked my
+brains, and made various plans, fate had already provided for me.
+
+In my absence my mother had received from her new neighbour a letter
+on grey paper, sealed with brown wax, such as is only used in notices
+from the post-office or on the corks of bottles of cheap wine. In this
+letter, which was written in illiterate language and in a slovenly
+hand, the princess begged my mother to use her powerful influence
+in her behalf; my mother, in the words of the princess, was very
+intimate with persons of high position, upon whom her fortunes and her
+children's fortunes depended, as she had some very important business
+in hand. 'I address myself to you,' she wrote, 'as one gentlewoman to
+another gentlewoman, and for that reason am glad to avail myself of
+the opportunity.' Concluding, she begged my mother's permission to
+call upon her. I found my mother in an unpleasant state of indecision;
+my father was not at home, and she had no one of whom to ask advice.
+Not to answer a gentlewoman, and a princess into the bargain, was
+impossible. But my mother was in a difficulty as to how to answer
+her. To write a note in French struck her as unsuitable, and Russian
+spelling was not a strong point with my mother herself, and she was
+aware of it, and did not care to expose herself. She was overjoyed
+when I made my appearance, and at once told me to go round to the
+princess's, and to explain to her by word of mouth that my mother
+would always be glad to do her excellency any service within her
+powers, and begged her to come to see her at one o'clock. This
+unexpectedly rapid fulfilment of my secret desires both delighted and
+appalled me. I made no sign, however, of the perturbation which came
+over me, and as a preliminary step went to my own room to put on a new
+necktie and tail coat; at home I still wore short jackets and lay-down
+collars, much as I abominated them.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+In the narrow and untidy passage of the lodge, which I entered with an
+involuntary tremor in all my limbs, I was met by an old grey-headed
+servant with a dark copper-coloured face, surly little pig's eyes, and
+such deep furrows on his forehead and temples as I had never beheld
+in my life. He was carrying a plate containing the spine of a herring
+that had been gnawed at; and shutting the door that led into the room
+with his foot, he jerked out, 'What do you want?'
+
+'Is the Princess Zasyekin at home?' I inquired.
+
+'Vonifaty!' a jarring female voice screamed from within.
+
+The man without a word turned his back on me, exhibiting as he did
+so the extremely threadbare hindpart of his livery with a solitary
+reddish heraldic button on it; he put the plate down on the floor, and
+went away.
+
+'Did you go to the police station?' the same female voice called
+again. The man muttered something in reply. 'Eh.... Has some one
+come?' I heard again.... 'The young gentleman from next door. Ask him
+in, then.'
+
+'Will you step into the drawing-room?' said the servant, making his
+appearance once more, and picking up the plate from the floor. I
+mastered my emotions, and went into the drawing-room.
+
+I found myself in a small and not over clean apartment, containing
+some poor furniture that looked as if it had been hurriedly set down
+where it stood. At the window in an easy-chair with a broken arm was
+sitting a woman of fifty, bareheaded and ugly, in an old green dress,
+and a striped worsted wrap about her neck. Her small black eyes fixed
+me like pins.
+
+I went up to her and bowed.
+
+'I have the honour of addressing the Princess Zasyekin?'
+
+'I am the Princess Zasyekin; and you are the son of Mr. V.?'
+
+'Yes. I have come to you with a message from my mother.'
+
+'Sit down, please. Vonifaty, where are my keys, have you seen them?'
+
+I communicated to Madame Zasyekin my mother's reply to her note. She
+heard me out, drumming with her fat red fingers on the window-pane,
+and when I had finished, she stared at me once more.
+
+'Very good; I'll be sure to come,' she observed at last. 'But how
+young you are! How old are you, may I ask?'
+
+'Sixteen,' I replied, with an involuntary stammer.
+
+The princess drew out of her pocket some greasy papers covered with
+writing, raised them right up to her nose, and began looking through
+them.
+
+'A good age,' she ejaculated suddenly, turning round restlessly on
+her chair. 'And do you, pray, make yourself at home. I don't stand on
+ceremony.'
+
+'No, indeed,' I thought, scanning her unprepossessing person with a
+disgust I could not restrain.
+
+At that instant another door flew open quickly, and in the doorway
+stood the girl I had seen the previous evening in the garden. She
+lifted her hand, and a mocking smile gleamed in her face.
+
+'Here is my daughter,' observed the princess, indicating her with her
+elbow. 'Zinotchka, the son of our neighbour, Mr. V. What is your name,
+allow me to ask?'
+
+'Vladimir,' I answered, getting up, and stuttering in my excitement.
+
+'And your father's name?'
+
+'Petrovitch.'
+
+'Ah! I used to know a commissioner of police whose name was Vladimir
+Petrovitch too. Vonifaty! don't look for my keys; the keys are in my
+pocket.'
+
+The young girl was still looking at me with the same smile, faintly
+fluttering her eyelids, and putting her head a little on one side.
+
+'I have seen Monsieur Voldemar before,' she began. (The silvery note
+of her voice ran through me with a sort of sweet shiver.) 'You will
+let me call you so?'
+
+'Oh, please,' I faltered.
+
+'Where was that?' asked the princess.
+
+The young princess did not answer her mother.
+
+'Have you anything to do just now?' she said, not taking her eyes off
+me.
+
+'Oh, no.'
+
+'Would you like to help me wind some wool? Come in here, to me.'
+
+She nodded to me and went out of the drawing-room. I followed her.
+
+In the room we went into, the furniture was a little better, and
+was arranged with more taste. Though, indeed, at the moment, I was
+scarcely capable of noticing anything; I moved as in a dream and felt
+all through my being a sort of intense blissfulness that verged on
+imbecility.
+
+The young princess sat down, took out a skein of red wool and,
+motioning me to a seat opposite her, carefully untied the skein and
+laid it across my hands. All this she did in silence with a sort of
+droll deliberation and with the same bright sly smile on her slightly
+parted lips. She began to wind the wool on a bent card, and all at
+once she dazzled me with a glance so brilliant and rapid, that I
+could not help dropping my eyes. When her eyes, which were generally
+half closed, opened to their full extent, her face was completely
+transfigured; it was as though it were flooded with light.
+
+'What did you think of me yesterday, M'sieu Voldemar?' she asked after
+a brief pause. 'You thought ill of me, I expect?'
+
+'I ... princess ... I thought nothing ... how can I?...' I answered in
+confusion.
+
+'Listen,' she rejoined. 'You don't know me yet. I'm a very strange
+person; I like always to be told the truth. You, I have just heard,
+are sixteen, and I am twenty-one: you see I'm a great deal older than
+you, and so you ought always to tell me the truth ... and to do what I
+tell you,' she added. 'Look at me: why don't you look at me?'
+
+I was still more abashed; however, I raised my eyes to her. She
+smiled, not her former smile, but a smile of approbation. 'Look at
+me,' she said, dropping her voice caressingly: 'I don't dislike that
+... I like your face; I have a presentiment we shall be friends. But
+do you like me?' she added slyly.
+
+'Princess ...' I was beginning.
+
+'In the first place, you must call me Zinaida Alexandrovna, and in the
+second place it's a bad habit for children'--(she corrected herself)
+'for young people--not to say straight out what they feel. That's all
+very well for grown-up people. You like me, don't you?'
+
+Though I was greatly delighted that she talked so freely to me, still
+I was a little hurt. I wanted to show her that she had not a mere boy
+to deal with, and assuming as easy and serious an air as I could, I
+observed, 'Certainly. I like you very much, Zinaida Alexandrovna; I
+have no wish to conceal it.'
+
+She shook her head very deliberately. 'Have you a tutor?' she asked
+suddenly.
+
+'No; I've not had a tutor for a long, long while.'
+
+I told a lie; it was not a month since I had parted with my Frenchman.
+
+'Oh! I see then--you are quite grown-up.'
+
+She tapped me lightly on the fingers. 'Hold your hands straight!' And
+she applied herself busily to winding the ball.
+
+I seized the opportunity when she was looking down and fell to
+watching her, at first stealthily, then more and more boldly. Her
+face struck me as even more charming than on the previous evening;
+everything in it was so delicate, clever, and sweet. She was sitting
+with her back to a window covered with a white blind, the sunshine,
+streaming in through the blind, shed a soft light over her fluffy
+golden curls, her innocent neck, her sloping shoulders, and tender
+untroubled bosom. I gazed at her, and how dear and near she was
+already to me! It seemed to me I had known her a long while and had
+never known anything nor lived at all till I met her.... She was
+wearing a dark and rather shabby dress and an apron; I would gladly, I
+felt, have kissed every fold of that dress and apron. The tips of her
+little shoes peeped out from under her skirt; I could have bowed down
+in adoration to those shoes.... 'And here I am sitting before her,'
+I thought; 'I have made acquaintance with her ... what happiness, my
+God!' I could hardly keep from jumping up from my chair in ecstasy,
+but I only swung my legs a little, like a small child who has been
+given sweetmeats.
+
+I was as happy as a fish in water, and I could have stayed in that
+room for ever, have never left that place.
+
+Her eyelids were slowly lifted, and once more her clear eyes shone
+kindly upon me, and again she smiled.
+
+'How you look at me!' she said slowly, and she held up a threatening
+finger.
+
+I blushed ... 'She understands it all, she sees all,' flashed through
+my mind. 'And how could she fail to understand and see it all?'
+
+All at once there was a sound in the next room--the clink of a sabre.
+
+'Zina!' screamed the princess in the drawing-room, 'Byelovzorov has
+brought you a kitten.'
+
+'A kitten!' cried Zinaida, and getting up from her chair impetuously,
+she flung the ball of worsted on my knees and ran away.
+
+I too got up and, laying the skein and the ball of wool on the
+window-sill, I went into the drawing-room and stood still, hesitating.
+In the middle of the room, a tabby kitten was lying with outstretched
+paws; Zinaida was on her knees before it, cautiously lifting up its
+little face. Near the old princess, and filling up almost the whole
+space between the two windows, was a flaxen curly-headed young man, a
+hussar, with a rosy face and prominent eyes.
+
+'What a funny little thing!' Zinaida was saying; 'and its eyes are not
+grey, but green, and what long ears! Thank you, Viktor Yegoritch! you
+are very kind.'
+
+The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men I had seen the
+evening before, smiled and bowed with a clink of his spurs and a
+jingle of the chain of his sabre.
+
+'You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a tabby
+kitten with long ears ... so I obtained it. Your word is law.' And he
+bowed again.
+
+The kitten gave a feeble mew and began sniffing the ground.
+
+'It's hungry!' cried Zinaida. 'Vonifaty, Sonia! bring some milk.'
+
+A maid, in an old yellow gown with a faded kerchief at her neck, came
+in with a saucer of milk and set it before the kitten. The kitten
+started, blinked, and began lapping.
+
+'What a pink little tongue it has!' remarked Zinaida, putting her head
+almost on the ground and peeping at it sideways under its very nose.
+
+The kitten having had enough began to purr and move its paws
+affectedly. Zinaida got up, and turning to the maid said carelessly,
+'Take it away.'
+
+'For the kitten--your little hand,' said the hussar, with a simper and
+a shrug of his strongly-built frame, which was tightly buttoned up in
+a new uniform.
+
+'Both,' replied Zinaida, and she held out her hands to him. While he
+was kissing them, she looked at me over his shoulder.
+
+I stood stockstill in the same place and did not know whether to
+laugh, to say something, or to be silent. Suddenly through the open
+door into the passage I caught sight of our footman, Fyodor. He was
+making signs to me. Mechanically I went out to him.
+
+'What do you want?' I asked.
+
+'Your mamma has sent for you,' he said in a whisper. 'She is angry
+that you have not come back with the answer.'
+
+'Why, have I been here long?'
+
+'Over an hour.'
+
+'Over an hour!' I repeated unconsciously, and going back to the
+drawing-room I began to make bows and scrape with my heels.
+
+'Where are you off to?' the young princess asked, glancing at me from
+behind the hussar.
+
+'I must go home. So I am to say,' I added, addressing the old lady,
+'that you will come to us about two.'
+
+'Do you say so, my good sir.'
+
+The princess hurriedly pulled out her snuff-box and took snuff so
+loudly that I positively jumped. 'Do you say so,' she repeated,
+blinking tearfully and sneezing.
+
+I bowed once more, turned, and went out of the room with that
+sensation of awkwardness in my spine which a very young man feels when
+he knows he is being looked at from behind.
+
+'Mind you come and see us again, M'sieu Voldemar,' Zinaida called, and
+she laughed again.
+
+'Why is it she's always laughing?' I thought, as I went back home
+escorted by Fyodor, who said nothing to me, but walked behind me with
+an air of disapprobation. My mother scolded me and wondered what ever
+I could have been doing so long at the princess's. I made her no reply
+and went off to my own room. I felt suddenly very sad.... I tried hard
+not to cry.... I was jealous of the hussar.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The princess called on my mother as she had promised and made a
+disagreeable impression on her. I was not present at their interview,
+but at table my mother told my father that this Prince Zasyekin struck
+her as a _femme tres vulgaire_, that she had quite worn her out
+begging her to interest Prince Sergei in their behalf, that she seemed
+to have no end of lawsuits and affairs on hand--_de vilaines affaires
+d'argent_--and must be a very troublesome and litigious person. My
+mother added, however, that she had asked her and her daughter to
+dinner the next day (hearing the word 'daughter' I buried my nose in
+my plate), for after all she was a neighbour and a person of title.
+Upon this my father informed my mother that he remembered now who this
+lady was; that he had in his youth known the deceased Prince Zasyekin,
+a very well-bred, but frivolous and absurd person; that he had been
+nicknamed in society '_le Parisien_,' from having lived a long while
+in Paris; that he had been very rich, but had gambled away all his
+property; and for some unknown reason, probably for money, though
+indeed he might have chosen better, if so, my father added with a cold
+smile, he had married the daughter of an agent, and after his marriage
+had entered upon speculations and ruined himself utterly.
+
+'If only she doesn't try to borrow money,' observed my mother.
+
+'That's exceedingly possible,' my father responded tranquilly. 'Does
+she speak French?'
+
+'Very badly.'
+
+'H'm. It's of no consequence anyway. I think you said you had asked
+the daughter too; some one was telling me she was a very charming and
+cultivated girl.'
+
+'Ah! Then she can't take after her mother.'
+
+'Nor her father either,' rejoined my father. 'He was cultivated
+indeed, but a fool.'
+
+My mother sighed and sank into thought. My father said no more. I felt
+very uncomfortable during this conversation.
+
+After dinner I went into the garden, but without my gun. I swore
+to myself that I would not go near the Zasyekins' garden, but an
+irresistible force drew me thither, and not in vain. I had hardly
+reached the fence when I caught sight of Zinaida. This time she was
+alone. She held a book in her hands, and was coming slowly along the
+path. She did not notice me.
+
+I almost let her pass by; but all at once I changed my mind and
+coughed.
+
+She turned round, but did not stop, pushed back with one hand the
+broad blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled slowly,
+and again bent her eyes on the book.
+
+I took off my cap, and after hesitating a moment, walked away with a
+heavy heart. '_Que suis-je pour elle?_' I thought (God knows why) in
+French.
+
+Familiar footsteps sounded behind me; I looked round, my father came
+up to me with his light, rapid walk.
+
+'Is that the young princess?' he asked me.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Why, do you know her?'
+
+'I saw her this morning at the princess's.'
+
+My father stopped, and, turning sharply on his heel, went back. When
+he was on a level with Zinaida, he made her a courteous bow. She,
+too, bowed to him, with some astonishment on her face, and dropped
+her book. I saw how she looked after him. My father was always
+irreproachably dressed, simple and in a style of his own; but his
+figure had never struck me as more graceful, never had his grey hat
+sat more becomingly on his curls, which were scarcely perceptibly
+thinner than they had once been.
+
+I bent my steps toward Zinaida, but she did not even glance at me; she
+picked up her book again and went away.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The whole evening and the following day I spent in a sort of dejected
+apathy. I remember I tried to work and took up Keidanov, but the
+boldly printed lines and pages of the famous text-book passed before
+my eyes in vain. I read ten times over the words: 'Julius Caesar was
+distinguished by warlike courage.' I did not understand anything and
+threw the book aside. Before dinner-time I pomaded myself once more,
+and once more put on my tail-coat and necktie.
+
+'What's that for?' my mother demanded. 'You're not a student yet, and
+God knows whether you'll get through the examination. And you've not
+long had a new jacket! You can't throw it away!'
+
+'There will be visitors,' I murmured almost in despair.
+
+'What nonsense! fine visitors indeed!'
+
+I had to submit. I changed my tail-coat for my jacket, but I did
+not take off the necktie. The princess and her daughter made their
+appearance half an hour before dinner-time; the old lady had put on,
+in addition to the green dress with which I was already acquainted,
+a yellow shawl, and an old-fashioned cap adorned with flame-coloured
+ribbons. She began talking at once about her money difficulties,
+sighing, complaining of her poverty, and imploring assistance, but
+she made herself at home; she took snuff as noisily, and fidgeted and
+lolled about in her chair as freely as ever. It never seemed to have
+struck her that she was a princess. Zinaida on the other hand was
+rigid, almost haughty in her demeanour, every inch a princess. There
+was a cold immobility and dignity in her face. I should not have
+recognised it; I should not have known her smiles, her glances, though
+I thought her exquisite in this new aspect too. She wore a light
+barege dress with pale blue flowers on it; her hair fell in long curls
+down her cheek in the English fashion; this style went well with the
+cold expression of her face. My father sat beside her during dinner,
+and entertained his neighbour with the finished and serene courtesy
+peculiar to him. He glanced at her from time to time, and she glanced
+at him, but so strangely, almost with hostility. Their conversation
+was carried on in French; I was surprised, I remember, at the purity
+of Zinaida's accent. The princess, while we were at table, as before
+made no ceremony; she ate a great deal, and praised the dishes. My
+mother was obviously bored by her, and answered her with a sort of
+weary indifference; my father faintly frowned now and then. My mother
+did not like Zinaida either. 'A conceited minx,' she said next day.
+'And fancy, what she has to be conceited about, _avec sa mine de
+grisette_!'
+
+'It's clear you have never seen any grisettes,' my father observed to
+her.
+
+'Thank God, I haven't!'
+
+'Thank God, to be sure ... only how can you form an opinion of them,
+then?'
+
+To me Zinaida had paid no attention whatever. Soon after dinner the
+princess got up to go.
+
+'I shall rely on your kind offices, Maria Nikolaevna and Piotr
+Vassilitch,' she said in a doleful sing-song to my mother and father.
+'I've no help for it! There were days, but they are over. Here I am,
+an excellency, and a poor honour it is with nothing to eat!'
+
+My father made her a respectful bow and escorted her to the door of
+the hall. I was standing there in my short jacket, staring at the
+floor, like a man under sentence of death. Zinaida's treatment of me
+had crushed me utterly. What was my astonishment, when, as she passed
+me, she whispered quickly with her former kind expression in her eyes:
+'Come to see us at eight, do you hear, be sure....' I simply threw up
+my hands, but already she was gone, flinging a white scarf over her
+head.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+At eight o'clock precisely, in my tail-coat and with my hair brushed
+up into a tuft on my head, I entered the passage of the lodge, where
+the princess lived. The old servant looked crossly at me and got up
+unwillingly from his bench. There was a sound of merry voices in
+the drawing-room. I opened the door and fell back in amazement. In
+the middle of the room was the young princess, standing on a chair,
+holding a man's hat in front of her; round the chair crowded some half
+a dozen men. They were trying to put their hands into the hat, while
+she held it above their heads, shaking it violently. On seeing me,
+she cried, 'Stay, stay, another guest, he must have a ticket too,'
+and leaping lightly down from the chair she took me by the cuff of my
+coat 'Come along,' she said, 'why are you standing still? _Messieurs_,
+let me make you acquainted: this is M'sieu Voldemar, the son of our
+neighbour. And this,' she went on, addressing me, and indicating her
+guests in turn, 'Count Malevsky, Doctor Lushin, Meidanov the poet, the
+retired captain Nirmatsky, and Byelovzorov the hussar, whom you've
+seen already. I hope you will be good friends.' I was so confused that
+I did not even bow to any one; in Doctor Lushin I recognised the dark
+man who had so mercilessly put me to shame in the garden; the others
+were unknown to me.
+
+'Count!' continued Zinaida, 'write M'sieu Voldemar a ticket.'
+
+'That's not fair,' was objected in a slight Polish accent by the
+count, a very handsome and fashionably dressed brunette, with
+expressive brown eyes, a thin little white nose, and delicate little
+moustaches over a tiny mouth. 'This gentleman has not been playing
+forfeits with us.'
+
+'It's unfair,' repeated in chorus Byelovzorov and the gentleman
+described as a retired captain, a man of forty, pock-marked to
+a hideous degree, curly-headed as a negro, round-shouldered,
+bandy-legged, and dressed in a military coat without epaulets, worn
+unbuttoned.
+
+'Write him a ticket, I tell you,' repeated the young princess. 'What's
+this mutiny? M'sieu Voldemar is with us for the first time, and there
+are no rules for him yet. It's no use grumbling--write it, I wish it.'
+
+The count shrugged his shoulders but bowed submissively, took the pen
+in his white, ring-bedecked fingers, tore off a scrap of paper and
+wrote on it.
+
+'At least let us explain to Mr. Voldemar what we are about,' Lushin
+began in a sarcastic voice, 'or else he will be quite lost. Do you
+see, young man, we are playing forfeits? the princess has to pay a
+forfeit, and the one who draws the lucky lot is to have the privilege
+of kissing her hand. Do you understand what I've told you?'
+
+I simply stared at him, and continued to stand still in bewilderment,
+while the young princess jumped up on the chair again, and again began
+waving the hat. They all stretched up to her, and I went after the
+rest.
+
+'Meidanov,' said the princess to a tall young man with a thin face,
+little dim-sighted eyes, and exceedingly long black hair, 'you as
+a poet ought to be magnanimous, and give up your number to M'sieu
+Voldemar so that he may have two chances instead of one.'
+
+But Meidanov shook his head in refusal, and tossed his hair. After
+all the others I put my hand into the hat, and unfolded my lot....
+Heavens! what was my condition when I saw on it the word, Kiss!
+
+'Kiss!' I could not help crying aloud.
+
+'Bravo! he has won it,' the princess said quickly. 'How glad I am!'
+She came down from the chair and gave me such a bright sweet look,
+that my heart bounded. 'Are you glad?' she asked me.
+
+'Me?' ... I faltered.
+
+'Sell me your lot,' Byelovzorov growled suddenly just in my ear. 'I'll
+give you a hundred roubles.'
+
+I answered the hussar with such an indignant look, that Zinaida
+clapped her hands, while Lushin cried, 'He's a fine fellow!'
+
+'But, as master of the ceremonies,' he went on, 'it's my duty to see
+that all the rules are kept. M'sieu Voldemar, go down on one knee.
+That is our regulation.'
+
+Zinaida stood in front of me, her head a little on one side as though
+to get a better look at me; she held out her hand to me with dignity.
+A mist passed before my eyes; I meant to drop on one knee, sank on
+both, and pressed my lips to Zinaida's fingers so awkwardly that I
+scratched myself a little with the tip of her nail.
+
+'Well done!' cried Lushin, and helped me to get up.
+
+The game of forfeits went on. Zinaida sat me down beside her. She
+invented all sorts of extraordinary forfeits! She had among other
+things to represent a 'statue,' and she chose as a pedestal the
+hideous Nirmatsky, told him to bow down in an arch, and bend his
+head down on his breast. The laughter never paused for an instant.
+For me, a boy constantly brought up in the seclusion of a dignified
+manor-house, all this noise and uproar, this unceremonious, almost
+riotous gaiety, these relations with unknown persons, were simply
+intoxicating. My head went round, as though from wine. I began
+laughing and talking louder than the others, so much so that the old
+princess, who was sitting in the next room with some sort of clerk
+from the Tversky gate, invited by her for consultation on business,
+positively came in to look at me. But I felt so happy that I did not
+mind anything, I didn't care a straw for any one's jeers, or dubious
+looks. Zinaida continued to show me a preference, and kept me at her
+side. In one forfeit, I had to sit by her, both hidden under one silk
+handkerchief: I was to tell her _my secret_. I remember our two heads
+being all at once in a warm, half-transparent, fragrant darkness, the
+soft, close brightness of her eyes in the dark, and the burning breath
+from her parted lips, and the gleam of her teeth and the ends of her
+hair tickling me and setting me on fire. I was silent. She smiled
+slyly and mysteriously, and at last whispered to me, 'Well, what
+is it?' but I merely blushed and laughed, and turned away, catching
+my breath. We got tired of forfeits--we began to play a game with
+a string. My God! what were my transports when, for not paying
+attention, I got a sharp and vigorous slap on my fingers from her,
+and how I tried afterwards to pretend that I was absent-minded, and
+she teased me, and would not touch the hands I held out to her! What
+didn't we do that evening! We played the piano, and sang and danced
+and acted a gypsy encampment. Nirmatsky was dressed up as a bear,
+and made to drink salt water. Count Malevsky showed us several sorts
+of card tricks, and finished, after shuffling the cards, by dealing
+himself all the trumps at whist, on which Lushin 'had the honour of
+congratulating him.' Meidanov recited portions from his poem 'The
+Manslayer' (romanticism was at its height at this period), which he
+intended to bring out in a black cover with the title in blood-red
+letters; they stole the clerk's cap off his knee, and made him dance a
+Cossack dance by way of ransom for it; they dressed up old Vonifaty in
+a woman's cap, and the young princess put on a man's hat.... I could
+not enumerate all we did. Only Byelovzorov kept more and more in
+the background, scowling and angry.... Sometimes his eyes looked
+bloodshot, he flushed all over, and it seemed every minute as though
+he would rush out upon us all and scatter us like shavings in all
+directions; but the young princess would glance at him, and shake her
+finger at him, and he would retire into his corner again.
+
+We were quite worn out at last. Even the old princess, though she was
+ready for anything, as she expressed it, and no noise wearied her,
+felt tired at last, and longed for peace and quiet. At twelve o'clock
+at night, supper was served, consisting of a piece of stale dry
+cheese, and some cold turnovers of minced ham, which seemed to me more
+delicious than any pastry I had ever tasted; there was only one bottle
+of wine, and that was a strange one; a dark-coloured bottle with a
+wide neck, and the wine in it was of a pink hue; no one drank it,
+however. Tired out and faint with happiness, I left the lodge; at
+parting Zinaida pressed my hand warmly, and again smiled mysteriously.
+
+The night air was heavy and damp in my heated face; a storm seemed to
+be gathering; black stormclouds grew and crept across the sky, their
+smoky outlines visibly changing. A gust of wind shivered restlessly
+in the dark trees, and somewhere, far away on the horizon, muffled
+thunder angrily muttered as it were to itself.
+
+I made my way up to my room by the back stairs. My old man-nurse was
+asleep on the floor, and I had to step over him; he waked up, saw me,
+and told me that my mother had again been very angry with me, and had
+wished to send after me again, but that my father had prevented her.
+(I had never gone to bed without saying good-night to my mother, and
+asking her blessing. There was no help for it now!)
+
+I told my man that I would undress and go to bed by myself, and I put
+out the candle. But I did not undress, and did not go to bed.
+
+I sat down on a chair, and sat a long while, as though spell-bound.
+What I was feeling was so new and so sweet.... I sat still, hardly
+looking round and not moving, drew slow breaths, and only from time to
+time laughed silently at some recollection, or turned cold within at
+the thought that I was in love, that this was she, that this was love.
+Zinaida's face floated slowly before me in the darkness--floated, and
+did not float away; her lips still wore the same enigmatic smile, her
+eyes watched me, a little from one side, with a questioning, dreamy,
+tender look ... as at the instant of parting from her. At last I got
+up, walked on tiptoe to my bed, and without undressing, laid my head
+carefully on the pillow, as though I were afraid by an abrupt movement
+to disturb what filled my soul.... I lay down, but did not even close
+my eyes. Soon I noticed that faint glimmers of light of some sort
+were thrown continually into the room.... I sat up and looked at the
+window. The window-frame could be clearly distinguished from the
+mysteriously and dimly-lighted panes. It is a storm, I thought; and
+a storm it really was, but it was raging so very far away that the
+thunder could not be heard; only blurred, long, as it were branching,
+gleams of lightning flashed continually over the sky; it was not
+flashing, though, so much as quivering and twitching like the wing
+of a dying bird. I got up, went to the window, and stood there till
+morning.... The lightning never ceased for an instant; it was what is
+called among the peasants a _sparrow night_. I gazed at the dumb sandy
+plain, at the dark mass of the Neskutchny gardens, at the yellowish
+facades of the distant buildings, which seemed to quiver too at
+each faint flash.... I gazed, and could not turn away; these silent
+lightning flashes, these gleams seemed in response to the secret
+silent fires which were aglow within me. Morning began to dawn; the
+sky was flushed in patches of crimson. As the sun came nearer, the
+lightning grew gradually paler, and ceased; the quivering gleams
+were fewer and fewer, and vanished at last, drowned in the sobering
+positive light of the coming day....
+
+And my lightning flashes vanished too. I felt great weariness and
+peace ... but Zinaida's image still floated triumphant over my soul.
+But it too, this image, seemed more tranquil: like a swan rising out
+of the reeds of a bog, it stood out from the other unbeautiful figures
+surrounding it, and as I fell asleep, I flung myself before it in
+farewell, trusting adoration....
+
+Oh, sweet emotions, gentle harmony, goodness and peace of the softened
+heart, melting bliss of the first raptures of love, where are they,
+where are they?
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The next morning, when I came down to tea, my mother scolded me--less
+severely, however, than I had expected--and made me tell her how I had
+spent the previous evening. I answered her in few words, omitting many
+details, and trying to give the most innocent air to everything.
+
+'Anyway, they're people who're not _comme il faut_,' my mother
+commented, 'and you've no business to be hanging about there, instead
+of preparing yourself for the examination, and doing your work.'
+
+As I was well aware that my mother's anxiety about my studies was
+confined to these few words, I did not feel it necessary to make any
+rejoinder; but after morning tea was over, my father took me by the
+arm, and turning into the garden with me, forced me to tell him all I
+had seen at the Zasyekins'.
+
+A curious influence my father had over me, and curious were the
+relations existing between us. He took hardly any interest in my
+education, but he never hurt my feelings; he respected my freedom, he
+treated me--if I may so express it--with courtesy,... only he never
+let me be really close to him. I loved him, I admired him, he was my
+ideal of a man--and Heavens! how passionately devoted I should have
+been to him, if I had not been continually conscious of his holding me
+off! But when he liked, he could almost instantaneously, by a single
+word, a single gesture, call forth an unbounded confidence in him. My
+soul expanded, I chattered away to him, as to a wise friend, a kindly
+teacher ... then he as suddenly got rid of me, and again he was
+keeping me off, gently and affectionately, but still he kept me off.
+
+Sometimes he was in high spirits, and then he was ready to romp and
+frolic with me, like a boy (he was fond of vigorous physical exercise
+of every sort); once--it never happened a second time!--he caressed
+me with such tenderness that I almost shed tears.... But high spirits
+and tenderness alike vanished completely, and what had passed between
+us, gave me nothing to build on for the future--it was as though I
+had dreamed it all. Sometimes I would scrutinise his clever handsome
+bright face ... my heart would throb, and my whole being yearn to
+him ... he would seem to feel what was going on within me, would give
+me a passing pat on the cheek, and go away, or take up some work,
+or suddenly freeze all over as only he knew how to freeze, and I
+shrank into myself at once, and turned cold too. His rare fits
+of friendliness to me were never called forth by my silent, but
+intelligible entreaties: they always occurred unexpectedly. Thinking
+over my father's character later, I have come to the conclusion that
+he had no thoughts to spare for me and for family life; his heart was
+in other things, and found complete satisfaction elsewhere. 'Take for
+yourself what you can, and don't be ruled by others; to belong to
+oneself--the whole savour of life lies in that,' he said to me one
+day. Another time, I, as a young democrat, fell to airing my views on
+liberty (he was 'kind,' as I used to call it, that day; and at such
+times I could talk to him as I liked). 'Liberty,' he repeated; 'and do
+you know what can give a man liberty?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Will, his own will, and it gives power, which is better than liberty.
+Know how to will, and you will be free, and will lead.'
+
+'My father, before all, and above all, desired to live, and lived....
+Perhaps he had a presentiment that he would not have long to enjoy the
+'savour' of life: he died at forty-two.
+
+I described my evening at the Zasyekins' minutely to my father. Half
+attentively, half carelessly, he listened to me, sitting on a garden
+seat, drawing in the sand with his cane. Now and then he laughed, shot
+bright, droll glances at me, and spurred me on with short questions
+and assents. At first I could not bring myself even to utter the name
+of Zinaida, but I could not restrain myself long, and began singing
+her praises. My father still laughed; then he grew thoughtful,
+stretched, and got up. I remembered that as he came out of the house
+he had ordered his horse to be saddled. He was a splendid horseman,
+and, long before Rarey, had the secret of breaking in the most vicious
+horses.
+
+'Shall I come with you, father?' I asked.
+
+'No,' he answered, and his face resumed its ordinary expression of
+friendly indifference. 'Go alone, if you like; and tell the coachman
+I'm not going.'
+
+He turned his back on me and walked rapidly away. I looked after him;
+he disappeared through the gates. I saw his hat moving along beside
+the fence; he went into the Zasyekins'.
+
+He stayed there not more than an hour, but then departed at once for
+the town, and did not return home till evening.
+
+After dinner I went myself to the Zasyekins'. In the drawing-room I
+found only the old princess. On seeing me she scratched her head under
+her cap with a knitting-needle, and suddenly asked me, could I copy a
+petition for her.
+
+'With pleasure,' I replied, sitting down on the edge of a chair.
+
+'Only mind and make the letters bigger,' observed the princess,
+handing me a dirty sheet of paper; 'and couldn't you do it to-day, my
+good sir?'
+
+'Certainly, I will copy it to-day.'
+
+The door of the next room was just opened, and in the crack I saw the
+face of Zinaida, pale and pensive, her hair flung carelessly back; she
+stared at me with big chilly eyes, and softly closed the door.
+
+'Zina, Zina!' called the old lady. Zinaida made no response. I took
+home the old lady's petition and spent the whole evening over it.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+My 'passion' dated from that day. I felt at that time, I recollect,
+something like what a man must feel on entering the service: I had
+ceased now to be simply a young boy; I was in love. I have said that
+my passion dated from that day; I might have added that my sufferings
+too dated from the same day. Away from Zinaida I pined; nothing
+was to my mind; everything went wrong with me; I spent whole days
+thinking intensely about her ... I pined when away,... but in her
+presence I was no better off. I was jealous; I was conscious of my
+insignificance; I was stupidly sulky or stupidly abject, and, all
+the same, an invincible force drew me to her, and I could not help
+a shudder of delight whenever I stepped through the doorway of her
+room. Zinaida guessed at once that I was in love with her, and indeed
+I never even thought of concealing it. She amused herself with my
+passion, made a fool of me, petted and tormented me. There is a
+sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible
+cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another, and I was
+like wax in Zinaida's hands; though, indeed, I was not the only one in
+love with her. All the men who visited the house were crazy over her,
+and she kept them all in leading-strings at her feet. It amused her to
+arouse their hopes and then their fears, to turn them round her finger
+(she used to call it knocking their heads together), while they never
+dreamed of offering resistance and eagerly submitted to her. About
+her whole being, so full of life and beauty, there was a peculiarly
+bewitching mixture of slyness and carelessness, of artificiality and
+simplicity, of composure and frolicsomeness; about everything she did
+or said, about every action of hers, there clung a delicate, fine
+charm, in which an individual power was manifest at work. And her
+face was ever changing, working too; it expressed, almost at the same
+time, irony, dreaminess, and passion. Various emotions, delicate and
+quick-changing as the shadows of clouds on a sunny day of wind, chased
+one another continually over her lips and eyes.
+
+Each of her adorers was necessary to her. Byelovzorov, whom she
+sometimes called 'my wild beast,' and sometimes simply 'mine,' would
+gladly have flung himself into the fire for her sake. With little
+confidence in his intellectual abilities and other qualities, he was
+for ever offering her marriage, hinting that the others were merely
+hanging about with no serious intention. Meidanov responded to the
+poetic fibres of her nature; a man of rather cold temperament, like
+almost all writers, he forced himself to convince her, and perhaps
+himself, that he adored her, sang her praises in endless verses, and
+read them to her with a peculiar enthusiasm, at once affected and
+sincere. She sympathised with him, and at the same time jeered at him
+a little; she had no great faith in him, and after listening to his
+outpourings, she would make him read Pushkin, as she said, to clear
+the air. Lushin, the ironical doctor, so cynical in words, knew her
+better than any of them, and loved her more than all, though he abused
+her to her face and behind her back. She could not help respecting
+him, but made him smart for it, and at times, with a peculiar,
+malignant pleasure, made him feel that he too was at her mercy. 'I'm a
+flirt, I'm heartless, I'm an actress in my instincts,' she said to him
+one day in my presence; 'well and good! Give me your hand then; I'll
+stick this pin in it, you'll be ashamed of this young man's seeing it,
+it will hurt you, but you'll laugh for all that, you truthful person.'
+Lushin crimsoned, turned away, bit his lips, but ended by submitting
+his hand. She pricked it, and he did in fact begin to laugh,... and
+she laughed, thrusting the pin in pretty deeply, and peeping into his
+eyes, which he vainly strove to keep in other directions....
+
+I understood least of all the relations existing between Zinaida and
+Count Malevsky. He was handsome, clever, and adroit, but something
+equivocal, something false in him was apparent even to me, a boy of
+sixteen, and I marvelled that Zinaida did not notice it. But possibly
+she did notice this element of falsity really and was not repelled by
+it. Her irregular education, strange acquaintances and habits, the
+constant presence of her mother, the poverty and disorder in their
+house, everything, from the very liberty the young girl enjoyed, with
+the consciousness of her superiority to the people around her, had
+developed in her a sort of half-contemptuous carelessness and lack
+of fastidiousness. At any time anything might happen; Vonifaty might
+announce that there was no sugar, or some revolting scandal would
+come to her ears, or her guests would fall to quarrelling among
+themselves--she would only shake her curls, and say, 'What does it
+matter?' and care little enough about it.
+
+But my blood, anyway, was sometimes on fire with indignation when
+Malevsky approached her, with a sly, fox-like action, leaned
+gracefully on the back of her chair, and began whispering in her ear
+with a self-satisfied and ingratiating little smile, while she folded
+her arms across her bosom, looked intently at him and smiled too, and
+shook her head.
+
+'What induces you to receive Count Malevsky?' I asked her one day.
+
+'He has such pretty moustaches,' she answered. 'But that's rather
+beyond you.'
+
+'You needn't think I care for him,' she said to me another time. 'No;
+I can't care for people I have to look down upon. I must have some one
+who can master me.... But, merciful heavens, I hope I may never come
+across any one like that! I don't want to be caught in any one's
+claws, not for anything.'
+
+'You'll never be in love, then?'
+
+'And you? Don't I love you?' she said, and she flicked me on the nose
+with the tip of her glove.
+
+Yes, Zinaida amused herself hugely at my expense. For three weeks I
+saw her every day, and what didn't she do with me! She rarely came to
+see us, and I was not sorry for it; in our house she was transformed
+into a young lady, a young princess, and I was a little overawed by
+her. I was afraid of betraying myself before my mother; she had taken
+a great dislike to Zinaida, and kept a hostile eye upon us. My father
+I was not so much afraid of; he seemed not to notice me. He talked
+little to her, but always with special cleverness and significance.
+I gave up working and reading; I even gave up walking about the
+neighbourhood and riding my horse. Like a beetle tied by the leg, I
+moved continually round and round my beloved little lodge. I would
+gladly have stopped there altogether, it seemed ... but that was
+impossible. My mother scolded me, and sometimes Zinaida herself drove
+me away. Then I used to shut myself up in my room, or go down to the
+very end of the garden, and climbing into what was left of a tall
+stone greenhouse, now in ruins, sit for hours with my legs hanging
+over the wall that looked on to the road, gazing and gazing and seeing
+nothing. White butterflies flitted lazily by me, over the dusty
+nettles; a saucy sparrow settled not far off on the half crumbling red
+brickwork and twittered irritably, incessantly twisting and turning
+and preening his tail-feathers; the still mistrustful rooks cawed now
+and then, sitting high, high up on the bare top of a birch-tree; the
+sun and wind played softly on its pliant branches; the tinkle of the
+bells of the Don monastery floated across to me from time to time,
+peaceful and dreary; while I sat, gazed, listened, and was filled full
+of a nameless sensation in which all was contained: sadness and joy
+and the foretaste of the future, and the desire and dread of life. But
+at that time I understood nothing of it, and could have given a name
+to nothing of all that was passing at random within me, or should have
+called it all by one name--the name of Zinaida.
+
+Zinaida continued to play cat and mouse with me. She flirted with me,
+and I was all agitation and rapture; then she would suddenly thrust me
+away, and I dared not go near her--dared not look at her.
+
+I remember she was very cold to me for several days together; I was
+completely crushed, and creeping timidly to their lodge, tried to keep
+close to the old princess, regardless of the circumstance that she was
+particularly scolding and grumbling just at that time; her
+financial affairs had been going badly, and she had already had two
+'explanations' with the police officials.
+
+One day I was walking in the garden beside the familiar fence, and I
+caught sight of Zinaida; leaning on both arms, she was sitting on the
+grass, not stirring a muscle. I was about to make off cautiously, but
+she suddenly raised her head and beckoned me imperiously. My heart
+failed me; I did not understand her at first. She repeated her signal.
+I promptly jumped over the fence and ran joyfully up to her, but she
+brought me to a halt with a look, and motioned me to the path two
+paces from her. In confusion, not knowing what to do, I fell on my
+knees at the edge of the path. She was so pale, such bitter suffering,
+such intense weariness, was expressed in every feature of her face,
+that it sent a pang to my heart, and I muttered unconsciously, 'What
+is the matter?'
+
+Zinaida stretched out her head, picked a blade of grass, bit it and
+flung it away from her.
+
+'You love me very much?' she asked at last. 'Yes.'
+
+I made no answer--indeed, what need was there to answer?
+
+'Yes,' she repeated, looking at me as before. 'That's so. The same
+eyes,'--she went on; sank into thought, and hid her face in her hands.
+'Everything's grown so loathsome to me,' she whispered, 'I would have
+gone to the other end of the world first--I can't bear it, I can't get
+over it.... And what is there before me!... Ah, I am wretched.... My
+God, how wretched I am!'
+
+'What for?' I asked timidly.
+
+Zinaida made no answer, she simply shrugged her shoulders. I remained
+kneeling, gazing at her with intense sadness. Every word she had
+uttered simply cut me to the heart. At that instant I felt I would
+gladly have given my life, if only she should not grieve. I gazed at
+her--and though I could not understand why she was wretched, I vividly
+pictured to myself, how in a fit of insupportable anguish, she had
+suddenly come out into the garden, and sunk to the earth, as though
+mown down by a scythe. It was all bright and green about her; the wind
+was whispering in the leaves of the trees, and swinging now and then
+a long branch of a raspberry bush over Zinaida's head. There was a
+sound of the cooing of doves, and the bees hummed, flying low over
+the scanty grass, Overhead the sun was radiantly blue--while I was so
+sorrowful....
+
+'Read me some poetry,' said Zinaida in an undertone, and she propped
+herself on her elbow; 'I like your reading poetry. You read it in
+sing-song, but that's no matter, that comes of being young. Read me
+"On the Hills of Georgia." Only sit down first.'
+
+I sat down and read 'On the Hills of Georgia.'
+
+'"That the heart cannot choose but love,"' repeated Zinaida. 'That's
+where poetry's so fine; it tells us what is not, and what's not only
+better than what is, but much more like the truth, "cannot choose
+but love,"--it might want not to, but it can't help it.' She was
+silent again, then all at once she started and got up. 'Come along.
+Meidanov's indoors with mamma, he brought me his poem, but I deserted
+him. His feelings are hurt too now ... I can't help it! you'll
+understand it all some day ... only don't be angry with me!'
+
+Zinaida hurriedly pressed my hand and ran on ahead. We went back into
+the lodge. Meidanov set to reading us his 'Manslayer,' which had just
+appeared in print, but I did not hear him. He screamed and drawled his
+four-foot iambic lines, the alternating rhythms jingled like little
+bells, noisy and meaningless, while I still watched Zinaida and tried
+to take in the import of her last words.
+
+  'Perchance some unknown rival
+  Has surprised and mastered thee?'
+
+Meidanov bawled suddenly through his nose--and my eyes and Zinaida's
+met. She looked down and faintly blushed. I saw her blush, and grew
+cold with terror. I had been jealous before, but only at that instant
+the idea of her being in love flashed upon my mind. 'Good God! she is
+in love!'
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+My real torments began from that instant. I racked my brains, changed
+my mind, and changed it back again, and kept an unremitting, though,
+as far as possible, secret watch on Zinaida. A change had come over
+her, that was obvious. She began going walks alone--and long walks.
+Sometimes she would not see visitors; she would sit for hours together
+in her room. This had never been a habit of hers till now. I suddenly
+became--or fancied I had become--extraordinarily penetrating.
+
+'Isn't it he? or isn't it he?' I asked myself, passing in inward
+agitation from one of her admirers to another. Count Malevsky secretly
+struck me as more to be feared than the others, though, for Zinaida's
+sake, I was ashamed to confess it to myself.
+
+My watchfulness did not see beyond the end of my nose, and its secrecy
+probably deceived no one; any way, Doctor Lushin soon saw through me.
+But he, too, had changed of late; he had grown thin, he laughed as
+often, but his laugh seemed more hollow, more spiteful, shorter, an
+involuntary nervous irritability took the place of his former light
+irony and assumed cynicism.
+
+'Why are you incessantly hanging about here, young man?' he said
+to me one day, when we were left alone together in the Zasyekins'
+drawing-room. (The young princess had not come home from a walk, and
+the shrill voice of the old princess could be heard within; she was
+scolding the maid.) 'You ought to be studying, working--while you're
+young--and what are you doing?'
+
+'You can't tell whether I work at home,' I retorted with some
+haughtiness, but also with some hesitation.
+
+'A great deal of work you do! that's not what you're thinking about!
+Well, I won't find fault with that ... at your age that's in the
+natural order of things. But you've been awfully unlucky in your
+choice. Don't you see what this house is?'
+
+'I don't understand you,' I observed.
+
+'You don't understand? so much the worse for you. I regard it as a
+duty to warn you. Old bachelors, like me, can come here, what harm can
+it do us! we're tough, nothing can hurt us, what harm can it do us;
+but your skin's tender yet--this air is bad for you--believe me, you
+may get harm from it.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Why, are you well now? Are you in a normal condition? Is what you're
+feeling--beneficial to you--good for you?'
+
+'Why, what am I feeling?' I said, while in my heart I knew the doctor
+was right.
+
+'Ah, young man, young man,' the doctor went on with an intonation that
+suggested that something highly insulting to me was contained in these
+two words, 'what's the use of your prevaricating, when, thank God,
+what's in your heart is in your face, so far? But there, what's the
+use of talking? I shouldn't come here myself, if ... (the doctor
+compressed his lips) ... if I weren't such a queer fellow. Only this
+is what surprises me; how it is, you, with your intelligence, don't
+see what is going on around you?'
+
+'And what is going on?' I put in, all on the alert.
+
+The doctor looked at me with a sort of ironical compassion.
+
+'Nice of me!' he said as though to himself, 'as if he need know
+anything of it. In fact, I tell you again,' he added, raising his
+voice, 'the atmosphere here is not fit for you. You like being here,
+but what of that! it's nice and sweet-smelling in a greenhouse--but
+there's no living in it. Yes! do as I tell you, and go back to your
+Keidanov.'
+
+The old princess came in, and began complaining to the doctor of her
+toothache. Then Zinaida appeared.
+
+'Come,' said the old princess, 'you must scold her, doctor. She's
+drinking iced water all day long; is that good for her, pray, with her
+delicate chest?'
+
+'Why do you do that?' asked Lushin.
+
+'Why, what effect could it have?'
+
+'What effect? You might get a chill and die.'
+
+'Truly? Do you mean it? Very well--so much the better.'
+
+'A fine idea!' muttered the doctor. The old princess had gone out.
+
+'Yes, a fine idea,' repeated Zinaida. 'Is life such a festive affair?
+Just look about you.... Is it nice, eh? Or do you imagine I don't
+understand it, and don't feel it? It gives me pleasure--drinking iced
+water; and can you seriously assure me that such a life is worth too
+much to be risked for an instant's pleasure--happiness I won't even
+talk about.'
+
+'Oh, very well,' remarked Lushin, 'caprice and irresponsibility....
+Those two words sum you up; your whole nature's contained in those two
+words.'
+
+Zinaida laughed nervously.
+
+'You're late for the post, my dear doctor. You don't keep a good
+look-out; you're behind the times. Put on your spectacles. I'm in no
+capricious humour now. To make fools of you, to make a fool of myself
+... much fun there is in that!--and as for irresponsibility ... M'sieu
+Voldemar,' Zinaida added suddenly, stamping, 'don't make such a
+melancholy face. I can't endure people to pity me.' She went quickly
+out of the room.
+
+'It's bad for you, very bad for you, this atmosphere, young man,'
+Lushin said to me once more.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+On the evening of the same day the usual guests were assembled at the
+Zasyekins'. I was among them.
+
+The conversation turned on Meidanov's poem. Zinaida expressed genuine
+admiration of it. 'But do you know what?' she said to him. 'If I were
+a poet, I would choose quite different subjects. Perhaps it's all
+nonsense, but strange ideas sometimes come into my head, especially
+when I'm not asleep in the early morning, when the sky begins to turn
+rosy and grey both at once. I would, for instance ... You won't laugh
+at me?'
+
+'No, no!' we all cried, with one voice.
+
+'I would describe,' she went on, folding her arms across her bosom
+and looking away, 'a whole company of young girls at night in a great
+boat, on a silent river. The moon is shining, and they are all in
+white, and wearing garlands of white flowers, and singing, you know,
+something in the nature of a hymn.'
+
+'I see--I see; go on,' Meidanov commented with dreamy significance.
+
+'All of a sudden, loud clamour, laughter, torches, tambourines on the
+bank.... It's a troop of Bacchantes dancing with songs and cries. It's
+your business to make a picture of it, Mr. Poet;... only I should like
+the torches to be red and to smoke a great deal, and the Bacchantes'
+eyes to gleam under their wreaths, and the wreaths to be dusky. Don't
+forget the tiger-skins, too, and goblets and gold--lots of gold....'
+
+'Where ought the gold to be?' asked Meidanov, tossing back his sleek
+hair and distending his nostrils.
+
+'Where? on their shoulders and arms and legs--everywhere. They say in
+ancient times women wore gold rings on their ankles. The Bacchantes
+call the girls in the boat to them. The girls have ceased singing
+their hymn--they cannot go on with it, but they do not stir, the river
+carries them to the bank. And suddenly one of them slowly rises....
+This you must describe nicely: how she slowly gets up in the
+moonlight, and how her companions are afraid.... She steps over the
+edge of the boat, the Bacchantes surround her, whirl her away into
+night and darkness.... Here put in smoke in clouds and everything in
+confusion. There is nothing but the sound of their shrill cry, and her
+wreath left lying on the bank.'
+
+Zinaida ceased. ('Oh! she is in love!' I thought again.)
+
+'And is that all?' asked Meidanov.
+
+'That's all.'
+
+'That can't be the subject of a whole poem,' he observed pompously,
+'but I will make use of your idea for a lyrical fragment.'
+
+'In the romantic style?' queried Malevsky.
+
+'Of course, in the romantic style--Byronic.'
+
+'Well, to my mind, Hugo beats Byron,' the young count observed
+negligently; 'he's more interesting.'
+
+'Hugo is a writer of the first class,' replied Meidanov; 'and my
+friend, Tonkosheev, in his Spanish romance, _El Trovador_ ...'
+
+'Ah! is that the book with the question-marks turned upside down?'
+Zinaida interrupted.
+
+'Yes. That's the custom with the Spanish. I was about to observe that
+Tonkosheev ...'
+
+'Come! you're going to argue about classicism and romanticism again,'
+Zinaida interrupted him a second time.' We'd much better play ...
+
+'Forfeits?' put in Lushin.
+
+'No, forfeits are a bore; at comparisons.' (This game Zinaida had
+invented herself. Some object was mentioned, every one tried to
+compare it with something, and the one who chose the best comparison
+got a prize.)
+
+She went up to the window. The sun was just setting; high up in the
+sky were large red clouds.
+
+'What are those clouds like?' questioned Zinaida; and without waiting
+for our answer, she said, 'I think they are like the purple sails on
+the golden ship of Cleopatra, when she sailed to meet Antony. Do you
+remember, Meidanov, you were telling me about it not long ago?'
+
+All of us, like Polonius in _Hamlet_, opined that the clouds recalled
+nothing so much as those sails, and that not one of us could discover
+a better comparison.
+
+'And how old was Antony then?' inquired Zinaida.
+
+'A young man, no doubt,' observed Malevsky.
+
+'Yes, a young man,' Meidanov chimed in in confirmation.
+
+'Excuse me,' cried Lushin, 'he was over forty.'
+
+'Over forty,' repeated Zinaida, giving him a rapid glance....
+
+I soon went home. 'She is in love,' my lips unconsciously repeated....
+'But with whom?'
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+The days passed by. Zinaida became stranger and stranger, and more and
+more incomprehensible. One day I went over to her, and saw her sitting
+in a basket-chair, her head pressed to the sharp edge of the table.
+She drew herself up ... her whole face was wet with tears.
+
+'Ah, you!' she said with a cruel smile. 'Come here.'
+
+I went up to her. She put her hand on my head, and suddenly catching
+hold of my hair, began pulling it.
+
+'It hurts me,' I said at last.
+
+'Ah! does it? And do you suppose nothing hurts me?' she replied.
+
+'Ai!' she cried suddenly, seeing she had pulled a little tuft of hair
+out. 'What have I done? Poor M'sieu Voldemar!'
+
+She carefully smoothed the hair she had torn out, stroked it round her
+finger, and twisted it into a ring.
+
+'I shall put your hair in a locket and wear it round my neck,' she
+said, while the tears still glittered in her eyes. 'That will be some
+small consolation to you, perhaps ... and now good-bye.'
+
+I went home, and found an unpleasant state of things there. My mother
+was having a scene with my father; she was reproaching him with
+something, while he, as his habit was, maintained a polite and chilly
+silence, and soon left her. I could not hear what my mother was
+talking of, and indeed I had no thought to spare for the subject; I
+only remember that when the interview was over, she sent for me to her
+room, and referred with great displeasure to the frequent visits I
+paid the princess, who was, in her words, _une femme capable de tout_.
+I kissed her hand (this was what I always did when I wanted to cut
+short a conversation) and went off to my room. Zinaida's tears had
+completely overwhelmed me; I positively did not know what to think,
+and was ready to cry myself; I was a child after all, in spite of my
+sixteen years. I had now given up thinking about Malevsky, though
+Byelovzorov looked more and more threatening every day, and glared at
+the wily count like a wolf at a sheep; but I thought of nothing and
+of no one. I was lost in imaginings, and was always seeking seclusion
+and solitude. I was particularly fond of the ruined greenhouse. I
+would climb up on the high wall, and perch myself, and sit there,
+such an unhappy, lonely, and melancholy youth, that I felt sorry for
+myself--and how consolatory where those mournful sensations, how I
+revelled in them!...
+
+One day I was sitting on the wall looking into the distance and
+listening to the ringing of the bells.... Suddenly something floated
+up to me--not a breath of wind and not a shiver, but as it were a
+whiff of fragrance--as it were, a sense of some one's being near.... I
+looked down. Below, on the path, in a light greyish gown, with a pink
+parasol on her shoulder, was Zinaida, hurrying along. She caught sight
+of me, stopped, and pushing back the brim of her straw hat, she raised
+her velvety eyes to me.
+
+'What are you doing up there at such a height?' she asked me with a
+rather queer smile. 'Come,' she went on, 'you always declare you love
+me; jump down into the road to me if you really do love me.'
+
+Zinaida had hardly uttered those words when I flew down, just as
+though some one had given me a violent push from behind. The wall was
+about fourteen feet high. I reached the ground on my feet, but the
+shock was so great that I could not keep my footing; I fell down, and
+for an instant fainted away. When I came to myself again, without
+opening my eyes, I felt Zinaida beside me. 'My dear boy,' she was
+saying, bending over me, and there was a note of alarmed tenderness in
+her voice, 'how could you do it, dear; how could you obey?... You know
+I love you.... Get up.'
+
+Her bosom was heaving close to me, her hands were caressing my head,
+and suddenly--what were my emotions at that moment--her soft, fresh
+lips began covering my face with kisses ... they touched my lips....
+But then Zinaida probably guessed by the expression of my face that I
+had regained consciousness, though I still kept my eyes closed, and
+rising rapidly to her feet, she said: 'Come, get up, naughty boy,
+silly, why are you lying in the dust?' I got up. 'Give me my parasol,'
+said Zinaida, 'I threw it down somewhere, and don't stare at me like
+that ... what ridiculous nonsense! you're not hurt, are you? stung
+by the nettles, I daresay? Don't stare at me, I tell you.... But
+he doesn't understand, he doesn't answer,' she added, as though to
+herself.... 'Go home, M'sieu' Voldemar, brush yourself, and don't dare
+to follow me, or I shall be angry, and never again ...'
+
+She did not finish her sentence, but walked rapidly away, while I sat
+down by the side of the road ... my legs would not support me. The
+nettles had stung my hands, my back ached, and my head was giddy; but
+the feeling of rapture I experienced then has never come a second
+time in my life. It turned to a sweet ache in all my limbs and found
+expression at last in joyful hops and skips and shouts. Yes, I was
+still a child.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+I was so proud and light-hearted all that day, I so vividly retained
+on my face the feeling of Zinaida's kisses, with such a shudder
+of delight I recalled every word she had uttered, I so hugged my
+unexpected happiness that I felt positively afraid, positively
+unwilling to see her, who had given rise to these new sensations. It
+seemed to me that now I could ask nothing more of fate, that now I
+ought to 'go, and draw a deep last sigh and die.' But, next day, when
+I went into the lodge, I felt great embarrassment, which I tried to
+conceal under a show of modest confidence, befitting a man who wishes
+to make it apparent that he knows how to keep a secret. Zinaida
+received me very simply, without any emotion, she simply shook her
+finger at me and asked me, whether I wasn't black and blue? All my
+modest confidence and air of mystery vanished instantaneously and
+with them my embarrassment. Of course, I had not expected anything
+particular, but Zinaida's composure was like a bucket of cold water
+thrown over me. I realised that in her eyes I was a child, and was
+extremely miserable! Zinaida walked up and down the room, giving me
+a quick smile, whenever she caught my eye, but her thoughts were
+far away, I saw that clearly.... 'Shall I begin about what happened
+yesterday myself,' I pondered; 'ask her, where she was hurrying off
+so fast, so as to find out once for all' ... but with a gesture of
+despair, I merely went and sat down in a corner.
+
+Byelovzorov came in; I felt relieved to see him.
+
+'I've not been able to find you a quiet horse,' he said in a sulky
+voice; 'Freitag warrants one, but I don't feel any confidence in it, I
+am afraid.'
+
+'What are you afraid of?' said Zinaida; 'allow me to inquire?'
+
+'What am I afraid of? Why, you don't know how to ride. Lord save
+us, what might happen! What whim is this has come over you all of a
+sudden?'
+
+'Come, that's my business, Sir Wild Beast. In that case I will ask
+Piotr Vassilievitch.' ... (My father's name was Piotr Vassilievitch.
+I was surprised at her mentioning his name so lightly and freely, as
+though she were confident of his readiness to do her a service.)
+
+'Oh, indeed,' retorted Byelovzorov, 'you mean to go out riding with
+him then?'
+
+'With him or with some one else is nothing to do with you. Only not
+with you, anyway.'
+
+'Not with me,' repeated Byelovzorov. 'As you wish. Well, I shall find
+you a horse.'
+
+'Yes, only mind now, don't send some old cow. I warn you I want to
+gallop.'
+
+'Gallop away by all means ... with whom is it, with Malevsky, you are
+going to ride?'
+
+'And why not with him, Mr. Pugnacity? Come, be quiet,' she added,
+'and don't glare. I'll take you too. You know that to my mind now
+Malevsky's--ugh!' She shook her head.
+
+'You say that to console me,' growled Byelovzorov.
+
+Zinaida half closed her eyes. 'Does that console you? O ... O ... O
+... Mr. Pugnacity!' she said at last, as though she could find no
+other word. 'And you, M'sieu' Voldemar, would you come with us?'
+
+'I don't care to ... in a large party,' I muttered, not raising my
+eyes.
+
+'You prefer a _tete-a-tete_?... Well, freedom to the free, and heaven
+to the saints,' she commented with a sigh. 'Go along, Byelovzorov, and
+bestir yourself. I must have a horse for to-morrow.'
+
+'Oh, and where's the money to come from?' put in the old princess.
+
+Zinaida scowled.
+
+'I won't ask you for it; Byelovzorov will trust me.'
+
+'He'll trust you, will he?' ... grumbled the old princess, and all of
+a sudden she screeched at the top of her voice, 'Duniashka!'
+
+'Maman, I have given you a bell to ring,' observed Zinaida.
+
+'Duniashka!' repeated the old lady.
+
+Byelovzorov took leave; I went away with him. Zinaida did not try to
+detain me.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+The next day I got up early, cut myself a stick, and set off beyond
+the town-gates. I thought I would walk off my sorrow. It was a lovely
+day, bright and not too hot, a fresh sportive breeze roved over the
+earth with temperate rustle and frolic, setting all things a-flutter
+and harassing nothing. I wandered a long while over hills and through
+woods; I had not felt happy, I had left home with the intention of
+giving myself up to melancholy, but youth, the exquisite weather, the
+fresh air, the pleasure of rapid motion, the sweetness of repose,
+lying on the thick grass in a solitary nook, gained the upper hand;
+the memory of those never-to-be-forgotten words, those kisses, forced
+itself once more upon my soul. It was sweet to me to think that
+Zinaida could not, anyway, fail to do justice to my courage, my
+heroism....' Others may seem better to her than I,' I mused, 'let
+them! But others only say what they would do, while I have done it.
+And what more would I not do for her?' My fancy set to work. I began
+picturing to myself how I would save her from the hands of enemies;
+how, covered with blood I would tear her by force from prison,
+and expire at her feet. I remembered a picture hanging in our
+drawing-room--Malek-Adel bearing away Matilda--but at that point my
+attention was absorbed by the appearance of a speckled woodpecker who
+climbed busily up the slender stem of a birch-tree and peeped out
+uneasily from behind it, first to the right, then to the left, like a
+musician behind the bass-viol.
+
+Then I sang 'Not the white snows,' and passed from that to a song well
+known at that period: 'I await thee, when the wanton zephyr,' then
+I began reading aloud Yermak's address to the stars from Homyakov's
+tragedy. I made an attempt to compose something myself in a
+sentimental vein, and invented the line which was to conclude each
+verse: 'O Zinaida, Zinaida!' but could get no further with it.
+Meanwhile it was getting on towards dinner-time. I went down into the
+valley; a narrow sandy path winding through it led to the town. I
+walked along this path.... The dull thud of horses' hoofs resounded
+behind me. I looked round instinctively, stood still and took off my
+cap. I saw my father and Zinaida. They were riding side by side. My
+father was saying something to her, bending right over to her, his
+hand propped on the horses' neck, he was smiling. Zinaida listened
+to him in silence, her eyes severely cast down, and her lips tightly
+pressed together. At first I saw them only; but a few instants later,
+Byelovzorov came into sight round a bend in the glade, he was wearing
+a hussar's uniform with a pelisse, and riding a foaming black horse.
+The gallant horse tossed its head, snorted and pranced from side
+to side, his rider was at once holding him in and spurring him on.
+I stood aside. My father gathered up the reins, moved away from
+Zinaida, she slowly raised her eyes to him, and both galloped off ...
+Byelovzorov flew after them, his sabre clattering behind him. 'He's
+as red as a crab,' I reflected, 'while she ... why's she so pale? out
+riding the whole morning, and pale?'
+
+I redoubled my pace, and got home just at dinner-time. My father was
+already sitting by my mother's chair, dressed for dinner, washed and
+fresh; he was reading an article from the _Journal des Debats_ in his
+smooth musical voice; but my mother heard him without attention, and
+when she saw me, asked where I had been to all day long, and added
+that she didn't like this gadding about God knows where, and God knows
+in what company. 'But I have been walking alone,' I was on the point
+of replying, but I looked at my father, and for some reason or other
+held my peace.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+For the next five or six days I hardly saw Zinaida; she said she was
+ill, which did not, however, prevent the usual visitors from calling
+at the lodge to pay--as they expressed it, their duty--all, that is,
+except Meidanov, who promptly grew dejected and sulky when he had
+not an opportunity of being enthusiastic. Byelovzorov sat sullen and
+red-faced in a corner, buttoned up to the throat; on the refined face
+of Malevsky there flickered continually an evil smile; he had really
+fallen into disfavour with Zinaida, and waited with special assiduity
+on the old princess, and even went with her in a hired coach to call
+on the Governor-General. This expedition turned out unsuccessful,
+however, and even led to an unpleasant experience for Malevsky; he was
+reminded of some scandal to do with certain officers of the engineers,
+and was forced in his explanations to plead his youth and inexperience
+at the time. Lushin came twice a day, but did not stay long; I was
+rather afraid of him after our last unreserved conversation, and at
+the same time felt a genuine attraction to him. He went a walk with
+me one day in the Neskutchny gardens, was very good-natured and nice,
+told me the names and properties of various plants and flowers, and
+suddenly, _a propos_ of nothing at all, cried, hitting himself on
+his forehead, 'And I, poor fool, thought her a flirt! it's clear
+self-sacrifice is sweet for some people!'
+
+'What do you mean by that?' I inquired.
+
+'I don't mean to tell you anything,' Lushin replied abruptly.
+
+Zinaida avoided me; my presence--I could not help noticing
+it--affected her disagreeably. She involuntarily turned away from me
+... involuntarily; that was what was so bitter, that was what crushed
+me! But there was no help for it, and I tried not to cross her path,
+and only to watch her from a distance, in which I was not always
+successful. As before, something incomprehensible was happening to
+her; her face was different, she was different altogether. I was
+specially struck by the change that had taken place in her one warm
+still evening. I was sitting on a low garden bench under a spreading
+elderbush; I was fond of that nook; I could see from there the window
+of Zinaida's room. I sat there; over my head a little bird was busily
+hopping about in the darkness of the leaves; a grey cat, stretching
+herself at full length, crept warily about the garden, and the first
+beetles were heavily droning in the air, which was still clear, though
+it was not light. I sat and gazed at the window, and waited to see if
+it would open; it did open, and Zinaida appeared at it. She had on a
+white dress, and she herself, her face, shoulders, and arms, were pale
+to whiteness. She stayed a long while without moving, and looked out
+straight before her from under her knitted brows. I had never known
+such a look on her. Then she clasped her hands tightly, raised them to
+her lips, to her forehead, and suddenly pulling her fingers apart, she
+pushed back her hair behind her ears, tossed it, and with a sort of
+determination nodded her head, and slammed-to the window.
+
+Three days later she met me in the garden. I was turning away, but she
+stopped me of herself.
+
+'Give me your arm,' she said to me with her old affectionateness,
+'it's a long while since we have had a talk together.'
+
+I stole a look at her; her eyes were full of a soft light, and her
+face seemed as it were smiling through a mist.
+
+'Are you still not well?' I asked her.
+
+'No, that's all over now,' she answered, and she picked a small red
+rose. 'I am a little tired, but that too will pass off.'
+
+'And will you be as you used to be again?' I asked.
+
+Zinaida put the rose up to her face, and I fancied the reflection of
+its bright petals had fallen on her cheeks. 'Why, am I changed?' she
+questioned me.
+
+'Yes, you are changed,' I answered in a low voice.
+
+'I have been cold to you, I know,' began Zinaida, 'but you mustn't pay
+attention to that ... I couldn't help it.... Come, why talk about it!'
+
+'You don't want me to love you, that's what it is!' I cried gloomily,
+in an involuntary outburst.
+
+'No, love me, but not as you did.'
+
+'How then?'
+
+'Let us be friends--come now!' Zinaida gave me the rose to smell.
+'Listen, you know I'm much older than you--I might be your aunt,
+really; well, not your aunt, but an older sister. And you ...'
+
+'You think me a child,' I interrupted.
+
+'Well, yes, a child, but a dear, good clever one, whom I love very
+much. Do you know what? From this day forth I confer on you the rank
+of page to me; and don't you forget that pages have to keep close
+to their ladies. Here is the token of your new dignity,' she added,
+sticking the rose in the buttonhole of my jacket, 'the token of my
+favour.'
+
+'I once received other favours from you,' I muttered.
+
+'Ah!' commented Zinaida, and she gave me a sidelong look, 'What a
+memory he has! Well? I'm quite ready now ...' And stooping to me, she
+imprinted on my forehead a pure, tranquil kiss.
+
+I only looked at her, while she turned away, and saying, 'Follow me,
+my page,' went into the lodge. I followed her--all in amazement. 'Can
+this gentle, reasonable girl,' I thought, 'be the Zinaida I used to
+know?' I fancied her very walk was quieter, her whole figure statelier
+and more graceful ...
+
+And, mercy! with what fresh force love burned within me!
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+After dinner the usual party assembled again at the lodge, and the
+young princess came out to them. All were there in full force, just as
+on that first evening which I never forgot; even Nirmatsky had limped
+to see her; Meidanov came this time earliest of all, he brought some
+new verses. The games of forfeits began again, but without the strange
+pranks, the practical jokes and noise--the gipsy element had vanished.
+Zinaida gave a different tone to the proceedings. I sat beside her by
+virtue of my office as page. Among other things, she proposed that
+any one who had to pay a forfeit should tell his dream; but this was
+not successful. The dreams were either uninteresting (Byelovzorov had
+dreamed that he fed his mare on carp, and that she had a wooden head),
+or unnatural and invented. Meidanov regaled us with a regular romance;
+there were sepulchres in it, and angels with lyres, and talking
+flowers and music wafted from afar. Zinaida did not let him finish.
+'If we are to have compositions,' she said, 'let every one tell
+something made up, and no pretence about it.' The first who had to
+speak was again Byelovzorov.
+
+The young hussar was confused. 'I can't make up anything!' he cried.
+
+'What nonsense!' said Zinaida. 'Well, imagine, for instance, you are
+married, and tell us how you would treat your wife. Would you lock her
+up?'
+
+'Yes, I should lock her up.'
+
+'And would you stay with her yourself?'
+
+'Yes, I should certainly stay with her myself.'
+
+'Very good. Well, but if she got sick of that, and she deceived you?'
+
+'I should kill her.'
+
+'And if she ran away?'
+
+'I should catch her up and kill her all the same.'
+
+'Oh. And suppose now I were your wife, what would you do then?'
+
+Byelovzorov was silent a minute. 'I should kill myself....'
+
+Zinaida laughed. 'I see yours is not a long story.'
+
+The next forfeit was Zinaida's. She looked at the ceiling and
+considered. 'Well, listen, she began at last, 'what I have thought
+of.... Picture to yourselves a magnificent palace, a summer night, and
+a marvellous ball. This ball is given by a young queen. Everywhere
+gold and marble, crystal, silk, lights, diamonds, flowers, fragrant
+scents, every caprice of luxury.'
+
+'You love luxury?' Lushin interposed. 'Luxury is beautiful,' she
+retorted; 'I love everything beautiful.'
+
+'More than what is noble?' he asked.
+
+'That's something clever, I don't understand it. Don't interrupt me.
+So the ball is magnificent. There are crowds of guests, all of them
+are young, handsome, and brave, all are frantically in love with the
+queen.'
+
+'Are there no women among the guests?' queried Malevsky.
+
+'No--or wait a minute--yes, there are some.'
+
+'Are they all ugly?'
+
+'No, charming. But the men are all in love with the queen. She is tall
+and graceful; she has a little gold diadem on her black hair.'
+
+I looked at Zinaida, and at that instant she seemed to me so much
+above all of us, there was such bright intelligence, and such power
+about her unruffled brows, that I thought: 'You are that queen!'
+
+'They all throng about her,' Zinaida went on, 'and all lavish the most
+flattering speeches upon her.'
+
+'And she likes flattery?' Lushin queried.
+
+'What an intolerable person! he keeps interrupting ... who doesn't
+like flattery?'
+
+'One more last question,' observed Malevsky, 'has the queen a
+husband?'
+
+'I hadn't thought about that. No, why should she have a husband?'
+
+'To be sure,' assented Malevsky, 'why should she have a husband?'
+
+'_Silence!_' cried Meidanov in French, which he spoke very badly.
+
+'_Merci!_' Zinaida said to him. 'And so the queen hears their
+speeches, and hears the music, but does not look at one of the guests.
+Six windows are open from top to bottom, from floor to ceiling, and
+beyond them is a dark sky with big stars, a dark garden with big
+trees. The queen gazes out into the garden. Out there among the trees
+is a fountain; it is white in the darkness, and rises up tall, tall
+as an apparition. The queen hears, through the talk and the music,
+the soft splash of its waters. She gazes and thinks: you are all,
+gentlemen, noble, clever, and rich, you crowd round me, you treasure
+every word I utter, you are all ready to die at my feet, I hold you in
+my power ... but out there, by the fountain, by that splashing water,
+stands and waits he whom I love, who holds me in his power. He has
+neither rich raiment nor precious stones, no one knows him, but he
+awaits me, and is certain I shall come--and I shall come--and there
+is no power that could stop me when I want to go out to him, and to
+stay with him, and be lost with him out there in the darkness of the
+garden, under the whispering of the trees, and the splash of the
+fountain ...' Zinaida ceased.
+
+'Is that a made-up story?' Malevsky inquired slyly. Zinaida did not
+even look at him.
+
+'And what should we have done, gentlemen?' Lushin began suddenly, 'if
+we had been among the guests, and had known of the lucky fellow at the
+fountain?'
+
+'Stop a minute, stop a minute,' interposed Zinaida, 'I will tell you
+myself what each of you would have done. You, Byelovzorov, would have
+challenged him to a duel; you, Meidanov, would have written an epigram
+on him ... No, though, you can't write epigrams, you would have made
+up a long poem on him in the style of Barbier, and would have inserted
+your production in the _Telegraph_. You, Nirmatsky, would have
+borrowed ... no, you would have lent him money at high interest; you,
+doctor,...' she stopped. 'There, I really don't know what you would
+have done....'
+
+'In the capacity of court physician,' answered Lushin, 'I would have
+advised the queen not to give balls when she was not in the humour for
+entertaining her guests....'
+
+'Perhaps you would have been right. And you, Count?...'
+
+'And I?' repeated Malevsky with his evil smile....
+
+'You would offer him a poisoned sweetmeat.' Malevsky's face changed
+slightly, and assumed for an instant a Jewish expression, but he
+laughed directly.
+
+'And as for you, Voldemar,...' Zinaida went on, 'but that's enough,
+though; let us play another game.'
+
+'M'sieu Voldemar, as the queen's page, would have held up her train
+when she ran into the garden,' Malevsky remarked malignantly.
+
+I was crimson with anger, but Zinaida hurriedly laid a hand on my
+shoulder, and getting up, said in a rather shaky voice: 'I have never
+given your excellency the right to be rude, and therefore I will ask
+you to leave us.' She pointed to the door.
+
+'Upon my word, princess,' muttered Malevsky, and he turned quite pale.
+
+'The princess is right,' cried Byelovzorov, and he too rose.
+
+'Good God, I'd not the least idea,' Malevsky went on, 'in my words
+there was nothing, I think, that could ... I had no notion of
+offending you.... Forgive me.'
+
+Zinaida looked him up and down coldly, and coldly smiled. 'Stay, then,
+certainly,' she pronounced with a careless gesture of her arm.
+
+'M'sieu Voldemar and I were needlessly incensed. It is your pleasure
+to sting ... may it do you good.'
+
+'Forgive me,' Malevsky repeated once more; while I, my thoughts
+dwelling on Zinaida's gesture, said to myself again that no real queen
+could with greater dignity have shown a presumptuous subject to the
+door.
+
+The game of forfeits went on for a short time after this little scene;
+every one felt rather ill at ease, not so much on account of this
+scene, as from another, not quite definite, but oppressive feeling. No
+one spoke of it, but every one was conscious of it in himself and in
+his neighbour. Meidanov read us his verses; and Malevsky praised them
+with exaggerated warmth. 'He wants to show how good he is now,' Lushin
+whispered to me. We soon broke up. A mood of reverie seemed to have
+come upon Zinaida; the old princess sent word that she had a headache;
+Nirmatsky began to complain of his rheumatism....
+
+I could not for a long while get to sleep. I had been impressed by
+Zinaida's story. 'Can there have been a hint in it?' I asked myself:
+'and at whom and at what was she hinting? And if there really is
+anything to hint at ... how is one to make up one's mind? No, no, it
+can't be,' I whispered, turning over from one hot cheek on to the
+other.... But I remembered the expression of Zinaida's face during her
+story.... I remembered the exclamation that had broken from Lushin in
+the Neskutchny gardens, the sudden change in her behaviour to me, and
+I was lost in conjectures. 'Who is he?' These three words seemed to
+stand before my eyes traced upon the darkness; a lowering malignant
+cloud seemed hanging over me, and I felt its oppressiveness, and
+waited for it to break. I had grown used to many things of late; I had
+learned much from what I had seen at the Zasyekins; their disorderly
+ways, tallow candle-ends, broken knives and forks, grumpy Vonifaty,
+and shabby maid-servants, the manners of the old princess--all
+their strange mode of life no longer struck me.... But what I was
+dimly discerning now in Zinaida, I could never get used to.... 'An
+adventuress!' my mother had said of her one day. An adventuress--she,
+my idol, my divinity? This word stabbed me, I tried to get away from
+it into my pillow, I was indignant--and at the same time what would I
+not have agreed to, what would I not have given only to be that lucky
+fellow at the fountain!... My blood was on fire and boiling within
+me. 'The garden ... the fountain,' I mused.... 'I will go into the
+garden.' I dressed quickly and slipped out of the house. The night
+was dark, the trees scarcely whispered, a soft chill air breathed
+down from the sky, a smell of fennel trailed across from the kitchen
+garden. I went through all the walks; the light sound of my own
+footsteps at once confused and emboldened me; I stood still, waited
+and heard my heart beating fast and loudly. At last I went up to the
+fence and leaned against the thin bar. Suddenly, or was it my fancy, a
+woman's figure flashed by, a few paces from me ... I strained my eyes
+eagerly into the darkness, I held my breath. What was that? Did I hear
+steps, or was it my heart beating again? 'Who is here?' I faltered,
+hardly audibly. What was that again, a smothered laugh ... or a
+rustling in the leaves ... or a sigh just at my ear? I felt afraid ...
+'Who is here?' I repeated still more softly.
+
+The air blew in a gust for an instant; a streak of fire flashed across
+the sky; it was a star falling. 'Zinaida?' I wanted to call, but
+the word died away on my lips. And all at once everything became
+profoundly still around, as is often the case in the middle of the
+night.... Even the grasshoppers ceased their churr in the trees--only
+a window rattled somewhere. I stood and stood, and then went back to
+my room, to my chilled bed. I felt a strange sensation; as though I
+had gone to a tryst, and had been left lonely, and had passed close by
+another's happiness.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+The following day I only had a passing glimpse of Zinaida: she was
+driving somewhere with the old princess in a cab. But I saw Lushin,
+who, however, barely vouchsafed me a greeting, and Malevsky. The young
+count grinned, and began affably talking to me. Of all those who
+visited at the lodge, he alone had succeeded in forcing his way into
+our house, and had favourably impressed my mother. My father did not
+take to him, and treated him with a civility almost insulting.
+
+'Ah, _monsieur le page_,' began Malevsky, 'delighted to meet you. What
+is your lovely queen doing?'
+
+His fresh handsome face was so detestable to me at that moment, and he
+looked at me with such contemptuous amusement that I did not answer
+him at all.
+
+'Are you still angry?' he went on. 'You've no reason to be. It wasn't
+I who called you a page, you know, and pages attend queens especially.
+But allow me to remark that you perform your duties very badly.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Pages ought to be inseparable from their mistresses; pages ought to
+know everything they do, they ought, indeed, to watch over them,' he
+added, lowering his voice, 'day and night.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'What do I mean? I express myself pretty clearly, I fancy. Day and
+night. By day it's not so much matter; it's light, and people are
+about in the daytime; but by night, then look out for misfortune. I
+advise you not to sleep at nights and to watch, watch with all your
+energies. You remember, in the garden, by night, at the fountain,
+that's where there's need to look out. You will thank me.'
+
+Malevsky laughed and turned his back on me. He, most likely, attached
+no great importance to what he had said to me, he had a reputation
+for mystifying, and was noted for his power of taking people in at
+masquerades, which was greatly augmented by the almost unconscious
+falsity in which his whole nature was steeped.... He only wanted to
+tease me; but every word he uttered was a poison that ran through my
+veins. The blood rushed to my head. 'Ah! so that's it!' I said to
+myself; 'good! So there was reason for me to feel drawn into the
+garden! That shan't be so!' I cried aloud, and struck myself on the
+chest with my fist, though precisely what should not be so I could not
+have said. 'Whether Malevsky himself goes into the garden,' I thought
+(he was bragging, perhaps; he has insolence enough for that), 'or
+some one else (the fence of our garden was very low, and there was
+no difficulty in getting over it), anyway, if any one falls into
+my hands, it will be the worse for him! I don't advise any one to
+meet me! I will prove to all the world and to her, the traitress (I
+actually used the word 'traitress') that I can be revenged!'
+
+I returned to my own room, took out of the writing-table an English
+knife I had recently bought, felt its sharp edge, and knitting my
+brows with an air of cold and concentrated determination, thrust it
+into my pocket, as though doing such deeds was nothing out of the way
+for me, and not the first time. My heart heaved angrily, and felt
+heavy as a stone. All day long I kept a scowling brow and lips tightly
+compressed, and was continually walking up and down, clutching, with
+my hand in my pocket, the knife, which was warm from my grasp, while I
+prepared myself beforehand for something terrible. These new unknown
+sensations so occupied and even delighted me, that I hardly thought
+of Zinaida herself. I was continually haunted by Aleko, the young
+gipsy--'Where art thou going, young handsome man? Lie there,' and
+then, 'thou art all besprent with blood.... Oh, what hast thou
+done?... Naught!' With what a cruel smile I repeated that 'Naught!' My
+father was not at home; but my mother, who had for some time past been
+in an almost continual state of dumb exasperation, noticed my gloomy
+and heroic aspect, and said to me at supper, 'Why are you sulking like
+a mouse in a meal-tub?' I merely smiled condescendingly in reply, and
+thought, 'If only they knew!' It struck eleven; I went to my room, but
+did not undress; I waited for midnight; at last it struck. 'The time
+has come!' I muttered between my teeth; and buttoning myself up to the
+throat, and even pulling my sleeves up, I went into the garden.
+
+I had already fixed on the spot from which to keep watch. At the end
+of the garden, at the point where the fence, separating our domain
+from the Zasyekins,' joined the common wall, grew a pine-tree,
+standing alone. Standing under its low thick branches, I could see
+well, as far as the darkness of the night permitted, what took
+place around. Close by, ran a winding path which had always seemed
+mysterious to me; it coiled like a snake under the fence, which at
+that point bore traces of having been climbed over, and led to a round
+arbour formed of thick acacias. I made my way to the pine-tree, leaned
+my back against its trunk, and began my watch.
+
+The night was as still as the night before, but there were fewer
+clouds in the sky, and the outlines of bushes, even of tall flowers,
+could be more distinctly seen. The first moments of expectation were
+oppressive, almost terrible. I had made up my mind to everything. I
+only debated how to act; whether to thunder, 'Where goest thou? Stand!
+show thyself--or death!' or simply to strike.... Every sound, every
+whisper and rustle, seemed to me portentous and extraordinary.... I
+prepared myself.... I bent forward.... But half-an-hour passed, an
+hour passed; my blood had grown quieter, colder; the consciousness
+that I was doing all this for nothing, that I was even a little
+absurd, that Malevsky had been making fun of me, began to steal over
+me. I left my ambush, and walked all about the garden. As if to taunt
+me, there was not the smallest sound to be heard anywhere; everything
+was at rest. Even our dog was asleep, curled up into a ball at the
+gate. I climbed up into the ruins of the greenhouse, saw the open
+country far away before me, recalled my meeting with Zinaida, and fell
+to dreaming....
+
+I started.... I fancied I heard the creak of a door opening, then the
+faint crack of a broken twig. In two bounds I got down from the ruin,
+and stood still, all aghast. Rapid, light, but cautious footsteps
+sounded distinctly in the garden. They were approaching me. 'Here he
+is ... here he is, at last!' flashed through my heart. With spasmodic
+haste, I pulled the knife out of my pocket; with spasmodic haste, I
+opened it. Flashes of red were whirling before my eyes; my hair stood
+up on my head in my fear and fury.... The steps were coming straight
+towards me; I bent--I craned forward to meet him.... A man came into
+view.... My God! it was my father! I recognised him at once, though
+he was all muffled up in a dark cloak, and his hat was pulled down
+over his face. On tip-toe he walked by. He did not notice me, though
+nothing concealed me; but I was so huddled up and shrunk together that
+I fancy I was almost on the level of the ground. The jealous Othello,
+ready for murder, was suddenly transformed into a school-boy.... I was
+so taken aback by my father's unexpected appearance that for the first
+moment I did not notice where he had come from or in what direction he
+disappeared. I only drew myself up, and thought, 'Why is it my father
+is walking about in the garden at night?' when everything was still
+again. In my horror I had dropped my knife in the grass, but I did not
+even attempt to look for it; I was very much ashamed of myself. I was
+completely sobered at once. On my way to the house, however, I went up
+to my seat under the elder-tree, and looked up at Zinaida's window.
+The small slightly-convex panes of the window shone dimly blue in the
+faint light thrown on them by the night sky. All at once--their colour
+began to change.... Behind them--I saw this, saw it distinctly--softly
+and cautiously a white blind was let down, let down right to the
+window-frame, and so stayed.
+
+'What is that for?' I said aloud almost involuntarily when I found
+myself once more in my room. 'A dream, a chance, or ...' The
+suppositions which suddenly rushed into my head were so new and
+strange that I did not dare to entertain them.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+I got up in the morning with a headache. My emotion of the previous
+day had vanished. It was replaced by a dreary sense of blankness and
+a sort of sadness I had not known till then, as though something had
+died in me.
+
+'Why is it you're looking like a rabbit with half its brain removed?'
+said Lushin on meeting me. At lunch I stole a look first at my father,
+then at my mother: he was composed, as usual; she was, as usual,
+secretly irritated. I waited to see whether my father would make some
+friendly remarks to me, as he sometimes did.... But he did not even
+bestow his everyday cold greeting upon me. 'Shall I tell Zinaida all?'
+I wondered.... 'It's all the same, anyway; all is at an end between
+us.' I went to see her, but told her nothing, and, indeed, I could not
+even have managed to get a talk with her if I had wanted to. The old
+princess's son, a cadet of twelve years old, had come from Petersburg
+for his holidays; Zinaida at once handed her brother over to me.
+'Here,' she said,' my dear Volodya,'--it was the first time she
+had used this pet-name to me--'is a companion for you. His name is
+Volodya, too. Please, like him; he is still shy, but he has a good
+heart. Show him Neskutchny gardens, go walks with him, take him under
+your protection. You'll do that, won't you? you're so good, too!' She
+laid both her hands affectionately on my shoulders, and I was utterly
+bewildered. The presence of this boy transformed me, too, into a
+boy. I looked in silence at the cadet, who stared as silently at me.
+Zinaida laughed, and pushed us towards each other. 'Embrace each
+other, children!' We embraced each other. 'Would you like me to show
+you the garden?' I inquired of the cadet. 'If you please,' he replied,
+in the regular cadet's hoarse voice. Zinaida laughed again.... I had
+time to notice that she had never had such an exquisite colour in her
+face before. I set off with the cadet. There was an old-fashioned
+swing in our garden. I sat him down on the narrow plank seat, and
+began swinging him. He sat rigid in his new little uniform of stout
+cloth, with its broad gold braiding, and kept tight hold of the cords.
+'You'd better unbutton your collar,' I said to him. 'It's all right;
+we're used to it,' he said, and cleared his throat. He was like his
+sister. The eyes especially recalled her, I liked being nice to him;
+and at the same time an aching sadness was gnawing at my heart. 'Now
+I certainly am a child,' I thought; 'but yesterday....' I remembered
+where I had dropped my knife the night before, and looked for it. The
+cadet asked me for it, picked a thick stalk of wild parsley, cut a
+pipe out of it, and began whistling. Othello whistled too.
+
+But in the evening how he wept, this Othello, in Zinaida's arms, when,
+seeking him out in a corner of the garden, she asked him why he was so
+depressed. My tears flowed with such violence that she was frightened.
+'What is wrong with you? What is it, Volodya?' she repeated; and
+seeing I made no answer, and did not cease weeping, she was about to
+kiss my wet cheek. But I turned away from her, and whispered through
+my sobs, 'I know all. Why did you play with me?... What need had you
+of my love?'
+
+'I am to blame, Volodya ...' said Zinaida. 'I am very much to blame
+...' she added, wringing her hands. 'How much there is bad and black
+and sinful in me!... But I am not playing with you now. I love you;
+you don't even suspect why and how.... But what is it you know?'
+
+What could I say to her? She stood facing me, and looked at me; and I
+belonged to her altogether from head to foot directly she looked at
+me.... A quarter of an hour later I was running races with the cadet
+and Zinaida. I was not crying, I was laughing, though my swollen
+eyelids dropped a tear or two as I laughed. I had Zinaida's ribbon
+round my neck for a cravat, and I shouted with delight whenever I
+succeeded in catching her round the waist. She did just as she liked
+with me.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+I should be in a great difficulty, if I were forced to describe
+exactly what passed within me in the course of the week after my
+unsuccessful midnight expedition. It was a strange feverish time, a
+sort of chaos, in which the most violently opposed feelings, thoughts,
+suspicions, hopes, joys, and sufferings, whirled together in a kind
+of hurricane. I was afraid to look into myself, if a boy of sixteen
+ever can look into himself; I was afraid to take stock of anything; I
+simply hastened to live through every day till evening; and at night I
+slept ... the light-heartedness of childhood came to my aid. I did not
+want to know whether I was loved, and I did not want to acknowledge to
+myself that I was not loved; my father I avoided--but Zinaida I could
+not avoid.... I burnt as in a fire in her presence ... but what did I
+care to know what the fire was in which I burned and melted--it was
+enough that it was sweet to burn and melt. I gave myself up to all my
+passing sensations, and cheated myself, turning away from memories,
+and shutting my eyes to what I foreboded before me.... This weakness
+would not most likely have lasted long in any case ... a thunderbolt
+cut it all short in a moment, and flung me into a new track
+altogether.
+
+Coming in one day to dinner from a rather long walk, I learnt with
+amazement that I was to dine alone, that my father had gone away and
+my mother was unwell, did not want any dinner, and had shut herself
+up in her bedroom. From the faces of the footmen, I surmised that
+something extraordinary had taken place.... I did not dare to
+cross-examine them, but I had a friend in the young waiter Philip,
+who was passionately fond of poetry, and a performer on the guitar. I
+addressed myself to him. From him I learned that a terrible scene had
+taken place between my father and mother (and every word had been
+overheard in the maids' room; much of it had been in French, but Masha
+the lady's-maid had lived five years' with a dressmaker from Paris,
+and she understood it all); that my mother had reproached my father
+with infidelity, with an intimacy with the young lady next door, that
+my father at first had defended himself, but afterwards had lost his
+temper, and he too had said something cruel, 'reflecting on her age,'
+which had made my mother cry; that my mother too had alluded to some
+loan which it seemed had been made to the old princess, and had spoken
+very ill of her and of the young lady too, and that then my father had
+threatened her. 'And all the mischief,' continued Philip, 'came from
+an anonymous letter; and who wrote it, no one knows, or else there'd
+have been no reason whatever for the matter to have come out at all.'
+
+'But was there really any ground,' I brought out with difficulty,
+while my hands and feet went cold, and a sort of shudder ran through
+my inmost being.
+
+Philip winked meaningly. 'There was. There's no hiding those things;
+for all that your father was careful this time--but there, you see,
+he'd, for instance, to hire a carriage or something ... no getting on
+without servants, either.'
+
+I dismissed Philip, and fell on to my bed. I did not sob, I did not
+give myself up to despair; I did not ask myself when and how this had
+happened; I did not wonder how it was I had not guessed it before,
+long ago; I did not even upbraid my father.... What I had learnt was
+more than I could take in; this sudden revelation stunned me....
+All was at an end. All the fair blossoms of my heart were roughly
+plucked at once, and lay about me, flung on the ground, and trampled
+underfoot.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+My mother next day announced her intention of returning to the town.
+In the morning my father had gone into her bedroom, and stayed there a
+long while alone with her. No one had overheard what he said to her;
+but my mother wept no more; she regained her composure, and asked for
+food, but did not make her appearance nor change her plans. I remember
+I wandered about the whole day, but did not go into the garden,
+and never once glanced at the lodge, and in the evening I was the
+spectator of an amazing occurrence: my father conducted Count Malevsky
+by the arm through the dining-room into the hall, and, in the presence
+of a footman, said icily to him: 'A few days ago your excellency was
+shown the door in our house; and now I am not going to enter into any
+kind of explanation with you, but I have the honour to announce to you
+that if you ever visit me again, I shall throw you out of window. I
+don't like your handwriting.' The count bowed, bit his lips, shrank
+away, and vanished.
+
+Preparations were beginning for our removal to town, to Arbaty Street,
+where we had a house. My father himself probably no longer cared
+to remain at the country house; but clearly he had succeeded in
+persuading my mother not to make a public scandal. Everything was
+done quietly, without hurry; my mother even sent her compliments to
+the old princess, and expressed her regret that she was prevented by
+indisposition from seeing her again before her departure. I wandered
+about like one possessed, and only longed for one thing, for it all
+to be over as soon as possible. One thought I could not get out of
+my head: how could she, a young girl, and a princess too, after all,
+bring herself to such a step, knowing that my father was not a free
+man, and having an opportunity of marrying, for instance, Byelovzorov?
+What did she hope for? How was it she was not afraid of ruining her
+whole future? Yes, I thought, this is love, this is passion, this
+is devotion ... and Lushin's words came back to me: to sacrifice
+oneself for some people is sweet. I chanced somehow to catch sight
+of something white in one of the windows of the lodge.... 'Can it be
+Zinaida's face?' I thought ... yes, it really was her face. I could
+not restrain myself. I could not part from her without saying a last
+good-bye to her. I seized a favourable instant, and went into the
+lodge.
+
+In the drawing-room the old princess met me with her usual slovenly
+and careless greetings.
+
+'How's this, my good man, your folks are off in such a hurry?' she
+observed, thrusting snuff into her nose. I looked at her, and a load
+was taken off my heart. The word 'loan,' dropped by Philip, had been
+torturing me. She had no suspicion ... at least I thought so then.
+Zinaida came in from the next room, pale, and dressed in black, with
+her hair hanging loose; she took me by the hand without a word, and
+drew me away with her.
+
+'I heard your voice,' she began, 'and came out at once. Is it so easy
+for you to leave us, bad boy?'
+
+'I have come to say good-bye to you, princess,' I answered, 'probably
+for ever. You have heard, perhaps, we are going away.'
+
+Zinaida looked intently at me.
+
+'Yes, I have heard. Thanks for coming. I was beginning to think I
+should not see you again. Don't remember evil against me. I have
+sometimes tormented you, but all the same I am not what you imagine
+me.' She turned away, and leaned against the window.
+
+'Really, I am not like that. I know you have a bad opinion of me.'
+
+'I?'
+
+'Yes, you ... you.'
+
+'I?' I repeated mournfully, and my heart throbbed as of old under the
+influence of her overpowering, indescribable fascination. 'I? Believe
+me, Zinaida Alexandrovna, whatever you did, however you tormented me,
+I should love and adore you to the end of my days.'
+
+She turned with a rapid motion to me, and flinging wide her arms,
+embraced my head, and gave me a warm and passionate kiss. God knows
+whom that long farewell kiss was seeking, but I eagerly tasted
+its sweetness. I knew that it would never be repeated. 'Good-bye,
+good-bye,' I kept saying ...
+
+She tore herself away, and went out. And I went away. I cannot
+describe the emotion with which I went away. I should not wish it
+ever to come again; but I should think myself unfortunate had I never
+experienced such an emotion.
+
+We went back to town. I did not quickly shake off the past; I did
+not quickly get to work. My wound slowly began to heal; but I had no
+ill-feeling against my father. On the contrary he had, as it were,
+gained in my eyes ... let psychologists explain the contradiction
+as best they can. One day I was walking along a boulevard, and to
+my indescribable delight, I came across Lushin. I liked him for his
+straightforward and unaffected character, and besides he was dear to
+me for the sake of the memories he aroused in me. I rushed up to him.
+'Aha!' he said, knitting his brows,' so it's you, young man. Let me
+have a look at you. You're still as yellow as ever, but yet there's
+not the same nonsense in your eyes. You look like a man, not a
+lap-dog. That's good. Well, what are you doing? working?'
+
+I gave a sigh. I did not like to tell a lie, while I was ashamed to
+tell the truth.
+
+'Well, never mind,' Lushin went on, 'don't be shy. The great thing is
+to lead a normal life, and not be the slave of your passions. What do
+you get if not? Wherever you are carried by the tide--it's all a bad
+look-out; a man must stand on his own feet, if he can get nothing but
+a rock to stand on. Here, I've got a cough ... and Byelovzorov--have
+you heard anything of him?'
+
+'No. What is it?'
+
+'He's lost, and no news of him; they say he's gone away to the
+Caucasus. A lesson to you, young man. And it's all from not knowing
+how to part in time, to break out of the net. You seem to have got off
+very well. Mind you don't fall into the same snare again. Good-bye.'
+
+'I shan't,' I thought.... 'I shan't see her again.' But I was destined
+to see Zinaida once more.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+My father used every day to ride out on horse-back. He had a splendid
+English mare, a chestnut piebald, with a long slender neck and long
+legs, an inexhaustible and vicious beast. Her name was Electric. No
+one could ride her except my father. One day he came up to me in a
+good humour, a frame of mind in which I had not seen him for a long
+while; he was getting ready for his ride, and had already put on his
+spurs. I began entreating him to take me with him.
+
+'We'd much better have a game of leap-frog,' my father replied.
+'You'll never keep up with me on your cob.'
+
+'Yes, I will; I'll put on spurs too.'
+
+'All right, come along then.'
+
+We set off. I had a shaggy black horse, strong, and fairly spirited.
+It is true it had to gallop its utmost, when Electric went at full
+trot, still I was not left behind. I have never seen any one ride like
+my father; he had such a fine carelessly easy seat, that it seemed
+that the horse under him was conscious of it, and proud of its rider.
+We rode through all the boulevards, reached the 'Maidens' Field,'
+jumped several fences (at first I had been afraid to take a leap, but
+my father had a contempt for cowards, and I soon ceased to feel fear),
+twice crossed the river Moskva, and I was under the impression that
+we were on our way home, especially as my father of his own accord
+observed that my horse was tired, when suddenly he turned off away
+from me at the Crimean ford, and galloped along the river-bank. I rode
+after him. When he had reached a high stack of old timber, he slid
+quickly off Electric, told me to dismount, and giving me his horse's
+bridle, told me to wait for him there at the timber-stack, and,
+turning off into a small street, disappeared. I began walking up and
+down the river-bank, leading the horses, and scolding Electric, who
+kept pulling, shaking her head, snorting and neighing as she went; and
+when I stood still, never failed to paw the ground, and whining, bite
+my cob on the neck; in fact she conducted herself altogether like a
+spoilt thorough-bred. My father did not come back. A disagreeable damp
+mist rose from the river; a fine rain began softly blowing up, and
+spotting with tiny dark flecks the stupid grey timber-stack, which
+I kept passing and repassing, and was deadly sick of by now. I
+was terribly bored, and still my father did not come. A sort of
+sentry-man, a Fin, grey all over like the timber, and with a huge
+old-fashioned shako, like a pot, on his head, and with a halberd
+(and how ever came a sentry, if you think of it, on the banks of
+the Moskva!) drew near, and turning his wrinkled face, like an old
+woman's, towards me, he observed, 'What are you doing here with the
+horses, young master? Let me hold them.'
+
+I made him no reply. He asked me for tobacco. To get rid of him (I was
+in a fret of impatience, too), I took a few steps in the direction in
+which my father had disappeared, then walked along the little street
+to the end, turned the corner, and stood still. In the street, forty
+paces from me, at the open window of a little wooden house, stood
+my father, his back turned to me; he was leaning forward over the
+window-sill, and in the house, half hidden by a curtain, sat a woman
+in a dark dress talking to my father; this woman was Zinaida.
+
+I was petrified. This, I confess, I had never expected. My first
+impulse was to run away. 'My father will look round,' I thought,
+'and I am lost ...' but a strange feeling--a feeling stronger than
+curiosity, stronger than jealousy, stronger even than fear--held me
+there. I began to watch; I strained my ears to listen. It seemed
+as though my father were insisting on something. Zinaida would not
+consent. I seem to see her face now--mournful, serious, lovely, and
+with an inexpressible impress of devotion, grief, love, and a sort of
+despair--I can find no other word for it. She uttered monosyllables,
+not raising her eyes, simply smiling--submissively, but without
+yielding. By that smile alone, I should have known my Zinaida of old
+days. My father shrugged his shoulders, and straightened his hat on
+his head, which was always a sign of impatience with him.... Then I
+caught the words: '_Vous devez vous separer de cette..._' Zinaida sat
+up, and stretched out her arm.... Suddenly, before my very eyes, the
+impossible happened. My father suddenly lifted the whip, with which
+he had been switching the dust off his coat, and I heard a sharp blow
+on that arm, bare to the elbow. I could scarcely restrain myself from
+crying out; while Zinaida shuddered, looked without a word at my
+father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of
+red upon it. My father flung away the whip, and running quickly up
+the steps, dashed into the house.... Zinaida turned round, and with
+outstretched arms and downcast head, she too moved away from the
+window.
+
+My heart sinking with panic, with a sort of awe-struck horror, I
+rushed back, and running down the lane, almost letting go my hold
+of Electric, went back to the bank of the river. I could not think
+clearly of anything. I knew that my cold and reserved father was
+sometimes seized by fits of fury; and all the same, I could never
+comprehend what I had just seen.... But I felt at the time that,
+however long I lived, I could never forget the gesture, the glance,
+the smile, of Zinaida; that her image, this image so suddenly
+presented to me, was imprinted for ever on my memory. I stared
+vacantly at the river, and never noticed that my tears were streaming.
+'She is beaten,' I was thinking,... 'beaten ... beaten....'
+
+'Hullo! what are you doing? Give me the mare!' I heard my father's
+voice saying behind me.
+
+Mechanically I gave him the bridle. He leaped on to Electric ... the
+mare, chill with standing, reared on her haunches, and leaped ten feet
+away ... but my father soon subdued her; he drove the spurs into her
+sides, and gave her a blow on the neck with his fist.... 'Ah, I've no
+whip,' he muttered.
+
+I remembered the swish and fall of the whip, heard so short a time
+before, and shuddered.
+
+'Where did you put it?' I asked my father, after a brief pause.
+
+My father made no answer, and galloped on ahead. I overtook him. I
+felt that I must see his face.
+
+'Were you bored waiting for me?' he muttered through his teeth.
+
+'A little. Where did you drop your whip?' I asked again.
+
+My father glanced quickly at me. 'I didn't drop it,' he replied; 'I
+threw it away.' He sank into thought, and dropped his head ... and
+then, for the first, and almost for the last time, I saw how much
+tenderness and pity his stern features were capable of expressing.
+
+He galloped on again, and this time I could not overtake him; I got
+home a quarter-of-an-hour after him.
+
+'That's love,' I said to myself again, as I sat at night before my
+writing-table, on which books and papers had begun to make their
+appearance; 'that's passion!... To think of not revolting, of bearing
+a blow from any one whatever ... even the dearest hand! But it seems
+one can, if one loves.... While I ... I imagined ...'
+
+I had grown much older during the last month; and my love, with all
+its transports and sufferings, struck me myself as something small and
+childish and pitiful beside this other unimagined something, which I
+could hardly fully grasp, and which frightened me like an unknown,
+beautiful, but menacing face, which one strives in vain to make out
+clearly in the half-darkness....
+
+A strange and fearful dream came to me that same night. I dreamed I
+went into a low dark room.... My father was standing with a whip in
+his hand, stamping with anger; in the corner crouched Zinaida, and not
+on her arm, but on her forehead, was a stripe of red ... while behind
+them both towered Byelovzorov, covered with blood; he opened his white
+lips, and wrathfully threatened my father.
+
+Two months later, I entered the university; and within six months my
+father died of a stroke in Petersburg, where he had just moved with
+my mother and me. A few days before his death he received a letter
+from Moscow which threw him into a violent agitation.... He went to
+my mother to beg some favour of her: and, I was told, he positively
+shed tears--he, my father! On the very morning of the day when he
+was stricken down, he had begun a letter to me in French. 'My son,'
+he wrote to me, 'fear the love of woman; fear that bliss, that
+poison....' After his death, my mother sent a considerable sum of
+money to Moscow.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+Four years passed. I had just left the university, and did not know
+exactly what to do with myself, at what door to knock; I was hanging
+about for a time with nothing to do. One fine evening I met Meidanov
+at the theatre. He had got married, and had entered the civil service;
+but I found no change in him. He fell into ecstasies in just the same
+superfluous way, and just as suddenly grew depressed again.
+
+'You know,' he told me among other things, 'Madame Dolsky's here.'
+
+'What Madame Dolsky?'
+
+'Can you have forgotten her?--the young Princess Zasyekin whom we were
+all in love with, and you too. Do you remember at the country-house
+near Neskutchny gardens?'
+
+'She married a Dolsky?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And is she here, in the theatre?'
+
+'No: but she's in Petersburg. She came here a few days ago. She's
+going abroad.'
+
+'What sort of fellow is her husband?' I asked.
+
+'A splendid fellow, with property. He's a colleague of mine in Moscow.
+You can well understand--after the scandal ... you must know all
+about it ...' (Meidanov smiled significantly) 'it was no easy task
+for her to make a good marriage; there were consequences ... but with
+her cleverness, everything is possible. Go and see her; she'll be
+delighted to see you. She's prettier than ever.'
+
+Meidanov gave me Zinaida's address. She was staying at the Hotel
+Demut. Old memories were astir within me.... I determined next day to
+go to see my former 'flame.' But some business happened to turn up; a
+week passed, and then another, and when at last I went to the Hotel
+Demut and asked for Madame Dolsky, I learnt that four days before, she
+had died, almost suddenly, in childbirth.
+
+I felt a sort of stab at my heart. The thought that I might have seen
+her, and had not seen her, and should never see her--that bitter
+thought stung me with all the force of overwhelming reproach. 'She is
+dead!' I repeated, staring stupidly at the hall-porter. I slowly made
+my way back to the street, and walked on without knowing myself where
+I was going. All the past swam up and rose at once before me. So this
+was the solution, this was the goal to which that young, ardent,
+brilliant life had striven, all haste and agitation! I mused on
+this; I fancied those dear features, those eyes, those curls--in the
+narrow box, in the damp underground darkness--lying here, not far
+from me--while I was still alive, and, maybe, a few paces from my
+father.... I thought all this; I strained my imagination, and yet all
+the while the lines:
+
+  'From lips indifferent of her death I heard,
+  Indifferently I listened to it, too,'
+
+were echoing in my heart. O youth, youth! little dost thou care for
+anything; thou art master, as it were, of all the treasures of the
+universe--even sorrow gives thee pleasure, even grief thou canst turn
+to thy profit; thou art self-confident and insolent; thou sayest, 'I
+alone am living--look you!'--but thy days fly by all the while, and
+vanish without trace or reckoning; and everything in thee vanishes,
+like wax in the sun, like snow.... And, perhaps, the whole secret of
+thy charm lies, not in being able to do anything, but in being able
+to think thou wilt do anything; lies just in thy throwing to the
+winds, forces which thou couldst not make other use of; in each of us
+gravely regarding himself as a prodigal, gravely supposing that he
+is justified in saying, 'Oh, what might I not have done if I had not
+wasted my time!'
+
+I, now ... what did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future
+did I foresee, when the phantom of my first love, rising up for an
+instant, barely called forth one sigh, one mournful sentiment?
+
+And what has come to pass of all I hoped for? And now, when the shades
+of evening begin to steal over my life, what have I left fresher,
+more precious, than the memories of the storm--so soon over--of early
+morning, of spring?
+
+But I do myself injustice. Even then, in those light-hearted young
+days, I was not deaf to the voice of sorrow, when it called upon me,
+to the solemn strains floating to me from beyond the tomb. I remember,
+a few days after I heard of Zinaida's death, I was present, through
+a peculiar, irresistible impulse, at the death of a poor old woman
+who lived in the same house as we. Covered with rags, lying on hard
+boards, with a sack under her head, she died hardly and painfully. Her
+whole life had been passed in the bitter struggle with daily want; she
+had known no joy, had not tasted the honey of happiness. One would
+have thought, surely she would rejoice at death, at her deliverance,
+her rest. But yet, as long as her decrepit body held out, as long as
+her breast still heaved in agony under the icy hand weighing upon it,
+until her last forces left her, the old woman crossed herself, and
+kept whispering, 'Lord, forgive my sins'; and only with the last spark
+of consciousness, vanished from her eyes the look of fear, of horror
+of the end. And I remember that then, by the death-bed of that poor
+old woman, I felt aghast for Zinaida, and longed to pray for her, for
+my father--and for myself.
+
+
+
+
+MUMU
+
+
+In one of the outlying streets of Moscow, in a grey house with white
+columns and a balcony, warped all askew, there was once living a lady,
+a widow, surrounded by a numerous household of serfs. Her sons were in
+the government service at Petersburg; her daughters were married; she
+went out very little, and in solitude lived through the last years of
+her miserly and dreary old age. Her day, a joyless and gloomy day, had
+long been over; but the evening of her life was blacker than night.
+
+Of all her servants, the most remarkable personage was the porter,
+Gerasim, a man full twelve inches over the normal height, of heroic
+build, and deaf and dumb from his birth. The lady, his owner, had
+brought him up from the village where he lived alone in a little hut,
+apart from his brothers, and was reckoned about the most punctual
+of her peasants in the payment of the seignorial dues. Endowed with
+extraordinary strength, he did the work of four men; work flew apace
+under his hands, and it was a pleasant sight to see him when he was
+ploughing, while, with his huge palms pressing hard upon the plough,
+he seemed alone, unaided by his poor horse, to cleave the yielding
+bosom of the earth, or when, about St. Peter's Day, he plied his
+scythe with a. furious energy that might have mown a young birch copse
+up by the roots, or swiftly and untiringly wielded a flail over two
+yards long; while the hard oblong muscles of his shoulders rose and
+fell like a lever. His perpetual silence lent a solemn dignity to his
+unwearying labour. He was a splendid peasant, and, except for his
+affliction, any girl would have been glad to marry him.... But now
+they had taken Gerasim to Moscow, bought him boots, had him made a
+full-skirted coat for summer, a sheepskin for winter, put into his
+hand a broom and a spade, and appointed him porter.
+
+At first he intensely disliked his new mode of life. From his
+childhood he had been used to field labour, to village life. Shut off
+by his affliction from the society of men, he had grown up, dumb and
+mighty, as a tree grows on a fruitful soil. When he was transported to
+the town, he could not understand what was being done with him; he was
+miserable and stupefied, with the stupefaction of some strong young
+bull, taken straight from the meadow, where the rich grass stood up to
+his belly, taken and put in the truck of a railway train, and there,
+while smoke and sparks and gusts of steam puff out upon the sturdy
+beast, he is whirled onwards, whirled along with loud roar and
+whistle, whither--God knows! What Gerasim had to do in his new duties
+seemed a mere trifle to him after his hard toil as a peasant; in
+half-an-hour, all his work was done, and he would once more stand
+stock-still in the middle of the courtyard, staring open-mouthed
+at all the passers-by, as though trying to wrest from them the
+explanation of his perplexing position; or he would suddenly go off
+into some corner, and flinging a long way off the broom or the spade,
+throw himself on his face on the ground, and lie for hours together
+without stirring, like a caged beast. But man gets used to anything,
+and Gerasim got used at last to living in town. He had little work to
+do; his whole duty consisted in keeping the courtyard clean, bringing
+in a barrel of water twice a day, splitting and dragging in wood for
+the kitchen and the house, keeping out strangers, and watching at
+night. And it must be said he did his duty zealously. In his courtyard
+there was never a shaving lying about, never a speck of dust; if
+sometimes, in the muddy season, the wretched nag, put under his charge
+for fetching water, got stuck in the road, he would simply give it
+a shove with his shoulder, and set not only the cart but the horse
+itself moving. If he set to chopping wood, the axe fairly rang
+like glass, and chips and chunks flew in all directions. And as for
+strangers, after he had one night caught two thieves and knocked
+their heads together--knocked them so that there was not the slightest
+need to take them to the police-station afterwards--every one in the
+neighbourhood began to feel a great respect for him; even those who
+came in the day-time, by no means robbers, but simply unknown persons,
+at the sight of the terrible porter, waved and shouted to him as
+though he could hear their shouts. With all the rest of the servants,
+Gerasim was on terms, hardly friendly--they were afraid of him--but
+familiar; he regarded them as his fellows. They explained themselves
+to him by signs, and he understood them, and exactly carried out all
+orders, but knew his own rights too, and soon no one dared to take
+his seat at the table. Gerasim was altogether of a strict and serious
+temper, he liked order in everything; even the cocks did not dare to
+fight in his presence, or woe betide them! directly he caught sight of
+them, he would seize them by the legs, swing them ten times round in
+the air like a wheel, and throw them in different directions. There
+were geese, too, kept in the yard; but the goose, as is well known,
+is a dignified and reasonable bird; Gerasim felt a respect for them,
+looked after them, and fed them; he was himself not unlike a gander
+of the steppes. He was assigned a little garret over the kitchen; he
+arranged it himself to his own liking, made a bedstead in it of oak
+boards on four stumps of wood for legs--a truly Titanic bedstead; one
+might have put a ton or two on it--it would not have bent under the
+load; under the bed was a solid chest; in a corner stood a little
+table of the same strong kind, and near the table a three-legged
+stool, so solid and squat that Gerasim himself would sometimes pick it
+up and drop it again with a smile of delight. The garret was locked
+up by means of a padlock that looked like a kalatch or basket-shaped
+loaf, only black; the key of this padlock Gerasim always carried about
+him in his girdle. He did not like people to come to his garret.
+
+So passed a year, at the end of which a little incident befell
+Gerasim.
+
+The old lady, in whose service he lived as porter, adhered in
+everything to the ancient ways, and kept a large number of servants.
+In her house were not only laundresses, sempstresses, carpenters,
+tailors and tailoresses, there was even a harness-maker--he was
+reckoned as a veterinary surgeon, too,--and a doctor for the servants;
+there was a household doctor for the mistress; there was, lastly, a
+shoemaker, by name Kapiton Klimov, a sad drunkard. Klimov regarded
+himself as an injured creature, whose merits were unappreciated, a
+cultivated man from Petersburg, who ought not to be living in Moscow
+without occupation--in the wilds, so to speak; and if he drank, as he
+himself expressed it emphatically, with a blow on his chest, it was
+sorrow drove him to it. So one day his mistress had a conversation
+about him with her head steward, Gavrila, a man whom, judging solely
+from his little yellow eyes and nose like a duck's beak, fate itself,
+it seemed, had marked out as a person in authority. The lady expressed
+her regret at the corruption of the morals of Kapiton, who had, only
+the evening before, been picked up somewhere in the street.
+
+'Now, Gavrila,' she observed, all of a sudden, 'now, if we were to
+marry him, what do you think, perhaps he would be steadier?'
+
+'Why not marry him, indeed, 'm? He could be married, 'm,' answered
+Gavrila, 'and it would be a very good thing, to be sure, 'm.'
+
+'Yes; only who is to marry him?'
+
+'Ay, 'm. But that's at your pleasure, 'm. He may, any way, so to say,
+be wanted for something; he can't be turned adrift altogether.'
+
+'I fancy he likes Tatiana.'
+
+Gavrila was on the point of making some reply, but he shut his lips
+tightly.
+
+'Yes!... let him marry Tatiana,' the lady decided, taking a pinch of
+snuff complacently, 'Do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, 'm,' Gavrila articulated, and he withdrew.
+
+Returning to his own room (it was in a little lodge, and was almost
+filled up with metal-bound trunks), Gavrila first sent his wife
+away, and then sat down at the window and pondered. His mistress's
+unexpected arrangement had clearly put him in a difficulty. At last he
+got up and sent to call Kapiton. Kapiton made his appearance.... But
+before reporting their conversation to the reader, we consider it not
+out of place to relate in few words who was this Tatiana, whom it
+was to be Kapiton's lot to marry, and why the great lady's order had
+disturbed the steward.
+
+Tatiana, one of the laundresses referred to above (as a trained and
+skilful laundress she was in charge of the fine linen only), was
+a woman of twenty-eight, thin, fair-haired, with moles on her left
+cheek. Moles on the left cheek are regarded as of evil omen in
+Russia--a token of unhappy life.... Tatiana could not boast of her
+good luck. From her earliest youth she had been badly treated; she
+had done the work of two, and had never known affection; she had been
+poorly clothed and had received the smallest wages. Relations she had
+practically none; an uncle she had once had, a butler, left behind in
+the country as useless, and other uncles of hers were peasants--that
+was all. At one time she had passed for a beauty, but her good looks
+were very soon over. In disposition, she was very meek, or, rather,
+scared; towards herself, she felt perfect indifference; of others, she
+stood in mortal dread; she thought of nothing but how to get her work
+done in good time, never talked to any one, and trembled at the very
+name of her mistress, though the latter scarcely knew her by sight.
+When Gerasim was brought from the country, she was ready to die with
+fear on seeing his huge figure, tried all she could to avoid meeting
+him, even dropped her eyelids when sometimes she chanced to run past
+him, hurrying from the house to the laundry. Gerasim at first paid
+no special attention to her, then he used to smile when she came his
+way, then he began even to stare admiringly at her, and at last he
+never took his eyes off her. She took his fancy, whether by the mild
+expression of her face or the timidity of her movements, who can
+tell? So one day she was stealing across the yard, with a starched
+dressing-jacket of her mistress's carefully poised on her outspread
+fingers ... some one suddenly grasped her vigorously by the elbow;
+she turned round and fairly screamed; behind her stood Gerasim. With
+a foolish smile, making inarticulate caressing grunts, he held out to
+her a gingerbread cock with gold tinsel on his tail and wings. She was
+about to refuse it, but he thrust it forcibly into her hand, shook his
+head, walked away, and turning round, once more grunted something very
+affectionately to her. From that day forward he gave her no peace;
+wherever she went, he was on the spot at once, coming to meet her,
+smiling, grunting, waving his hands; all at once he would pull a
+ribbon out of the bosom of his smock and put it in her hand, or would
+sweep the dust out of her way. The poor girl simply did not know how
+to behave or what to do. Soon the whole household knew of the dumb
+porter's wiles; jeers, jokes, sly hints were showered upon Tatiana. At
+Gerasim, however, it was not every one who would dare to scoff; he did
+not like jokes; indeed, in his presence, she, too, was left in peace.
+Whether she liked it or not, the girl found herself to be under his
+protection. Like all deaf-mutes, he was very suspicious, and very
+readily perceived when they were laughing at him or at her. One day,
+at dinner, the wardrobe-keeper, Tatiana's superior, fell to nagging,
+as it is called, at her, and brought the poor thing to such a state
+that she did not know where to look, and was almost crying with
+vexation. Gerasim got up all of a sudden, stretched out his gigantic
+hand, laid it on the wardrobe-maid's head, and looked into her face
+with such grim ferocity that her head positively flopped upon the
+table. Every one was still. Gerasim took up his spoon again and
+went on with his cabbage-soup. 'Look at him, the dumb devil, the
+wood-demon!' they all muttered in under-tones, while the wardrobe-maid
+got up and went out into the maids' room. Another time, noticing that
+Kapiton--the same Kapiton who was the subject of the conversation
+reported above--was gossiping somewhat too attentively with Tatiana,
+Gerasim beckoned him to him, led him into the cartshed, and taking
+up a shaft that was standing in a corner by one end, lightly, but
+most significantly, menaced him with it. Since then no one addressed
+a word to Tatiana. And all this cost him nothing. It is true the
+wardrobe-maid, as soon as she reached the maids' room, promptly
+fell into a fainting-fit, and behaved altogether so skilfully that
+Gerasim's rough action reached his mistress's knowledge the same day.
+But the capricious old lady only laughed, and several times, to the
+great offence of the wardrobe-maid, forced her to repeat 'how he bent
+your head down with his heavy hand,' and next day she sent Gerasim
+a rouble. She looked on him with favour as a strong and faithful
+watchman. Gerasim stood in considerable awe of her, but, all the same,
+he had hopes of her favour, and was preparing to go to her with a
+petition for leave to marry Tatiana. He was only waiting for a new
+coat, promised him by the steward, to present a proper appearance
+before his mistress, when this same mistress suddenly took it into her
+head to marry Tatiana to Kapiton.
+
+The reader will now readily understand the perturbation of mind that
+overtook the steward Gavrila after his conversation with his mistress.
+'My lady,' he thought, as he sat at the window, 'favours Gerasim, to
+be sure'--(Gavrila was well aware of this, and that was why he himself
+looked on him with an indulgent eye)--'still he is a speechless
+creature. I could not, indeed, put it before the mistress that
+Gerasim's courting Tatiana. But, after all, it's true enough; he's a
+queer sort of husband. But on the other hand, that devil, God forgive
+me, has only got to find out they're marrying Tatiana to Kapiton,
+he'll smash up everything in the house, 'pon my soul! There's no
+reasoning with him; why, he's such a devil, God forgive my sins,
+there's no getting over him no how ... 'pon my soul!'
+
+Kapiton's entrance broke the thread of Gavrila's reflections. The
+dissipated shoemaker came in, his hands behind him, and lounging
+carelessly against a projecting angle of the wall, near the door,
+crossed his right foot in front of his left, and tossed his head, as
+much as to say, 'What do you want?'
+
+Gavrila looked at Kapiton, and drummed with his fingers on the
+window-frame. Kapiton merely screwed up his leaden eyes a little, but
+he did not look down, he even grinned slightly, and passed his hand
+over his whitish locks which were sticking up in all directions.
+'Well, here I am. What is it?'
+
+'You're a pretty fellow,' said Gavrila, and paused. 'A pretty fellow
+you are, there's no denying!'
+
+Kapiton only twitched his little shoulders.
+
+'Are you any better, pray?' he thought to himself.
+
+'Just look at yourself, now, look at yourself,' Gavrila went on
+reproachfully; 'now, what ever do you look like?'
+
+Kapiton serenely surveyed his shabby tattered coat, and his patched
+trousers, and with special attention stared at his burst boots,
+especially the one on the tip-toe of which his right foot so
+gracefully poised, and he fixed his eyes again on the steward.
+
+'Well?'
+
+'Well?' repeated Gavrila. 'Well? And then you say well? You look like
+old Nick himself, God forgive my saying so, that's what you look
+like.'
+
+Kapiton blinked rapidly.
+
+'Go on abusing me, go on, if you like, Gavrila Andreitch,' he thought
+to himself again.
+
+'Here you've been drunk again,' Gavrila began, 'drunk again, haven't
+you? Eh? Come, answer me!'
+
+'Owing to the weakness of my health, I have exposed myself to
+spirituous beverages, certainly,' replied Kapiton.
+
+'Owing to the weakness of your health!... They let you off too easy,
+that's what it is; and you've been apprenticed in Petersburg.... Much
+you learned in your apprenticeship! You simply eat your bread in
+idleness.'
+
+'In that matter, Gavrila Andreitch, there is one to judge me, the Lord
+God Himself, and no one else. He also knows what manner of man I be in
+this world, and whether I eat my bread in idleness. And as concerning
+your contention regarding drunkenness, in that matter, too, I am not
+to blame, but rather a friend; he led me into temptation, but was
+diplomatic and got away, while I....'
+
+'While you were left, like a goose, in the street. Ah, you're a
+dissolute fellow! But that's not the point,' the steward went on,
+'I've something to tell you. Our lady...' here he paused a minute,
+'it's our lady's pleasure that you should be married. Do you hear? She
+imagines you may be steadier when you're married. Do you understand?'
+
+'To be sure I do.'
+
+'Well, then. For my part I think it would be better to give you a
+good hiding. But there--it's her business. Well? are you agreeable?'
+Kapiton grinned.
+
+'Matrimony is an excellent thing for any one, Gavrila Andreitch; and,
+as far as I am concerned, I shall be quite agreeable.'
+
+'Very well, then,' replied Gavrila, while he reflected to himself:
+'there's no denying the man expresses himself very properly. Only
+there's one thing,' he pursued aloud: 'the wife our lady's picked out
+for you is an unlucky choice.'
+
+'Why, who is she, permit me to inquire?'
+
+'Tatiana.'
+
+'Tatiana?'
+
+And Kapiton opened his eyes, and moved a little away from the wall.
+
+'Well, what are you in such a taking for?... Isn't she to your taste,
+hey?'
+
+'Not to my taste, do you say, Gavrila Andreitch! She's right enough, a
+hard-working steady girl.... But you know very well yourself, Gavrila
+Andreitch, why that fellow, that wild man of the woods, that monster
+of the steppes, he's after her, you know....'
+
+'I know, mate, I know all about it,' the butler cut him short in a
+tone of annoyance: 'but there, you see....'
+
+'But upon my soul, Gavrila Andreitch! why, he'll kill me, by God, he
+will, he'll crush me like some fly; why, he's got a fist--why, you
+kindly look yourself what a fist he's got; why, he's simply got a fist
+like Minin Pozharsky's. You see he's deaf, he beats and does not hear
+how he's beating! He swings his great fists, as if he's asleep. And
+there's no possibility of pacifying him; and for why? Why, because, as
+you know yourself, Gavrila Andreitch, he's deaf, and what's more, has
+no more wit than the heel of my foot. Why, he's a sort of beast, a
+heathen idol, Gavrila Andreitch, and worse ... a block of wood; what
+have I done that I should have to suffer from him now? Sure it is,
+it's all over with me now; I've knocked about, I've had enough to put
+up with, I've been battered like an earthenware pot, but still I'm a
+man, after all, and not a worthless pot.'
+
+'I know, I know, don't go talking away....'
+
+'Lord, my God!' the shoemaker continued warmly, 'when is the end?
+when, O Lord! A poor wretch I am, a poor wretch whose sufferings are
+endless! What a life, what a life mine's been, come to think of it!
+In my young days, I was beaten by a German I was 'prentice to; in the
+prime of life beaten by my own countrymen, and last of all, in ripe
+years, see what I have been brought to....'
+
+'Ugh, you flabby soul!' said Gavrila Andreitch. 'Why do you make so
+many words about it?'
+
+'Why, do you say, Gavrila Andreitch? It's not a beating I'm afraid of,
+Gavrila Andreitch. A gentleman may chastise me in private, but give me
+a civil word before folks, and I'm a man still; but see now, whom I've
+to do with....'
+
+'Come, get along,' Gavrila interposed impatiently. Kapiton turned away
+and staggered off.
+
+'But, if it were not for him,' the steward shouted after him, 'you
+would consent for your part?'
+
+'I signify my acquiescence,' retorted Kapiton as he disappeared.
+
+His fine language did not desert him, even in the most trying
+positions.
+
+The steward walked several times up and down the room.
+
+'Well, call Tatiana now,' he said at last.
+
+A few instants later, Tatiana had come up almost noiselessly, and was
+standing in the doorway.
+
+'What are your orders, Gavrila Andreitch?' she said in a soft voice.
+
+The steward looked at her intently.
+
+'Well, Taniusha,' he said, 'would you like to be married? Our lady has
+chosen a husband for you.'
+
+'Yes, Gavrila Andreitch. And whom has she deigned to name as a husband
+for me?' she added falteringly.
+
+'Kapiton, the shoemaker.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'He's a feather-brained fellow, that's certain. But it's just for that
+the mistress reckons upon you.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'There's one difficulty ... you know the deaf man, Gerasim, he's
+courting you, you see. How did you come to bewitch such a bear? But
+you see, he'll kill you, very like, he's such a bear....'
+
+'He'll kill me, Gavrila Andreitch, he'll kill me, and no mistake.'
+
+'Kill you.... Well, we shall see about that. What do you mean
+by saying he'll kill you? Has he any right to kill you? tell me
+yourself.'
+
+'I don't know, Gavrila Andreitch, about his having any right or not.'
+
+'What a woman! why, you've made him no promise, I suppose....'
+
+'What are you pleased to ask of me?'
+
+The steward was silent for a little, thinking, 'You're a meek soul!
+Well, that's right,' he said aloud; 'we'll have another talk with you
+later, now you can go, Taniusha; I see you're not unruly, certainly.'
+
+Tatiana turned, steadied herself a little against the doorpost, and
+went away.
+
+'And, perhaps, our lady will forget all about this wedding by
+to-morrow,' thought the steward; 'and here am I worrying myself for
+nothing! As for that insolent fellow, we must tie him down, if it
+comes to that, we must let the police know' ... 'Ustinya Fyedorovna!'
+he shouted in a loud voice to his wife, 'heat the samovar, my good
+soul....' All that day Tatiana hardly went out of the laundry. At
+first she had started crying, then she wiped away her tears, and set
+to work as before. Kapiton stayed till late at night at the ginshop
+with a friend of his, a man of gloomy appearance, to whom he related
+in detail how he used to live in Petersburg with a gentleman, who
+would have been all right, except he was a bit too strict, and he had
+a slight weakness besides, he was too fond of drink; and, as to the
+fair sex, he didn't stick at anything. His gloomy companion merely
+said yes; but when Kapiton announced at last that, in a certain event,
+he would have to lay hands on himself to-morrow, his gloomy companion
+remarked that it was bedtime. And they parted in surly silence.
+
+Meanwhile, the steward's anticipations were not fulfilled. The old
+lady was so much taken up with the idea of Kapiton's wedding, that
+even in the night she talked of nothing else to one of her companions,
+who was kept in her house solely to entertain her in case of
+sleeplessness, and, like a night cabman, slept in the day. When
+Gavrila came to her after morning tea with his report, her first
+question was: 'And how about our wedding--is it getting on all right?'
+He replied, of course, that it was getting on first rate, and that
+Kapiton would appear before her to pay his reverence to her that
+day. The old lady was not quite well; she did not give much time to
+business. The steward went back to his own room, and called a council.
+The matter certainly called for serious consideration. Tatiana would
+make no difficulty, of course; but Kapiton had declared in the hearing
+of all that he had but one head to lose, not two or three.... Gerasim
+turned rapid sullen looks on every one, would not budge from the steps
+of the maids' quarters, and seemed to guess that some mischief was
+being hatched against him. They met together. Among them was an old
+sideboard waiter, nicknamed Uncle Tail, to whom every one looked
+respectfully for counsel, though all they got out of him was, 'Here's
+a pretty pass! to be sure, to be sure, to be sure!' As a preliminary
+measure of security, to provide against contingencies, they locked
+Kapiton up in the lumber-room where the filter was kept; then
+considered the question with the gravest deliberation, It would, to
+be sure, be easy to have recourse to force. But Heaven save us! there
+would be an uproar, the mistress would be put out--it would be awful!
+What should they do? They thought and thought, and at last thought out
+a solution. It had many a time been observed that Gerasim could not
+bear drunkards.... As he sat at the gates, he would always turn away
+with disgust when some one passed by intoxicated, with unsteady steps
+and his cap on one side of his ear. They resolved that Tatiana should
+be instructed to pretend to be tipsy, and should pass by Gerasim
+staggering and reeling about. The poor girl refused for a long while
+to agree to this, but they persuaded her at last; she saw, too, that
+it was the only possible way of getting rid of her adorer. She went
+out. Kapiton was released from the lumber-room; for, after all, he
+had an interest in the affair. Gerasim was sitting on the curb-stone
+at the gates, scraping the ground with a spade.... From behind every
+corner, from behind every window-blind, the others were watching
+him.... The trick succeeded beyond all expectations. On seeing
+Tatiana, at first, he nodded as usual, making caressing, inarticulate
+sounds; then he looked carefully at her, dropped his spade, jumped up,
+went up to her, brought his face close to her face.... In her fright
+she staggered more than ever, and shut her eyes.... He took her by the
+arm, whirled her right across the yard, and going into the room where
+the council had been sitting, pushed her straight at Kapiton. Tatiana
+fairly swooned away.... Gerasim stood, looked at her, waved his hand,
+laughed, and went off, stepping heavily, to his garret.... For the
+next twenty-four hours, he did not come out of it. The postillion
+Antipka said afterwards that he saw Gerasim through a. crack in the
+wall, sitting on his bedstead, his face in his hand. From time to
+time he uttered soft regular sounds; he was wailing a dirge, that is,
+swaying backwards and forwards with his eyes shut, and shaking his
+head as drivers or bargemen do when they chant their melancholy songs.
+Antipka could not bear it, and he came away from the crack. When
+Gerasim came out of the garret next day, no particular change could be
+observed in him. He only seemed, as it were, more morose, and took not
+the slightest notice of Tatiana or Kapiton. The same evening, they
+both had to appear before their mistress with geese under their arms,
+and in a week's time they were married. Even on the day of the wedding
+Gerasim showed no change of any sort in his behaviour. Only, he came
+back from the river without water, he had somehow broken the barrel on
+the road; and at night, in the stable, he washed and rubbed down his
+horse so vigorously, that it swayed like a blade of grass in the wind,
+and staggered from one leg to the other under his fists of iron.
+
+All this had taken place in the spring. Another year passed by, during
+which Kapiton became a hopeless drunkard, and as being absolutely of
+no use for anything, was sent away with the store waggons to a distant
+village with his wife. On the day of his departure, he put a very good
+face on it at first, and declared that he would always be at home,
+send him where they would, even to the other end of the world; but
+later on he lost heart, began grumbling that he was being taken to
+uneducated people, and collapsed so completely at last that he could
+not even put his own hat on. Some charitable soul stuck it on his
+forehead, set the peak straight in front, and thrust it on with a slap
+from above. When everything was quite ready, and the peasants already
+held the reins in their hands, and were only waiting for the words
+'With God's blessing!' to start, Gerasim came out of his garret,
+went up to Tatiana, and gave her as a parting present a red cotton
+handkerchief he had bought for her a year ago. Tatiana, who had up to
+that instant borne all the revolting details of her life with great
+indifference, could not control herself upon that; she burst into
+tears, and as she took her seat in the cart, she kissed Gerasim three
+times like a good Christian. He meant to accompany her as far as the
+town-barrier, and did walk beside her cart for a while, but he stopped
+suddenly at the Crimean ford, waved his hand, and walked away along
+the riverside.
+
+It was getting towards evening. He walked slowly, watching the water.
+All of a sudden he fancied something was floundering in the mud close
+to the bank. He stooped over, and saw a little white-and-black puppy,
+who, in spite of all its efforts, could not get out of the water; it
+was struggling, slipping back, and trembling all over its thin wet
+little body. Gerasim looked at the unlucky little dog, picked it up
+with one hand, put it into the bosom of his coat, and hurried with
+long steps homewards. He went into his garret, put the rescued puppy
+on his bed, covered it with his thick overcoat, ran first to the
+stable for straw, and then to the kitchen for a cup of milk. Carefully
+folding back the overcoat, and spreading out the straw, he set the
+milk on the bedstead. The poor little puppy was not more than three
+weeks old, its eyes were only just open--one eye still seemed rather
+larger than the other; it did not know how to lap out of a cup, and
+did nothing but shiver and blink. Gerasim took hold of its head softly
+with two fingers, and dipped its little nose into the milk. The
+pup suddenly began lapping greedily, sniffing, shaking itself, and
+choking. Gerasim watched and watched it, and all at once he laughed
+outright.... All night long he was waiting on it, keeping it covered,
+and rubbing it dry. He fell asleep himself at last, and slept quietly
+and happily by its side.
+
+No mother could have looked after her baby as Gerasim looked after
+his little nursling. At first, she--for the pup turned out to be
+a bitch--was very weak, feeble, and ugly, but by degrees she grew
+stronger and improved in looks, and thanks to the unflagging care of
+her preserver, in eight months' time she was transformed into a very
+pretty dog of the spaniel breed, with long ears, a bushy spiral tail,
+and large expressive eyes. She was devotedly attached to Gerasim, and
+was never a yard from his side; she always followed him about wagging
+her tail. He had even given her a name--the dumb know that their
+inarticulate noises call the attention of others. He called her Mumu.
+All the servants in the house liked her, and called her Mumu, too. She
+was very intelligent, she was friendly with every one, but was only
+fond of Gerasim. Gerasim, on his side, loved her passionately, and he
+did not like it when other people stroked her; whether he was afraid
+for her, or jealous--God knows! She used to wake him in the morning,
+pulling at his coat; she used to take the reins in her mouth, and
+bring him up the old horse that carried the water, with whom she was
+on very friendly terms. With a face of great importance, she used to
+go with him to the river; she used to watch his brooms and spades,
+and never allowed any one to go into his garret. He cut a little hole
+in his door on purpose for her, and she seemed to feel that only in
+Gerasim's garret she was completely mistress and at home; and directly
+she went in, she used to jump with a satisfied air upon the bed.
+At night she did not sleep at all, but she never barked without
+sufficient cause, like some stupid house-dog, who, sitting on its
+hind-legs, blinking, with its nose in the air, barks simply from
+dulness, at the stars, usually three times in succession. No! Mumu's
+delicate little voice was never raised without good reason; either
+some stranger was passing close to the fence, or there was some
+suspicious sound or rustle somewhere.... In fact, she was an excellent
+watch-dog. It is true that there was another dog in the yard, a tawny
+old dog with brown spots, called Wolf, but he was never, even at
+night, let off the chain; and, indeed, he was so decrepit that he did
+not even wish for freedom. He used to lie curled up in his kennel,
+and only rarely uttered a sleepy, almost noiseless bark, which broke
+off at once, as though he were himself aware of its uselessness. Mumu
+never went into the mistress's house; and when Gerasim carried wood
+into the rooms, she always stayed behind, impatiently waiting for him
+at the steps, pricking up her ears and turning her head to right and
+to left at the slightest creak of the door....
+
+So passed another year. Gerasim went on performing his duties as
+house-porter, and was very well content with his lot, when suddenly
+an unexpected incident occurred.... One fine summer day the old lady
+was walking up and down the drawing-room with her dependants. She was
+in high spirits; she laughed and made jokes. Her servile companions
+laughed and joked too, but they did not feel particularly mirthful;
+the household did not much like it, when their mistress was in a
+lively mood, for, to begin with, she expected from every one prompt
+and complete participation in her merriment, and was furious if any
+one showed a face that did not beam with delight, and secondly, these
+outbursts never lasted long with her, and were usually followed by
+a sour and gloomy mood. That day she had got up in a lucky hour; at
+cards she took the four knaves, which means the fulfilment of one's
+wishes (she used to try her fortune on the cards every morning), and
+her tea struck her as particularly delicious, for which her maid was
+rewarded by words of praise, and by twopence in money. With a sweet
+smile on her wrinkled lips, the lady walked about the drawing-room and
+went up to the window. A flower-garden had been laid out before the
+window, and in the very middle bed, under a rose-bush, lay Mumu busily
+gnawing a bone. The lady caught sight of her.
+
+'Mercy on us!' she cried suddenly; 'what dog is that?'
+
+The companion, addressed by the old lady, hesitated, poor thing, in
+that wretched state of uneasiness which is common in any person in a
+dependent position who doesn't know very well what significance to
+give to the exclamation of a superior.
+
+'I d ... d ... don't know,' she faltered: 'I fancy it's the dumb man's
+dog.'
+
+'Mercy!' the lady cut her short: 'but it's a charming little dog!
+order it to be brought in. Has he had it long? How is it I've never
+seen it before?... Order it to be brought in.'
+
+The companion flew at once into the hall.
+
+'Boy, boy!' she shouted: 'bring Mumu in at once! She's in the
+flower-garden.'
+
+'Her name's Mumu then,' observed the lady: 'a very nice name.'
+
+'Oh, very, indeed!' chimed in the companion. 'Make haste, Stepan!'
+
+Stepan, a sturdily-built young fellow, whose duties were those of a
+footman, rushed headlong into the flower-garden, and tried to capture
+Mumu, but she cleverly slipped from his fingers, and with her tail in
+the air, fled full speed to Gerasim, who was at that instant in the
+kitchen, knocking out and cleaning a barrel, turning it upside down
+in his hands like a child's drum. Stepan ran after her, and tried to
+catch her just at her master's feet; but the sensible dog would not
+let a stranger touch her, and with a bound, she got away. Gerasim
+looked on with a smile at all this ado; at last, Stepan got up, much
+amazed, and hurriedly explained to him by signs that the mistress
+wanted the dog brought in to her. Gerasim was a little astonished;
+he called Mumu, however, picked her up, and handed her over to
+Stepan. Stepan carried her into the drawing-room, and put her down
+on the parquette floor. The old lady began calling the dog to her
+in a coaxing voice. Mumu, who had never in her life been in such
+magnificent apartments, was very much frightened, and made a rush for
+the door, but, being driven back by the obsequious Stepan, she began
+trembling, and huddled close up against the wall.
+
+'Mumu, Mumu, come to me, come to your mistress,' said the lady; 'come,
+silly thing ... don't be afraid.'
+
+'Come, Mumu, come to the mistress,' repeated the companions. 'Come
+along!'
+
+But Mumu looked round her uneasily, and did not stir.
+
+'Bring her something to eat,' said the old lady. 'How stupid she is!
+she won't come to her mistress. What's she afraid of?'
+
+'She's not used to your honour yet,' ventured one of the companions in
+a timid and conciliatory voice.
+
+Stepan brought in a saucer of milk, and set it down before Mumu, but
+Mumu would not even sniff at the milk, and still shivered, and looked
+round as before.
+
+'Ah, what a silly you are!' said the lady, and going up to her, she
+stooped down, and was about to stroke her, but Mumu turned her head
+abruptly, and showed her teeth. The lady hurriedly drew back her
+hand....
+
+A momentary silence followed. Mumu gave a faint whine, as though she
+would complain and apologise.... The old lady moved back, scowling.
+The dog's sudden movement had frightened her.
+
+'Ah!' shrieked all the companions at once, 'she's not bitten you, has
+she? Heaven forbid! (Mumu had never bitten any one in her life.) Ah!
+ah!'
+
+'Take her away,' said the old lady in a changed voice. 'Wretched
+little dog! What a spiteful creature!'
+
+And, turning round deliberately, she went towards her boudoir. Her
+companions looked timidly at one another, and were about to follow
+her, but she stopped, stared coldly at them, and said, 'What's that
+for, pray? I've not called you,' and went out.
+
+The companions waved their hands to Stepan in despair. He picked up
+Mumu, and flung her promptly outside the door, just at Gerasim's feet,
+and half-an-hour later a profound stillness reigned in the house, and
+the old lady sat on her sofa looking blacker than a thunder-cloud.
+
+What trifles, if you think of it, will sometimes disturb any one!
+
+Till evening the lady was out of humour; she did not talk to any
+one, did not play cards, and passed a bad night. She fancied the
+eau-de-Cologne they gave her was not the same as she usually had, and
+that her pillow smelt of soap, and she made the wardrobe-maid smell
+all the bed linen--in fact she was very upset and cross altogether.
+Next morning she ordered Gavrila to be summoned an hour earlier than
+usual.
+
+'Tell me, please,' she began, directly the latter, not without some
+inward trepidation, crossed the threshold of her boudoir, 'what dog
+was that barking all night in our yard? It wouldn't let me sleep!'
+
+'A dog, 'm ... what dog, 'm ... may be, the dumb man's dog, 'm,' he
+brought out in a rather unsteady voice.
+
+'I don't know whether it was the dumb man's or whose, but it wouldn't
+let me sleep. And I wonder what we have such a lot of dogs for! I wish
+to know. We have a yard dog, haven't we?'
+
+'Oh yes, 'm, we have, 'm. Wolf, 'm.'
+
+'Well, why more, what do we want more dogs for? It's simply
+introducing disorder. There's no one in control in the house--that's
+what it is. And what does the dumb man want with a dog? Who gave him
+leave to keep dogs in my yard? Yesterday I went to the window, and
+there it was lying in the flower--garden; it had dragged in some
+nastiness it was gnawing, and my roses are planted there....'
+
+The lady ceased.
+
+'Let her be gone from to-day ... do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, 'm.'
+
+'To-day. Now go. I will send for you later for the report.'
+
+Gavrila went away.
+
+As he went through the drawing-room, the steward by way of maintaining
+order moved a bell from one table to another; he stealthily blew his
+duck-like nose in the hall, and went into the outer-hall. In the
+outer-hall, on a locker was Stepan asleep in the attitude of a slain
+warrior in a battalion picture, his bare legs thrust out below the
+coat which served him for a blanket. The steward gave him a shove,
+and whispered some instructions to him, to which Stepan responded
+with something between a yawn and a laugh. The steward went away,
+and Stepan got up, put on his coat and his boots, went out and stood
+on the steps. Five minutes had not passed before Gerasim made his
+appearance with a huge bundle of hewn logs on his back, accompanied by
+the inseparable Mumu. (The lady had given orders that her bedroom and
+boudoir should be heated at times even in the summer.) Gerasim turned
+sideways before the door, shoved it open with his shoulder, and
+staggered into the house with his load. Mumu, as usual, stayed behind
+to wait for him. Then Stepan, seizing his chance, suddenly pounced on
+her, like a kite on a chicken, held her down to the ground, gathered
+her up in his arms, and without even putting on his cap, ran out of
+the yard with her, got into the first fly he met, and galloped off to
+a market-place. There he soon found a purchaser, to whom he sold her
+for a shilling, on condition that he would keep her for at least a
+week tied up; then he returned at once. But before he got home, he got
+off the fly, and going right round the yard, jumped over the fence
+into the yard from a back street. He was afraid to go in at the gate
+for fear of meeting Gerasim.
+
+His anxiety was unnecessary, however; Gerasim was no longer in the
+yard. On coming out of the house he had at once missed Mumu. He never
+remembered her failing to wait for his return, and began running up
+and down, looking for her, and calling her in his own way.... He
+rushed up to his garret, up to the hay-loft, ran out into the street,
+this way and that.... She was lost! He turned to the other serfs, with
+the most despairing signs, questioned them about her, pointing to her
+height from the ground, describing her with his hands.... Some of them
+really did not know what had become of Mumu, and merely shook their
+heads, others did know, and smiled to him for all response, while the
+steward assumed an important air, and began scolding the coachmen.
+Then Gerasim ran right away out of the yard.
+
+It was dark by the time he came back. From his worn-out look, his
+unsteady walk, and his dusty clothes, it might be surmised that he had
+been running over half Moscow. He stood still opposite the windows of
+the mistress' house, took a searching look at the steps where a group
+of house-serfs were crowded together, turned away, and uttered once
+more his inarticulate 'Mumu.' Mumu did not answer. He went away.
+Every one looked after him, but no one smiled or said a word, and the
+inquisitive postillion Antipka reported next morning in the kitchen
+that the dumb man had been groaning all night.
+
+All the next day Gerasim did not show himself, so that they were
+obliged to send the coachman Potap for water instead of him, at which
+the coachman Potap was anything but pleased. The lady asked Gavrila
+if her orders had been carried out. Gavrila replied that they had.
+The next morning Gerasim came out of his garret, and went about his
+work. He came in to his dinner, ate it, and went out again, without
+a greeting to any one. His face, which had always been lifeless, as
+with all deaf-mutes, seemed now to be turned to stone. After dinner he
+went out of the yard again, but not for long; he came back, and went
+straight up to the hay-loft. Night came on, a clear moonlight night.
+Gerasim lay breathing heavily, and incessantly turning from side to
+side. Suddenly he felt something pull at the skirt of his coat. He
+started, but did not raise his head, and even shut his eyes tighter.
+But again there was a pull, stronger than before; he jumped up ...
+before him, with an end of string round her neck, was Mumu, twisting
+and turning. A prolonged cry of delight broke from his speechless
+breast; he caught up Mumu, and hugged her tight in his arms, she
+licked his nose and eyes, and beard and moustache, all in one
+instant.... He stood a little, thought a minute, crept cautiously down
+from the hay-loft, looked round, and having satisfied himself that no
+one could see him, made his way successfully to his garret. Gerasim
+had guessed before that his dog had not got lost by her own doing,
+that she must have been taken away by the mistress' orders; the
+servants had explained to him by signs that his Mumu had snapped at
+her, and he determined to take his own measures. First he fed Mumu
+with a bit of bread, fondled her, and put her to bed, then he fell to
+meditating, and spent the whole night long in meditating how he could
+best conceal her. At last he decided to leave her all day in the
+garret, and only to come in now and then to see her, and to take her
+out at night. The hole in the door he stopped up effectually with his
+old overcoat, and almost before it was light he was already in the
+yard, as though nothing had happened, even--innocent guile!--the
+same expression of melancholy on his face. It did not even occur to
+the poor deaf man that Mumu would betray herself by her whining; in
+reality, every one in the house was soon aware that the dumb man's dog
+had come back, and was locked up in his garret, but from sympathy with
+him and with her, and partly, perhaps, from dread of him, they did not
+let him know that they had found out his secret. The steward scratched
+his hand, and gave a despairing wave of his hand, as much as to say,
+'Well, well, God have mercy on him! If only it doesn't come to the
+mistress' ears!'
+
+But the dumb man had never shown such energy as on that day; he
+cleaned and scraped the whole courtyard, pulled up every single
+weed with his own hand, tugged up every stake in the fence of the
+flower-garden, to satisfy himself that they were strong enough, and
+unaided drove them in again; in fact, he toiled and laboured so that
+even the old lady noticed his zeal. Twice in the course of the day
+Gerasim went stealthily in to see his prisoner when night came on, he
+lay down to sleep with her in the garret, not in the hay-loft, and
+only at two o'clock in the night he went out to take her a turn in the
+fresh air. After walking about the courtyard a good while with her,
+he was just turning back, when suddenly a rustle was heard behind
+the fence on the side of the back street. Mumu pricked up her ears,
+growled--went up to the fence, sniffed, and gave vent to a loud shrill
+bark. Some drunkard had thought fit to take refuge under the fence for
+the night. At that very time the old lady had just fallen asleep after
+a prolonged fit of 'nervous agitation'; these fits of agitation always
+overtook her after too hearty a supper. The sudden bark waked her up:
+her heart palpitated, and she felt faint. 'Girls, girls!' she moaned.
+'Girls!' The terrified maids ran into her bedroom. 'Oh, oh, I am
+dying!' she said, flinging her arms about in her agitation. 'Again,
+that dog again!... Oh, send for the doctor. They mean to be the death
+of me.... The dog, the dog again! Oh!' And she let her head fall back,
+which always signified a swoon. They rushed for the doctor, that
+is, for the household physician, Hariton. This doctor, whose whole
+qualification consisted in wearing soft-soled boots, knew how to
+feel the pulse delicately. He used to sleep fourteen hours out of
+the twenty-four, but the rest of the time he was always sighing, and
+continually dosing the old lady with cherrybay drops. This doctor ran
+up at once, fumigated the room with burnt feathers, and when the old
+lady opened her eyes, promptly offered her a wineglass of the hallowed
+drops on a silver tray. The old lady took them, but began again at
+once in a tearful voice complaining of the dog, of Gavrila, and of her
+fate, declaring that she was a poor old woman, and that every one had
+forsaken her, no one pitied her, every one wished her dead. Meanwhile
+the luckless Mumu had gone on barking, while Gerasim tried in vain to
+call her away from the fence. 'There ... there ... again,' groaned
+the old lady, and once more she turned up the whites of her eyes. The
+doctor whispered to a maid, she rushed into the outer-hall, and shook
+Stepan, he ran to wake Gavrila, Gavrila in a fury ordered the whole
+household to get up.
+
+Gerasim turned round, saw lights and shadows moving in the windows,
+and with an instinct of coming trouble in his heart, put Mumu under
+his arm, ran into his garret, and locked himself in. A few minutes
+later five men were banging at his door, but feeling the resistance
+of the bolt, they stopped. Gavrila ran up in a fearful state of mind,
+and ordered them all to wait there and watch till morning. Then he
+flew off himself to the maids' quarter, and through an old companion,
+Liubov Liubimovna, with whose assistance he used to steal tea, sugar,
+and other groceries and to falsify the accounts, sent word to the
+mistress that the dog had unhappily run back from somewhere, but that
+to-morrow she should be killed, and would the mistress be so gracious
+as not to be angry and to overlook it. The old lady would probably
+not have been so soon appeased, but the doctor had in his haste given
+her fully forty drops instead of twelve. The strong dose of narcotic
+acted; in a quarter of an hour the old lady was in a sound and
+peaceful sleep; while Gerasim was lying with a white face on his bed,
+holding Mumu's mouth tightly shut.
+
+Next morning the lady woke up rather late. Gavrila was waiting
+till she should be awake, to give the order for a final assault on
+Gerasim's stronghold, while he prepared himself to face a fearful
+storm. But the storm did not come off. The old lady lay in bed and
+sent for the eldest of her dependent companions.
+
+'Liubov Liubimovna,' she began in a subdued weak voice--she was fond
+of playing the part of an oppressed and forsaken victim; needless to
+say, every one in the house was made extremely uncomfortable at such
+times--'Liubov Liubimovna, you see my position; go, my love to Gavrila
+Andreitch, and talk to him a little Can he really prize some wretched
+cur above the repose--the very life--of his mistress? I could not bear
+to think so,' she added, with an expression of deep feeling. 'Go, my
+love; be so good as to go to Gavrila Andreitch for me.'
+
+Liubov Liubimovna went to Gavrila's room. What conversation passed
+between them is not known, but a short time after, a whole crowd
+of people was moving across the yard in the direction of Gerasim's
+garret. Gavrila walked in front, holding his cap on with his hand,
+though there was no wind. The footmen and cooks were close behind him;
+Uncle Tail was looking out of a window, giving instructions, that is
+to say, simply waving his hands. At the rear there was a crowd of
+small boys skipping and hopping along; half of them were outsiders
+who had run up. On the narrow staircase leading to the garret sat one
+guard; at the door were standing two more with sticks. They began to
+mount the stairs, which they entirely blocked up. Gavrila went up to
+the door, knocked with his fist, shouting, 'Open the door!'
+
+A stifled bark was audible, but there was no answer.
+
+'Open the door, I tell you,' he repeated.
+
+'But, Gavrila Andreitch,' Stepan observed from below, 'he's deaf, you
+know--he doesn't hear.'
+
+They all laughed.
+
+'What are we to do?' Gavrila rejoined from above.
+
+'Why, there's a hole there in the door,' answered Stepan, 'so you
+shake the stick in there.'
+
+Gavrila bent down.
+
+'He's stuffed it up with a coat or something.'
+
+'Well, you just push the coat in.'
+
+At this moment a smothered bark was heard again.
+
+'See, see--she speaks for herself,' was remarked in the crowd, and
+again they laughed.
+
+Gavrila scratched his ear.
+
+'No, mate,' he responded at last, 'you can poke the coat in yourself,
+if you like.'
+
+'All right, let me.'
+
+And Stepan scrambled up, took the stick, pushed in the coat, and began
+waving the stick about in the opening, saying, 'Come out, come out!'
+as he did so. He was still waving the stick, when suddenly the door
+of the garret was flung open; all the crowd flew pell-mell down the
+stairs instantly, Gavrila first of all. Uncle Tail locked the window.
+
+'Come, come, come,' shouted Gavrila from the yard, 'mind what you're
+about.'
+
+Gerasim stood without stirring in his doorway. The crowd gathered at
+the foot of the stairs. Gerasim, with his arms akimbo, looked down at
+all these poor creatures in German coats; in his red peasant's shirt
+he looked like a giant before them. Gavrila took a step forward.
+
+'Mind, mate,' said he, 'don't be insolent.'
+
+And he began to explain to him by signs that the mistress insists on
+having his dog; that he must hand it over at once, or it would be the
+worse for him.
+
+Gerasim looked at him, pointed to the dog, made a motion with his hand
+round his neck, as though he were pulling a noose tight, and glanced
+with a face of inquiry at the steward.
+
+'Yes, yes,' the latter assented, nodding; 'yes, just so.'
+
+Gerasim dropped his eyes, then all of a sudden roused himself and
+pointed to Mumu, who was all the while standing beside him, innocently
+wagging her tail and pricking up her ears inquisitively. Then he
+repeated the strangling action round his neck and significantly struck
+himself on the breast, as though announcing he would take upon himself
+the task of killing Mumu.
+
+'But you'll deceive us,' Gavrila waved back in response.
+
+Gerasim looked at him, smiled scornfully, struck himself again on the
+breast, and slammed-to the door.
+
+They all looked at one another in silence.
+
+'What does that mean?' Gavrila began. 'He's locked himself in.'
+
+'Let him be, Gavrila Andreitch,' Stepan advised; 'he'll do it if he's
+promised. He's like that, you know.... If he makes a promise, it's a
+certain thing. He's not like us others in that. The truth's the truth
+with him. Yes, indeed.'
+
+'Yes,' they all repeated, nodding their heads, 'yes--that's so--yes.'
+
+Uncle Tail opened his window, and he too said, 'Yes.'
+
+'Well, may be, we shall see,' responded Gavrila; 'any way, we won't
+take off the guard. Here you, Eroshka!' he added, addressing a poor
+fellow in a yellow nankeen coat, who considered himself to be a
+gardener, 'what have you to do? Take a stick and sit here, and if
+anything happens, run to me at once!'
+
+Eroshka took a stick, and sat down on the bottom stair. The crowd
+dispersed, all except a few inquisitive small boys, while Gavrila went
+home and sent word through Liubov Liubimovna to the mistress, that
+everything had been done, while he sent a postillion for a policeman
+in case of need. The old lady tied a knot in her handkerchief,
+sprinkled some eau-de-Cologne on it, sniffed at it, and rubbed her
+temples with it, drank some tea, and, being still under the influence
+of the cherrybay drops, fell asleep again.
+
+An hour after all this hubbub the garret door opened, and Gerasim
+showed himself. He had on his best coat; he was leading Mumu by a
+string. Eroshka moved aside and let him pass. Gerasim went to the
+gates. All the small boys in the yard stared at him in silence. He did
+not even turn round; he only put his cap on in the street. Gavrila
+sent the same Eroshka to follow him and keep watch on him as a spy.
+Eroshka, seeing from a distance that he had gone into a cookshop with
+his dog, waited for him to come out again.
+
+Gerasim was well known at the cookshop, and his signs were understood.
+He asked for cabbage soup with meat in it, and sat down with his arms
+on the table. Mumu stood beside his chair, looking calmly at him with
+her intelligent eyes. Her coat was glossy; one could see she had just
+been combed down. They brought Gerasim the soup. He crumbled some
+bread into it, cut the meat up small, and put the plate on the ground.
+Mumu began eating in her usual refined way, her little muzzle daintily
+held so as scarcely to touch her food. Gerasim gazed a long while at
+her; two big tears suddenly rolled from his eyes; one fell on the
+dog's brow, the other into the soup. He shaded his face with his hand.
+Mumu ate up half the plateful, and came away from it, licking her
+lips. Gerasim got up, paid for the soup, and went out, followed by the
+rather perplexed glances of the waiter. Eroshka, seeing Gerasim, hid
+round a corner, and letting him get in front, followed him again.
+
+Gerasim walked without haste, still holding Mumu by a string. When he
+got to the corner of the street, he stood still as though reflecting,
+and suddenly set off with rapid steps to the Crimean Ford. On the
+way he went into the yard of a house, where a lodge was being built,
+and carried away two bricks under his arm. At the Crimean Ford, he
+turned along the bank, went to a place where there were two little
+rowing-boats fastened to stakes (he had noticed them there before),
+and jumped into one of them with Mumu. A lame old man came out of a
+shed in the corner of a kitchen-garden and shouted after him; but
+Gerasim only nodded, and began rowing so vigorously, though against
+stream, that in an instant he had darted two hundred yards away. The
+old man stood for a while, scratched his back first with the left and
+then with the right hand, and went back hobbling to the shed.
+
+Gerasim rowed on and on. Moscow was soon left behind. Meadows
+stretched each side of the bank, market gardens, fields, and copses;
+peasants' huts began to make their appearance. There was the fragrance
+of the country. He threw down his oars, bent his head down to Mumu,
+who was sitting facing him on a dry cross seat--the bottom of the boat
+was full of water--and stayed motionless, his mighty hands clasped
+upon her back, while the boat was gradually carried back by the
+current towards the town. At last Gerasim drew himself up hurriedly,
+with a sort of sick anger in his face, he tied up the bricks he had
+taken with string, made a running noose, put it round Mumu's neck,
+lifted her up over the river, and for the last time looked at her....
+she watched him confidingly and without any fear, faintly wagging her
+tail. He turned away, frowned, and wrung his hands.... Gerasim heard
+nothing, neither the quick shrill whine of Mumu as she fell, nor the
+heavy splash of the water; for him the noisiest day was soundless and
+silent as even the stillest night is not silent to us. When he opened
+his eyes again, little wavelets were hurrying over the river, chasing
+one another; as before they broke against the boat's side, and only
+far away behind wide circles moved widening to the bank.
+
+Directly Gerasim had vanished from Eroshka's sight, the latter
+returned home and reported what he had seen.
+
+'Well, then,' observed Stepan, 'he'll drown her. Now we can feel easy
+about it. If he once promises a thing....'
+
+No one saw Gerasim during the day. He did not have dinner at home.
+Evening came on; they were all gathered together to supper, except
+him.
+
+'What a strange creature that Gerasim is!' piped a fat laundrymaid;
+'fancy, upsetting himself like that over a dog.... Upon my word!'
+
+'But Gerasim has been here,' Stepan cried all at once, scraping up his
+porridge with a spoon.
+
+'How? when?'
+
+'Why, a couple of hours ago. Yes, indeed! I ran against him at the
+gate; he was going out again from here; he was coming out of the
+yard. I tried to ask him about his dog, but he wasn't in the best of
+humours, I could see. Well, he gave me a shove; I suppose he only
+meant to put me out of his way, as if he'd say, "Let me go, do!" but
+he fetched me such a crack on my neck, so seriously, that--oh! oh!'
+And Stepan, who could not help laughing, shrugged up and rubbed the
+back of his head. 'Yes,' he added; 'he has got a fist; it's something
+like a fist, there's no denying that!'
+
+They all laughed at Stepan, and after supper they separated to go to
+bed.
+
+Meanwhile, at that very time, a gigantic figure with a bag on his
+shoulders and a stick in his hand, was eagerly and persistently
+stepping out along the T---- highroad. It was Gerasim. He was hurrying
+on without looking round; hurrying homewards, to his own village, to
+his own country. After drowning poor Mumu, he had run back to his
+garret, hurriedly packed a few things together in an old horsecloth,
+tied it up in a bundle, tossed it on his shoulder, and so was ready.
+He had noticed the road carefully when he was brought to Moscow; the
+village his mistress had taken him from lay only about twenty miles
+off the highroad. He walked along it with a sort of invincible
+purpose, a desperate and at the same time joyous determination. He
+walked, his shoulders thrown back and his chest expanded; his eyes
+were fixed greedily straight before him. He hastened as though his old
+mother were waiting for him at home, as though she were calling him
+to her after long wanderings in strange parts, among strangers. The
+summer night, that was just drawing in, was still and warm; on one
+side, where the sun had set, the horizon was still light and faintly
+flushed with the last glow of the vanished day; on the other side a
+blue-grey twilight had already risen up. The night was coming up from
+that quarter. Quails were in hundreds around; corncrakes were calling
+to one another in the thickets.... Gerasim could not hear them; he
+could not hear the delicate night-whispering of the trees, by which
+his strong legs carried him, but he smelt the familiar scent of the
+ripening rye, which was wafted from the dark fields; he felt the wind,
+flying to meet him--the wind from home--beat caressingly upon his
+face, and play with his hair and his beard. He saw before him the
+whitening road homewards, straight as an arrow. He saw in the sky
+stars innumerable, lighting up his way, and stepped out, strong and
+bold as a lion, so that when the rising sun shed its moist rosy light
+upon the still fresh and unwearied traveller, already thirty miles lay
+between him and Moscow.
+
+In a couple of days he was at home, in his little hut, to the great
+astonishment of the soldier's wife who had been put in there. After
+praying before the holy pictures, he set off at once to the village
+elder. The village elder was at first surprised; but the haycutting
+had just begun; Gerasim was a first-rate mower, and they put a scythe
+into his hand on the spot, and he went to mow in his old way, mowing
+so that the peasants were fairly astounded as they watched his wide
+sweeping strokes and the heaps he raked together....
+
+In Moscow the day after Gerasim's flight they missed him. They went
+to his garret, rummaged about in it, and spoke to Gavrila. He came,
+looked, shrugged his shoulders, and decided that the dumb man had
+either run away or had drowned himself with his stupid dog. They
+gave information to the police, and informed the lady. The old lady
+was furious, burst into tears, gave orders that he was to be found
+whatever happened, declared she had never ordered the dog to be
+destroyed, and, in fact, gave Gavrila such a rating that he could do
+nothing all day but shake his head and murmur, 'Well!' until Uncle
+Tail checked him at last, sympathetically echoing 'We-ell!' At last
+the news came from the country of Gerasim's being there. The old
+lady was somewhat pacified; at first she issued a mandate for him to
+be brought back without delay to Moscow; afterwards, however, she
+declared that such an ungrateful creature was absolutely of no use to
+her. Soon after this she died herself; and her heirs had no thought to
+spare for Gerasim; they let their mother's other servants redeem their
+freedom on payment of an annual rent.
+
+And Gerasim is living still, a lonely man in his lonely hut; he is
+strong and healthy as before, and does the work of four men as before,
+and as before is serious and steady. But his neighbours have observed
+that ever since his return from Moscow he has quite given up the
+society of women; he will not even look at them, and does not keep
+even a single dog. 'It's his good luck, though,' the peasants reason;
+'that he can get on without female folk; and as for a dog--what need
+has he of a dog? you wouldn't get a thief to go into his yard for any
+money!' Such is the fame of the dumb man's Titanic strength.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE TORRENTS OF SPRING ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Torrents of Spring, by Ivan Turgenev
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+Title: The Torrents of Spring
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+
+Release Date: February, 2006  [EBook #9911]
+[This file was first posted on October 30, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE TORRENTS OF SPRING ***
+
+
+
+
+E-text prepared by Keren Vergon, William Flis, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+BY IVAN TURGENEV
+
+Translated from the Russian
+
+BY CONSTANCE GARNETT
+
+1897
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+FIRST LOVE
+
+MUMU
+
+
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+
+  'Years of gladness,
+    Days of joy,
+  Like the torrents of spring
+    They hurried away.'
+
+--_From an Old Ballad_.
+
+
+... At two o'clock in the night he had gone back to his study. He had
+dismissed the servant after the candles were lighted, and throwing
+himself into a low chair by the hearth, he hid his face in both hands.
+
+Never had he felt such weariness of body and of spirit. He had passed
+the whole evening in the company of charming ladies and cultivated
+men; some of the ladies were beautiful, almost all the men were
+distinguished by intellect or talent; he himself had talked with great
+success, even with brilliance ... and, for all that, never yet had
+the _taedium vitae_ of which the Romans talked of old, the 'disgust
+for life,' taken hold of him with such irresistible, such suffocating
+force. Had he been a little younger, he would have cried with misery,
+weariness, and exasperation: a biting, burning bitterness, like
+the bitter of wormwood, filled his whole soul. A sort of clinging
+repugnance, a weight of loathing closed in upon him on all sides like
+a dark night of autumn; and he did not know how to get free from this
+darkness, this bitterness. Sleep it was useless to reckon upon; he
+knew he should not sleep.
+
+He fell to thinking ... slowly, listlessly, wrathfully. He thought of
+the vanity, the uselessness, the vulgar falsity of all things human.
+All the stages of man's life passed in order before his mental gaze
+(he had himself lately reached his fifty-second year), and not one
+found grace in his eyes. Everywhere the same ever-lasting pouring of
+water into a sieve, the ever-lasting beating of the air, everywhere
+the same self-deception--half in good faith, half conscious--any toy
+to amuse the child, so long as it keeps him from crying. And then, all
+of a sudden, old age drops down like snow on the head, and with it the
+ever-growing, ever-gnawing, and devouring dread of death ... and the
+plunge into the abyss! Lucky indeed if life works out so to the end!
+May be, before the end, like rust on iron, sufferings, infirmities
+come.... He did not picture life's sea, as the poets depict it,
+covered with tempestuous waves; no, he thought of that sea as a
+smooth, untroubled surface, stagnant and transparent to its darkest
+depths. He himself sits in a little tottering boat, and down below
+in those dark oozy depths, like prodigious fishes, he can just make
+out the shapes of hideous monsters: all the ills of life, diseases,
+sorrows, madness, poverty, blindness.... He gazes, and behold, one
+of these monsters separates itself off from the darkness, rises
+higher and higher, stands out more and more distinct, more and more
+loathsomely distinct.... An instant yet, and the boat that bears him
+will be overturned! But behold, it grows dim again, it withdraws,
+sinks down to the bottom, and there it lies, faintly stirring in the
+slime.... But the fated day will come, and it will overturn the boat.
+
+He shook his head, jumped up from his low chair, took two turns up and
+down the room, sat down to the writing-table, and opening one drawer
+after another, began to rummage among his papers, among old letters,
+mostly from women. He could not have said why he was doing it; he was
+not looking for anything--he simply wanted by some kind of external
+occupation to get away from the thoughts oppressing him. Opening
+several letters at random (in one of them there was a withered flower
+tied with a bit of faded ribbon), he merely shrugged his shoulders,
+and glancing at the hearth, he tossed them on one side, probably with
+the idea of burning all this useless rubbish. Hurriedly, thrusting his
+hands first into one, and then into another drawer, he suddenly opened
+his eyes wide, and slowly bringing out a little octagonal box of
+old-fashioned make, he slowly raised its lid. In the box, under two
+layers of cotton wool, yellow with age, was a little garnet cross.
+
+For a few instants he looked in perplexity at this cross--suddenly
+he gave a faint cry.... Something between regret and delight was
+expressed in his features. Such an expression a man's face wears when
+he suddenly meets some one whom he has long lost sight of, whom he has
+at one time tenderly loved, and who suddenly springs up before his
+eyes, still the same, and utterly transformed by the years.
+
+He got up, and going back to the hearth, he sat down again in the
+arm-chair, and again hid his face in his hands.... 'Why to-day? just
+to-day?' was his thought, and he remembered many things, long since
+past.
+
+This is what he remembered....
+
+But first I must mention his name, his father's name and his surname.
+He was called Dimitri Pavlovitch Sanin.
+
+Here follows what he remembered.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was the summer of 1840. Sanin was in his twenty-second year, and he
+was in Frankfort on his way home from Italy to Russia. He was a man of
+small property, but independent, almost without family ties. By the
+death of a distant relative, he had come into a few thousand roubles,
+and he had decided to spend this sum abroad before entering the
+service, before finally putting on the government yoke, without which
+he could not obtain a secure livelihood. Sanin had carried out this
+intention, and had fitted things in to such a nicety that on the day
+of his arrival in Frankfort he had only just enough money left to take
+him back to Petersburg. In the year 1840 there were few railroads in
+existence; tourists travelled by diligence. Sanin had taken a place in
+the '_bei-wagon_'; but the diligence did not start till eleven o'clock
+in the evening. There was a great deal of time to be got through
+before then. Fortunately it was lovely weather, and Sanin after dining
+at a hotel, famous in those days, the White Swan, set off to stroll
+about the town. He went in to look at Danneker's Ariadne, which he did
+not much care for, visited the house of Goethe, of whose works he had,
+however, only read _Werter_, and that in the French translation. He
+walked along the bank of the Maine, and was bored as a well-conducted
+tourist should be; at last at six o'clock in the evening, tired, and
+with dusty boots, he found himself in one of the least remarkable
+streets in Frankfort. That street he was fated not to forget long,
+long after. On one of its few houses he saw a signboard: 'Giovanni
+Roselli, Italian confectionery,' was announced upon it. Sanin went
+into it to get a glass of lemonade; but in the shop, where, behind
+the modest counter, on the shelves of a stained cupboard, recalling
+a chemist's shop, stood a few bottles with gold labels, and as many
+glass jars of biscuits, chocolate cakes, and sweetmeats--in this room,
+there was not a soul; only a grey cat blinked and purred, sharpening
+its claws on a tall wicker chair near the window and a bright patch
+of colour was made in the evening sunlight, by a big ball of red wool
+lying on the floor beside a carved wooden basket turned upside down. A
+confused noise was audible in the next room. Sanin stood a moment, and
+making the bell on the door ring its loudest, he called, raising his
+voice, 'Is there no one here?' At that instant the door from an inner
+room was thrown open, and Sanin was struck dumb with amazement.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+A young girl of nineteen ran impetuously into the shop, her dark curls
+hanging in disorder on her bare shoulders, her bare arms stretched out
+in front of her. Seeing Sanin, she rushed up to him at once, seized
+him by the hand, and pulled him after her, saying in a breathless
+voice, 'Quick, quick, here, save him!' Not through disinclination
+to obey, but simply from excess of amazement, Sanin did not at once
+follow the girl. He stood, as it were, rooted to the spot; he had
+never in his life seen such a beautiful creature. She turned towards
+him, and with such despair in her voice, in her eyes, in the gesture
+of her clenched hand, which was lifted with a spasmodic movement to
+her pale cheek, she articulated, 'Come, come!' that he at once darted
+after her to the open door.
+
+In the room, into which he ran behind the girl, on an old-fashioned
+horse-hair sofa, lay a boy of fourteen, white all over--white, with
+a yellowish tinge like wax or old marble--he was strikingly like the
+girl, obviously her brother. His eyes were closed, a patch of shadow
+fell from his thick black hair on a forehead like stone, and delicate,
+motionless eyebrows; between the blue lips could be seen clenched
+teeth. He seemed not to be breathing; one arm hung down to the floor,
+the other he had tossed above his head. The boy was dressed, and his
+clothes were closely buttoned; a tight cravat was twisted round his
+neck.
+
+The girl rushed up to him with a wail of distress. 'He is dead, he is
+dead!' she cried; 'he was sitting here just now, talking to me--and
+all of a sudden he fell down and became rigid.... My God! can nothing
+be done to help him? And mamma not here! Pantaleone, Pantaleone, the
+doctor!' she went on suddenly in Italian. 'Have you been for the
+doctor?'
+
+'Signora, I did not go, I sent Luise,' said a hoarse voice at the
+door, and a little bandy-legged old man came hobbling into the room in
+a lavender frock coat with black buttons, a high white cravat, short
+nankeen trousers, and blue worsted stockings. His diminutive little
+face was positively lost in a mass of iron-grey hair. Standing up in
+all directions, and falling back in ragged tufts, it gave the old
+man's figure a resemblance to a crested hen--a resemblance the more
+striking, that under the dark-grey mass nothing could be distinguished
+but a beak nose and round yellow eyes.
+
+'Luise will run fast, and I can't run,' the old man went on in
+Italian, dragging his flat gouty feet, shod in high slippers with
+knots of ribbon. 'I've brought some water.'
+
+In his withered, knotted fingers, he clutched a long bottle neck.
+
+'But meanwhile Emil will die!' cried the girl, and holding out her
+hand to Sanin, 'O, sir, O _mein Herr_! can't you do something for
+him?'
+
+'He ought to be bled--it's an apoplectic fit,' observed the old man
+addressed as Pantaleone.
+
+Though Sanin had not the slightest notion of medicine, he knew one
+thing for certain, that boys of fourteen do not have apoplectic fits.
+
+'It's a swoon, not a fit,' he said, turning to Pantaleone. 'Have you
+got any brushes?'
+
+The old man raised his little face. 'Eh?'
+
+'Brushes, brushes,' repeated Sanin in German and in French. 'Brushes,'
+he added, making as though he would brush his clothes.
+
+The little old man understood him at last.
+
+'Ah, brushes! _Spazzette_! to be sure we have!'
+
+'Bring them here; we will take off his coat and try rubbing him.'
+
+'Good ... _Benone_! And ought we not to sprinkle water on his head?'
+
+'No ... later on; get the brushes now as quick as you can.'
+
+Pantaleone put the bottle on the floor, ran out and returned at once
+with two brushes, one a hair-brush, and one a clothes-brush. A curly
+poodle followed him in, and vigorously wagging its tail, it looked up
+inquisitively at the old man, the girl, and even Sanin, as though it
+wanted to know what was the meaning of all this fuss.
+
+Sanin quickly took the boy's coat off, unbuttoned his collar, and
+pushed up his shirt-sleeves, and arming himself with a brush, he
+began brushing his chest and arms with all his might. Pantaleone as
+zealously brushed away with the other--the hair-brush--at his boots
+and trousers. The girl flung herself on her knees by the sofa, and,
+clutching her head in both hands, fastened her eyes, not an eyelash
+quivering, on her brother.
+
+Sanin rubbed on, and kept stealing glances at her. Mercy! what a
+beautiful creature she was!
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Her nose was rather large, but handsome, aquiline-shaped; her upper
+lip was shaded by a light down; but then the colour of her face,
+smooth, uniform, like ivory or very pale milky amber, the wavering
+shimmer of her hair, like that of the Judith of Allorio in the
+Palazzo-Pitti; and above all, her eyes, dark-grey, with a black ring
+round the pupils, splendid, triumphant eyes, even now, when terror and
+distress dimmed their lustre.... Sanin could not help recalling the
+marvellous country he had just come from.... But even in Italy he had
+never met anything like her! The girl drew slow, uneven breaths; she
+seemed between each breath to be waiting to see whether her brother
+would not begin to breathe.
+
+Sanin went on rubbing him, but he did not only watch the girl. The
+original figure of Pantaleone drew his attention too. The old man was
+quite exhausted and panting; at every movement of the brush he hopped
+up and down and groaned noisily, while his immense tufts of hair,
+soaked with perspiration, flapped heavily from side to side, like the
+roots of some strong plant, torn up by the water.
+
+'You'd better, at least, take off his boots,' Sanin was just saying to
+him.
+
+The poodle, probably excited by the unusualness of all the
+proceedings, suddenly sank on to its front paws and began barking.
+
+'_Tartaglia--canaglia_!' the old man hissed at it. But at that instant
+the girl's face was transformed. Her eyebrows rose, her eyes grew
+wider, and shone with joy.
+
+Sanin looked round ... A flush had over-spread the lad's face; his
+eyelids stirred ... his nostrils twitched. He drew in a breath through
+his still clenched teeth, sighed....
+
+'Emil!' cried the girl ... 'Emilio mio!'
+
+Slowly the big black eyes opened. They still had a dazed look, but
+already smiled faintly; the same faint smile hovered on his pale lips.
+Then he moved the arm that hung down, and laid it on his chest.
+
+'Emilio!' repeated the girl, and she got up. The expression on her
+face was so tense and vivid, that it seemed that in an instant either
+she would burst into tears or break into laughter.
+
+'Emil! what is it? Emil!' was heard outside, and a neatly-dressed lady
+with silvery grey hair and a dark face came with rapid steps into the
+room.
+
+A middle-aged man followed her; the head of a maid-servant was visible
+over their shoulders.
+
+The girl ran to meet them.
+
+'He is saved, mother, he is alive!' she cried, impulsively embracing
+the lady who had just entered.
+
+'But what is it?' she repeated. 'I come back ... and all of a sudden I
+meet the doctor and Luise ...'
+
+The girl proceeded to explain what had happened, while the doctor went
+up to the invalid who was coming more and more to himself, and was
+still smiling: he seemed to be beginning to feel shy at the commotion
+he had caused.
+
+'You've been using friction with brushes, I see,' said the doctor to
+Sanin and Pantaleone, 'and you did very well.... A very good idea ...
+and now let us see what further measures ...'
+
+He felt the youth's pulse. 'H'm! show me your tongue!'
+
+The lady bent anxiously over him. He smiled still more ingenuously,
+raised his eyes to her, and blushed a little.
+
+It struck Sanin that he was no longer wanted; he went into the shop.
+But before he had time to touch the handle of the street-door, the
+girl was once more before him; she stopped him.
+
+'You are going,' she began, looking warmly into his face; 'I will not
+keep you, but you must be sure to come to see us this evening: we are
+so indebted to you--you, perhaps, saved my brother's life, we want to
+thank you--mother wants to. You must tell us who you are, you must
+rejoice with us ...'
+
+'But I am leaving for Berlin to-day,' Sanin faltered out.
+
+'You will have time though,' the girl rejoined eagerly. 'Come to us
+in an hour's time to drink a cup of chocolate with us. You promise? I
+must go back to him! You will come?'
+
+What could Sanin do?
+
+'I will come,' he replied.
+
+The beautiful girl pressed his hand, fluttered away, and he found
+himself in the street.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+When Sanin, an hour and a half later, returned to the Rosellis' shop
+he was received there like one of the family. Emilio was sitting on
+the same sofa, on which he had been rubbed; the doctor had prescribed
+him medicine and recommended 'great discretion in avoiding strong
+emotions' as being a subject of nervous temperament with a tendency to
+weakness of the heart. He had previously been liable to fainting-fits;
+but never had he lost consciousness so completely and for so long.
+However, the doctor declared that all danger was over. Emil, as
+was only suitable for an invalid, was dressed in a comfortable
+dressing-gown; his mother wound a blue woollen wrap round his neck;
+but he had a cheerful, almost a festive air; indeed everything had
+a festive air. Before the sofa, on a round table, covered with a
+clean cloth, towered a huge china coffee-pot, filled with fragrant
+chocolate, and encircled by cups, decanters of liqueur, biscuits
+and rolls, and even flowers; six slender wax candles were burning
+in two old-fashioned silver chandeliers; on one side of the sofa,
+a comfortable lounge-chair offered its soft embraces, and in this
+chair they made Sanin sit. All the inhabitants of the confectioner's
+shop, with whom he had made acquaintance that day, were present, not
+excluding the poodle, Tartaglia, and the cat; they all seemed happy
+beyond expression; the poodle positively sneezed with delight, only
+the cat was coy and blinked sleepily as before. They made Sanin tell
+them who he was, where he came from, and what was his name; when
+he said he was a Russian, both the ladies were a little surprised,
+uttered ejaculations of wonder, and declared with one voice that he
+spoke German splendidly; but if he preferred to speak French, he
+might make use of that language, as they both understood it and spoke
+it well. Sanin at once availed himself of this suggestion. 'Sanin!
+Sanin!' The ladies would never have expected that a Russian surname
+could be so easy to pronounce. His Christian name--'Dimitri'--they
+liked very much too. The elder lady observed that in her youth she had
+heard a fine opera--Demetrio e Polibio'--but that 'Dimitri' was much
+nicer than 'Demetrio.' In this way Sanin talked for about an hour. The
+ladies on their side initiated him into all the details of their own
+life. The talking was mostly done by the mother, the lady with grey
+hair. Sanin learnt from her that her name was Leonora Roselli; that
+she had lost her husband, Giovanni Battista Roselli, who had settled
+in Frankfort as a confectioner twenty--five years ago; that Giovanni
+Battista had come from Vicenza and had been a most excellent, though
+fiery and irascible man, and a republican withal! At those words
+Signora Roselli pointed to his portrait, painted in oil-colours, and
+hanging over the sofa. It must be presumed that the painter, 'also
+a republican!' as Signora Roselli observed with a sigh, had not
+fully succeeded in catching a likeness, for in his portrait the late
+Giovanni Battista appeared as a morose and gloomy brigand, after the
+style of Rinaldo Rinaldini! Signora Roselli herself had come from
+'the ancient and splendid city of Parma where there is the wonderful
+cupola, painted by the immortal Correggio!' But from her long
+residence in Germany she had become almost completely Germanised.
+Then she added, mournfully shaking her head, that all she had left
+was _this_ daughter and _this_ son (pointing to each in turn with her
+finger); that the daughter's name was Gemma, and the son's Emilio;
+that they were both very good and obedient children--especially Emilio
+... ('Me not obedient!' her daughter put in at that point. 'Oh,
+you're a republican, too!' answered her mother). That the business,
+of course, was not what it had been in the days of her husband, who
+had a great gift for the confectionery line ... ('_Un grand uomo_!'
+Pantaleone confirmed with a severe air); but that still, thank God,
+they managed to get along!
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Gemma listened to her mother, and at one minute laughed, then sighed,
+then patted her on the shoulder, and shook her finger at her, and then
+looked at Sanin; at last, she got up, embraced her mother and kissed
+her in the hollow of her neck, which made the latter laugh extremely
+and shriek a little. Pantaleone too was presented to Sanin. It
+appeared he had once been an opera singer, a baritone, but had long
+ago given up the theatre, and occupied in the Roselli family a
+position between that of a family friend and a servant. In spite of
+his prolonged residence in Germany, he had learnt very little German,
+and only knew how to swear in it, mercilessly distorting even the
+terms of abuse. '_Ferroflucto spitchebubbio_' was his favourite
+epithet for almost every German. He spoke Italian with a perfect
+accent--for was he not by birth from Sinigali, where may be heard
+'_lingua toscana in bocca romana_'! Emilio, obviously, played the
+invalid and indulged himself in the pleasant sensations of one who has
+only just escaped a danger or is returning to health after illness;
+it was evident, too, that the family spoiled him. He thanked Sanin
+bashfully, but devoted himself chiefly to the biscuits and sweetmeats.
+Sanin was compelled to drink two large cups of excellent chocolate,
+and to eat a considerable number of biscuits; no sooner had he
+swallowed one than Gemma offered him another--and to refuse was
+impossible! He soon felt at home: the time flew by with incredible
+swiftness. He had to tell them a great deal--about Russia in general,
+the Russian climate, Russian society, the Russian peasant--and
+especially about the Cossacks; about the war of 1812, about Peter the
+Great, about the Kremlin, and the Russian songs and bells. Both ladies
+had a very faint conception of our vast and remote fatherland; Signora
+Roselli, or as she was more often called, Frau Lenore, positively
+dumfoundered Sanin with the question, whether there was still existing
+at Petersburg the celebrated house of ice, built last century, about
+which she had lately read a very curious article in one of her
+husband's books, '_Bettezze delle arti_.' And in reply to Sanin's
+exclamation, 'Do you really suppose that there is never any summer in
+Russia?' Frau Lenore replied that till then she had always pictured
+Russia like this--eternal snow, every one going about in furs, and all
+military men, but the greatest hospitality, and all the peasants very
+submissive! Sanin tried to impart to her and her daughter some more
+exact information. When the conversation touched on Russian music,
+they begged him at once to sing some Russian air and showed him a
+diminutive piano with black keys instead of white and white instead
+of black. He obeyed without making much ado and accompanying himself
+with two fingers of the right hand and three of the left (the first,
+second, and little finger) he sang in a thin nasal tenor, first 'The
+Sarafan,' then 'Along a Paved Street.' The ladies praised his voice
+and the music, but were more struck with the softness and sonorousness
+of the Russian language and asked for a translation of the text. Sanin
+complied with their wishes--but as the words of 'The Sarafan,' and
+still more of 'Along a Paved Street' (_sur une rue pavée une jeune
+fille allait à l'eau_ was how he rendered the sense of the original)
+were not calculated to inspire his listeners with an exalted idea
+of Russian poetry, he first recited, then translated, and then sang
+Pushkin's, 'I remember a marvellous moment,' set to music by Glinka,
+whose minor bars he did not render quite faithfully. Then the ladies
+went into ecstasies. Frau Lenore positively discovered in Russian
+a wonderful likeness to the Italian. Even the names Pushkin (she
+pronounced it Pussekin) and Glinka sounded somewhat familiar to her.
+Sanin on his side begged the ladies to sing something; they too did
+not wait to be pressed. Frau Lenore sat down to the piano and sang
+with Gemma some duets and 'stornelle.' The mother had once had a fine
+contralto; the daughter's voice was not strong, but was pleasing.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+But it was not Gemma's voice--it was herself Sanin was admiring. He
+was sitting a little behind and on one side of her, and kept thinking
+to himself that no palm-tree, even in the poems of Benediktov--the
+poet in fashion in those days--could rival the slender grace of her
+figure. When, at the most emotional passages, she raised her eyes
+upwards--it seemed to him no heaven could fail to open at such a look!
+Even the old man, Pantaleone, who with his shoulder propped against
+the doorpost, and his chin and mouth tucked into his capacious cravat,
+was listening solemnly with the air of a connoisseur--even he was
+admiring the girl's lovely face and marvelling at it, though one would
+have thought he must have been used to it! When she had finished the
+duet with her daughter, Frau Lenore observed that Emilio had a fine
+voice, like a silver bell, but that now he was at the age when the
+voice changes--he did, in fact, talk in a sort of bass constantly
+falling into falsetto--and that he was therefore forbidden to sing;
+but that Pantaleone now really might try his skill of old days in
+honour of their guest! Pantaleone promptly put on a displeased air,
+frowned, ruffled up his hair, and declared that he had given it all
+up long ago, though he could certainly in his youth hold his own,
+and indeed had belonged to that great period, when there were real
+classical singers, not to be compared to the squeaking performers of
+to-day! and a real school of singing; that he, Pantaleone Cippatola of
+Varese, had once been brought a laurel wreath from Modena, and that
+on that occasion some white doves had positively been let fly in the
+theatre; that among others a Russian prince Tarbusky--'_il principe
+Tarbusski_'--with whom he had been on the most friendly terms, had
+after supper persistently invited him to Russia, promising him
+mountains of gold, mountains!... but that he had been unwilling to
+leave Italy, the land of Dante--_il paese del Dante!_ Afterward, to
+be sure, there came ... unfortunate circumstances, he had himself
+been imprudent.... At this point the old man broke off, sighed
+deeply twice, looked dejected, and began again talking of the
+classical period of singing, of the celebrated tenor Garcia, for
+whom he cherished a devout, unbounded veneration. 'He was a man!'
+he exclaimed. 'Never had the great Garcia (_il gran Garcia_)
+demeaned himself by singing falsetto like the paltry tenors of
+to-day--_tenoracci_; always from the chest, from the chest, _voce di
+petto, si!_' and the old man aimed a vigorous blow with his little
+shrivelled fist at his own shirt-front! 'And what an actor! A volcano,
+_signori miei_, a volcano, _un Vesuvio_! I had the honour and the
+happiness of singing with him in the _opera dell' illustrissimo
+maestro_ Rossini--in Otello! Garcia was Otello,--I was Iago--and
+when he rendered the phrase':--here Pantaleone threw himself into an
+attitude and began singing in a hoarse and shaky, but still moving
+voice:
+
+  "L'i ... ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato
+  lo più no ... no ... no ... non temerò!"
+
+The theatre was all a-quiver, _signori miei_! though I too did not
+fall short, I too after him.
+
+  "L'i ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato
+  Temèr più non davro!"
+
+And all of a sudden, he crashed like lightning, like a tiger:
+_Morro!... ma vendicato ..._ Again when he was singing ... when he was
+singing that celebrated air from "_Matrimonio segreto_," _Pria che
+spunti_ ... then he, _il gran Garcia_, after the words, "_I cavalli
+di galoppo_"--at the words, "_Senza posa cacciera_,"--listen, how
+stupendous, _come è stupendo_! At that point he made ...' The old man
+began a sort of extraordinary flourish, and at the tenth note broke
+down, cleared his throat, and with a wave of his arm turned away,
+muttering, 'Why do you torment me?' Gemma jumped up at once and
+clapping loudly and shouting, bravo!... bravo!... she ran to the poor
+old super-annuated Iago and with both hands patted him affectionately
+on the shoulders. Only Emil laughed ruthlessly. _Cet âge est sans
+pitié_--that age knows no mercy--Lafontaine has said already.
+
+Sanin tried to soothe the aged singer and began talking to him
+in Italian--(he had picked up a smattering during his last tour
+there)--began talking of '_paese del Dante, dove il si suona_.' This
+phrase, together with '_Lasciate ogni speranza_,' made up the whole
+stock of poetic Italian of the young tourist; but Pantaleone was
+not won over by his blandishments. Tucking his chin deeper than ever
+into his cravat and sullenly rolling his eyes, he was once more
+like a bird, an angry one too,--a crow or a kite. Then Emil, with a
+faint momentary blush, such as one so often sees in spoilt children,
+addressing his sister, said if she wanted to entertain their guest,
+she could do nothing better than read him one of those little comedies
+of Malz, that she read so nicely. Gemma laughed, slapped her brother
+on the arm, exclaimed that he 'always had such ideas!' She went
+promptly, however, to her room, and returning thence with a small
+book in her hand, seated herself at the table before the lamp, looked
+round, lifted one finger as much as to say, 'hush!'--a typically
+Italian gesture--and began reading.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Malz was a writer flourishing at Frankfort about 1830, whose short
+comedies, written in a light vein in the local dialect, hit off local
+Frankfort types with bright and amusing, though not deep, humour.
+It turned out that Gemma really did read excellently--quite like an
+actress in fact. She indicated each personage, and sustained the
+character capitally, making full use of the talent of mimicry she had
+inherited with her Italian blood; she had no mercy on her soft voice
+or her lovely face, and when she had to represent some old crone in
+her dotage, or a stupid burgomaster, she made the drollest grimaces,
+screwing up her eyes, wrinkling up her nose, lisping, squeaking....
+She did not herself laugh during the reading; but when her audience
+(with the exception of Pantaleone: he had walked off in indignation
+so soon as the conversation turned _o quel ferroflucto Tedesco_)
+interrupted her by an outburst of unanimous laughter, she dropped the
+book on her knee, and laughed musically too, her head thrown back, and
+her black hair dancing in little ringlets on her neck and her shaking
+shoulders. When the laughter ceased, she picked up the book at once,
+and again resuming a suitable expression, began the reading seriously.
+Sanin could not get over his admiration; he was particularly
+astonished at the marvellous way in which a face so ideally beautiful
+assumed suddenly a comic, sometimes almost a vulgar expression. Gemma
+was less successful in the parts of young girls--of so-called '_jeunes
+premières_'; in the love-scenes in particular she failed; she was
+conscious of this herself, and for that reason gave them a faint shade
+of irony as though she did not quite believe in all these rapturous
+vows and elevated sentiments, of which the author, however, was
+himself rather sparing--so far as he could be.
+
+Sanin did not notice how the evening was flying by, and only
+recollected the journey before him when the clock struck ten. He
+leaped up from his seat as though he had been stung.
+
+'What is the matter?' inquired Frau Lenore.
+
+'Why, I had to start for Berlin to-night, and I have taken a place in
+the diligence!'
+
+'And when does the diligence start?'
+
+'At half-past ten!'
+
+'Well, then, you won't catch it now,' observed Gemma; 'you must stay
+... and I will go on reading.'
+
+'Have you paid the whole fare or only given a deposit?' Frau Lenore
+queried.
+
+'The whole fare!' Sanin said dolefully with a gloomy face.
+
+Gemma looked at him, half closed her eyes, and laughed, while her
+mother scolded her:
+
+'The young gentleman has paid away his money for nothing, and you
+laugh!'
+
+'Never mind,' answered Gemma; 'it won't ruin him, and we will try and
+amuse him. Will you have some lemonade?'
+
+Sanin drank a glass of lemonade, Gemma took up Malz once more; and all
+went merrily again.
+
+The clock struck twelve. Sanin rose to take leave.
+
+'You must stay some days now in Frankfort,' said Gemma: 'why should
+you hurry away? It would be no nicer in any other town.' She paused.
+'It wouldn't, really,' she added with a smile. Sanin made no reply,
+and reflected that considering the emptiness of his purse, he would
+have no choice about remaining in Frankfort till he got an answer from
+a friend in Berlin, to whom he proposed writing for money.
+
+'Yes, do stay,' urged Frau Lenore too. 'We will introduce you to Mr.
+Karl Klüber, who is engaged to Gemma. He could not come to-day, as he
+was very busy at his shop ... you must have seen the biggest draper's
+and silk mercer's shop in the _Zeile_. Well, he is the manager there.
+But he will be delighted to call on you himself.'
+
+Sanin--heaven knows why--was slightly disconcerted by this piece of
+information. 'He's a lucky fellow, that fiancé!' flashed across his
+mind. He looked at Gemma, and fancied he detected an ironical look in
+her eyes. He began saying good-bye.
+
+'Till to-morrow? Till to-morrow, isn't it?' queried Frau Lenore.
+
+'Till to-morrow!' Gemma declared in a tone not of interrogation, but
+of affirmation, as though it could not be otherwise.
+
+'Till to-morrow!' echoed Sanin.
+
+Emil, Pantaleone, and the poodle Tartaglia accompanied him to the
+corner of the street. Pantaleone could not refrain from expressing his
+displeasure at Gemma's reading.
+
+'She ought to be ashamed! She mouths and whines, _una caricatura_!
+She ought to represent Merope or Clytemnaestra--something grand,
+tragic--and she apes some wretched German woman! I can do that ...
+_merz, kerz, smerz_,' he went on in a hoarse voice poking his face
+forward, and brandishing his fingers. Tartaglia began barking at him,
+while Emil burst out laughing. The old man turned sharply back.
+
+Sanin went back to the White Swan (he had left his things there in the
+public hall) in a rather confused frame of mind. All the talk he had
+had in French, German, and Italian was ringing in his ears.
+
+'Engaged!' he whispered as he lay in bed, in the modest apartment
+assigned to him. 'And what a beauty! But what did I stay for?'
+
+Next day he sent a letter to his friend in Berlin.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+He had not finished dressing, when a waiter announced the arrival
+of two gentlemen. One of them turned out to be Emil; the other, a
+good-looking and well-grown young man, with a handsome face, was Herr
+Karl Klüber, the betrothed of the lovely Gemma.
+
+One may safely assume that at that time in all Frankfort, there was
+not in a single shop a manager as civil, as decorous, as dignified,
+and as affable as Herr Klüber. The irreproachable perfection of his
+get-up was on a level with the dignity of his deportment, with the
+elegance--a little affected and stiff, it is true, in the English
+style (he had spent two years in England)--but still fascinating,
+elegance of his manners! It was clear from the first glance that this
+handsome, rather severe, excellently brought-up and superbly washed
+young man was accustomed to obey his superior and to command his
+inferior, and that behind the counter of his shop he must infallibly
+inspire respect even in his customers! Of his supernatural honesty
+there could never be a particle of doubt: one had but to look at his
+stiffly starched collars! And his voice, it appeared, was just what
+one would expect; deep, and of a self-confident richness, but not too
+loud, with positively a certain caressing note in its timbre. Such a
+voice was peculiarly fitted to give orders to assistants under his
+control: 'Show the crimson Lyons velvet!' or, 'Hand the lady a chair!'
+
+Herr Klüber began with introducing himself; as he did so, he bowed
+with such loftiness, moved his legs with such an agreeable air, and
+drew his heels together with such polished courtesy that no one could
+fail to feel, 'that man has both linen and moral principles of the
+first quality!' The finish of his bare right hand--(the left, in a
+suede glove, held a hat shining like a looking-glass, with the right
+glove placed within it)--the finish of the right hand, proffered
+modestly but resolutely to Sanin, surpassed all belief; each
+finger-nail was a perfection in its own way! Then he proceeded
+to explain in the choicest German that he was anxious to express
+his respect and his indebtedness to the foreign gentleman who had
+performed so signal a service to his future kinsman, the brother of
+his betrothed; as he spoke, he waved his left hand with the hat in it
+in the direction of Emil, who seemed bashful and turning away to the
+window, put his finger in his mouth. Herr Klüber added that he should
+esteem himself happy should he be able in return to do anything for
+the foreign gentleman. Sanin, with some difficulty, replied, also
+in German, that he was delighted ... that the service was not worth
+speaking of ... and he begged his guests to sit down. Herr Klüber
+thanked him, and lifting his coat-tails, sat down on a chair; but he
+perched there so lightly and with such a transitory air that no one
+could fail to realise, 'this man is sitting down from politeness,
+and will fly up again in an instant.' And he did in fact fly up again
+quickly, and advancing with two discreet little dance-steps, he
+announced that to his regret he was unable to stay any longer, as he
+had to hasten to his shop--business before everything! but as the next
+day was Sunday, he had, with the consent of Frau Lenore and Fräulein
+Gemma, arranged a holiday excursion to Soden, to which he had the
+honour of inviting the foreign gentleman, and he cherished the hope
+that he would not refuse to grace the party with his presence. Sanin
+did not refuse so to grace it; and Herr Klüber repeating once more his
+complimentary sentiments, took leave, his pea-green trousers making a
+spot of cheerful colour, and his brand-new boots squeaking cheerfully
+as he moved.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Emil, who had continued to stand with his face to the window, even
+after Sanin's invitation to him to sit down, turned round directly his
+future kinsman had gone out, and with a childish pout and blush, asked
+Sanin if he might remain a little while with him. 'I am much better
+to-day,' he added, 'but the doctor has forbidden me to do any work.'
+
+'Stay by all means! You won't be in the least in my way,' Sanin cried
+at once. Like every true Russian he was glad to clutch at any excuse
+that saved him from the necessity of doing anything himself.
+
+Emil thanked him, and in a very short time he was completely at home
+with him and with his room; he looked at all his things, asked him
+about almost every one of them, where he had bought it, and what was
+its value. He helped him to shave, observing that it was a mistake not
+to let his moustache grow; and finally told him a number of details
+about his mother, his sister, Pantaleone, the poodle Tartaglia, and
+all their daily life. Every semblance of timidity vanished in Emil; he
+suddenly felt extraordinarily attracted to Sanin--not at all because
+he had saved his life the day before, but because he was such a nice
+person! He lost no time in confiding all his secrets to Sanin. He
+expatiated with special warmth on the fact that his mother was set
+on making him a shopkeeper, while he _knew_, knew for certain, that
+he was born an artist, a musician, a singer; that Pantaleone even
+encouraged him, but that Herr Klüber supported mamma, over whom he had
+great influence; that the very idea of his being a shopkeeper really
+originated with Herr Klüber, who considered that nothing in the world
+could compare with trade! To measure out cloth--and cheat the public,
+extorting from it '_Narren--oder Russen Preise_' (fools'--or Russian
+prices)--that was his ideal! [Footnote: In former days--and very
+likely it is not different now--when, from May onwards, a great number
+of Russians visited Frankfort, prices rose in all the shops, and were
+called 'Russians',' or, alas! 'fools' prices.']
+
+'Come! now you must come and see us!' he cried, directly Sanin had
+finished his toilet and written his letter to Berlin.
+
+'It's early yet,' observed Sanin.
+
+'That's no matter,' replied Emil caressingly. 'Come along! We'll go to
+the post--and from there to our place. Gemma will be so glad to see
+you! You must have lunch with us.... You might say a word to mamma
+about me, my career....'
+
+'Very well, let's go,' said Sanin, and they set off.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Gemma certainly was delighted to see him, and Frau Lenore gave him a
+very friendly welcome; he had obviously made a good impression on both
+of them the evening before. Emil ran to see to getting lunch ready,
+after a preliminary whisper, 'don't forget!' in Sanin's ear.
+
+'I won't forget,' responded Sanin.
+
+Frau Lenore was not quite well; she had a sick headache, and,
+half-lying down in an easy chair, she tried to keep perfectly still.
+Gemma wore a full yellow blouse, with a black leather belt round the
+waist; she too seemed exhausted, and was rather pale; there were dark
+rings round her eyes, but their lustre was not the less for it; it
+added something of charm and mystery to the classical lines of her
+face. Sanin was especially struck that day by the exquisite beauty of
+her hands; when she smoothed and put back her dark, glossy tresses he
+could not take his eyes off her long supple fingers, held slightly
+apart from one another like the hand of Raphael's Fornarina.
+
+It was very hot out-of-doors; after lunch Sanin was about to take
+leave, but they told him that on such a day the best thing was to stay
+where one was, and he agreed; he stayed. In the back room where he was
+sitting with the ladies of the household, coolness reigned supreme;
+the windows looked out upon a little garden overgrown with acacias.
+Multitudes of bees, wasps, and humming beetles kept up a steady,
+eager buzz in their thick branches, which were studded with golden
+blossoms; through the half-drawn curtains and the lowered blinds this
+never-ceasing hum made its way into the room, telling of the sultry
+heat in the air outside, and making the cool of the closed and snug
+abode seem the sweeter.
+
+Sanin talked a great deal, as on the day before, but not of Russia,
+nor of Russian life. Being anxious to please his young friend, who
+had been sent off to Herr Klüber's immediately after lunch, to
+acquire a knowledge of book-keeping, he turned the conversation on
+the comparative advantages and disadvantages of art and commerce. He
+was not surprised at Frau Lenore's standing up for commerce--he had
+expected that; but Gemma too shared her opinion.
+
+'If one's an artist, and especially a singer,' she declared with a
+vigorous downward sweep of her hand, 'one's got to be first-rate!
+Second-rate's worse than nothing; and who can tell if one will
+arrive at being first-rate?' Pantaleone, who took part too in the
+conversation--(as an old servant and an old man he had the privilege
+of sitting down in the presence of the ladies of the house; Italians
+are not, as a rule, strict in matters of etiquette)--Pantaleone, as a
+matter of course, stood like a rock for art. To tell the truth, his
+arguments were somewhat feeble; he kept expatiating for the most part
+on the necessity, before all things, of possessing '_un certo estro
+d'inspirazione_'--a certain force of inspiration! Frau Lenore remarked
+to him that he had, to be sure, possessed such an '_estro_'--and
+yet ... 'I had enemies,' Pantaleone observed gloomily. 'And how do
+you know that Emil will not have enemies, even if this "_estro_" is
+found in him?' 'Very well, make a tradesman of him, then,' retorted
+Pantaleone in vexation; 'but Giovan' Battista would never have done
+it, though he was a confectioner himself!' 'Giovan' Battista, my
+husband, was a reasonable man, and even though he was in his youth led
+away ...' But the old man would hear nothing more, and walked away,
+repeating reproachfully, 'Ah! Giovan' Battista!...' Gemma exclaimed
+that if Emil felt like a patriot, and wanted to devote all his powers
+to the liberation of Italy, then, of course, for such a high and holy
+cause he might sacrifice the security of the future--but not for the
+theatre! Thereupon Frau Lenore became much agitated, and began to
+implore her daughter to refrain at least from turning her brother's
+head, and to content herself with being such a desperate republican
+herself! Frau Lenore groaned as she uttered these words, and began
+complaining of her head, which was 'ready to split.' (Frau Lenore, in
+deference to their guest, talked to her daughter in French.)
+
+Gemma began at once to wait upon her; she moistened her forehead with
+eau-de-Cologne, gently blew on it, gently kissed her cheek, made her
+lay her head on a pillow, forbade her to speak, and kissed her again.
+Then, turning to Sanin, she began telling him in a half-joking,
+half-tender tone what a splendid mother she had, and what a beauty she
+had been. '"Had been," did I say? she is charming now! Look, look,
+what eyes!'
+
+Gemma instantly pulled a white handkerchief out of her pocket, covered
+her mother's face with it, and slowly drawing it downwards, gradually
+uncovered Frau Lenore's forehead, eyebrows, and eyes; she waited a
+moment and asked her to open them. Her mother obeyed; Gemma cried
+out in ecstasy (Frau Lenore's eyes really were very beautiful), and
+rapidly sliding the handkerchief over the lower, less regular part of
+the face, fell to kissing her again. Frau Lenore laughed, and turning
+a little away, with a pretence of violence, pushed her daughter away.
+She too pretended to struggle with her mother, and lavished caresses
+on her--not like a cat, in the French manner, but with that special
+Italian grace in which is always felt the presence of power.
+
+At last Frau Lenore declared she was tired out ... Then Gemma at once
+advised her to have a little nap, where she was, in her chair, 'and
+I and the Russian gentleman--"_avec le monsieur russe_"--will be as
+quiet, as quiet ... as little mice ... "_comme des petites souris_."'
+Frau Lenore smiled at her in reply, closed her eyes, and after a few
+sighs began to doze. Gemma quickly dropped down on a bench beside her
+and did not stir again, only from time to time she put a finger of
+one hand to her lips--with the other hand she was holding up a pillow
+behind her mother's head--and said softly, 'sh-sh!' with a sidelong
+look at Sanin, if he permitted himself the smallest movement. In the
+end he too sank into a kind of dream, and sat motionless as though
+spell-bound, while all his faculties were absorbed in admiring the
+picture presented him by the half-dark room, here and there spotted
+with patches of light crimson, where fresh, luxuriant roses stood in
+the old-fashioned green glasses, and the sleeping woman with demurely
+folded hands and kind, weary face, framed in the snowy whiteness
+of the pillow, and the young, keenly-alert and also kind, clever,
+pure, and unspeakably beautiful creature with such black, deep,
+overshadowed, yet shining eyes.... What was it? A dream? a fairy
+tale? And how came _he_ to be in it?
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The bell tinkled at the outer door. A young peasant lad in a fur
+cap and a red waistcoat came into the shop from the street. Not one
+customer had looked into it since early morning ... 'You see how much
+business we do!' Frau Lenore observed to Sanin at lunch-time with a
+sigh. She was still asleep; Gemma was afraid to take her arm from the
+pillow, and whispered to Sanin: 'You go, and mind the shop for me!'
+Sanin went on tiptoe into the shop at once. The boy wanted a quarter
+of a pound of peppermints. 'How much must I take?' Sanin whispered
+from the door to Gemma. 'Six kreutzers!' she answered in the same
+whisper. Sanin weighed out a quarter of a pound, found some paper,
+twisted it into a cone, tipped the peppermints into it, spilt them,
+tipped them in again, spilt them again, at last handed them to the
+boy, and took the money.... The boy gazed at him in amazement,
+twisting his cap in his hands on his stomach, and in the next room,
+Gemma was stifling with suppressed laughter. Before the first customer
+had walked out, a second appeared, then a third.... 'I bring luck,
+it's clear!' thought Sanin. The second customer wanted a glass of
+orangeade, the third, half-a-pound of sweets. Sanin satisfied their
+needs, zealously clattering the spoons, changing the saucers, and
+eagerly plunging his fingers into drawers and jars. On reckoning up,
+it appeared that he had charged too little for the orangeade, and
+taken two kreutzers too much for the sweets. Gemma did not cease
+laughing softly, and Sanin too was aware of an extraordinary lightness
+of heart, a peculiarly happy state of mind. He felt as if he had
+for ever been standing behind the counter and dealing in orangeade
+and sweetmeats, with that exquisite creature looking at him through
+the doorway with affectionately mocking eyes, while the summer sun,
+forcing its way through the sturdy leafage of the chestnuts that grew
+in front of the windows, filled the whole room with the greenish-gold
+of the midday light and shade, and the heart grew soft in the sweet
+languor of idleness, carelessness, and youth--first youth!
+
+A fourth customer asked for a cup of coffee; Pantaleone had to be
+appealed to. (Emil had not yet come back from Herr Klüber's shop.)
+Sanin went and sat by Gemma again. Frau Lenore still went on sleeping,
+to her daughter's great delight. 'Mamma always sleeps off her sick
+headaches,' she observed. Sanin began talking--in a whisper, of
+course, as before--of his minding the shop; very seriously inquired
+the price of various articles of confectionery; Gemma just as
+seriously told him these prices, and meanwhile both of them were
+inwardly laughing together, as though conscious they were playing
+in a very amusing farce. All of a sudden, an organ-grinder in the
+street began playing an air from the Freischütz: '_Durch die Felder,
+durch die Auen_ ...' The dance tune fell shrill and quivering on
+the motionless air. Gemma started ... 'He will wake mamma!' Sanin
+promptly darted out into the street, thrust a few kreutzers into
+the organ-grinder's hand, and made him cease playing and move away.
+When he came back, Gemma thanked him with a little nod of the head,
+and with a pensive smile she began herself just audibly humming
+the beautiful melody of Weber's, in which Max expresses all the
+perplexities of first love. Then she asked Sanin whether he knew
+'Freischütz,' whether he was fond of Weber, and added that though
+she was herself an Italian, she liked _such_ music best of all. From
+Weber the conversation glided off on to poetry and romanticism, on to
+Hoffmann, whom every one was still reading at that time.
+
+And Frau Lenore still slept, and even snored just a little, and the
+sunbeams, piercing in narrow streaks through the shutters, were
+incessantly and imperceptibly shifting and travelling over the floor,
+the furniture, Gemma's dress, and the leaves and petals of the
+flowers.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+It appeared that Gemma was not very fond of Hoffmann, that she even
+thought him ... tedious! The fantastic, misty northern element in
+his stories was too remote from her clear, southern nature. 'It's
+all fairy-tales, all written for children!' she declared with some
+contempt. She was vaguely conscious, too, of the lack of poetry in
+Hoffmann. But there was one of his stories, the title of which she
+had forgotten, which she greatly liked; more precisely speaking, it
+was only the beginning of this story that she liked; the end she had
+either not read or had forgotten. The story was about a young man who
+in some place, a sort of restaurant perhaps, meets a girl of striking
+beauty, a Greek; she is accompanied by a mysterious and strange,
+wicked old man. The young man falls in love with the girl at first
+sight; she looks at him so mournfully, as though beseeching him to
+deliver her.... He goes out for an instant, and, coming back into the
+restaurant, finds there neither the girl nor the old man; he rushes
+off in pursuit of her, continually comes upon fresh traces of her,
+follows them up, and can never by any means come upon her anywhere.
+The lovely girl has vanished for him for ever and ever, and he is
+never able to forget her imploring glance, and is tortured by the
+thought that all the happiness of his life, perhaps, has slipped
+through his fingers.
+
+Hoffmann does not end his story quite in that way; but so it had taken
+shape, so it had remained, in Gemma's memory.
+
+'I fancy,' she said, 'such meetings and such partings happen oftener
+in the world than we suppose.'
+
+Sanin was silent ... and soon after he began talking ... of Herr
+Klüber. It was the first time he had referred to him; he had not once
+remembered him till that instant.
+
+Gemma was silent in her turn, and sank into thought, biting the nail
+of her forefinger and fixing her eyes away. Then she began to speak in
+praise of her betrothed, alluded to the excursion he had planned for
+the next day, and, glancing swiftly at Sanin, was silent again.
+
+Sanin did not know on what subject to turn the conversation.
+
+Emil ran in noisily and waked Frau Lenore ... Sanin was relieved by
+his appearance.
+
+Frau Lenore got up from her low chair. Pantaleone came in and
+announced that dinner was ready. The friend of the family, ex-singer,
+and servant also performed the duties of cook.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Sanin stayed on after dinner too. They did not let him go, still on
+the same pretext of the terrible heat; and when the heat began to
+decrease, they proposed going out into the garden to drink coffee in
+the shade of the acacias. Sanin consented. He felt very happy. In the
+quietly monotonous, smooth current of life lie hid great delights,
+and he gave himself up to these delights with zest, asking nothing
+much of the present day, but also thinking nothing of the morrow, nor
+recalling the day before. How much the mere society of such a girl as
+Gemma meant to him! He would shortly part from her and, most likely,
+for ever; but so long as they were borne, as in Uhland's song, in
+one skiff over the sea of life, untossed by tempest, well might
+the traveller rejoice and be glad. And everything seemed sweet
+and delightful to the happy voyager. Frau Lenore offered to play
+against him and Pantaleone at 'tresette,' instructed him in this not
+complicated Italian game, and won a few kreutzers from him, and he
+was well content. Pantaleone, at Emil's request, made the poodle,
+Tartaglia, perform all his tricks, and Tartaglia jumped over a stick
+'spoke,' that is, barked, sneezed, shut the door with his nose,
+fetched his master's trodden-down slippers; and, finally, with an
+old cap on his head, he portrayed Marshal Bernadotte, subjected to
+the bitterest upbraidings by the Emperor Napoleon on account of his
+treachery. Napoleon's part was, of course, performed by Pantaleone,
+and very faithfully he performed it: he folded his arms across his
+chest, pulled a cocked hat over his eyes, and spoke very gruffly and
+sternly, in French--and heavens! what French! Tartaglia sat before his
+sovereign, all huddled up, with dejected tail, and eyes blinking and
+twitching in confusion, under the peak of his cap which was stuck on
+awry; from time to time when Napoleon raised his voice, Bernadotte
+rose on his hind paws. '_Fuori, traditore!_' cried Napoleon at last,
+forgetting in the excess of his wrath that he had to sustain his rôle
+as a Frenchman to the end; and Bernadotte promptly flew under the
+sofa, but quickly darted out again with a joyful bark, as though to
+announce that the performance was over. All the spectators laughed,
+and Sanin more than all.
+
+Gemma had a particularly charming, continual, soft laugh, with very
+droll little shrieks.... Sanin was fairly enchanted by that laugh--he
+could have kissed her for those shrieks!
+
+Night came on at last. He had in decency to take leave! After saying
+good-bye several times over to every one, and repeating several times
+to all, 'till to-morrow!'--Emil he went so far as to kiss--Sanin
+started home, carrying with him the image of the young girl, at one
+time laughing, at another thoughtful, calm, and even indifferent--but
+always attractive! Her eyes, at one time wide open, clear and bright
+as day, at another time half shrouded by the lashes and deep and dark
+as night, seemed to float before his eyes, piercing in a strange sweet
+way across all other images and recollections.
+
+Of Herr Klüber, of the causes impelling him to remain in Frankfort--in
+short, of everything that had disturbed his mind the evening
+before--he never thought once.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+We must, however, say a few words about Sanin himself.
+
+In the first place, he was very, very good-looking. A handsome,
+graceful figure, agreeable, rather unformed features, kindly bluish
+eyes, golden hair, a clear white and red skin, and, above all, that
+peculiar, naïvely-cheerful, confiding, open, at the first glance,
+somewhat foolish expression, by which in former days one could
+recognise directly the children of steady-going, noble families,
+'sons of their fathers,' fine young landowners, born and reared in
+our open, half-wild country parts,--a hesitating gait, a voice with a
+lisp, a smile like a child's the minute you looked at him ... lastly,
+freshness, health, softness, softness, softness,--there you have the
+whole of Sanin. And secondly, he was not stupid and had picked up a
+fair amount of knowledge. Fresh he had remained, for all his foreign
+tour; the disturbing emotions in which the greater part of the young
+people of that day were tempest-tossed were very little known to him.
+
+Of late years, in response to the assiduous search for 'new types,'
+young men have begun to appear in our literature, determined at
+all hazards to be 'fresh'... as fresh as Flensburg oysters, when
+they reach Petersburg.... Sanin was not like them. Since we have
+had recourse already to simile, he rather recalled a young, leafy,
+freshly-grafted apple-tree in one of our fertile orchards--or
+better still, a well-groomed, sleek, sturdy-limbed, tender young
+'three-year-old' in some old-fashioned seignorial stud stable, a
+young horse that they have hardly begun to break in to the traces....
+Those who came across Sanin in later years, when life had knocked him
+about a good deal, and the sleekness and plumpness of youth had long
+vanished, saw in him a totally different man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day Sanin was still in bed when Emil, in his best clothes, with
+a cane in his hand and much pomade on his head, burst into his room,
+announcing that Herr Klüber would be here directly with the carriage,
+that the weather promised to be exquisite, that they had everything
+ready by now, but that mamma was not going, as her head was bad again.
+He began to hurry Sanin, telling him that there was not a minute to
+lose.... And Herr Klüber did, in fact, find Sanin still at his toilet.
+He knocked at the door, came in, bowed with a bend from the waist,
+expressed his readiness to wait as long as might be desired, and
+sat down, his hat balanced elegantly on his knees. The handsome
+shop-manager had got himself up and perfumed himself to excess: his
+every action was accompanied by a powerful whiff of the most refined
+aroma. He arrived in a comfortable open carriage--one of the kind
+called landau--drawn by two tall and powerful but not well-shaped
+horses. A quarter of an hour later Sanin, Klüber, and Emil, in this
+same carriage, drew up triumphantly at the steps of the confectioner's
+shop. Madame Roselli resolutely refused to join the party; Gemma
+wanted to stay with her mother; but she simply turned her out.
+
+'I don't want any one,' she declared; 'I shall go to sleep. I would
+send Pantaleone with you too, only there would be no one to mind the
+shop.'
+
+'May we take Tartaglia?' asked Emil.
+
+'Of course you may.'
+
+Tartaglia immediately scrambled, with delighted struggles, on to the
+box and sat there, licking himself; it was obviously a thing he was
+accustomed to. Gemma put on a large straw hat with brown ribbons; the
+hat was bent down in front, so as to shade almost the whole of her
+face from the sun. The line of shadow stopped just at her lips; they
+wore a tender maiden flush, like the petals of a centifoil rose, and
+her teeth gleamed stealthily--innocently too, as when children smile.
+Gemma sat facing the horses, with Sanin; Klüber and Emil sat opposite.
+The pale face of Frau Lenore appeared at the window; Gemma waved her
+handkerchief to her, and the horses started.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Soden is a little town half an hour's distance from Frankfort. It lies
+in a beautiful country among the spurs of the Taunus Mountains, and
+is known among us in Russia for its waters, which are supposed to be
+beneficial to people with weak lungs. The Frankforters visit it more
+for purposes of recreation, as Soden possesses a fine park and various
+'wirthschaften,' where one may drink beer and coffee in the shade
+of the tall limes and maples. The road from Frankfort to Soden runs
+along the right bank of the Maine, and is planted all along with fruit
+trees. While the carriage was rolling slowly along an excellent road,
+Sanin stealthily watched how Gemma behaved to her betrothed; it was
+the first time he had seen them together. _She_ was quiet and simple
+in her manner, but rather more reserved and serious than usual; _he_
+had the air of a condescending schoolmaster, permitting himself and
+those under his authority a discreet and decorous pleasure. Sanin saw
+no signs in him of any marked attentiveness, of what the French call
+'_empressement_,' in his demeanour to Gemma. It was clear that Herr
+Klüber considered that it was a matter settled once for all, and
+that therefore he saw no reason to trouble or excite himself. But
+his condescension never left him for an instant! Even during a long
+ramble before dinner about the wooded hills and valleys behind Soden,
+even when enjoying the beauties of nature, he treated nature itself
+with the same condescension, through which his habitual magisterial
+severity peeped out from time to time. So, for example, he observed
+in regard to one stream that it ran too straight through the glade,
+instead of making a few picturesque curves; he disapproved, too, of
+the conduct of a bird--a chaffinch--for singing so monotonously.
+Gemma was not bored, and even, apparently, was enjoying herself; but
+Sanin did not recognise her as the Gemma of the preceding days; it
+was not that she seemed under a cloud--her beauty had never been more
+dazzling--but her soul seemed to have withdrawn into herself. With her
+parasol open and her gloves still buttoned up, she walked sedately,
+deliberately, as well-bred young girls walk, and spoke little.
+Emil, too, felt stiff, and Sanin more so than all. He was somewhat
+embarrassed too by the fact that the conversation was all the time
+in German. Only Tartaglia was in high spirits! He darted, barking
+frantically, after blackbirds, leaped over ravines, stumps and roots,
+rushed headlong into the water, lapped at it in desperate haste, shook
+himself, whining, and was off like an arrow, his red tongue trailing
+after him almost to his shoulder. Herr Klüber, for his part, did
+everything he supposed conducive to the mirthfulness of the company;
+he begged them to sit down in the shade of a spreading oak-tree, and
+taking out of a side pocket a small booklet entitled, '_Knallerbsen;
+oder du sollst und wirst lachen!_' (Squibs; or you must and shall
+laugh!) began reading the funny anecdotes of which the little book was
+full. He read them twelve specimens; he aroused very little mirth,
+however; only Sanin smiled, from politeness, and he himself, Herr
+Klüber, after each anecdote, gave vent to a brief, business-like, but
+still condescending laugh. At twelve o'clock the whole party returned
+to Soden to the best tavern there.
+
+They had to make arrangements about dinner. Herr Klüber proposed
+that the dinner should be served in a summer-house closed in on all
+sides--'_im Gartensalon_'; but at this point Gemma rebelled and
+declared that she would have dinner in the open air, in the garden, at
+one of the little tables set before the tavern; that she was tired of
+being all the while with the same faces, and she wanted to see fresh
+ones. At some of the little tables, groups of visitors were already
+sitting.
+
+While Herr Klüber, yielding condescendingly to 'the caprice of his
+betrothed,' went off to interview the head waiter, Gemma stood
+immovable, biting her lips and looking on the ground; she was
+conscious that Sanin was persistently and, as it were, inquiringly
+looking at her--it seemed to enrage her. At last Herr Klüber returned,
+announced that dinner would be ready in half an hour, and proposed
+their employing the interval in a game of skittles, adding that this
+was very good for the appetite, he, he, he! Skittles he played in
+masterly fashion; as he threw the ball, he put himself into amazingly
+heroic postures, with artistic play of the muscles, with artistic
+flourish and shake of the leg. In his own way he was an athlete--and
+was superbly built! His hands, too, were so white and handsome, and he
+wiped them on such a sumptuous, gold-striped, Indian bandana!
+
+The moment of dinner arrived, and the whole party seated themselves at
+the table.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Who does not know what a German dinner is like? Watery soup with
+knobby dumplings and pieces of cinnamon, boiled beef dry as cork,
+with white fat attached, slimy potatoes, soft beetroot and mashed
+horseradish, a bluish eel with French capers and vinegar, a roast
+joint with jam, and the inevitable '_Mehlspeise_,' something of the
+nature of a pudding with sourish red sauce; but to make up, the beer
+and wine first-rate! With just such a dinner the tavernkeeper at
+Soden regaled his customers. The dinner, itself, however, went off
+satisfactorily. No special liveliness was perceptible, certainly;
+not even when Herr Klüber proposed the toast 'What we like!' (Was
+wir lieben!) But at least everything was decorous and seemly. After
+dinner, coffee was served, thin, reddish, typically German coffee.
+Herr Klüber, with true gallantry, asked Gemma's permission to smoke a
+cigar.... But at this point suddenly something occurred, unexpected,
+and decidedly unpleasant, and even unseemly!
+
+At one of the tables near were sitting several officers of the
+garrison of the Maine. From their glances and whispering together
+it was easy to perceive that they were struck by Gemma's beauty;
+one of them, who had probably stayed in Frankfort, stared at her
+persistently, as at a figure familiar to him; he obviously knew who
+she was. He suddenly got up, and glass in hand--all the officers
+had been drinking hard, and the cloth before them was crowded with
+bottles--approached the table at which Gemma was sitting. He was
+a very young flaxen-haired man, with a rather pleasing and even
+attractive face, but his features were distorted with the wine he had
+drunk, his cheeks were twitching, his blood-shot eyes wandered, and
+wore an insolent expression. His companions at first tried to hold him
+back, but afterwards let him go, interested apparently to see what he
+would do, and how it would end. Slightly unsteady on his legs, the
+officer stopped before Gemma, and in an unnaturally screaming voice,
+in which, in spite of himself, an inward struggle could be discerned,
+he articulated, 'I drink to the health of the prettiest confectioner
+in all Frankfort, in all the world (he emptied his glass), and in
+return I take this flower, picked by her divine little fingers!' He
+took from the table a rose that lay beside Gemma's plate. At first she
+was astonished, alarmed, and turned fearfully white ... then alarm
+was replaced by indignation; she suddenly crimsoned all over, to her
+very hair--and her eyes, fastened directly on the offender, at the
+same time darkened and flamed, they were filled with black gloom, and
+burned with the fire of irrepressible fury. The officer must have been
+confused by this look; he muttered something unintelligible, bowed,
+and walked back to his friends. They greeted him with a laugh, and
+faint applause.
+
+Herr Klüber rose spasmodically from his seat, drew himself up to his
+full height, and putting on his hat pronounced with dignity, but not
+too loud, 'Unheard of! Unheard of! Unheard of impertinence!' and at
+once calling up the waiter, in a severe voice asked for the bill ...
+more than that, ordered the carriage to be put to, adding that it was
+impossible for respectable people to frequent the establishment if
+they were exposed to insult! At those words Gemma, who still sat in
+her place without stirring--her bosom was heaving violently--Gemma
+raised her eyes to Herr Klüber ... and she gazed as intently, with the
+same expression at him as at the officer. Emil was simply shaking with
+rage.
+
+'Get up, _mein Fräulein_,' Klüber admonished her with the same
+severity, 'it is not proper for you to remain here. We will go inside,
+in the tavern!'
+
+Gemma rose in silence; he offered her his arm, she gave him hers, and
+he walked into the tavern with a majestic step, which became, with his
+whole bearing, more majestic and haughty the farther he got from the
+place where they had dined. Poor Emil dragged himself after them.
+
+But while Herr Klüber was settling up with the waiter, to whom, by way
+of punishment, he gave not a single kreutzer for himself, Sanin with
+rapid steps approached the table at which the officers were sitting,
+and addressing Gemma's assailant, who was at that instant offering her
+rose to his companions in turns to smell, he uttered very distinctly
+in French, 'What you have just done, sir, is conduct unworthy of an
+honest man, unworthy of the uniform you wear, and I have come to tell
+you you are an ill-bred cur!' The young man leaped on to his feet, but
+another officer, rather older, checked him with a gesture, made him
+sit down, and turning to Sanin asked him also in French, 'Was he a
+relation, brother, or betrothed of the girl?'
+
+'I am nothing to her at all,' cried Sanin, 'I am a Russian, but I
+cannot look on at such insolence with indifference; but here is my
+card and my address; _monsieur l'officier_ can find me.'
+
+As he uttered these words, Sanin threw his visiting-card on the table,
+and at the same moment hastily snatched Gemma's rose, which one of the
+officers sitting at the table had dropped into his plate. The young
+man was again on the point of jumping up from the table, but his
+companion again checked him, saying, 'Dönhof, be quiet! Dönhof, sit
+still.' Then he got up himself, and putting his hand to the peak of
+his cap, with a certain shade of respectfulness in his voice and
+manner, told Sanin that to-morrow morning an officer of the regiment
+would have the honour of calling upon him. Sanin replied with a short
+bow, and hurriedly returned to his friends.
+
+Herr Klüber pretended he had not noticed either Sanin's absence
+nor his interview with the officers; he was urging on the coachman,
+who was putting in the horses, and was furiously angry at his
+deliberateness. Gemma too said nothing to Sanin, she did not even
+look at him; from her knitted brows, from her pale and compressed
+lips, from her very immobility it could be seen that she was suffering
+inwardly. Only Emil obviously wanted to speak to Sanin, wanted to
+question him; he had seen Sanin go up to the officers, he had seen him
+give them something white--a scrap of paper, a note, or a card.... The
+poor boy's heart was beating, his cheeks burned, he was ready to throw
+himself on Sanin's neck, ready to cry, or to go with him at once to
+crush all those accursed officers into dust and ashes! He controlled
+himself, however, and did no more than watch intently every movement
+of his noble Russian friend.
+
+The coachman had at last harnessed the horses; the whole party
+seated themselves in the carriage. Emil climbed on to the box, after
+Tartaglia; he was more comfortable there, and had not Klüber, whom he
+could hardly bear the sight of, sitting opposite to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The whole way home Herr Klüber discoursed ... and he discoursed alone;
+no one, absolutely no one, opposed him, nor did any one agree with
+him. He especially insisted on the point that they had been wrong
+in not following his advice when he suggested dining in a shut-up
+summer-house. There no unpleasantness could have occurred! Then
+he expressed a few decided and even liberal sentiments on the
+unpardonable way in which the government favoured the military,
+neglected their discipline, and did not sufficiently consider
+the civilian element in society (_das bürgerliche Element in der
+Societät_!), and foretold that in time this cause would give rise to
+discontent, which might well pass into revolution, of which (here
+he dropped a sympathetic though severe sigh) France had given them
+a sorrowful example! He added, however, that he personally had the
+greatest respect for authority, and never ... no, never!... could be a
+revolutionist--but he could not but express his ... disapprobation at
+the sight of such licence! Then he made a few general observations on
+morality and immorality, good-breeding, and the sense of dignity.
+
+During all these lucubrations, Gemma, who even while they were walking
+before dinner had not seemed quite pleased with Herr Klüber, and had
+therefore held rather aloof from Sanin, and had been, as it were,
+embarrassed by his presence--Gemma was unmistakably ashamed of her
+betrothed! Towards the end of the drive she was positively wretched,
+and though, as before, she did not address a word to Sanin, she
+suddenly flung an imploring glance at him.... He, for his part, felt
+much more sorry for her than indignant with Herr Klüber; he was even
+secretly, half-consciously, delighted at what had happened in the
+course of that day, even though he had every reason to expect a
+challenge next morning.
+
+This miserable _partie de plaisir_ came to an end at last. As he
+helped Gemma out of the carriage at the confectionery shop, Sanin
+without a word put into her hand the rose he had recovered. She
+flushed crimson, pressed his hand, and instantly hid the rose. He
+did not want to go into the house, though the evening was only just
+beginning. She did not even invite him. Moreover Pantaleone, who came
+out on the steps, announced that Frau Lenore was asleep. Emil took a
+shy good-bye of Sanin; he felt as it were in awe of him; he greatly
+admired him. Klüber saw Sanin to his lodging, and took leave of him
+stiffly. The well-regulated German, for all his self-confidence, felt
+awkward. And indeed every one felt awkward.
+
+But in Sanin this feeling of awkwardness soon passed off. It was
+replaced by a vague, but pleasant, even triumphant feeling. He walked
+up and down his room, whistling, and not caring to think about
+anything, and was very well pleased with himself.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+'I will wait for the officer's visit till ten o'clock,' he reflected
+next morning, as he dressed,' and then let him come and look for me!'
+But Germans rise early: it had not yet struck nine when the waiter
+informed Sanin that the Herr Seconde Lieutenant von Richter wished
+to see him. Sanin made haste to put on his coat, and told him to ask
+him up. Herr Richter turned out, contrary to Sanin's expectation, to
+be a very young man, almost a boy. He tried to give an expression of
+dignity to his beardless face, but did not succeed at all: he could
+not even conceal his embarrassment, and as he sat down on a chair, he
+tripped over his sword, and almost fell. Stammering and hesitating, he
+announced to Sanin in bad French that he had come with a message from
+his friend, Baron von Dönhof; that this message was to demand from
+Herr von Sanin an apology for the insulting expressions used by him
+on the previous day; and in case of refusal on the part of Herr von
+Sanin, Baron von Dönhof would ask for satisfaction. Sanin replied that
+he did not mean to apologise, but was ready to give him satisfaction.
+Then Herr von Richter, still with the same hesitation, asked with
+whom, at what time and place, should he arrange the necessary
+preliminaries. Sanin answered that he might come to him in two hours'
+time, and that meanwhile, he, Sanin, would try and find a second.
+('Who the devil is there I can have for a second?' he was thinking to
+himself meantime.) Herr von Richter got up and began to take leave
+... but at the doorway he stopped, as though stung by a prick of
+conscience, and turning to Sanin observed that his friend, Baron von
+Dönhof, could not but recognise ... that he had been ... to a certain
+extent, to blame himself in the incident of the previous day, and
+would, therefore, be satisfied with slight apologies ('_des exghizes
+léchères_.') To this Sanin replied that he did not intend to make any
+apology whatever, either slight or considerable, since he did not
+consider himself to blame. 'In that case,' answered Herr von Richter,
+blushing more than ever,' you will have to exchange friendly
+shots--_des goups de bisdolet à l'amiaple_!'
+
+'I don't understand that at all,' observed Sanin; 'are we to fire in
+the air or what?'
+
+'Oh, not exactly that,' stammered the sub-lieutenant, utterly
+disconcerted, 'but I supposed since it is an affair between men of
+honour ... I will talk to your second,' he broke off, and went away.
+
+Sanin dropped into a chair directly he had gone, and stared at the
+floor. 'What does it all mean? How is it my life has taken such a turn
+all of a sudden? All the past, all the future has suddenly vanished,
+gone,--and all that's left is that I am going to fight some one about
+something in Frankfort.' He recalled a crazy aunt of his who used to
+dance and sing:
+
+  'O my lieutenant!
+  My little cucumber!
+  My little love!
+  Dance with me, my little dove!'
+
+And he laughed and hummed as she used to: 'O my lieutenant! Dance with
+me, little dove!' 'But I must act, though, I mustn't waste time,' he
+cried aloud--jumped up and saw Pantaleone facing him with a note in
+his hand.
+
+'I knocked several times, but you did not answer; I thought you
+weren't at home,' said the old man, as he gave him the note. 'From
+Signorina Gemma.'
+
+Sanin took the note, mechanically, as they say, tore it open, and
+read it. Gemma wrote to him that she was very anxious--about he knew
+what--and would be very glad to see him at once.
+
+'The Signorina is anxious,' began Pantaleone, who obviously knew what
+was in the note, 'she told me to see what you are doing and to bring
+you to her.'
+
+Sanin glanced at the old Italian, and pondered. A sudden idea flashed
+upon his brain. For the first instant it struck him as too absurd to
+be possible.
+
+'After all ... why not?' he asked himself.
+
+'M. Pantaleone!' he said aloud.
+
+The old man started, tucked his chin into his cravat and stared at
+Sanin.
+
+'Do you know,' pursued Sanin,' what happened yesterday?'
+
+Pantaleone chewed his lips and shook his immense top-knot of hair.
+'Yes.'
+
+(Emil had told him all about it directly he got home.)
+
+'Oh, you know! Well, an officer has just this minute left me. That
+scoundrel challenges me to a duel. I have accepted his challenge. But
+I have no second. Will _you_ be my second?'
+
+Pantaleone started and raised his eyebrows so high that they were lost
+under his overhanging hair.
+
+'You are absolutely obliged to fight?' he said at last in Italian;
+till that instant he had made use of French.
+
+'Absolutely. I can't do otherwise--it would mean disgracing myself for
+ever.'
+
+'H'm. If I don't consent to be your second you will find some one
+else.'
+
+'Yes ... undoubtedly.'
+
+Pantaleone looked down. 'But allow me to ask you, Signor de Tsanin,
+will not your duel throw a slur on the reputation of a certain lady?'
+
+'I don't suppose so; but in any case, there's no help for it.'
+
+'H'm!' Pantaleone retired altogether into his cravat. 'Hey, but that
+_ferroflucto Klüberio_--what's he about?' he cried all of a sudden,
+looking up again.
+
+'He? Nothing.'
+
+'_Che_!' Pantaleone shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. 'I have, in
+any case, to thank you,' he articulated at last in an unsteady voice
+'that even in my present humble condition you recognise that I am a
+gentleman--_un galant'uomo_! In that way you have shown yourself to be
+a real _galant'uomo_. But I must consider your proposal.'
+
+'There's no time to lose, dear Signor Ci ... cippa ...'
+
+'Tola,' the old man chimed in. 'I ask only for one hour for
+reflection.... The daughter of my benefactor is involved in this....
+And, therefore, I ought, I am bound, to reflect!... In an hour, in
+three-quarters of an hour, you shall know my decision.'
+
+'Very well; I will wait.'
+
+'And now ... what answer am I to give to Signorina Gemma?'
+
+Sanin took a sheet of paper, wrote on it, 'Set your mind at rest, dear
+friend; in three hours' time I will come to you, and everything shall
+be explained. I thank you from my heart for your sympathy,' and handed
+this sheet to Pantaleone.
+
+He put it carefully into his side-pocket, and once more repeating 'In
+an hour!' made towards the door; but turning sharply back, ran up to
+Sanin, seized his hand, and pressing it to his shirt-front, cried,
+with his eyes to the ceiling: 'Noble youth! Great heart! (_Nobil
+giovanotto! Gran cuore!_) permit a weak old man (_a un vecchiotto!_)
+to press your valorous right hand (_la vostra valorosa destra!_)' Then
+he skipped back a pace or two, threw up both hands, and went away.
+
+Sanin looked after him ... took up the newspaper and tried to read.
+But his eyes wandered in vain over the lines: he understood nothing.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+An hour later the waiter came in again to Sanin, and handed him
+an old, soiled visiting-card, on which were the following words:
+'Pantaleone Cippatola of Varese, court singer (_cantante di camera_)
+to his Royal Highness the Duke of Modena'; and behind the waiter in
+walked Pantaleone himself. He had changed his clothes from top to toe.
+He had on a black frock coat, reddish with long wear, and a white
+piqué waistcoat, upon which a pinch-beck chain meandered playfully; a
+heavy cornelian seal hung low down on to his narrow black trousers. In
+his right hand he carried a black beaver hat, in his left two stout
+chamois gloves; he had tied his cravat in a taller and broader bow
+than ever, and had stuck into his starched shirt-front a pin with a
+stone, a so-called 'cat's eye.' On his forefinger was displayed a
+ring, consisting of two clasped hands with a burning heart between
+them. A smell of garments long laid by, a smell of camphor and of musk
+hung about the whole person of the old man; the anxious solemnity of
+his deportment must have struck the most casual spectator! Sanin rose
+to meet him.
+
+'I am your second,' Pantaleone announced in French, and he bowed
+bending his whole body forward, and turning out his toes like a
+dancer. 'I have come for instructions. Do you want to fight to the
+death?'
+
+'Why to the death, my dear Signor Cippatola? I will not for any
+consideration take back my words--but I am not a bloodthirsty
+person!... But come, wait a little, my opponent's second will be here
+directly. I will go into the next room, and you can make arrangements
+with him. Believe me I shall never forget your kindness, and I thank
+you from my heart.'
+
+'Honour before everything!' answered Pantaleone, and he sank into
+an arm-chair, without waiting for Sanin to ask him to sit down. 'If
+that _ferroflucto spitchebubbio_,' he said, passing from French into
+Italian, 'if that counter-jumper Klüberio could not appreciate his
+obvious duty or was afraid, so much the worse for him!... A cheap
+soul, and that's all about it!... As for the conditions of the duel, I
+am your second, and your interests are sacred to me!... When I lived
+in Padua there was a regiment of the white dragoons stationed there,
+and I was very intimate with many of the officers!... I was quite
+familiar with their whole code. And I used often to converse on these
+subjects with your principe Tarbuski too.... Is this second to come
+soon?'
+
+'I am expecting him every minute--and here he comes,' added Sanin,
+looking into the street.
+
+Pantaleone got up, looked at his watch, straightened his topknot of
+hair, and hurriedly stuffed into his shoe an end of tape which was
+sticking out below his trouser-leg, and the young sub-lieutenant came
+in, as red and embarrassed as ever.
+
+Sanin presented the seconds to each other. 'M. Richter,
+sous-lieutenant, M. Cippatola, artiste!' The sub-lieutenant was
+slightly disconcerted by the old man's appearance ... Oh, what would
+he have said had any one whispered to him at that instant that the
+'artist' presented to him was also employed in the culinary art! But
+Pantaleone assumed an air as though taking part in the preliminaries
+of duels was for him the most everyday affair: probably he was
+assisted at this juncture by the recollections of his theatrical
+career, and he played the part of second simply as a part. Both he and
+the sub-lieutenant were silent for a little.
+
+'Well? Let us come to business!' Pantaleone spoke first, playing with
+his cornelian seal.
+
+'By all means,' responded the sub-lieutenant, 'but ... the presence of
+one of the principals ...'
+
+'I will leave you at once, gentlemen,' cried Sanin, and with a bow he
+went away into the bedroom and closed the door after him.
+
+He flung himself on the bed and began thinking of Gemma ... but the
+conversation of the seconds reached him through the shut door. It was
+conducted in the French language; both maltreated it mercilessly,
+each after his own fashion. Pantaleone again alluded to the dragoons
+in Padua, and Principe Tarbuski; the sub-lieutenant to '_exghizes
+léchères_' and '_goups de bistolet à l'amiaple_.' But the old man
+would not even hear of any _exghizes_! To Sanin's horror, he suddenly
+proceeded to talk of a certain young lady, an innocent maiden, whose
+little finger was worth more than all the officers in the world ...
+(_oune zeune damigella innoucenta, qu'a elle sola dans soun péti doa
+vale pin que tout le zouffissié del mondo_.'), and repeated several
+times with heat: 'It's shameful! it's shameful!' (_E ouna onta, ouna
+onta_!) The sub-lieutenant at first made him no reply, but presently
+an angry quiver could be heard in the young man's voice, and he
+observed that he had not come there to listen to sermonising.
+
+'At your age it is always a good thing to hear the truth!' cried
+Pantaleone.
+
+The debate between the seconds several times became stormy; it lasted
+over an hour, and was concluded at last on the following conditions:
+'Baron von Dönhof and M. de Sanin to meet the next day at ten o'clock
+in a small wood near Hanau, at the distance of twenty paces; each to
+have the right to fire twice at a signal given by the seconds, the
+pistols to be single-triggered and not rifle-barrelled.' Herr von
+Richter withdrew, and Pantaleone solemnly opened the bedroom door, and
+after communicating the result of their deliberations, cried again:
+'_Bravo Russo_! _Bravo giovanotto_! You will be victor!'
+
+A few minutes later they both set off to the Rosellis' shop. Sanin, as
+a preliminary measure, had exacted a promise from Pantaleone to keep
+the affair of the duel a most profound secret. In reply, the old man
+had merely held up his finger, and half closing his eyes, whispered
+twice over, _Segredezza_! He was obviously in good spirits, and even
+walked with a freer step. All these unusual incidents, unpleasant
+though they might be, carried him vividly back to the time when he
+himself both received and gave challenges--only, it is true, on the
+stage. Baritones, as we all know, have a great deal of strutting and
+fuming to do in their parts.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Emil ran out to meet Sanin--he had been watching for his arrival over
+an hour--and hurriedly whispered into his ear that his mother knew
+nothing of the disagreeable incident of the day before, that he must
+not even hint of it to her, and that he was being sent to Klüber's
+shop again!... but that he wouldn't go there, but would hide
+somewhere! Communicating all this information in a few seconds, he
+suddenly fell on Sanin's shoulder, kissed him impulsively, and rushed
+away down the street. Gemma met Sanin in the shop; tried to say
+something and could not. Her lips were trembling a little, while her
+eyes were half-closed and turned away. He made haste to soothe her by
+the assurance that the whole affair had ended ... in utter nonsense.
+
+'Has no one been to see you to-day?' she asked.
+
+'A person did come to me and we had an explanation, and we ... we came
+to the most satisfactory conclusion.'
+
+Gemma went back behind the counter.
+
+'She does not believe me!' he thought ... he went into the next room,
+however, and there found Frau Lenore.
+
+Her sick headache had passed off, but she was in a depressed state of
+mind. She gave him a smile of welcome, but warned him at the same time
+that he would be dull with her to-day, as she was not in a mood to
+entertain him. He sat down beside her, and noticed that her eyelids
+were red and swollen.
+
+'What is wrong, Frau Lenore? You've never been crying, surely?'
+
+'Oh!' she whispered, nodding her head towards the room where her
+daughter was.
+
+'Don't speak of it ... aloud.'
+
+'But what have you been crying for?'
+
+'Ah, M'sieu Sanin, I don't know myself what for!'
+
+'No one has hurt your feelings?'
+
+'Oh no!... I felt very low all of a sudden. I thought of Giovanni
+Battista ... of my youth ... Then how quickly it had all passed away.
+I have grown old, my friend, and I can't reconcile myself to that
+anyhow. I feel I'm just the same as I was ... but old age--it's here!
+it is here!' Tears came into Frau Lenore's eyes. 'You look at me, I
+see, and wonder.... But you will get old too, my friend, and will find
+out how bitter it is!'
+
+Sanin tried to comfort her, spoke of her children, in whom her own
+youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring
+that she was fishing for compliments ... but she quite seriously
+begged him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for
+such a sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or
+cure; one has to wait till it passes off of itself. He proposed a game
+of tresette, and he could have thought of nothing better. She agreed
+at once and seemed to get more cheerful.
+
+Sanin played with her until dinner-time and after dinner Pantaleone
+too took a hand in the game. Never had his topknot hung so low over
+his forehead, never had his chin retreated so far into his cravat!
+Every movement was accompanied by such intense solemnity that as one
+looked at him the thought involuntarily arose, 'What secret is that
+man guarding with such determination?' But _segredezza_! _segredezza_!
+
+During the whole of that day he tried in every possible way to show
+the profoundest respect for Sanin; at table, passing by the ladies, he
+solemnly and sedately handed the dishes first to him; when they were
+at cards he intentionally gave him the game; he announced, apropos of
+nothing at all, that the Russians were the most great-hearted, brave,
+and resolute people in the world!
+
+'Ah, you old flatterer!' Sanin thought to himself.
+
+And he was not so much surprised at Signora Roselli's unexpected state
+of mind, as at the way her daughter behaved to him. It was not that
+she avoided him ... on the contrary she sat continually a little
+distance from him, listened to what he said, and looked at him;
+but she absolutely declined to get into conversation with him, and
+directly he began talking to her, she softly rose from her place, and
+went out for some instants. Then she came in again, and again seated
+herself in some corner, and sat without stirring, seeming meditative
+and perplexed ... perplexed above all. Frau Lenore herself noticed
+at last, that she was not as usual, and asked her twice what was the
+matter.
+
+'Nothing,' answered Gemma; 'you know I am sometimes like this.'
+
+'That is true,' her mother assented.
+
+So passed all that long day, neither gaily nor drearily--neither
+cheerfully nor sadly. Had Gemma been different--Sanin ... who
+knows?... might not perhaps have been able to resist the temptation
+for a little display--or he might simply have succumbed to melancholy
+at the possibility of a separation for ever.... But as he did not
+once succeed in getting a word with Gemma, he was obliged to confine
+himself to striking minor chords on the piano for a quarter of an hour
+before evening coffee.
+
+Emil came home late, and to avoid questions about Herr Klüber, beat a
+hasty retreat. The time came for Sanin too to retire.
+
+He began saying good-bye to Gemma. He recollected for some reason
+Lensky's parting from Olga in _Oniegin_. He pressed her hand warmly,
+and tried to get a look at her face, but she turned a little away and
+released her fingers.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+It was bright starlight when he came out on the steps. What
+multitudes of stars, big and little, yellow, red, blue and white were
+scattered over the sky! They seemed all flashing, swarming, twinkling
+unceasingly. There was no moon in the sky, but without it every object
+could be clearly discerned in the half-clear, shadowless twilight.
+Sanin walked down the street to the end ... He did not want to go home
+at once; he felt a desire to wander about a little in the fresh air.
+He turned back and had hardly got on a level with the house, where was
+the Rosellis' shop, when one of the windows looking out on the street,
+suddenly creaked and opened; in its square of blackness--there was
+no light in the room--appeared a woman's figure, and he heard his
+name--'Monsieur Dimitri!'
+
+He rushed at once up to the window ... Gemma! She was leaning with her
+elbows on the window-sill, bending forward.
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' she began in a cautious voice, 'I have been
+wanting all day long to give you something ... but I could not make
+up my mind to; and just now, seeing you, quite unexpectedly again, I
+thought that it seems it is fated' ...
+
+Gemma was forced to stop at this word. She could not go on; something
+extraordinary happened at that instant.
+
+All of a sudden, in the midst of the profound stillness, over the
+perfectly unclouded sky, there blew such a violent blast of wind, that
+the very earth seemed shaking underfoot, the delicate starlight seemed
+quivering and trembling, the air went round in a whirlwind. The wind,
+not cold, but hot, almost sultry, smote against the trees, the roof
+of the house, its walls, and the street; it instantaneously snatched
+off Sanin's hat, crumpled up and tangled Gemma's curls. Sanin's head
+was on a level with the window-sill; he could not help clinging close
+to it, and Gemma clutched hold of his shoulders with both hands, and
+pressed her bosom against his head. The roar, the din, and the rattle
+lasted about a minute.... Like a flock of huge birds the revelling
+whirlwind darted revelling away. A profound stillness reigned once
+more.
+
+Sanin raised his head and saw above him such an exquisite, scared,
+excited face, such immense, large, magnificent eyes--it was such a
+beautiful creature he saw, that his heart stood still within him, he
+pressed his lips to the delicate tress of hair, that had fallen on his
+bosom, and could only murmur, 'O Gemma!'
+
+'What was that? Lightning?' she asked, her eyes wandering afar, while
+she did not take her bare arms from his shoulder.
+
+'Gemma!' repeated Sanin.
+
+She sighed, looked around behind her into the room, and with a rapid
+movement pulling the now faded rose out of her bodice, she threw it to
+Sanin.
+
+'I wanted to give you this flower.'
+
+He recognised the rose, which he had won back the day before....
+
+But already the window had slammed-to, and through the dark pane
+nothing could be seen, no trace of white.
+
+Sanin went home without his hat.... He did not even notice that he had
+lost it.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+It was quite morning when he fell asleep. And no wonder! In the
+blast of that instantaneous summer hurricane, he had almost as
+instantaneously felt, not that Gemma was lovely, not that he liked
+her--that he had known before ... but that he almost ... loved her!
+As suddenly as that blast of wind, had love pounced down upon him.
+And then this senseless duel! He began to be tormented by mournful
+forebodings. And even suppose they didn't kill him.... What could come
+of his love for this girl, another man's betrothed? Even supposing
+this 'other man' was no danger, that Gemma herself would care for him,
+or even cared for him already ... What would come of it? How ask what!
+Such a lovely creature!...
+
+He walked about the room, sat down to the table, took a sheet of
+paper, traced a few lines on it, and at once blotted them out....
+He recalled Gemma's wonderful figure in the dark window, in the
+starlight, set all a-fluttering by the warm hurricane; he remembered
+her marble arms, like the arms of the Olympian goddesses, felt their
+living weight on his shoulders.... Then he took the rose she had
+thrown him, and it seemed to him that its half-withered petals exhaled
+a fragrance of her, more delicate than the ordinary scent of the rose.
+
+'And would they kill him straight away or maim him?'
+
+He did not go to bed, and fell asleep in his clothes on the sofa.
+
+Some one slapped him on the shoulder.... He opened his eyes, and saw
+Pantaleone.
+
+'He sleeps like Alexander of Macedon on the eve of the battle of
+Babylon!' cried the old man.
+
+'What o'clock is it?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'A quarter to seven; it's a two hours' drive to Hanau, and we must
+be the first on the field. Russians are always beforehand with their
+enemies! I have engaged the best carriage in Frankfort!'
+
+Sanin began washing. 'And where are the pistols?'
+
+'That _ferroflucto Tedesco_ will bring the pistols. He'll bring a
+doctor too.'
+
+Pantaleone was obviously putting a good face on it as he had done the
+day before; but when he was seated in the carriage with Sanin, when
+the coachman had cracked his whip and the horses had started off at a
+gallop, a sudden change came over the old singer and friend of Paduan
+dragoons. He began to be confused and positively faint-hearted.
+Something seemed to have given way in him, like a badly built wall.
+
+'What are we doing, my God, _Santissima Madonna!_' he cried in an
+unexpectedly high pipe, and he clutched at his head. 'What am I about,
+old fool, madman, _frenetico_?'
+
+Sanin wondered and laughed, and putting his arm lightly round
+Pantaleone's waist, he reminded him of the French proverb: '_Le vin
+est tiré--il faut le boire_.'
+
+'Yes, yes,' answered the old man, 'we will drain the cup together to
+the dregs--but still I'm a madman! I'm a madman! All was going on so
+quietly, so well ... and all of a sudden: ta-ta-ta, tra-ta-ta!'
+
+'Like the _tutti_ in the orchestra,' observed Sanin with a forced
+smile. 'But it's not your fault.'
+
+'I know it's not. I should think not indeed! And yet ... such insolent
+conduct! _Diavolo, diavolo_!' repeated Pantaleone, sighing and shaking
+his topknot.
+
+The carriage still rolled on and on.
+
+It was an exquisite morning. The streets of Frankfort, which were just
+beginning to show signs of life, looked so clean and snug; the windows
+of the houses glittered in flashes like tinfoil; and as soon as the
+carriage had driven beyond the city walls, from overhead, from a blue
+but not yet glaring sky, the larks' loud trills showered down in
+floods. Suddenly at a turn in the road, a familiar figure came from
+behind a tall poplar, took a few steps forward and stood still. Sanin
+looked more closely.... Heavens! it was Emil!
+
+'But does he know anything about it?' he demanded of Pantaleone.
+
+'I tell you I'm a madman,' the poor Italian wailed despairingly,
+almost in a shriek. 'The wretched boy gave me no peace all night, and
+this morning at last I revealed all to him!'
+
+'So much for your _segredezza_!' thought Sanin. The carriage had got
+up to Emil. Sanin told the coachman to stop the horses, and called the
+'wretched boy' up to him. Emil approached with hesitating steps, pale
+as he had been on the day he fainted. He could scarcely stand.
+
+'What are you doing here?' Sanin asked him sternly. 'Why aren't you at
+home?'
+
+'Let ... let me come with you,' faltered Emil in a trembling voice,
+and he clasped his hands. His teeth were chattering as in a fever. 'I
+won't get in your way--only take me.'
+
+'If you feel the very slightest affection or respect for me,' said
+Sanin, 'you will go at once home or to Herr Klüber's shop, and you
+won't say one word to any one, and will wait for my return!'
+
+'Your return,' moaned Emil--and his voice quivered and broke, 'but if
+you're--'
+
+'Emil!' Sanin interrupted--and he pointed to the coachman, 'do control
+yourself! Emil, please, go home! Listen to me, my dear! You say you
+love me. Well, I beg you!' He held out his hand to him. Emil bent
+forward, sobbed, pressed it to his lips, and darting away from the
+road, ran back towards Frankfort across country.
+
+'A noble heart too,' muttered Pantaleone; but Sanin glanced severely
+at him.... The old man shrank into the corner of the carriage. He was
+conscious of his fault; and moreover, he felt more and more bewildered
+every instant; could it really be he who was acting as second, who had
+got horses, and had made all arrangements, and had left his peaceful
+abode at six o'clock? Besides, his legs were stiff and aching.
+
+Sanin thought it as well to cheer him up, and he chanced on the very
+thing, he hit on the right word.
+
+'Where is your old spirit, Signor Cippatola? Where is _il antico
+valor_?'
+
+Signor Cippatola drew himself up and scowled '_Il antico valor_?' he
+boomed in a bass voice. '_Non è ancora spento_ (it's not all lost
+yet), _il antico valor!_'
+
+He put himself in a dignified attitude, began talking of his career,
+of the opera, of the great tenor Garcia--and arrived at Hanau a hero.
+
+After all, if you think of it, nothing is stronger in the world ...
+and weaker--than a word!
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+The copse in which the duel was to take place was a quarter of a mile
+from Hanau. Sanin and Pantaleone arrived there first, as the latter
+had predicted; they gave orders for the carriage to remain outside
+the wood, and they plunged into the shade of the rather thick and
+close-growing trees. They had to wait about an hour.
+
+The time of waiting did not seem particularly disagreeable to Sanin;
+he walked up and down the path, listened to the birds singing, watched
+the dragonflies in their flight, and like the majority of Russians in
+similar circumstances, tried not to think. He only once dropped into
+reflection; he came across a young lime-tree, broken down, in all
+probability by the squall of the previous night. It was unmistakably
+dying ... all the leaves on it were dead. 'What is it? an omen?'
+was the thought that flashed across his mind; but he promptly began
+whistling, leaped over the very tree, and paced up and down the path.
+As for Pantaleone, he was grumbling, abusing the Germans, sighing
+and moaning, rubbing first his back and then his knees. He even
+yawned from agitation, which gave a very comic expression to his tiny
+shrivelled-up face. Sanin could scarcely help laughing when he looked
+at him.
+
+They heard, at last, the rolling of wheels along the soft road. 'It's
+they!' said Pantaleone, and he was on the alert and drew himself up,
+not without a momentary nervous shiver, which he made haste, however,
+to cover with the ejaculation 'B-r-r!' and the remark that the morning
+was rather fresh. A heavy dew drenched the grass and leaves, but the
+sultry heat penetrated even into the wood.
+
+Both the officers quickly made their appearance under its arched
+avenues; they were accompanied by a little thick-set man, with a
+phlegmatic, almost sleepy, expression of face--the army doctor. He
+carried in one hand an earthenware pitcher of water--to be ready for
+any emergency; a satchel with surgical instruments and bandages hung
+on his left shoulder. It was obvious that he was thoroughly used to
+such excursions; they constituted one of the sources of his income;
+each duel yielded him eight gold crowns--four from each of the
+combatants. Herr von Richter carried a case of pistols, Herr von
+Dönhof--probably considering it the thing--was swinging in his hand a
+little cane.
+
+'Pantaleone!' Sanin whispered to the old man; 'if ... if I'm
+killed--anything may happen--take out of my side pocket a
+paper--there's a flower wrapped up in it--and give the paper to
+Signorina Gemma. Do you hear? You promise?'
+
+The old man looked dejectedly at him, and nodded his head
+affirmatively.... But God knows whether he understood what Sanin was
+asking him to do.
+
+The combatants and the seconds exchanged the customary bows; the
+doctor alone did not move as much as an eyelash; he sat down yawning
+on the grass, as much as to say, 'I'm not here for expressions of
+chivalrous courtesy.' Herr von Richter proposed to Herr 'Tshibadola'
+that he should select the place; Herr 'Tshibadola' responded, moving
+his tongue with difficulty--'the wall' within him had completely given
+way again. 'You act, my dear sir; I will watch....'
+
+And Herr von Richter proceeded to act. He picked out in the wood close
+by a very pretty clearing all studded with flowers; he measured out
+the steps, and marked the two extreme points with sticks, which he cut
+and pointed. He took the pistols out of the case, and squatting on his
+heels, he rammed in the bullets; in short, he fussed about and exerted
+himself to the utmost, continually mopping his perspiring brow with a
+white handkerchief. Pantaleone, who accompanied him, was more like a
+man frozen. During all these preparations, the two principals stood at
+a little distance, looking like two schoolboys who have been punished,
+and are sulky with their tutors.
+
+The decisive moment arrived.... 'Each took his pistol....'
+
+But at this point Herr von Richter observed to Pantaleone that it was
+his duty, as the senior second, according to the rules of the duel,
+to address a final word of advice and exhortation to be reconciled
+to the combatants, before uttering the fatal 'one! two! three!'; that
+although this exhortation had no effect of any sort and was, as a
+rule, nothing but an empty formality, still, by the performance of
+this formality, Herr Cippatola would be rid of a certain share of
+responsibility; that, properly speaking, such an admonition formed the
+direct duty of the so-called 'impartial witness' (_unpartheiischer
+Zeuge_) but since they had no such person present, he, Herr von
+Richter, would readily yield this privilege to his honoured colleague.
+Pantaleone, who had already succeeded in obliterating himself behind
+a bush, so as not to see the offending officer at all, at first made
+out nothing at all of Herr von Richter's speech, especially, as it
+had been delivered through the nose, but all of a sudden he started,
+stepped hurriedly forward, and convulsively thumping at his chest, in
+a hoarse voice wailed out in his mixed jargon: '_A la la la ... Che
+bestialita! Deux zeun ommes comme ça que si battono--perchè? Che
+diavolo? An data a casa!_'
+
+'I will not consent to a reconciliation,' Sanin intervened hurriedly.
+
+'And I too will not,' his opponent repeated after him.
+
+'Well, then shout one, two, three!' von Richter said, addressing the
+distracted Pantaleone. The latter promptly ducked behind the bush
+again, and from there, all huddled together, his eyes screwed up, and
+his head turned away, he shouted at the top of his voice: '_Una ...
+due ... tre!_'
+
+The first shot was Sanin's, and he missed. His bullet went
+ping against a tree. Baron von Dönhof shot directly after
+him--intentionally, to one side, into the air.
+
+A constrained silence followed.... No one moved. Pantaleone uttered a
+faint moan.
+
+'Is it your wish to go on?' said Dönhof.
+
+'Why did you shoot in the air?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'That's nothing to do with you.'
+
+'Will you shoot in the air the second time?' Sanin asked again.
+
+'Possibly: I don't know.'
+
+'Excuse me, excuse me, gentlemen ...' began von Richter; 'duellists
+have not the right to talk together. That's out of order.'
+
+'I decline my shot,' said Sanin, and he threw his pistol on the
+ground.
+
+'And I too do not intend to go on with the duel,' cried Dönhof, and he
+too threw his pistol on the ground. 'And more than that, I am prepared
+to own that I was in the wrong--the day before yesterday.'
+
+He moved uneasily, and hesitatingly held out his hand. Sanin went
+rapidly up to him and shook it. Both the young men looked at each
+other with a smile, and both their faces flushed crimson.
+
+'_Bravi! bravi!_' Pantaleone roared suddenly as if he had gone mad,
+and clapping his hands, he rushed like a whirlwind from behind the
+bush; while the doctor, who had been sitting on one side on a felled
+tree, promptly rose, poured the water out of the jug and walked off
+with a lazy, rolling step out of the wood.
+
+'Honour is satisfied, and the duel is over!' von Richter announced.
+
+'_Fuori!_' Pantaleone boomed once more, through old associations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had exchanged bows with the officers, and taken his seat in
+the carriage, Sanin certainly felt all over him, if not a sense of
+pleasure, at least a certain lightness of heart, as after an operation
+is over; but there was another feeling astir within him too, a feeling
+akin to shame.... The duel, in which he had just played his part,
+struck him as something false, a got-up formality, a common officers'
+and students' farce. He recalled the phlegmatic doctor, he recalled
+how he had grinned, that is, wrinkled up his nose when he saw him
+coming out of the wood almost arm-in-arm with Baron Dönhof. And
+afterwards when Pantaleone had paid him the four crowns due to him ...
+Ah! there was something nasty about it!
+
+Yes, Sanin was a little conscience-smitten and ashamed ... though, on
+the other hand, what was there for him to have done? Could he have
+left the young officer's insolence unrebuked? could he have behaved
+like Herr Klüber? He had stood up for Gemma, he had championed her ...
+that was so; and yet, there was an uneasy pang in his heart, and he
+was conscience--smitten, and even ashamed.
+
+Not so Pantaleone--he was simply in his glory! He was suddenly
+possessed by a feeling of pride. A victorious general, returning from
+the field of battle he has won, could not have looked about him with
+greater self-satisfaction. Sanin's demeanour during the duel filled
+him with enthusiasm. He called him a hero, and would not listen to his
+exhortations and even his entreaties. He compared him to a monument
+of marble or of bronze, with the statue of the commander in Don Juan!
+For himself he admitted he had been conscious of some perturbation
+of mind, 'but, of course, I am an artist,' he observed; 'I have a
+highly-strung nature, while you are the son of the snows and the
+granite rocks.'
+
+Sanin was positively at a loss how to quiet the jubilant artist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost at the same place in the road where two hours before they had
+come upon Emil, he again jumped out from behind a tree, and, with a
+cry of joy upon his lips, waving his cap and leaping into the air,
+he rushed straight at the carriage, almost fell under the wheel,
+and, without waiting for the horses to stop, clambered up over the
+carriage-door and fairly clung to Sanin.
+
+'You are alive, you are not wounded!' he kept repeating. 'Forgive me,
+I did not obey you, I did not go back to Frankfort ... I could not! I
+waited for you here ... Tell me how was it? You ... killed him?'
+
+Sanin with some difficulty pacified Emil and made him sit down.
+
+With great verbosity, with evident pleasure, Pantaleone communicated
+to him all the details of the duel, and, of course, did not omit to
+refer again to the monument of bronze and the statue of the commander.
+He even rose from his seat and, standing with his feet wide apart to
+preserve his equilibrium, folding his arm on his chest and looking
+contemptuously over his shoulder, gave an ocular representation of the
+commander--Sanin! Emil listened with awe, occasionally interrupting
+the narrative with an exclamation, or swiftly getting up and as
+swiftly kissing his heroic friend.
+
+The carriage wheels rumbled over the paved roads of Frankfort, and
+stopped at last before the hotel where Sanin was living.
+
+Escorted by his two companions, he went up the stairs, when suddenly a
+woman came with hurried steps out of the dark corridor; her face was
+hidden by a veil, she stood still, facing Sanin, wavered a little,
+gave a trembling sigh, at once ran down into the street and vanished,
+to the great astonishment of the waiter, who explained that 'that
+lady had been for over an hour waiting for the return of the foreign
+gentleman.' Momentary as was the apparition, Sanin recognised Gemma.
+He recognised her eyes under the thick silk of her brown veil.
+
+'Did Fräulein Gemma know, then?'... he said slowly in a displeased
+voice in German, addressing Emil and Pantaleone, who were following
+close on his heels.
+
+Emil blushed and was confused.
+
+'I was obliged to tell her all,' he faltered; 'she guessed, and I
+could not help it.... But now that's of no consequence,' he hurried to
+add eagerly, 'everything has ended so splendidly, and she has seen you
+well and uninjured!'
+
+Sanin turned away.
+
+'What a couple of chatterboxes you are!' he observed in a tone of
+annoyance, as he went into his room and sat down on a chair.
+
+'Don't be angry, please,' Emil implored.
+
+'Very well, I won't be angry'--(Sanin was not, in fact, angry--and,
+after all, he could hardly have desired that Gemma should know nothing
+about it). 'Very well ... that's enough embracing. You get along now.
+I want to be alone. I'm going to sleep. I'm tired.'
+
+'An excellent idea!' cried Pantaleone. 'You need repose! You have
+fully earned it, noble signor! Come along, Emilio! On tip-toe! On
+tip-toe! Sh--sh--sh!'
+
+When he said he wanted to go to sleep, Sanin had simply wished to get
+rid of his companions; but when he was left alone, he was really aware
+of considerable weariness in all his limbs; he had hardly closed his
+eyes all the preceding night, and throwing himself on his bed he fell
+immediately into a sound sleep.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+He slept for some hours without waking. Then he began to dream that
+he was once more fighting a duel, that the antagonist standing facing
+him was Herr Klüber, and on a fir-tree was sitting a parrot, and this
+parrot was Pantaleone, and he kept tapping with his beak: one, one,
+one!
+
+'One ... one ... one!' he heard the tapping too distinctly; he opened
+his eyes, raised his head ... some one was knocking at his door.
+
+'Come in!' called Sanin.
+
+The waiter came in and answered that a lady very particularly wished
+to see him.
+
+'Gemma!' flashed into his head ... but the lady turned out to be her
+mother, Frau Lenore.
+
+Directly she came in, she dropped at once into a chair and began to
+cry.
+
+'What is the matter, my dear, good Madame Roselli?' began Sanin,
+sitting beside her and softly touching her hand. 'What has happened?
+calm yourself, I entreat you.'
+
+'Ah, Herr Dimitri, I am very ... very miserable!'
+
+'You are miserable?'
+
+'Ah, very! Could I have foreseen such a thing? All of a sudden, like
+thunder from a clear sky ...'
+
+She caught her breath.
+
+'But what is it? Explain! Would you like a glass of water?'
+
+'No, thank you.' Frau Lenore wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and
+began to cry with renewed energy. 'I know all, you see! All!'
+
+'All? that is to say?'
+
+'Everything that took place to-day! And the cause ... I know that too!
+You acted like an honourable man; but what an unfortunate combination
+of circumstances! I was quite right in not liking that excursion to
+Soden ... quite right!' (Frau Lenore had said nothing of the sort
+on the day of the excursion, but she was convinced now that she had
+foreseen 'all' even then.) 'I have come to you as to an honourable
+man, as to a friend, though I only saw you for the first time five
+days ago.... But you know I am a widow, a lonely woman.... My
+daughter ...'
+
+Tears choked Frau Lenore's voice. Sanin did not know what to think.
+'Your daughter?' he repeated.
+
+'My daughter, Gemma,' broke almost with a groan from Frau Lenore,
+behind the tear-soaked handkerchief, 'informed me to-day that she
+would not marry Herr Klüber, and that I must refuse him!'
+
+Sanin positively started back a little; he had not expected that.
+
+'I won't say anything now,' Frau Lenore went on, 'of the disgrace
+of it, of its being something unheard of in the world for a girl to
+jilt her betrothed; but you see it's ruin for us, Herr Dimitri!' Frau
+Lenore slowly and carefully twisted up her handkerchief in a tiny,
+tiny little ball, as though she would enclose all her grief within it.
+'We can't go on living on the takings of our shop, Herr Dimitri! and
+Herr Klüber is very rich, and will be richer still. And what is he to
+be refused for? Because he did not defend his betrothed? Allowing that
+was not very handsome on his part, still, he's a civilian, has not had
+a university education, and as a solid business man, it was for him
+to look with contempt on the frivolous prank of some unknown little
+officer. And what sort of insult was it, after all, Herr Dimitri?'
+
+'Excuse me, Frau Lenore, you seem to be blaming me.'
+
+'I am not blaming you in the least, not in the least! You're quite
+another matter; you are, like all Russians, a military man ...'
+
+'Excuse me, I'm not at all ...'
+
+'You're a foreigner, a visitor, and I'm grateful to you,' Frau Lenore
+went on, not heeding Sanin. She sighed, waved her hands, unwound her
+handkerchief again, and blew her nose. Simply from the way in which
+her distress expressed itself, it could be seen that she had not been
+born under a northern sky.
+
+'And how is Herr Klüber to look after his shop, if he is to fight
+with his customers? It's utterly inconsistent! And now I am to send
+him away! But what are we going to live on? At one time we were the
+only people that made angel cakes, and nougat of pistachio nuts, and
+we had plenty of customers; but now all the shops make angel cakes!
+Only consider; even without this, they'll talk in the town about your
+duel ... it's impossible to keep it secret. And all of a sudden, the
+marriage broken off! It will be a scandal, a scandal! Gemma is a
+splendid girl, she loves me; but she's an obstinate republican, she
+doesn't care for the opinion of others. You're the only person that
+can persuade her!'
+
+Sanin was more amazed than ever. 'I, Frau Lenore?'
+
+'Yes, you alone ... you alone. That's why I have come to you; I could
+not think of anything else to do! You are so clever, so good! You
+have fought in her defence. She will trust you! She is bound to trust
+you--why, you have risked your life on her account! You will make her
+understand, for I can do nothing more; you make her understand that
+she will bring ruin on herself and all of us. You saved my son--save
+my daughter too! God Himself sent you here ... I am ready on my knees
+to beseech you....' And Frau Lenore half rose from her seat as though
+about to fall at Sanin's feet.... He restrained her.
+
+'Frau Lenore! For mercy's sake! What are you doing?'
+
+She clutched his hand impulsively. 'You promise ...'
+
+'Frau Lenore, think a moment; what right have I ...'
+
+'You promise? You don't want me to die here at once before your eyes?'
+
+Sanin was utterly nonplussed. It was the first time in his life he had
+had to deal with any one of ardent Italian blood.
+
+'I will do whatever you like,' he cried. 'I will talk to Fräulein
+Gemma....'
+
+Frau Lenore uttered a cry of delight.
+
+'Only I really can't say what result will come of it ...'
+
+'Ah, don't go back, don't go back from your words!' cried Frau Lenore
+in an imploring voice; 'you have already consented! The result is
+certain to be excellent. Any way, _I_ can do nothing more! She won't
+listen to _me_!'
+
+'Has she so positively stated her disinclination to marry Herr
+Klüber?' Sanin inquired after a short silence.
+
+'As if she'd cut the knot with a knife! She's her father all over,
+Giovanni Battista! Wilful girl!'
+
+'Wilful? Is she!' ... Sanin said slowly. 'Yes ... yes ... but she's
+an angel too. She will mind you. Are you coming soon? Oh, my dear
+Russian friend!' Frau Lenore rose impulsively from her chair, and as
+impulsively clasped the head of Sanin, who was sitting opposite her.
+'Accept a mother's blessing--and give me some water!'
+
+Sanin brought Signora Roselli a glass of water, gave her his word of
+honour that he would come directly, escorted her down the stairs to
+the street, and when he was back in his own room, positively threw up
+his arms and opened his eyes wide in his amazement.
+
+'Well,' he thought, 'well, _now_ life is going round in a whirl! And
+it's whirling so that I'm giddy.' He did not attempt to look within,
+to realise what was going on in himself: it was all uproar and
+confusion, and that was all he knew! What a day it had been! His lips
+murmured unconsciously: 'Wilful ... her mother says ... and I have got
+to advise her ... her! And advise her what?'
+
+Sanin, really, was giddy, and above all this whirl of shifting
+sensations and impressions and unfinished thoughts, there floated
+continually the image of Gemma, the image so ineffaceably impressed on
+his memory on that hot night, quivering with electricity, in that dark
+window, in the light of the swarming stars!
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+With hesitating footsteps Sanin approached the house of Signora
+Roselli. His heart was beating violently; he distinctly felt, and even
+heard it thumping at his side. What should he say to Gemma, how should
+he begin? He went into the house, not through the shop, but by the
+back entrance. In the little outer room he met Frau Lenore. She was
+both relieved and scared at the sight of him.
+
+'I have been expecting you,' she said in a whisper, squeezing his hand
+with each of hers in turn. 'Go into the garden; she is there. Mind, I
+rely on you!'
+
+Sanin went into the garden.
+
+Gemma was sitting on a garden-seat near the path, she was sorting a
+big basket full of cherries, picking out the ripest, and putting them
+on a dish. The sun was low--it was seven o'clock in the evening--and
+there was more purple than gold in the full slanting light with which
+it flooded the whole of Signora Roselli's little garden. From time
+to time, faintly audibly, and as it were deliberately, the leaves
+rustled, and belated bees buzzed abruptly as they flew from one
+flower to the next, and somewhere a dove was cooing a never-changing,
+unceasing note. Gemma had on the same round hat in which she had
+driven to Soden. She peeped at Sanin from under its turned-down brim,
+and again bent over the basket.
+
+Sanin went up to Gemma, unconsciously making each step shorter, and
+... and ... and nothing better could he find to say to her than to ask
+why was she sorting the cherries.
+
+Gemma was in no haste to reply.
+
+'These are riper,' she observed at last, 'they will go into jam, and
+those are for tarts. You know the round sweet tarts we sell?'
+
+As she said those words, Gemma bent her head still lower, and her
+right hand with two cherries in her fingers was suspended in the air
+between the basket and the dish.
+
+'May I sit by you?' asked Sanin.
+
+'Yes.' Gemma moved a little along on the seat. Sanin placed himself
+beside her. 'How am I to begin?' was his thought. But Gemma got him
+out of his difficulty.
+
+'You have fought a duel to-day,' she began eagerly, and she turned
+all her lovely, bashfully flushing face to him--and what depths of
+gratitude were shining in those eyes! 'And you are so calm! I suppose
+for you danger does not exist?'
+
+'Oh, come! I have not been exposed to any danger. Everything went off
+very satisfactorily and inoffensively.'
+
+Gemma passed her finger to right and to left before her eyes ... Also
+an Italian gesture. 'No! no! don't say that! You won't deceive me!
+Pantaleone has told me everything!'
+
+'He's a trustworthy witness! Did he compare me to the statue of the
+commander?'
+
+'His expressions may be ridiculous, but his feeling is not ridiculous,
+nor is what you have done to-day. And all that on my account ... for
+me ... I shall never forget it.'
+
+'I assure you, Fräulein Gemma ...'
+
+'I shall never forget it,' she said deliberately; once more she looked
+intently at him, and turned away.
+
+He could now see her delicate pure profile, and it seemed to him that
+he had never seen anything like it, and had never known anything like
+what he was feeling at that instant. His soul was on fire.
+
+'And my promise!' flashed in among his thoughts.
+
+'Fräulein Gemma ...' he began after a momentary hesitation.
+
+'What?'
+
+She did not turn to him, she went on sorting the cherries, carefully
+taking them by their stalks with her finger-tips, assiduously picking
+out the leaves.... But what a confiding caress could be heard in that
+one word,
+
+'What?'
+
+'Has your mother said nothing to you ... about ...'
+
+'About?'
+
+'About me?'
+
+Gemma suddenly flung back into the basket the cherries she had taken.
+
+'Has she been talking to you?' she asked in her turn.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What has she been saying to you?'
+
+'She told me that you ... that you have suddenly decided to change
+... your former intention.' Gemma's head was bent again. She vanished
+altogether under her hat; nothing could be seen but her neck, supple
+and tender as the stalk of a big flower.
+
+'What intentions?'
+
+'Your intentions ... relative to ... the future arrangement of your
+life.'
+
+'That is ... you are speaking ... of Herr Klüber?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Mamma told you I don't want to be Herr Klüber's wife?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Gemma moved forward on the seat. The basket tottered, fell ... a few
+cherries rolled on to the path. A minute passed by ... another.
+
+'Why did she tell you so?' he heard her voice saying. Sanin as before
+could only see Gemma's neck. Her bosom rose and fell more rapidly than
+before.
+
+'Why? Your mother thought that as you and I, in a short time, have
+become, so to say, friends, and you have some confidence in me, I am
+in a position to give you good advice--and you would mind what I say.'
+
+Gemma's hands slowly slid on to her knees. She began plucking at the
+folds of her dress.
+
+'What advice will you give me, Monsieur Dimitri?' she asked, after a
+short pause.
+
+Sanin saw that Gemma's fingers were trembling on her knees.... She was
+only plucking at the folds of her dress to hide their trembling. He
+softly laid his hand on those pale, shaking fingers.
+
+'Gemma,' he said, 'why don't you look at me?' She instantly tossed her
+hat back on to her shoulder, and bent her eyes upon him, confiding and
+grateful as before. She waited for him to speak.... But the sight of
+her face had bewildered, and, as it were, dazed him. The warm glow of
+the evening sun lighted up her youthful head, and the expression of
+that head was brighter, more radiant than its glow.
+
+'I will mind what you say, Monsieur Dimitri,' she said, faintly
+smiling, and faintly arching her brows; 'but what advice do you give
+me?'
+
+'What advice?' repeated Sanin. 'Well, you see, your mother considers
+that to dismiss Herr Klüber simply because he did not show any special
+courage the day before yesterday ...'
+
+'Simply because?' said Gemma. She bent down, picked up the basket, and
+set it beside her on the garden seat.
+
+'That ... altogether ... to dismiss him, would be, on your part
+... unreasonable; that it is a step, all the consequences of which
+ought to be thoroughly weighed; that in fact the very position of
+your affairs imposes certain obligations on every member of your
+family ...'
+
+'All that is mamma's opinion,' Gemma interposed; 'those are her words;
+but what is your opinion?'
+
+'Mine?' Sanin was silent for a while. He felt a lump rising in his
+throat and catching at his breath. 'I too consider,' he began with an
+effort ...
+
+Gemma drew herself up. 'Too? You too?'
+
+'Yes ... that is ...' Sanin was unable, positively unable to add a
+single word more.
+
+'Very well,' said Gemma. 'If you, as a friend, advise me to change my
+decision--that is, not to change my former decision--I will think it
+over.' Not knowing what she was doing, she began to tip the cherries
+back from the plate into the basket.... 'Mamma hopes that I will mind
+what you say. Well ... perhaps I really will mind what you say.'
+
+'But excuse me, Fräulein Gemma, I should like first to know what
+reason impelled you ...'
+
+'I will mind what you say,' Gemma repeated, her face right up to her
+brows was working, her cheeks were white, she was biting her lower
+lip. 'You have done so much for me, that I am bound to do as you wish;
+bound to carry out your wishes. I will tell mamma ... I will think
+again. Here she is, by the way, coming here.'
+
+Frau Lenore did in fact appear in the doorway leading from the house
+to the garden. She was in an agony of impatience; she could not
+keep still. According to her calculations, Sanin must long ago have
+finished all he had to say to Gemma, though his conversation with her
+had not lasted a quarter of an hour.
+
+'No, no, no, for God's sake, don't tell her anything yet,' Sanin
+articulated hurriedly, almost in alarm. 'Wait a little ... I will tell
+you, I will write to you ... and till then don't decide on anything
+... wait!'
+
+He pressed Gemma's hand, jumped up from the seat, and to Frau Lenore's
+great amazement, rushed past her, and raising his hat, muttered
+something unintelligible--and vanished.
+
+She went up to her daughter.
+
+'Tell me, please, Gemma...'
+
+The latter suddenly got up and hugged her. 'Dear mamma, can you wait a
+little, a tiny bit ... till to-morrow? Can you? And till to-morrow not
+a word?... Ah!...'
+
+She burst into sudden happy tears, incomprehensible to herself. This
+surprised Frau Lenore, the more as the expression of Gemma's face was
+far from sorrowful,--rather joyful in fact.
+
+'What is it?' she asked. 'You never cry and here, all at once ...'
+
+'Nothing, mamma, never mind! you only wait. We must both wait a
+little. Don't ask me anything till to-morrow--and let us sort the
+cherries before the sun has set.'
+
+'But you will be reasonable?'
+
+'Oh, I'm very reasonable!' Gemma shook her head significantly. She
+began to make up little bunches of cherries, holding them high above
+her flushed face. She did not wipe away her tears; they had dried of
+themselves.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Almost running, Sanin returned to his hotel room. He felt, he knew
+that only there, only by himself, would it be clear to him at last
+what was the matter, what was happening to him. And so it was;
+directly he had got inside his room, directly he had sat down to the
+writing-table, with both elbows on the table and both hands pressed to
+his face, he cried in a sad and choked voice, 'I love her, love her
+madly!' and he was all aglow within, like a fire when a thick layer
+of dead ash has been suddenly blown off. An instant more ... and he
+was utterly unable to understand how he could have sat beside her
+... her!--and talked to her and not have felt that he worshipped the
+very hem of her garment, that he was ready as young people express
+it 'to die at her feet.' The last interview in the garden had decided
+everything. Now when he thought of her, she did not appear to him with
+blazing curls in the shining starlight; he saw her sitting on the
+garden-seat, saw her all at once tossing back her hat, and gazing at
+him so confidingly ... and the tremor and hunger of love ran through
+all his veins. He remembered the rose which he had been carrying about
+in his pocket for three days: he snatched it out, and pressed it with
+such feverish violence to his lips, that he could not help frowning
+with the pain. Now he considered nothing, reflected on nothing, did
+not deliberate, and did not look forward; he had done with all his
+past, he leaped forward into the future; from the dreary bank of his
+lonely bachelor life he plunged headlong into that glad, seething,
+mighty torrent--and little he cared, little he wished to know, where
+it would carry him, or whether it would dash him against a rock! No
+more the soft-flowing currents of the Uhland song, which had lulled
+him not long ago ... These were mighty, irresistible torrents! They
+rush flying onwards and he flies with them....
+
+He took a sheet of paper, and without blotting out a word, almost with
+one sweep of the pen, wrote as follows:--
+
+'DEAR GEMMA,--You know what advice I undertook to give you, what your
+mother desired, and what she asked of me; but what you don't know and
+what I must tell you now is, that I love you, love you with all the
+ardour of a heart that loves for the first time! This passion has
+flamed up in me suddenly, but with such force that I can find no words
+for it! When your mother came to me and asked me, it was still only
+smouldering in me, or else I should certainly, as an honest man, have
+refused to carry out her request.... The confession I make you now is
+the confession of an honest man. You ought to know whom you have to do
+with--between us there should exist no misunderstandings. You see that
+I cannot give you any advice.... I love you, love you, love you--and I
+have nothing else--either in my head or in my heart!!
+
+'DM. SANIN.'
+
+When he had folded and sealed this note, Sanin was on the point of
+ringing for the waiter and sending it by him.... 'No!' he thought, 'it
+would be awkward.... By Emil? But to go to the shop, and seek him out
+there among the other employés, would be awkward too. Besides, it's
+dark by now, and he has probably left the shop.' Reflecting after this
+fashion, Sanin put on his hat, however, and went into the street; he
+turned a corner, another, and to his unspeakable delight, saw Emil
+before him. With a satchel under his arm, and a roll of papers in his
+hand, the young enthusiast was hurrying home.
+
+'They may well say every lover has a lucky star,' thought Sanin, and
+he called to Emil.
+
+The latter turned and at once rushed to him.
+
+Sanin cut short his transports, handed him the note, and explained to
+whom and how he was to deliver it.... Emil listened attentively.
+
+'So that no one sees?' he inquired, assuming an important and
+mysterious air, that said, 'We understand the inner meaning of it
+all!'
+
+'Yes, my friend,' said Sanin and he was a little disconcerted;
+however, he patted Emil on the cheek.... 'And if there should be an
+answer.... You will bring me the answer, won't you? I will stay at
+home.'
+
+'Don't worry yourself about that!' Emil whispered gaily; he ran off,
+and as he ran nodded once more to him.
+
+Sanin went back home, and without lighting a candle, flung himself
+on the sofa, put his hands behind his head, and abandoned himself to
+those sensations of newly conscious love, which it is no good even to
+describe. One who has felt them knows their languor and sweetness; to
+one who has felt them not, one could never make them known.
+
+The door opened--Emil's head appeared.
+
+'I have brought it,' he said in a whisper: 'here it is--the answer!'
+
+He showed and waved above his head a folded sheet of paper.
+
+Sanin leaped up from the sofa and snatched it out of Emil's hand.
+Passion was working too powerfully within him: he had no thought of
+reserve now, nor of the observance of a suitable demeanour--even
+before this boy, her brother. He would have been scrupulous, he would
+have controlled himself--if he could!
+
+He went to the window, and by the light of a street lamp which stood
+just opposite the house, he read the following lines:--
+
+I beg you, I beseech you--_don't come to see us, don't show yourself
+all day to-morrow_. It's necessary, absolutely necessary for me,
+and then everything shall be settled. I know you will not say no,
+because ...
+
+'GEMMA.'
+
+Sanin read this note twice through. Oh, how touchingly sweet and
+beautiful her handwriting seemed to him! He thought a little, and
+turning to Emil, who, wishing to give him to understand what a
+discreet young person he was, was standing with his face to the wall,
+and scratching on it with his finger-nails, he called him aloud by
+name.
+
+Emil ran at once to Sanin. 'What do you want me to do?'
+
+'Listen, my young friend...'
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' Emil interrupted in a plaintive voice, 'why do you
+address me so formally?'
+
+Sanin laughed. 'Oh, very well. Listen, my dearest boy--(Emil gave a
+little skip of delight)--listen; _there_ you understand, there, you
+will say, that everything shall be done exactly as is wished--(Emil
+compressed his lips and nodded solemnly)--and as for me ... what are
+you doing to-morrow, my dear boy?'
+
+'I? what am I doing? What would you like me to do?'
+
+'If you can, come to me early in the morning--and we will walk about
+the country round Frankfort till evening.... Would you like to?'
+
+Emil gave another little skip. 'I say, what in the world could be
+jollier? Go a walk with you--why, it's simply glorious! I'll be sure
+to come!'
+
+'And if they won't let you?'
+
+'They will let me!'
+
+'Listen ... Don't say _there_ that I asked you to come for the whole
+day.'
+
+'Why should I? But I'll get away all the same! What does it matter?'
+
+Emil warmly kissed Sanin, and ran away.
+
+Sanin walked up and down the room a long while, and went late to bed.
+He gave himself up to the same delicate and sweet sensations, the same
+joyous thrill at facing a new life. Sanin was very glad that the idea
+had occurred to him to invite Emil to spend the next day with him; he
+was like his sister. 'He will recall her,' was his thought.
+
+But most of all, he marvelled how he could have been yesterday other
+than he was to-day. It seemed to him that he had loved Gemma for all
+time; and that he had loved her just as he loved her to-day.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+At eight o'clock next morning, Emil arrived at Sanin's hotel leading
+Tartaglia by a string. Had he sprung of German parentage, he could
+not have shown greater practicality. He had told a lie at home; he
+had said he was going for a walk with Sanin till lunch-time, and then
+going to the shop. While Sanin was dressing, Emil began to talk to
+him, rather hesitatingly, it is true, about Gemma, about her rupture
+with Herr Klüber; but Sanin preserved an austere silence in reply, and
+Emil, looking as though he understood why so serious a matter should
+not be touched on lightly, did not return to the subject, and only
+assumed from time to time an intense and even severe expression.
+
+After drinking coffee, the two friends set off together--on foot,
+of course--to Hausen, a little village lying a short distance from
+Frankfort, and surrounded by woods. The whole chain of the Taunus
+mountains could be seen clearly from there. The weather was lovely;
+the sunshine was bright and warm, but not blazing hot; a fresh wind
+rustled briskly among the green leaves; the shadows of high, round
+clouds glided swiftly and smoothly in small patches over the earth.
+The two young people soon got out of the town, and stepped out boldly
+and gaily along the well-kept road. They reached the woods, and
+wandered about there a long time; then they lunched very heartily at
+a country inn; then climbed on to the mountains, admired the views,
+rolled stones down and clapped their hands, watching the queer droll
+way in which the stones hopped along like rabbits, till a man passing
+below, unseen by them, began abusing them in a loud ringing voice.
+Then they lay full length on the short dry moss of yellowish-violet
+colour; then they drank beer at another inn; ran races, and tried for
+a wager which could jump farthest. They discovered an echo, and began
+to call to it; sang songs, hallooed, wrestled, broke up dry twigs,
+decked their hats with fern, and even danced. Tartaglia, as far as he
+could, shared in all these pastimes; he did not throw stones, it is
+true, but he rolled head over heels after them; he howled when they
+were singing, and even drank beer, though with evident aversion;
+he had been trained in this art by a student to whom he had once
+belonged. But he was not prompt in obeying Emil--not as he was with
+his master Pantaleone--and when Emil ordered him to 'speak,' or to
+'sneeze,' he only wagged his tail and thrust out his tongue like a
+pipe.
+
+The young people talked, too. At the beginning of the walk, Sanin, as
+the elder, and so more reflective, turned the conversation on fate and
+predestination, and the nature and meaning of man's destiny; but the
+conversation quickly took a less serious turn. Emil began to question
+his friend and patron about Russia, how duels were fought there, and
+whether the women there were beautiful, and whether one could learn
+Russian quickly, and what he had felt when the officer took aim
+at him. Sanin, on his side, questioned Emil about his father, his
+mother, and in general about their family affairs, trying every time
+not to mention Gemma's name--and thinking only of her. To speak more
+precisely, it was not of her he was thinking, but of the morrow, the
+mysterious morrow which was to bring him new, unknown happiness! It
+was as though a veil, a delicate, bright veil, hung faintly fluttering
+before his mental vision; and behind this veil he felt ... felt the
+presence of a youthful, motionless, divine image, with a tender smile
+on its lips, and eyelids severely--with affected seventy--downcast.
+And this image was not the face of Gemma, it was the face of happiness
+itself! For, behold, at last _his_ hour had come, the veil had
+vanished, the lips were parting, the eyelashes are raised--his
+divinity has looked upon him--and at once light as from the sun,
+and joy and bliss unending! He dreamed of this morrow--and his soul
+thrilled with joy again in the melting torture of ever-growing
+expectation!
+
+And this expectation, this torture, hindered nothing. It accompanied
+every action, and did not prevent anything. It did not prevent him
+from dining capitally at a third inn with Emil; and only occasionally,
+like a brief flash of lightning, the thought shot across him, What
+if any one in the world knew? This suspense did not prevent him from
+playing leap-frog with Emil after dinner. The game took place on an
+open green lawn. And the confusion, the stupefaction of Sanin may be
+imagined! At the very moment when, accompanied by a sharp bark from
+Tartaglia, he was flying like a bird, with his legs outspread over
+Emil, who was bent double, he suddenly saw on the farthest border of
+the lawn two officers, in whom he recognised at once his adversary and
+his second, Herr von Dönhof and Herr von Richter! Each of them had
+stuck an eyeglass in his eye, and was staring at him, chuckling!...
+Sanin got on his feet, turned away hurriedly, put on the coat he had
+flung down, jerked out a word to Emil; the latter, too, put on his
+jacket, and they both immediately made off.
+
+It was late when they got back to Frankfort. 'They'll scold me,' Emil
+said to Sanin as he said good-bye to him. 'Well, what does it matter?
+I've had such a splendid, splendid day!'
+
+When he got home to his hotel, Sanin found a note there from Gemma.
+She fixed a meeting with him for next day, at seven o'clock in the
+morning, in one of the public gardens which surround Frankfort on all
+sides.
+
+How his heart throbbed! How glad he was that he had obeyed her so
+unconditionally! And, my God, what was promised ... what was not
+promised, by that unknown, unique, impossible, and undubitably certain
+morrow!
+
+He feasted his eyes on Gemma's note. The long, elegant tail of the
+letter G, the first letter of her name, which stood at the bottom of
+the sheet, reminded him of her lovely fingers, her hand.... He thought
+that he had not once touched that hand with his lips.... 'Italian
+women,' he mused, 'in spite of what's said of them, are modest and
+severe.... And Gemma above all! Queen ... goddess ... pure, virginal
+marble....'
+
+'But the time will come; and it is not far off....' There was that
+night in Frankfort one happy man.... He slept; but he might have said
+of himself in the words of the poet:
+
+  'I sleep ... but my watchful heart sleeps not.'
+
+And it fluttered as lightly as a butterfly flutters his wings, as he
+stoops over the flowers in the summer sunshine.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+At five o'clock Sanin woke up, at six he was dressed, at half-past
+six he was walking up and down the public garden within sight of the
+little arbour which Gemma had mentioned in her note. It was a still,
+warm, grey morning. It sometimes seemed as though it were beginning
+to rain; but the outstretched hand felt nothing, and only looking at
+one's coat-sleeve, one could see traces of tiny drops like diminutive
+beads, but even these were soon gone. It seemed there had never been
+a breath of wind in the world. Every sound moved not, but was shed
+around in the stillness. In the distance was a faint thickening of
+whitish mist; in the air there was a scent of mignonette and white
+acacia flowers.
+
+In the streets the shops were not open yet, but there were already
+some people walking about; occasionally a solitary carriage rumbled
+along ... there was no one walking in the garden. A gardener was in a
+leisurely way scraping the path with a spade, and a decrepit old woman
+in a black woollen cloak was hobbling across the garden walk. Sanin
+could not for one instant mistake this poor old creature for Gemma;
+and yet his heart leaped, and he watched attentively the retreating
+patch of black.
+
+Seven! chimed the clock on the tower. Sanin stood still. Was it
+possible she would not come? A shiver of cold suddenly ran through
+his limbs. The same shiver came again an instant later, but from a
+different cause. Sanin heard behind him light footsteps, the light
+rustle of a woman's dress.... He turned round: she!
+
+Gemma was coming up behind him along the path. She was wearing a grey
+cape and a small dark hat. She glanced at Sanin, turned her head away,
+and catching him up, passed rapidly by him.
+
+'Gemma,' he articulated, hardly audibly.
+
+She gave him a little nod, and continued to walk on in front. He
+followed her.
+
+He breathed in broken gasps. His legs shook under him.
+
+Gemma passed by the arbour, turned to the right, passed by a small
+flat fountain, in which the sparrows were splashing busily, and, going
+behind a clump of high lilacs, sank down on a bench. The place was
+snug and hidden. Sanin sat down beside her.
+
+A minute passed, and neither he nor she uttered a word. She did not
+even look at him; and he gazed not at her face, but at her clasped
+hands, in which she held a small parasol. What was there to tell, what
+was there to say, which could compare, in importance, with the simple
+fact of their presence there, together, alone, so early, so close to
+each other.
+
+'You ... are not angry with me?' Sanin articulated at last.
+
+It would have been difficult for Sanin to have said anything more
+foolish than these words ... he was conscious of it himself.... But,
+at any rate, the silence was broken.
+
+'Angry?' she answered. 'What for? No.'
+
+'And you believe me?' he went on.
+
+'In what you wrote?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Gemma's head sank, and she said nothing. The parasol slipped out of
+her hands. She hastily caught it before it dropped on the path.
+
+'Ah, believe me! believe what I wrote to you!' cried Sanin; all his
+timidity suddenly vanished, he spoke with heat; 'if there is truth
+on earth--sacred, absolute truth--it's that I love, love you
+passionately, Gemma.'
+
+She flung him a sideway, momentary glance, and again almost dropped
+the parasol.
+
+'Believe me! believe me!' he repeated. He besought her, held out his
+hands to her, and did not dare to touch her. 'What do you want me to
+do ... to convince you?'
+
+She glanced at him again.
+
+'Tell me, Monsieur Dimitri,' she began; 'the day before yesterday,
+when you came to talk to me, you did not, I imagine, know then ... did
+not feel ...'
+
+'I felt it,' Sanin broke in; 'but I did not know it. I have loved you
+from the very instant I saw you; but I did not realise at once what
+you had become to me! And besides, I heard that you were solemnly
+betrothed.... As far as your mother's request is concerned--in the
+first place, how could I refuse?--and secondly, I think I carried out
+her request in such a way that you could guess....'
+
+They heard a heavy tread, and a rather stout gentleman with a knapsack
+over his shoulder, apparently a foreigner, emerged from behind the
+clump, and staring, with the unceremoniousness of a tourist, at the
+couple sitting on the garden-seat, gave a loud cough and went on.
+
+'Your mother,' Sanin began, as soon as the sound of the heavy
+footsteps had ceased, 'told me your breaking off your engagement would
+cause a scandal'--Gemma frowned a little--that I was myself in part
+responsible for unpleasant gossip, and that ... consequently ... I
+was, to some extent, under an obligation to advise you not to break
+with your betrothed, Herr Klüber....'
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' said Gemma, and she passed her hand over her hair
+on the side turned towards Sanin, 'don't, please, call Herr Klüber my
+betrothed. I shall never be his wife. I have broken with him.'
+
+'You have broken with him? when?'
+
+'Yesterday.'
+
+'You saw him?'
+
+'Yes. At our house. He came to see us.'
+
+'Gemma? Then you love me?'
+
+She turned to him.
+
+'Should ... I have come here, if not?' she whispered, and both her
+hands fell on the seat.
+
+Sanin snatched those powerless, upturned palms, and pressed them to
+his eyes, to his lips.... Now the veil was lifted of which he had
+dreamed the night before! Here was happiness, here was its radiant
+form!
+
+He raised his head, and looked at Gemma, boldly and directly. She,
+too, looked at him, a little downwards. Her half-shut eyes faintly
+glistened, dim with light, blissful tears. Her face was not smiling
+... no! it laughed, with a blissful, noiseless laugh.
+
+He tried to draw her to him, but she drew back, and never ceasing to
+laugh the same noiseless laugh, shook her head. 'Wait a little,' her
+happy eyes seemed to say.
+
+'O Gemma!' cried Sanin: 'I never dreamed that you would love me!'
+
+'I did not expect this myself,' Gemma said softly.
+
+'How could I ever have dreamed,' Sanin went on, 'when I came to
+Frankfort, where I only expected to remain a few hours, that I should
+find here the happiness of all my life!'
+
+'All your life? Really?' queried Gemma.
+
+'All my life, for ever and ever!' cried Sanin with fresh ardour.
+
+The gardener's spade suddenly scraped two paces from where they were
+sitting.
+
+'Let's go home,' whispered Gemma: 'we'll go together--will you?'
+
+If she had said to him at that instant 'Throw yourself in the sea,
+will you?' he would have been flying headlong into the ocean before
+she had uttered the last word.
+
+They went together out of the garden and turned homewards, not by the
+streets of the town, but through the outskirts.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+Sanin walked along, at one time by Gemma's side, at another time a
+little behind her. He never took his eyes off her and never ceased
+smiling. She seemed to hasten ... seemed to linger. As a matter of
+fact, they both--he all pale, and she all flushed with emotion--were
+moving along as in a dream. What they had done together a few instants
+before--that surrender of each soul to another soul--was so intense,
+so new, and so moving; so suddenly everything in their lives had been
+changed and displaced that they could not recover themselves, and were
+only aware of a whirlwind carrying them along, like the whirlwind
+on that night, which had almost flung them into each other's arms.
+Sanin walked along, and felt that he even looked at Gemma with other
+eyes; he instantly noted some peculiarities in her walk, in her
+movements,--and heavens! how infinitely sweet and precious they were
+to him! And she felt that that was how he was looking at her.
+
+Sanin and she were in love for the first time; all the miracles of
+first love were working in them. First love is like a revolution; the
+uniformly regular routine of ordered life is broken down and shattered
+in one instant; youth mounts the barricade, waves high its bright
+flag, and whatever awaits it in the future--death or a new life--all
+alike it goes to meet with ecstatic welcome.
+
+'What's this? Isn't that our old friend?' said Sanin, pointing to a
+muffled-up figure, which hurriedly slipped a little aside as though
+trying to remain unobserved. In the midst of his abundant happiness he
+felt a need to talk to Gemma, not of love--that was a settled thing
+and holy--but of something else.
+
+'Yes, it's Pantaleone,' Gemma answered gaily and happily. 'Most likely
+he has been following me ever since I left home; all day yesterday he
+kept watching every movement I made ... He guesses!'
+
+'He guesses!' Sanin repeated in ecstasy. What could Gemma have said at
+which he would not have been in ecstasy?
+
+Then he asked her to tell him in detail all that had passed the day
+before.
+
+And she began at once telling him, with haste, and confusion, and
+smiles, and brief sighs, and brief bright looks exchanged with Sanin.
+She said that after their conversation the day before yesterday,
+mamma had kept trying to get out of her something positive; but that
+she had put off Frau Lenore with a promise to tell her her decision
+within twenty-four hours; how she had demanded this limit of time
+for herself, and how difficult it had been to get it; how utterly
+unexpectedly Herr Klüber had made his appearance more starched and
+affected than ever; how he had given vent to his indignation at the
+childish, unpardonable action of the Russian stranger--'he meant
+your duel, Dimitri,'--which he described as deeply insulting to him,
+Klüber, and how he had demanded that 'you should be at once refused
+admittance to the house, Dimitri.' 'For,' he had added--and here
+Gemma slightly mimicked his voice and manner--'"it casts a slur on
+my honour; as though I were not able to defend my betrothed, had
+I thought it necessary or advisable! All Frankfort will know by
+to-morrow that an outsider has fought a duel with an officer on
+account of my betrothed--did any one ever hear of such a thing! It
+tarnishes my honour!" Mamma agreed with him--fancy!--but then I
+suddenly told him that he was troubling himself unnecessarily about
+his honour and his character, and was unnecessarily annoyed at the
+gossip about his betrothed, for I was no longer betrothed to him and
+would never be his wife! I must own, I had meant to talk to you first
+... before breaking with him finally; but he came ... and I could not
+restrain myself. Mamma positively screamed with horror, but I went
+into the next room and got his ring--you didn't notice, I took it off
+two days ago--and gave it to him. He was fearfully offended, but as he
+is fearfully self-conscious and conceited, he did not say much, and
+went away. Of course I had to go through a great deal with mamma, and
+it made me very wretched to see how distressed she was, and I thought
+I had been a little hasty; but you see I had your note, and even apart
+from it I knew ...'
+
+'That I love you,' put in Sanin.
+
+'Yes ... that you were in love with me.'
+
+So Gemma talked, hesitating and smiling and dropping her voice or
+stopping altogether every time any one met them or passed by. And
+Sanin listened ecstatically, enjoying the very sound of her voice, as
+the day before he had gloated over her handwriting.
+
+'Mamma is very much distressed,' Gemma began again, and her words
+flew very rapidly one after another; 'she refuses to take into
+consideration that I dislike Herr Klüber, that I never was betrothed
+to him from love, but only because of her urgent entreaties....
+She suspects--you, Dimitri; that's to say, to speak plainly, she's
+convinced I'm in love with you, and she is more unhappy about it
+because only the day before yesterday nothing of the sort had occurred
+to her, and she even begged you to advise me.... It was a strange
+request, wasn't it? Now she calls you ... Dimitri, a hypocrite and
+a cunning fellow, says that you have betrayed her confidence, and
+predicts that you will deceive me....'
+
+'But, Gemma,' cried Sanin, 'do you mean to say you didn't tell
+her?...'
+
+'I told her nothing! What right had I without consulting you?'
+
+Sanin threw up his arms. 'Gemma, I hope that now, at least, you will
+tell all to her and take me to her.... I want to convince your mother
+that I am not a base deceiver!'
+
+Sanin's bosom fairly heaved with the flood of generous and ardent
+emotions.
+
+Gemma looked him full in the face. 'You really want to go with me
+now to mamma? to mamma, who maintains that ... all this between us
+is impossible--and can never come to pass?' There was one word Gemma
+could not bring herself to utter.... It burnt her lips; but all the
+more eagerly Sanin pronounced it.
+
+'Marry you, Gemma, be your husband--I can imagine no bliss greater!'
+
+To his love, his magnanimity, his determination--he was aware of no
+limits now.
+
+When she heard those words, Gemma, who had stopped still for an
+instant, went on faster than ever.... She seemed trying to run away
+from this too great and unexpected happiness! But suddenly her
+steps faltered. Round the corner of a turning, a few paces from
+her, in a new hat and coat, straight as an arrow and curled like a
+poodle--emerged Herr Klüber. He caught sight of Gemma, caught sight
+of Sanin, and with a sort of inward snort and a backward bend of his
+supple figure, he advanced with a dashing swing to meet them. Sanin
+felt a pang; but glancing at Klüber's face, to which its owner
+endeavoured, as far as in him lay, to give an expression of scornful
+amazement, and even commiseration, glancing at that red-cheeked,
+vulgar face, he felt a sudden rush of anger, and took a step forward.
+
+Gemma seized his arm, and with quiet decision, giving him hers, she
+looked her former betrothed full in the face.... The latter screwed up
+his face, shrugged his shoulders, shuffled to one side, and muttering
+between his teeth, 'The usual end to the song!' (Das alte Ende vom
+Liede!)--walked away with the same dashing, slightly skipping gait.
+
+'What did he say, the wretched creature?' asked Sanin, and would have
+rushed after Klüber; but Gemma held him back and walked on with him,
+not taking away the arm she had slipped into his.
+
+The Rosellis' shop came into sight. Gemma stopped once more.
+
+'Dimitri, Monsieur Dimitri,' she said, 'we are not there yet, we have
+not seen mamma yet.... If you would rather think a little, if ... you
+are still free, Dimitri!'
+
+In reply Sanin pressed her hand tightly to his bosom, and drew her on.
+
+'Mamma,' said Gemma, going with Sanin to the room where Frau Lenore
+was sitting, 'I have brought the real one!'
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+If Gemma had announced that she had brought with her cholera or death
+itself, one can hardly imagine that Frau Lenore could have received
+the news with greater despair. She immediately sat down in a corner,
+with her face to the wall, and burst into floods of tears, positively
+wailed, for all the world like a Russian peasant woman on the grave of
+her husband or her son. For the first minute Gemma was so taken aback
+that she did not even go up to her mother, but stood still like a
+statue in the middle of the room; while Sanin was utterly stupefied,
+to the point of almost bursting into tears himself! For a whole hour
+that inconsolable wail went on--a whole hour! Pantaleone thought it
+better to shut the outer door of the shop, so that no stranger should
+come; luckily, it was still early. The old man himself did not know
+what to think, and in any case, did not approve of the haste with
+which Gemma and Sanin had acted; he could not bring himself to blame
+them, and was prepared to give them his support in case of need:
+he greatly disliked Klüber! Emil regarded himself as the medium of
+communication between his friend and his sister, and almost prided
+himself on its all having turned out so splendidly! He was positively
+unable to conceive why Frau Lenore was so upset, and in his heart he
+decided on the spot that women, even the best of them, suffer from a
+lack of reasoning power! Sanin fared worst of all. Frau Lenore rose to
+a howl and waved him off with her hands, directly he approached her;
+and it was in vain that he attempted once or twice to shout aloud,
+standing at a distance, 'I ask you for your daughter's hand!' Frau
+Lenore was particularly angry with herself. 'How could she have been
+so blind--have seen nothing? Had my Giovann' Battista been alive,'
+she persisted through her tears, 'nothing of this sort would have
+happened!' 'Heavens, what's it all about?' thought Sanin; 'why, it's
+positively senseless!' He did not dare to look at Gemma, nor could she
+pluck up courage to lift her eyes to him. She restricted herself to
+waiting patiently on her mother, who at first repelled even her....
+
+At last, by degrees, the storm abated. Frau Lenore gave over weeping,
+permitted Gemma to bring her out of the corner, where she sat huddled
+up, to put her into an arm-chair near the window, and to give her some
+orange-flower water to drink. She permitted Sanin--not to approach
+... oh, no!--but, at any rate, to remain in the room--she had kept
+clamouring for him to go away--and did not interrupt him when he
+spoke. Sanin immediately availed himself of the calm as it set in, and
+displayed an astounding eloquence. He could hardly have explained his
+intentions and emotions with more fire and persuasive force even to
+Gemma herself. Those emotions were of the sincerest, those intentions
+were of the purest, like Almaviva's in the _Barber of Seville_. He
+did not conceal from Frau Lenore nor from himself the disadvantageous
+side of those intentions; but the disadvantages were only apparent!
+It is true he was a foreigner; they had not known him long, they knew
+nothing positive about himself or his means; but he was prepared to
+bring forward all the necessary evidence that he was a respectable
+person and not poor; he would refer them to the most unimpeachable
+testimony of his fellow-countrymen! He hoped Gemma would be happy with
+him, and that he would be able to make up to her for the separation
+from her own people!... The allusion to 'separation'--the mere word
+'separation'--almost spoiled the whole business.... Frau Lenore began
+to tremble all over and move about uneasily.... Sanin hastened to
+observe that the separation would only be temporary, and that, in
+fact, possibly it would not take place at all!
+
+Sanin's eloquence was not thrown away. Frau Lenore began to glance at
+him, though still with bitterness and reproach, no longer with the
+same aversion and fury; then she suffered him to come near her, and
+even to sit down beside her (Gemma was sitting on the other side);
+then she fell to reproaching him,--not in looks only, but in words,
+which already indicated a certain softening of heart; she fell to
+complaining, and her complaints became quieter and gentler; they were
+interspersed with questions addressed at one time to her daughter, and
+at another to Sanin; then she suffered him to take her hand and did
+not at once pull it away ... then she wept again, but her tears were
+now quite of another kind.... Then she smiled mournfully, and lamented
+the absence of Giovanni Battista, but quite on different grounds from
+before.... An instant more and the two criminals, Sanin and Gemma,
+were on their knees at her feet, and she was laying her hands on their
+heads in turn; another instant and they were embracing and kissing
+her, and Emil, his face beaming rapturously, ran into the room and
+added himself to the group so warmly united.
+
+Pantaleone peeped into the room, smiled and frowned at the same time,
+and going into the shop, opened the front door.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+The transition from despair to sadness, and from that to 'gentle
+resignation,' was accomplished fairly quickly in Frau Lenore; but
+that gentle resignation, too, was not slow in changing into a
+secret satisfaction, which was, however, concealed in every way and
+suppressed for the sake of appearances. Sanin had won Frau Lenore's
+heart from the first day of their acquaintance; as she got used to
+the idea of his being her son-in-law, she found nothing particularly
+distasteful in it, though she thought it her duty to preserve
+a somewhat hurt, or rather careworn, expression on her face.
+Besides, everything that had happened the last few days had been so
+extraordinary.... One thing upon the top of another. As a practical
+woman and a mother, Frau Lenore considered it her duty also to put
+Sanin through various questions; and Sanin, who, on setting out that
+morning to meet Gemma, had not a notion that he should marry her--it
+is true he did not think of anything at all at that time, but simply
+gave himself up to the current of his passion--Sanin entered, with
+perfect readiness, one might even say with zeal, into his part--the
+part of the betrothed lover, and answered all her inquiries
+circumstantially, exactly, with alacrity. When she had satisfied
+herself that he was a real nobleman by birth, and had even expressed
+some surprise that he was not a prince, Frau Lenore assumed a serious
+air and 'warned him betimes' that she should be quite unceremoniously
+frank with him, as she was forced to be so by her sacred duty as a
+mother! To which Sanin replied that he expected nothing else from her,
+and that he earnestly begged her not to spare him!
+
+Then Frau Lenore observed that Herr Klüber--as she uttered the name,
+she sighed faintly, tightened her lips, and hesitated--Herr Klüber,
+Gemma's former betrothed, already possessed an income of eight
+thousand guldens, and that with every year this sum would rapidly be
+increased; and what was his, Herr Sanin's income? 'Eight thousand
+guldens,' Sanin repeated deliberately.... 'That's in our money ...
+about fifteen thousand roubles.... My income is much smaller. I have
+a small estate in the province of Tula.... With good management, it
+might yield--and, in fact, it could not fail to yield--five or six
+thousand ... and if I go into the government service, I can easily get
+a salary of two thousand a year.'
+
+'Into the service in Russia?' cried Frau Lenore, 'Then I must part
+with Gemma!'
+
+'One might be able to enter in the diplomatic service,' Sanin put
+in; 'I have some connections.... There one's duties lie abroad. Or
+else, this is what one might do, and that's much the best of all:
+sell my estate and employ the sum received for it in some profitable
+undertaking; for instance, the improvement of your shop.' Sanin was
+aware that he was saying something absurd, but he was possessed by an
+incomprehensible recklessness! He looked at Gemma, who, ever since
+the 'practical' conversation began, kept getting up, walking about
+the room, and sitting down again--he looked at her--and no obstacle
+existed for him, and he was ready to arrange everything at once in the
+best way, if only she were not troubled!
+
+'Herr Klüber, too, had intended to give me a small sum for the
+improvement of the shop,' Lenore observed after a slight hesitation.
+
+'Mother! for mercy's sake, mother!' cried Gemma in Italian.
+
+'These things must be discussed in good time, my daughter,' Frau
+Lenore replied in the same language. She addressed herself again to
+Sanin, and began questioning him as to the laws existing in Russia
+as to marriage, and whether there were no obstacles to contracting
+marriages with Catholics as in Prussia. (At that time, in 1840,
+all Germany still remembered the controversy between the Prussian
+Government and the Archbishop of Cologne upon mixed marriages.)
+When Frau Lenore heard that by marrying a Russian nobleman, her
+daughter would herself become of noble rank, she evinced a certain
+satisfaction. 'But, of course, you will first have to go to Russia?'
+
+'Why?'
+
+'Why? Why, to obtain the permission of your Tsar.'
+
+Sanin explained to her that that was not at all necessary ... but that
+he might certainly have to go to Russia for a very short time before
+his marriage--(he said these words, and his heart ached painfully,
+Gemma watching him, knew it was aching, and blushed and grew
+dreamy)--and that he would try to take advantage of being in his own
+country to sell his estate ... in any case he would bring back the
+money needed.
+
+'I would ask you to bring me back some good Astrakhan lambskin for
+a cape,' said Frau Lenore. 'They're wonderfully good, I hear, and
+wonderfully cheap!'
+
+'Certainly, with the greatest pleasure, I will bring some for you and
+for Gemma!' cried Sanin.
+
+'And for me a morocco cap worked in silver,' Emil interposed, putting
+his head in from the next room.
+
+'Very well, I will bring it you ... and some slippers for Pantaleone.'
+
+'Come, that's nonsense, nonsense,' observed Frau Lenore. 'We are
+talking now of serious matters. But there's another point,' added the
+practical lady. 'You talk of selling your estate. But how will you do
+that? Will you sell your peasants then, too?'
+
+Sanin felt something like a stab at his heart. He remembered that in
+a conversation with Signora Roselli and her daughter about serfdom,
+which, in his own words, aroused his deepest indignation, he had
+repeatedly assured them that never on any account would he sell his
+peasants, as he regarded such a sale as an immoral act.
+
+'I will try and sell my estate to some man I know something of,'
+he articulated, not without faltering, 'or perhaps the peasants
+themselves will want to buy their freedom.'
+
+'That would be best of all,' Frau Lenore agreed. 'Though indeed
+selling live people ...'
+
+'_Barbari_!' grumbled Pantaleone, who showed himself behind Emil in
+the doorway, shook his topknot, and vanished.
+
+'It's a bad business!' Sanin thought to himself, and stole a look
+at Gemma. She seemed not to have heard his last words. 'Well, never
+mind!' he thought again. In this way the practical talk continued
+almost uninterruptedly till dinner-time. Frau Lenore was completely
+softened at last, and already called Sanin 'Dimitri,' shook her finger
+affectionately at him, and promised she would punish him for his
+treachery. She asked many and minute questions about his relations,
+because 'that too is very important'; asked him to describe the
+ceremony of marriage as performed by the ritual of the Russian Church,
+and was in raptures already at Gemma in a white dress, with a gold
+crown on her head.
+
+'She's as lovely as a queen,' she murmured with motherly pride,'
+indeed there's no queen like her in the world!'
+
+'There is no one like Gemma in the world!' Sanin chimed in.
+
+'Yes; that's why she is Gemma!' (Gemma, as every one knows, means in
+Italian a precious stone.)
+
+Gemma flew to kiss her mother.... It seemed as if only then she
+breathed freely again, and the load that had been oppressing her
+dropped from off her soul.
+
+Sanin felt all at once so happy, his heart was filled with such
+childish gaiety at the thought, that here, after all, the dreams had
+come true to which he had abandoned himself not long ago in these very
+rooms, his whole being was in such a turmoil that he went quickly
+out into the shop. He felt a great desire, come what might, to sell
+something in the shop, as he had done a few days before.... 'I have a
+full right to do so now!' he felt. 'Why, I am one of the family now!'
+And he actually stood behind the counter, and actually kept shop, that
+is, sold two little girls, who came in, a pound of sweets, giving them
+fully two pounds, and only taking half the price from them.
+
+At dinner he received an official position, as betrothed, beside
+Gemma. Frau Lenore pursued her practical investigations. Emil kept
+laughing and urging Sanin to take him with him to Russia. It was
+decided that Sanin should set off in a fortnight. Only Pantaleone
+showed a somewhat sullen face, so much so that Frau Lenore reproached
+him. 'And he was his second!' Pantaleone gave her a glance from under
+his brows.
+
+Gemma was silent almost all the time, but her face had never been
+lovelier or brighter. After dinner she called Sanin out a minute into
+the garden, and stopping beside the very garden-seat where she had
+been sorting the cherries two days before, she said to him. 'Dimitri,
+don't be angry with me; but I must remind you once more that you are
+not to consider yourself bound ...'
+
+He did not let her go on....
+
+Gemma turned away her face. 'And as for what mamma spoke of, do you
+remember, the difference of our religion--see here!...'
+
+She snatched the garnet cross that hung round her neck on a thin cord,
+gave it a violent tug, snapped the cord, and handed him the cross.
+
+'If I am yours, your faith is my faith!' Sanin's eyes were still wet
+when he went back with Gemma into the house.
+
+By the evening everything went on in its accustomed way. They even
+played a game of _tresette_.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+Sanin woke up very early. He found himself at the highest pinnacle of
+human happiness; but it was not that prevented him from sleeping; the
+question, the vital, fateful question--how he could dispose of his
+estate as quickly and as advantageously as possible--disturbed his
+rest. The most diverse plans were mixed up in his head, but nothing
+had as yet come out clearly. He went out of the house to get air and
+freshen himself. He wanted to present himself to Gemma with a project
+ready prepared and not without.
+
+What was the figure, somewhat ponderous and thick in the legs, but
+well-dressed, walking in front of him, with a slight roll and waddle
+in his gait? Where had he seen that head, covered with tufts of flaxen
+hair, and as it were set right into the shoulders, that soft cushiony
+back, those plump arms hanging straight down at his sides? Could it be
+Polozov, his old schoolfellow, whom he had lost sight of for the last
+five years? Sanin overtook the figure walking in front of him, turned
+round.... A broad, yellowish face, little pig's eyes, with white
+lashes and eyebrows, a short flat nose, thick lips that looked glued
+together, a round smooth chin, and that expression, sour, sluggish,
+and mistrustful--yes; it was he, it was Ippolit Polozov!
+
+'Isn't my lucky star working for me again?' flashed through Sanin's
+mind.
+
+'Polozov! Ippolit Sidorovitch! Is it you?'
+
+The figure stopped, raised his diminutive eyes, waited a little, and
+ungluing his lips at last, brought out in a rather hoarse falsetto,
+'Dimitri Sanin?'
+
+'That's me!' cried Sanin, and he shook one of Polozov's hands; arrayed
+in tight kid-gloves of an ashen-grey colour, they hung as lifeless as
+before beside his barrel-shaped legs. 'Have you been here long? Where
+have you come from? Where are you stopping?'
+
+'I came yesterday from Wiesbaden,' Polozov replied in deliberate
+tones, 'to do some shopping for my wife, and I'm going back to
+Wiesbaden to-day.'
+
+'Oh, yes! You're married, to be sure, and they say, to such a beauty!'
+
+Polozov turned his eyes away. 'Yes, they say so.'
+
+Sanin laughed. 'I see you're just the same ... as phlegmatic as you
+were at school.'
+
+'Why should I be different?'
+
+'And they do say,' Sanin added with special emphasis on the word 'do,'
+'that your wife is very rich.'
+
+'They say that too.'
+
+'Do you mean to say, Ippolit Sidorovitch, you are not certain on that
+point?'
+
+'I don't meddle, my dear Dimitri ... Pavlovitch? Yes, Pavlovitch!--in
+my wife's affairs.'
+
+'You don't meddle? Not in any of her affairs?'
+
+Polozov again shifted his eyes. 'Not in any, my boy. She does as she
+likes, and so do I.'
+
+'Where are you going now?' Sanin inquired.
+
+'I'm not going anywhere just now; I'm standing in the street and
+talking to you; but when we've finished talking, I'm going back to my
+hotel, and am going to have lunch.'
+
+'Would you care for my company?'
+
+'You mean at lunch?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Delighted, it's much pleasanter to eat in company. You're not a great
+talker, are you?'
+
+'I think not.'
+
+'So much the better.'
+
+Polozov went on. Sanin walked beside him. And Sanin
+speculated--Polozov's lips were glued together, again he snorted
+heavily, and waddled along in silence--Sanin speculated in what way
+had this booby succeeded in catching a rich and beautiful wife. He
+was not rich himself, nor distinguished, nor clever; at school he had
+passed for a dull, slow-witted boy, sleepy, and greedy, and had borne
+the nickname 'driveller.' It was marvellous!
+
+'But if his wife is very rich, they say she's the daughter of some
+sort of a contractor, won't she buy my estate? Though he does say he
+doesn't interfere in any of his wife's affairs, that passes belief,
+really! Besides, I will name a moderate, reasonable price! Why not
+try? Perhaps, it's all my lucky star.... Resolved! I'll have a try!'
+
+Polozov led Sanin to one of the best hotels in Frankfort, in which
+he was, of course, occupying the best apartments. On the tables and
+chairs lay piles of packages, cardboard boxes, and parcels. 'All
+purchases, my boy, for Maria Nikolaevna!' (that was the name of the
+wife of Ippolit Sidorovitch). Polozov dropped into an arm-chair,
+groaned, 'Oh, the heat!' and loosened his cravat. Then he rang up the
+head-waiter, and ordered with intense care a very lavish luncheon.
+'And at one, the carriage is to be ready! Do you hear, at one o'clock
+sharp!'
+
+The head-waiter obsequiously bowed, and cringingly withdrew.
+
+Polozov unbuttoned his waistcoat. From the very way in which he raised
+his eyebrows, gasped, and wrinkled up his nose, one could see that
+talking would be a great labour to him, and that he was waiting in
+some trepidation to see whether Sanin was going to oblige him to
+use his tongue, or whether he would take the task of keeping up the
+conversation on himself.
+
+Sanin understood his companion's disposition of mind, and so he did
+not burden him with questions; he restricted himself to the most
+essential. He learnt that he had been for two years in the service (in
+the Uhlans! how nice he must have looked in the short uniform jacket!)
+that he had married three years before, and had now been for two years
+abroad with his wife, 'who is now undergoing some sort of cure at
+Wiesbaden,' and was then going to Paris. On his side too, Sanin did
+not enlarge much on his past life and his plans; he went straight to
+the principal point--that is, he began talking of his intention of
+selling his estate.
+
+Polozov listened to him in silence, his eyes straying from time to
+time to the door, by which the luncheon was to appear. The luncheon
+did appear at last. The head-waiter, accompanied by two other
+attendants, brought in several dishes under silver covers.
+
+'Is the property in the Tula province?' said Polozov, seating himself
+at the table, and tucking a napkin into his shirt collar.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'In the Efremovsky district ... I know it.'
+
+'Do you know my place, Aleksyevka?' Sanin asked, sitting down too at
+the table.
+
+'Yes, I know it.' Polozov thrust in his mouth a piece of omelette
+with truffles. 'Maria Nikolaevna, my wife, has an estate in that
+neighbourhood.... Uncork that bottle, waiter! You've a good piece of
+land, only your peasants have cut down the timber. Why are you selling
+it?'
+
+'I want the money, my friend. I would sell it cheap. Come, you might
+as well buy it ... by the way.'
+
+Polozov gulped down a glass of wine, wiped his lips with the napkin,
+and again set to work chewing slowly and noisily.
+
+'Oh,' he enunciated at last.... 'I don't go in for buying estates;
+I've no capital. Pass the butter. Perhaps my wife now would buy it.
+You talk to her about it. If you don't ask too much, she's not above
+thinking of that.... What asses these Germans are, really! They can't
+cook fish. What could be simpler, one wonders? And yet they go on
+about "uniting the Fatherland." Waiter, take away that beastly stuff!'
+
+'Does your wife really manage ... business matters herself?' Sanin
+inquired.
+
+'Yes. Try the cutlets--they're good. I can recommend them. I've told
+you already, Dimitri Pavlovitch, I don't interfere in any of my wife's
+concerns, and I tell you so again.'
+
+Polozov went on munching.
+
+'H'm.... But how can I have a talk with her, Ippolit Sidorovitch?'
+
+'It's very simple, Dimitri Pavlovitch. Go to Wiesbaden. It's not far
+from here. Waiter, haven't you any English mustard? No? Brutes! Only
+don't lose any time. We're starting the day after to-morrow. Let me
+pour you out a glass of wine; it's wine with a bouquet--no vinegary
+stuff.'
+
+Polozov's face was flushed and animated; it was never animated but
+when he was eating--or drinking.
+
+'Really, I don't know, how that could be managed,' Sanin muttered.
+
+'But what makes you in such a hurry about it all of a sudden?'
+
+'There is a reason for being in a hurry, brother.'
+
+'And do you need a lot of money?'
+
+'Yes, a lot. I ... how can I tell you? I propose ... getting married.'
+
+Polozov set the glass he had been lifting to his lips on the table.
+
+'Getting married!' he articulated in a voice thick with astonishment,
+and he folded his podgy hands on his stomach. 'So suddenly?'
+
+'Yes ... soon.'
+
+'Your intended is in Russia, of course?'
+
+'No, not in Russia.'
+
+'Where then?'
+
+'Here in Frankfort.'
+
+'And who is she?'
+
+'A German; that is, no--an Italian. A resident here.'
+
+'With a fortune?'
+
+'No, without a fortune.'
+
+'Then I suppose your love is very ardent?'
+
+'How absurd you are! Yes, very ardent.'
+
+'And it's for that you must have money?'
+
+'Well, yes ... yes, yes.'
+
+Polozov gulped down his wine, rinsed his mouth, and washed his hands,
+carefully wiped them on the napkin, took out and lighted a cigar.
+Sanin watched him in silence.
+
+'There's one means,' Polozov grunted at last, throwing his head back,
+and blowing out the smoke in a thin ring. 'Go to my wife. If she
+likes, she can take all the bother off your hands.'
+
+'But how can I see your wife? You say you are starting the day after
+to-morrow?'
+
+Polozov closed his eyes.
+
+'I'll tell you what,' he said at last, rolling the cigar in his lips,
+and sighing. 'Go home, get ready as quick as you can, and come here.
+At one o'clock I am going, there's plenty of room in my carriage. I'll
+take you with me. That's the best plan. And now I'm going to have a
+nap. I must always have a nap, brother, after a meal. Nature demands
+it, and I won't go against it And don't you disturb me.'
+
+Sanin thought and thought, and suddenly raised his head; he had made
+up his mind.
+
+'Very well, agreed, and thank you. At half-past twelve I'll be
+here, and we'll go together to Wiesbaden. I hope your wife won't be
+angry....'
+
+But Polozov was already snoring. He muttered, 'Don't disturb me!' gave
+a kick, and fell asleep, like a baby.
+
+Sanin once more scanned his clumsy figure, his head, his neck, his
+upturned chin, round as an apple, and going out of the hotel, set off
+with rapid strides to the Rosellis' shop. He had to let Gemma know.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+He found her in the shop with her mother. Frau Lenore was stooping
+down, measuring with a big folding foot-rule the space between the
+windows. On seeing Sanin, she stood up, and greeted him cheerfully,
+though with a shade of embarrassment.
+
+'What you said yesterday,' she began, 'has set my head in a whirl with
+ideas as to how we could improve our shop. Here, I fancy we might put
+a couple of cupboards with shelves of looking-glass. You know, that's
+the fashion nowadays. And then ...'
+
+'Excellent, excellent,' Sanin broke in, 'we must think it all over....
+But come here, I want to tell you something.' He took Frau Lenpre and
+Gemma by the arm, and led them into the next room. Frau Lenore was
+alarmed, and the foot-rule slipped out of her hands. Gemma too was
+almost frightened, but she took an intent look at Sanin, and was
+reassured. His face, though preoccupied, expressed at the same time
+keen self-confidence and determination. He asked both the women to sit
+down, while he remained standing before them, and gesticulating with
+his hands and ruffling up his hair, he told them all his story; his
+meeting with Polozov, his proposed expedition to Wiesbaden, the chance
+of selling the estate. 'Imagine my happiness,' he cried in conclusion:
+'things have taken such a turn that I may even, perhaps, not have
+to go to Russia! And we can have our wedding much sooner than I had
+anticipated!'
+
+'When must you go?' asked Gemma.
+
+'To-day, in an hour's time; my friend has ordered a carriage--he will
+take me.'
+
+'You will write to us?'
+
+'At once! directly I have had a talk with this lady, I will write.'
+
+'This lady, you say, is very rich?' queried the practical Frau Lenore.
+
+'Exceedingly rich! her father was a millionaire, and he left
+everything to her.'
+
+'Everything--to her alone? Well, that's so much the better for you.
+Only mind, don't let your property go too cheap! Be sensible and
+firm. Don't let yourself be carried away! I understand your wishing
+to be Gemma's husband as soon as possible ... but prudence before
+everything! Don't forget: the better price you get for your estate,
+the more there will be for you two, and for your children.'
+
+Gemma turned away, and Sanin gave another wave of his hand. 'You can
+rely on my prudence, Frau Lenore! Indeed, I shan't do any bargaining
+with her. I shall tell her the fair price; if she'll give it--good; if
+not, let her go.'
+
+'Do you know her--this lady?' asked Gemma.
+
+'I have never seen her.'
+
+'And when will you come back?'
+
+'If our negotiations come to nothing--the day after to-morrow; if they
+turn out favourably, perhaps I may have to stay a day or two longer.
+In any case I shall not linger a minute beyond what's necessary. I am
+leaving my heart here, you know! But I have said what I had to say to
+you, and I must run home before setting off too.... Give me your hand
+for luck, Frau Lenore--that's what we always do in Russia.'
+
+'The right or the left?'
+
+'The left, it's nearer the heart. I shall reappear the day after
+to-morrow with my shield or on it! Something tells me I shall come
+back in triumph! Good-bye, my good dear ones....'
+
+He embraced and kissed Frau Lenore, but he asked Gemma to follow him
+into her room--for just a minute--as he must tell her something of
+great importance. He simply wanted to say good-bye to her alone. Frau
+Lenore saw that, and felt no curiosity as to the matter of such great
+importance.
+
+Sanin had never been in Gemma's room before. All the magic of love,
+all its fire and rapture and sweet terror, seemed to flame up and
+burst into his soul, directly he crossed its sacred threshold.... He
+cast a look of tenderness about him, fell at the sweet girl's feet and
+pressed his face against her waist....
+
+'You are mine,' she whispered: 'you will be back soon?'
+
+'I am yours. I will come back,' he declared, catching his breath.
+
+'I shall be longing for you back, my dear one!'
+
+A few instants later Sanin was running along the street to his
+lodging. He did not even notice that Pantaleone, all dishevelled, had
+darted out of the shop-door after him, and was shouting something to
+him and was shaking, as though in menace, his lifted hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Exactly at a quarter to one Sanin presented himself before Polozov.
+The carriage with four horses was already standing at the hotel gates.
+On seeing Sanin, Polozov merely commented, 'Oh! you've made up your
+mind?' and putting on his hat, cloak, and over-shoes, and stuffing
+cotton-wool into his ears, though it was summer-time, went out on to
+the steps. The waiters, by his directions, disposed all his numerous
+purchases in the inside of the carriage, lined the place where he
+was to sit with silk cushions, bags, and bundles, put a hamper of
+provisions for his feet to rest on, and tied a trunk on to the box.
+Polozov paid with a liberal hand, and supported by the deferential
+door-keeper, whose face was still respectful, though he was unseen
+behind him, he climbed gasping into the carriage, sat down,
+disarranged everything about him thoroughly, took out and lighted a
+cigar, and only then extended a finger to Sanin, as though to say,
+'Get in, you too!' Sanin placed himself beside him. Polozov sent
+orders by the door-keeper to the postillion to drive carefully--if he
+wanted drinks; the carriage steps grated, the doors slammed, and the
+carriage rolled off.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+It takes less than an hour in these days by rail from Frankfort to
+Wiesbaden; at that time the extra post did it in three hours. They
+changed horses five times. Part of the time Polozov dozed and part of
+the time he simply shook from side to side, holding a cigar in his
+teeth; he talked very little; he did not once look out of the window;
+picturesque views did not interest them; he even announced that
+'nature was the death of him!' Sanin did not speak either, nor did he
+admire the scenery; he had no thought for it. He was all absorbed in
+reflections and memories. At the stations Polozov paid with exactness,
+took the time by his watch, and tipped the postillions--more or
+less--according to their zeal. When they had gone half way, he took
+two oranges out of the hamper of edibles, and choosing out the better,
+offered the other to Sanin. Sanin looked steadily at his companion,
+and suddenly burst out laughing.
+
+'What are you laughing at?' the latter inquired, very carefully
+peeling his orange with his short white nails.
+
+'What at?' repeated Sanin. 'Why, at our journey together.'
+
+'What about it?' Polozov inquired again, dropping into his mouth one
+of the longitudinal sections into which an orange parts.
+
+'It's so very strange. Yesterday I must confess I thought no more of
+you than of the Emperor of China, and to-day I'm driving with you to
+sell my estate to your wife, of whom, too, I have not the slightest
+idea.'
+
+'Anything may happen,' responded Polozov. 'When you've lived a bit
+longer, you won't be surprised at anything. For instance, can you
+fancy me riding as an orderly officer? But I did, and the Grand Duke
+Mihail Pavlovitch gave the order, 'Trot! let him trot, that fat
+cornet! Trot now! Look sharp!'
+
+Sanin scratched behind his ear.
+
+'Tell me, please, Ippolit Sidorovitch, what is your wife like? What is
+her character? It's very necessary for me to know that, you see.'
+
+'It was very well for him to shout, "Trot!"' Polozov went on with
+sudden vehemence, 'But me! how about me? I thought to myself, "You
+can take your honours and epaulettes--and leave me in peace!" But ...
+you asked about my wife? What my wife is? A person like any one else.
+Don't wear your heart upon your sleeve with her--she doesn't like
+that. The great thing is to talk a lot to her ... something for her to
+laugh at. Tell her about your love, or something ... but make it more
+amusing, you know.'
+
+'How more amusing?'
+
+'Oh, you told me, you know, that you were in love, wanting to get
+married. Well, then, describe that.'
+
+Sanin was offended. 'What do you find laughable in that?'
+
+Polozov only rolled his eyes. The juice from the orange was trickling
+down his chin.
+
+'Was it your wife sent you to Frankfort to shop for her?' asked Sanin
+after a short time.
+
+'Yes, it was she.'
+
+'What are the purchases?'
+
+'Toys, of course.'
+
+'Toys? have you any children?'
+
+Polozov positively moved away from Sanin.
+
+'That's likely! What do I want with children? Feminine fallals ...
+finery. For the toilet.'
+
+'Do you mean to say you understand such things?'
+
+'To be sure I do.'
+
+'But didn't you tell me you didn't interfere in any of your wife's
+affairs?'
+
+'I don't in any other. But this ... is no consequence. To pass the
+time--one may do it. And my wife has confidence in my taste. And I'm a
+first-rate hand at bargaining.'
+
+Polozov began to speak by jerks; he was exhausted already. 'And is
+your wife very rich?'
+
+'Rich; yes, rather! Only she keeps the most of it for herself.'
+
+'But I expect you can't complain either?'
+
+'Well, I'm her husband. I'm hardly likely not to get some benefit from
+it! And I'm of use to her. With me she can do just as she likes! I'm
+easy-going!'
+
+Polozov wiped his face with a silk handkerchief and puffed painfully,
+as though to say, 'Have mercy on me; don't force me to utter another
+word. You see how hard it is for me.'
+
+Sanin left him in peace, and again sank into meditation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hotel in Wiesbaden, before which the carriage stopped, was exactly
+like a palace. Bells were promptly set ringing in its inmost recesses;
+a fuss and bustle arose; men of good appearance in black frock-coats
+skipped out at the principal entrance; a door-keeper who was a blaze
+of gold opened the carriage doors with a flourish.
+
+Like some triumphant general Polozov alighted and began to ascend a
+staircase strewn with rugs and smelling of agreeable perfumes. To
+him flew up another man, also very well dressed but with a Russian
+face--his valet. Polozov observed to him that for the future he
+should always take him everywhere with him, for the night before at
+Frankfort, he, Polozov, had been left for the night without hot water!
+The valet portrayed his horror on his face, and bending down quickly,
+took off his master's goloshes.
+
+'Is Maria Nikolaevna at home?' inquired Polozov.
+
+'Yes, sir. Madam is pleased to be dressing. Madam is pleased to be
+dining to-night at the Countess Lasunsky's.'
+
+'Ah! there?... Stay! There are things there in the carriage; get them
+all yourself and bring them up. And you, Dmitri Pavlovitch,' added
+Polozov, 'take a room for yourself and come in in three-quarters of an
+hour. We will dine together.'
+
+Polozov waddled off, while Sanin asked for an inexpensive room for
+himself; and after setting his attire to rights, and resting a
+little, he repaired to the immense apartment occupied by his Serenity
+(Durchlaucht) Prince von Polozov.
+
+He found this 'prince' enthroned in a luxurious velvet arm-chair in
+the middle of a most magnificent drawing-room. Sanin's phlegmatic
+friend had already had time to have a bath and to array himself in a
+most sumptuous satin dressing-gown; he had put a crimson fez on his
+head. Sanin approached him and scrutinised him for some time. Polozov
+was sitting rigid as an idol; he did not even turn his face in his
+direction, did not even move an eyebrow, did not utter a sound. It was
+truly a sublime spectacle! After having admired him for a couple of
+minutes, Sanin was on the point of speaking, of breaking this hallowed
+silence, when suddenly the door from the next room was thrown open,
+and in the doorway appeared a young and beautiful lady in a white
+silk dress trimmed with black lace, and with diamonds on her arms and
+neck--Maria Nikolaevna Polozov. Her thick fair hair fell on both sides
+of her head, braided, but not fastened up into a knot.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+'Ah, I beg your pardon!' she said with a smile half-embarrassed,
+half-ironical, instantly taking hold of one end of a plait of her hair
+and fastening on Sanin her large, grey, clear eyes.
+
+'I did not think you had come yet.'
+
+'Sanin, Dmitri Pavlovitch--known him from a boy,' observed Polozov, as
+before not turning towards him and not getting up, but pointing at him
+with one finger.
+
+'Yes.... I know.... You told me before. Very glad to make your
+acquaintance. But I wanted to ask you, Ippolit Sidorovitch.... My maid
+seems to have lost her senses to-day ...'
+
+'To do your hair up?'
+
+'Yes, yes, please. I beg your pardon,' Maria Nikolaevna repeated with
+the same smile. She nodded to Sanin, and turning swiftly, vanished
+through the doorway, leaving behind her a fleeting but graceful
+impression of a charming neck, exquisite shoulders, an exquisite
+figure.
+
+Polozov got up, and rolling ponderously, went out by the same door.
+
+Sanin did not doubt for a single second that his presence in 'Prince
+Polozov's' drawing-room was a fact perfectly well known to its
+mistress; the whole point of her entry had been the display of her
+hair, which was certainly beautiful. Sanin was inwardly delighted
+indeed at this freak on the part of Madame Polozov; if, he thought,
+she is anxious to impress me, to dazzle me, perhaps, who knows, she
+will be accommodating about the price of the estate. His heart was so
+full of Gemma that all other women had absolutely no significance for
+him; he hardly noticed them; and this time he went no further than
+thinking, 'Yes, it was the truth they told me; that lady's really
+magnificent to look at!'
+
+But had he not been in such an exceptional state of mind he would most
+likely have expressed himself differently; Maria Nikolaevna Polozov,
+by birth Kolishkin, was a very striking personality. And not that she
+was of a beauty to which no exception could be taken; traces of her
+plebeian origin were rather clearly apparent in her. Her forehead was
+low, her nose rather fleshy and turned up; she could boast neither
+of the delicacy of her skin nor of the elegance of her hands and
+feet--but what did all that matter? Any one meeting her would not,
+to use Pushkin's words, have stood still before 'the holy shrine of
+beauty,' but before the sorcery of a half-Russian, half-Gipsy woman's
+body in its full flower and full power ... and he would have been
+nothing loath to stand still!
+
+But Gemma's image preserved Sanin like the three-fold armour of which
+the poets sing.
+
+Ten minutes later Maria Nikolaevna appeared again, escorted by her
+husband. She went up to Sanin ... and her walk was such that some
+eccentrics of that--alas!--already, distant day, were simply crazy
+over her walk alone. 'That woman, when she comes towards one, seems as
+though she is bringing all the happiness of one's life to meet one,'
+one of them used to say. She went up to Sanin, and holding out her
+hand to him, said in her caressing and, as it were, subdued voice in
+Russian, 'You will wait for me, won't you? I'll be back soon.'
+
+Sanin bowed respectfully, while Maria Nikolaevna vanished behind the
+curtain over the outside door; and as she vanished turned her head
+back over her shoulder, and smiled again, and again left behind her
+the same impression of grace.
+
+When she smiled, not one and not two, but three dimples came out on
+each cheek, and her eyes smiled more than her lips--long, crimson,
+juicy lips with two tiny moles on the left side of them.
+
+Polozov waddled into the room and again established himself in the
+arm-chair. He was speechless as before; but from time to time a queer
+smile puffed out his colourless and already wrinkled cheeks. He looked
+like an old man, though he was only three years older than Sanin.
+
+The dinner with which he regaled his guest would of course have
+satisfied the most exacting gourmand, but to Sanin it seemed endless,
+insupportable! Polozov ate slowly, 'with feeling, with judgment,
+with deliberation,' bending attentively over his plate, and sniffing
+at almost every morsel. First he rinsed his mouth with wine, then
+swallowed it and smacked his lips.... Over the roast meat he suddenly
+began to talk--but of what? Of merino sheep, of which he was intending
+to order a whole flock, and in such detail, with such tenderness,
+using all the while endearing pet names for them. After drinking a cup
+of coffee, hot to boiling point (he had several times in a voice of
+tearful irritation mentioned to the waiter that he had been served the
+evening before with coffee, cold--cold as ice!) and bitten off the end
+of a Havannah cigar with his crooked yellow teeth, he dropped off, as
+his habit was, into a nap, to the intense delight of Sanin, who began
+walking up and down with noiseless steps on the soft carpet, and
+dreaming of his life with Gemma and of what news he would bring back
+to her. Polozov, however, awoke, as he remarked himself, earlier than
+usual--he had slept only an hour and a half--and after drinking a
+glass of iced seltzer water, and swallowing eight spoonfuls of jam,
+Russian jam, which his valet brought him in a dark-green genuine
+'Kiev' jar, and without which, in his own words, he could not live,
+he stared with his swollen eyes at Sanin and asked him wouldn't he
+like to play a game of 'fools' with him. Sanin agreed readily; he
+was afraid that Polozov would begin talking again about lambs and
+ewes and fat tails. The host and the visitor both adjourned to the
+drawing-room, the waiter brought in the cards, and the game began,
+not,--of course, for money.
+
+At this innocent diversion Maria Nikolaevna found them on her return
+from the Countess Lasunsky's. She laughed aloud directly she came into
+the room and saw the cards and the open card-table. Sanin jumped up,
+but she cried, 'Sit still; go on with the game. I'll change my dress
+directly and come back to you,' and vanished again with a swish of her
+dress, pulling off her gloves as she went.
+
+She did in fact return very soon. Her evening dress she had exchanged
+for a full lilac silk tea-gown, with open hanging sleeves; a thick
+twisted cord was fastened round her waist. She sat down by her
+husband, and, waiting till he was left 'fool,' said to him, 'Come,
+dumpling, that's enough!' (At the word 'dumpling' Sanin glanced at her
+in surprise, and she smiled gaily, answering his look with a look,
+and displaying all the dimples on her cheeks.) 'I see you are sleepy;
+kiss my hand and get along; and Monsieur Sanin and I will have a chat
+together alone.'
+
+'I'm not sleepy,' observed Polozov, getting up ponderously from his
+easy-chair; 'but as for getting along, I'm ready to get along and to
+kiss your hand.' She gave him the palm of her hand, still smiling and
+looking at Sanin.
+
+Polozov, too, looked at him, and went away without taking leave of
+him.
+
+'Well, tell me, tell me,' said Maria Nikolaevna eagerly, setting both
+her bare elbows on the table and impatiently tapping the nails of one
+hand against the nails of the other, 'Is it true, they say, you are
+going to be married?'
+
+As she said these words, Maria Nikolaevna positively bent her head a
+little on one side so as to look more intently and piercingly into
+Sanin's eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+The free and easy deportment of Madame Polozov would probably for the
+first moment have disconcerted Sanin--though he was not quite a novice
+and had knocked about the world a little--if he had not again seen in
+this very freedom and familiarity a good omen for his undertaking.
+'We must humour this rich lady's caprices,' he decided inwardly; and
+as unconstrainedly as she had questioned him he answered, 'Yes; I am
+going to be married.'
+
+'To whom? To a foreigner?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Did you get acquainted with her lately? In Frankfort?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And what is she? May I know?'
+
+'Certainly. She is a confectioner's daughter.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna opened her eyes wide and lifted her eyebrows.
+
+'Why, this is delightful,' she commented in a drawling voice; 'this is
+exquisite! I imagined that young men like you were not to be met with
+anywhere in these days. A confectioner's daughter!'
+
+'I see that surprises you,' observed Sanin with some dignity; 'but in
+the first place, I have none of these prejudices ...'
+
+'In the first place, it doesn't surprise me in the least,' Maria
+Nikolaevna interrupted; 'I have no prejudices either. I'm the daughter
+of a peasant myself. There! what can you say to that? What does
+surprise and delight me is to have come across a man who's not afraid
+to love. You do love her, I suppose?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Is she very pretty?'
+
+Sanin was slightly stung by this last question.... However, there was
+no drawing back.
+
+'You know, Maria Nikolaevna,' he began, 'every man thinks the face
+of his beloved better than all others; but my betrothed is really
+beautiful.'
+
+'Really? In what style? Italian? antique?'
+
+'Yes; she has very regular features.'
+
+'You have not got her portrait with you?'
+
+'No.' (At that time photography was not yet talked off. Daguerrotypes
+had hardly begun to be common.)
+
+'What's her name?'
+
+'Her name is Gemma.'
+
+'And yours?'
+
+'Dimitri.'
+
+'And your father's?'
+
+'Pavlovitch.'
+
+'Do you know,' Maria Nikolaevna said, still in the same drawling
+voice, 'I like you very much, Dimitri Pavlovitch. You must be an
+excellent fellow. Give me your hand. Let us be friends.'
+
+She pressed his hand tightly in her beautiful, white, strong fingers.
+Her hand was a little smaller than his hand, but much warmer and
+smoother and whiter and more full of life.
+
+'Only, do you know what strikes me?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'You won't be angry? No? You say she is betrothed to you. But was that
+... was that quite necessary?'
+
+Sanin frowned. 'I don't understand you, Maria Nikolaevna.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna gave a soft low laugh, and shaking her head tossed
+back the hair that was falling on her cheeks. 'Decidedly--he's
+delightful,' she commented half pensively, half carelessly. 'A perfect
+knight! After that, there's no believing in the people who maintain
+that the race of idealists is extinct!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna talked Russian all the time, an astonishingly pure
+true Moscow Russian, such as the people, not the nobles speak.
+
+'You've been brought up at home, I expect, in a God-fearing, old
+orthodox family?' she queried. 'You're from what province?'
+
+'Tula.'
+
+'Oh! so we're from the same part. My father ... I daresay you know who
+my father was?'
+
+'Yes, I know.'
+
+'He was born in Tula.... He was a Tula man. Well ... well. Come, let
+us get to business now.'
+
+'That is ... how come to business? What do you mean to say by that?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna half-closed her eyes. 'Why, what did you come here
+for?' (when she screwed up her eyes, their expression became very
+kindly and a little bantering, when she opened them wide, into their
+clear, almost cold brilliancy, there came something-ill-natured
+... something menacing. Her eyes gained a peculiar beauty from her
+eyebrows, which were thick, and met in the centre, and had the
+smoothness of sable fur). 'Don't you want me to buy your estate? You
+want money for your nuptials? Don't you?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And do you want much?'
+
+'I should be satisfied with a few thousand francs at first. Your
+husband knows my estate. You can consult him--I would take a very
+moderate price.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna tossed her head from left to right. '_In the first
+place_,' she began in deliberate tones, drumming with the tips of
+her fingers on the cuff of Sanin's coat, 'I am not in the habit of
+consulting my husband, except about matters of dress--he's my right
+hand in that; _and in the second place_, why do you say that you will
+fix a low price? I don't want to take advantage of your being very
+much in love at the moment, and ready to make any sacrifices....
+I won't accept sacrifices of any kind from you. What? Instead of
+encouraging you ... come, how is one to express it properly?--in your
+noble sentiments, eh? am I to fleece you? that's not my way. I can be
+hard on people, on occasion--only not in that way.'
+
+Sanin was utterly unable to make out whether she was laughing at him
+or speaking seriously, and only said to himself: 'Oh, I can see one
+has to mind what one's about with you!'
+
+A man-servant came in with a Russian samovar, tea-things, cream,
+biscuits, etc., on a big tray; he set all these good things on the
+table between Sanin and Madame Polozov, and retired.
+
+She poured him out a cup of tea. 'You don't object?' she queried, as
+she put sugar in his cup with her fingers ... though sugar-tongs were
+lying close by.
+
+'Oh, please!... From such a lovely hand ...'
+
+He did not finish his phrase, and almost choked over a sip of tea,
+while she watched him attentively and brightly.
+
+'I spoke of a moderate price for my land,' he went on, 'because as you
+are abroad just now, I can hardly suppose you have a great deal of
+cash available, and in fact, I feel myself that the sale ... the
+purchase of my land, under such conditions is something exceptional,
+and I ought to take that into consideration.'
+
+Sanin got confused, and lost the thread of what he was saying, while
+Maria Nikolaevna softly leaned back in her easy-chair, folded her
+arms, and watched him with the same attentive bright look. He was
+silent at last.
+
+'Never mind, go on, go on,' she said, as it were coming to his aid;
+'I'm listening to you. I like to hear you; go on talking.'
+
+Sanin fell to describing his estate, how many acres it contained, and
+where it was situated, and what were its agricultural advantages,
+and what profit could be made from it ... he even referred to the
+picturesque situation of the house; while Maria Nikolaevna still
+watched him, and watched more and more intently and radiantly, and her
+lips faintly stirred, without smiling: she bit them. He felt awkward
+at last; he was silent a second time.
+
+'Dimitri Pavlovitch' began Maria Nikolaevna, and sank into thought
+again.... 'Dimitri Pavlovitch,' she repeated.... 'Do you know what:
+I am sure the purchase of your estate will be a very profitable
+transaction for me, and that we shall come to terms; but you must give
+me two days.... Yes, two days' grace. You are able to endure two days'
+separation from your betrothed, aren't you? Longer I won't keep you
+against your will--I give you my word of honour. But if you want five
+or six thousand francs at once, I am ready with great pleasure to let
+you have it as a loan, and then we'll settle later.'
+
+Sanin got up. 'I must thank you, Maria Nikolaevna, for your
+kindhearted and friendly readiness to do a service to a man almost
+unknown to you. But if that is your decided wish, then I prefer to
+await your decision about my estate--I will stay here two days.'
+
+'Yes; that is my wish, Dimitri Pavlovitch. And will it be very hard
+for you? Very? Tell me.'
+
+'I love my betrothed, Maria Nikolaevna, and to be separated from her
+is hard for me.'
+
+'Ah! you're a heart of gold!' Maria Nikolaevna commented with a sigh.
+'I promise not to torment you too much. Are you going?'
+
+'It is late,' observed Sanin.
+
+'And you want to rest after your journey, and your game of "fools"
+with my husband. Tell me, were you a great friend of Ippolit
+Sidorovitch, my husband?'
+
+'We were educated at the same school.'
+
+'And was he the same then?'
+
+'The same as what?' inquired Sanin. Maria Nikolaevna burst out
+laughing, and laughed till she was red in the face; she put her
+handkerchief to her lips, rose from her chair, and swaying as though
+she were tired, went up to Sanin, and held out her hand to him.
+
+He bowed over it, and went towards the door.
+
+'Come early to-morrow--do you hear?' she called after him. He looked
+back as he went out of the room, and saw that she had again dropped
+into an easy-chair, and flung both arms behind her head. The loose
+sleeves of her tea-gown fell open almost to her shoulders, and it was
+impossible not to admit that the pose of the arms, that the whole
+figure, was enchantingly beautiful.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+Long after midnight the lamp was burning in Sanin's room. He sat down
+to the table and wrote to 'his Gemma.' He told her everything; he
+described the Polozovs--husband and wife--but, more than all, enlarged
+on his own feelings, and ended by appointing a meeting with her in
+three days!!! (with three marks of exclamation). Early in the morning
+he took this letter to the post, and went for a walk in the garden
+of the Kurhaus, where music was already being played. There were few
+people in it as yet; he stood before the arbour in which the orchestra
+was placed, listened to an adaptation of airs from 'Robert le Diable,'
+and after drinking some coffee, turned into a solitary side walk, sat
+down on a bench, and fell into a reverie. The handle of a parasol
+gave him a rapid, and rather vigorous, thump on the shoulder. He
+started.... Before him in a light, grey-green barége dress, in a white
+tulle hat, and _suède_ gloves, stood Maria Nikolaevna, fresh and rosy
+as a summer morning, though the languor of sound unbroken sleep had
+not yet quite vanished from her movements and her eyes.
+
+'Good-morning,' she said. 'I sent after you to-day, but you'd already
+gone out. I've only just drunk my second glass--they're making me
+drink the water here, you know--whatever for, there's no telling ...
+am I not healthy enough? And now I have to walk for a whole hour. Will
+you be my companion? And then we'll have some coffee.'
+
+'I've had some already,' Sanin observed, getting up; 'but I shall be
+very glad to have a walk with you.'
+
+'Very well, give me your arm then; don't be afraid: your betrothed is
+not here--she won't see you.'
+
+Sanin gave a constrained smile. He experienced a disagreeable
+sensation every time Maria Nikolaevna referred to Gemma. However, he
+made haste to bend towards her obediently.... Maria Nikolaevna's arm
+slipped slowly and softly into his arm, and glided over it, and seemed
+to cling tight to it.
+
+'Come--this way,' she said to him, putting up her open parasol over
+her shoulder. 'I'm quite at home in this park; I will take you to the
+best places. And do you know what? (she very often made use of this
+expression), we won't talk just now about that sale, we'll have a
+thorough discussion of that after lunch; but you must tell me now
+about yourself ... so that I may know whom I have to do with. And
+afterwards, if you like, I will tell you about myself. Do you agree?'
+
+'But, Maria Nikolaevna, what interest can there be for you ...'
+
+'Stop, stop. You don't understand me. I don't want to flirt with you.'
+Maria Nikolaevna shrugged her shoulders. 'He's got a betrothed like an
+antique statue, is it likely I am going to flirt with him? But you've
+something to sell, and I'm the purchaser. I want to know what your
+goods are like. Well, of course, you must show what they are like.
+I don't only want to know what I'm buying, but whom I'm buying
+from. That was my father's rule. Come, begin ... come, if not from
+childhood--come now, have you been long abroad? And where have you
+been up till now? Only don't walk so fast, we're in no hurry.'
+
+'I came here from Italy, where I spent several months.'
+
+'Ah, you feel, it seems, a special attraction towards everything
+Italian. It's strange you didn't find your lady-love there. Are you
+fond of art? of pictures? or more of music?'
+
+'I am fond of art.... I like everything beautiful.'
+
+'And music?'
+
+'I like music too.'
+
+'Well, I don't at all. I don't care for anything but Russian
+songs--and that in the country and in the spring--with dancing, you
+know ... red shirts, wreaths of beads, the young grass in the meadows,
+the smell of smoke ... delicious! But we weren't talking of me. Go on,
+tell me.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna walked on, and kept looking at Sanin. She was
+tall--her face was almost on a level with his face.
+
+He began to talk--at first reluctantly, unskilfully--but afterwards
+he talked more freely, chattered away in fact. Maria Nikolaevna was
+a very good listener; and moreover she seemed herself so frank, that
+she led others unconsciously on to frankness. She possessed that
+great gift of 'intimateness'--_le terrible don de la familiarité_--to
+which Cardinal Retz refers. Sanin talked of his travels, of his life
+in Petersburg, of his youth.... Had Maria Nikolaevna been a lady
+of fashion, with refined manners, he would never have opened out
+so; but she herself spoke of herself as a 'good fellow,' who had
+no patience with ceremony of any sort; it was in those words that
+she characterised herself to Sanin. And at the same time this 'good
+fellow' walked by his side with feline grace, slightly bending towards
+him, and peeping into his face; and this 'good fellow' walked in the
+form of a young feminine creature, full of the tormenting, fiery, soft
+and seductive charm, of which--for the undoing of us poor weak sinful
+men--only Slav natures are possessed, and but few of them, and those
+never of pure Slav blood, with no foreign alloy. Sanin's walk with
+Maria Nikolaevna, Sanin's talk with Maria Nikolaevna lasted over an
+hour. And they did not stop once; they kept walking about the endless
+avenues of the park, now mounting a hill and admiring the view as
+they went, and now going down into the valley, and getting hidden in
+the thick shadows,--and all the while arm-in-arm. At times Sanin felt
+positively irritated; he had never walked so long with Gemma, his
+darling Gemma ... but this lady had simply taken possession of him,
+and there was no escape! 'Aren't you tired?' he said to her more
+than once. 'I never get tired,' she answered. Now and then they met
+other people walking in the park; almost all of them bowed--some
+respectfully, others even cringingly. To one of them, a very handsome,
+fashionably dressed dark man, she called from a distance with the best
+Parisian accent, '_Comte, vous savez, il ne faut pas venir me voir--ni
+aujourd'hui ni demain_.' The man took off his hat, without speaking,
+and dropped a low bow.
+
+'Who's that?' asked Sanin with the bad habit of asking questions
+characteristic of all Russians.
+
+'Oh, a Frenchman, there are lots of them here ... He's dancing
+attendance on me too. It's time for our coffee, though. Let's go home;
+you must be hungry by this time, I should say. My better half must
+have got his eye-peeps open by now.'
+
+'Better half! Eye-peeps!' Sanin repeated to himself ... 'And speaks
+French so well ... what a strange creature!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Maria Nikolaevna was not mistaken. When she went back into the hotel
+with Sanin, her 'better half or 'dumpling' was already seated, the
+invariable fez on his head, before a table laid for breakfast.
+
+'I've been waiting for you!' he cried, making a sour face. 'I was on
+the point of having coffee without you.'
+
+'Never mind, never mind,' Maria Nikolaevna responded cheerfully. 'Are
+you angry? That's good for you; without that you'd turn into a mummy
+altogether. Here I've brought a visitor. Make haste and ring! Let us
+have coffee--the best coffee--in Saxony cups on a snow-white cloth!'
+
+She threw off her hat and gloves, and clapped her hands.
+
+Polozov looked at her from under his brows.
+
+'What makes you so skittish to-day, Maria Nikolaevna?' he said in an
+undertone.
+
+'That's no business of yours, Ippolit Sidoritch! Ring! Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, sit down and have some coffee for the second time. Ah, how
+nice it is to give orders! There's no pleasure on earth like it!'
+
+'When you're obeyed,' grumbled her husband again.
+
+'Just so, when one's obeyed! That's why I'm so happy! Especially with
+you. Isn't it so, dumpling? Ah, here's the coffee.'
+
+On the immense tray, which the waiter brought in, there lay also a
+playbill. Maria Nikolaevna snatched it up at once.
+
+'A drama!' she pronounced with indignation, 'a German drama.
+No matter; it's better than a German comedy. Order a box for
+me--_baignoire_--or no ... better the _Fremden-Loge_,' she turned to
+the waiter. 'Do you hear: the _Fremden-Loge_ it must be!'
+
+'But if the _Fremden-Loge_ has been already taken by his excellency,
+the director of the town (_seine Excellenz der Herr Stadt-Director_),'
+the waiter ventured to demur.
+
+'Give his excellency ten _thalers_, and let the box be mine! Do you
+hear!'
+
+The waiter bent his head humbly and mournfully.
+
+'Dimitri Pavlovitch, you will go with me to the theatre? the German
+actors are awful, but you will go ... Yes? Yes? How obliging you are!
+Dumpling, are you not coming?
+
+'You settle it,' Polozov observed into the cup he had lifted to his
+lips.
+
+'Do you know what, you stay at home. You always go to sleep at the
+theatre, and you don't understand much German. I'll tell you what
+you'd better do, write an answer to the overseer--you remember, about
+our mill ... about the peasants' grinding. Tell him that I won't have
+it, and I won't and that's all about it! There's occupation for you
+for the whole evening.'
+
+'All right,' answered Polozov.
+
+'Well then, that's first-rate. You're a darling. And now, gentlemen,
+as we have just been speaking of my overseer, let's talk about our
+great business. Come, directly the waiter has cleared the table,
+you shall tell me all, Dimitri Pavlovitch, about your estate, what
+price you will sell it for, how much you want paid down in advance,
+everything, in fact! (At last, thought Sanin, thank God!) You have
+told me something about it already, you remember, you described your
+garden delightfully, but dumpling wasn't here.... Let him hear, he
+may pick a hole somewhere! I'm delighted to think that I can help you
+to get married, besides, I promised you that I would go into your
+business after lunch, and I always keep my promises, isn't that the
+truth, Ippolit Sidoritch?'
+
+Polozov rubbed his face with his open hand. 'The truth's the truth.
+You don't deceive any one.'
+
+'Never! and I never will deceive any one. Well, Dimitri Pavlovitch,
+expound the case as we express it in the senate.'
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+Sanin proceeded to expound his case, that is to say, again, a second
+time, to describe his property, not touching this time on the beauties
+of nature, and now and then appealing to Polozov for confirmation of
+his 'facts and figures.' But Polozov simply gasped and shook his head,
+whether in approval or disapproval, it would have puzzled the devil,
+one might fancy, to decide. However, Maria Nikolaevna stood in no need
+of his aid. She exhibited commercial and administrative abilities that
+were really astonishing! She was familiar with all the ins-and-outs of
+farming; she asked questions about everything with great exactitude,
+went into every point; every word of hers went straight to the root
+of the matter, and hit the nail on the head. Sanin had not expected
+such a close inquiry, he had not prepared himself for it. And this
+inquiry lasted for fully an hour and a half. Sanin experienced all
+the sensations of the criminal on his trial, sitting on a narrow
+bench confronted by a stern and penetrating judge. 'Why, it's
+a cross-examination!' he murmured to himself dejectedly. Maria
+Nikolaevna kept laughing all the while, as though it were a joke; but
+Sanin felt none the more at ease for that; and when in the course of
+the 'cross-examination' it turned out that he had not clearly realised
+the exact meaning of the words 'repartition' and 'tilth,' he was in a
+cold perspiration all over.
+
+'Well, that's all right!' Maria Nikolaevna decided at last. 'I know
+your estate now ... as well as you do. What price do you suggest per
+soul?' (At that time, as every one knows, the prices of estates were
+reckoned by the souls living as serfs on them.)
+
+'Well ... I imagine ... I could not take less than five hundred
+roubles for each,' Sanin articulated with difficulty. O Pantaleone,
+Pantaleone, where were you! This was when you ought to have cried
+again, 'Barbari!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her eyes upwards as though she were
+calculating.
+
+'Well?' she said at last. 'I think there's no harm in that price.
+But I reserved for myself two days' grace, and you must wait till
+to-morrow. I imagine we shall come to an arrangement, and then you
+will tell me how much you want paid down. And now, _basta cosi_!'
+she cried, noticing Sanin was about to make some reply. 'We've spent
+enough time over filthy lucre ... _à demain les affaires_. Do you
+know what, I'll let you go now ... (she glanced at a little enamelled
+watch, stuck in her belt) ... till three o'clock ... I must let you
+rest. Go and play roulette.'
+
+'I never play games of chance,' observed Sanin.
+
+'Really? Why, you're a paragon. Though I don't either. It's stupid
+throwing away one's money when one's no chance. But go into the
+gambling saloon, and look at the faces. Very comic ones there are
+there. There's one old woman with a rustic headband and a moustache,
+simply delicious! Our prince there's another, a good one too. A
+majestic figure with a nose like an eagle's, and when he puts down a
+_thaler_, he crosses himself under his waistcoat. Read the papers,
+go a walk, do what you like, in fact. But at three o'clock I expect
+you ... _de pied ferme_. We shall have to dine a little earlier. The
+theatre among these absurd Germans begins at half-past six. She held
+out her hand. '_Sans rancune, n'est-ce pas?_'
+
+'Really, Maria Nikolaevna, what reason have I to be annoyed?'
+
+'Why, because I've been tormenting you. Wait a little, you'll see.
+There's worse to come,' she added, fluttering her eyelids, and all her
+dimples suddenly came out on her flushing cheeks. 'Till we meet!'
+
+Sanin bowed and went out. A merry laugh rang out after him, and in
+the looking-glass which he was passing at that instant, the following
+scene was reflected: Maria Nikolaevna had pulled her husband's fez
+over his eyes, and he was helplessly struggling with both hands.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+Oh, what a deep sigh of delight Sanin heaved, when he found himself
+in his room! Indeed, Maria Nikolaevna had spoken the truth, he
+needed rest, rest from all these new acquaintances, collisions,
+conversations, from this suffocating atmosphere which was affecting
+his head and his heart, from this enigmatical, uninvited intimacy with
+a woman, so alien to him! And when was all this taking place? Almost
+the day after he had learnt that Gemma loved him, after he had become
+betrothed to her. Why, it was sacrilege! A thousand times he mentally
+asked forgiveness of his pure chaste dove, though he could not really
+blame himself for anything; a thousand times over he kissed the cross
+she had given him. Had he not the hope of bringing the business, for
+which he had come to Wiesbaden, to a speedy and successful conclusion,
+he would have rushed off headlong, back again, to sweet Frankfort, to
+that dear house, now his own home, to her, to throw himself at her
+loved feet.... But there was no help for it! The cup must be drunk
+to the dregs, he must dress, go to dinner, and from there to the
+theatre.... If only she would let him go to-morrow!
+
+One other thing confounded him, angered him; with love, with
+tenderness, with grateful transport he dreamed of Gemma, of their life
+together, of the happiness awaiting him in the future, and yet this
+strange woman, this Madame Polozov persistently floated--no! not
+floated, poked herself, so Sanin with special vindictiveness expressed
+it--_poked herself_ in and faced his eyes, and he could not rid
+himself of her image, could not help hearing her voice, recalling her
+words, could not help being aware even of the special scent, delicate,
+fresh and penetrating, like the scent of yellow lilies, that was
+wafted from her garments. This lady was obviously fooling him, and
+trying in every way to get over him ... what for? what did she want?
+Could it be merely the caprice of a spoiled, rich, and most likely
+unprincipled woman? And that husband! What a creature he was! What
+were his relations with her? And why would these questions keep coming
+into his head, when he, Sanin, had really no interest whatever in
+either Polozov or his wife? Why could he not drive away that intrusive
+image, even when he turned with his whole soul to another image,
+clear and bright as God's sunshine? How, through those almost divine
+features, dare _those others_ force themselves upon him? And not only
+that; those other features smiled insolently at him. Those grey,
+rapacious eyes, those dimples, those snake-like tresses, how was it
+all that seemed to cleave to him, and to shake it all off, and fling
+it away, he was unable, had not the power?
+
+Nonsense! nonsense! to-morrow it would all vanish and leave no
+trace.... But would she let him go to-morrow?
+
+Yes.... All these question he put to himself, but the time was moving
+on to three o'clock, and he put on a black frockcoat and after a turn
+in the park, went in to the Polozovs!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He found in their drawing-room a secretary of the legation, a very
+tall light-haired German, with the profile of a horse, and his hair
+parted down the back of his head (at that time a new fashion), and ...
+oh, wonder! whom besides? Von Dönhof, the very officer with whom he
+had fought a few days before! He had not the slightest expectation of
+meeting him there and could not help being taken aback. He greeted
+him, however.
+
+'Are you acquainted?' asked Maria Nikolaevna who had not failed to
+notice Sanin's embarrassment.
+
+'Yes ... I have already had the honour,' said Dönhof, and bending a
+little aside, in an undertone he added to Maria Nikolaevna, with a
+smile, 'The very man ... your compatriot ... the Russian ...'
+
+'Impossible!' she exclaimed also in an undertone; she shook her finger
+at him, and at once began to bid good-bye both to him and the long
+secretary, who was, to judge by every symptom, head over ears in love
+with her; he positively gaped every time he looked at her. Dönhof
+promptly took leave with amiable docility, like a friend of the family
+who understands at half a word what is expected of him; the secretary
+showed signs of restiveness, but Maria Nikolaevna turned him out
+without any kind of ceremony.
+
+'Get along to your sovereign mistress,' she said to him (there was
+at that time in Wiesbaden a certain princess di Monaco, who looked
+surprisingly like a _cocotte_ of the poorer sort); 'what do you want
+to stay with a plebeian like me for?'
+
+'Really, dear madam,' protested the luckless secretary,' all the
+princesses in the world....'
+
+But Maria Nikolaevna was remorseless, and the secretary went away,
+parting and all.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna was dressed that day very much 'to her advantage,'
+as our grandmothers used to say. She wore a pink glacé silk dress,
+with sleeves _à la Fontange_, and a big diamond in each ear. Her eyes
+sparkled as much as her diamonds; she seemed in a good humour and in
+high spirits.
+
+She made Sanin sit beside her, and began talking to him about Paris,
+where she was intending to go in a few days, of how sick she was of
+Germans, how stupid they were when they tried to be clever, and how
+inappropriately clever sometimes when they were stupid; and suddenly,
+point-blank, as they say--_à brûle pourpoint_--asked him, was it true
+that he had fought a duel with the very officer who had been there
+just now, only a few days ago, on account of a lady?
+
+'How did you know that?' muttered Sanin, dumfoundered.
+
+'The earth is full of rumours, Dimitri Pavlovitch; but anyway, I know
+you were quite right, perfectly right, and behaved like a knight. Tell
+me, was that lady your betrothed?'
+
+Sanin slightly frowned ...
+
+'There, I won't, I won't,' Maria Nikolaevna hastened to say. 'You
+don't like it, forgive me, I won't do it, don't be angry!' Polozov
+came in from the next room with a newspaper in his hand. 'What do you
+want? Or is dinner ready?'
+
+'Dinner'll be ready directly, but just see what I've read in the
+_Northern Bee_ ... Prince Gromoboy is dead.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna raised her head.
+
+'Ah! I wish him the joys of Paradise! He used,' she turned to Sanin,
+'to fill all my rooms with camellias every February on my birthday,
+But it wasn't worth spending the winter in Petersburg for that. He
+must have been over seventy, I should say?' she said to her husband.
+
+'Yes, he was. They describe his funeral in the paper. All the court
+were present. And here's a poem too, of Prince Kovrizhkin's on the
+occasion.'
+
+'That's nice!'
+
+'Shall I read them? The prince calls him the good man of wise
+counsel.'
+
+'No, don't. The good man of wise counsel? He was simply the goodman
+of Tatiana Yurevna. Come to dinner. Life is for the living. Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, your arm.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dinner was, as on the day before, superb, and the meal was a very
+lively one. Maria Nikolaevna knew how to tell a story ... a rare gift
+in a woman, and especially in a Russian one! She did not restrict
+herself in her expressions; her countrywomen received particularly
+severe treatment at her hands. Sanin was more than once set laughing
+by some bold and well-directed word. Above all, Maria Nikolaevna
+had no patience with hypocrisy, cant, and humbug. She discovered it
+almost everywhere. She, as it were, plumed herself on and boasted of
+the humble surroundings in which she had begun life. She told rather
+queer anecdotes of her relations in the days of her childhood, spoke
+of herself as quite as much of a clodhopper as Natalya Kirilovna
+Narishkin. It became apparent to Sanin that she had been through a
+great deal more in her time than the majority of women of her age.
+
+Polozov ate meditatively, drank attentively, and only occasionally
+cast first on his wife, then on Sanin, his lightish, dim-looking, but,
+in reality, very keen eyes.
+
+'What a clever darling you are!' cried Maria Nikolaevna, turning to
+him; 'how well you carried out all my commissions in Frankfort! I
+could give you a kiss on your forehead for it, but you're not very
+keen after kisses.'
+
+'I'm not,' responded Polozov, and he cut a pine-apple with a silver
+knife.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna looked at him and drummed with her fingers on the
+table. 'So our bet's on, isn't it?' she said significantly. 'Yes, it's
+on.'
+
+'All right. You'll lose it.'
+
+Polozov stuck out his chin. 'Well, this time you mustn't be too
+sanguine, Maria Nikolaevna, maybe you will lose.'
+
+'What is the bet? May I know?' asked Sanin.
+
+'No ... not now,' answered Maria Nikolaevna, and she laughed.
+
+It struck seven. The waiter announced that the carriage was ready.
+Polozov saw his wife out, and at once waddled back to his easy-chair.
+
+'Mind now! Don't forget the letter to the overseer,' Maria Nikolaevna
+shouted to him from the hall.
+
+'I'll write, don't worry yourself. I'm a business-like person.'
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+
+In the year 1840, the theatre at Wiesbaden was a poor affair even
+externally, and its company, for affected and pitiful mediocrity, for
+studious and vulgar commonplaceness, not one hair's-breadth above the
+level, which might be regarded up to now as the normal one in all
+German theatres, and which has been displayed in perfection lately by
+the company in Carlsruhe, under the 'illustrious' direction of Herr
+Devrient. At the back of the box taken for her 'Serenity Madame von
+Polozov' (how the waiter devised the means of getting it, God knows,
+he can hardly have really bribed the stadt-director!) was a little
+room, with sofas all round it; before she went into the box, Maria
+Nikolaevna asked Sanin to draw up the screen that shut the box off
+from the theatre.
+
+'I don't want to be seen,' she said, 'or else they'll be swarming
+round directly, you know.' She made him sit down beside her with his
+back to the house so that the box seemed to be empty. The orchestra
+played the overture from the _Marriage of Figaro_. The curtain rose,
+the play began.
+
+It was one of those numerous home-raised products in which well-read
+but talentless authors, in choice, but dead language, studiously and
+cautiously enunciated some 'profound' or 'vital and palpitating'
+idea, portrayed a so-called tragic conflict, and produced dulness ...
+an Asiatic dulness, like Asiatic cholera. Maria Nikolaevna listened
+patiently to half an act, but when the first lover, discovering the
+treachery of his mistress (he was dressed in a cinnamon-coloured
+coat with 'puffs' and a plush collar, a striped waistcoat with
+mother-of-pearl buttons, green trousers with straps of varnished
+leather, and white chamois leather gloves), when this lover pressed
+both fists to his bosom, and poking his two elbows out at an acute
+angle, howled like a dog, Maria Nikolaevna could not stand it.
+
+'The humblest French actor in the humblest little provincial town acts
+better and more naturally than the highest German celebrity,' she
+cried in indignation; and she moved away and sat down in the little
+room at the back. 'Come here,' she said to Sanin, patting the sofa
+beside her. 'Let's talk.'
+
+Sanin obeyed.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna glanced at him. 'Ah, I see you're as soft as silk!
+Your wife will have an easy time of it with you. That buffoon,' she
+went on, pointing with her fan towards the howling actor (he was
+acting the part of a tutor), 'reminded me of my young days; I, too,
+was in love with a teacher. It was my first ... no, my second passion.
+The first time I fell in love with a young monk of the Don monastery.
+I was twelve years old. I only saw him on Sundays. He used to wear
+a short velvet cassock, smelt of lavender water, and as he made his
+way through the crowd with the censer, used to say to the ladies in
+French, "_Pardon, excusez_" but never lifted his eyes, and he had
+eyelashes like that!' Maria Nikolaevna marked off with the nail of her
+middle finger quite half the length of the little finger and showed
+Sanin. 'My tutor was called--Monsieur Gaston! I must tell you he was
+an awfully learned and very severe person, a Swiss,--and with such an
+energetic face! Whiskers black as pitch, a Greek profile, and lips
+that looked like cast iron! I was afraid of him! He was the only man I
+have ever been afraid of in my life. He was tutor to my brother, who
+died ... was drowned. A gipsy woman has foretold a violent death for
+me too, but that's all moonshine. I don't believe in it. Only fancy
+Ippolit Sidoritch with a dagger!'
+
+'One may die from something else than a dagger,' observed Sanin.
+
+'All that's moonshine! Are you superstitious? I'm not a bit. What is
+to be, will be. Monsieur Gaston used to live in our house, in the room
+over my head. Sometimes I'd wake up at night and hear his footstep--he
+used to go to bed very late--and my heart would stand still with
+veneration, or some other feeling. My father could hardly read and
+write himself, but he gave us an excellent education. Do you know, I
+learnt Latin!'
+
+'You? learnt Latin?'
+
+'Yes; I did. Monsieur Gaston taught me. I read the _Æneid_ with him.
+It's a dull thing, but there are fine passages. Do you remember when
+Dido and Æneas are in the forest?...'
+
+'Yes, yes, I remember,' Sanin answered hurriedly. He had long ago
+forgotten all his Latin, and had only very faint notions about the
+_Æneid_.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna glanced at him, as her way was, a little from one
+side and looking upwards. 'Don't imagine, though, that I am very
+learned. Mercy on us! no; I'm not learned, and I've no talents of any
+sort. I scarcely know how to write ... really; I can't read aloud; nor
+play the piano, nor draw, nor sew--nothing! That's what I am--there
+you have me!'
+
+She threw out her hands. 'I tell you all this,' she said, 'first,
+so as not to hear those fools (she pointed to the stage where at
+that instant the actor's place was being filled by an actress, also
+howling, and also with her elbows projecting before her) and secondly,
+because I'm in your debt; you told me all about yourself yesterday.'
+
+'It was your pleasure to question me,' observed Sanin.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna suddenly turned to him. 'And it's not your pleasure
+to know just what sort of woman I am? I can't wonder at it, though,'
+she went on, leaning back again on the sofa cushions. 'A man just
+going to be married, and for love, and after a duel.... What thoughts
+could he have for anything else?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna relapsed into dreamy silence, and began biting the
+handle of her fan with her big, but even, milkwhite teeth.
+
+And Sanin felt mounting to his head again that intoxication which he
+had not been able to get rid of for the last two days.
+
+The conversation between him and Maria Nikolaevna was carried on in an
+undertone, almost in a whisper, and this irritated and disturbed him
+the more....
+
+When would it all end?
+
+Weak people never put an end to things themselves--they always wait
+for the end.
+
+Some one sneezed on the stage; this sneeze had been put into the play
+by the author as the 'comic relief' or 'element'; there was certainly
+no other comic element in it; and the audience made the most of it;
+they laughed.
+
+This laugh, too, jarred upon Sanin.
+
+There were moments when he actually did not know whether he was
+furious or delighted, bored or amused. Oh, if Gemma could have seen
+him!
+
+'It's really curious,' Maria Nikolaevna began all at once. 'A man
+informs one and in such a calm voice, "I am going to get married"; but
+no one calmly says to one, "I'm going to throw myself in the water."
+And yet what difference is there? It's curious, really.'
+
+Annoyance got the upper hand of Sanin. 'There's a great difference,
+Maria Nikolaevna! It's not dreadful at all to throw oneself in the
+water if one can swim; and besides ... as to the strangeness of
+marriages, if you come to that ...'
+
+He stopped short abruptly and bit his tongue.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna slapped her open hand with her fan.
+
+'Go on, Dimitri Pavlovitch, go on--I know what you were going to say.
+"If it comes to that, my dear madam, Maria Nikolaevna Polozov," you
+were going to say, "anything more curious than _your_ marriage it
+would be impossible to conceive.... I know your husband well, from a
+child!" That's what you were going to say, you who can swim!'
+
+'Excuse me,' Sanin was beginning....
+
+'Isn't it the truth? Isn't it the truth?' Maria Nikolaevna pronounced
+insistently.
+
+'Come, look me in the face and tell me I was wrong!'
+
+Sanin did not know what to do with his eyes. 'Well, if you like; it's
+the truth, if you absolutely insist upon it,' he said at last.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna shook her head. 'Quite so, quite so. Well, and did
+you ask yourself, you who can swim, what could be the reason of such
+a strange ... step on the part of a woman, not poor ... and not a
+fool ... and not ugly? All that does not interest you, perhaps, but
+no matter. I'll tell you the reason not this minute, but directly the
+_entr'acte_ is over. I am in continual uneasiness for fear some one
+should come in....'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna had hardly uttered this last word when the outer door
+actually was half opened, and into the box was thrust a head--red,
+oily, perspiring, still young, but toothless; with sleek long hair,
+a pendent nose, huge ears like a bat's, with gold spectacles on
+inquisitive dull eyes, and a _pince-nez_ over the spectacles. The head
+looked round, saw Maria Nikolaevna, gave a nasty grin, nodded.... A
+scraggy neck craned in after it....
+
+Maria Nikolaevna shook her handkerchief at it. 'I'm not at home! _Ich
+bin nicht zu Hause, Herr P....! Ich bin nicht zu Hause.... Ksh-sk!
+ksh-sh-sh!_'
+
+The head was disconcerted, gave a forced laugh, said with a sort of
+sob, in imitation of Liszt, at whose feet he had once reverently
+grovelled, '_Sehr gut, sehr gut!_' and vanished.
+
+'What is that object?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'Oh, a Wiesbaden critic. A literary man or a flunkey, as you like. He
+is in the pay of a local speculator here, and so is bound to praise
+everything and be ecstatic over every one, though for his part he is
+soaked through and through with the nastiest venom, to which he does
+not dare to give vent. I am afraid he's an awful scandalmonger; he'll
+run at once to tell every one I'm in the theatre. Well, what does it
+matter?'
+
+The orchestra played through a waltz, the curtain floated up again....
+The grimacing and whimpering began again on the stage.
+
+'Well,' began Maria Nikolaevna, sinking again on to the sofa. 'Since
+you are here and obliged to sit with me, instead of enjoying the
+society of your betrothed--don't turn away your eyes and get cross--I
+understand you, and have promised already to let you go to the other
+end of the earth--but now hear my confession. Do you care to know what
+I like more than anything?'
+
+'Freedom,' hazarded Sanin.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna laid her hand on his hand.
+
+'Yes, Dimitri Pavlovitch,' she said, and in her voice there was a note
+of something special, a sort of unmistakable sincerity and gravity,
+'freedom, more than all and before all. And don't imagine I am
+boasting of this--there is nothing praiseworthy in it; only it's _so_
+and always will be _so_ with me to the day of my death. I suppose it
+must have been that I saw a great deal of slavery in my childhood and
+suffered enough from it. Yes, and Monsieur Gaston, my tutor, opened
+my eyes too. Now you can, perhaps, understand why I married Ippolit
+Sidoritch: with him I'm free, perfectly free as air, as the wind....
+And I knew that before marriage; I knew that with him I should be a
+free Cossack!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna paused and flung her fan aside.
+
+'I will tell you one thing more; I have no distaste for reflection ...
+it's amusing, and indeed our brains are given us for that; but on the
+consequences of what I do I never reflect, and if I suffer I don't
+pity myself--not a little bit; it's not worth it. I have a favourite
+saying: _Cela ne tire pas à conséquence_,--I don't know how to say
+that in Russian. And after all, what does _tire à consequence_? I
+shan't be asked to give an account of myself here, you see--in this
+world; and up there (she pointed upwards with her finger), well, up
+there--let them manage as best they can. When they come to judge me
+up there, _I_ shall not be _I_! Are you listening to me? Aren't you
+bored?'
+
+Sanin was sitting bent up. He raised his head. 'I'm not at all bored,
+Maria Nikolaevna, and I am listening to you with curiosity. Only I ...
+confess ... I wonder why you say all this to me?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna edged a little away on the sofa.
+
+'You wonder?... Are you slow to guess? Or so modest?'
+
+Sanin lifted his head higher than before.
+
+'I tell you all this,' Maria Nikolaevna continued in an unmoved tone,
+which did not, however, at all correspond with the expression of her
+face, 'because I like you very much; yes, don't be surprised, I'm not
+joking; because since I have met you, it would be painful to me that
+you had a disagreeable recollection of me ... not disagreeable even,
+that I shouldn't mind, but untrue. That's why I have made you come
+here, and am staying alone with you and talking to you so openly....
+Yes, yes, openly. I'm not telling a lie. And observe, Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, I know you're in love with another woman, that you're
+going to be married to her.... Do justice to my disinterestedness!
+Though indeed it's a good opportunity for you to say in your turn:
+_Cela ne tire pas à conséquence_!'
+
+She laughed, but her laugh suddenly broke off, and she stayed
+motionless, as though her own words had suddenly struck her, and in
+her eyes, usually so gay and bold, there was a gleam of something like
+timidity, even like sadness.
+
+'Snake! ah, she's a snake!' Sanin was thinking meanwhile; 'but what a
+lovely snake!'
+
+'Give me my opera-glass,' Maria Nikolaevna said suddenly. 'I want to
+see whether this _jeune première_ really is so ugly. Upon my word, one
+might fancy the government appointed her in the interests of morality,
+so that the young men might not lose their heads over her.'
+
+Sanin handed her the opera-glass, and as she took it from him,
+swiftly, but hardly audibly, she snatched his hand in both of hers.
+
+'Please don't be serious,' she whispered with a smile. 'Do you know
+what, no one can put fetters on me, but then you see I put no fetters
+on others. I love freedom, and I don't acknowledge duties--not only
+for myself. Now move to one side a little, and let us listen to the
+play.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her opera-glass upon the stage, and Sanin
+proceeded to look in the same direction, sitting beside her in the
+half dark of the box, and involuntarily drinking in the warmth and
+fragrance of her luxurious body, and as involuntarily turning over
+and over in his head all she had said during the evening--especially
+during the last minutes.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+
+The play lasted over an hour longer, but Maria Nikolaevna and Sanin
+soon gave up looking at the stage. A conversation sprang up between
+them again, and went on the same lines as before; only this time Sanin
+was less silent. Inwardly he was angry with himself and with Maria
+Nikolaevna; he tried to prove to her all the inconsistency of her
+'theory,' as though she cared for theories! He began arguing with her,
+at which she was secretly rejoiced; if a man argues, it means that he
+is giving in or will give in. He had taken the bait, was giving way,
+had left off keeping shyly aloof! She retorted, laughed, agreed, mused
+dreamily, attacked him ... and meanwhile his face and her face were
+close together, his eyes no longer avoided her eyes.... Those eyes
+of hers seemed to ramble, seemed to hover over his features, and he
+smiled in response to them--a smile of civility, but still a smile.
+It was so much gained for her that he had gone off into abstractions,
+that he was discoursing upon truth in personal relations, upon
+duty, the sacredness of love and marriage.... It is well known that
+these abstract propositions serve admirably as a beginning ... as a
+starting-point....
+
+People who knew Maria Nikolaevna well used to maintain that when her
+strong and vigorous personality showed signs of something soft and
+modest, something almost of maidenly shamefacedness, though one
+wondered where she could have got it from ... then ... then, things
+were taking a dangerous turn.
+
+Things had apparently taken such a turn for Sanin.... He would have
+felt contempt for himself, if he could have succeeded in concentrating
+his attention for one instant; but he had not time to concentrate his
+mind nor to despise himself.
+
+She wasted no time. And it all came from his being so very
+good-looking! One can but exclaim, No man knows what may be his making
+or his undoing!
+
+The play was over. Maria Nikolaevna asked Sanin to put on her shawl
+and did not stir, while he wrapped the soft fabric round her really
+queenly shoulders. Then she took his arm, went out into the corridor,
+and almost cried out aloud. At the very door of the box Dönhof sprang
+up like some apparition; while behind his back she got a glimpse of
+the figure of the Wiesbaden critic. The 'literary man's' oily face was
+positively radiant with malignancy.
+
+'Is it your wish, madam, that I find you your carriage?' said
+the young officer addressing Maria Nikolaevna with a quiver of
+ill-disguised fury in his voice.
+
+'No, thank you,' she answered ... 'my man will find it. Stop!' she
+added in an imperious whisper, and rapidly withdrew drawing Sanin
+along with her.
+
+'Go to the devil! Why are you staring at me?' Dönhof roared suddenly
+at the literary man. He had to vent his feelings upon some one!
+
+'_Sehr gut! sehr gut!_' muttered the literary man, and shuffled off.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna's footman, waiting for her in the entrance, found her
+carriage in no time. She quickly took her seat in it; Sanin leapt in
+after her. The doors were slammed to, and Maria Nikolaevna exploded in
+a burst of laughter.
+
+'What are you laughing at?' Sanin inquired.
+
+'Oh, excuse me, please ... but it struck me: what if Dönhof were to
+have another duel with you ... on my account.... wouldn't that be
+wonderful?'
+
+'Are you very great friends with him?' Sanin asked.
+
+'With him? that boy? He's one of my followers. You needn't trouble
+yourself about him!'
+
+'Oh, I'm not troubling myself at all.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna sighed. 'Ah, I know you're not. But listen, do you
+know what, you're such a darling, you mustn't refuse me one last
+request. Remember in three days' time I am going to Paris, and you are
+returning to Frankfort.... Shall we ever meet again?'
+
+'What is this request?'
+
+'You can ride, of course?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, then, to-morrow morning I'll take you with me, and we'll go a
+ride together out of the town. We'll have splendid horses. Then we'll
+come home, wind up our business, and amen! Don't be surprised, don't
+tell me it's a caprice, and I'm a madcap--all that's very likely--but
+simply say, I consent.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her face towards him. It was dark in the
+carriage, but her eyes glittered even in the darkness.
+
+'Very well, I consent,' said Sanin with a sigh.
+
+'Ah! You sighed!' Maria Nikolaevna mimicked him. 'That means to say,
+as you've begun, you must go on to the bitter end. But no, no....
+You're charming, you're good, and I'll keep my promise. Here's my
+hand, without a glove on it, the right one, for business. Take it, and
+have faith in its pressure. What sort of a woman I am, I don't know;
+but I'm an honest fellow, and one can do business with me.'
+
+Sanin, without knowing very well what he was doing, lifted the hand to
+his lips. Maria Nikolaevna softly took it, and was suddenly still, and
+did not speak again till the carriage stopped.
+
+She began getting out.... What was it? Sanin's fancy? or did he really
+feel on his cheek a swift burning kiss?
+
+'Till to-morrow!' whispered Maria Nikolaevna on the steps, in the
+light of the four tapers of a candelabrum, held up on her appearance
+by the gold-laced door-keeper. She kept her eyes cast down. 'Till
+to-morrow!'
+
+When he got back to his room, Sanin found on the table a letter from
+Gemma. He felt a momentary dismay, and at once made haste to rejoice
+over it to disguise his dismay from himself. It consisted of a few
+lines. She was delighted at the 'successful opening of negotiations,'
+advised him to be patient, and added that all at home were well, and
+were already rejoicing at the prospect of seeing him back again. Sanin
+felt the letter rather stiff, he took pen and paper, however ... and
+threw it all aside again. 'Why write? I shall be back myself to-morrow
+... it's high time!'
+
+He went to bed immediately, and tried to get to sleep as quickly as
+possible. If he had stayed up and remained on his legs, he would
+certainly have begun thinking about Gemma, and he was for some reason
+... ashamed to think of her. His conscience was stirring within him.
+But he consoled himself with the reflection that to-morrow it would
+all be over for ever, and he would take leave for good of this
+feather-brained lady, and would forget all this rotten idiocy!...
+
+Weak people in their mental colloquies, eagerly make use of strong
+expressions.
+
+_Et puis ... cela ne tire pas à consequence!_
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+
+Such were Sanin's thoughts, as he went to bed; but what he thought
+next morning when Maria Nikolaevna knocked impatiently at his door
+with the coral handle of her riding-whip, when he saw her in the
+doorway, with the train of a dark-blue riding habit over her arm, with
+a man's small hat on her thickly coiled curls, with a veil thrown
+back over her shoulder, with a smile of invitation on her lips, in
+her eyes, over all her face--what he thought then--history does not
+record.
+
+'Well? are you ready?' rang out a joyous voice.
+
+Sanin buttoned his coat, and took his hat in silence. Maria Nikolaevna
+flung him a bright look, nodded to him, and ran swiftly down the
+staircase. And he ran after her.
+
+The horses were already waiting in the street at the steps. There
+were three of them, a golden chestnut thorough-bred mare, with a
+thin-lipped mouth, that showed the teeth, with black prominent eyes,
+and legs like a stag's, rather thin but beautifully shaped, and full
+of fire and spirit, for Maria Nikolaevna; a big, powerful, rather
+thick-set horse, raven black all over, for Sanin; the third horse was
+destined for the groom. Maria Nikolaevna leaped adroitly on to her
+mare, who stamped and wheeled round, lifting her tail, and sinking
+on to her haunches. But Maria Nikolaevna, who was a first-rate
+horse-woman, reined her in; they had to take leave of Polozov, who in
+his inevitable fez and in an open dressing-gown, came out on to the
+balcony, and from there waved a _batiste_ handkerchief, without the
+faintest smile, rather a frown, in fact, on his face. Sanin too
+mounted his horse; Maria Nikolaevna saluted Polozov with her whip,
+then gave her mare a lash with it on her arched and flat neck. The
+mare reared on her hind legs, made a dash forward, moving with a smart
+and shortened step, quivering in every sinew, biting the air and
+snorting abruptly. Sanin rode behind, and looked at Maria Nikolaevna;
+her slender supple figure, moulded by close-fitting but easy stays,
+swayed to and fro with self-confident grace and skill. She turned her
+head and beckoned him with her eyes alone. He came alongside of her.
+
+'See now, how delightful it is,' she said. 'I tell you at the last,
+before parting, you are charming, and you shan't regret it.'
+
+As she uttered those last words, she nodded her head several times as
+if to confirm them and make him feel their full weight.
+
+She seemed so happy that Sanin was simply astonished; her face even
+wore at times that sedate expression which children sometimes have
+when they are very ... very much pleased.
+
+They rode at a walking pace for the short distance to the city walls,
+but then started off at a vigorous gallop along the high road. It was
+magnificent, real summer weather; the wind blew in their faces, and
+sang and whistled sweetly in their ears. They felt very happy; the
+sense of youth, health and life, of free eager onward motion, gained
+possession of both; it grew stronger every instant.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna reined in her mare, and again went at a walking pace;
+Sanin followed her example.
+
+'This,' she began with a deep blissful sigh, 'this now is the only
+thing worth living for. When you succeed in doing what you want to,
+what seemed impossible--come, enjoy it, heart and soul, to the last
+drop!' She passed her hand across her throat. 'And how good and kind
+one feels oneself then! I now, at this moment ... how good I feel!
+I feel as if I could embrace the whole world! No, not the whole
+world.... That man now I couldn't.' She pointed with her whip at a
+poorly dressed old man who was stealing along on one side. 'But I
+am ready to make him happy. Here, take this,' she shouted loudly in
+German, and she flung a net purse at his feet. The heavy little bag
+(leather purses were not thought of at that time) fell with a ring
+on to the road. The old man was astounded, stood still, while Maria
+Nikolaevna chuckled, and put her mare into a gallop.
+
+'Do you enjoy riding so much?' Sanin asked, as he overtook her.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna reined her mare in once more: only in this way could
+she bring her to a stop.
+
+'I only wanted to get away from thanks. If any one thanks me, he
+spoils my pleasure. You see I didn't do that for his sake, but for my
+own. How dare he thank me? I didn't hear what you asked me.'
+
+'I asked ... I wanted to know what makes you so happy to-day.'
+
+'Do you know what,' said Maria Nikolaevna; either she had again not
+heard Sanin's question, or she did not consider it necessary to answer
+it. 'I'm awfully sick of that groom, who sticks up there behind us,
+and most likely does nothing but wonder when we gentlefolks are going
+home again. How shall we get rid of him?' She hastily pulled a little
+pocket-book out of her pocket. 'Send him back to the town with a note?
+No ... that won't do. Ah! I have it! What's that in front of us? Isn't
+it an inn?'
+
+Sanin looked in the direction she pointed. 'Yes, I believe it is an
+inn.'
+
+'Well, that's first-rate. I'll tell him to stop at that inn and drink
+beer till we come back.'
+
+'But what will he think?'
+
+'What does it matter to us? Besides, he won't think at all; he'll
+drink beer--that's all. Come, Sanin (it was the first time she had
+used his surname alone), on, gallop!'
+
+When they reached the inn, Maria Nikolaevna called the groom up
+and told him what she wished of him. The groom, a man of English
+extraction and English temperament, raised his hand to the beak of his
+cap without a word, jumped off his horse, and took him by the bridle.
+
+'Well, now we are free as the birds of the air!' cried Maria
+Nikolaevna. 'Where shall we go. North, south, east, or west? Look--I'm
+like the Hungarian king at his coronation (she pointed her whip in
+each direction in turn). All is ours! No, do you know what: see, those
+glorious mountains--and that forest! Let's go there, to the mountains,
+to the mountains!'
+
+'_In die Berge wo die Freiheit thront!_'
+
+She turned off the high-road and galloped along a narrow untrodden
+track, which certainly seemed to lead straight to the hills. Sanin
+galloped after her.
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+
+This track soon changed into a tiny footpath, and at last disappeared
+altogether, and was crossed by a stream. Sanin counselled turning
+back, but Maria Nikolaevna said, 'No! I want to get to the mountains!
+Let's go straight, as the birds fly,' and she made her mare leap the
+stream. Sanin leaped it too. Beyond the stream began a wide meadow,
+at first dry, then wet, and at last quite boggy; the water oozed up
+everywhere, and stood in pools in some places. Maria Nikolaevna rode
+her mare straight through these pools on purpose, laughed, and said,
+'Let's be naughty children.'
+
+'Do you know,' she asked Sanin, 'what is meant by pool-hunting?'
+
+'Yes,' answered Sanin.
+
+'I had an uncle a huntsman,' she went on.
+
+'I used to go out hunting with him--in the spring. It was delicious!
+Here we are now, on the pools with you. Only, I see, you're a Russian,
+and yet mean to marry an Italian. Well, that's your sorrow. What's
+that? A stream again! Gee up!'
+
+The horse took the leap, but Maria Nikolaevna's hat fell off her head,
+and her curls tumbled loose over her shoulders. Sanin was just going
+to get off his horse to pick up the hat, but she shouted to him,
+'Don't touch it, I'll get it myself,' bent low down from the saddle,
+hooked the handle of her whip into the veil, and actually did get the
+hat. She put it on her head, but did not fasten up her hair, and again
+darted off, positively holloaing. Sanin dashed along beside her, by
+her side leaped trenches, fences, brooks, fell in and scrambled out,
+flew down hill, flew up hill, and kept watching her face. What a face
+it was! It was all, as it were, wide open: wide-open eyes, eager,
+bright, and wild; lips, nostrils, open too, and breathing eagerly; she
+looked straight before her, and it seemed as though that soul longed
+to master everything it saw, the earth, the sky, the sun, the air
+itself; and would complain of one thing only--that dangers were so
+few, and all she could overcome. 'Sanin!' she cried, 'why, this is
+like Bürger's Lenore! Only you're not dead--eh? Not dead ... I am
+alive!' She let her force and daring have full fling. It seemed not an
+Amazon on a galloping horse, but a young female centaur at full speed,
+half-beast and half-god, and the sober, well-bred country seemed
+astounded, as it was trampled underfoot in her wild riot!
+
+Maria Nikolaevna at last drew up her foaming and bespattered mare; she
+was staggering under her, and Sanin's powerful but heavy horse was
+gasping for breath.
+
+'Well, do you like it?' Maria Nikolaevna asked in a sort of exquisite
+whisper.
+
+'I like it!' Sanin echoed back ecstatically. And his blood was on
+fire.
+
+'This isn't all, wait a bit.' She held out her hand. Her glove was
+torn across.
+
+'I told you I would lead you to the forest, to the mountains.... Here
+they are, the mountains!' The mountains, covered with tall forest,
+rose about two hundred feet from the place they had reached in their
+wild ride. 'Look, here is the road; let us turn into it--and forwards.
+Only at a walk. We must let our horses get their breath.'
+
+They rode on. With one vigorous sweep of her arm Maria Nikolaevna
+flung back her hair. Then she looked at her gloves and took them off.
+'My hands will smell of leather,' she said, 'you won't mind that, eh?'
+... Maria Nikolaevna smiled, and Sanin smiled too. Their mad gallop
+together seemed to have finally brought them together and made them
+friends.
+
+'How old are you?' she asked suddenly.
+
+'Twenty-two.'
+
+'Really? I'm twenty-two too. A nice age. Add both together and you're
+still far off old age. It's hot, though. Am I very red, eh?'
+
+'Like a poppy!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna rubbed her face with her handkerchief. 'We've only
+to get to the forest and there it will be cool. Such an old forest is
+like an old friend. Have you any friends?'
+
+Sanin thought a little. 'Yes ... only few. No real ones.'
+
+'I have; real ones--but not old ones. This is a friend too--a horse.
+How carefully it carries one! Ah, but it's splendid here! Is it
+possible I am going to Paris the day after to-morrow?'
+
+'Yes ... is it possible?' Sanin chimed in.
+
+'And you to Frankfort?'
+
+'I am certainly going to Frankfort.'
+
+'Well, what of it? Good luck go with you! Anyway, to-day's ours ...
+ours ... ours!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The horses reached the forest's edge and pushed on into the forest.
+The broad soft shade of the forest wrapt them round on all sides.
+
+'Oh, but this is paradise!' cried Maria Nikolaevna. 'Further, deeper
+into the shade, Sanin!'
+
+The horses moved slowly on, 'deeper into the shade,' slightly swaying
+and snorting. The path, by which they had come in, suddenly turned
+off and plunged into a rather narrow gorge. The smell of heather and
+bracken, of the resin of the pines, and the decaying leaves of last
+year, seemed to hang, close and drowsy, about it. Through the clefts
+of the big brown rocks came strong currents of fresh air. On both
+sides of the path rose round hillocks covered with green moss.
+
+'Stop!' cried Maria Nikolaevna, 'I want to sit down and rest on this
+velvet. Help me to get off.'
+
+Sanin leaped off his horse and ran up to her. She leaned on both his
+shoulders, sprang instantly to the ground, and seated herself on one
+of the mossy mounds. He stood before her, holding both the horses'
+bridles in his hand.
+
+She lifted her eyes to him.... 'Sanin, are you able to forget?'
+
+Sanin recollected what had happened yesterday ... in the carriage.
+'What is that--a question ... or a reproach?'
+
+'I have never in my life reproached any one for anything. Do you
+believe in magic?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'In magic?--you know what is sung of in our ballads--our Russian
+peasant ballads?'
+
+'Ah! That's what you're speaking of,' Sanin said slowly.
+
+'Yes, that's it. I believe in it ... and you will believe in it.'
+
+'Magic is sorcery ...' Sanin repeated, 'Anything in the world is
+possible. I used not to believe in it--but I do now. I don't know
+myself.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna thought a moment and looked about her. 'I fancy this
+place seems familiar to me. Look, Sanin, behind that bushy oak--is
+there a red wooden cross, or not?'
+
+Sanin moved a few steps to one side. 'Yes, there is.' Maria Nikolaevna
+smiled. 'Ah, that's good! I know where we are. We haven't got lost as
+yet. What's that tapping? A wood-cutter?'
+
+Sanin looked into the thicket. 'Yes ... there's a man there chopping
+up dry branches.'
+
+'I must put my hair to rights,' said Maria Nikolaevna. 'Else he'll see
+me and be shocked.' She took off her hat and began plaiting up her
+long hair, silently and seriously. Sanin stood facing her ... All the
+lines of her graceful limbs could be clearly seen through the dark
+folds of her habit, dotted here and there with tufts of moss.
+
+One of the horses suddenly shook itself behind Sanin's back; he
+himself started and trembled from head to foot. Everything was in
+confusion within him, his nerves were strung up like harpstrings. He
+might well say he did not know himself.... He really was bewitched.
+His whole being was filled full of one thing ... one idea, one desire.
+Maria Nikolaevna turned a keen look upon him.
+
+'Come, now everything's as it should be,' she observed, putting on her
+hat. 'Won't you sit down? Here! No, wait a minute ... don't sit down!
+What's that?'
+
+Over the tree-tops, over the air of the forest, rolled a dull
+rumbling.
+
+'Can it be thunder?'
+
+'I think it really is thunder,' answered Sanin.
+
+'Oh, this is a treat, a real treat! That was the only thing wanting!'
+The dull rumble was heard a second time, rose, and fell in a crash.
+'Bravo! Bis! Do you remember I spoke of the _Æneid_ yesterday? They
+too were overtaken by a storm in the forest, you know. We must be off,
+though.' She rose swiftly to her feet. 'Bring me my horse.... Give me
+your hand. There, so. I'm not heavy.'
+
+She hopped like a bird into the saddle. Sanin too mounted his horse.
+
+'Are you going home?' he asked in an unsteady voice.
+
+'Home indeed!' she answered deliberately and picked up the reins.
+'Follow me,' she commanded almost roughly. She came out on to the road
+and passing the red cross, rode down into a hollow, clambered up again
+to a cross road, turned to the right and again up the mountainside....
+She obviously knew where the path led, and the path led farther and
+farther into the heart of the forest. She said nothing and did not
+look round; she moved imperiously in front and humbly and submissively
+he followed without a spark of will in his sinking heart. Rain began
+to fall in spots. She quickened her horse's pace, and he did not
+linger behind her. At last through the dark green of the young firs
+under an overhanging grey rock, a tumbledown little hut peeped out at
+him, with a low door in its wattle wall.... Maria Nikolaevna made
+her mare push through the fir bushes, leaped off her, and appearing
+suddenly at the entrance to the hut, turned to Sanin, and whispered
+'Æneas.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four hours later, Maria Nikolaevna and Sanin, accompanied by the
+groom, who was nodding in the saddle, returned to Wiesbaden, to the
+hotel. Polozov met his wife with the letter to the overseer in his
+hand. After staring rather intently at her, he showed signs of some
+displeasure on his face, and even muttered, 'You don't mean to say
+you've won your bet?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna simply shrugged her shoulders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The same day, two hours later, Sanin was standing in his own room
+before her, like one distraught, ruined....
+
+'Where are you going, dear?' she asked him. 'To Paris, or to
+Frankfort?'
+
+'I am going where you will be, and will be with you till you drive me
+away,' he answered with despair and pressed close to him the hands
+of his sovereign. She freed her hands, laid them on his head, and
+clutched at his hair with her fingers. She slowly turned over and
+twisted the unresisting hair, drew herself up, her lips curled with
+triumph, while her eyes, wide and clear, almost white, expressed
+nothing but the ruthlessness and glutted joy of conquest. The hawk, as
+it clutches a captured bird, has eyes like that.
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+
+This was what Dimitri Sanin remembered when in the stillness of his
+room turning over his old papers he found among them a garnet cross.
+The events we have described rose clearly and consecutively before his
+mental vision.... But when he reached the moment when he addressed
+that humiliating prayer to Madame Polozov, when he grovelled at her
+feet, when his slavery began, he averted his gaze from the images he
+had evoked, he tried to recall no more. And not that his memory failed
+him, oh no! he knew only too well what followed upon that moment, but
+he was stifled by shame, even now, so many years after; he dreaded
+that feeling of self-contempt, which he knew for certain would
+overwhelm him, and like a torrent, flood all other feelings if he did
+not bid his memory be still. But try as he would to turn away from
+these memories, he could not stifle them entirely. He remembered the
+scoundrelly, tearful, lying, pitiful letter he had sent to Gemma, that
+never received an answer.... See her again, go back to her, after such
+falsehood, such treachery, no! no! he could not, so much conscience
+and honesty was left in him. Moreover, he had lost every trace of
+confidence in himself, every atom of self-respect; he dared not rely
+on himself for anything. Sanin recollected too how he had later
+on--oh, ignominy!--sent the Polozovs' footman to Frankfort for his
+things, what cowardly terror he had felt, how he had had one thought
+only, to get away as soon as might be to Paris--to Paris; how in
+obedience to Maria Nikolaevna, he had humoured and tried to please
+Ippolit Sidoritch and been amiable to Dönhof, on whose finger he
+noticed just such an iron ring as Maria Nikolaevna had given him!!!
+Then followed memories still worse, more ignominious ... the waiter
+hands him a visiting card, and on it is the name, 'Pantaleone
+Cippatola, court singer to His Highness the Duke of Modena!' He hides
+from the old man, but cannot escape meeting him in the corridor, and
+a face of exasperation rises before him under an upstanding topknot
+of grey hair; the old eyes blaze like red-hot coals, and he hears
+menacing cries and curses: '_Maledizione!_' hears even the terrible
+words: '_Codardo! Infame traditore!_' Sanin closes his eyes, shakes
+his head, turns away again and again, but still he sees himself
+sitting in a travelling carriage on the narrow front seat ... In the
+comfortable places facing the horses sit Maria Nikolaevna and Ippolit
+Sidoritch, the four horses trotting all together fly along the paved
+roads of Wiesbaden to Paris! to Paris! Ippolit Sidoritch is eating a
+pear which Sanin has peeled for him, while Maria Nikolaevna watches
+him and smiles at him, her bondslave, that smile he knows already, the
+smile of the proprietor, the slave-owner.... But, good God, out there
+at the corner of the street not far from the city walls, wasn't it
+Pantaleone again, and who with him? Can it be Emilio? Yes, it was
+he, the enthusiastic devoted boy! Not long since his young face had
+been full of reverence before his hero, his ideal, but now his pale
+handsome face, so handsome that Maria Nikolaevna noticed him and poked
+her head out of the carriage window, that noble face is glowing with
+anger and contempt; his eyes, so like _her_ eyes! are fastened upon
+Sanin, and the tightly compressed lips part to revile him....
+
+And Pantaleone stretches out his hand and points Sanin out to
+Tartaglia standing near, and Tartaglia barks at Sanin, and the very
+bark of the faithful dog sounds like an unbearable reproach....
+Hideous!
+
+And then, the life in Paris, and all the humiliations, all the
+loathsome tortures of the slave, who dare not be jealous or complain,
+and who is cast aside at last, like a worn-out garment....
+
+Then the going home to his own country, the poisoned, the devastated
+life, the petty interests and petty cares, bitter and fruitless
+regret, and as bitter and fruitless apathy, a punishment not apparent,
+but of every minute, continuous, like some trivial but incurable
+disease, the payment farthing by farthing of the debt, which can never
+be settled....
+
+The cup was full enough.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How had the garnet cross given Sanin by Gemma existed till now, why
+had he not sent it back, how had it happened that he had never come
+across it till that day? A long, long while he sat deep in thought,
+and taught as he was by the experience of so many years, he still
+could not comprehend how he could have deserted Gemma, so tenderly and
+passionately loved, for a woman he did not love at all.... Next day he
+surprised all his friends and acquaintances by announcing that he was
+going abroad.
+
+The surprise was general in society. Sanin was leaving Petersburg, in
+the middle of the winter, after having only just taken and furnished a
+capital flat, and having even secured seats for all the performances
+of the Italian Opera, in which Madame Patti ... Patti, herself,
+herself, was to take part! His friends and acquaintances wondered;
+but it is not human nature as a rule to be interested long in other
+people's affairs, and when Sanin set off for abroad, none came to the
+railway station to see him off but a French tailor, and he only in
+the hope of securing an unpaid account '_pour un saute-en-barque en
+velours noir tout à fait chic_.'
+
+
+
+
+XLIV
+
+
+Sanin told his friends he was going abroad, but he did not say where
+exactly: the reader will readily conjecture that he made straight for
+Frankfort. Thanks to the general extension of railways, on the fourth
+day after leaving Petersburg he was there. He had not visited the
+place since 1840. The hotel, the White Swan, was standing in its old
+place and still flourishing, though no longer regarded as first class.
+The _Zeile_, the principal street of Frankfort was little changed,
+but there was not only no trace of Signora Roselli's house, the very
+street in which it stood had disappeared. Sanin wandered like a man in
+a dream about the places once so familiar, and recognised nothing; the
+old buildings had vanished; they were replaced by new streets of huge
+continuous houses and fine villas; even the public garden, where that
+last interview with Gemma had taken place, had so grown up and altered
+that Sanin wondered if it really were the same garden. What was he to
+do? How and where could he get information? Thirty years, no little
+thing! had passed since those days. No one to whom he applied had
+even heard of the name Roselli; the hotel-keeper advised him to have
+recourse to the public library, there, he told him, he would find
+all the old newspapers, but what good he would get from that, the
+hotel-keeper owned he didn't see. Sanin in despair made inquiries
+about Herr Klüber. That name the hotel-keeper knew well, but there too
+no success awaited him. The elegant shop-manager, after making much
+noise in the world and rising to the position of a capitalist, had
+speculated, was made bankrupt, and died in prison.... This piece of
+news did not, however, occasion Sanin the slightest regret. He was
+beginning to feel that his journey had been rather precipitate....
+But, behold, one day, as he was turning over a Frankfort directory,
+he came on the name: Von Dönhof, retired major. He promptly took a
+carriage and drove to the address, though why was this Von Dönhof
+certain to be that Dönhof, and why even was the right Dönhof likely
+to be able to tell him any news of the Roselli family? No matter, a
+drowning man catches at straws.
+
+Sanin found the retired major von Dönhof at home, and in the
+grey-haired gentleman who received him he recognised at once his
+adversary of bygone days. Dönhof knew him too, and was positively
+delighted to see him; he recalled to him his young days, the escapades
+of his youth. Sanin heard from him that the Roselli family had long,
+long ago emigrated to America, to New York; that Gemma had married a
+merchant; that he, Dönhof, had an acquaintance also a merchant, who
+would probably know her husband's address, as he did a great deal of
+business with America. Sanin begged Dönhof to consult this friend,
+and, to his delight, Dönhof brought him the address of Gemma's
+husband, Mr. Jeremy Slocum, New York, Broadway, No. 501. Only this
+address dated from the year 1863.
+
+'Let us hope,' cried Dönhof, 'that our Frankfort belle is still alive
+and has not left New York! By the way,' he added, dropping his voice,
+'what about that Russian lady, who was staying, do you remember, about
+that time at Wiesbaden--Madame von Bo ... von Bolozov, is she still
+living?'
+
+'No,' answered Sanin, 'she died long ago.' Dönhof looked up, but
+observing that Sanin had turned away and was frowning, he did not say
+another word, but took his leave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That same day Sanin sent a letter to Madame Gemma Slocum, at New York.
+In the letter he told her he was writing to her from Frankfort, where
+he had come solely with the object of finding traces of her, that
+he was very well aware that he was absolutely without a right to
+expect that she would answer his appeal; that he had not deserved her
+forgiveness, and could only hope that among happy surroundings she had
+long ago forgotten his existence. He added that he had made up his
+mind to recall himself to her memory in consequence of a chance
+circumstance which had too vividly brought back to him the images
+of the past; he described his life, solitary, childless, joyless;
+he implored her to understand the grounds that had induced him to
+address her, not to let him carry to the grave the bitter sense of his
+own wrongdoing, expiated long since by suffering, but never forgiven,
+and to make him happy with even the briefest news of her life in the
+new world to which she had gone away. 'In writing one word to me,'
+so Sanin ended his letter, 'you will be doing a good action worthy
+of your noble soul, and I shall thank you to my last breath. I am
+stopping here at the _White Swan_ (he underlined those words) and
+shall wait, wait till spring, for your answer.'
+
+He despatched this letter, and proceeded to wait. For six whole weeks
+he lived in the hotel, scarcely leaving his room, and resolutely
+seeing no one. No one could write to him from Russia nor from
+anywhere; and that just suited his mood; if a letter came addressed to
+him he would know at once that it was the one he was waiting for.
+He read from morning till evening, and not journals, but serious
+books--historical works. These prolonged studies, this stillness, this
+hidden life, like a snail in its shell, suited his spiritual condition
+to perfection; and for this, if nothing more, thanks to Gemma! But was
+she alive? Would she answer?
+
+At last a letter came, with an American postmark, from New York,
+addressed to him. The handwriting of the address on the envelope was
+English.... He did not recognise it, and there was a pang at his
+heart. He could not at once bring himself to break open the envelope.
+He glanced at the signature--Gemma! The tears positively gushed from
+his eyes: the mere fact that she signed her name, without a surname,
+was a pledge to him of reconciliation, of forgiveness! He unfolded the
+thin sheet of blue notepaper: a photograph slipped out. He made haste
+to pick it up--and was struck dumb with amazement: Gemma, Gemma
+living, young as he had known her thirty years ago! The same eyes,
+the same lips, the same form of the whole face! On the back of the
+photograph was written, 'My daughter Mariana.' The whole letter was
+very kind and simple. Gemma thanked Sanin for not having hesitated to
+write to her, for having confidence in her; she did not conceal from
+him that she had passed some painful moments after his disappearance,
+but she added at once that for all that she considered--and had always
+considered--her meeting him as a happy thing, seeing that it was that
+meeting which had prevented her from becoming the wife of Mr. Klüber,
+and in that way, though indirectly, had led to her marriage with her
+husband, with whom she had now lived twenty-eight years, in perfect
+happiness, comfort, and prosperity; their house was known to every
+one in New York. Gemma informed Sanin that she was the mother of five
+children, four sons and one daughter, a girl of eighteen, engaged
+to be married, and her photograph she enclosed as she was generally
+considered very like her mother. The sorrowful news Gemma kept for the
+end of the letter. Frau Lenore had died in New York, where she had
+followed her daughter and son-in-law, but she had lived long enough to
+rejoice in her children's happiness and to nurse her grandchildren.
+Pantaleone, too, had meant to come out to America, but he had died on
+the very eve of leaving Frankfort. 'Emilio, our beloved, incomparable
+Emilio, died a glorious death for the freedom of his country in
+Sicily, where he was one of the "Thousand" under the leadership of the
+great Garibaldi; we all bitterly lamented the loss of our priceless
+brother, but, even in the midst of our tears, we were proud of
+him--and shall always be proud of him--and hold his memory sacred!
+His lofty, disinterested soul was worthy of a martyr's crown!' Then
+Gemma expressed her regret that Sanin's life had apparently been
+so unsuccessful, wished him before everything peace and a tranquil
+spirit, and said that she would be very glad to see him again, though
+she realised how unlikely such a meeting was....
+
+We will not attempt to describe the feelings Sanin experienced as
+he read this letter. For such feelings there is no satisfactory
+expression; they are too deep and too strong and too vague for any
+word. Only music could reproduce them.
+
+Sanin answered at once; and as a wedding gift to the young girl, sent
+to 'Mariana Slocum, from an unknown friend,' a garnet cross, set in a
+magnificent pearl necklace. This present, costly as it was, did not
+ruin him; during the thirty years that had elapsed since his first
+visit to Frankfort, he had succeeded in accumulating a considerable
+fortune. Early in May he went back to Petersburg, but hardly for long.
+It is rumoured that he is selling all his lands and preparing to go to
+America.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST LOVE
+
+
+The party had long ago broken up. The clock struck half-past twelve.
+There was left in the room only the master of the house and Sergei
+Nikolaevitch and Vladimir Petrovitch.
+
+The master of the house rang and ordered the remains of the supper
+to be cleared away. 'And so it's settled,' he observed, sitting back
+farther in his easy-chair and lighting a cigar; 'each of us is to tell
+the story of his first love. It's your turn, Sergei Nikolaevitch.'
+
+Sergei Nikolaevitch, a round little man with a plump,
+light-complexioned face, gazed first at the master of the house, then
+raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'I had no first love,' he said at
+last; 'I began with the second.'
+
+'How was that?'
+
+'It's very simple. I was eighteen when I had my first flirtation
+with a charming young lady, but I courted her just as though it
+were nothing new to me; just as I courted others later on. To speak
+accurately, the first and last time I was in love was with my nurse
+when I was six years old; but that's in the remote past. The details
+of our relations have slipped out of my memory, and even if I
+remembered them, whom could they interest?'
+
+'Then how's it to be?' began the master of the house. 'There was
+nothing much of interest about my first love either; I never fell
+in love with any one till I met Anna Nikolaevna, now my wife,--and
+everything went as smoothly as possible with us; our parents arranged
+the match, we were very soon in love with each other, and got married
+without loss of time. My story can be told in a couple of words. I
+must confess, gentlemen, in bringing up the subject of first love, I
+reckoned upon you, I won't say old, but no longer young, bachelors.
+Can't you enliven us with something, Vladimir Petrovitch?'
+
+'My first love, certainly, was not quite an ordinary one,' responded,
+with some reluctance, Vladimir Petrovitch, a man of forty, with black
+hair turning grey.
+
+'Ah!' said the master of the house and Sergei Nikolaevitch with one
+voice: 'So much the better.... Tell us about it.'
+
+'If you wish it ... or no; I won't tell the story; I'm no hand at
+telling a story; I make it dry and brief, or spun out and affected. If
+you'll allow me, I'll write out all I remember and read it you.'
+
+His friends at first would not agree, but Vladimir Petrovitch insisted
+on his own way. A fortnight later they were together again, and
+Vladimir Petrovitch kept his word.
+
+His manuscript contained the following story:--
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+I was sixteen then. It happened in the summer of 1833.
+
+I lived in Moscow with my parents. They had taken a country house for
+the summer near the Kalouga gate, facing the Neskutchny gardens. I
+was preparing for the university, but did not work much and was in no
+hurry.
+
+No one interfered with my freedom. I did what I liked, especially
+after parting with my last tutor, a Frenchman who had never been able
+to get used to the idea that he had fallen 'like a bomb' (_comme
+une bombe_) into Russia, and would lie sluggishly in bed with an
+expression of exasperation on his face for days together. My father
+treated me with careless kindness; my mother scarcely noticed me,
+though she had no children except me; other cares completely absorbed
+her. My father, a man still young and very handsome, had married her
+from mercenary considerations; she was ten years older than he. My
+mother led a melancholy life; she was for ever agitated, jealous and
+angry, but not in my father's presence; she was very much afraid of
+him, and he was severe, cold, and distant in his behaviour.... I
+have never seen a man more elaborately serene, self-confident, and
+commanding.
+
+I shall never forget the first weeks I spent at the country house.
+The weather was magnificent; we left town on the 9th of May, on St.
+Nicholas's day. I used to walk about in our garden, in the Neskutchny
+gardens, and beyond the town gates; I would take some book with
+me--Keidanov's Course, for instance--but I rarely looked into it, and
+more often than anything declaimed verses aloud; I knew a great deal
+of poetry by heart; my blood was in a ferment and my heart ached--so
+sweetly and absurdly; I was all hope and anticipation, was a little
+frightened of something, and full of wonder at everything, and was
+on the tiptoe of expectation; my imagination played continually,
+fluttering rapidly about the same fancies, like martins about a
+bell-tower at dawn; I dreamed, was sad, even wept; but through the
+tears and through the sadness, inspired by a musical verse, or the
+beauty of evening, shot up like grass in spring the delicious sense of
+youth and effervescent life.
+
+I had a horse to ride; I used to saddle it myself and set off alone
+for long rides, break into a rapid gallop and fancy myself a knight at
+a tournament. How gaily the wind whistled in my ears! or turning my
+face towards the sky, I would absorb its shining radiance and blue
+into my soul, that opened wide to welcome it.
+
+I remember that at that time the image of woman, the vision of love,
+scarcely ever arose in definite shape in my brain; but in all I
+thought, in all I felt, lay hidden a half-conscious, shamefaced
+presentiment of something new, unutterably sweet, feminine....
+
+This presentiment, this expectation, permeated my whole being; I
+breathed in it, it coursed through my veins with every drop of blood
+... it was destined to be soon fulfilled.
+
+The place, where we settled for the summer, consisted of a wooden
+manor-house with columns and two small lodges; in the lodge on
+the left there was a tiny factory for the manufacture of cheap
+wall-papers.... I had more than once strolled that way to look at
+about a dozen thin and dishevelled boys with greasy smocks and worn
+faces, who were perpetually jumping on to wooden levers, that pressed
+down the square blocks of the press, and so by the weight of their
+feeble bodies struck off the variegated patterns of the wall-papers.
+The lodge on the right stood empty, and was to let. One day--three
+weeks after the 9th of May--the blinds in the windows of this lodge
+were drawn up, women's faces appeared at them--some family had
+installed themselves in it. I remember the same day at dinner, my
+mother inquired of the butler who were our new neighbours, and hearing
+the name of the Princess Zasyekin, first observed with some respect,
+'Ah! a princess!' ... and then added, 'A poor one, I suppose?'
+
+'They arrived in three hired flies,' the butler remarked
+deferentially, as he handed a dish: 'they don't keep their own
+carriage, and the furniture's of the poorest.'
+
+'Ah,' replied my mother, 'so much the better.'
+
+My father gave her a chilly glance; she was silent.
+
+Certainly the Princess Zasyekin could not be a rich woman; the lodge
+she had taken was so dilapidated and small and low-pitched that
+people, even moderately well-off in the world, would hardly have
+consented to occupy it. At the time, however, all this went in at one
+ear and out at the other. The princely title had very little effect on
+me; I had just been reading Schiller's _Robbers_.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I was in the habit of wandering about our garden every evening on the
+look-out for rooks. I had long cherished a hatred for those wary, sly,
+and rapacious birds. On the day of which I have been speaking, I went
+as usual into the garden, and after patrolling all the walks without
+success (the rooks knew me, and merely cawed spasmodically at a
+distance), I chanced to go close to the low fence which separated our
+domain from the narrow strip of garden stretching beyond the lodge to
+the right, and belonging to it. I was walking along, my eyes on the
+ground. Suddenly I heard a voice; I looked across the fence, and was
+thunder-struck.... I was confronted with a curious spectacle.
+
+A few paces from me on the grass between the green raspberry bushes
+stood a tall slender girl in a striped pink dress, with a white
+kerchief on her head; four young men were close round her, and she
+was slapping them by turns on the forehead with those small grey
+flowers, the name of which I don't know, though they are well known to
+children; the flowers form little bags, and burst open with a pop when
+you strike them against anything hard. The young men presented their
+foreheads so eagerly, and in the gestures of the girl (I saw her in
+profile), there was something so fascinating, imperious, caressing,
+mocking, and charming, that I almost cried out with admiration and
+delight, and would, I thought, have given everything in the world on
+the spot only to have had those exquisite fingers strike me on the
+forehead. My gun slipped on to the grass, I forgot everything, I
+devoured with my eyes the graceful shape and neck and lovely arms and
+the slightly disordered fair hair under the white kerchief, and the
+half-closed clever eye, and the eyelashes and the soft cheek beneath
+them....
+
+'Young man, hey, young man,' said a voice suddenly near me: 'is it
+quite permissible to stare so at unknown young ladies?'
+
+I started, I was struck dumb.... Near me, the other side of the fence,
+stood a man with close-cropped black hair, looking ironically at me.
+At the same instant the girl too turned towards me.... I caught sight
+of big grey eyes in a bright mobile face, and the whole face suddenly
+quivered and laughed, there was a flash of white teeth, a droll
+lifting of the eyebrows.... I crimsoned, picked up my gun from the
+ground, and pursued by a musical but not ill-natured laugh, fled to
+my own room, flung myself on the bed, and hid my face in my hands. My
+heart was fairly leaping; I was greatly ashamed and overjoyed; I felt
+an excitement I had never known before.
+
+After a rest, I brushed my hair, washed, and went downstairs to tea.
+The image of the young girl floated before me, my heart was no longer
+leaping, but was full of a sort of sweet oppression.
+
+'What's the matter?' my father asked me all at once: 'have you killed
+a rook?'
+
+I was on the point of telling him all about it, but I checked myself,
+and merely smiled to myself. As I was going to bed, I rotated--I don't
+know why--three times on one leg, pomaded my hair, got into bed, and
+slept like a top all night. Before morning I woke up for an instant,
+raised my head, looked round me in ecstasy, and fell asleep again.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+'How can I make their acquaintance?' was my first thought when I waked
+in the morning. I went out in the garden before morning tea, but I
+did not go too near the fence, and saw no one. After drinking tea,
+I walked several times up and down the street before the house, and
+looked into the windows from a distance.... I fancied her face at a
+curtain, and I hurried away in alarm.
+
+'I must make her acquaintance, though,' I thought, pacing distractedly
+about the sandy plain that stretches before Neskutchny park ... 'but
+how, that is the question.' I recalled the minutest details of our
+meeting yesterday; I had for some reason or other a particularly vivid
+recollection of how she had laughed at me.... But while I racked my
+brains, and made various plans, fate had already provided for me.
+
+In my absence my mother had received from her new neighbour a letter
+on grey paper, sealed with brown wax, such as is only used in notices
+from the post-office or on the corks of bottles of cheap wine. In this
+letter, which was written in illiterate language and in a slovenly
+hand, the princess begged my mother to use her powerful influence
+in her behalf; my mother, in the words of the princess, was very
+intimate with persons of high position, upon whom her fortunes and her
+children's fortunes depended, as she had some very important business
+in hand. 'I address myself to you,' she wrote, 'as one gentlewoman to
+another gentlewoman, and for that reason am glad to avail myself of
+the opportunity.' Concluding, she begged my mother's permission to
+call upon her. I found my mother in an unpleasant state of indecision;
+my father was not at home, and she had no one of whom to ask advice.
+Not to answer a gentlewoman, and a princess into the bargain, was
+impossible. But my mother was in a difficulty as to how to answer
+her. To write a note in French struck her as unsuitable, and Russian
+spelling was not a strong point with my mother herself, and she was
+aware of it, and did not care to expose herself. She was overjoyed
+when I made my appearance, and at once told me to go round to the
+princess's, and to explain to her by word of mouth that my mother
+would always be glad to do her excellency any service within her
+powers, and begged her to come to see her at one o'clock. This
+unexpectedly rapid fulfilment of my secret desires both delighted and
+appalled me. I made no sign, however, of the perturbation which came
+over me, and as a preliminary step went to my own room to put on a new
+necktie and tail coat; at home I still wore short jackets and lay-down
+collars, much as I abominated them.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+In the narrow and untidy passage of the lodge, which I entered with an
+involuntary tremor in all my limbs, I was met by an old grey-headed
+servant with a dark copper-coloured face, surly little pig's eyes, and
+such deep furrows on his forehead and temples as I had never beheld
+in my life. He was carrying a plate containing the spine of a herring
+that had been gnawed at; and shutting the door that led into the room
+with his foot, he jerked out, 'What do you want?'
+
+'Is the Princess Zasyekin at home?' I inquired.
+
+'Vonifaty!' a jarring female voice screamed from within.
+
+The man without a word turned his back on me, exhibiting as he did
+so the extremely threadbare hindpart of his livery with a solitary
+reddish heraldic button on it; he put the plate down on the floor, and
+went away.
+
+'Did you go to the police station?' the same female voice called
+again. The man muttered something in reply. 'Eh.... Has some one
+come?' I heard again.... 'The young gentleman from next door. Ask him
+in, then.'
+
+'Will you step into the drawing-room?' said the servant, making his
+appearance once more, and picking up the plate from the floor. I
+mastered my emotions, and went into the drawing-room.
+
+I found myself in a small and not over clean apartment, containing
+some poor furniture that looked as if it had been hurriedly set down
+where it stood. At the window in an easy-chair with a broken arm was
+sitting a woman of fifty, bareheaded and ugly, in an old green dress,
+and a striped worsted wrap about her neck. Her small black eyes fixed
+me like pins.
+
+I went up to her and bowed.
+
+'I have the honour of addressing the Princess Zasyekin?'
+
+'I am the Princess Zasyekin; and you are the son of Mr. V.?'
+
+'Yes. I have come to you with a message from my mother.'
+
+'Sit down, please. Vonifaty, where are my keys, have you seen them?'
+
+I communicated to Madame Zasyekin my mother's reply to her note. She
+heard me out, drumming with her fat red fingers on the window-pane,
+and when I had finished, she stared at me once more.
+
+'Very good; I'll be sure to come,' she observed at last. 'But how
+young you are! How old are you, may I ask?'
+
+'Sixteen,' I replied, with an involuntary stammer.
+
+The princess drew out of her pocket some greasy papers covered with
+writing, raised them right up to her nose, and began looking through
+them.
+
+'A good age,' she ejaculated suddenly, turning round restlessly on
+her chair. 'And do you, pray, make yourself at home. I don't stand on
+ceremony.'
+
+'No, indeed,' I thought, scanning her unprepossessing person with a
+disgust I could not restrain.
+
+At that instant another door flew open quickly, and in the doorway
+stood the girl I had seen the previous evening in the garden. She
+lifted her hand, and a mocking smile gleamed in her face.
+
+'Here is my daughter,' observed the princess, indicating her with her
+elbow. 'Zinotchka, the son of our neighbour, Mr. V. What is your name,
+allow me to ask?'
+
+'Vladimir,' I answered, getting up, and stuttering in my excitement.
+
+'And your father's name?'
+
+'Petrovitch.'
+
+'Ah! I used to know a commissioner of police whose name was Vladimir
+Petrovitch too. Vonifaty! don't look for my keys; the keys are in my
+pocket.'
+
+The young girl was still looking at me with the same smile, faintly
+fluttering her eyelids, and putting her head a little on one side.
+
+'I have seen Monsieur Voldemar before,' she began. (The silvery note
+of her voice ran through me with a sort of sweet shiver.) 'You will
+let me call you so?'
+
+'Oh, please,' I faltered.
+
+'Where was that?' asked the princess.
+
+The young princess did not answer her mother.
+
+'Have you anything to do just now?' she said, not taking her eyes off
+me.
+
+'Oh, no.'
+
+'Would you like to help me wind some wool? Come in here, to me.'
+
+She nodded to me and went out of the drawing-room. I followed her.
+
+In the room we went into, the furniture was a little better, and
+was arranged with more taste. Though, indeed, at the moment, I was
+scarcely capable of noticing anything; I moved as in a dream and felt
+all through my being a sort of intense blissfulness that verged on
+imbecility.
+
+The young princess sat down, took out a skein of red wool and,
+motioning me to a seat opposite her, carefully untied the skein and
+laid it across my hands. All this she did in silence with a sort of
+droll deliberation and with the same bright sly smile on her slightly
+parted lips. She began to wind the wool on a bent card, and all at
+once she dazzled me with a glance so brilliant and rapid, that I
+could not help dropping my eyes. When her eyes, which were generally
+half closed, opened to their full extent, her face was completely
+transfigured; it was as though it were flooded with light.
+
+'What did you think of me yesterday, M'sieu Voldemar?' she asked after
+a brief pause. 'You thought ill of me, I expect?'
+
+'I ... princess ... I thought nothing ... how can I?...' I answered in
+confusion.
+
+'Listen,' she rejoined. 'You don't know me yet. I'm a very strange
+person; I like always to be told the truth. You, I have just heard,
+are sixteen, and I am twenty-one: you see I'm a great deal older than
+you, and so you ought always to tell me the truth ... and to do what I
+tell you,' she added. 'Look at me: why don't you look at me?'
+
+I was still more abashed; however, I raised my eyes to her. She
+smiled, not her former smile, but a smile of approbation. 'Look at
+me,' she said, dropping her voice caressingly: 'I don't dislike that
+... I like your face; I have a presentiment we shall be friends. But
+do you like me?' she added slyly.
+
+'Princess ...' I was beginning.
+
+'In the first place, you must call me Zinaïda Alexandrovna, and in the
+second place it's a bad habit for children'--(she corrected herself)
+'for young people--not to say straight out what they feel. That's all
+very well for grown-up people. You like me, don't you?'
+
+Though I was greatly delighted that she talked so freely to me, still
+I was a little hurt. I wanted to show her that she had not a mere boy
+to deal with, and assuming as easy and serious an air as I could, I
+observed, 'Certainly. I like you very much, Zinaïda Alexandrovna; I
+have no wish to conceal it.'
+
+She shook her head very deliberately. 'Have you a tutor?' she asked
+suddenly.
+
+'No; I've not had a tutor for a long, long while.'
+
+I told a lie; it was not a month since I had parted with my Frenchman.
+
+'Oh! I see then--you are quite grown-up.'
+
+She tapped me lightly on the fingers. 'Hold your hands straight!' And
+she applied herself busily to winding the ball.
+
+I seized the opportunity when she was looking down and fell to
+watching her, at first stealthily, then more and more boldly. Her
+face struck me as even more charming than on the previous evening;
+everything in it was so delicate, clever, and sweet. She was sitting
+with her back to a window covered with a white blind, the sunshine,
+streaming in through the blind, shed a soft light over her fluffy
+golden curls, her innocent neck, her sloping shoulders, and tender
+untroubled bosom. I gazed at her, and how dear and near she was
+already to me! It seemed to me I had known her a long while and had
+never known anything nor lived at all till I met her.... She was
+wearing a dark and rather shabby dress and an apron; I would gladly, I
+felt, have kissed every fold of that dress and apron. The tips of her
+little shoes peeped out from under her skirt; I could have bowed down
+in adoration to those shoes.... 'And here I am sitting before her,'
+I thought; 'I have made acquaintance with her ... what happiness, my
+God!' I could hardly keep from jumping up from my chair in ecstasy,
+but I only swung my legs a little, like a small child who has been
+given sweetmeats.
+
+I was as happy as a fish in water, and I could have stayed in that
+room for ever, have never left that place.
+
+Her eyelids were slowly lifted, and once more her clear eyes shone
+kindly upon me, and again she smiled.
+
+'How you look at me!' she said slowly, and she held up a threatening
+finger.
+
+I blushed ... 'She understands it all, she sees all,' flashed through
+my mind. 'And how could she fail to understand and see it all?'
+
+All at once there was a sound in the next room--the clink of a sabre.
+
+'Zina!' screamed the princess in the drawing-room, 'Byelovzorov has
+brought you a kitten.'
+
+'A kitten!' cried Zinaïda, and getting up from her chair impetuously,
+she flung the ball of worsted on my knees and ran away.
+
+I too got up and, laying the skein and the ball of wool on the
+window-sill, I went into the drawing-room and stood still, hesitating.
+In the middle of the room, a tabby kitten was lying with outstretched
+paws; Zinaïda was on her knees before it, cautiously lifting up its
+little face. Near the old princess, and filling up almost the whole
+space between the two windows, was a flaxen curly-headed young man, a
+hussar, with a rosy face and prominent eyes.
+
+'What a funny little thing!' Zinaïda was saying; 'and its eyes are not
+grey, but green, and what long ears! Thank you, Viktor Yegoritch! you
+are very kind.'
+
+The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men I had seen the
+evening before, smiled and bowed with a clink of his spurs and a
+jingle of the chain of his sabre.
+
+'You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a tabby
+kitten with long ears ... so I obtained it. Your word is law.' And he
+bowed again.
+
+The kitten gave a feeble mew and began sniffing the ground.
+
+'It's hungry!' cried Zinaïda. 'Vonifaty, Sonia! bring some milk.'
+
+A maid, in an old yellow gown with a faded kerchief at her neck, came
+in with a saucer of milk and set it before the kitten. The kitten
+started, blinked, and began lapping.
+
+'What a pink little tongue it has!' remarked Zinaïda, putting her head
+almost on the ground and peeping at it sideways under its very nose.
+
+The kitten having had enough began to purr and move its paws
+affectedly. Zinaïda got up, and turning to the maid said carelessly,
+'Take it away.'
+
+'For the kitten--your little hand,' said the hussar, with a simper and
+a shrug of his strongly-built frame, which was tightly buttoned up in
+a new uniform.
+
+'Both,' replied Zinaïda, and she held out her hands to him. While he
+was kissing them, she looked at me over his shoulder.
+
+I stood stockstill in the same place and did not know whether to
+laugh, to say something, or to be silent. Suddenly through the open
+door into the passage I caught sight of our footman, Fyodor. He was
+making signs to me. Mechanically I went out to him.
+
+'What do you want?' I asked.
+
+'Your mamma has sent for you,' he said in a whisper. 'She is angry
+that you have not come back with the answer.'
+
+'Why, have I been here long?'
+
+'Over an hour.'
+
+'Over an hour!' I repeated unconsciously, and going back to the
+drawing-room I began to make bows and scrape with my heels.
+
+'Where are you off to?' the young princess asked, glancing at me from
+behind the hussar.
+
+'I must go home. So I am to say,' I added, addressing the old lady,
+'that you will come to us about two.'
+
+'Do you say so, my good sir.'
+
+The princess hurriedly pulled out her snuff-box and took snuff so
+loudly that I positively jumped. 'Do you say so,' she repeated,
+blinking tearfully and sneezing.
+
+I bowed once more, turned, and went out of the room with that
+sensation of awkwardness in my spine which a very young man feels when
+he knows he is being looked at from behind.
+
+'Mind you come and see us again, M'sieu Voldemar,' Zinaïda called, and
+she laughed again.
+
+'Why is it she's always laughing?' I thought, as I went back home
+escorted by Fyodor, who said nothing to me, but walked behind me with
+an air of disapprobation. My mother scolded me and wondered what ever
+I could have been doing so long at the princess's. I made her no reply
+and went off to my own room. I felt suddenly very sad.... I tried hard
+not to cry.... I was jealous of the hussar.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The princess called on my mother as she had promised and made a
+disagreeable impression on her. I was not present at their interview,
+but at table my mother told my father that this Prince Zasyekin struck
+her as a _femme très vulgaire_, that she had quite worn her out
+begging her to interest Prince Sergei in their behalf, that she seemed
+to have no end of lawsuits and affairs on hand--_de vilaines affaires
+d'argent_--and must be a very troublesome and litigious person. My
+mother added, however, that she had asked her and her daughter to
+dinner the next day (hearing the word 'daughter' I buried my nose in
+my plate), for after all she was a neighbour and a person of title.
+Upon this my father informed my mother that he remembered now who this
+lady was; that he had in his youth known the deceased Prince Zasyekin,
+a very well-bred, but frivolous and absurd person; that he had been
+nicknamed in society '_le Parisien_,' from having lived a long while
+in Paris; that he had been very rich, but had gambled away all his
+property; and for some unknown reason, probably for money, though
+indeed he might have chosen better, if so, my father added with a cold
+smile, he had married the daughter of an agent, and after his marriage
+had entered upon speculations and ruined himself utterly.
+
+'If only she doesn't try to borrow money,' observed my mother.
+
+'That's exceedingly possible,' my father responded tranquilly. 'Does
+she speak French?'
+
+'Very badly.'
+
+'H'm. It's of no consequence anyway. I think you said you had asked
+the daughter too; some one was telling me she was a very charming and
+cultivated girl.'
+
+'Ah! Then she can't take after her mother.'
+
+'Nor her father either,' rejoined my father. 'He was cultivated
+indeed, but a fool.'
+
+My mother sighed and sank into thought. My father said no more. I felt
+very uncomfortable during this conversation.
+
+After dinner I went into the garden, but without my gun. I swore
+to myself that I would not go near the Zasyekins' garden, but an
+irresistible force drew me thither, and not in vain. I had hardly
+reached the fence when I caught sight of Zinaïda. This time she was
+alone. She held a book in her hands, and was coming slowly along the
+path. She did not notice me.
+
+I almost let her pass by; but all at once I changed my mind and
+coughed.
+
+She turned round, but did not stop, pushed back with one hand the
+broad blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled slowly,
+and again bent her eyes on the book.
+
+I took off my cap, and after hesitating a moment, walked away with a
+heavy heart. '_Que suis-je pour elle?_' I thought (God knows why) in
+French.
+
+Familiar footsteps sounded behind me; I looked round, my father came
+up to me with his light, rapid walk.
+
+'Is that the young princess?' he asked me.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Why, do you know her?'
+
+'I saw her this morning at the princess's.'
+
+My father stopped, and, turning sharply on his heel, went back. When
+he was on a level with Zinaïda, he made her a courteous bow. She,
+too, bowed to him, with some astonishment on her face, and dropped
+her book. I saw how she looked after him. My father was always
+irreproachably dressed, simple and in a style of his own; but his
+figure had never struck me as more graceful, never had his grey hat
+sat more becomingly on his curls, which were scarcely perceptibly
+thinner than they had once been.
+
+I bent my steps toward Zinaïda, but she did not even glance at me; she
+picked up her book again and went away.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The whole evening and the following day I spent in a sort of dejected
+apathy. I remember I tried to work and took up Keidanov, but the
+boldly printed lines and pages of the famous text-book passed before
+my eyes in vain. I read ten times over the words: 'Julius Caesar was
+distinguished by warlike courage.' I did not understand anything and
+threw the book aside. Before dinner-time I pomaded myself once more,
+and once more put on my tail-coat and necktie.
+
+'What's that for?' my mother demanded. 'You're not a student yet, and
+God knows whether you'll get through the examination. And you've not
+long had a new jacket! You can't throw it away!'
+
+'There will be visitors,' I murmured almost in despair.
+
+'What nonsense! fine visitors indeed!'
+
+I had to submit. I changed my tail-coat for my jacket, but I did
+not take off the necktie. The princess and her daughter made their
+appearance half an hour before dinner-time; the old lady had put on,
+in addition to the green dress with which I was already acquainted,
+a yellow shawl, and an old-fashioned cap adorned with flame-coloured
+ribbons. She began talking at once about her money difficulties,
+sighing, complaining of her poverty, and imploring assistance, but
+she made herself at home; she took snuff as noisily, and fidgeted and
+lolled about in her chair as freely as ever. It never seemed to have
+struck her that she was a princess. Zinaïda on the other hand was
+rigid, almost haughty in her demeanour, every inch a princess. There
+was a cold immobility and dignity in her face. I should not have
+recognised it; I should not have known her smiles, her glances, though
+I thought her exquisite in this new aspect too. She wore a light
+barége dress with pale blue flowers on it; her hair fell in long curls
+down her cheek in the English fashion; this style went well with the
+cold expression of her face. My father sat beside her during dinner,
+and entertained his neighbour with the finished and serene courtesy
+peculiar to him. He glanced at her from time to time, and she glanced
+at him, but so strangely, almost with hostility. Their conversation
+was carried on in French; I was surprised, I remember, at the purity
+of Zinaïda's accent. The princess, while we were at table, as before
+made no ceremony; she ate a great deal, and praised the dishes. My
+mother was obviously bored by her, and answered her with a sort of
+weary indifference; my father faintly frowned now and then. My mother
+did not like Zinaïda either. 'A conceited minx,' she said next day.
+'And fancy, what she has to be conceited about, _avec sa mine de
+grisette_!'
+
+'It's clear you have never seen any grisettes,' my father observed to
+her.
+
+'Thank God, I haven't!'
+
+'Thank God, to be sure ... only how can you form an opinion of them,
+then?'
+
+To me Zinaïda had paid no attention whatever. Soon after dinner the
+princess got up to go.
+
+'I shall rely on your kind offices, Maria Nikolaevna and Piotr
+Vassilitch,' she said in a doleful sing-song to my mother and father.
+'I've no help for it! There were days, but they are over. Here I am,
+an excellency, and a poor honour it is with nothing to eat!'
+
+My father made her a respectful bow and escorted her to the door of
+the hall. I was standing there in my short jacket, staring at the
+floor, like a man under sentence of death. Zinaïda's treatment of me
+had crushed me utterly. What was my astonishment, when, as she passed
+me, she whispered quickly with her former kind expression in her eyes:
+'Come to see us at eight, do you hear, be sure....' I simply threw up
+my hands, but already she was gone, flinging a white scarf over her
+head.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+At eight o'clock precisely, in my tail-coat and with my hair brushed
+up into a tuft on my head, I entered the passage of the lodge, where
+the princess lived. The old servant looked crossly at me and got up
+unwillingly from his bench. There was a sound of merry voices in
+the drawing-room. I opened the door and fell back in amazement. In
+the middle of the room was the young princess, standing on a chair,
+holding a man's hat in front of her; round the chair crowded some half
+a dozen men. They were trying to put their hands into the hat, while
+she held it above their heads, shaking it violently. On seeing me,
+she cried, 'Stay, stay, another guest, he must have a ticket too,'
+and leaping lightly down from the chair she took me by the cuff of my
+coat 'Come along,' she said, 'why are you standing still? _Messieurs_,
+let me make you acquainted: this is M'sieu Voldemar, the son of our
+neighbour. And this,' she went on, addressing me, and indicating her
+guests in turn, 'Count Malevsky, Doctor Lushin, Meidanov the poet, the
+retired captain Nirmatsky, and Byelovzorov the hussar, whom you've
+seen already. I hope you will be good friends.' I was so confused that
+I did not even bow to any one; in Doctor Lushin I recognised the dark
+man who had so mercilessly put me to shame in the garden; the others
+were unknown to me.
+
+'Count!' continued Zinaïda, 'write M'sieu Voldemar a ticket.'
+
+'That's not fair,' was objected in a slight Polish accent by the
+count, a very handsome and fashionably dressed brunette, with
+expressive brown eyes, a thin little white nose, and delicate little
+moustaches over a tiny mouth. 'This gentleman has not been playing
+forfeits with us.'
+
+'It's unfair,' repeated in chorus Byelovzorov and the gentleman
+described as a retired captain, a man of forty, pock-marked to
+a hideous degree, curly-headed as a negro, round-shouldered,
+bandy-legged, and dressed in a military coat without epaulets, worn
+unbuttoned.
+
+'Write him a ticket, I tell you,' repeated the young princess. 'What's
+this mutiny? M'sieu Voldemar is with us for the first time, and there
+are no rules for him yet. It's no use grumbling--write it, I wish it.'
+
+The count shrugged his shoulders but bowed submissively, took the pen
+in his white, ring-bedecked fingers, tore off a scrap of paper and
+wrote on it.
+
+'At least let us explain to Mr. Voldemar what we are about,' Lushin
+began in a sarcastic voice, 'or else he will be quite lost. Do you
+see, young man, we are playing forfeits? the princess has to pay a
+forfeit, and the one who draws the lucky lot is to have the privilege
+of kissing her hand. Do you understand what I've told you?'
+
+I simply stared at him, and continued to stand still in bewilderment,
+while the young princess jumped up on the chair again, and again began
+waving the hat. They all stretched up to her, and I went after the
+rest.
+
+'Meidanov,' said the princess to a tall young man with a thin face,
+little dim-sighted eyes, and exceedingly long black hair, 'you as
+a poet ought to be magnanimous, and give up your number to M'sieu
+Voldemar so that he may have two chances instead of one.'
+
+But Meidanov shook his head in refusal, and tossed his hair. After
+all the others I put my hand into the hat, and unfolded my lot....
+Heavens! what was my condition when I saw on it the word, Kiss!
+
+'Kiss!' I could not help crying aloud.
+
+'Bravo! he has won it,' the princess said quickly. 'How glad I am!'
+She came down from the chair and gave me such a bright sweet look,
+that my heart bounded. 'Are you glad?' she asked me.
+
+'Me?' ... I faltered.
+
+'Sell me your lot,' Byelovzorov growled suddenly just in my ear. 'I'll
+give you a hundred roubles.'
+
+I answered the hussar with such an indignant look, that Zinaïda
+clapped her hands, while Lushin cried, 'He's a fine fellow!'
+
+'But, as master of the ceremonies,' he went on, 'it's my duty to see
+that all the rules are kept. M'sieu Voldemar, go down on one knee.
+That is our regulation.'
+
+Zinaïda stood in front of me, her head a little on one side as though
+to get a better look at me; she held out her hand to me with dignity.
+A mist passed before my eyes; I meant to drop on one knee, sank on
+both, and pressed my lips to Zinaïda's fingers so awkwardly that I
+scratched myself a little with the tip of her nail.
+
+'Well done!' cried Lushin, and helped me to get up.
+
+The game of forfeits went on. Zinaïda sat me down beside her. She
+invented all sorts of extraordinary forfeits! She had among other
+things to represent a 'statue,' and she chose as a pedestal the
+hideous Nirmatsky, told him to bow down in an arch, and bend his
+head down on his breast. The laughter never paused for an instant.
+For me, a boy constantly brought up in the seclusion of a dignified
+manor-house, all this noise and uproar, this unceremonious, almost
+riotous gaiety, these relations with unknown persons, were simply
+intoxicating. My head went round, as though from wine. I began
+laughing and talking louder than the others, so much so that the old
+princess, who was sitting in the next room with some sort of clerk
+from the Tversky gate, invited by her for consultation on business,
+positively came in to look at me. But I felt so happy that I did not
+mind anything, I didn't care a straw for any one's jeers, or dubious
+looks. Zinaïda continued to show me a preference, and kept me at her
+side. In one forfeit, I had to sit by her, both hidden under one silk
+handkerchief: I was to tell her _my secret_. I remember our two heads
+being all at once in a warm, half-transparent, fragrant darkness, the
+soft, close brightness of her eyes in the dark, and the burning breath
+from her parted lips, and the gleam of her teeth and the ends of her
+hair tickling me and setting me on fire. I was silent. She smiled
+slyly and mysteriously, and at last whispered to me, 'Well, what
+is it?' but I merely blushed and laughed, and turned away, catching
+my breath. We got tired of forfeits--we began to play a game with
+a string. My God! what were my transports when, for not paying
+attention, I got a sharp and vigorous slap on my fingers from her,
+and how I tried afterwards to pretend that I was absent-minded, and
+she teased me, and would not touch the hands I held out to her! What
+didn't we do that evening! We played the piano, and sang and danced
+and acted a gypsy encampment. Nirmatsky was dressed up as a bear,
+and made to drink salt water. Count Malevsky showed us several sorts
+of card tricks, and finished, after shuffling the cards, by dealing
+himself all the trumps at whist, on which Lushin 'had the honour of
+congratulating him.' Meidanov recited portions from his poem 'The
+Manslayer' (romanticism was at its height at this period), which he
+intended to bring out in a black cover with the title in blood-red
+letters; they stole the clerk's cap off his knee, and made him dance a
+Cossack dance by way of ransom for it; they dressed up old Vonifaty in
+a woman's cap, and the young princess put on a man's hat.... I could
+not enumerate all we did. Only Byelovzorov kept more and more in
+the background, scowling and angry.... Sometimes his eyes looked
+bloodshot, he flushed all over, and it seemed every minute as though
+he would rush out upon us all and scatter us like shavings in all
+directions; but the young princess would glance at him, and shake her
+finger at him, and he would retire into his corner again.
+
+We were quite worn out at last. Even the old princess, though she was
+ready for anything, as she expressed it, and no noise wearied her,
+felt tired at last, and longed for peace and quiet. At twelve o'clock
+at night, supper was served, consisting of a piece of stale dry
+cheese, and some cold turnovers of minced ham, which seemed to me more
+delicious than any pastry I had ever tasted; there was only one bottle
+of wine, and that was a strange one; a dark-coloured bottle with a
+wide neck, and the wine in it was of a pink hue; no one drank it,
+however. Tired out and faint with happiness, I left the lodge; at
+parting Zinaïda pressed my hand warmly, and again smiled mysteriously.
+
+The night air was heavy and damp in my heated face; a storm seemed to
+be gathering; black stormclouds grew and crept across the sky, their
+smoky outlines visibly changing. A gust of wind shivered restlessly
+in the dark trees, and somewhere, far away on the horizon, muffled
+thunder angrily muttered as it were to itself.
+
+I made my way up to my room by the back stairs. My old man-nurse was
+asleep on the floor, and I had to step over him; he waked up, saw me,
+and told me that my mother had again been very angry with me, and had
+wished to send after me again, but that my father had prevented her.
+(I had never gone to bed without saying good-night to my mother, and
+asking her blessing. There was no help for it now!)
+
+I told my man that I would undress and go to bed by myself, and I put
+out the candle. But I did not undress, and did not go to bed.
+
+I sat down on a chair, and sat a long while, as though spell-bound.
+What I was feeling was so new and so sweet.... I sat still, hardly
+looking round and not moving, drew slow breaths, and only from time to
+time laughed silently at some recollection, or turned cold within at
+the thought that I was in love, that this was she, that this was love.
+Zinaïda's face floated slowly before me in the darkness--floated, and
+did not float away; her lips still wore the same enigmatic smile, her
+eyes watched me, a little from one side, with a questioning, dreamy,
+tender look ... as at the instant of parting from her. At last I got
+up, walked on tiptoe to my bed, and without undressing, laid my head
+carefully on the pillow, as though I were afraid by an abrupt movement
+to disturb what filled my soul.... I lay down, but did not even close
+my eyes. Soon I noticed that faint glimmers of light of some sort
+were thrown continually into the room.... I sat up and looked at the
+window. The window-frame could be clearly distinguished from the
+mysteriously and dimly-lighted panes. It is a storm, I thought; and
+a storm it really was, but it was raging so very far away that the
+thunder could not be heard; only blurred, long, as it were branching,
+gleams of lightning flashed continually over the sky; it was not
+flashing, though, so much as quivering and twitching like the wing
+of a dying bird. I got up, went to the window, and stood there till
+morning.... The lightning never ceased for an instant; it was what is
+called among the peasants a _sparrow night_. I gazed at the dumb sandy
+plain, at the dark mass of the Neskutchny gardens, at the yellowish
+façades of the distant buildings, which seemed to quiver too at
+each faint flash.... I gazed, and could not turn away; these silent
+lightning flashes, these gleams seemed in response to the secret
+silent fires which were aglow within me. Morning began to dawn; the
+sky was flushed in patches of crimson. As the sun came nearer, the
+lightning grew gradually paler, and ceased; the quivering gleams
+were fewer and fewer, and vanished at last, drowned in the sobering
+positive light of the coming day....
+
+And my lightning flashes vanished too. I felt great weariness and
+peace ... but Zinaïda's image still floated triumphant over my soul.
+But it too, this image, seemed more tranquil: like a swan rising out
+of the reeds of a bog, it stood out from the other unbeautiful figures
+surrounding it, and as I fell asleep, I flung myself before it in
+farewell, trusting adoration....
+
+Oh, sweet emotions, gentle harmony, goodness and peace of the softened
+heart, melting bliss of the first raptures of love, where are they,
+where are they?
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The next morning, when I came down to tea, my mother scolded me--less
+severely, however, than I had expected--and made me tell her how I had
+spent the previous evening. I answered her in few words, omitting many
+details, and trying to give the most innocent air to everything.
+
+'Anyway, they're people who're not _comme il faut_,' my mother
+commented, 'and you've no business to be hanging about there, instead
+of preparing yourself for the examination, and doing your work.'
+
+As I was well aware that my mother's anxiety about my studies was
+confined to these few words, I did not feel it necessary to make any
+rejoinder; but after morning tea was over, my father took me by the
+arm, and turning into the garden with me, forced me to tell him all I
+had seen at the Zasyekins'.
+
+A curious influence my father had over me, and curious were the
+relations existing between us. He took hardly any interest in my
+education, but he never hurt my feelings; he respected my freedom, he
+treated me--if I may so express it--with courtesy,... only he never
+let me be really close to him. I loved him, I admired him, he was my
+ideal of a man--and Heavens! how passionately devoted I should have
+been to him, if I had not been continually conscious of his holding me
+off! But when he liked, he could almost instantaneously, by a single
+word, a single gesture, call forth an unbounded confidence in him. My
+soul expanded, I chattered away to him, as to a wise friend, a kindly
+teacher ... then he as suddenly got rid of me, and again he was
+keeping me off, gently and affectionately, but still he kept me off.
+
+Sometimes he was in high spirits, and then he was ready to romp and
+frolic with me, like a boy (he was fond of vigorous physical exercise
+of every sort); once--it never happened a second time!--he caressed
+me with such tenderness that I almost shed tears.... But high spirits
+and tenderness alike vanished completely, and what had passed between
+us, gave me nothing to build on for the future--it was as though I
+had dreamed it all. Sometimes I would scrutinise his clever handsome
+bright face ... my heart would throb, and my whole being yearn to
+him ... he would seem to feel what was going on within me, would give
+me a passing pat on the cheek, and go away, or take up some work,
+or suddenly freeze all over as only he knew how to freeze, and I
+shrank into myself at once, and turned cold too. His rare fits
+of friendliness to me were never called forth by my silent, but
+intelligible entreaties: they always occurred unexpectedly. Thinking
+over my father's character later, I have come to the conclusion that
+he had no thoughts to spare for me and for family life; his heart was
+in other things, and found complete satisfaction elsewhere. 'Take for
+yourself what you can, and don't be ruled by others; to belong to
+oneself--the whole savour of life lies in that,' he said to me one
+day. Another time, I, as a young democrat, fell to airing my views on
+liberty (he was 'kind,' as I used to call it, that day; and at such
+times I could talk to him as I liked). 'Liberty,' he repeated; 'and do
+you know what can give a man liberty?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Will, his own will, and it gives power, which is better than liberty.
+Know how to will, and you will be free, and will lead.'
+
+'My father, before all, and above all, desired to live, and lived....
+Perhaps he had a presentiment that he would not have long to enjoy the
+'savour' of life: he died at forty-two.
+
+I described my evening at the Zasyekins' minutely to my father. Half
+attentively, half carelessly, he listened to me, sitting on a garden
+seat, drawing in the sand with his cane. Now and then he laughed, shot
+bright, droll glances at me, and spurred me on with short questions
+and assents. At first I could not bring myself even to utter the name
+of Zinaïda, but I could not restrain myself long, and began singing
+her praises. My father still laughed; then he grew thoughtful,
+stretched, and got up. I remembered that as he came out of the house
+he had ordered his horse to be saddled. He was a splendid horseman,
+and, long before Rarey, had the secret of breaking in the most vicious
+horses.
+
+'Shall I come with you, father?' I asked.
+
+'No,' he answered, and his face resumed its ordinary expression of
+friendly indifference. 'Go alone, if you like; and tell the coachman
+I'm not going.'
+
+He turned his back on me and walked rapidly away. I looked after him;
+he disappeared through the gates. I saw his hat moving along beside
+the fence; he went into the Zasyekins'.
+
+He stayed there not more than an hour, but then departed at once for
+the town, and did not return home till evening.
+
+After dinner I went myself to the Zasyekins'. In the drawing-room I
+found only the old princess. On seeing me she scratched her head under
+her cap with a knitting-needle, and suddenly asked me, could I copy a
+petition for her.
+
+'With pleasure,' I replied, sitting down on the edge of a chair.
+
+'Only mind and make the letters bigger,' observed the princess,
+handing me a dirty sheet of paper; 'and couldn't you do it to-day, my
+good sir?'
+
+'Certainly, I will copy it to-day.'
+
+The door of the next room was just opened, and in the crack I saw the
+face of Zinaïda, pale and pensive, her hair flung carelessly back; she
+stared at me with big chilly eyes, and softly closed the door.
+
+'Zina, Zina!' called the old lady. Zinaïda made no response. I took
+home the old lady's petition and spent the whole evening over it.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+My 'passion' dated from that day. I felt at that time, I recollect,
+something like what a man must feel on entering the service: I had
+ceased now to be simply a young boy; I was in love. I have said that
+my passion dated from that day; I might have added that my sufferings
+too dated from the same day. Away from Zinaïda I pined; nothing
+was to my mind; everything went wrong with me; I spent whole days
+thinking intensely about her ... I pined when away,... but in her
+presence I was no better off. I was jealous; I was conscious of my
+insignificance; I was stupidly sulky or stupidly abject, and, all
+the same, an invincible force drew me to her, and I could not help
+a shudder of delight whenever I stepped through the doorway of her
+room. Zinaïda guessed at once that I was in love with her, and indeed
+I never even thought of concealing it. She amused herself with my
+passion, made a fool of me, petted and tormented me. There is a
+sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible
+cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another, and I was
+like wax in Zinaïda's hands; though, indeed, I was not the only one in
+love with her. All the men who visited the house were crazy over her,
+and she kept them all in leading-strings at her feet. It amused her to
+arouse their hopes and then their fears, to turn them round her finger
+(she used to call it knocking their heads together), while they never
+dreamed of offering resistance and eagerly submitted to her. About
+her whole being, so full of life and beauty, there was a peculiarly
+bewitching mixture of slyness and carelessness, of artificiality and
+simplicity, of composure and frolicsomeness; about everything she did
+or said, about every action of hers, there clung a delicate, fine
+charm, in which an individual power was manifest at work. And her
+face was ever changing, working too; it expressed, almost at the same
+time, irony, dreaminess, and passion. Various emotions, delicate and
+quick-changing as the shadows of clouds on a sunny day of wind, chased
+one another continually over her lips and eyes.
+
+Each of her adorers was necessary to her. Byelovzorov, whom she
+sometimes called 'my wild beast,' and sometimes simply 'mine,' would
+gladly have flung himself into the fire for her sake. With little
+confidence in his intellectual abilities and other qualities, he was
+for ever offering her marriage, hinting that the others were merely
+hanging about with no serious intention. Meidanov responded to the
+poetic fibres of her nature; a man of rather cold temperament, like
+almost all writers, he forced himself to convince her, and perhaps
+himself, that he adored her, sang her praises in endless verses, and
+read them to her with a peculiar enthusiasm, at once affected and
+sincere. She sympathised with him, and at the same time jeered at him
+a little; she had no great faith in him, and after listening to his
+outpourings, she would make him read Pushkin, as she said, to clear
+the air. Lushin, the ironical doctor, so cynical in words, knew her
+better than any of them, and loved her more than all, though he abused
+her to her face and behind her back. She could not help respecting
+him, but made him smart for it, and at times, with a peculiar,
+malignant pleasure, made him feel that he too was at her mercy. 'I'm a
+flirt, I'm heartless, I'm an actress in my instincts,' she said to him
+one day in my presence; 'well and good! Give me your hand then; I'll
+stick this pin in it, you'll be ashamed of this young man's seeing it,
+it will hurt you, but you'll laugh for all that, you truthful person.'
+Lushin crimsoned, turned away, bit his lips, but ended by submitting
+his hand. She pricked it, and he did in fact begin to laugh,... and
+she laughed, thrusting the pin in pretty deeply, and peeping into his
+eyes, which he vainly strove to keep in other directions....
+
+I understood least of all the relations existing between Zinaïda and
+Count Malevsky. He was handsome, clever, and adroit, but something
+equivocal, something false in him was apparent even to me, a boy of
+sixteen, and I marvelled that Zinaïda did not notice it. But possibly
+she did notice this element of falsity really and was not repelled by
+it. Her irregular education, strange acquaintances and habits, the
+constant presence of her mother, the poverty and disorder in their
+house, everything, from the very liberty the young girl enjoyed, with
+the consciousness of her superiority to the people around her, had
+developed in her a sort of half-contemptuous carelessness and lack
+of fastidiousness. At any time anything might happen; Vonifaty might
+announce that there was no sugar, or some revolting scandal would
+come to her ears, or her guests would fall to quarrelling among
+themselves--she would only shake her curls, and say, 'What does it
+matter?' and care little enough about it.
+
+But my blood, anyway, was sometimes on fire with indignation when
+Malevsky approached her, with a sly, fox-like action, leaned
+gracefully on the back of her chair, and began whispering in her ear
+with a self-satisfied and ingratiating little smile, while she folded
+her arms across her bosom, looked intently at him and smiled too, and
+shook her head.
+
+'What induces you to receive Count Malevsky?' I asked her one day.
+
+'He has such pretty moustaches,' she answered. 'But that's rather
+beyond you.'
+
+'You needn't think I care for him,' she said to me another time. 'No;
+I can't care for people I have to look down upon. I must have some one
+who can master me.... But, merciful heavens, I hope I may never come
+across any one like that! I don't want to be caught in any one's
+claws, not for anything.'
+
+'You'll never be in love, then?'
+
+'And you? Don't I love you?' she said, and she flicked me on the nose
+with the tip of her glove.
+
+Yes, Zinaïda amused herself hugely at my expense. For three weeks I
+saw her every day, and what didn't she do with me! She rarely came to
+see us, and I was not sorry for it; in our house she was transformed
+into a young lady, a young princess, and I was a little overawed by
+her. I was afraid of betraying myself before my mother; she had taken
+a great dislike to Zinaïda, and kept a hostile eye upon us. My father
+I was not so much afraid of; he seemed not to notice me. He talked
+little to her, but always with special cleverness and significance.
+I gave up working and reading; I even gave up walking about the
+neighbourhood and riding my horse. Like a beetle tied by the leg, I
+moved continually round and round my beloved little lodge. I would
+gladly have stopped there altogether, it seemed ... but that was
+impossible. My mother scolded me, and sometimes Zinaïda herself drove
+me away. Then I used to shut myself up in my room, or go down to the
+very end of the garden, and climbing into what was left of a tall
+stone greenhouse, now in ruins, sit for hours with my legs hanging
+over the wall that looked on to the road, gazing and gazing and seeing
+nothing. White butterflies flitted lazily by me, over the dusty
+nettles; a saucy sparrow settled not far off on the half crumbling red
+brickwork and twittered irritably, incessantly twisting and turning
+and preening his tail-feathers; the still mistrustful rooks cawed now
+and then, sitting high, high up on the bare top of a birch-tree; the
+sun and wind played softly on its pliant branches; the tinkle of the
+bells of the Don monastery floated across to me from time to time,
+peaceful and dreary; while I sat, gazed, listened, and was filled full
+of a nameless sensation in which all was contained: sadness and joy
+and the foretaste of the future, and the desire and dread of life. But
+at that time I understood nothing of it, and could have given a name
+to nothing of all that was passing at random within me, or should have
+called it all by one name--the name of Zinaïda.
+
+Zinaïda continued to play cat and mouse with me. She flirted with me,
+and I was all agitation and rapture; then she would suddenly thrust me
+away, and I dared not go near her--dared not look at her.
+
+I remember she was very cold to me for several days together; I was
+completely crushed, and creeping timidly to their lodge, tried to keep
+close to the old princess, regardless of the circumstance that she was
+particularly scolding and grumbling just at that time; her
+financial affairs had been going badly, and she had already had two
+'explanations' with the police officials.
+
+One day I was walking in the garden beside the familiar fence, and I
+caught sight of Zinaïda; leaning on both arms, she was sitting on the
+grass, not stirring a muscle. I was about to make off cautiously, but
+she suddenly raised her head and beckoned me imperiously. My heart
+failed me; I did not understand her at first. She repeated her signal.
+I promptly jumped over the fence and ran joyfully up to her, but she
+brought me to a halt with a look, and motioned me to the path two
+paces from her. In confusion, not knowing what to do, I fell on my
+knees at the edge of the path. She was so pale, such bitter suffering,
+such intense weariness, was expressed in every feature of her face,
+that it sent a pang to my heart, and I muttered unconsciously, 'What
+is the matter?'
+
+Zinaïda stretched out her head, picked a blade of grass, bit it and
+flung it away from her.
+
+'You love me very much?' she asked at last. 'Yes.'
+
+I made no answer--indeed, what need was there to answer?
+
+'Yes,' she repeated, looking at me as before. 'That's so. The same
+eyes,'--she went on; sank into thought, and hid her face in her hands.
+'Everything's grown so loathsome to me,' she whispered, 'I would have
+gone to the other end of the world first--I can't bear it, I can't get
+over it.... And what is there before me!... Ah, I am wretched.... My
+God, how wretched I am!'
+
+'What for?' I asked timidly.
+
+Zinaïda made no answer, she simply shrugged her shoulders. I remained
+kneeling, gazing at her with intense sadness. Every word she had
+uttered simply cut me to the heart. At that instant I felt I would
+gladly have given my life, if only she should not grieve. I gazed at
+her--and though I could not understand why she was wretched, I vividly
+pictured to myself, how in a fit of insupportable anguish, she had
+suddenly come out into the garden, and sunk to the earth, as though
+mown down by a scythe. It was all bright and green about her; the wind
+was whispering in the leaves of the trees, and swinging now and then
+a long branch of a raspberry bush over Zinaïda's head. There was a
+sound of the cooing of doves, and the bees hummed, flying low over
+the scanty grass, Overhead the sun was radiantly blue--while I was so
+sorrowful....
+
+'Read me some poetry,' said Zinaïda in an undertone, and she propped
+herself on her elbow; 'I like your reading poetry. You read it in
+sing-song, but that's no matter, that comes of being young. Read me
+"On the Hills of Georgia." Only sit down first.'
+
+I sat down and read 'On the Hills of Georgia.'
+
+'"That the heart cannot choose but love,"' repeated Zinaïda. 'That's
+where poetry's so fine; it tells us what is not, and what's not only
+better than what is, but much more like the truth, "cannot choose
+but love,"--it might want not to, but it can't help it.' She was
+silent again, then all at once she started and got up. 'Come along.
+Meidanov's indoors with mamma, he brought me his poem, but I deserted
+him. His feelings are hurt too now ... I can't help it! you'll
+understand it all some day ... only don't be angry with me!'
+
+Zinaïda hurriedly pressed my hand and ran on ahead. We went back into
+the lodge. Meidanov set to reading us his 'Manslayer,' which had just
+appeared in print, but I did not hear him. He screamed and drawled his
+four-foot iambic lines, the alternating rhythms jingled like little
+bells, noisy and meaningless, while I still watched Zinaïda and tried
+to take in the import of her last words.
+
+  'Perchance some unknown rival
+  Has surprised and mastered thee?'
+
+Meidanov bawled suddenly through his nose--and my eyes and Zinaïda's
+met. She looked down and faintly blushed. I saw her blush, and grew
+cold with terror. I had been jealous before, but only at that instant
+the idea of her being in love flashed upon my mind. 'Good God! she is
+in love!'
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+My real torments began from that instant. I racked my brains, changed
+my mind, and changed it back again, and kept an unremitting, though,
+as far as possible, secret watch on Zinaïda. A change had come over
+her, that was obvious. She began going walks alone--and long walks.
+Sometimes she would not see visitors; she would sit for hours together
+in her room. This had never been a habit of hers till now. I suddenly
+became--or fancied I had become--extraordinarily penetrating.
+
+'Isn't it he? or isn't it he?' I asked myself, passing in inward
+agitation from one of her admirers to another. Count Malevsky secretly
+struck me as more to be feared than the others, though, for Zinaïda's
+sake, I was ashamed to confess it to myself.
+
+My watchfulness did not see beyond the end of my nose, and its secrecy
+probably deceived no one; any way, Doctor Lushin soon saw through me.
+But he, too, had changed of late; he had grown thin, he laughed as
+often, but his laugh seemed more hollow, more spiteful, shorter, an
+involuntary nervous irritability took the place of his former light
+irony and assumed cynicism.
+
+'Why are you incessantly hanging about here, young man?' he said
+to me one day, when we were left alone together in the Zasyekins'
+drawing-room. (The young princess had not come home from a walk, and
+the shrill voice of the old princess could be heard within; she was
+scolding the maid.) 'You ought to be studying, working--while you're
+young--and what are you doing?'
+
+'You can't tell whether I work at home,' I retorted with some
+haughtiness, but also with some hesitation.
+
+'A great deal of work you do! that's not what you're thinking about!
+Well, I won't find fault with that ... at your age that's in the
+natural order of things. But you've been awfully unlucky in your
+choice. Don't you see what this house is?'
+
+'I don't understand you,' I observed.
+
+'You don't understand? so much the worse for you. I regard it as a
+duty to warn you. Old bachelors, like me, can come here, what harm can
+it do us! we're tough, nothing can hurt us, what harm can it do us;
+but your skin's tender yet--this air is bad for you--believe me, you
+may get harm from it.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Why, are you well now? Are you in a normal condition? Is what you're
+feeling--beneficial to you--good for you?'
+
+'Why, what am I feeling?' I said, while in my heart I knew the doctor
+was right.
+
+'Ah, young man, young man,' the doctor went on with an intonation that
+suggested that something highly insulting to me was contained in these
+two words, 'what's the use of your prevaricating, when, thank God,
+what's in your heart is in your face, so far? But there, what's the
+use of talking? I shouldn't come here myself, if ... (the doctor
+compressed his lips) ... if I weren't such a queer fellow. Only this
+is what surprises me; how it is, you, with your intelligence, don't
+see what is going on around you?'
+
+'And what is going on?' I put in, all on the alert.
+
+The doctor looked at me with a sort of ironical compassion.
+
+'Nice of me!' he said as though to himself, 'as if he need know
+anything of it. In fact, I tell you again,' he added, raising his
+voice, 'the atmosphere here is not fit for you. You like being here,
+but what of that! it's nice and sweet-smelling in a greenhouse--but
+there's no living in it. Yes! do as I tell you, and go back to your
+Keidanov.'
+
+The old princess came in, and began complaining to the doctor of her
+toothache. Then Zinaïda appeared.
+
+'Come,' said the old princess, 'you must scold her, doctor. She's
+drinking iced water all day long; is that good for her, pray, with her
+delicate chest?'
+
+'Why do you do that?' asked Lushin.
+
+'Why, what effect could it have?'
+
+'What effect? You might get a chill and die.'
+
+'Truly? Do you mean it? Very well--so much the better.'
+
+'A fine idea!' muttered the doctor. The old princess had gone out.
+
+'Yes, a fine idea,' repeated Zinaïda. 'Is life such a festive affair?
+Just look about you.... Is it nice, eh? Or do you imagine I don't
+understand it, and don't feel it? It gives me pleasure--drinking iced
+water; and can you seriously assure me that such a life is worth too
+much to be risked for an instant's pleasure--happiness I won't even
+talk about.'
+
+'Oh, very well,' remarked Lushin, 'caprice and irresponsibility....
+Those two words sum you up; your whole nature's contained in those two
+words.'
+
+Zinaïda laughed nervously.
+
+'You're late for the post, my dear doctor. You don't keep a good
+look-out; you're behind the times. Put on your spectacles. I'm in no
+capricious humour now. To make fools of you, to make a fool of myself
+... much fun there is in that!--and as for irresponsibility ... M'sieu
+Voldemar,' Zinaïda added suddenly, stamping, 'don't make such a
+melancholy face. I can't endure people to pity me.' She went quickly
+out of the room.
+
+'It's bad for you, very bad for you, this atmosphere, young man,'
+Lushin said to me once more.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+On the evening of the same day the usual guests were assembled at the
+Zasyekins'. I was among them.
+
+The conversation turned on Meidanov's poem. Zinaïda expressed genuine
+admiration of it. 'But do you know what?' she said to him. 'If I were
+a poet, I would choose quite different subjects. Perhaps it's all
+nonsense, but strange ideas sometimes come into my head, especially
+when I'm not asleep in the early morning, when the sky begins to turn
+rosy and grey both at once. I would, for instance ... You won't laugh
+at me?'
+
+'No, no!' we all cried, with one voice.
+
+'I would describe,' she went on, folding her arms across her bosom
+and looking away, 'a whole company of young girls at night in a great
+boat, on a silent river. The moon is shining, and they are all in
+white, and wearing garlands of white flowers, and singing, you know,
+something in the nature of a hymn.'
+
+'I see--I see; go on,' Meidanov commented with dreamy significance.
+
+'All of a sudden, loud clamour, laughter, torches, tambourines on the
+bank.... It's a troop of Bacchantes dancing with songs and cries. It's
+your business to make a picture of it, Mr. Poet;... only I should like
+the torches to be red and to smoke a great deal, and the Bacchantes'
+eyes to gleam under their wreaths, and the wreaths to be dusky. Don't
+forget the tiger-skins, too, and goblets and gold--lots of gold....'
+
+'Where ought the gold to be?' asked Meidanov, tossing back his sleek
+hair and distending his nostrils.
+
+'Where? on their shoulders and arms and legs--everywhere. They say in
+ancient times women wore gold rings on their ankles. The Bacchantes
+call the girls in the boat to them. The girls have ceased singing
+their hymn--they cannot go on with it, but they do not stir, the river
+carries them to the bank. And suddenly one of them slowly rises....
+This you must describe nicely: how she slowly gets up in the
+moonlight, and how her companions are afraid.... She steps over the
+edge of the boat, the Bacchantes surround her, whirl her away into
+night and darkness.... Here put in smoke in clouds and everything in
+confusion. There is nothing but the sound of their shrill cry, and her
+wreath left lying on the bank.'
+
+Zinaïda ceased. ('Oh! she is in love!' I thought again.)
+
+'And is that all?' asked Meidanov.
+
+'That's all.'
+
+'That can't be the subject of a whole poem,' he observed pompously,
+'but I will make use of your idea for a lyrical fragment.'
+
+'In the romantic style?' queried Malevsky.
+
+'Of course, in the romantic style--Byronic.'
+
+'Well, to my mind, Hugo beats Byron,' the young count observed
+negligently; 'he's more interesting.'
+
+'Hugo is a writer of the first class,' replied Meidanov; 'and my
+friend, Tonkosheev, in his Spanish romance, _El Trovador_ ...'
+
+'Ah! is that the book with the question-marks turned upside down?'
+Zinaïda interrupted.
+
+'Yes. That's the custom with the Spanish. I was about to observe that
+Tonkosheev ...'
+
+'Come! you're going to argue about classicism and romanticism again,'
+Zinaïda interrupted him a second time.' We'd much better play ...
+
+'Forfeits?' put in Lushin.
+
+'No, forfeits are a bore; at comparisons.' (This game Zinaïda had
+invented herself. Some object was mentioned, every one tried to
+compare it with something, and the one who chose the best comparison
+got a prize.)
+
+She went up to the window. The sun was just setting; high up in the
+sky were large red clouds.
+
+'What are those clouds like?' questioned Zinaïda; and without waiting
+for our answer, she said, 'I think they are like the purple sails on
+the golden ship of Cleopatra, when she sailed to meet Antony. Do you
+remember, Meidanov, you were telling me about it not long ago?'
+
+All of us, like Polonius in _Hamlet_, opined that the clouds recalled
+nothing so much as those sails, and that not one of us could discover
+a better comparison.
+
+'And how old was Antony then?' inquired Zinaïda.
+
+'A young man, no doubt,' observed Malevsky.
+
+'Yes, a young man,' Meidanov chimed in in confirmation.
+
+'Excuse me,' cried Lushin, 'he was over forty.'
+
+'Over forty,' repeated Zinaïda, giving him a rapid glance....
+
+I soon went home. 'She is in love,' my lips unconsciously repeated....
+'But with whom?'
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+The days passed by. Zinaïda became stranger and stranger, and more and
+more incomprehensible. One day I went over to her, and saw her sitting
+in a basket-chair, her head pressed to the sharp edge of the table.
+She drew herself up ... her whole face was wet with tears.
+
+'Ah, you!' she said with a cruel smile. 'Come here.'
+
+I went up to her. She put her hand on my head, and suddenly catching
+hold of my hair, began pulling it.
+
+'It hurts me,' I said at last.
+
+'Ah! does it? And do you suppose nothing hurts me?' she replied.
+
+'Ai!' she cried suddenly, seeing she had pulled a little tuft of hair
+out. 'What have I done? Poor M'sieu Voldemar!'
+
+She carefully smoothed the hair she had torn out, stroked it round her
+finger, and twisted it into a ring.
+
+'I shall put your hair in a locket and wear it round my neck,' she
+said, while the tears still glittered in her eyes. 'That will be some
+small consolation to you, perhaps ... and now good-bye.'
+
+I went home, and found an unpleasant state of things there. My mother
+was having a scene with my father; she was reproaching him with
+something, while he, as his habit was, maintained a polite and chilly
+silence, and soon left her. I could not hear what my mother was
+talking of, and indeed I had no thought to spare for the subject; I
+only remember that when the interview was over, she sent for me to her
+room, and referred with great displeasure to the frequent visits I
+paid the princess, who was, in her words, _une femme capable de tout_.
+I kissed her hand (this was what I always did when I wanted to cut
+short a conversation) and went off to my room. Zinaïda's tears had
+completely overwhelmed me; I positively did not know what to think,
+and was ready to cry myself; I was a child after all, in spite of my
+sixteen years. I had now given up thinking about Malevsky, though
+Byelovzorov looked more and more threatening every day, and glared at
+the wily count like a wolf at a sheep; but I thought of nothing and
+of no one. I was lost in imaginings, and was always seeking seclusion
+and solitude. I was particularly fond of the ruined greenhouse. I
+would climb up on the high wall, and perch myself, and sit there,
+such an unhappy, lonely, and melancholy youth, that I felt sorry for
+myself--and how consolatory where those mournful sensations, how I
+revelled in them!...
+
+One day I was sitting on the wall looking into the distance and
+listening to the ringing of the bells.... Suddenly something floated
+up to me--not a breath of wind and not a shiver, but as it were a
+whiff of fragrance--as it were, a sense of some one's being near.... I
+looked down. Below, on the path, in a light greyish gown, with a pink
+parasol on her shoulder, was Zinaïda, hurrying along. She caught sight
+of me, stopped, and pushing back the brim of her straw hat, she raised
+her velvety eyes to me.
+
+'What are you doing up there at such a height?' she asked me with a
+rather queer smile. 'Come,' she went on, 'you always declare you love
+me; jump down into the road to me if you really do love me.'
+
+Zinaïda had hardly uttered those words when I flew down, just as
+though some one had given me a violent push from behind. The wall was
+about fourteen feet high. I reached the ground on my feet, but the
+shock was so great that I could not keep my footing; I fell down, and
+for an instant fainted away. When I came to myself again, without
+opening my eyes, I felt Zinaïda beside me. 'My dear boy,' she was
+saying, bending over me, and there was a note of alarmed tenderness in
+her voice, 'how could you do it, dear; how could you obey?... You know
+I love you.... Get up.'
+
+Her bosom was heaving close to me, her hands were caressing my head,
+and suddenly--what were my emotions at that moment--her soft, fresh
+lips began covering my face with kisses ... they touched my lips....
+But then Zinaïda probably guessed by the expression of my face that I
+had regained consciousness, though I still kept my eyes closed, and
+rising rapidly to her feet, she said: 'Come, get up, naughty boy,
+silly, why are you lying in the dust?' I got up. 'Give me my parasol,'
+said Zinaïda, 'I threw it down somewhere, and don't stare at me like
+that ... what ridiculous nonsense! you're not hurt, are you? stung
+by the nettles, I daresay? Don't stare at me, I tell you.... But
+he doesn't understand, he doesn't answer,' she added, as though to
+herself.... 'Go home, M'sieu' Voldemar, brush yourself, and don't dare
+to follow me, or I shall be angry, and never again ...'
+
+She did not finish her sentence, but walked rapidly away, while I sat
+down by the side of the road ... my legs would not support me. The
+nettles had stung my hands, my back ached, and my head was giddy; but
+the feeling of rapture I experienced then has never come a second
+time in my life. It turned to a sweet ache in all my limbs and found
+expression at last in joyful hops and skips and shouts. Yes, I was
+still a child.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+I was so proud and light-hearted all that day, I so vividly retained
+on my face the feeling of Zinaïda's kisses, with such a shudder
+of delight I recalled every word she had uttered, I so hugged my
+unexpected happiness that I felt positively afraid, positively
+unwilling to see her, who had given rise to these new sensations. It
+seemed to me that now I could ask nothing more of fate, that now I
+ought to 'go, and draw a deep last sigh and die.' But, next day, when
+I went into the lodge, I felt great embarrassment, which I tried to
+conceal under a show of modest confidence, befitting a man who wishes
+to make it apparent that he knows how to keep a secret. Zinaïda
+received me very simply, without any emotion, she simply shook her
+finger at me and asked me, whether I wasn't black and blue? All my
+modest confidence and air of mystery vanished instantaneously and
+with them my embarrassment. Of course, I had not expected anything
+particular, but Zinaïda's composure was like a bucket of cold water
+thrown over me. I realised that in her eyes I was a child, and was
+extremely miserable! Zinaïda walked up and down the room, giving me
+a quick smile, whenever she caught my eye, but her thoughts were
+far away, I saw that clearly.... 'Shall I begin about what happened
+yesterday myself,' I pondered; 'ask her, where she was hurrying off
+so fast, so as to find out once for all' ... but with a gesture of
+despair, I merely went and sat down in a corner.
+
+Byelovzorov came in; I felt relieved to see him.
+
+'I've not been able to find you a quiet horse,' he said in a sulky
+voice; 'Freitag warrants one, but I don't feel any confidence in it, I
+am afraid.'
+
+'What are you afraid of?' said Zinaïda; 'allow me to inquire?'
+
+'What am I afraid of? Why, you don't know how to ride. Lord save
+us, what might happen! What whim is this has come over you all of a
+sudden?'
+
+'Come, that's my business, Sir Wild Beast. In that case I will ask
+Piotr Vassilievitch.' ... (My father's name was Piotr Vassilievitch.
+I was surprised at her mentioning his name so lightly and freely, as
+though she were confident of his readiness to do her a service.)
+
+'Oh, indeed,' retorted Byelovzorov, 'you mean to go out riding with
+him then?'
+
+'With him or with some one else is nothing to do with you. Only not
+with you, anyway.'
+
+'Not with me,' repeated Byelovzorov. 'As you wish. Well, I shall find
+you a horse.'
+
+'Yes, only mind now, don't send some old cow. I warn you I want to
+gallop.'
+
+'Gallop away by all means ... with whom is it, with Malevsky, you are
+going to ride?'
+
+'And why not with him, Mr. Pugnacity? Come, be quiet,' she added,
+'and don't glare. I'll take you too. You know that to my mind now
+Malevsky's--ugh!' She shook her head.
+
+'You say that to console me,' growled Byelovzorov.
+
+Zinaïda half closed her eyes. 'Does that console you? O ... O ... O
+... Mr. Pugnacity!' she said at last, as though she could find no
+other word. 'And you, M'sieu' Voldemar, would you come with us?'
+
+'I don't care to ... in a large party,' I muttered, not raising my
+eyes.
+
+'You prefer a _tête-à-tête_?... Well, freedom to the free, and heaven
+to the saints,' she commented with a sigh. 'Go along, Byelovzorov, and
+bestir yourself. I must have a horse for to-morrow.'
+
+'Oh, and where's the money to come from?' put in the old princess.
+
+Zinaïda scowled.
+
+'I won't ask you for it; Byelovzorov will trust me.'
+
+'He'll trust you, will he?' ... grumbled the old princess, and all of
+a sudden she screeched at the top of her voice, 'Duniashka!'
+
+'Maman, I have given you a bell to ring,' observed Zinaïda.
+
+'Duniashka!' repeated the old lady.
+
+Byelovzorov took leave; I went away with him. Zinaïda did not try to
+detain me.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+The next day I got up early, cut myself a stick, and set off beyond
+the town-gates. I thought I would walk off my sorrow. It was a lovely
+day, bright and not too hot, a fresh sportive breeze roved over the
+earth with temperate rustle and frolic, setting all things a-flutter
+and harassing nothing. I wandered a long while over hills and through
+woods; I had not felt happy, I had left home with the intention of
+giving myself up to melancholy, but youth, the exquisite weather, the
+fresh air, the pleasure of rapid motion, the sweetness of repose,
+lying on the thick grass in a solitary nook, gained the upper hand;
+the memory of those never-to-be-forgotten words, those kisses, forced
+itself once more upon my soul. It was sweet to me to think that
+Zinaïda could not, anyway, fail to do justice to my courage, my
+heroism....' Others may seem better to her than I,' I mused, 'let
+them! But others only say what they would do, while I have done it.
+And what more would I not do for her?' My fancy set to work. I began
+picturing to myself how I would save her from the hands of enemies;
+how, covered with blood I would tear her by force from prison,
+and expire at her feet. I remembered a picture hanging in our
+drawing-room--Malek-Adel bearing away Matilda--but at that point my
+attention was absorbed by the appearance of a speckled woodpecker who
+climbed busily up the slender stem of a birch-tree and peeped out
+uneasily from behind it, first to the right, then to the left, like a
+musician behind the bass-viol.
+
+Then I sang 'Not the white snows,' and passed from that to a song well
+known at that period: 'I await thee, when the wanton zephyr,' then
+I began reading aloud Yermak's address to the stars from Homyakov's
+tragedy. I made an attempt to compose something myself in a
+sentimental vein, and invented the line which was to conclude each
+verse: 'O Zinaïda, Zinaïda!' but could get no further with it.
+Meanwhile it was getting on towards dinner-time. I went down into the
+valley; a narrow sandy path winding through it led to the town. I
+walked along this path.... The dull thud of horses' hoofs resounded
+behind me. I looked round instinctively, stood still and took off my
+cap. I saw my father and Zinaïda. They were riding side by side. My
+father was saying something to her, bending right over to her, his
+hand propped on the horses' neck, he was smiling. Zinaïda listened
+to him in silence, her eyes severely cast down, and her lips tightly
+pressed together. At first I saw them only; but a few instants later,
+Byelovzorov came into sight round a bend in the glade, he was wearing
+a hussar's uniform with a pelisse, and riding a foaming black horse.
+The gallant horse tossed its head, snorted and pranced from side
+to side, his rider was at once holding him in and spurring him on.
+I stood aside. My father gathered up the reins, moved away from
+Zinaïda, she slowly raised her eyes to him, and both galloped off ...
+Byelovzorov flew after them, his sabre clattering behind him. 'He's
+as red as a crab,' I reflected, 'while she ... why's she so pale? out
+riding the whole morning, and pale?'
+
+I redoubled my pace, and got home just at dinner-time. My father was
+already sitting by my mother's chair, dressed for dinner, washed and
+fresh; he was reading an article from the _Journal des Débats_ in his
+smooth musical voice; but my mother heard him without attention, and
+when she saw me, asked where I had been to all day long, and added
+that she didn't like this gadding about God knows where, and God knows
+in what company. 'But I have been walking alone,' I was on the point
+of replying, but I looked at my father, and for some reason or other
+held my peace.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+For the next five or six days I hardly saw Zinaïda; she said she was
+ill, which did not, however, prevent the usual visitors from calling
+at the lodge to pay--as they expressed it, their duty--all, that is,
+except Meidanov, who promptly grew dejected and sulky when he had
+not an opportunity of being enthusiastic. Byelovzorov sat sullen and
+red-faced in a corner, buttoned up to the throat; on the refined face
+of Malevsky there flickered continually an evil smile; he had really
+fallen into disfavour with Zinaïda, and waited with special assiduity
+on the old princess, and even went with her in a hired coach to call
+on the Governor-General. This expedition turned out unsuccessful,
+however, and even led to an unpleasant experience for Malevsky; he was
+reminded of some scandal to do with certain officers of the engineers,
+and was forced in his explanations to plead his youth and inexperience
+at the time. Lushin came twice a day, but did not stay long; I was
+rather afraid of him after our last unreserved conversation, and at
+the same time felt a genuine attraction to him. He went a walk with
+me one day in the Neskutchny gardens, was very good-natured and nice,
+told me the names and properties of various plants and flowers, and
+suddenly, _à propos_ of nothing at all, cried, hitting himself on
+his forehead, 'And I, poor fool, thought her a flirt! it's clear
+self-sacrifice is sweet for some people!'
+
+'What do you mean by that?' I inquired.
+
+'I don't mean to tell you anything,' Lushin replied abruptly.
+
+Zinaïda avoided me; my presence--I could not help noticing
+it--affected her disagreeably. She involuntarily turned away from me
+... involuntarily; that was what was so bitter, that was what crushed
+me! But there was no help for it, and I tried not to cross her path,
+and only to watch her from a distance, in which I was not always
+successful. As before, something incomprehensible was happening to
+her; her face was different, she was different altogether. I was
+specially struck by the change that had taken place in her one warm
+still evening. I was sitting on a low garden bench under a spreading
+elderbush; I was fond of that nook; I could see from there the window
+of Zinaïda's room. I sat there; over my head a little bird was busily
+hopping about in the darkness of the leaves; a grey cat, stretching
+herself at full length, crept warily about the garden, and the first
+beetles were heavily droning in the air, which was still clear, though
+it was not light. I sat and gazed at the window, and waited to see if
+it would open; it did open, and Zinaïda appeared at it. She had on a
+white dress, and she herself, her face, shoulders, and arms, were pale
+to whiteness. She stayed a long while without moving, and looked out
+straight before her from under her knitted brows. I had never known
+such a look on her. Then she clasped her hands tightly, raised them to
+her lips, to her forehead, and suddenly pulling her fingers apart, she
+pushed back her hair behind her ears, tossed it, and with a sort of
+determination nodded her head, and slammed-to the window.
+
+Three days later she met me in the garden. I was turning away, but she
+stopped me of herself.
+
+'Give me your arm,' she said to me with her old affectionateness,
+'it's a long while since we have had a talk together.'
+
+I stole a look at her; her eyes were full of a soft light, and her
+face seemed as it were smiling through a mist.
+
+'Are you still not well?' I asked her.
+
+'No, that's all over now,' she answered, and she picked a small red
+rose. 'I am a little tired, but that too will pass off.'
+
+'And will you be as you used to be again?' I asked.
+
+Zinaïda put the rose up to her face, and I fancied the reflection of
+its bright petals had fallen on her cheeks. 'Why, am I changed?' she
+questioned me.
+
+'Yes, you are changed,' I answered in a low voice.
+
+'I have been cold to you, I know,' began Zinaïda, 'but you mustn't pay
+attention to that ... I couldn't help it.... Come, why talk about it!'
+
+'You don't want me to love you, that's what it is!' I cried gloomily,
+in an involuntary outburst.
+
+'No, love me, but not as you did.'
+
+'How then?'
+
+'Let us be friends--come now!' Zinaïda gave me the rose to smell.
+'Listen, you know I'm much older than you--I might be your aunt,
+really; well, not your aunt, but an older sister. And you ...'
+
+'You think me a child,' I interrupted.
+
+'Well, yes, a child, but a dear, good clever one, whom I love very
+much. Do you know what? From this day forth I confer on you the rank
+of page to me; and don't you forget that pages have to keep close
+to their ladies. Here is the token of your new dignity,' she added,
+sticking the rose in the buttonhole of my jacket, 'the token of my
+favour.'
+
+'I once received other favours from you,' I muttered.
+
+'Ah!' commented Zinaïda, and she gave me a sidelong look, 'What a
+memory he has! Well? I'm quite ready now ...' And stooping to me, she
+imprinted on my forehead a pure, tranquil kiss.
+
+I only looked at her, while she turned away, and saying, 'Follow me,
+my page,' went into the lodge. I followed her--all in amazement. 'Can
+this gentle, reasonable girl,' I thought, 'be the Zinaïda I used to
+know?' I fancied her very walk was quieter, her whole figure statelier
+and more graceful ...
+
+And, mercy! with what fresh force love burned within me!
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+After dinner the usual party assembled again at the lodge, and the
+young princess came out to them. All were there in full force, just as
+on that first evening which I never forgot; even Nirmatsky had limped
+to see her; Meidanov came this time earliest of all, he brought some
+new verses. The games of forfeits began again, but without the strange
+pranks, the practical jokes and noise--the gipsy element had vanished.
+Zinaïda gave a different tone to the proceedings. I sat beside her by
+virtue of my office as page. Among other things, she proposed that
+any one who had to pay a forfeit should tell his dream; but this was
+not successful. The dreams were either uninteresting (Byelovzorov had
+dreamed that he fed his mare on carp, and that she had a wooden head),
+or unnatural and invented. Meidanov regaled us with a regular romance;
+there were sepulchres in it, and angels with lyres, and talking
+flowers and music wafted from afar. Zinaïda did not let him finish.
+'If we are to have compositions,' she said, 'let every one tell
+something made up, and no pretence about it.' The first who had to
+speak was again Byelovzorov.
+
+The young hussar was confused. 'I can't make up anything!' he cried.
+
+'What nonsense!' said Zinaïda. 'Well, imagine, for instance, you are
+married, and tell us how you would treat your wife. Would you lock her
+up?'
+
+'Yes, I should lock her up.'
+
+'And would you stay with her yourself?'
+
+'Yes, I should certainly stay with her myself.'
+
+'Very good. Well, but if she got sick of that, and she deceived you?'
+
+'I should kill her.'
+
+'And if she ran away?'
+
+'I should catch her up and kill her all the same.'
+
+'Oh. And suppose now I were your wife, what would you do then?'
+
+Byelovzorov was silent a minute. 'I should kill myself....'
+
+Zinaïda laughed. 'I see yours is not a long story.'
+
+The next forfeit was Zinaïda's. She looked at the ceiling and
+considered. 'Well, listen, she began at last, 'what I have thought
+of.... Picture to yourselves a magnificent palace, a summer night, and
+a marvellous ball. This ball is given by a young queen. Everywhere
+gold and marble, crystal, silk, lights, diamonds, flowers, fragrant
+scents, every caprice of luxury.'
+
+'You love luxury?' Lushin interposed. 'Luxury is beautiful,' she
+retorted; 'I love everything beautiful.'
+
+'More than what is noble?' he asked.
+
+'That's something clever, I don't understand it. Don't interrupt me.
+So the ball is magnificent. There are crowds of guests, all of them
+are young, handsome, and brave, all are frantically in love with the
+queen.'
+
+'Are there no women among the guests?' queried Malevsky.
+
+'No--or wait a minute--yes, there are some.'
+
+'Are they all ugly?'
+
+'No, charming. But the men are all in love with the queen. She is tall
+and graceful; she has a little gold diadem on her black hair.'
+
+I looked at Zinaïda, and at that instant she seemed to me so much
+above all of us, there was such bright intelligence, and such power
+about her unruffled brows, that I thought: 'You are that queen!'
+
+'They all throng about her,' Zinaïda went on, 'and all lavish the most
+flattering speeches upon her.'
+
+'And she likes flattery?' Lushin queried.
+
+'What an intolerable person! he keeps interrupting ... who doesn't
+like flattery?'
+
+'One more last question,' observed Malevsky, 'has the queen a
+husband?'
+
+'I hadn't thought about that. No, why should she have a husband?'
+
+'To be sure,' assented Malevsky, 'why should she have a husband?'
+
+'_Silence!_' cried Meidanov in French, which he spoke very badly.
+
+'_Merci!_' Zinaïda said to him. 'And so the queen hears their
+speeches, and hears the music, but does not look at one of the guests.
+Six windows are open from top to bottom, from floor to ceiling, and
+beyond them is a dark sky with big stars, a dark garden with big
+trees. The queen gazes out into the garden. Out there among the trees
+is a fountain; it is white in the darkness, and rises up tall, tall
+as an apparition. The queen hears, through the talk and the music,
+the soft splash of its waters. She gazes and thinks: you are all,
+gentlemen, noble, clever, and rich, you crowd round me, you treasure
+every word I utter, you are all ready to die at my feet, I hold you in
+my power ... but out there, by the fountain, by that splashing water,
+stands and waits he whom I love, who holds me in his power. He has
+neither rich raiment nor precious stones, no one knows him, but he
+awaits me, and is certain I shall come--and I shall come--and there
+is no power that could stop me when I want to go out to him, and to
+stay with him, and be lost with him out there in the darkness of the
+garden, under the whispering of the trees, and the splash of the
+fountain ...' Zinaïda ceased.
+
+'Is that a made-up story?' Malevsky inquired slyly. Zinaïda did not
+even look at him.
+
+'And what should we have done, gentlemen?' Lushin began suddenly, 'if
+we had been among the guests, and had known of the lucky fellow at the
+fountain?'
+
+'Stop a minute, stop a minute,' interposed Zinaïda, 'I will tell you
+myself what each of you would have done. You, Byelovzorov, would have
+challenged him to a duel; you, Meidanov, would have written an epigram
+on him ... No, though, you can't write epigrams, you would have made
+up a long poem on him in the style of Barbier, and would have inserted
+your production in the _Telegraph_. You, Nirmatsky, would have
+borrowed ... no, you would have lent him money at high interest; you,
+doctor,...' she stopped. 'There, I really don't know what you would
+have done....'
+
+'In the capacity of court physician,' answered Lushin, 'I would have
+advised the queen not to give balls when she was not in the humour for
+entertaining her guests....'
+
+'Perhaps you would have been right. And you, Count?...'
+
+'And I?' repeated Malevsky with his evil smile....
+
+'You would offer him a poisoned sweetmeat.' Malevsky's face changed
+slightly, and assumed for an instant a Jewish expression, but he
+laughed directly.
+
+'And as for you, Voldemar,...' Zinaïda went on, 'but that's enough,
+though; let us play another game.'
+
+'M'sieu Voldemar, as the queen's page, would have held up her train
+when she ran into the garden,' Malevsky remarked malignantly.
+
+I was crimson with anger, but Zinaïda hurriedly laid a hand on my
+shoulder, and getting up, said in a rather shaky voice: 'I have never
+given your excellency the right to be rude, and therefore I will ask
+you to leave us.' She pointed to the door.
+
+'Upon my word, princess,' muttered Malevsky, and he turned quite pale.
+
+'The princess is right,' cried Byelovzorov, and he too rose.
+
+'Good God, I'd not the least idea,' Malevsky went on, 'in my words
+there was nothing, I think, that could ... I had no notion of
+offending you.... Forgive me.'
+
+Zinaïda looked him up and down coldly, and coldly smiled. 'Stay, then,
+certainly,' she pronounced with a careless gesture of her arm.
+
+'M'sieu Voldemar and I were needlessly incensed. It is your pleasure
+to sting ... may it do you good.'
+
+'Forgive me,' Malevsky repeated once more; while I, my thoughts
+dwelling on Zinaïda's gesture, said to myself again that no real queen
+could with greater dignity have shown a presumptuous subject to the
+door.
+
+The game of forfeits went on for a short time after this little scene;
+every one felt rather ill at ease, not so much on account of this
+scene, as from another, not quite definite, but oppressive feeling. No
+one spoke of it, but every one was conscious of it in himself and in
+his neighbour. Meidanov read us his verses; and Malevsky praised them
+with exaggerated warmth. 'He wants to show how good he is now,' Lushin
+whispered to me. We soon broke up. A mood of reverie seemed to have
+come upon Zinaïda; the old princess sent word that she had a headache;
+Nirmatsky began to complain of his rheumatism....
+
+I could not for a long while get to sleep. I had been impressed by
+Zinaïda's story. 'Can there have been a hint in it?' I asked myself:
+'and at whom and at what was she hinting? And if there really is
+anything to hint at ... how is one to make up one's mind? No, no, it
+can't be,' I whispered, turning over from one hot cheek on to the
+other.... But I remembered the expression of Zinaïda's face during her
+story.... I remembered the exclamation that had broken from Lushin in
+the Neskutchny gardens, the sudden change in her behaviour to me, and
+I was lost in conjectures. 'Who is he?' These three words seemed to
+stand before my eyes traced upon the darkness; a lowering malignant
+cloud seemed hanging over me, and I felt its oppressiveness, and
+waited for it to break. I had grown used to many things of late; I had
+learned much from what I had seen at the Zasyekins; their disorderly
+ways, tallow candle-ends, broken knives and forks, grumpy Vonifaty,
+and shabby maid-servants, the manners of the old princess--all
+their strange mode of life no longer struck me.... But what I was
+dimly discerning now in Zinaïda, I could never get used to.... 'An
+adventuress!' my mother had said of her one day. An adventuress--she,
+my idol, my divinity? This word stabbed me, I tried to get away from
+it into my pillow, I was indignant--and at the same time what would I
+not have agreed to, what would I not have given only to be that lucky
+fellow at the fountain!... My blood was on fire and boiling within
+me. 'The garden ... the fountain,' I mused.... 'I will go into the
+garden.' I dressed quickly and slipped out of the house. The night
+was dark, the trees scarcely whispered, a soft chill air breathed
+down from the sky, a smell of fennel trailed across from the kitchen
+garden. I went through all the walks; the light sound of my own
+footsteps at once confused and emboldened me; I stood still, waited
+and heard my heart beating fast and loudly. At last I went up to the
+fence and leaned against the thin bar. Suddenly, or was it my fancy, a
+woman's figure flashed by, a few paces from me ... I strained my eyes
+eagerly into the darkness, I held my breath. What was that? Did I hear
+steps, or was it my heart beating again? 'Who is here?' I faltered,
+hardly audibly. What was that again, a smothered laugh ... or a
+rustling in the leaves ... or a sigh just at my ear? I felt afraid ...
+'Who is here?' I repeated still more softly.
+
+The air blew in a gust for an instant; a streak of fire flashed across
+the sky; it was a star falling. 'Zinaïda?' I wanted to call, but
+the word died away on my lips. And all at once everything became
+profoundly still around, as is often the case in the middle of the
+night.... Even the grasshoppers ceased their churr in the trees--only
+a window rattled somewhere. I stood and stood, and then went back to
+my room, to my chilled bed. I felt a strange sensation; as though I
+had gone to a tryst, and had been left lonely, and had passed close by
+another's happiness.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+The following day I only had a passing glimpse of Zinaïda: she was
+driving somewhere with the old princess in a cab. But I saw Lushin,
+who, however, barely vouchsafed me a greeting, and Malevsky. The young
+count grinned, and began affably talking to me. Of all those who
+visited at the lodge, he alone had succeeded in forcing his way into
+our house, and had favourably impressed my mother. My father did not
+take to him, and treated him with a civility almost insulting.
+
+'Ah, _monsieur le page_,' began Malevsky, 'delighted to meet you. What
+is your lovely queen doing?'
+
+His fresh handsome face was so detestable to me at that moment, and he
+looked at me with such contemptuous amusement that I did not answer
+him at all.
+
+'Are you still angry?' he went on. 'You've no reason to be. It wasn't
+I who called you a page, you know, and pages attend queens especially.
+But allow me to remark that you perform your duties very badly.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Pages ought to be inseparable from their mistresses; pages ought to
+know everything they do, they ought, indeed, to watch over them,' he
+added, lowering his voice, 'day and night.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'What do I mean? I express myself pretty clearly, I fancy. Day and
+night. By day it's not so much matter; it's light, and people are
+about in the daytime; but by night, then look out for misfortune. I
+advise you not to sleep at nights and to watch, watch with all your
+energies. You remember, in the garden, by night, at the fountain,
+that's where there's need to look out. You will thank me.'
+
+Malevsky laughed and turned his back on me. He, most likely, attached
+no great importance to what he had said to me, he had a reputation
+for mystifying, and was noted for his power of taking people in at
+masquerades, which was greatly augmented by the almost unconscious
+falsity in which his whole nature was steeped.... He only wanted to
+tease me; but every word he uttered was a poison that ran through my
+veins. The blood rushed to my head. 'Ah! so that's it!' I said to
+myself; 'good! So there was reason for me to feel drawn into the
+garden! That shan't be so!' I cried aloud, and struck myself on the
+chest with my fist, though precisely what should not be so I could not
+have said. 'Whether Malevsky himself goes into the garden,' I thought
+(he was bragging, perhaps; he has insolence enough for that), 'or
+some one else (the fence of our garden was very low, and there was
+no difficulty in getting over it), anyway, if any one falls into
+my hands, it will be the worse for him! I don't advise any one to
+meet me! I will prove to all the world and to her, the traitress (I
+actually used the word 'traitress') that I can be revenged!'
+
+I returned to my own room, took out of the writing-table an English
+knife I had recently bought, felt its sharp edge, and knitting my
+brows with an air of cold and concentrated determination, thrust it
+into my pocket, as though doing such deeds was nothing out of the way
+for me, and not the first time. My heart heaved angrily, and felt
+heavy as a stone. All day long I kept a scowling brow and lips tightly
+compressed, and was continually walking up and down, clutching, with
+my hand in my pocket, the knife, which was warm from my grasp, while I
+prepared myself beforehand for something terrible. These new unknown
+sensations so occupied and even delighted me, that I hardly thought
+of Zinaïda herself. I was continually haunted by Aleko, the young
+gipsy--'Where art thou going, young handsome man? Lie there,' and
+then, 'thou art all besprent with blood.... Oh, what hast thou
+done?... Naught!' With what a cruel smile I repeated that 'Naught!' My
+father was not at home; but my mother, who had for some time past been
+in an almost continual state of dumb exasperation, noticed my gloomy
+and heroic aspect, and said to me at supper, 'Why are you sulking like
+a mouse in a meal-tub?' I merely smiled condescendingly in reply, and
+thought, 'If only they knew!' It struck eleven; I went to my room, but
+did not undress; I waited for midnight; at last it struck. 'The time
+has come!' I muttered between my teeth; and buttoning myself up to the
+throat, and even pulling my sleeves up, I went into the garden.
+
+I had already fixed on the spot from which to keep watch. At the end
+of the garden, at the point where the fence, separating our domain
+from the Zasyekins,' joined the common wall, grew a pine-tree,
+standing alone. Standing under its low thick branches, I could see
+well, as far as the darkness of the night permitted, what took
+place around. Close by, ran a winding path which had always seemed
+mysterious to me; it coiled like a snake under the fence, which at
+that point bore traces of having been climbed over, and led to a round
+arbour formed of thick acacias. I made my way to the pine-tree, leaned
+my back against its trunk, and began my watch.
+
+The night was as still as the night before, but there were fewer
+clouds in the sky, and the outlines of bushes, even of tall flowers,
+could be more distinctly seen. The first moments of expectation were
+oppressive, almost terrible. I had made up my mind to everything. I
+only debated how to act; whether to thunder, 'Where goest thou? Stand!
+show thyself--or death!' or simply to strike.... Every sound, every
+whisper and rustle, seemed to me portentous and extraordinary.... I
+prepared myself.... I bent forward.... But half-an-hour passed, an
+hour passed; my blood had grown quieter, colder; the consciousness
+that I was doing all this for nothing, that I was even a little
+absurd, that Malevsky had been making fun of me, began to steal over
+me. I left my ambush, and walked all about the garden. As if to taunt
+me, there was not the smallest sound to be heard anywhere; everything
+was at rest. Even our dog was asleep, curled up into a ball at the
+gate. I climbed up into the ruins of the greenhouse, saw the open
+country far away before me, recalled my meeting with Zinaïda, and fell
+to dreaming....
+
+I started.... I fancied I heard the creak of a door opening, then the
+faint crack of a broken twig. In two bounds I got down from the ruin,
+and stood still, all aghast. Rapid, light, but cautious footsteps
+sounded distinctly in the garden. They were approaching me. 'Here he
+is ... here he is, at last!' flashed through my heart. With spasmodic
+haste, I pulled the knife out of my pocket; with spasmodic haste, I
+opened it. Flashes of red were whirling before my eyes; my hair stood
+up on my head in my fear and fury.... The steps were coming straight
+towards me; I bent--I craned forward to meet him.... A man came into
+view.... My God! it was my father! I recognised him at once, though
+he was all muffled up in a dark cloak, and his hat was pulled down
+over his face. On tip-toe he walked by. He did not notice me, though
+nothing concealed me; but I was so huddled up and shrunk together that
+I fancy I was almost on the level of the ground. The jealous Othello,
+ready for murder, was suddenly transformed into a school-boy.... I was
+so taken aback by my father's unexpected appearance that for the first
+moment I did not notice where he had come from or in what direction he
+disappeared. I only drew myself up, and thought, 'Why is it my father
+is walking about in the garden at night?' when everything was still
+again. In my horror I had dropped my knife in the grass, but I did not
+even attempt to look for it; I was very much ashamed of myself. I was
+completely sobered at once. On my way to the house, however, I went up
+to my seat under the elder-tree, and looked up at Zinaïda's window.
+The small slightly-convex panes of the window shone dimly blue in the
+faint light thrown on them by the night sky. All at once--their colour
+began to change.... Behind them--I saw this, saw it distinctly--softly
+and cautiously a white blind was let down, let down right to the
+window-frame, and so stayed.
+
+'What is that for?' I said aloud almost involuntarily when I found
+myself once more in my room. 'A dream, a chance, or ...' The
+suppositions which suddenly rushed into my head were so new and
+strange that I did not dare to entertain them.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+I got up in the morning with a headache. My emotion of the previous
+day had vanished. It was replaced by a dreary sense of blankness and
+a sort of sadness I had not known till then, as though something had
+died in me.
+
+'Why is it you're looking like a rabbit with half its brain removed?'
+said Lushin on meeting me. At lunch I stole a look first at my father,
+then at my mother: he was composed, as usual; she was, as usual,
+secretly irritated. I waited to see whether my father would make some
+friendly remarks to me, as he sometimes did.... But he did not even
+bestow his everyday cold greeting upon me. 'Shall I tell Zinaïda all?'
+I wondered.... 'It's all the same, anyway; all is at an end between
+us.' I went to see her, but told her nothing, and, indeed, I could not
+even have managed to get a talk with her if I had wanted to. The old
+princess's son, a cadet of twelve years old, had come from Petersburg
+for his holidays; Zinaïda at once handed her brother over to me.
+'Here,' she said,' my dear Volodya,'--it was the first time she
+had used this pet-name to me--'is a companion for you. His name is
+Volodya, too. Please, like him; he is still shy, but he has a good
+heart. Show him Neskutchny gardens, go walks with him, take him under
+your protection. You'll do that, won't you? you're so good, too!' She
+laid both her hands affectionately on my shoulders, and I was utterly
+bewildered. The presence of this boy transformed me, too, into a
+boy. I looked in silence at the cadet, who stared as silently at me.
+Zinaïda laughed, and pushed us towards each other. 'Embrace each
+other, children!' We embraced each other. 'Would you like me to show
+you the garden?' I inquired of the cadet. 'If you please,' he replied,
+in the regular cadet's hoarse voice. Zinaïda laughed again.... I had
+time to notice that she had never had such an exquisite colour in her
+face before. I set off with the cadet. There was an old-fashioned
+swing in our garden. I sat him down on the narrow plank seat, and
+began swinging him. He sat rigid in his new little uniform of stout
+cloth, with its broad gold braiding, and kept tight hold of the cords.
+'You'd better unbutton your collar,' I said to him. 'It's all right;
+we're used to it,' he said, and cleared his throat. He was like his
+sister. The eyes especially recalled her, I liked being nice to him;
+and at the same time an aching sadness was gnawing at my heart. 'Now
+I certainly am a child,' I thought; 'but yesterday....' I remembered
+where I had dropped my knife the night before, and looked for it. The
+cadet asked me for it, picked a thick stalk of wild parsley, cut a
+pipe out of it, and began whistling. Othello whistled too.
+
+But in the evening how he wept, this Othello, in Zinaïda's arms, when,
+seeking him out in a corner of the garden, she asked him why he was so
+depressed. My tears flowed with such violence that she was frightened.
+'What is wrong with you? What is it, Volodya?' she repeated; and
+seeing I made no answer, and did not cease weeping, she was about to
+kiss my wet cheek. But I turned away from her, and whispered through
+my sobs, 'I know all. Why did you play with me?... What need had you
+of my love?'
+
+'I am to blame, Volodya ...' said Zinaïda. 'I am very much to blame
+...' she added, wringing her hands. 'How much there is bad and black
+and sinful in me!... But I am not playing with you now. I love you;
+you don't even suspect why and how.... But what is it you know?'
+
+What could I say to her? She stood facing me, and looked at me; and I
+belonged to her altogether from head to foot directly she looked at
+me.... A quarter of an hour later I was running races with the cadet
+and Zinaïda. I was not crying, I was laughing, though my swollen
+eyelids dropped a tear or two as I laughed. I had Zinaïda's ribbon
+round my neck for a cravat, and I shouted with delight whenever I
+succeeded in catching her round the waist. She did just as she liked
+with me.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+I should be in a great difficulty, if I were forced to describe
+exactly what passed within me in the course of the week after my
+unsuccessful midnight expedition. It was a strange feverish time, a
+sort of chaos, in which the most violently opposed feelings, thoughts,
+suspicions, hopes, joys, and sufferings, whirled together in a kind
+of hurricane. I was afraid to look into myself, if a boy of sixteen
+ever can look into himself; I was afraid to take stock of anything; I
+simply hastened to live through every day till evening; and at night I
+slept ... the light-heartedness of childhood came to my aid. I did not
+want to know whether I was loved, and I did not want to acknowledge to
+myself that I was not loved; my father I avoided--but Zinaïda I could
+not avoid.... I burnt as in a fire in her presence ... but what did I
+care to know what the fire was in which I burned and melted--it was
+enough that it was sweet to burn and melt. I gave myself up to all my
+passing sensations, and cheated myself, turning away from memories,
+and shutting my eyes to what I foreboded before me.... This weakness
+would not most likely have lasted long in any case ... a thunderbolt
+cut it all short in a moment, and flung me into a new track
+altogether.
+
+Coming in one day to dinner from a rather long walk, I learnt with
+amazement that I was to dine alone, that my father had gone away and
+my mother was unwell, did not want any dinner, and had shut herself
+up in her bedroom. From the faces of the footmen, I surmised that
+something extraordinary had taken place.... I did not dare to
+cross-examine them, but I had a friend in the young waiter Philip,
+who was passionately fond of poetry, and a performer on the guitar. I
+addressed myself to him. From him I learned that a terrible scene had
+taken place between my father and mother (and every word had been
+overheard in the maids' room; much of it had been in French, but Masha
+the lady's-maid had lived five years' with a dressmaker from Paris,
+and she understood it all); that my mother had reproached my father
+with infidelity, with an intimacy with the young lady next door, that
+my father at first had defended himself, but afterwards had lost his
+temper, and he too had said something cruel, 'reflecting on her age,'
+which had made my mother cry; that my mother too had alluded to some
+loan which it seemed had been made to the old princess, and had spoken
+very ill of her and of the young lady too, and that then my father had
+threatened her. 'And all the mischief,' continued Philip, 'came from
+an anonymous letter; and who wrote it, no one knows, or else there'd
+have been no reason whatever for the matter to have come out at all.'
+
+'But was there really any ground,' I brought out with difficulty,
+while my hands and feet went cold, and a sort of shudder ran through
+my inmost being.
+
+Philip winked meaningly. 'There was. There's no hiding those things;
+for all that your father was careful this time--but there, you see,
+he'd, for instance, to hire a carriage or something ... no getting on
+without servants, either.'
+
+I dismissed Philip, and fell on to my bed. I did not sob, I did not
+give myself up to despair; I did not ask myself when and how this had
+happened; I did not wonder how it was I had not guessed it before,
+long ago; I did not even upbraid my father.... What I had learnt was
+more than I could take in; this sudden revelation stunned me....
+All was at an end. All the fair blossoms of my heart were roughly
+plucked at once, and lay about me, flung on the ground, and trampled
+underfoot.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+My mother next day announced her intention of returning to the town.
+In the morning my father had gone into her bedroom, and stayed there a
+long while alone with her. No one had overheard what he said to her;
+but my mother wept no more; she regained her composure, and asked for
+food, but did not make her appearance nor change her plans. I remember
+I wandered about the whole day, but did not go into the garden,
+and never once glanced at the lodge, and in the evening I was the
+spectator of an amazing occurrence: my father conducted Count Malevsky
+by the arm through the dining-room into the hall, and, in the presence
+of a footman, said icily to him: 'A few days ago your excellency was
+shown the door in our house; and now I am not going to enter into any
+kind of explanation with you, but I have the honour to announce to you
+that if you ever visit me again, I shall throw you out of window. I
+don't like your handwriting.' The count bowed, bit his lips, shrank
+away, and vanished.
+
+Preparations were beginning for our removal to town, to Arbaty Street,
+where we had a house. My father himself probably no longer cared
+to remain at the country house; but clearly he had succeeded in
+persuading my mother not to make a public scandal. Everything was
+done quietly, without hurry; my mother even sent her compliments to
+the old princess, and expressed her regret that she was prevented by
+indisposition from seeing her again before her departure. I wandered
+about like one possessed, and only longed for one thing, for it all
+to be over as soon as possible. One thought I could not get out of
+my head: how could she, a young girl, and a princess too, after all,
+bring herself to such a step, knowing that my father was not a free
+man, and having an opportunity of marrying, for instance, Byelovzorov?
+What did she hope for? How was it she was not afraid of ruining her
+whole future? Yes, I thought, this is love, this is passion, this
+is devotion ... and Lushin's words came back to me: to sacrifice
+oneself for some people is sweet. I chanced somehow to catch sight
+of something white in one of the windows of the lodge.... 'Can it be
+Zinaïda's face?' I thought ... yes, it really was her face. I could
+not restrain myself. I could not part from her without saying a last
+good-bye to her. I seized a favourable instant, and went into the
+lodge.
+
+In the drawing-room the old princess met me with her usual slovenly
+and careless greetings.
+
+'How's this, my good man, your folks are off in such a hurry?' she
+observed, thrusting snuff into her nose. I looked at her, and a load
+was taken off my heart. The word 'loan,' dropped by Philip, had been
+torturing me. She had no suspicion ... at least I thought so then.
+Zinaïda came in from the next room, pale, and dressed in black, with
+her hair hanging loose; she took me by the hand without a word, and
+drew me away with her.
+
+'I heard your voice,' she began, 'and came out at once. Is it so easy
+for you to leave us, bad boy?'
+
+'I have come to say good-bye to you, princess,' I answered, 'probably
+for ever. You have heard, perhaps, we are going away.'
+
+Zinaïda looked intently at me.
+
+'Yes, I have heard. Thanks for coming. I was beginning to think I
+should not see you again. Don't remember evil against me. I have
+sometimes tormented you, but all the same I am not what you imagine
+me.' She turned away, and leaned against the window.
+
+'Really, I am not like that. I know you have a bad opinion of me.'
+
+'I?'
+
+'Yes, you ... you.'
+
+'I?' I repeated mournfully, and my heart throbbed as of old under the
+influence of her overpowering, indescribable fascination. 'I? Believe
+me, Zinaïda Alexandrovna, whatever you did, however you tormented me,
+I should love and adore you to the end of my days.'
+
+She turned with a rapid motion to me, and flinging wide her arms,
+embraced my head, and gave me a warm and passionate kiss. God knows
+whom that long farewell kiss was seeking, but I eagerly tasted
+its sweetness. I knew that it would never be repeated. 'Good-bye,
+good-bye,' I kept saying ...
+
+She tore herself away, and went out. And I went away. I cannot
+describe the emotion with which I went away. I should not wish it
+ever to come again; but I should think myself unfortunate had I never
+experienced such an emotion.
+
+We went back to town. I did not quickly shake off the past; I did
+not quickly get to work. My wound slowly began to heal; but I had no
+ill-feeling against my father. On the contrary he had, as it were,
+gained in my eyes ... let psychologists explain the contradiction
+as best they can. One day I was walking along a boulevard, and to
+my indescribable delight, I came across Lushin. I liked him for his
+straightforward and unaffected character, and besides he was dear to
+me for the sake of the memories he aroused in me. I rushed up to him.
+'Aha!' he said, knitting his brows,' so it's you, young man. Let me
+have a look at you. You're still as yellow as ever, but yet there's
+not the same nonsense in your eyes. You look like a man, not a
+lap-dog. That's good. Well, what are you doing? working?'
+
+I gave a sigh. I did not like to tell a lie, while I was ashamed to
+tell the truth.
+
+'Well, never mind,' Lushin went on, 'don't be shy. The great thing is
+to lead a normal life, and not be the slave of your passions. What do
+you get if not? Wherever you are carried by the tide--it's all a bad
+look-out; a man must stand on his own feet, if he can get nothing but
+a rock to stand on. Here, I've got a cough ... and Byelovzorov--have
+you heard anything of him?'
+
+'No. What is it?'
+
+'He's lost, and no news of him; they say he's gone away to the
+Caucasus. A lesson to you, young man. And it's all from not knowing
+how to part in time, to break out of the net. You seem to have got off
+very well. Mind you don't fall into the same snare again. Good-bye.'
+
+'I shan't,' I thought.... 'I shan't see her again.' But I was destined
+to see Zinaïda once more.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+My father used every day to ride out on horse-back. He had a splendid
+English mare, a chestnut piebald, with a long slender neck and long
+legs, an inexhaustible and vicious beast. Her name was Electric. No
+one could ride her except my father. One day he came up to me in a
+good humour, a frame of mind in which I had not seen him for a long
+while; he was getting ready for his ride, and had already put on his
+spurs. I began entreating him to take me with him.
+
+'We'd much better have a game of leap-frog,' my father replied.
+'You'll never keep up with me on your cob.'
+
+'Yes, I will; I'll put on spurs too.'
+
+'All right, come along then.'
+
+We set off. I had a shaggy black horse, strong, and fairly spirited.
+It is true it had to gallop its utmost, when Electric went at full
+trot, still I was not left behind. I have never seen any one ride like
+my father; he had such a fine carelessly easy seat, that it seemed
+that the horse under him was conscious of it, and proud of its rider.
+We rode through all the boulevards, reached the 'Maidens' Field,'
+jumped several fences (at first I had been afraid to take a leap, but
+my father had a contempt for cowards, and I soon ceased to feel fear),
+twice crossed the river Moskva, and I was under the impression that
+we were on our way home, especially as my father of his own accord
+observed that my horse was tired, when suddenly he turned off away
+from me at the Crimean ford, and galloped along the river-bank. I rode
+after him. When he had reached a high stack of old timber, he slid
+quickly off Electric, told me to dismount, and giving me his horse's
+bridle, told me to wait for him there at the timber-stack, and,
+turning off into a small street, disappeared. I began walking up and
+down the river-bank, leading the horses, and scolding Electric, who
+kept pulling, shaking her head, snorting and neighing as she went; and
+when I stood still, never failed to paw the ground, and whining, bite
+my cob on the neck; in fact she conducted herself altogether like a
+spoilt thorough-bred. My father did not come back. A disagreeable damp
+mist rose from the river; a fine rain began softly blowing up, and
+spotting with tiny dark flecks the stupid grey timber-stack, which
+I kept passing and repassing, and was deadly sick of by now. I
+was terribly bored, and still my father did not come. A sort of
+sentry-man, a Fin, grey all over like the timber, and with a huge
+old-fashioned shako, like a pot, on his head, and with a halberd
+(and how ever came a sentry, if you think of it, on the banks of
+the Moskva!) drew near, and turning his wrinkled face, like an old
+woman's, towards me, he observed, 'What are you doing here with the
+horses, young master? Let me hold them.'
+
+I made him no reply. He asked me for tobacco. To get rid of him (I was
+in a fret of impatience, too), I took a few steps in the direction in
+which my father had disappeared, then walked along the little street
+to the end, turned the corner, and stood still. In the street, forty
+paces from me, at the open window of a little wooden house, stood
+my father, his back turned to me; he was leaning forward over the
+window-sill, and in the house, half hidden by a curtain, sat a woman
+in a dark dress talking to my father; this woman was Zinaïda.
+
+I was petrified. This, I confess, I had never expected. My first
+impulse was to run away. 'My father will look round,' I thought,
+'and I am lost ...' but a strange feeling--a feeling stronger than
+curiosity, stronger than jealousy, stronger even than fear--held me
+there. I began to watch; I strained my ears to listen. It seemed
+as though my father were insisting on something. Zinaïda would not
+consent. I seem to see her face now--mournful, serious, lovely, and
+with an inexpressible impress of devotion, grief, love, and a sort of
+despair--I can find no other word for it. She uttered monosyllables,
+not raising her eyes, simply smiling--submissively, but without
+yielding. By that smile alone, I should have known my Zinaïda of old
+days. My father shrugged his shoulders, and straightened his hat on
+his head, which was always a sign of impatience with him.... Then I
+caught the words: '_Vous devez vous séparer de cette..._' Zinaïda sat
+up, and stretched out her arm.... Suddenly, before my very eyes, the
+impossible happened. My father suddenly lifted the whip, with which
+he had been switching the dust off his coat, and I heard a sharp blow
+on that arm, bare to the elbow. I could scarcely restrain myself from
+crying out; while Zinaïda shuddered, looked without a word at my
+father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of
+red upon it. My father flung away the whip, and running quickly up
+the steps, dashed into the house.... Zinaïda turned round, and with
+outstretched arms and downcast head, she too moved away from the
+window.
+
+My heart sinking with panic, with a sort of awe-struck horror, I
+rushed back, and running down the lane, almost letting go my hold
+of Electric, went back to the bank of the river. I could not think
+clearly of anything. I knew that my cold and reserved father was
+sometimes seized by fits of fury; and all the same, I could never
+comprehend what I had just seen.... But I felt at the time that,
+however long I lived, I could never forget the gesture, the glance,
+the smile, of Zinaïda; that her image, this image so suddenly
+presented to me, was imprinted for ever on my memory. I stared
+vacantly at the river, and never noticed that my tears were streaming.
+'She is beaten,' I was thinking,... 'beaten ... beaten....'
+
+'Hullo! what are you doing? Give me the mare!' I heard my father's
+voice saying behind me.
+
+Mechanically I gave him the bridle. He leaped on to Electric ... the
+mare, chill with standing, reared on her haunches, and leaped ten feet
+away ... but my father soon subdued her; he drove the spurs into her
+sides, and gave her a blow on the neck with his fist.... 'Ah, I've no
+whip,' he muttered.
+
+I remembered the swish and fall of the whip, heard so short a time
+before, and shuddered.
+
+'Where did you put it?' I asked my father, after a brief pause.
+
+My father made no answer, and galloped on ahead. I overtook him. I
+felt that I must see his face.
+
+'Were you bored waiting for me?' he muttered through his teeth.
+
+'A little. Where did you drop your whip?' I asked again.
+
+My father glanced quickly at me. 'I didn't drop it,' he replied; 'I
+threw it away.' He sank into thought, and dropped his head ... and
+then, for the first, and almost for the last time, I saw how much
+tenderness and pity his stern features were capable of expressing.
+
+He galloped on again, and this time I could not overtake him; I got
+home a quarter-of-an-hour after him.
+
+'That's love,' I said to myself again, as I sat at night before my
+writing-table, on which books and papers had begun to make their
+appearance; 'that's passion!... To think of not revolting, of bearing
+a blow from any one whatever ... even the dearest hand! But it seems
+one can, if one loves.... While I ... I imagined ...'
+
+I had grown much older during the last month; and my love, with all
+its transports and sufferings, struck me myself as something small and
+childish and pitiful beside this other unimagined something, which I
+could hardly fully grasp, and which frightened me like an unknown,
+beautiful, but menacing face, which one strives in vain to make out
+clearly in the half-darkness....
+
+A strange and fearful dream came to me that same night. I dreamed I
+went into a low dark room.... My father was standing with a whip in
+his hand, stamping with anger; in the corner crouched Zinaïda, and not
+on her arm, but on her forehead, was a stripe of red ... while behind
+them both towered Byelovzorov, covered with blood; he opened his white
+lips, and wrathfully threatened my father.
+
+Two months later, I entered the university; and within six months my
+father died of a stroke in Petersburg, where he had just moved with
+my mother and me. A few days before his death he received a letter
+from Moscow which threw him into a violent agitation.... He went to
+my mother to beg some favour of her: and, I was told, he positively
+shed tears--he, my father! On the very morning of the day when he
+was stricken down, he had begun a letter to me in French. 'My son,'
+he wrote to me, 'fear the love of woman; fear that bliss, that
+poison....' After his death, my mother sent a considerable sum of
+money to Moscow.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+Four years passed. I had just left the university, and did not know
+exactly what to do with myself, at what door to knock; I was hanging
+about for a time with nothing to do. One fine evening I met Meidanov
+at the theatre. He had got married, and had entered the civil service;
+but I found no change in him. He fell into ecstasies in just the same
+superfluous way, and just as suddenly grew depressed again.
+
+'You know,' he told me among other things, 'Madame Dolsky's here.'
+
+'What Madame Dolsky?'
+
+'Can you have forgotten her?--the young Princess Zasyekin whom we were
+all in love with, and you too. Do you remember at the country-house
+near Neskutchny gardens?'
+
+'She married a Dolsky?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And is she here, in the theatre?'
+
+'No: but she's in Petersburg. She came here a few days ago. She's
+going abroad.'
+
+'What sort of fellow is her husband?' I asked.
+
+'A splendid fellow, with property. He's a colleague of mine in Moscow.
+You can well understand--after the scandal ... you must know all
+about it ...' (Meidanov smiled significantly) 'it was no easy task
+for her to make a good marriage; there were consequences ... but with
+her cleverness, everything is possible. Go and see her; she'll be
+delighted to see you. She's prettier than ever.'
+
+Meidanov gave me Zinaïda's address. She was staying at the Hotel
+Demut. Old memories were astir within me.... I determined next day to
+go to see my former 'flame.' But some business happened to turn up; a
+week passed, and then another, and when at last I went to the Hotel
+Demut and asked for Madame Dolsky, I learnt that four days before, she
+had died, almost suddenly, in childbirth.
+
+I felt a sort of stab at my heart. The thought that I might have seen
+her, and had not seen her, and should never see her--that bitter
+thought stung me with all the force of overwhelming reproach. 'She is
+dead!' I repeated, staring stupidly at the hall-porter. I slowly made
+my way back to the street, and walked on without knowing myself where
+I was going. All the past swam up and rose at once before me. So this
+was the solution, this was the goal to which that young, ardent,
+brilliant life had striven, all haste and agitation! I mused on
+this; I fancied those dear features, those eyes, those curls--in the
+narrow box, in the damp underground darkness--lying here, not far
+from me--while I was still alive, and, maybe, a few paces from my
+father.... I thought all this; I strained my imagination, and yet all
+the while the lines:
+
+  'From lips indifferent of her death I heard,
+  Indifferently I listened to it, too,'
+
+were echoing in my heart. O youth, youth! little dost thou care for
+anything; thou art master, as it were, of all the treasures of the
+universe--even sorrow gives thee pleasure, even grief thou canst turn
+to thy profit; thou art self-confident and insolent; thou sayest, 'I
+alone am living--look you!'--but thy days fly by all the while, and
+vanish without trace or reckoning; and everything in thee vanishes,
+like wax in the sun, like snow.... And, perhaps, the whole secret of
+thy charm lies, not in being able to do anything, but in being able
+to think thou wilt do anything; lies just in thy throwing to the
+winds, forces which thou couldst not make other use of; in each of us
+gravely regarding himself as a prodigal, gravely supposing that he
+is justified in saying, 'Oh, what might I not have done if I had not
+wasted my time!'
+
+I, now ... what did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future
+did I foresee, when the phantom of my first love, rising up for an
+instant, barely called forth one sigh, one mournful sentiment?
+
+And what has come to pass of all I hoped for? And now, when the shades
+of evening begin to steal over my life, what have I left fresher,
+more precious, than the memories of the storm--so soon over--of early
+morning, of spring?
+
+But I do myself injustice. Even then, in those light-hearted young
+days, I was not deaf to the voice of sorrow, when it called upon me,
+to the solemn strains floating to me from beyond the tomb. I remember,
+a few days after I heard of Zinaïda's death, I was present, through
+a peculiar, irresistible impulse, at the death of a poor old woman
+who lived in the same house as we. Covered with rags, lying on hard
+boards, with a sack under her head, she died hardly and painfully. Her
+whole life had been passed in the bitter struggle with daily want; she
+had known no joy, had not tasted the honey of happiness. One would
+have thought, surely she would rejoice at death, at her deliverance,
+her rest. But yet, as long as her decrepit body held out, as long as
+her breast still heaved in agony under the icy hand weighing upon it,
+until her last forces left her, the old woman crossed herself, and
+kept whispering, 'Lord, forgive my sins'; and only with the last spark
+of consciousness, vanished from her eyes the look of fear, of horror
+of the end. And I remember that then, by the death-bed of that poor
+old woman, I felt aghast for Zinaïda, and longed to pray for her, for
+my father--and for myself.
+
+
+
+
+MUMU
+
+
+In one of the outlying streets of Moscow, in a grey house with white
+columns and a balcony, warped all askew, there was once living a lady,
+a widow, surrounded by a numerous household of serfs. Her sons were in
+the government service at Petersburg; her daughters were married; she
+went out very little, and in solitude lived through the last years of
+her miserly and dreary old age. Her day, a joyless and gloomy day, had
+long been over; but the evening of her life was blacker than night.
+
+Of all her servants, the most remarkable personage was the porter,
+Gerasim, a man full twelve inches over the normal height, of heroic
+build, and deaf and dumb from his birth. The lady, his owner, had
+brought him up from the village where he lived alone in a little hut,
+apart from his brothers, and was reckoned about the most punctual
+of her peasants in the payment of the seignorial dues. Endowed with
+extraordinary strength, he did the work of four men; work flew apace
+under his hands, and it was a pleasant sight to see him when he was
+ploughing, while, with his huge palms pressing hard upon the plough,
+he seemed alone, unaided by his poor horse, to cleave the yielding
+bosom of the earth, or when, about St. Peter's Day, he plied his
+scythe with a. furious energy that might have mown a young birch copse
+up by the roots, or swiftly and untiringly wielded a flail over two
+yards long; while the hard oblong muscles of his shoulders rose and
+fell like a lever. His perpetual silence lent a solemn dignity to his
+unwearying labour. He was a splendid peasant, and, except for his
+affliction, any girl would have been glad to marry him.... But now
+they had taken Gerasim to Moscow, bought him boots, had him made a
+full-skirted coat for summer, a sheepskin for winter, put into his
+hand a broom and a spade, and appointed him porter.
+
+At first he intensely disliked his new mode of life. From his
+childhood he had been used to field labour, to village life. Shut off
+by his affliction from the society of men, he had grown up, dumb and
+mighty, as a tree grows on a fruitful soil. When he was transported to
+the town, he could not understand what was being done with him; he was
+miserable and stupefied, with the stupefaction of some strong young
+bull, taken straight from the meadow, where the rich grass stood up to
+his belly, taken and put in the truck of a railway train, and there,
+while smoke and sparks and gusts of steam puff out upon the sturdy
+beast, he is whirled onwards, whirled along with loud roar and
+whistle, whither--God knows! What Gerasim had to do in his new duties
+seemed a mere trifle to him after his hard toil as a peasant; in
+half-an-hour, all his work was done, and he would once more stand
+stock-still in the middle of the courtyard, staring open-mouthed
+at all the passers-by, as though trying to wrest from them the
+explanation of his perplexing position; or he would suddenly go off
+into some corner, and flinging a long way off the broom or the spade,
+throw himself on his face on the ground, and lie for hours together
+without stirring, like a caged beast. But man gets used to anything,
+and Gerasim got used at last to living in town. He had little work to
+do; his whole duty consisted in keeping the courtyard clean, bringing
+in a barrel of water twice a day, splitting and dragging in wood for
+the kitchen and the house, keeping out strangers, and watching at
+night. And it must be said he did his duty zealously. In his courtyard
+there was never a shaving lying about, never a speck of dust; if
+sometimes, in the muddy season, the wretched nag, put under his charge
+for fetching water, got stuck in the road, he would simply give it
+a shove with his shoulder, and set not only the cart but the horse
+itself moving. If he set to chopping wood, the axe fairly rang
+like glass, and chips and chunks flew in all directions. And as for
+strangers, after he had one night caught two thieves and knocked
+their heads together--knocked them so that there was not the slightest
+need to take them to the police-station afterwards--every one in the
+neighbourhood began to feel a great respect for him; even those who
+came in the day-time, by no means robbers, but simply unknown persons,
+at the sight of the terrible porter, waved and shouted to him as
+though he could hear their shouts. With all the rest of the servants,
+Gerasim was on terms, hardly friendly--they were afraid of him--but
+familiar; he regarded them as his fellows. They explained themselves
+to him by signs, and he understood them, and exactly carried out all
+orders, but knew his own rights too, and soon no one dared to take
+his seat at the table. Gerasim was altogether of a strict and serious
+temper, he liked order in everything; even the cocks did not dare to
+fight in his presence, or woe betide them! directly he caught sight of
+them, he would seize them by the legs, swing them ten times round in
+the air like a wheel, and throw them in different directions. There
+were geese, too, kept in the yard; but the goose, as is well known,
+is a dignified and reasonable bird; Gerasim felt a respect for them,
+looked after them, and fed them; he was himself not unlike a gander
+of the steppes. He was assigned a little garret over the kitchen; he
+arranged it himself to his own liking, made a bedstead in it of oak
+boards on four stumps of wood for legs--a truly Titanic bedstead; one
+might have put a ton or two on it--it would not have bent under the
+load; under the bed was a solid chest; in a corner stood a little
+table of the same strong kind, and near the table a three-legged
+stool, so solid and squat that Gerasim himself would sometimes pick it
+up and drop it again with a smile of delight. The garret was locked
+up by means of a padlock that looked like a kalatch or basket-shaped
+loaf, only black; the key of this padlock Gerasim always carried about
+him in his girdle. He did not like people to come to his garret.
+
+So passed a year, at the end of which a little incident befell
+Gerasim.
+
+The old lady, in whose service he lived as porter, adhered in
+everything to the ancient ways, and kept a large number of servants.
+In her house were not only laundresses, sempstresses, carpenters,
+tailors and tailoresses, there was even a harness-maker--he was
+reckoned as a veterinary surgeon, too,--and a doctor for the servants;
+there was a household doctor for the mistress; there was, lastly, a
+shoemaker, by name Kapiton Klimov, a sad drunkard. Klimov regarded
+himself as an injured creature, whose merits were unappreciated, a
+cultivated man from Petersburg, who ought not to be living in Moscow
+without occupation--in the wilds, so to speak; and if he drank, as he
+himself expressed it emphatically, with a blow on his chest, it was
+sorrow drove him to it. So one day his mistress had a conversation
+about him with her head steward, Gavrila, a man whom, judging solely
+from his little yellow eyes and nose like a duck's beak, fate itself,
+it seemed, had marked out as a person in authority. The lady expressed
+her regret at the corruption of the morals of Kapiton, who had, only
+the evening before, been picked up somewhere in the street.
+
+'Now, Gavrila,' she observed, all of a sudden, 'now, if we were to
+marry him, what do you think, perhaps he would be steadier?'
+
+'Why not marry him, indeed, 'm? He could be married, 'm,' answered
+Gavrila, 'and it would be a very good thing, to be sure, 'm.'
+
+'Yes; only who is to marry him?'
+
+'Ay, 'm. But that's at your pleasure, 'm. He may, any way, so to say,
+be wanted for something; he can't be turned adrift altogether.'
+
+'I fancy he likes Tatiana.'
+
+Gavrila was on the point of making some reply, but he shut his lips
+tightly.
+
+'Yes!... let him marry Tatiana,' the lady decided, taking a pinch of
+snuff complacently, 'Do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, 'm,' Gavrila articulated, and he withdrew.
+
+Returning to his own room (it was in a little lodge, and was almost
+filled up with metal-bound trunks), Gavrila first sent his wife
+away, and then sat down at the window and pondered. His mistress's
+unexpected arrangement had clearly put him in a difficulty. At last he
+got up and sent to call Kapiton. Kapiton made his appearance.... But
+before reporting their conversation to the reader, we consider it not
+out of place to relate in few words who was this Tatiana, whom it
+was to be Kapiton's lot to marry, and why the great lady's order had
+disturbed the steward.
+
+Tatiana, one of the laundresses referred to above (as a trained and
+skilful laundress she was in charge of the fine linen only), was
+a woman of twenty-eight, thin, fair-haired, with moles on her left
+cheek. Moles on the left cheek are regarded as of evil omen in
+Russia--a token of unhappy life.... Tatiana could not boast of her
+good luck. From her earliest youth she had been badly treated; she
+had done the work of two, and had never known affection; she had been
+poorly clothed and had received the smallest wages. Relations she had
+practically none; an uncle she had once had, a butler, left behind in
+the country as useless, and other uncles of hers were peasants--that
+was all. At one time she had passed for a beauty, but her good looks
+were very soon over. In disposition, she was very meek, or, rather,
+scared; towards herself, she felt perfect indifference; of others, she
+stood in mortal dread; she thought of nothing but how to get her work
+done in good time, never talked to any one, and trembled at the very
+name of her mistress, though the latter scarcely knew her by sight.
+When Gerasim was brought from the country, she was ready to die with
+fear on seeing his huge figure, tried all she could to avoid meeting
+him, even dropped her eyelids when sometimes she chanced to run past
+him, hurrying from the house to the laundry. Gerasim at first paid
+no special attention to her, then he used to smile when she came his
+way, then he began even to stare admiringly at her, and at last he
+never took his eyes off her. She took his fancy, whether by the mild
+expression of her face or the timidity of her movements, who can
+tell? So one day she was stealing across the yard, with a starched
+dressing-jacket of her mistress's carefully poised on her outspread
+fingers ... some one suddenly grasped her vigorously by the elbow;
+she turned round and fairly screamed; behind her stood Gerasim. With
+a foolish smile, making inarticulate caressing grunts, he held out to
+her a gingerbread cock with gold tinsel on his tail and wings. She was
+about to refuse it, but he thrust it forcibly into her hand, shook his
+head, walked away, and turning round, once more grunted something very
+affectionately to her. From that day forward he gave her no peace;
+wherever she went, he was on the spot at once, coming to meet her,
+smiling, grunting, waving his hands; all at once he would pull a
+ribbon out of the bosom of his smock and put it in her hand, or would
+sweep the dust out of her way. The poor girl simply did not know how
+to behave or what to do. Soon the whole household knew of the dumb
+porter's wiles; jeers, jokes, sly hints were showered upon Tatiana. At
+Gerasim, however, it was not every one who would dare to scoff; he did
+not like jokes; indeed, in his presence, she, too, was left in peace.
+Whether she liked it or not, the girl found herself to be under his
+protection. Like all deaf-mutes, he was very suspicious, and very
+readily perceived when they were laughing at him or at her. One day,
+at dinner, the wardrobe-keeper, Tatiana's superior, fell to nagging,
+as it is called, at her, and brought the poor thing to such a state
+that she did not know where to look, and was almost crying with
+vexation. Gerasim got up all of a sudden, stretched out his gigantic
+hand, laid it on the wardrobe-maid's head, and looked into her face
+with such grim ferocity that her head positively flopped upon the
+table. Every one was still. Gerasim took up his spoon again and
+went on with his cabbage-soup. 'Look at him, the dumb devil, the
+wood-demon!' they all muttered in under-tones, while the wardrobe-maid
+got up and went out into the maids' room. Another time, noticing that
+Kapiton--the same Kapiton who was the subject of the conversation
+reported above--was gossiping somewhat too attentively with Tatiana,
+Gerasim beckoned him to him, led him into the cartshed, and taking
+up a shaft that was standing in a corner by one end, lightly, but
+most significantly, menaced him with it. Since then no one addressed
+a word to Tatiana. And all this cost him nothing. It is true the
+wardrobe-maid, as soon as she reached the maids' room, promptly
+fell into a fainting-fit, and behaved altogether so skilfully that
+Gerasim's rough action reached his mistress's knowledge the same day.
+But the capricious old lady only laughed, and several times, to the
+great offence of the wardrobe-maid, forced her to repeat 'how he bent
+your head down with his heavy hand,' and next day she sent Gerasim
+a rouble. She looked on him with favour as a strong and faithful
+watchman. Gerasim stood in considerable awe of her, but, all the same,
+he had hopes of her favour, and was preparing to go to her with a
+petition for leave to marry Tatiana. He was only waiting for a new
+coat, promised him by the steward, to present a proper appearance
+before his mistress, when this same mistress suddenly took it into her
+head to marry Tatiana to Kapiton.
+
+The reader will now readily understand the perturbation of mind that
+overtook the steward Gavrila after his conversation with his mistress.
+'My lady,' he thought, as he sat at the window, 'favours Gerasim, to
+be sure'--(Gavrila was well aware of this, and that was why he himself
+looked on him with an indulgent eye)--'still he is a speechless
+creature. I could not, indeed, put it before the mistress that
+Gerasim's courting Tatiana. But, after all, it's true enough; he's a
+queer sort of husband. But on the other hand, that devil, God forgive
+me, has only got to find out they're marrying Tatiana to Kapiton,
+he'll smash up everything in the house, 'pon my soul! There's no
+reasoning with him; why, he's such a devil, God forgive my sins,
+there's no getting over him no how ... 'pon my soul!'
+
+Kapiton's entrance broke the thread of Gavrila's reflections. The
+dissipated shoemaker came in, his hands behind him, and lounging
+carelessly against a projecting angle of the wall, near the door,
+crossed his right foot in front of his left, and tossed his head, as
+much as to say, 'What do you want?'
+
+Gavrila looked at Kapiton, and drummed with his fingers on the
+window-frame. Kapiton merely screwed up his leaden eyes a little, but
+he did not look down, he even grinned slightly, and passed his hand
+over his whitish locks which were sticking up in all directions.
+'Well, here I am. What is it?'
+
+'You're a pretty fellow,' said Gavrila, and paused. 'A pretty fellow
+you are, there's no denying!'
+
+Kapiton only twitched his little shoulders.
+
+'Are you any better, pray?' he thought to himself.
+
+'Just look at yourself, now, look at yourself,' Gavrila went on
+reproachfully; 'now, what ever do you look like?'
+
+Kapiton serenely surveyed his shabby tattered coat, and his patched
+trousers, and with special attention stared at his burst boots,
+especially the one on the tip-toe of which his right foot so
+gracefully poised, and he fixed his eyes again on the steward.
+
+'Well?'
+
+'Well?' repeated Gavrila. 'Well? And then you say well? You look like
+old Nick himself, God forgive my saying so, that's what you look
+like.'
+
+Kapiton blinked rapidly.
+
+'Go on abusing me, go on, if you like, Gavrila Andreitch,' he thought
+to himself again.
+
+'Here you've been drunk again,' Gavrila began, 'drunk again, haven't
+you? Eh? Come, answer me!'
+
+'Owing to the weakness of my health, I have exposed myself to
+spirituous beverages, certainly,' replied Kapiton.
+
+'Owing to the weakness of your health!... They let you off too easy,
+that's what it is; and you've been apprenticed in Petersburg.... Much
+you learned in your apprenticeship! You simply eat your bread in
+idleness.'
+
+'In that matter, Gavrila Andreitch, there is one to judge me, the Lord
+God Himself, and no one else. He also knows what manner of man I be in
+this world, and whether I eat my bread in idleness. And as concerning
+your contention regarding drunkenness, in that matter, too, I am not
+to blame, but rather a friend; he led me into temptation, but was
+diplomatic and got away, while I....'
+
+'While you were left, like a goose, in the street. Ah, you're a
+dissolute fellow! But that's not the point,' the steward went on,
+'I've something to tell you. Our lady...' here he paused a minute,
+'it's our lady's pleasure that you should be married. Do you hear? She
+imagines you may be steadier when you're married. Do you understand?'
+
+'To be sure I do.'
+
+'Well, then. For my part I think it would be better to give you a
+good hiding. But there--it's her business. Well? are you agreeable?'
+Kapiton grinned.
+
+'Matrimony is an excellent thing for any one, Gavrila Andreitch; and,
+as far as I am concerned, I shall be quite agreeable.'
+
+'Very well, then,' replied Gavrila, while he reflected to himself:
+'there's no denying the man expresses himself very properly. Only
+there's one thing,' he pursued aloud: 'the wife our lady's picked out
+for you is an unlucky choice.'
+
+'Why, who is she, permit me to inquire?'
+
+'Tatiana.'
+
+'Tatiana?'
+
+And Kapiton opened his eyes, and moved a little away from the wall.
+
+'Well, what are you in such a taking for?... Isn't she to your taste,
+hey?'
+
+'Not to my taste, do you say, Gavrila Andreitch! She's right enough, a
+hard-working steady girl.... But you know very well yourself, Gavrila
+Andreitch, why that fellow, that wild man of the woods, that monster
+of the steppes, he's after her, you know....'
+
+'I know, mate, I know all about it,' the butler cut him short in a
+tone of annoyance: 'but there, you see....'
+
+'But upon my soul, Gavrila Andreitch! why, he'll kill me, by God, he
+will, he'll crush me like some fly; why, he's got a fist--why, you
+kindly look yourself what a fist he's got; why, he's simply got a fist
+like Minin Pozharsky's. You see he's deaf, he beats and does not hear
+how he's beating! He swings his great fists, as if he's asleep. And
+there's no possibility of pacifying him; and for why? Why, because, as
+you know yourself, Gavrila Andreitch, he's deaf, and what's more, has
+no more wit than the heel of my foot. Why, he's a sort of beast, a
+heathen idol, Gavrila Andreitch, and worse ... a block of wood; what
+have I done that I should have to suffer from him now? Sure it is,
+it's all over with me now; I've knocked about, I've had enough to put
+up with, I've been battered like an earthenware pot, but still I'm a
+man, after all, and not a worthless pot.'
+
+'I know, I know, don't go talking away....'
+
+'Lord, my God!' the shoemaker continued warmly, 'when is the end?
+when, O Lord! A poor wretch I am, a poor wretch whose sufferings are
+endless! What a life, what a life mine's been, come to think of it!
+In my young days, I was beaten by a German I was 'prentice to; in the
+prime of life beaten by my own countrymen, and last of all, in ripe
+years, see what I have been brought to....'
+
+'Ugh, you flabby soul!' said Gavrila Andreitch. 'Why do you make so
+many words about it?'
+
+'Why, do you say, Gavrila Andreitch? It's not a beating I'm afraid of,
+Gavrila Andreitch. A gentleman may chastise me in private, but give me
+a civil word before folks, and I'm a man still; but see now, whom I've
+to do with....'
+
+'Come, get along,' Gavrila interposed impatiently. Kapiton turned away
+and staggered off.
+
+'But, if it were not for him,' the steward shouted after him, 'you
+would consent for your part?'
+
+'I signify my acquiescence,' retorted Kapiton as he disappeared.
+
+His fine language did not desert him, even in the most trying
+positions.
+
+The steward walked several times up and down the room.
+
+'Well, call Tatiana now,' he said at last.
+
+A few instants later, Tatiana had come up almost noiselessly, and was
+standing in the doorway.
+
+'What are your orders, Gavrila Andreitch?' she said in a soft voice.
+
+The steward looked at her intently.
+
+'Well, Taniusha,' he said, 'would you like to be married? Our lady has
+chosen a husband for you.'
+
+'Yes, Gavrila Andreitch. And whom has she deigned to name as a husband
+for me?' she added falteringly.
+
+'Kapiton, the shoemaker.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'He's a feather-brained fellow, that's certain. But it's just for that
+the mistress reckons upon you.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'There's one difficulty ... you know the deaf man, Gerasim, he's
+courting you, you see. How did you come to bewitch such a bear? But
+you see, he'll kill you, very like, he's such a bear....'
+
+'He'll kill me, Gavrila Andreitch, he'll kill me, and no mistake.'
+
+'Kill you.... Well, we shall see about that. What do you mean
+by saying he'll kill you? Has he any right to kill you? tell me
+yourself.'
+
+'I don't know, Gavrila Andreitch, about his having any right or not.'
+
+'What a woman! why, you've made him no promise, I suppose....'
+
+'What are you pleased to ask of me?'
+
+The steward was silent for a little, thinking, 'You're a meek soul!
+Well, that's right,' he said aloud; 'we'll have another talk with you
+later, now you can go, Taniusha; I see you're not unruly, certainly.'
+
+Tatiana turned, steadied herself a little against the doorpost, and
+went away.
+
+'And, perhaps, our lady will forget all about this wedding by
+to-morrow,' thought the steward; 'and here am I worrying myself for
+nothing! As for that insolent fellow, we must tie him down, if it
+comes to that, we must let the police know' ... 'Ustinya Fyedorovna!'
+he shouted in a loud voice to his wife, 'heat the samovar, my good
+soul....' All that day Tatiana hardly went out of the laundry. At
+first she had started crying, then she wiped away her tears, and set
+to work as before. Kapiton stayed till late at night at the ginshop
+with a friend of his, a man of gloomy appearance, to whom he related
+in detail how he used to live in Petersburg with a gentleman, who
+would have been all right, except he was a bit too strict, and he had
+a slight weakness besides, he was too fond of drink; and, as to the
+fair sex, he didn't stick at anything. His gloomy companion merely
+said yes; but when Kapiton announced at last that, in a certain event,
+he would have to lay hands on himself to-morrow, his gloomy companion
+remarked that it was bedtime. And they parted in surly silence.
+
+Meanwhile, the steward's anticipations were not fulfilled. The old
+lady was so much taken up with the idea of Kapiton's wedding, that
+even in the night she talked of nothing else to one of her companions,
+who was kept in her house solely to entertain her in case of
+sleeplessness, and, like a night cabman, slept in the day. When
+Gavrila came to her after morning tea with his report, her first
+question was: 'And how about our wedding--is it getting on all right?'
+He replied, of course, that it was getting on first rate, and that
+Kapiton would appear before her to pay his reverence to her that
+day. The old lady was not quite well; she did not give much time to
+business. The steward went back to his own room, and called a council.
+The matter certainly called for serious consideration. Tatiana would
+make no difficulty, of course; but Kapiton had declared in the hearing
+of all that he had but one head to lose, not two or three.... Gerasim
+turned rapid sullen looks on every one, would not budge from the steps
+of the maids' quarters, and seemed to guess that some mischief was
+being hatched against him. They met together. Among them was an old
+sideboard waiter, nicknamed Uncle Tail, to whom every one looked
+respectfully for counsel, though all they got out of him was, 'Here's
+a pretty pass! to be sure, to be sure, to be sure!' As a preliminary
+measure of security, to provide against contingencies, they locked
+Kapiton up in the lumber-room where the filter was kept; then
+considered the question with the gravest deliberation, It would, to
+be sure, be easy to have recourse to force. But Heaven save us! there
+would be an uproar, the mistress would be put out--it would be awful!
+What should they do? They thought and thought, and at last thought out
+a solution. It had many a time been observed that Gerasim could not
+bear drunkards.... As he sat at the gates, he would always turn away
+with disgust when some one passed by intoxicated, with unsteady steps
+and his cap on one side of his ear. They resolved that Tatiana should
+be instructed to pretend to be tipsy, and should pass by Gerasim
+staggering and reeling about. The poor girl refused for a long while
+to agree to this, but they persuaded her at last; she saw, too, that
+it was the only possible way of getting rid of her adorer. She went
+out. Kapiton was released from the lumber-room; for, after all, he
+had an interest in the affair. Gerasim was sitting on the curb-stone
+at the gates, scraping the ground with a spade.... From behind every
+corner, from behind every window-blind, the others were watching
+him.... The trick succeeded beyond all expectations. On seeing
+Tatiana, at first, he nodded as usual, making caressing, inarticulate
+sounds; then he looked carefully at her, dropped his spade, jumped up,
+went up to her, brought his face close to her face.... In her fright
+she staggered more than ever, and shut her eyes.... He took her by the
+arm, whirled her right across the yard, and going into the room where
+the council had been sitting, pushed her straight at Kapiton. Tatiana
+fairly swooned away.... Gerasim stood, looked at her, waved his hand,
+laughed, and went off, stepping heavily, to his garret.... For the
+next twenty-four hours, he did not come out of it. The postillion
+Antipka said afterwards that he saw Gerasim through a. crack in the
+wall, sitting on his bedstead, his face in his hand. From time to
+time he uttered soft regular sounds; he was wailing a dirge, that is,
+swaying backwards and forwards with his eyes shut, and shaking his
+head as drivers or bargemen do when they chant their melancholy songs.
+Antipka could not bear it, and he came away from the crack. When
+Gerasim came out of the garret next day, no particular change could be
+observed in him. He only seemed, as it were, more morose, and took not
+the slightest notice of Tatiana or Kapiton. The same evening, they
+both had to appear before their mistress with geese under their arms,
+and in a week's time they were married. Even on the day of the wedding
+Gerasim showed no change of any sort in his behaviour. Only, he came
+back from the river without water, he had somehow broken the barrel on
+the road; and at night, in the stable, he washed and rubbed down his
+horse so vigorously, that it swayed like a blade of grass in the wind,
+and staggered from one leg to the other under his fists of iron.
+
+All this had taken place in the spring. Another year passed by, during
+which Kapiton became a hopeless drunkard, and as being absolutely of
+no use for anything, was sent away with the store waggons to a distant
+village with his wife. On the day of his departure, he put a very good
+face on it at first, and declared that he would always be at home,
+send him where they would, even to the other end of the world; but
+later on he lost heart, began grumbling that he was being taken to
+uneducated people, and collapsed so completely at last that he could
+not even put his own hat on. Some charitable soul stuck it on his
+forehead, set the peak straight in front, and thrust it on with a slap
+from above. When everything was quite ready, and the peasants already
+held the reins in their hands, and were only waiting for the words
+'With God's blessing!' to start, Gerasim came out of his garret,
+went up to Tatiana, and gave her as a parting present a red cotton
+handkerchief he had bought for her a year ago. Tatiana, who had up to
+that instant borne all the revolting details of her life with great
+indifference, could not control herself upon that; she burst into
+tears, and as she took her seat in the cart, she kissed Gerasim three
+times like a good Christian. He meant to accompany her as far as the
+town-barrier, and did walk beside her cart for a while, but he stopped
+suddenly at the Crimean ford, waved his hand, and walked away along
+the riverside.
+
+It was getting towards evening. He walked slowly, watching the water.
+All of a sudden he fancied something was floundering in the mud close
+to the bank. He stooped over, and saw a little white-and-black puppy,
+who, in spite of all its efforts, could not get out of the water; it
+was struggling, slipping back, and trembling all over its thin wet
+little body. Gerasim looked at the unlucky little dog, picked it up
+with one hand, put it into the bosom of his coat, and hurried with
+long steps homewards. He went into his garret, put the rescued puppy
+on his bed, covered it with his thick overcoat, ran first to the
+stable for straw, and then to the kitchen for a cup of milk. Carefully
+folding back the overcoat, and spreading out the straw, he set the
+milk on the bedstead. The poor little puppy was not more than three
+weeks old, its eyes were only just open--one eye still seemed rather
+larger than the other; it did not know how to lap out of a cup, and
+did nothing but shiver and blink. Gerasim took hold of its head softly
+with two fingers, and dipped its little nose into the milk. The
+pup suddenly began lapping greedily, sniffing, shaking itself, and
+choking. Gerasim watched and watched it, and all at once he laughed
+outright.... All night long he was waiting on it, keeping it covered,
+and rubbing it dry. He fell asleep himself at last, and slept quietly
+and happily by its side.
+
+No mother could have looked after her baby as Gerasim looked after
+his little nursling. At first, she--for the pup turned out to be
+a bitch--was very weak, feeble, and ugly, but by degrees she grew
+stronger and improved in looks, and thanks to the unflagging care of
+her preserver, in eight months' time she was transformed into a very
+pretty dog of the spaniel breed, with long ears, a bushy spiral tail,
+and large expressive eyes. She was devotedly attached to Gerasim, and
+was never a yard from his side; she always followed him about wagging
+her tail. He had even given her a name--the dumb know that their
+inarticulate noises call the attention of others. He called her Mumu.
+All the servants in the house liked her, and called her Mumu, too. She
+was very intelligent, she was friendly with every one, but was only
+fond of Gerasim. Gerasim, on his side, loved her passionately, and he
+did not like it when other people stroked her; whether he was afraid
+for her, or jealous--God knows! She used to wake him in the morning,
+pulling at his coat; she used to take the reins in her mouth, and
+bring him up the old horse that carried the water, with whom she was
+on very friendly terms. With a face of great importance, she used to
+go with him to the river; she used to watch his brooms and spades,
+and never allowed any one to go into his garret. He cut a little hole
+in his door on purpose for her, and she seemed to feel that only in
+Gerasim's garret she was completely mistress and at home; and directly
+she went in, she used to jump with a satisfied air upon the bed.
+At night she did not sleep at all, but she never barked without
+sufficient cause, like some stupid house-dog, who, sitting on its
+hind-legs, blinking, with its nose in the air, barks simply from
+dulness, at the stars, usually three times in succession. No! Mumu's
+delicate little voice was never raised without good reason; either
+some stranger was passing close to the fence, or there was some
+suspicious sound or rustle somewhere.... In fact, she was an excellent
+watch-dog. It is true that there was another dog in the yard, a tawny
+old dog with brown spots, called Wolf, but he was never, even at
+night, let off the chain; and, indeed, he was so decrepit that he did
+not even wish for freedom. He used to lie curled up in his kennel,
+and only rarely uttered a sleepy, almost noiseless bark, which broke
+off at once, as though he were himself aware of its uselessness. Mumu
+never went into the mistress's house; and when Gerasim carried wood
+into the rooms, she always stayed behind, impatiently waiting for him
+at the steps, pricking up her ears and turning her head to right and
+to left at the slightest creak of the door....
+
+So passed another year. Gerasim went on performing his duties as
+house-porter, and was very well content with his lot, when suddenly
+an unexpected incident occurred.... One fine summer day the old lady
+was walking up and down the drawing-room with her dependants. She was
+in high spirits; she laughed and made jokes. Her servile companions
+laughed and joked too, but they did not feel particularly mirthful;
+the household did not much like it, when their mistress was in a
+lively mood, for, to begin with, she expected from every one prompt
+and complete participation in her merriment, and was furious if any
+one showed a face that did not beam with delight, and secondly, these
+outbursts never lasted long with her, and were usually followed by
+a sour and gloomy mood. That day she had got up in a lucky hour; at
+cards she took the four knaves, which means the fulfilment of one's
+wishes (she used to try her fortune on the cards every morning), and
+her tea struck her as particularly delicious, for which her maid was
+rewarded by words of praise, and by twopence in money. With a sweet
+smile on her wrinkled lips, the lady walked about the drawing-room and
+went up to the window. A flower-garden had been laid out before the
+window, and in the very middle bed, under a rose-bush, lay Mumu busily
+gnawing a bone. The lady caught sight of her.
+
+'Mercy on us!' she cried suddenly; 'what dog is that?'
+
+The companion, addressed by the old lady, hesitated, poor thing, in
+that wretched state of uneasiness which is common in any person in a
+dependent position who doesn't know very well what significance to
+give to the exclamation of a superior.
+
+'I d ... d ... don't know,' she faltered: 'I fancy it's the dumb man's
+dog.'
+
+'Mercy!' the lady cut her short: 'but it's a charming little dog!
+order it to be brought in. Has he had it long? How is it I've never
+seen it before?... Order it to be brought in.'
+
+The companion flew at once into the hall.
+
+'Boy, boy!' she shouted: 'bring Mumu in at once! She's in the
+flower-garden.'
+
+'Her name's Mumu then,' observed the lady: 'a very nice name.'
+
+'Oh, very, indeed!' chimed in the companion. 'Make haste, Stepan!'
+
+Stepan, a sturdily-built young fellow, whose duties were those of a
+footman, rushed headlong into the flower-garden, and tried to capture
+Mumu, but she cleverly slipped from his fingers, and with her tail in
+the air, fled full speed to Gerasim, who was at that instant in the
+kitchen, knocking out and cleaning a barrel, turning it upside down
+in his hands like a child's drum. Stepan ran after her, and tried to
+catch her just at her master's feet; but the sensible dog would not
+let a stranger touch her, and with a bound, she got away. Gerasim
+looked on with a smile at all this ado; at last, Stepan got up, much
+amazed, and hurriedly explained to him by signs that the mistress
+wanted the dog brought in to her. Gerasim was a little astonished;
+he called Mumu, however, picked her up, and handed her over to
+Stepan. Stepan carried her into the drawing-room, and put her down
+on the parquette floor. The old lady began calling the dog to her
+in a coaxing voice. Mumu, who had never in her life been in such
+magnificent apartments, was very much frightened, and made a rush for
+the door, but, being driven back by the obsequious Stepan, she began
+trembling, and huddled close up against the wall.
+
+'Mumu, Mumu, come to me, come to your mistress,' said the lady; 'come,
+silly thing ... don't be afraid.'
+
+'Come, Mumu, come to the mistress,' repeated the companions. 'Come
+along!'
+
+But Mumu looked round her uneasily, and did not stir.
+
+'Bring her something to eat,' said the old lady. 'How stupid she is!
+she won't come to her mistress. What's she afraid of?'
+
+'She's not used to your honour yet,' ventured one of the companions in
+a timid and conciliatory voice.
+
+Stepan brought in a saucer of milk, and set it down before Mumu, but
+Mumu would not even sniff at the milk, and still shivered, and looked
+round as before.
+
+'Ah, what a silly you are!' said the lady, and going up to her, she
+stooped down, and was about to stroke her, but Mumu turned her head
+abruptly, and showed her teeth. The lady hurriedly drew back her
+hand....
+
+A momentary silence followed. Mumu gave a faint whine, as though she
+would complain and apologise.... The old lady moved back, scowling.
+The dog's sudden movement had frightened her.
+
+'Ah!' shrieked all the companions at once, 'she's not bitten you, has
+she? Heaven forbid! (Mumu had never bitten any one in her life.) Ah!
+ah!'
+
+'Take her away,' said the old lady in a changed voice. 'Wretched
+little dog! What a spiteful creature!'
+
+And, turning round deliberately, she went towards her boudoir. Her
+companions looked timidly at one another, and were about to follow
+her, but she stopped, stared coldly at them, and said, 'What's that
+for, pray? I've not called you,' and went out.
+
+The companions waved their hands to Stepan in despair. He picked up
+Mumu, and flung her promptly outside the door, just at Gerasim's feet,
+and half-an-hour later a profound stillness reigned in the house, and
+the old lady sat on her sofa looking blacker than a thunder-cloud.
+
+What trifles, if you think of it, will sometimes disturb any one!
+
+Till evening the lady was out of humour; she did not talk to any
+one, did not play cards, and passed a bad night. She fancied the
+eau-de-Cologne they gave her was not the same as she usually had, and
+that her pillow smelt of soap, and she made the wardrobe-maid smell
+all the bed linen--in fact she was very upset and cross altogether.
+Next morning she ordered Gavrila to be summoned an hour earlier than
+usual.
+
+'Tell me, please,' she began, directly the latter, not without some
+inward trepidation, crossed the threshold of her boudoir, 'what dog
+was that barking all night in our yard? It wouldn't let me sleep!'
+
+'A dog, 'm ... what dog, 'm ... may be, the dumb man's dog, 'm,' he
+brought out in a rather unsteady voice.
+
+'I don't know whether it was the dumb man's or whose, but it wouldn't
+let me sleep. And I wonder what we have such a lot of dogs for! I wish
+to know. We have a yard dog, haven't we?'
+
+'Oh yes, 'm, we have, 'm. Wolf, 'm.'
+
+'Well, why more, what do we want more dogs for? It's simply
+introducing disorder. There's no one in control in the house--that's
+what it is. And what does the dumb man want with a dog? Who gave him
+leave to keep dogs in my yard? Yesterday I went to the window, and
+there it was lying in the flower--garden; it had dragged in some
+nastiness it was gnawing, and my roses are planted there....'
+
+The lady ceased.
+
+'Let her be gone from to-day ... do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, 'm.'
+
+'To-day. Now go. I will send for you later for the report.'
+
+Gavrila went away.
+
+As he went through the drawing-room, the steward by way of maintaining
+order moved a bell from one table to another; he stealthily blew his
+duck-like nose in the hall, and went into the outer-hall. In the
+outer-hall, on a locker was Stepan asleep in the attitude of a slain
+warrior in a battalion picture, his bare legs thrust out below the
+coat which served him for a blanket. The steward gave him a shove,
+and whispered some instructions to him, to which Stepan responded
+with something between a yawn and a laugh. The steward went away,
+and Stepan got up, put on his coat and his boots, went out and stood
+on the steps. Five minutes had not passed before Gerasim made his
+appearance with a huge bundle of hewn logs on his back, accompanied by
+the inseparable Mumu. (The lady had given orders that her bedroom and
+boudoir should be heated at times even in the summer.) Gerasim turned
+sideways before the door, shoved it open with his shoulder, and
+staggered into the house with his load. Mumu, as usual, stayed behind
+to wait for him. Then Stepan, seizing his chance, suddenly pounced on
+her, like a kite on a chicken, held her down to the ground, gathered
+her up in his arms, and without even putting on his cap, ran out of
+the yard with her, got into the first fly he met, and galloped off to
+a market-place. There he soon found a purchaser, to whom he sold her
+for a shilling, on condition that he would keep her for at least a
+week tied up; then he returned at once. But before he got home, he got
+off the fly, and going right round the yard, jumped over the fence
+into the yard from a back street. He was afraid to go in at the gate
+for fear of meeting Gerasim.
+
+His anxiety was unnecessary, however; Gerasim was no longer in the
+yard. On coming out of the house he had at once missed Mumu. He never
+remembered her failing to wait for his return, and began running up
+and down, looking for her, and calling her in his own way.... He
+rushed up to his garret, up to the hay-loft, ran out into the street,
+this way and that.... She was lost! He turned to the other serfs, with
+the most despairing signs, questioned them about her, pointing to her
+height from the ground, describing her with his hands.... Some of them
+really did not know what had become of Mumu, and merely shook their
+heads, others did know, and smiled to him for all response, while the
+steward assumed an important air, and began scolding the coachmen.
+Then Gerasim ran right away out of the yard.
+
+It was dark by the time he came back. From his worn-out look, his
+unsteady walk, and his dusty clothes, it might be surmised that he had
+been running over half Moscow. He stood still opposite the windows of
+the mistress' house, took a searching look at the steps where a group
+of house-serfs were crowded together, turned away, and uttered once
+more his inarticulate 'Mumu.' Mumu did not answer. He went away.
+Every one looked after him, but no one smiled or said a word, and the
+inquisitive postillion Antipka reported next morning in the kitchen
+that the dumb man had been groaning all night.
+
+All the next day Gerasim did not show himself, so that they were
+obliged to send the coachman Potap for water instead of him, at which
+the coachman Potap was anything but pleased. The lady asked Gavrila
+if her orders had been carried out. Gavrila replied that they had.
+The next morning Gerasim came out of his garret, and went about his
+work. He came in to his dinner, ate it, and went out again, without
+a greeting to any one. His face, which had always been lifeless, as
+with all deaf-mutes, seemed now to be turned to stone. After dinner he
+went out of the yard again, but not for long; he came back, and went
+straight up to the hay-loft. Night came on, a clear moonlight night.
+Gerasim lay breathing heavily, and incessantly turning from side to
+side. Suddenly he felt something pull at the skirt of his coat. He
+started, but did not raise his head, and even shut his eyes tighter.
+But again there was a pull, stronger than before; he jumped up ...
+before him, with an end of string round her neck, was Mumu, twisting
+and turning. A prolonged cry of delight broke from his speechless
+breast; he caught up Mumu, and hugged her tight in his arms, she
+licked his nose and eyes, and beard and moustache, all in one
+instant.... He stood a little, thought a minute, crept cautiously down
+from the hay-loft, looked round, and having satisfied himself that no
+one could see him, made his way successfully to his garret. Gerasim
+had guessed before that his dog had not got lost by her own doing,
+that she must have been taken away by the mistress' orders; the
+servants had explained to him by signs that his Mumu had snapped at
+her, and he determined to take his own measures. First he fed Mumu
+with a bit of bread, fondled her, and put her to bed, then he fell to
+meditating, and spent the whole night long in meditating how he could
+best conceal her. At last he decided to leave her all day in the
+garret, and only to come in now and then to see her, and to take her
+out at night. The hole in the door he stopped up effectually with his
+old overcoat, and almost before it was light he was already in the
+yard, as though nothing had happened, even--innocent guile!--the
+same expression of melancholy on his face. It did not even occur to
+the poor deaf man that Mumu would betray herself by her whining; in
+reality, every one in the house was soon aware that the dumb man's dog
+had come back, and was locked up in his garret, but from sympathy with
+him and with her, and partly, perhaps, from dread of him, they did not
+let him know that they had found out his secret. The steward scratched
+his hand, and gave a despairing wave of his hand, as much as to say,
+'Well, well, God have mercy on him! If only it doesn't come to the
+mistress' ears!'
+
+But the dumb man had never shown such energy as on that day; he
+cleaned and scraped the whole courtyard, pulled up every single
+weed with his own hand, tugged up every stake in the fence of the
+flower-garden, to satisfy himself that they were strong enough, and
+unaided drove them in again; in fact, he toiled and laboured so that
+even the old lady noticed his zeal. Twice in the course of the day
+Gerasim went stealthily in to see his prisoner when night came on, he
+lay down to sleep with her in the garret, not in the hay-loft, and
+only at two o'clock in the night he went out to take her a turn in the
+fresh air. After walking about the courtyard a good while with her,
+he was just turning back, when suddenly a rustle was heard behind
+the fence on the side of the back street. Mumu pricked up her ears,
+growled--went up to the fence, sniffed, and gave vent to a loud shrill
+bark. Some drunkard had thought fit to take refuge under the fence for
+the night. At that very time the old lady had just fallen asleep after
+a prolonged fit of 'nervous agitation'; these fits of agitation always
+overtook her after too hearty a supper. The sudden bark waked her up:
+her heart palpitated, and she felt faint. 'Girls, girls!' she moaned.
+'Girls!' The terrified maids ran into her bedroom. 'Oh, oh, I am
+dying!' she said, flinging her arms about in her agitation. 'Again,
+that dog again!... Oh, send for the doctor. They mean to be the death
+of me.... The dog, the dog again! Oh!' And she let her head fall back,
+which always signified a swoon. They rushed for the doctor, that
+is, for the household physician, Hariton. This doctor, whose whole
+qualification consisted in wearing soft-soled boots, knew how to
+feel the pulse delicately. He used to sleep fourteen hours out of
+the twenty-four, but the rest of the time he was always sighing, and
+continually dosing the old lady with cherrybay drops. This doctor ran
+up at once, fumigated the room with burnt feathers, and when the old
+lady opened her eyes, promptly offered her a wineglass of the hallowed
+drops on a silver tray. The old lady took them, but began again at
+once in a tearful voice complaining of the dog, of Gavrila, and of her
+fate, declaring that she was a poor old woman, and that every one had
+forsaken her, no one pitied her, every one wished her dead. Meanwhile
+the luckless Mumu had gone on barking, while Gerasim tried in vain to
+call her away from the fence. 'There ... there ... again,' groaned
+the old lady, and once more she turned up the whites of her eyes. The
+doctor whispered to a maid, she rushed into the outer-hall, and shook
+Stepan, he ran to wake Gavrila, Gavrila in a fury ordered the whole
+household to get up.
+
+Gerasim turned round, saw lights and shadows moving in the windows,
+and with an instinct of coming trouble in his heart, put Mumu under
+his arm, ran into his garret, and locked himself in. A few minutes
+later five men were banging at his door, but feeling the resistance
+of the bolt, they stopped. Gavrila ran up in a fearful state of mind,
+and ordered them all to wait there and watch till morning. Then he
+flew off himself to the maids' quarter, and through an old companion,
+Liubov Liubimovna, with whose assistance he used to steal tea, sugar,
+and other groceries and to falsify the accounts, sent word to the
+mistress that the dog had unhappily run back from somewhere, but that
+to-morrow she should be killed, and would the mistress be so gracious
+as not to be angry and to overlook it. The old lady would probably
+not have been so soon appeased, but the doctor had in his haste given
+her fully forty drops instead of twelve. The strong dose of narcotic
+acted; in a quarter of an hour the old lady was in a sound and
+peaceful sleep; while Gerasim was lying with a white face on his bed,
+holding Mumu's mouth tightly shut.
+
+Next morning the lady woke up rather late. Gavrila was waiting
+till she should be awake, to give the order for a final assault on
+Gerasim's stronghold, while he prepared himself to face a fearful
+storm. But the storm did not come off. The old lady lay in bed and
+sent for the eldest of her dependent companions.
+
+'Liubov Liubimovna,' she began in a subdued weak voice--she was fond
+of playing the part of an oppressed and forsaken victim; needless to
+say, every one in the house was made extremely uncomfortable at such
+times--'Liubov Liubimovna, you see my position; go, my love to Gavrila
+Andreitch, and talk to him a little Can he really prize some wretched
+cur above the repose--the very life--of his mistress? I could not bear
+to think so,' she added, with an expression of deep feeling. 'Go, my
+love; be so good as to go to Gavrila Andreitch for me.'
+
+Liubov Liubimovna went to Gavrila's room. What conversation passed
+between them is not known, but a short time after, a whole crowd
+of people was moving across the yard in the direction of Gerasim's
+garret. Gavrila walked in front, holding his cap on with his hand,
+though there was no wind. The footmen and cooks were close behind him;
+Uncle Tail was looking out of a window, giving instructions, that is
+to say, simply waving his hands. At the rear there was a crowd of
+small boys skipping and hopping along; half of them were outsiders
+who had run up. On the narrow staircase leading to the garret sat one
+guard; at the door were standing two more with sticks. They began to
+mount the stairs, which they entirely blocked up. Gavrila went up to
+the door, knocked with his fist, shouting, 'Open the door!'
+
+A stifled bark was audible, but there was no answer.
+
+'Open the door, I tell you,' he repeated.
+
+'But, Gavrila Andreitch,' Stepan observed from below, 'he's deaf, you
+know--he doesn't hear.'
+
+They all laughed.
+
+'What are we to do?' Gavrila rejoined from above.
+
+'Why, there's a hole there in the door,' answered Stepan, 'so you
+shake the stick in there.'
+
+Gavrila bent down.
+
+'He's stuffed it up with a coat or something.'
+
+'Well, you just push the coat in.'
+
+At this moment a smothered bark was heard again.
+
+'See, see--she speaks for herself,' was remarked in the crowd, and
+again they laughed.
+
+Gavrila scratched his ear.
+
+'No, mate,' he responded at last, 'you can poke the coat in yourself,
+if you like.'
+
+'All right, let me.'
+
+And Stepan scrambled up, took the stick, pushed in the coat, and began
+waving the stick about in the opening, saying, 'Come out, come out!'
+as he did so. He was still waving the stick, when suddenly the door
+of the garret was flung open; all the crowd flew pell-mell down the
+stairs instantly, Gavrila first of all. Uncle Tail locked the window.
+
+'Come, come, come,' shouted Gavrila from the yard, 'mind what you're
+about.'
+
+Gerasim stood without stirring in his doorway. The crowd gathered at
+the foot of the stairs. Gerasim, with his arms akimbo, looked down at
+all these poor creatures in German coats; in his red peasant's shirt
+he looked like a giant before them. Gavrila took a step forward.
+
+'Mind, mate,' said he, 'don't be insolent.'
+
+And he began to explain to him by signs that the mistress insists on
+having his dog; that he must hand it over at once, or it would be the
+worse for him.
+
+Gerasim looked at him, pointed to the dog, made a motion with his hand
+round his neck, as though he were pulling a noose tight, and glanced
+with a face of inquiry at the steward.
+
+'Yes, yes,' the latter assented, nodding; 'yes, just so.'
+
+Gerasim dropped his eyes, then all of a sudden roused himself and
+pointed to Mumu, who was all the while standing beside him, innocently
+wagging her tail and pricking up her ears inquisitively. Then he
+repeated the strangling action round his neck and significantly struck
+himself on the breast, as though announcing he would take upon himself
+the task of killing Mumu.
+
+'But you'll deceive us,' Gavrila waved back in response.
+
+Gerasim looked at him, smiled scornfully, struck himself again on the
+breast, and slammed-to the door.
+
+They all looked at one another in silence.
+
+'What does that mean?' Gavrila began. 'He's locked himself in.'
+
+'Let him be, Gavrila Andreitch,' Stepan advised; 'he'll do it if he's
+promised. He's like that, you know.... If he makes a promise, it's a
+certain thing. He's not like us others in that. The truth's the truth
+with him. Yes, indeed.'
+
+'Yes,' they all repeated, nodding their heads, 'yes--that's so--yes.'
+
+Uncle Tail opened his window, and he too said, 'Yes.'
+
+'Well, may be, we shall see,' responded Gavrila; 'any way, we won't
+take off the guard. Here you, Eroshka!' he added, addressing a poor
+fellow in a yellow nankeen coat, who considered himself to be a
+gardener, 'what have you to do? Take a stick and sit here, and if
+anything happens, run to me at once!'
+
+Eroshka took a stick, and sat down on the bottom stair. The crowd
+dispersed, all except a few inquisitive small boys, while Gavrila went
+home and sent word through Liubov Liubimovna to the mistress, that
+everything had been done, while he sent a postillion for a policeman
+in case of need. The old lady tied a knot in her handkerchief,
+sprinkled some eau-de-Cologne on it, sniffed at it, and rubbed her
+temples with it, drank some tea, and, being still under the influence
+of the cherrybay drops, fell asleep again.
+
+An hour after all this hubbub the garret door opened, and Gerasim
+showed himself. He had on his best coat; he was leading Mumu by a
+string. Eroshka moved aside and let him pass. Gerasim went to the
+gates. All the small boys in the yard stared at him in silence. He did
+not even turn round; he only put his cap on in the street. Gavrila
+sent the same Eroshka to follow him and keep watch on him as a spy.
+Eroshka, seeing from a distance that he had gone into a cookshop with
+his dog, waited for him to come out again.
+
+Gerasim was well known at the cookshop, and his signs were understood.
+He asked for cabbage soup with meat in it, and sat down with his arms
+on the table. Mumu stood beside his chair, looking calmly at him with
+her intelligent eyes. Her coat was glossy; one could see she had just
+been combed down. They brought Gerasim the soup. He crumbled some
+bread into it, cut the meat up small, and put the plate on the ground.
+Mumu began eating in her usual refined way, her little muzzle daintily
+held so as scarcely to touch her food. Gerasim gazed a long while at
+her; two big tears suddenly rolled from his eyes; one fell on the
+dog's brow, the other into the soup. He shaded his face with his hand.
+Mumu ate up half the plateful, and came away from it, licking her
+lips. Gerasim got up, paid for the soup, and went out, followed by the
+rather perplexed glances of the waiter. Eroshka, seeing Gerasim, hid
+round a corner, and letting him get in front, followed him again.
+
+Gerasim walked without haste, still holding Mumu by a string. When he
+got to the corner of the street, he stood still as though reflecting,
+and suddenly set off with rapid steps to the Crimean Ford. On the
+way he went into the yard of a house, where a lodge was being built,
+and carried away two bricks under his arm. At the Crimean Ford, he
+turned along the bank, went to a place where there were two little
+rowing-boats fastened to stakes (he had noticed them there before),
+and jumped into one of them with Mumu. A lame old man came out of a
+shed in the corner of a kitchen-garden and shouted after him; but
+Gerasim only nodded, and began rowing so vigorously, though against
+stream, that in an instant he had darted two hundred yards away. The
+old man stood for a while, scratched his back first with the left and
+then with the right hand, and went back hobbling to the shed.
+
+Gerasim rowed on and on. Moscow was soon left behind. Meadows
+stretched each side of the bank, market gardens, fields, and copses;
+peasants' huts began to make their appearance. There was the fragrance
+of the country. He threw down his oars, bent his head down to Mumu,
+who was sitting facing him on a dry cross seat--the bottom of the boat
+was full of water--and stayed motionless, his mighty hands clasped
+upon her back, while the boat was gradually carried back by the
+current towards the town. At last Gerasim drew himself up hurriedly,
+with a sort of sick anger in his face, he tied up the bricks he had
+taken with string, made a running noose, put it round Mumu's neck,
+lifted her up over the river, and for the last time looked at her....
+she watched him confidingly and without any fear, faintly wagging her
+tail. He turned away, frowned, and wrung his hands.... Gerasim heard
+nothing, neither the quick shrill whine of Mumu as she fell, nor the
+heavy splash of the water; for him the noisiest day was soundless and
+silent as even the stillest night is not silent to us. When he opened
+his eyes again, little wavelets were hurrying over the river, chasing
+one another; as before they broke against the boat's side, and only
+far away behind wide circles moved widening to the bank.
+
+Directly Gerasim had vanished from Eroshka's sight, the latter
+returned home and reported what he had seen.
+
+'Well, then,' observed Stepan, 'he'll drown her. Now we can feel easy
+about it. If he once promises a thing....'
+
+No one saw Gerasim during the day. He did not have dinner at home.
+Evening came on; they were all gathered together to supper, except
+him.
+
+'What a strange creature that Gerasim is!' piped a fat laundrymaid;
+'fancy, upsetting himself like that over a dog.... Upon my word!'
+
+'But Gerasim has been here,' Stepan cried all at once, scraping up his
+porridge with a spoon.
+
+'How? when?'
+
+'Why, a couple of hours ago. Yes, indeed! I ran against him at the
+gate; he was going out again from here; he was coming out of the
+yard. I tried to ask him about his dog, but he wasn't in the best of
+humours, I could see. Well, he gave me a shove; I suppose he only
+meant to put me out of his way, as if he'd say, "Let me go, do!" but
+he fetched me such a crack on my neck, so seriously, that--oh! oh!'
+And Stepan, who could not help laughing, shrugged up and rubbed the
+back of his head. 'Yes,' he added; 'he has got a fist; it's something
+like a fist, there's no denying that!'
+
+They all laughed at Stepan, and after supper they separated to go to
+bed.
+
+Meanwhile, at that very time, a gigantic figure with a bag on his
+shoulders and a stick in his hand, was eagerly and persistently
+stepping out along the T---- highroad. It was Gerasim. He was hurrying
+on without looking round; hurrying homewards, to his own village, to
+his own country. After drowning poor Mumu, he had run back to his
+garret, hurriedly packed a few things together in an old horsecloth,
+tied it up in a bundle, tossed it on his shoulder, and so was ready.
+He had noticed the road carefully when he was brought to Moscow; the
+village his mistress had taken him from lay only about twenty miles
+off the highroad. He walked along it with a sort of invincible
+purpose, a desperate and at the same time joyous determination. He
+walked, his shoulders thrown back and his chest expanded; his eyes
+were fixed greedily straight before him. He hastened as though his old
+mother were waiting for him at home, as though she were calling him
+to her after long wanderings in strange parts, among strangers. The
+summer night, that was just drawing in, was still and warm; on one
+side, where the sun had set, the horizon was still light and faintly
+flushed with the last glow of the vanished day; on the other side a
+blue-grey twilight had already risen up. The night was coming up from
+that quarter. Quails were in hundreds around; corncrakes were calling
+to one another in the thickets.... Gerasim could not hear them; he
+could not hear the delicate night-whispering of the trees, by which
+his strong legs carried him, but he smelt the familiar scent of the
+ripening rye, which was wafted from the dark fields; he felt the wind,
+flying to meet him--the wind from home--beat caressingly upon his
+face, and play with his hair and his beard. He saw before him the
+whitening road homewards, straight as an arrow. He saw in the sky
+stars innumerable, lighting up his way, and stepped out, strong and
+bold as a lion, so that when the rising sun shed its moist rosy light
+upon the still fresh and unwearied traveller, already thirty miles lay
+between him and Moscow.
+
+In a couple of days he was at home, in his little hut, to the great
+astonishment of the soldier's wife who had been put in there. After
+praying before the holy pictures, he set off at once to the village
+elder. The village elder was at first surprised; but the haycutting
+had just begun; Gerasim was a first-rate mower, and they put a scythe
+into his hand on the spot, and he went to mow in his old way, mowing
+so that the peasants were fairly astounded as they watched his wide
+sweeping strokes and the heaps he raked together....
+
+In Moscow the day after Gerasim's flight they missed him. They went
+to his garret, rummaged about in it, and spoke to Gavrila. He came,
+looked, shrugged his shoulders, and decided that the dumb man had
+either run away or had drowned himself with his stupid dog. They
+gave information to the police, and informed the lady. The old lady
+was furious, burst into tears, gave orders that he was to be found
+whatever happened, declared she had never ordered the dog to be
+destroyed, and, in fact, gave Gavrila such a rating that he could do
+nothing all day but shake his head and murmur, 'Well!' until Uncle
+Tail checked him at last, sympathetically echoing 'We-ell!' At last
+the news came from the country of Gerasim's being there. The old
+lady was somewhat pacified; at first she issued a mandate for him to
+be brought back without delay to Moscow; afterwards, however, she
+declared that such an ungrateful creature was absolutely of no use to
+her. Soon after this she died herself; and her heirs had no thought to
+spare for Gerasim; they let their mother's other servants redeem their
+freedom on payment of an annual rent.
+
+And Gerasim is living still, a lonely man in his lonely hut; he is
+strong and healthy as before, and does the work of four men as before,
+and as before is serious and steady. But his neighbours have observed
+that ever since his return from Moscow he has quite given up the
+society of women; he will not even look at them, and does not keep
+even a single dog. 'It's his good luck, though,' the peasants reason;
+'that he can get on without female folk; and as for a dog--what need
+has he of a dog? you wouldn't get a thief to go into his yard for any
+money!' Such is the fame of the dumb man's Titanic strength.
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Torrents of Spring, 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 Torrents of Spring
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+
+Translator: Constance Garnett
+
+Posting Date: December 11, 2011 [EBook #9911]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 30, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TORRENTS OF SPRING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Keren Vergon, William Flis, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+BY IVAN TURGENEV
+
+Translated from the Russian
+
+BY CONSTANCE GARNETT
+
+1897
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+FIRST LOVE
+
+MUMU
+
+
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+
+  'Years of gladness,
+    Days of joy,
+  Like the torrents of spring
+    They hurried away.'
+
+--_From an Old Ballad_.
+
+
+... At two o'clock in the night he had gone back to his study. He had
+dismissed the servant after the candles were lighted, and throwing
+himself into a low chair by the hearth, he hid his face in both hands.
+
+Never had he felt such weariness of body and of spirit. He had passed
+the whole evening in the company of charming ladies and cultivated
+men; some of the ladies were beautiful, almost all the men were
+distinguished by intellect or talent; he himself had talked with great
+success, even with brilliance ... and, for all that, never yet had
+the _taedium vitae_ of which the Romans talked of old, the 'disgust
+for life,' taken hold of him with such irresistible, such suffocating
+force. Had he been a little younger, he would have cried with misery,
+weariness, and exasperation: a biting, burning bitterness, like
+the bitter of wormwood, filled his whole soul. A sort of clinging
+repugnance, a weight of loathing closed in upon him on all sides like
+a dark night of autumn; and he did not know how to get free from this
+darkness, this bitterness. Sleep it was useless to reckon upon; he
+knew he should not sleep.
+
+He fell to thinking ... slowly, listlessly, wrathfully. He thought of
+the vanity, the uselessness, the vulgar falsity of all things human.
+All the stages of man's life passed in order before his mental gaze
+(he had himself lately reached his fifty-second year), and not one
+found grace in his eyes. Everywhere the same ever-lasting pouring of
+water into a sieve, the ever-lasting beating of the air, everywhere
+the same self-deception--half in good faith, half conscious--any toy
+to amuse the child, so long as it keeps him from crying. And then, all
+of a sudden, old age drops down like snow on the head, and with it the
+ever-growing, ever-gnawing, and devouring dread of death ... and the
+plunge into the abyss! Lucky indeed if life works out so to the end!
+May be, before the end, like rust on iron, sufferings, infirmities
+come.... He did not picture life's sea, as the poets depict it,
+covered with tempestuous waves; no, he thought of that sea as a
+smooth, untroubled surface, stagnant and transparent to its darkest
+depths. He himself sits in a little tottering boat, and down below
+in those dark oozy depths, like prodigious fishes, he can just make
+out the shapes of hideous monsters: all the ills of life, diseases,
+sorrows, madness, poverty, blindness.... He gazes, and behold, one
+of these monsters separates itself off from the darkness, rises
+higher and higher, stands out more and more distinct, more and more
+loathsomely distinct.... An instant yet, and the boat that bears him
+will be overturned! But behold, it grows dim again, it withdraws,
+sinks down to the bottom, and there it lies, faintly stirring in the
+slime.... But the fated day will come, and it will overturn the boat.
+
+He shook his head, jumped up from his low chair, took two turns up and
+down the room, sat down to the writing-table, and opening one drawer
+after another, began to rummage among his papers, among old letters,
+mostly from women. He could not have said why he was doing it; he was
+not looking for anything--he simply wanted by some kind of external
+occupation to get away from the thoughts oppressing him. Opening
+several letters at random (in one of them there was a withered flower
+tied with a bit of faded ribbon), he merely shrugged his shoulders,
+and glancing at the hearth, he tossed them on one side, probably with
+the idea of burning all this useless rubbish. Hurriedly, thrusting his
+hands first into one, and then into another drawer, he suddenly opened
+his eyes wide, and slowly bringing out a little octagonal box of
+old-fashioned make, he slowly raised its lid. In the box, under two
+layers of cotton wool, yellow with age, was a little garnet cross.
+
+For a few instants he looked in perplexity at this cross--suddenly
+he gave a faint cry.... Something between regret and delight was
+expressed in his features. Such an expression a man's face wears when
+he suddenly meets some one whom he has long lost sight of, whom he has
+at one time tenderly loved, and who suddenly springs up before his
+eyes, still the same, and utterly transformed by the years.
+
+He got up, and going back to the hearth, he sat down again in the
+arm-chair, and again hid his face in his hands.... 'Why to-day? just
+to-day?' was his thought, and he remembered many things, long since
+past.
+
+This is what he remembered....
+
+But first I must mention his name, his father's name and his surname.
+He was called Dimitri Pavlovitch Sanin.
+
+Here follows what he remembered.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was the summer of 1840. Sanin was in his twenty-second year, and he
+was in Frankfort on his way home from Italy to Russia. He was a man of
+small property, but independent, almost without family ties. By the
+death of a distant relative, he had come into a few thousand roubles,
+and he had decided to spend this sum abroad before entering the
+service, before finally putting on the government yoke, without which
+he could not obtain a secure livelihood. Sanin had carried out this
+intention, and had fitted things in to such a nicety that on the day
+of his arrival in Frankfort he had only just enough money left to take
+him back to Petersburg. In the year 1840 there were few railroads in
+existence; tourists travelled by diligence. Sanin had taken a place in
+the '_bei-wagon_'; but the diligence did not start till eleven o'clock
+in the evening. There was a great deal of time to be got through
+before then. Fortunately it was lovely weather, and Sanin after dining
+at a hotel, famous in those days, the White Swan, set off to stroll
+about the town. He went in to look at Danneker's Ariadne, which he did
+not much care for, visited the house of Goethe, of whose works he had,
+however, only read _Werter_, and that in the French translation. He
+walked along the bank of the Maine, and was bored as a well-conducted
+tourist should be; at last at six o'clock in the evening, tired, and
+with dusty boots, he found himself in one of the least remarkable
+streets in Frankfort. That street he was fated not to forget long,
+long after. On one of its few houses he saw a signboard: 'Giovanni
+Roselli, Italian confectionery,' was announced upon it. Sanin went
+into it to get a glass of lemonade; but in the shop, where, behind
+the modest counter, on the shelves of a stained cupboard, recalling
+a chemist's shop, stood a few bottles with gold labels, and as many
+glass jars of biscuits, chocolate cakes, and sweetmeats--in this room,
+there was not a soul; only a grey cat blinked and purred, sharpening
+its claws on a tall wicker chair near the window and a bright patch
+of colour was made in the evening sunlight, by a big ball of red wool
+lying on the floor beside a carved wooden basket turned upside down. A
+confused noise was audible in the next room. Sanin stood a moment, and
+making the bell on the door ring its loudest, he called, raising his
+voice, 'Is there no one here?' At that instant the door from an inner
+room was thrown open, and Sanin was struck dumb with amazement.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+A young girl of nineteen ran impetuously into the shop, her dark curls
+hanging in disorder on her bare shoulders, her bare arms stretched out
+in front of her. Seeing Sanin, she rushed up to him at once, seized
+him by the hand, and pulled him after her, saying in a breathless
+voice, 'Quick, quick, here, save him!' Not through disinclination
+to obey, but simply from excess of amazement, Sanin did not at once
+follow the girl. He stood, as it were, rooted to the spot; he had
+never in his life seen such a beautiful creature. She turned towards
+him, and with such despair in her voice, in her eyes, in the gesture
+of her clenched hand, which was lifted with a spasmodic movement to
+her pale cheek, she articulated, 'Come, come!' that he at once darted
+after her to the open door.
+
+In the room, into which he ran behind the girl, on an old-fashioned
+horse-hair sofa, lay a boy of fourteen, white all over--white, with
+a yellowish tinge like wax or old marble--he was strikingly like the
+girl, obviously her brother. His eyes were closed, a patch of shadow
+fell from his thick black hair on a forehead like stone, and delicate,
+motionless eyebrows; between the blue lips could be seen clenched
+teeth. He seemed not to be breathing; one arm hung down to the floor,
+the other he had tossed above his head. The boy was dressed, and his
+clothes were closely buttoned; a tight cravat was twisted round his
+neck.
+
+The girl rushed up to him with a wail of distress. 'He is dead, he is
+dead!' she cried; 'he was sitting here just now, talking to me--and
+all of a sudden he fell down and became rigid.... My God! can nothing
+be done to help him? And mamma not here! Pantaleone, Pantaleone, the
+doctor!' she went on suddenly in Italian. 'Have you been for the
+doctor?'
+
+'Signora, I did not go, I sent Luise,' said a hoarse voice at the
+door, and a little bandy-legged old man came hobbling into the room in
+a lavender frock coat with black buttons, a high white cravat, short
+nankeen trousers, and blue worsted stockings. His diminutive little
+face was positively lost in a mass of iron-grey hair. Standing up in
+all directions, and falling back in ragged tufts, it gave the old
+man's figure a resemblance to a crested hen--a resemblance the more
+striking, that under the dark-grey mass nothing could be distinguished
+but a beak nose and round yellow eyes.
+
+'Luise will run fast, and I can't run,' the old man went on in
+Italian, dragging his flat gouty feet, shod in high slippers with
+knots of ribbon. 'I've brought some water.'
+
+In his withered, knotted fingers, he clutched a long bottle neck.
+
+'But meanwhile Emil will die!' cried the girl, and holding out her
+hand to Sanin, 'O, sir, O _mein Herr_! can't you do something for
+him?'
+
+'He ought to be bled--it's an apoplectic fit,' observed the old man
+addressed as Pantaleone.
+
+Though Sanin had not the slightest notion of medicine, he knew one
+thing for certain, that boys of fourteen do not have apoplectic fits.
+
+'It's a swoon, not a fit,' he said, turning to Pantaleone. 'Have you
+got any brushes?'
+
+The old man raised his little face. 'Eh?'
+
+'Brushes, brushes,' repeated Sanin in German and in French. 'Brushes,'
+he added, making as though he would brush his clothes.
+
+The little old man understood him at last.
+
+'Ah, brushes! _Spazzette_! to be sure we have!'
+
+'Bring them here; we will take off his coat and try rubbing him.'
+
+'Good ... _Benone_! And ought we not to sprinkle water on his head?'
+
+'No ... later on; get the brushes now as quick as you can.'
+
+Pantaleone put the bottle on the floor, ran out and returned at once
+with two brushes, one a hair-brush, and one a clothes-brush. A curly
+poodle followed him in, and vigorously wagging its tail, it looked up
+inquisitively at the old man, the girl, and even Sanin, as though it
+wanted to know what was the meaning of all this fuss.
+
+Sanin quickly took the boy's coat off, unbuttoned his collar, and
+pushed up his shirt-sleeves, and arming himself with a brush, he
+began brushing his chest and arms with all his might. Pantaleone as
+zealously brushed away with the other--the hair-brush--at his boots
+and trousers. The girl flung herself on her knees by the sofa, and,
+clutching her head in both hands, fastened her eyes, not an eyelash
+quivering, on her brother.
+
+Sanin rubbed on, and kept stealing glances at her. Mercy! what a
+beautiful creature she was!
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Her nose was rather large, but handsome, aquiline-shaped; her upper
+lip was shaded by a light down; but then the colour of her face,
+smooth, uniform, like ivory or very pale milky amber, the wavering
+shimmer of her hair, like that of the Judith of Allorio in the
+Palazzo-Pitti; and above all, her eyes, dark-grey, with a black ring
+round the pupils, splendid, triumphant eyes, even now, when terror and
+distress dimmed their lustre.... Sanin could not help recalling the
+marvellous country he had just come from.... But even in Italy he had
+never met anything like her! The girl drew slow, uneven breaths; she
+seemed between each breath to be waiting to see whether her brother
+would not begin to breathe.
+
+Sanin went on rubbing him, but he did not only watch the girl. The
+original figure of Pantaleone drew his attention too. The old man was
+quite exhausted and panting; at every movement of the brush he hopped
+up and down and groaned noisily, while his immense tufts of hair,
+soaked with perspiration, flapped heavily from side to side, like the
+roots of some strong plant, torn up by the water.
+
+'You'd better, at least, take off his boots,' Sanin was just saying to
+him.
+
+The poodle, probably excited by the unusualness of all the
+proceedings, suddenly sank on to its front paws and began barking.
+
+'_Tartaglia--canaglia_!' the old man hissed at it. But at that instant
+the girl's face was transformed. Her eyebrows rose, her eyes grew
+wider, and shone with joy.
+
+Sanin looked round ... A flush had over-spread the lad's face; his
+eyelids stirred ... his nostrils twitched. He drew in a breath through
+his still clenched teeth, sighed....
+
+'Emil!' cried the girl ... 'Emilio mio!'
+
+Slowly the big black eyes opened. They still had a dazed look, but
+already smiled faintly; the same faint smile hovered on his pale lips.
+Then he moved the arm that hung down, and laid it on his chest.
+
+'Emilio!' repeated the girl, and she got up. The expression on her
+face was so tense and vivid, that it seemed that in an instant either
+she would burst into tears or break into laughter.
+
+'Emil! what is it? Emil!' was heard outside, and a neatly-dressed lady
+with silvery grey hair and a dark face came with rapid steps into the
+room.
+
+A middle-aged man followed her; the head of a maid-servant was visible
+over their shoulders.
+
+The girl ran to meet them.
+
+'He is saved, mother, he is alive!' she cried, impulsively embracing
+the lady who had just entered.
+
+'But what is it?' she repeated. 'I come back ... and all of a sudden I
+meet the doctor and Luise ...'
+
+The girl proceeded to explain what had happened, while the doctor went
+up to the invalid who was coming more and more to himself, and was
+still smiling: he seemed to be beginning to feel shy at the commotion
+he had caused.
+
+'You've been using friction with brushes, I see,' said the doctor to
+Sanin and Pantaleone, 'and you did very well.... A very good idea ...
+and now let us see what further measures ...'
+
+He felt the youth's pulse. 'H'm! show me your tongue!'
+
+The lady bent anxiously over him. He smiled still more ingenuously,
+raised his eyes to her, and blushed a little.
+
+It struck Sanin that he was no longer wanted; he went into the shop.
+But before he had time to touch the handle of the street-door, the
+girl was once more before him; she stopped him.
+
+'You are going,' she began, looking warmly into his face; 'I will not
+keep you, but you must be sure to come to see us this evening: we are
+so indebted to you--you, perhaps, saved my brother's life, we want to
+thank you--mother wants to. You must tell us who you are, you must
+rejoice with us ...'
+
+'But I am leaving for Berlin to-day,' Sanin faltered out.
+
+'You will have time though,' the girl rejoined eagerly. 'Come to us
+in an hour's time to drink a cup of chocolate with us. You promise? I
+must go back to him! You will come?'
+
+What could Sanin do?
+
+'I will come,' he replied.
+
+The beautiful girl pressed his hand, fluttered away, and he found
+himself in the street.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+When Sanin, an hour and a half later, returned to the Rosellis' shop
+he was received there like one of the family. Emilio was sitting on
+the same sofa, on which he had been rubbed; the doctor had prescribed
+him medicine and recommended 'great discretion in avoiding strong
+emotions' as being a subject of nervous temperament with a tendency to
+weakness of the heart. He had previously been liable to fainting-fits;
+but never had he lost consciousness so completely and for so long.
+However, the doctor declared that all danger was over. Emil, as
+was only suitable for an invalid, was dressed in a comfortable
+dressing-gown; his mother wound a blue woollen wrap round his neck;
+but he had a cheerful, almost a festive air; indeed everything had
+a festive air. Before the sofa, on a round table, covered with a
+clean cloth, towered a huge china coffee-pot, filled with fragrant
+chocolate, and encircled by cups, decanters of liqueur, biscuits
+and rolls, and even flowers; six slender wax candles were burning
+in two old-fashioned silver chandeliers; on one side of the sofa,
+a comfortable lounge-chair offered its soft embraces, and in this
+chair they made Sanin sit. All the inhabitants of the confectioner's
+shop, with whom he had made acquaintance that day, were present, not
+excluding the poodle, Tartaglia, and the cat; they all seemed happy
+beyond expression; the poodle positively sneezed with delight, only
+the cat was coy and blinked sleepily as before. They made Sanin tell
+them who he was, where he came from, and what was his name; when
+he said he was a Russian, both the ladies were a little surprised,
+uttered ejaculations of wonder, and declared with one voice that he
+spoke German splendidly; but if he preferred to speak French, he
+might make use of that language, as they both understood it and spoke
+it well. Sanin at once availed himself of this suggestion. 'Sanin!
+Sanin!' The ladies would never have expected that a Russian surname
+could be so easy to pronounce. His Christian name--'Dimitri'--they
+liked very much too. The elder lady observed that in her youth she had
+heard a fine opera--Demetrio e Polibio'--but that 'Dimitri' was much
+nicer than 'Demetrio.' In this way Sanin talked for about an hour. The
+ladies on their side initiated him into all the details of their own
+life. The talking was mostly done by the mother, the lady with grey
+hair. Sanin learnt from her that her name was Leonora Roselli; that
+she had lost her husband, Giovanni Battista Roselli, who had settled
+in Frankfort as a confectioner twenty--five years ago; that Giovanni
+Battista had come from Vicenza and had been a most excellent, though
+fiery and irascible man, and a republican withal! At those words
+Signora Roselli pointed to his portrait, painted in oil-colours, and
+hanging over the sofa. It must be presumed that the painter, 'also
+a republican!' as Signora Roselli observed with a sigh, had not
+fully succeeded in catching a likeness, for in his portrait the late
+Giovanni Battista appeared as a morose and gloomy brigand, after the
+style of Rinaldo Rinaldini! Signora Roselli herself had come from
+'the ancient and splendid city of Parma where there is the wonderful
+cupola, painted by the immortal Correggio!' But from her long
+residence in Germany she had become almost completely Germanised.
+Then she added, mournfully shaking her head, that all she had left
+was _this_ daughter and _this_ son (pointing to each in turn with her
+finger); that the daughter's name was Gemma, and the son's Emilio;
+that they were both very good and obedient children--especially Emilio
+... ('Me not obedient!' her daughter put in at that point. 'Oh,
+you're a republican, too!' answered her mother). That the business,
+of course, was not what it had been in the days of her husband, who
+had a great gift for the confectionery line ... ('_Un grand uomo_!'
+Pantaleone confirmed with a severe air); but that still, thank God,
+they managed to get along!
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Gemma listened to her mother, and at one minute laughed, then sighed,
+then patted her on the shoulder, and shook her finger at her, and then
+looked at Sanin; at last, she got up, embraced her mother and kissed
+her in the hollow of her neck, which made the latter laugh extremely
+and shriek a little. Pantaleone too was presented to Sanin. It
+appeared he had once been an opera singer, a baritone, but had long
+ago given up the theatre, and occupied in the Roselli family a
+position between that of a family friend and a servant. In spite of
+his prolonged residence in Germany, he had learnt very little German,
+and only knew how to swear in it, mercilessly distorting even the
+terms of abuse. '_Ferroflucto spitchebubbio_' was his favourite
+epithet for almost every German. He spoke Italian with a perfect
+accent--for was he not by birth from Sinigali, where may be heard
+'_lingua toscana in bocca romana_'! Emilio, obviously, played the
+invalid and indulged himself in the pleasant sensations of one who has
+only just escaped a danger or is returning to health after illness;
+it was evident, too, that the family spoiled him. He thanked Sanin
+bashfully, but devoted himself chiefly to the biscuits and sweetmeats.
+Sanin was compelled to drink two large cups of excellent chocolate,
+and to eat a considerable number of biscuits; no sooner had he
+swallowed one than Gemma offered him another--and to refuse was
+impossible! He soon felt at home: the time flew by with incredible
+swiftness. He had to tell them a great deal--about Russia in general,
+the Russian climate, Russian society, the Russian peasant--and
+especially about the Cossacks; about the war of 1812, about Peter the
+Great, about the Kremlin, and the Russian songs and bells. Both ladies
+had a very faint conception of our vast and remote fatherland; Signora
+Roselli, or as she was more often called, Frau Lenore, positively
+dumfoundered Sanin with the question, whether there was still existing
+at Petersburg the celebrated house of ice, built last century, about
+which she had lately read a very curious article in one of her
+husband's books, '_Bettezze delle arti_.' And in reply to Sanin's
+exclamation, 'Do you really suppose that there is never any summer in
+Russia?' Frau Lenore replied that till then she had always pictured
+Russia like this--eternal snow, every one going about in furs, and all
+military men, but the greatest hospitality, and all the peasants very
+submissive! Sanin tried to impart to her and her daughter some more
+exact information. When the conversation touched on Russian music,
+they begged him at once to sing some Russian air and showed him a
+diminutive piano with black keys instead of white and white instead
+of black. He obeyed without making much ado and accompanying himself
+with two fingers of the right hand and three of the left (the first,
+second, and little finger) he sang in a thin nasal tenor, first 'The
+Sarafan,' then 'Along a Paved Street.' The ladies praised his voice
+and the music, but were more struck with the softness and sonorousness
+of the Russian language and asked for a translation of the text. Sanin
+complied with their wishes--but as the words of 'The Sarafan,' and
+still more of 'Along a Paved Street' (_sur une rue pavée une jeune
+fille allait à l'eau_ was how he rendered the sense of the original)
+were not calculated to inspire his listeners with an exalted idea
+of Russian poetry, he first recited, then translated, and then sang
+Pushkin's, 'I remember a marvellous moment,' set to music by Glinka,
+whose minor bars he did not render quite faithfully. Then the ladies
+went into ecstasies. Frau Lenore positively discovered in Russian
+a wonderful likeness to the Italian. Even the names Pushkin (she
+pronounced it Pussekin) and Glinka sounded somewhat familiar to her.
+Sanin on his side begged the ladies to sing something; they too did
+not wait to be pressed. Frau Lenore sat down to the piano and sang
+with Gemma some duets and 'stornelle.' The mother had once had a fine
+contralto; the daughter's voice was not strong, but was pleasing.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+But it was not Gemma's voice--it was herself Sanin was admiring. He
+was sitting a little behind and on one side of her, and kept thinking
+to himself that no palm-tree, even in the poems of Benediktov--the
+poet in fashion in those days--could rival the slender grace of her
+figure. When, at the most emotional passages, she raised her eyes
+upwards--it seemed to him no heaven could fail to open at such a look!
+Even the old man, Pantaleone, who with his shoulder propped against
+the doorpost, and his chin and mouth tucked into his capacious cravat,
+was listening solemnly with the air of a connoisseur--even he was
+admiring the girl's lovely face and marvelling at it, though one would
+have thought he must have been used to it! When she had finished the
+duet with her daughter, Frau Lenore observed that Emilio had a fine
+voice, like a silver bell, but that now he was at the age when the
+voice changes--he did, in fact, talk in a sort of bass constantly
+falling into falsetto--and that he was therefore forbidden to sing;
+but that Pantaleone now really might try his skill of old days in
+honour of their guest! Pantaleone promptly put on a displeased air,
+frowned, ruffled up his hair, and declared that he had given it all
+up long ago, though he could certainly in his youth hold his own,
+and indeed had belonged to that great period, when there were real
+classical singers, not to be compared to the squeaking performers of
+to-day! and a real school of singing; that he, Pantaleone Cippatola of
+Varese, had once been brought a laurel wreath from Modena, and that
+on that occasion some white doves had positively been let fly in the
+theatre; that among others a Russian prince Tarbusky--'_il principe
+Tarbusski_'--with whom he had been on the most friendly terms, had
+after supper persistently invited him to Russia, promising him
+mountains of gold, mountains!... but that he had been unwilling to
+leave Italy, the land of Dante--_il paese del Dante!_ Afterward, to
+be sure, there came ... unfortunate circumstances, he had himself
+been imprudent.... At this point the old man broke off, sighed
+deeply twice, looked dejected, and began again talking of the
+classical period of singing, of the celebrated tenor Garcia, for
+whom he cherished a devout, unbounded veneration. 'He was a man!'
+he exclaimed. 'Never had the great Garcia (_il gran Garcia_)
+demeaned himself by singing falsetto like the paltry tenors of
+to-day--_tenoracci_; always from the chest, from the chest, _voce di
+petto, si!_' and the old man aimed a vigorous blow with his little
+shrivelled fist at his own shirt-front! 'And what an actor! A volcano,
+_signori miei_, a volcano, _un Vesuvio_! I had the honour and the
+happiness of singing with him in the _opera dell' illustrissimo
+maestro_ Rossini--in Otello! Garcia was Otello,--I was Iago--and
+when he rendered the phrase':--here Pantaleone threw himself into an
+attitude and began singing in a hoarse and shaky, but still moving
+voice:
+
+  "L'i ... ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato
+  lo più no ... no ... no ... non temerò!"
+
+The theatre was all a-quiver, _signori miei_! though I too did not
+fall short, I too after him.
+
+  "L'i ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato
+  Temèr più non davro!"
+
+And all of a sudden, he crashed like lightning, like a tiger:
+_Morro!... ma vendicato ..._ Again when he was singing ... when he was
+singing that celebrated air from "_Matrimonio segreto_," _Pria che
+spunti_ ... then he, _il gran Garcia_, after the words, "_I cavalli
+di galoppo_"--at the words, "_Senza posa cacciera_,"--listen, how
+stupendous, _come è stupendo_! At that point he made ...' The old man
+began a sort of extraordinary flourish, and at the tenth note broke
+down, cleared his throat, and with a wave of his arm turned away,
+muttering, 'Why do you torment me?' Gemma jumped up at once and
+clapping loudly and shouting, bravo!... bravo!... she ran to the poor
+old super-annuated Iago and with both hands patted him affectionately
+on the shoulders. Only Emil laughed ruthlessly. _Cet âge est sans
+pitié_--that age knows no mercy--Lafontaine has said already.
+
+Sanin tried to soothe the aged singer and began talking to him
+in Italian--(he had picked up a smattering during his last tour
+there)--began talking of '_paese del Dante, dove il si suona_.' This
+phrase, together with '_Lasciate ogni speranza_,' made up the whole
+stock of poetic Italian of the young tourist; but Pantaleone was
+not won over by his blandishments. Tucking his chin deeper than ever
+into his cravat and sullenly rolling his eyes, he was once more
+like a bird, an angry one too,--a crow or a kite. Then Emil, with a
+faint momentary blush, such as one so often sees in spoilt children,
+addressing his sister, said if she wanted to entertain their guest,
+she could do nothing better than read him one of those little comedies
+of Malz, that she read so nicely. Gemma laughed, slapped her brother
+on the arm, exclaimed that he 'always had such ideas!' She went
+promptly, however, to her room, and returning thence with a small
+book in her hand, seated herself at the table before the lamp, looked
+round, lifted one finger as much as to say, 'hush!'--a typically
+Italian gesture--and began reading.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Malz was a writer flourishing at Frankfort about 1830, whose short
+comedies, written in a light vein in the local dialect, hit off local
+Frankfort types with bright and amusing, though not deep, humour.
+It turned out that Gemma really did read excellently--quite like an
+actress in fact. She indicated each personage, and sustained the
+character capitally, making full use of the talent of mimicry she had
+inherited with her Italian blood; she had no mercy on her soft voice
+or her lovely face, and when she had to represent some old crone in
+her dotage, or a stupid burgomaster, she made the drollest grimaces,
+screwing up her eyes, wrinkling up her nose, lisping, squeaking....
+She did not herself laugh during the reading; but when her audience
+(with the exception of Pantaleone: he had walked off in indignation
+so soon as the conversation turned _o quel ferroflucto Tedesco_)
+interrupted her by an outburst of unanimous laughter, she dropped the
+book on her knee, and laughed musically too, her head thrown back, and
+her black hair dancing in little ringlets on her neck and her shaking
+shoulders. When the laughter ceased, she picked up the book at once,
+and again resuming a suitable expression, began the reading seriously.
+Sanin could not get over his admiration; he was particularly
+astonished at the marvellous way in which a face so ideally beautiful
+assumed suddenly a comic, sometimes almost a vulgar expression. Gemma
+was less successful in the parts of young girls--of so-called '_jeunes
+premières_'; in the love-scenes in particular she failed; she was
+conscious of this herself, and for that reason gave them a faint shade
+of irony as though she did not quite believe in all these rapturous
+vows and elevated sentiments, of which the author, however, was
+himself rather sparing--so far as he could be.
+
+Sanin did not notice how the evening was flying by, and only
+recollected the journey before him when the clock struck ten. He
+leaped up from his seat as though he had been stung.
+
+'What is the matter?' inquired Frau Lenore.
+
+'Why, I had to start for Berlin to-night, and I have taken a place in
+the diligence!'
+
+'And when does the diligence start?'
+
+'At half-past ten!'
+
+'Well, then, you won't catch it now,' observed Gemma; 'you must stay
+... and I will go on reading.'
+
+'Have you paid the whole fare or only given a deposit?' Frau Lenore
+queried.
+
+'The whole fare!' Sanin said dolefully with a gloomy face.
+
+Gemma looked at him, half closed her eyes, and laughed, while her
+mother scolded her:
+
+'The young gentleman has paid away his money for nothing, and you
+laugh!'
+
+'Never mind,' answered Gemma; 'it won't ruin him, and we will try and
+amuse him. Will you have some lemonade?'
+
+Sanin drank a glass of lemonade, Gemma took up Malz once more; and all
+went merrily again.
+
+The clock struck twelve. Sanin rose to take leave.
+
+'You must stay some days now in Frankfort,' said Gemma: 'why should
+you hurry away? It would be no nicer in any other town.' She paused.
+'It wouldn't, really,' she added with a smile. Sanin made no reply,
+and reflected that considering the emptiness of his purse, he would
+have no choice about remaining in Frankfort till he got an answer from
+a friend in Berlin, to whom he proposed writing for money.
+
+'Yes, do stay,' urged Frau Lenore too. 'We will introduce you to Mr.
+Karl Klüber, who is engaged to Gemma. He could not come to-day, as he
+was very busy at his shop ... you must have seen the biggest draper's
+and silk mercer's shop in the _Zeile_. Well, he is the manager there.
+But he will be delighted to call on you himself.'
+
+Sanin--heaven knows why--was slightly disconcerted by this piece of
+information. 'He's a lucky fellow, that fiancé!' flashed across his
+mind. He looked at Gemma, and fancied he detected an ironical look in
+her eyes. He began saying good-bye.
+
+'Till to-morrow? Till to-morrow, isn't it?' queried Frau Lenore.
+
+'Till to-morrow!' Gemma declared in a tone not of interrogation, but
+of affirmation, as though it could not be otherwise.
+
+'Till to-morrow!' echoed Sanin.
+
+Emil, Pantaleone, and the poodle Tartaglia accompanied him to the
+corner of the street. Pantaleone could not refrain from expressing his
+displeasure at Gemma's reading.
+
+'She ought to be ashamed! She mouths and whines, _una caricatura_!
+She ought to represent Merope or Clytemnaestra--something grand,
+tragic--and she apes some wretched German woman! I can do that ...
+_merz, kerz, smerz_,' he went on in a hoarse voice poking his face
+forward, and brandishing his fingers. Tartaglia began barking at him,
+while Emil burst out laughing. The old man turned sharply back.
+
+Sanin went back to the White Swan (he had left his things there in the
+public hall) in a rather confused frame of mind. All the talk he had
+had in French, German, and Italian was ringing in his ears.
+
+'Engaged!' he whispered as he lay in bed, in the modest apartment
+assigned to him. 'And what a beauty! But what did I stay for?'
+
+Next day he sent a letter to his friend in Berlin.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+He had not finished dressing, when a waiter announced the arrival
+of two gentlemen. One of them turned out to be Emil; the other, a
+good-looking and well-grown young man, with a handsome face, was Herr
+Karl Klüber, the betrothed of the lovely Gemma.
+
+One may safely assume that at that time in all Frankfort, there was
+not in a single shop a manager as civil, as decorous, as dignified,
+and as affable as Herr Klüber. The irreproachable perfection of his
+get-up was on a level with the dignity of his deportment, with the
+elegance--a little affected and stiff, it is true, in the English
+style (he had spent two years in England)--but still fascinating,
+elegance of his manners! It was clear from the first glance that this
+handsome, rather severe, excellently brought-up and superbly washed
+young man was accustomed to obey his superior and to command his
+inferior, and that behind the counter of his shop he must infallibly
+inspire respect even in his customers! Of his supernatural honesty
+there could never be a particle of doubt: one had but to look at his
+stiffly starched collars! And his voice, it appeared, was just what
+one would expect; deep, and of a self-confident richness, but not too
+loud, with positively a certain caressing note in its timbre. Such a
+voice was peculiarly fitted to give orders to assistants under his
+control: 'Show the crimson Lyons velvet!' or, 'Hand the lady a chair!'
+
+Herr Klüber began with introducing himself; as he did so, he bowed
+with such loftiness, moved his legs with such an agreeable air, and
+drew his heels together with such polished courtesy that no one could
+fail to feel, 'that man has both linen and moral principles of the
+first quality!' The finish of his bare right hand--(the left, in a
+suede glove, held a hat shining like a looking-glass, with the right
+glove placed within it)--the finish of the right hand, proffered
+modestly but resolutely to Sanin, surpassed all belief; each
+finger-nail was a perfection in its own way! Then he proceeded
+to explain in the choicest German that he was anxious to express
+his respect and his indebtedness to the foreign gentleman who had
+performed so signal a service to his future kinsman, the brother of
+his betrothed; as he spoke, he waved his left hand with the hat in it
+in the direction of Emil, who seemed bashful and turning away to the
+window, put his finger in his mouth. Herr Klüber added that he should
+esteem himself happy should he be able in return to do anything for
+the foreign gentleman. Sanin, with some difficulty, replied, also
+in German, that he was delighted ... that the service was not worth
+speaking of ... and he begged his guests to sit down. Herr Klüber
+thanked him, and lifting his coat-tails, sat down on a chair; but he
+perched there so lightly and with such a transitory air that no one
+could fail to realise, 'this man is sitting down from politeness,
+and will fly up again in an instant.' And he did in fact fly up again
+quickly, and advancing with two discreet little dance-steps, he
+announced that to his regret he was unable to stay any longer, as he
+had to hasten to his shop--business before everything! but as the next
+day was Sunday, he had, with the consent of Frau Lenore and Fräulein
+Gemma, arranged a holiday excursion to Soden, to which he had the
+honour of inviting the foreign gentleman, and he cherished the hope
+that he would not refuse to grace the party with his presence. Sanin
+did not refuse so to grace it; and Herr Klüber repeating once more his
+complimentary sentiments, took leave, his pea-green trousers making a
+spot of cheerful colour, and his brand-new boots squeaking cheerfully
+as he moved.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Emil, who had continued to stand with his face to the window, even
+after Sanin's invitation to him to sit down, turned round directly his
+future kinsman had gone out, and with a childish pout and blush, asked
+Sanin if he might remain a little while with him. 'I am much better
+to-day,' he added, 'but the doctor has forbidden me to do any work.'
+
+'Stay by all means! You won't be in the least in my way,' Sanin cried
+at once. Like every true Russian he was glad to clutch at any excuse
+that saved him from the necessity of doing anything himself.
+
+Emil thanked him, and in a very short time he was completely at home
+with him and with his room; he looked at all his things, asked him
+about almost every one of them, where he had bought it, and what was
+its value. He helped him to shave, observing that it was a mistake not
+to let his moustache grow; and finally told him a number of details
+about his mother, his sister, Pantaleone, the poodle Tartaglia, and
+all their daily life. Every semblance of timidity vanished in Emil; he
+suddenly felt extraordinarily attracted to Sanin--not at all because
+he had saved his life the day before, but because he was such a nice
+person! He lost no time in confiding all his secrets to Sanin. He
+expatiated with special warmth on the fact that his mother was set
+on making him a shopkeeper, while he _knew_, knew for certain, that
+he was born an artist, a musician, a singer; that Pantaleone even
+encouraged him, but that Herr Klüber supported mamma, over whom he had
+great influence; that the very idea of his being a shopkeeper really
+originated with Herr Klüber, who considered that nothing in the world
+could compare with trade! To measure out cloth--and cheat the public,
+extorting from it '_Narren--oder Russen Preise_' (fools'--or Russian
+prices)--that was his ideal! [Footnote: In former days--and very
+likely it is not different now--when, from May onwards, a great number
+of Russians visited Frankfort, prices rose in all the shops, and were
+called 'Russians',' or, alas! 'fools' prices.']
+
+'Come! now you must come and see us!' he cried, directly Sanin had
+finished his toilet and written his letter to Berlin.
+
+'It's early yet,' observed Sanin.
+
+'That's no matter,' replied Emil caressingly. 'Come along! We'll go to
+the post--and from there to our place. Gemma will be so glad to see
+you! You must have lunch with us.... You might say a word to mamma
+about me, my career....'
+
+'Very well, let's go,' said Sanin, and they set off.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Gemma certainly was delighted to see him, and Frau Lenore gave him a
+very friendly welcome; he had obviously made a good impression on both
+of them the evening before. Emil ran to see to getting lunch ready,
+after a preliminary whisper, 'don't forget!' in Sanin's ear.
+
+'I won't forget,' responded Sanin.
+
+Frau Lenore was not quite well; she had a sick headache, and,
+half-lying down in an easy chair, she tried to keep perfectly still.
+Gemma wore a full yellow blouse, with a black leather belt round the
+waist; she too seemed exhausted, and was rather pale; there were dark
+rings round her eyes, but their lustre was not the less for it; it
+added something of charm and mystery to the classical lines of her
+face. Sanin was especially struck that day by the exquisite beauty of
+her hands; when she smoothed and put back her dark, glossy tresses he
+could not take his eyes off her long supple fingers, held slightly
+apart from one another like the hand of Raphael's Fornarina.
+
+It was very hot out-of-doors; after lunch Sanin was about to take
+leave, but they told him that on such a day the best thing was to stay
+where one was, and he agreed; he stayed. In the back room where he was
+sitting with the ladies of the household, coolness reigned supreme;
+the windows looked out upon a little garden overgrown with acacias.
+Multitudes of bees, wasps, and humming beetles kept up a steady,
+eager buzz in their thick branches, which were studded with golden
+blossoms; through the half-drawn curtains and the lowered blinds this
+never-ceasing hum made its way into the room, telling of the sultry
+heat in the air outside, and making the cool of the closed and snug
+abode seem the sweeter.
+
+Sanin talked a great deal, as on the day before, but not of Russia,
+nor of Russian life. Being anxious to please his young friend, who
+had been sent off to Herr Klüber's immediately after lunch, to
+acquire a knowledge of book-keeping, he turned the conversation on
+the comparative advantages and disadvantages of art and commerce. He
+was not surprised at Frau Lenore's standing up for commerce--he had
+expected that; but Gemma too shared her opinion.
+
+'If one's an artist, and especially a singer,' she declared with a
+vigorous downward sweep of her hand, 'one's got to be first-rate!
+Second-rate's worse than nothing; and who can tell if one will
+arrive at being first-rate?' Pantaleone, who took part too in the
+conversation--(as an old servant and an old man he had the privilege
+of sitting down in the presence of the ladies of the house; Italians
+are not, as a rule, strict in matters of etiquette)--Pantaleone, as a
+matter of course, stood like a rock for art. To tell the truth, his
+arguments were somewhat feeble; he kept expatiating for the most part
+on the necessity, before all things, of possessing '_un certo estro
+d'inspirazione_'--a certain force of inspiration! Frau Lenore remarked
+to him that he had, to be sure, possessed such an '_estro_'--and
+yet ... 'I had enemies,' Pantaleone observed gloomily. 'And how do
+you know that Emil will not have enemies, even if this "_estro_" is
+found in him?' 'Very well, make a tradesman of him, then,' retorted
+Pantaleone in vexation; 'but Giovan' Battista would never have done
+it, though he was a confectioner himself!' 'Giovan' Battista, my
+husband, was a reasonable man, and even though he was in his youth led
+away ...' But the old man would hear nothing more, and walked away,
+repeating reproachfully, 'Ah! Giovan' Battista!...' Gemma exclaimed
+that if Emil felt like a patriot, and wanted to devote all his powers
+to the liberation of Italy, then, of course, for such a high and holy
+cause he might sacrifice the security of the future--but not for the
+theatre! Thereupon Frau Lenore became much agitated, and began to
+implore her daughter to refrain at least from turning her brother's
+head, and to content herself with being such a desperate republican
+herself! Frau Lenore groaned as she uttered these words, and began
+complaining of her head, which was 'ready to split.' (Frau Lenore, in
+deference to their guest, talked to her daughter in French.)
+
+Gemma began at once to wait upon her; she moistened her forehead with
+eau-de-Cologne, gently blew on it, gently kissed her cheek, made her
+lay her head on a pillow, forbade her to speak, and kissed her again.
+Then, turning to Sanin, she began telling him in a half-joking,
+half-tender tone what a splendid mother she had, and what a beauty she
+had been. '"Had been," did I say? she is charming now! Look, look,
+what eyes!'
+
+Gemma instantly pulled a white handkerchief out of her pocket, covered
+her mother's face with it, and slowly drawing it downwards, gradually
+uncovered Frau Lenore's forehead, eyebrows, and eyes; she waited a
+moment and asked her to open them. Her mother obeyed; Gemma cried
+out in ecstasy (Frau Lenore's eyes really were very beautiful), and
+rapidly sliding the handkerchief over the lower, less regular part of
+the face, fell to kissing her again. Frau Lenore laughed, and turning
+a little away, with a pretence of violence, pushed her daughter away.
+She too pretended to struggle with her mother, and lavished caresses
+on her--not like a cat, in the French manner, but with that special
+Italian grace in which is always felt the presence of power.
+
+At last Frau Lenore declared she was tired out ... Then Gemma at once
+advised her to have a little nap, where she was, in her chair, 'and
+I and the Russian gentleman--"_avec le monsieur russe_"--will be as
+quiet, as quiet ... as little mice ... "_comme des petites souris_."'
+Frau Lenore smiled at her in reply, closed her eyes, and after a few
+sighs began to doze. Gemma quickly dropped down on a bench beside her
+and did not stir again, only from time to time she put a finger of
+one hand to her lips--with the other hand she was holding up a pillow
+behind her mother's head--and said softly, 'sh-sh!' with a sidelong
+look at Sanin, if he permitted himself the smallest movement. In the
+end he too sank into a kind of dream, and sat motionless as though
+spell-bound, while all his faculties were absorbed in admiring the
+picture presented him by the half-dark room, here and there spotted
+with patches of light crimson, where fresh, luxuriant roses stood in
+the old-fashioned green glasses, and the sleeping woman with demurely
+folded hands and kind, weary face, framed in the snowy whiteness
+of the pillow, and the young, keenly-alert and also kind, clever,
+pure, and unspeakably beautiful creature with such black, deep,
+overshadowed, yet shining eyes.... What was it? A dream? a fairy
+tale? And how came _he_ to be in it?
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The bell tinkled at the outer door. A young peasant lad in a fur
+cap and a red waistcoat came into the shop from the street. Not one
+customer had looked into it since early morning ... 'You see how much
+business we do!' Frau Lenore observed to Sanin at lunch-time with a
+sigh. She was still asleep; Gemma was afraid to take her arm from the
+pillow, and whispered to Sanin: 'You go, and mind the shop for me!'
+Sanin went on tiptoe into the shop at once. The boy wanted a quarter
+of a pound of peppermints. 'How much must I take?' Sanin whispered
+from the door to Gemma. 'Six kreutzers!' she answered in the same
+whisper. Sanin weighed out a quarter of a pound, found some paper,
+twisted it into a cone, tipped the peppermints into it, spilt them,
+tipped them in again, spilt them again, at last handed them to the
+boy, and took the money.... The boy gazed at him in amazement,
+twisting his cap in his hands on his stomach, and in the next room,
+Gemma was stifling with suppressed laughter. Before the first customer
+had walked out, a second appeared, then a third.... 'I bring luck,
+it's clear!' thought Sanin. The second customer wanted a glass of
+orangeade, the third, half-a-pound of sweets. Sanin satisfied their
+needs, zealously clattering the spoons, changing the saucers, and
+eagerly plunging his fingers into drawers and jars. On reckoning up,
+it appeared that he had charged too little for the orangeade, and
+taken two kreutzers too much for the sweets. Gemma did not cease
+laughing softly, and Sanin too was aware of an extraordinary lightness
+of heart, a peculiarly happy state of mind. He felt as if he had
+for ever been standing behind the counter and dealing in orangeade
+and sweetmeats, with that exquisite creature looking at him through
+the doorway with affectionately mocking eyes, while the summer sun,
+forcing its way through the sturdy leafage of the chestnuts that grew
+in front of the windows, filled the whole room with the greenish-gold
+of the midday light and shade, and the heart grew soft in the sweet
+languor of idleness, carelessness, and youth--first youth!
+
+A fourth customer asked for a cup of coffee; Pantaleone had to be
+appealed to. (Emil had not yet come back from Herr Klüber's shop.)
+Sanin went and sat by Gemma again. Frau Lenore still went on sleeping,
+to her daughter's great delight. 'Mamma always sleeps off her sick
+headaches,' she observed. Sanin began talking--in a whisper, of
+course, as before--of his minding the shop; very seriously inquired
+the price of various articles of confectionery; Gemma just as
+seriously told him these prices, and meanwhile both of them were
+inwardly laughing together, as though conscious they were playing
+in a very amusing farce. All of a sudden, an organ-grinder in the
+street began playing an air from the Freischütz: '_Durch die Felder,
+durch die Auen_ ...' The dance tune fell shrill and quivering on
+the motionless air. Gemma started ... 'He will wake mamma!' Sanin
+promptly darted out into the street, thrust a few kreutzers into
+the organ-grinder's hand, and made him cease playing and move away.
+When he came back, Gemma thanked him with a little nod of the head,
+and with a pensive smile she began herself just audibly humming
+the beautiful melody of Weber's, in which Max expresses all the
+perplexities of first love. Then she asked Sanin whether he knew
+'Freischütz,' whether he was fond of Weber, and added that though
+she was herself an Italian, she liked _such_ music best of all. From
+Weber the conversation glided off on to poetry and romanticism, on to
+Hoffmann, whom every one was still reading at that time.
+
+And Frau Lenore still slept, and even snored just a little, and the
+sunbeams, piercing in narrow streaks through the shutters, were
+incessantly and imperceptibly shifting and travelling over the floor,
+the furniture, Gemma's dress, and the leaves and petals of the
+flowers.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+It appeared that Gemma was not very fond of Hoffmann, that she even
+thought him ... tedious! The fantastic, misty northern element in
+his stories was too remote from her clear, southern nature. 'It's
+all fairy-tales, all written for children!' she declared with some
+contempt. She was vaguely conscious, too, of the lack of poetry in
+Hoffmann. But there was one of his stories, the title of which she
+had forgotten, which she greatly liked; more precisely speaking, it
+was only the beginning of this story that she liked; the end she had
+either not read or had forgotten. The story was about a young man who
+in some place, a sort of restaurant perhaps, meets a girl of striking
+beauty, a Greek; she is accompanied by a mysterious and strange,
+wicked old man. The young man falls in love with the girl at first
+sight; she looks at him so mournfully, as though beseeching him to
+deliver her.... He goes out for an instant, and, coming back into the
+restaurant, finds there neither the girl nor the old man; he rushes
+off in pursuit of her, continually comes upon fresh traces of her,
+follows them up, and can never by any means come upon her anywhere.
+The lovely girl has vanished for him for ever and ever, and he is
+never able to forget her imploring glance, and is tortured by the
+thought that all the happiness of his life, perhaps, has slipped
+through his fingers.
+
+Hoffmann does not end his story quite in that way; but so it had taken
+shape, so it had remained, in Gemma's memory.
+
+'I fancy,' she said, 'such meetings and such partings happen oftener
+in the world than we suppose.'
+
+Sanin was silent ... and soon after he began talking ... of Herr
+Klüber. It was the first time he had referred to him; he had not once
+remembered him till that instant.
+
+Gemma was silent in her turn, and sank into thought, biting the nail
+of her forefinger and fixing her eyes away. Then she began to speak in
+praise of her betrothed, alluded to the excursion he had planned for
+the next day, and, glancing swiftly at Sanin, was silent again.
+
+Sanin did not know on what subject to turn the conversation.
+
+Emil ran in noisily and waked Frau Lenore ... Sanin was relieved by
+his appearance.
+
+Frau Lenore got up from her low chair. Pantaleone came in and
+announced that dinner was ready. The friend of the family, ex-singer,
+and servant also performed the duties of cook.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Sanin stayed on after dinner too. They did not let him go, still on
+the same pretext of the terrible heat; and when the heat began to
+decrease, they proposed going out into the garden to drink coffee in
+the shade of the acacias. Sanin consented. He felt very happy. In the
+quietly monotonous, smooth current of life lie hid great delights,
+and he gave himself up to these delights with zest, asking nothing
+much of the present day, but also thinking nothing of the morrow, nor
+recalling the day before. How much the mere society of such a girl as
+Gemma meant to him! He would shortly part from her and, most likely,
+for ever; but so long as they were borne, as in Uhland's song, in
+one skiff over the sea of life, untossed by tempest, well might
+the traveller rejoice and be glad. And everything seemed sweet
+and delightful to the happy voyager. Frau Lenore offered to play
+against him and Pantaleone at 'tresette,' instructed him in this not
+complicated Italian game, and won a few kreutzers from him, and he
+was well content. Pantaleone, at Emil's request, made the poodle,
+Tartaglia, perform all his tricks, and Tartaglia jumped over a stick
+'spoke,' that is, barked, sneezed, shut the door with his nose,
+fetched his master's trodden-down slippers; and, finally, with an
+old cap on his head, he portrayed Marshal Bernadotte, subjected to
+the bitterest upbraidings by the Emperor Napoleon on account of his
+treachery. Napoleon's part was, of course, performed by Pantaleone,
+and very faithfully he performed it: he folded his arms across his
+chest, pulled a cocked hat over his eyes, and spoke very gruffly and
+sternly, in French--and heavens! what French! Tartaglia sat before his
+sovereign, all huddled up, with dejected tail, and eyes blinking and
+twitching in confusion, under the peak of his cap which was stuck on
+awry; from time to time when Napoleon raised his voice, Bernadotte
+rose on his hind paws. '_Fuori, traditore!_' cried Napoleon at last,
+forgetting in the excess of his wrath that he had to sustain his rôle
+as a Frenchman to the end; and Bernadotte promptly flew under the
+sofa, but quickly darted out again with a joyful bark, as though to
+announce that the performance was over. All the spectators laughed,
+and Sanin more than all.
+
+Gemma had a particularly charming, continual, soft laugh, with very
+droll little shrieks.... Sanin was fairly enchanted by that laugh--he
+could have kissed her for those shrieks!
+
+Night came on at last. He had in decency to take leave! After saying
+good-bye several times over to every one, and repeating several times
+to all, 'till to-morrow!'--Emil he went so far as to kiss--Sanin
+started home, carrying with him the image of the young girl, at one
+time laughing, at another thoughtful, calm, and even indifferent--but
+always attractive! Her eyes, at one time wide open, clear and bright
+as day, at another time half shrouded by the lashes and deep and dark
+as night, seemed to float before his eyes, piercing in a strange sweet
+way across all other images and recollections.
+
+Of Herr Klüber, of the causes impelling him to remain in Frankfort--in
+short, of everything that had disturbed his mind the evening
+before--he never thought once.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+We must, however, say a few words about Sanin himself.
+
+In the first place, he was very, very good-looking. A handsome,
+graceful figure, agreeable, rather unformed features, kindly bluish
+eyes, golden hair, a clear white and red skin, and, above all, that
+peculiar, naïvely-cheerful, confiding, open, at the first glance,
+somewhat foolish expression, by which in former days one could
+recognise directly the children of steady-going, noble families,
+'sons of their fathers,' fine young landowners, born and reared in
+our open, half-wild country parts,--a hesitating gait, a voice with a
+lisp, a smile like a child's the minute you looked at him ... lastly,
+freshness, health, softness, softness, softness,--there you have the
+whole of Sanin. And secondly, he was not stupid and had picked up a
+fair amount of knowledge. Fresh he had remained, for all his foreign
+tour; the disturbing emotions in which the greater part of the young
+people of that day were tempest-tossed were very little known to him.
+
+Of late years, in response to the assiduous search for 'new types,'
+young men have begun to appear in our literature, determined at
+all hazards to be 'fresh'... as fresh as Flensburg oysters, when
+they reach Petersburg.... Sanin was not like them. Since we have
+had recourse already to simile, he rather recalled a young, leafy,
+freshly-grafted apple-tree in one of our fertile orchards--or
+better still, a well-groomed, sleek, sturdy-limbed, tender young
+'three-year-old' in some old-fashioned seignorial stud stable, a
+young horse that they have hardly begun to break in to the traces....
+Those who came across Sanin in later years, when life had knocked him
+about a good deal, and the sleekness and plumpness of youth had long
+vanished, saw in him a totally different man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day Sanin was still in bed when Emil, in his best clothes, with
+a cane in his hand and much pomade on his head, burst into his room,
+announcing that Herr Klüber would be here directly with the carriage,
+that the weather promised to be exquisite, that they had everything
+ready by now, but that mamma was not going, as her head was bad again.
+He began to hurry Sanin, telling him that there was not a minute to
+lose.... And Herr Klüber did, in fact, find Sanin still at his toilet.
+He knocked at the door, came in, bowed with a bend from the waist,
+expressed his readiness to wait as long as might be desired, and
+sat down, his hat balanced elegantly on his knees. The handsome
+shop-manager had got himself up and perfumed himself to excess: his
+every action was accompanied by a powerful whiff of the most refined
+aroma. He arrived in a comfortable open carriage--one of the kind
+called landau--drawn by two tall and powerful but not well-shaped
+horses. A quarter of an hour later Sanin, Klüber, and Emil, in this
+same carriage, drew up triumphantly at the steps of the confectioner's
+shop. Madame Roselli resolutely refused to join the party; Gemma
+wanted to stay with her mother; but she simply turned her out.
+
+'I don't want any one,' she declared; 'I shall go to sleep. I would
+send Pantaleone with you too, only there would be no one to mind the
+shop.'
+
+'May we take Tartaglia?' asked Emil.
+
+'Of course you may.'
+
+Tartaglia immediately scrambled, with delighted struggles, on to the
+box and sat there, licking himself; it was obviously a thing he was
+accustomed to. Gemma put on a large straw hat with brown ribbons; the
+hat was bent down in front, so as to shade almost the whole of her
+face from the sun. The line of shadow stopped just at her lips; they
+wore a tender maiden flush, like the petals of a centifoil rose, and
+her teeth gleamed stealthily--innocently too, as when children smile.
+Gemma sat facing the horses, with Sanin; Klüber and Emil sat opposite.
+The pale face of Frau Lenore appeared at the window; Gemma waved her
+handkerchief to her, and the horses started.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Soden is a little town half an hour's distance from Frankfort. It lies
+in a beautiful country among the spurs of the Taunus Mountains, and
+is known among us in Russia for its waters, which are supposed to be
+beneficial to people with weak lungs. The Frankforters visit it more
+for purposes of recreation, as Soden possesses a fine park and various
+'wirthschaften,' where one may drink beer and coffee in the shade
+of the tall limes and maples. The road from Frankfort to Soden runs
+along the right bank of the Maine, and is planted all along with fruit
+trees. While the carriage was rolling slowly along an excellent road,
+Sanin stealthily watched how Gemma behaved to her betrothed; it was
+the first time he had seen them together. _She_ was quiet and simple
+in her manner, but rather more reserved and serious than usual; _he_
+had the air of a condescending schoolmaster, permitting himself and
+those under his authority a discreet and decorous pleasure. Sanin saw
+no signs in him of any marked attentiveness, of what the French call
+'_empressement_,' in his demeanour to Gemma. It was clear that Herr
+Klüber considered that it was a matter settled once for all, and
+that therefore he saw no reason to trouble or excite himself. But
+his condescension never left him for an instant! Even during a long
+ramble before dinner about the wooded hills and valleys behind Soden,
+even when enjoying the beauties of nature, he treated nature itself
+with the same condescension, through which his habitual magisterial
+severity peeped out from time to time. So, for example, he observed
+in regard to one stream that it ran too straight through the glade,
+instead of making a few picturesque curves; he disapproved, too, of
+the conduct of a bird--a chaffinch--for singing so monotonously.
+Gemma was not bored, and even, apparently, was enjoying herself; but
+Sanin did not recognise her as the Gemma of the preceding days; it
+was not that she seemed under a cloud--her beauty had never been more
+dazzling--but her soul seemed to have withdrawn into herself. With her
+parasol open and her gloves still buttoned up, she walked sedately,
+deliberately, as well-bred young girls walk, and spoke little.
+Emil, too, felt stiff, and Sanin more so than all. He was somewhat
+embarrassed too by the fact that the conversation was all the time
+in German. Only Tartaglia was in high spirits! He darted, barking
+frantically, after blackbirds, leaped over ravines, stumps and roots,
+rushed headlong into the water, lapped at it in desperate haste, shook
+himself, whining, and was off like an arrow, his red tongue trailing
+after him almost to his shoulder. Herr Klüber, for his part, did
+everything he supposed conducive to the mirthfulness of the company;
+he begged them to sit down in the shade of a spreading oak-tree, and
+taking out of a side pocket a small booklet entitled, '_Knallerbsen;
+oder du sollst und wirst lachen!_' (Squibs; or you must and shall
+laugh!) began reading the funny anecdotes of which the little book was
+full. He read them twelve specimens; he aroused very little mirth,
+however; only Sanin smiled, from politeness, and he himself, Herr
+Klüber, after each anecdote, gave vent to a brief, business-like, but
+still condescending laugh. At twelve o'clock the whole party returned
+to Soden to the best tavern there.
+
+They had to make arrangements about dinner. Herr Klüber proposed
+that the dinner should be served in a summer-house closed in on all
+sides--'_im Gartensalon_'; but at this point Gemma rebelled and
+declared that she would have dinner in the open air, in the garden, at
+one of the little tables set before the tavern; that she was tired of
+being all the while with the same faces, and she wanted to see fresh
+ones. At some of the little tables, groups of visitors were already
+sitting.
+
+While Herr Klüber, yielding condescendingly to 'the caprice of his
+betrothed,' went off to interview the head waiter, Gemma stood
+immovable, biting her lips and looking on the ground; she was
+conscious that Sanin was persistently and, as it were, inquiringly
+looking at her--it seemed to enrage her. At last Herr Klüber returned,
+announced that dinner would be ready in half an hour, and proposed
+their employing the interval in a game of skittles, adding that this
+was very good for the appetite, he, he, he! Skittles he played in
+masterly fashion; as he threw the ball, he put himself into amazingly
+heroic postures, with artistic play of the muscles, with artistic
+flourish and shake of the leg. In his own way he was an athlete--and
+was superbly built! His hands, too, were so white and handsome, and he
+wiped them on such a sumptuous, gold-striped, Indian bandana!
+
+The moment of dinner arrived, and the whole party seated themselves at
+the table.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Who does not know what a German dinner is like? Watery soup with
+knobby dumplings and pieces of cinnamon, boiled beef dry as cork,
+with white fat attached, slimy potatoes, soft beetroot and mashed
+horseradish, a bluish eel with French capers and vinegar, a roast
+joint with jam, and the inevitable '_Mehlspeise_,' something of the
+nature of a pudding with sourish red sauce; but to make up, the beer
+and wine first-rate! With just such a dinner the tavernkeeper at
+Soden regaled his customers. The dinner, itself, however, went off
+satisfactorily. No special liveliness was perceptible, certainly;
+not even when Herr Klüber proposed the toast 'What we like!' (Was
+wir lieben!) But at least everything was decorous and seemly. After
+dinner, coffee was served, thin, reddish, typically German coffee.
+Herr Klüber, with true gallantry, asked Gemma's permission to smoke a
+cigar.... But at this point suddenly something occurred, unexpected,
+and decidedly unpleasant, and even unseemly!
+
+At one of the tables near were sitting several officers of the
+garrison of the Maine. From their glances and whispering together
+it was easy to perceive that they were struck by Gemma's beauty;
+one of them, who had probably stayed in Frankfort, stared at her
+persistently, as at a figure familiar to him; he obviously knew who
+she was. He suddenly got up, and glass in hand--all the officers
+had been drinking hard, and the cloth before them was crowded with
+bottles--approached the table at which Gemma was sitting. He was
+a very young flaxen-haired man, with a rather pleasing and even
+attractive face, but his features were distorted with the wine he had
+drunk, his cheeks were twitching, his blood-shot eyes wandered, and
+wore an insolent expression. His companions at first tried to hold him
+back, but afterwards let him go, interested apparently to see what he
+would do, and how it would end. Slightly unsteady on his legs, the
+officer stopped before Gemma, and in an unnaturally screaming voice,
+in which, in spite of himself, an inward struggle could be discerned,
+he articulated, 'I drink to the health of the prettiest confectioner
+in all Frankfort, in all the world (he emptied his glass), and in
+return I take this flower, picked by her divine little fingers!' He
+took from the table a rose that lay beside Gemma's plate. At first she
+was astonished, alarmed, and turned fearfully white ... then alarm
+was replaced by indignation; she suddenly crimsoned all over, to her
+very hair--and her eyes, fastened directly on the offender, at the
+same time darkened and flamed, they were filled with black gloom, and
+burned with the fire of irrepressible fury. The officer must have been
+confused by this look; he muttered something unintelligible, bowed,
+and walked back to his friends. They greeted him with a laugh, and
+faint applause.
+
+Herr Klüber rose spasmodically from his seat, drew himself up to his
+full height, and putting on his hat pronounced with dignity, but not
+too loud, 'Unheard of! Unheard of! Unheard of impertinence!' and at
+once calling up the waiter, in a severe voice asked for the bill ...
+more than that, ordered the carriage to be put to, adding that it was
+impossible for respectable people to frequent the establishment if
+they were exposed to insult! At those words Gemma, who still sat in
+her place without stirring--her bosom was heaving violently--Gemma
+raised her eyes to Herr Klüber ... and she gazed as intently, with the
+same expression at him as at the officer. Emil was simply shaking with
+rage.
+
+'Get up, _mein Fräulein_,' Klüber admonished her with the same
+severity, 'it is not proper for you to remain here. We will go inside,
+in the tavern!'
+
+Gemma rose in silence; he offered her his arm, she gave him hers, and
+he walked into the tavern with a majestic step, which became, with his
+whole bearing, more majestic and haughty the farther he got from the
+place where they had dined. Poor Emil dragged himself after them.
+
+But while Herr Klüber was settling up with the waiter, to whom, by way
+of punishment, he gave not a single kreutzer for himself, Sanin with
+rapid steps approached the table at which the officers were sitting,
+and addressing Gemma's assailant, who was at that instant offering her
+rose to his companions in turns to smell, he uttered very distinctly
+in French, 'What you have just done, sir, is conduct unworthy of an
+honest man, unworthy of the uniform you wear, and I have come to tell
+you you are an ill-bred cur!' The young man leaped on to his feet, but
+another officer, rather older, checked him with a gesture, made him
+sit down, and turning to Sanin asked him also in French, 'Was he a
+relation, brother, or betrothed of the girl?'
+
+'I am nothing to her at all,' cried Sanin, 'I am a Russian, but I
+cannot look on at such insolence with indifference; but here is my
+card and my address; _monsieur l'officier_ can find me.'
+
+As he uttered these words, Sanin threw his visiting-card on the table,
+and at the same moment hastily snatched Gemma's rose, which one of the
+officers sitting at the table had dropped into his plate. The young
+man was again on the point of jumping up from the table, but his
+companion again checked him, saying, 'Dönhof, be quiet! Dönhof, sit
+still.' Then he got up himself, and putting his hand to the peak of
+his cap, with a certain shade of respectfulness in his voice and
+manner, told Sanin that to-morrow morning an officer of the regiment
+would have the honour of calling upon him. Sanin replied with a short
+bow, and hurriedly returned to his friends.
+
+Herr Klüber pretended he had not noticed either Sanin's absence
+nor his interview with the officers; he was urging on the coachman,
+who was putting in the horses, and was furiously angry at his
+deliberateness. Gemma too said nothing to Sanin, she did not even
+look at him; from her knitted brows, from her pale and compressed
+lips, from her very immobility it could be seen that she was suffering
+inwardly. Only Emil obviously wanted to speak to Sanin, wanted to
+question him; he had seen Sanin go up to the officers, he had seen him
+give them something white--a scrap of paper, a note, or a card.... The
+poor boy's heart was beating, his cheeks burned, he was ready to throw
+himself on Sanin's neck, ready to cry, or to go with him at once to
+crush all those accursed officers into dust and ashes! He controlled
+himself, however, and did no more than watch intently every movement
+of his noble Russian friend.
+
+The coachman had at last harnessed the horses; the whole party
+seated themselves in the carriage. Emil climbed on to the box, after
+Tartaglia; he was more comfortable there, and had not Klüber, whom he
+could hardly bear the sight of, sitting opposite to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The whole way home Herr Klüber discoursed ... and he discoursed alone;
+no one, absolutely no one, opposed him, nor did any one agree with
+him. He especially insisted on the point that they had been wrong
+in not following his advice when he suggested dining in a shut-up
+summer-house. There no unpleasantness could have occurred! Then
+he expressed a few decided and even liberal sentiments on the
+unpardonable way in which the government favoured the military,
+neglected their discipline, and did not sufficiently consider
+the civilian element in society (_das bürgerliche Element in der
+Societät_!), and foretold that in time this cause would give rise to
+discontent, which might well pass into revolution, of which (here
+he dropped a sympathetic though severe sigh) France had given them
+a sorrowful example! He added, however, that he personally had the
+greatest respect for authority, and never ... no, never!... could be a
+revolutionist--but he could not but express his ... disapprobation at
+the sight of such licence! Then he made a few general observations on
+morality and immorality, good-breeding, and the sense of dignity.
+
+During all these lucubrations, Gemma, who even while they were walking
+before dinner had not seemed quite pleased with Herr Klüber, and had
+therefore held rather aloof from Sanin, and had been, as it were,
+embarrassed by his presence--Gemma was unmistakably ashamed of her
+betrothed! Towards the end of the drive she was positively wretched,
+and though, as before, she did not address a word to Sanin, she
+suddenly flung an imploring glance at him.... He, for his part, felt
+much more sorry for her than indignant with Herr Klüber; he was even
+secretly, half-consciously, delighted at what had happened in the
+course of that day, even though he had every reason to expect a
+challenge next morning.
+
+This miserable _partie de plaisir_ came to an end at last. As he
+helped Gemma out of the carriage at the confectionery shop, Sanin
+without a word put into her hand the rose he had recovered. She
+flushed crimson, pressed his hand, and instantly hid the rose. He
+did not want to go into the house, though the evening was only just
+beginning. She did not even invite him. Moreover Pantaleone, who came
+out on the steps, announced that Frau Lenore was asleep. Emil took a
+shy good-bye of Sanin; he felt as it were in awe of him; he greatly
+admired him. Klüber saw Sanin to his lodging, and took leave of him
+stiffly. The well-regulated German, for all his self-confidence, felt
+awkward. And indeed every one felt awkward.
+
+But in Sanin this feeling of awkwardness soon passed off. It was
+replaced by a vague, but pleasant, even triumphant feeling. He walked
+up and down his room, whistling, and not caring to think about
+anything, and was very well pleased with himself.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+'I will wait for the officer's visit till ten o'clock,' he reflected
+next morning, as he dressed,' and then let him come and look for me!'
+But Germans rise early: it had not yet struck nine when the waiter
+informed Sanin that the Herr Seconde Lieutenant von Richter wished
+to see him. Sanin made haste to put on his coat, and told him to ask
+him up. Herr Richter turned out, contrary to Sanin's expectation, to
+be a very young man, almost a boy. He tried to give an expression of
+dignity to his beardless face, but did not succeed at all: he could
+not even conceal his embarrassment, and as he sat down on a chair, he
+tripped over his sword, and almost fell. Stammering and hesitating, he
+announced to Sanin in bad French that he had come with a message from
+his friend, Baron von Dönhof; that this message was to demand from
+Herr von Sanin an apology for the insulting expressions used by him
+on the previous day; and in case of refusal on the part of Herr von
+Sanin, Baron von Dönhof would ask for satisfaction. Sanin replied that
+he did not mean to apologise, but was ready to give him satisfaction.
+Then Herr von Richter, still with the same hesitation, asked with
+whom, at what time and place, should he arrange the necessary
+preliminaries. Sanin answered that he might come to him in two hours'
+time, and that meanwhile, he, Sanin, would try and find a second.
+('Who the devil is there I can have for a second?' he was thinking to
+himself meantime.) Herr von Richter got up and began to take leave
+... but at the doorway he stopped, as though stung by a prick of
+conscience, and turning to Sanin observed that his friend, Baron von
+Dönhof, could not but recognise ... that he had been ... to a certain
+extent, to blame himself in the incident of the previous day, and
+would, therefore, be satisfied with slight apologies ('_des exghizes
+léchères_.') To this Sanin replied that he did not intend to make any
+apology whatever, either slight or considerable, since he did not
+consider himself to blame. 'In that case,' answered Herr von Richter,
+blushing more than ever,' you will have to exchange friendly
+shots--_des goups de bisdolet à l'amiaple_!'
+
+'I don't understand that at all,' observed Sanin; 'are we to fire in
+the air or what?'
+
+'Oh, not exactly that,' stammered the sub-lieutenant, utterly
+disconcerted, 'but I supposed since it is an affair between men of
+honour ... I will talk to your second,' he broke off, and went away.
+
+Sanin dropped into a chair directly he had gone, and stared at the
+floor. 'What does it all mean? How is it my life has taken such a turn
+all of a sudden? All the past, all the future has suddenly vanished,
+gone,--and all that's left is that I am going to fight some one about
+something in Frankfort.' He recalled a crazy aunt of his who used to
+dance and sing:
+
+  'O my lieutenant!
+  My little cucumber!
+  My little love!
+  Dance with me, my little dove!'
+
+And he laughed and hummed as she used to: 'O my lieutenant! Dance with
+me, little dove!' 'But I must act, though, I mustn't waste time,' he
+cried aloud--jumped up and saw Pantaleone facing him with a note in
+his hand.
+
+'I knocked several times, but you did not answer; I thought you
+weren't at home,' said the old man, as he gave him the note. 'From
+Signorina Gemma.'
+
+Sanin took the note, mechanically, as they say, tore it open, and
+read it. Gemma wrote to him that she was very anxious--about he knew
+what--and would be very glad to see him at once.
+
+'The Signorina is anxious,' began Pantaleone, who obviously knew what
+was in the note, 'she told me to see what you are doing and to bring
+you to her.'
+
+Sanin glanced at the old Italian, and pondered. A sudden idea flashed
+upon his brain. For the first instant it struck him as too absurd to
+be possible.
+
+'After all ... why not?' he asked himself.
+
+'M. Pantaleone!' he said aloud.
+
+The old man started, tucked his chin into his cravat and stared at
+Sanin.
+
+'Do you know,' pursued Sanin,' what happened yesterday?'
+
+Pantaleone chewed his lips and shook his immense top-knot of hair.
+'Yes.'
+
+(Emil had told him all about it directly he got home.)
+
+'Oh, you know! Well, an officer has just this minute left me. That
+scoundrel challenges me to a duel. I have accepted his challenge. But
+I have no second. Will _you_ be my second?'
+
+Pantaleone started and raised his eyebrows so high that they were lost
+under his overhanging hair.
+
+'You are absolutely obliged to fight?' he said at last in Italian;
+till that instant he had made use of French.
+
+'Absolutely. I can't do otherwise--it would mean disgracing myself for
+ever.'
+
+'H'm. If I don't consent to be your second you will find some one
+else.'
+
+'Yes ... undoubtedly.'
+
+Pantaleone looked down. 'But allow me to ask you, Signor de Tsanin,
+will not your duel throw a slur on the reputation of a certain lady?'
+
+'I don't suppose so; but in any case, there's no help for it.'
+
+'H'm!' Pantaleone retired altogether into his cravat. 'Hey, but that
+_ferroflucto Klüberio_--what's he about?' he cried all of a sudden,
+looking up again.
+
+'He? Nothing.'
+
+'_Che_!' Pantaleone shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. 'I have, in
+any case, to thank you,' he articulated at last in an unsteady voice
+'that even in my present humble condition you recognise that I am a
+gentleman--_un galant'uomo_! In that way you have shown yourself to be
+a real _galant'uomo_. But I must consider your proposal.'
+
+'There's no time to lose, dear Signor Ci ... cippa ...'
+
+'Tola,' the old man chimed in. 'I ask only for one hour for
+reflection.... The daughter of my benefactor is involved in this....
+And, therefore, I ought, I am bound, to reflect!... In an hour, in
+three-quarters of an hour, you shall know my decision.'
+
+'Very well; I will wait.'
+
+'And now ... what answer am I to give to Signorina Gemma?'
+
+Sanin took a sheet of paper, wrote on it, 'Set your mind at rest, dear
+friend; in three hours' time I will come to you, and everything shall
+be explained. I thank you from my heart for your sympathy,' and handed
+this sheet to Pantaleone.
+
+He put it carefully into his side-pocket, and once more repeating 'In
+an hour!' made towards the door; but turning sharply back, ran up to
+Sanin, seized his hand, and pressing it to his shirt-front, cried,
+with his eyes to the ceiling: 'Noble youth! Great heart! (_Nobil
+giovanotto! Gran cuore!_) permit a weak old man (_a un vecchiotto!_)
+to press your valorous right hand (_la vostra valorosa destra!_)' Then
+he skipped back a pace or two, threw up both hands, and went away.
+
+Sanin looked after him ... took up the newspaper and tried to read.
+But his eyes wandered in vain over the lines: he understood nothing.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+An hour later the waiter came in again to Sanin, and handed him
+an old, soiled visiting-card, on which were the following words:
+'Pantaleone Cippatola of Varese, court singer (_cantante di camera_)
+to his Royal Highness the Duke of Modena'; and behind the waiter in
+walked Pantaleone himself. He had changed his clothes from top to toe.
+He had on a black frock coat, reddish with long wear, and a white
+piqué waistcoat, upon which a pinch-beck chain meandered playfully; a
+heavy cornelian seal hung low down on to his narrow black trousers. In
+his right hand he carried a black beaver hat, in his left two stout
+chamois gloves; he had tied his cravat in a taller and broader bow
+than ever, and had stuck into his starched shirt-front a pin with a
+stone, a so-called 'cat's eye.' On his forefinger was displayed a
+ring, consisting of two clasped hands with a burning heart between
+them. A smell of garments long laid by, a smell of camphor and of musk
+hung about the whole person of the old man; the anxious solemnity of
+his deportment must have struck the most casual spectator! Sanin rose
+to meet him.
+
+'I am your second,' Pantaleone announced in French, and he bowed
+bending his whole body forward, and turning out his toes like a
+dancer. 'I have come for instructions. Do you want to fight to the
+death?'
+
+'Why to the death, my dear Signor Cippatola? I will not for any
+consideration take back my words--but I am not a bloodthirsty
+person!... But come, wait a little, my opponent's second will be here
+directly. I will go into the next room, and you can make arrangements
+with him. Believe me I shall never forget your kindness, and I thank
+you from my heart.'
+
+'Honour before everything!' answered Pantaleone, and he sank into
+an arm-chair, without waiting for Sanin to ask him to sit down. 'If
+that _ferroflucto spitchebubbio_,' he said, passing from French into
+Italian, 'if that counter-jumper Klüberio could not appreciate his
+obvious duty or was afraid, so much the worse for him!... A cheap
+soul, and that's all about it!... As for the conditions of the duel, I
+am your second, and your interests are sacred to me!... When I lived
+in Padua there was a regiment of the white dragoons stationed there,
+and I was very intimate with many of the officers!... I was quite
+familiar with their whole code. And I used often to converse on these
+subjects with your principe Tarbuski too.... Is this second to come
+soon?'
+
+'I am expecting him every minute--and here he comes,' added Sanin,
+looking into the street.
+
+Pantaleone got up, looked at his watch, straightened his topknot of
+hair, and hurriedly stuffed into his shoe an end of tape which was
+sticking out below his trouser-leg, and the young sub-lieutenant came
+in, as red and embarrassed as ever.
+
+Sanin presented the seconds to each other. 'M. Richter,
+sous-lieutenant, M. Cippatola, artiste!' The sub-lieutenant was
+slightly disconcerted by the old man's appearance ... Oh, what would
+he have said had any one whispered to him at that instant that the
+'artist' presented to him was also employed in the culinary art! But
+Pantaleone assumed an air as though taking part in the preliminaries
+of duels was for him the most everyday affair: probably he was
+assisted at this juncture by the recollections of his theatrical
+career, and he played the part of second simply as a part. Both he and
+the sub-lieutenant were silent for a little.
+
+'Well? Let us come to business!' Pantaleone spoke first, playing with
+his cornelian seal.
+
+'By all means,' responded the sub-lieutenant, 'but ... the presence of
+one of the principals ...'
+
+'I will leave you at once, gentlemen,' cried Sanin, and with a bow he
+went away into the bedroom and closed the door after him.
+
+He flung himself on the bed and began thinking of Gemma ... but the
+conversation of the seconds reached him through the shut door. It was
+conducted in the French language; both maltreated it mercilessly,
+each after his own fashion. Pantaleone again alluded to the dragoons
+in Padua, and Principe Tarbuski; the sub-lieutenant to '_exghizes
+léchères_' and '_goups de bistolet à l'amiaple_.' But the old man
+would not even hear of any _exghizes_! To Sanin's horror, he suddenly
+proceeded to talk of a certain young lady, an innocent maiden, whose
+little finger was worth more than all the officers in the world ...
+(_oune zeune damigella innoucenta, qu'a elle sola dans soun péti doa
+vale pin que tout le zouffissié del mondo_.'), and repeated several
+times with heat: 'It's shameful! it's shameful!' (_E ouna onta, ouna
+onta_!) The sub-lieutenant at first made him no reply, but presently
+an angry quiver could be heard in the young man's voice, and he
+observed that he had not come there to listen to sermonising.
+
+'At your age it is always a good thing to hear the truth!' cried
+Pantaleone.
+
+The debate between the seconds several times became stormy; it lasted
+over an hour, and was concluded at last on the following conditions:
+'Baron von Dönhof and M. de Sanin to meet the next day at ten o'clock
+in a small wood near Hanau, at the distance of twenty paces; each to
+have the right to fire twice at a signal given by the seconds, the
+pistols to be single-triggered and not rifle-barrelled.' Herr von
+Richter withdrew, and Pantaleone solemnly opened the bedroom door, and
+after communicating the result of their deliberations, cried again:
+'_Bravo Russo_! _Bravo giovanotto_! You will be victor!'
+
+A few minutes later they both set off to the Rosellis' shop. Sanin, as
+a preliminary measure, had exacted a promise from Pantaleone to keep
+the affair of the duel a most profound secret. In reply, the old man
+had merely held up his finger, and half closing his eyes, whispered
+twice over, _Segredezza_! He was obviously in good spirits, and even
+walked with a freer step. All these unusual incidents, unpleasant
+though they might be, carried him vividly back to the time when he
+himself both received and gave challenges--only, it is true, on the
+stage. Baritones, as we all know, have a great deal of strutting and
+fuming to do in their parts.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Emil ran out to meet Sanin--he had been watching for his arrival over
+an hour--and hurriedly whispered into his ear that his mother knew
+nothing of the disagreeable incident of the day before, that he must
+not even hint of it to her, and that he was being sent to Klüber's
+shop again!... but that he wouldn't go there, but would hide
+somewhere! Communicating all this information in a few seconds, he
+suddenly fell on Sanin's shoulder, kissed him impulsively, and rushed
+away down the street. Gemma met Sanin in the shop; tried to say
+something and could not. Her lips were trembling a little, while her
+eyes were half-closed and turned away. He made haste to soothe her by
+the assurance that the whole affair had ended ... in utter nonsense.
+
+'Has no one been to see you to-day?' she asked.
+
+'A person did come to me and we had an explanation, and we ... we came
+to the most satisfactory conclusion.'
+
+Gemma went back behind the counter.
+
+'She does not believe me!' he thought ... he went into the next room,
+however, and there found Frau Lenore.
+
+Her sick headache had passed off, but she was in a depressed state of
+mind. She gave him a smile of welcome, but warned him at the same time
+that he would be dull with her to-day, as she was not in a mood to
+entertain him. He sat down beside her, and noticed that her eyelids
+were red and swollen.
+
+'What is wrong, Frau Lenore? You've never been crying, surely?'
+
+'Oh!' she whispered, nodding her head towards the room where her
+daughter was.
+
+'Don't speak of it ... aloud.'
+
+'But what have you been crying for?'
+
+'Ah, M'sieu Sanin, I don't know myself what for!'
+
+'No one has hurt your feelings?'
+
+'Oh no!... I felt very low all of a sudden. I thought of Giovanni
+Battista ... of my youth ... Then how quickly it had all passed away.
+I have grown old, my friend, and I can't reconcile myself to that
+anyhow. I feel I'm just the same as I was ... but old age--it's here!
+it is here!' Tears came into Frau Lenore's eyes. 'You look at me, I
+see, and wonder.... But you will get old too, my friend, and will find
+out how bitter it is!'
+
+Sanin tried to comfort her, spoke of her children, in whom her own
+youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring
+that she was fishing for compliments ... but she quite seriously
+begged him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for
+such a sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or
+cure; one has to wait till it passes off of itself. He proposed a game
+of tresette, and he could have thought of nothing better. She agreed
+at once and seemed to get more cheerful.
+
+Sanin played with her until dinner-time and after dinner Pantaleone
+too took a hand in the game. Never had his topknot hung so low over
+his forehead, never had his chin retreated so far into his cravat!
+Every movement was accompanied by such intense solemnity that as one
+looked at him the thought involuntarily arose, 'What secret is that
+man guarding with such determination?' But _segredezza_! _segredezza_!
+
+During the whole of that day he tried in every possible way to show
+the profoundest respect for Sanin; at table, passing by the ladies, he
+solemnly and sedately handed the dishes first to him; when they were
+at cards he intentionally gave him the game; he announced, apropos of
+nothing at all, that the Russians were the most great-hearted, brave,
+and resolute people in the world!
+
+'Ah, you old flatterer!' Sanin thought to himself.
+
+And he was not so much surprised at Signora Roselli's unexpected state
+of mind, as at the way her daughter behaved to him. It was not that
+she avoided him ... on the contrary she sat continually a little
+distance from him, listened to what he said, and looked at him;
+but she absolutely declined to get into conversation with him, and
+directly he began talking to her, she softly rose from her place, and
+went out for some instants. Then she came in again, and again seated
+herself in some corner, and sat without stirring, seeming meditative
+and perplexed ... perplexed above all. Frau Lenore herself noticed
+at last, that she was not as usual, and asked her twice what was the
+matter.
+
+'Nothing,' answered Gemma; 'you know I am sometimes like this.'
+
+'That is true,' her mother assented.
+
+So passed all that long day, neither gaily nor drearily--neither
+cheerfully nor sadly. Had Gemma been different--Sanin ... who
+knows?... might not perhaps have been able to resist the temptation
+for a little display--or he might simply have succumbed to melancholy
+at the possibility of a separation for ever.... But as he did not
+once succeed in getting a word with Gemma, he was obliged to confine
+himself to striking minor chords on the piano for a quarter of an hour
+before evening coffee.
+
+Emil came home late, and to avoid questions about Herr Klüber, beat a
+hasty retreat. The time came for Sanin too to retire.
+
+He began saying good-bye to Gemma. He recollected for some reason
+Lensky's parting from Olga in _Oniegin_. He pressed her hand warmly,
+and tried to get a look at her face, but she turned a little away and
+released her fingers.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+It was bright starlight when he came out on the steps. What
+multitudes of stars, big and little, yellow, red, blue and white were
+scattered over the sky! They seemed all flashing, swarming, twinkling
+unceasingly. There was no moon in the sky, but without it every object
+could be clearly discerned in the half-clear, shadowless twilight.
+Sanin walked down the street to the end ... He did not want to go home
+at once; he felt a desire to wander about a little in the fresh air.
+He turned back and had hardly got on a level with the house, where was
+the Rosellis' shop, when one of the windows looking out on the street,
+suddenly creaked and opened; in its square of blackness--there was
+no light in the room--appeared a woman's figure, and he heard his
+name--'Monsieur Dimitri!'
+
+He rushed at once up to the window ... Gemma! She was leaning with her
+elbows on the window-sill, bending forward.
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' she began in a cautious voice, 'I have been
+wanting all day long to give you something ... but I could not make
+up my mind to; and just now, seeing you, quite unexpectedly again, I
+thought that it seems it is fated' ...
+
+Gemma was forced to stop at this word. She could not go on; something
+extraordinary happened at that instant.
+
+All of a sudden, in the midst of the profound stillness, over the
+perfectly unclouded sky, there blew such a violent blast of wind, that
+the very earth seemed shaking underfoot, the delicate starlight seemed
+quivering and trembling, the air went round in a whirlwind. The wind,
+not cold, but hot, almost sultry, smote against the trees, the roof
+of the house, its walls, and the street; it instantaneously snatched
+off Sanin's hat, crumpled up and tangled Gemma's curls. Sanin's head
+was on a level with the window-sill; he could not help clinging close
+to it, and Gemma clutched hold of his shoulders with both hands, and
+pressed her bosom against his head. The roar, the din, and the rattle
+lasted about a minute.... Like a flock of huge birds the revelling
+whirlwind darted revelling away. A profound stillness reigned once
+more.
+
+Sanin raised his head and saw above him such an exquisite, scared,
+excited face, such immense, large, magnificent eyes--it was such a
+beautiful creature he saw, that his heart stood still within him, he
+pressed his lips to the delicate tress of hair, that had fallen on his
+bosom, and could only murmur, 'O Gemma!'
+
+'What was that? Lightning?' she asked, her eyes wandering afar, while
+she did not take her bare arms from his shoulder.
+
+'Gemma!' repeated Sanin.
+
+She sighed, looked around behind her into the room, and with a rapid
+movement pulling the now faded rose out of her bodice, she threw it to
+Sanin.
+
+'I wanted to give you this flower.'
+
+He recognised the rose, which he had won back the day before....
+
+But already the window had slammed-to, and through the dark pane
+nothing could be seen, no trace of white.
+
+Sanin went home without his hat.... He did not even notice that he had
+lost it.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+It was quite morning when he fell asleep. And no wonder! In the
+blast of that instantaneous summer hurricane, he had almost as
+instantaneously felt, not that Gemma was lovely, not that he liked
+her--that he had known before ... but that he almost ... loved her!
+As suddenly as that blast of wind, had love pounced down upon him.
+And then this senseless duel! He began to be tormented by mournful
+forebodings. And even suppose they didn't kill him.... What could come
+of his love for this girl, another man's betrothed? Even supposing
+this 'other man' was no danger, that Gemma herself would care for him,
+or even cared for him already ... What would come of it? How ask what!
+Such a lovely creature!...
+
+He walked about the room, sat down to the table, took a sheet of
+paper, traced a few lines on it, and at once blotted them out....
+He recalled Gemma's wonderful figure in the dark window, in the
+starlight, set all a-fluttering by the warm hurricane; he remembered
+her marble arms, like the arms of the Olympian goddesses, felt their
+living weight on his shoulders.... Then he took the rose she had
+thrown him, and it seemed to him that its half-withered petals exhaled
+a fragrance of her, more delicate than the ordinary scent of the rose.
+
+'And would they kill him straight away or maim him?'
+
+He did not go to bed, and fell asleep in his clothes on the sofa.
+
+Some one slapped him on the shoulder.... He opened his eyes, and saw
+Pantaleone.
+
+'He sleeps like Alexander of Macedon on the eve of the battle of
+Babylon!' cried the old man.
+
+'What o'clock is it?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'A quarter to seven; it's a two hours' drive to Hanau, and we must
+be the first on the field. Russians are always beforehand with their
+enemies! I have engaged the best carriage in Frankfort!'
+
+Sanin began washing. 'And where are the pistols?'
+
+'That _ferroflucto Tedesco_ will bring the pistols. He'll bring a
+doctor too.'
+
+Pantaleone was obviously putting a good face on it as he had done the
+day before; but when he was seated in the carriage with Sanin, when
+the coachman had cracked his whip and the horses had started off at a
+gallop, a sudden change came over the old singer and friend of Paduan
+dragoons. He began to be confused and positively faint-hearted.
+Something seemed to have given way in him, like a badly built wall.
+
+'What are we doing, my God, _Santissima Madonna!_' he cried in an
+unexpectedly high pipe, and he clutched at his head. 'What am I about,
+old fool, madman, _frenetico_?'
+
+Sanin wondered and laughed, and putting his arm lightly round
+Pantaleone's waist, he reminded him of the French proverb: '_Le vin
+est tiré--il faut le boire_.'
+
+'Yes, yes,' answered the old man, 'we will drain the cup together to
+the dregs--but still I'm a madman! I'm a madman! All was going on so
+quietly, so well ... and all of a sudden: ta-ta-ta, tra-ta-ta!'
+
+'Like the _tutti_ in the orchestra,' observed Sanin with a forced
+smile. 'But it's not your fault.'
+
+'I know it's not. I should think not indeed! And yet ... such insolent
+conduct! _Diavolo, diavolo_!' repeated Pantaleone, sighing and shaking
+his topknot.
+
+The carriage still rolled on and on.
+
+It was an exquisite morning. The streets of Frankfort, which were just
+beginning to show signs of life, looked so clean and snug; the windows
+of the houses glittered in flashes like tinfoil; and as soon as the
+carriage had driven beyond the city walls, from overhead, from a blue
+but not yet glaring sky, the larks' loud trills showered down in
+floods. Suddenly at a turn in the road, a familiar figure came from
+behind a tall poplar, took a few steps forward and stood still. Sanin
+looked more closely.... Heavens! it was Emil!
+
+'But does he know anything about it?' he demanded of Pantaleone.
+
+'I tell you I'm a madman,' the poor Italian wailed despairingly,
+almost in a shriek. 'The wretched boy gave me no peace all night, and
+this morning at last I revealed all to him!'
+
+'So much for your _segredezza_!' thought Sanin. The carriage had got
+up to Emil. Sanin told the coachman to stop the horses, and called the
+'wretched boy' up to him. Emil approached with hesitating steps, pale
+as he had been on the day he fainted. He could scarcely stand.
+
+'What are you doing here?' Sanin asked him sternly. 'Why aren't you at
+home?'
+
+'Let ... let me come with you,' faltered Emil in a trembling voice,
+and he clasped his hands. His teeth were chattering as in a fever. 'I
+won't get in your way--only take me.'
+
+'If you feel the very slightest affection or respect for me,' said
+Sanin, 'you will go at once home or to Herr Klüber's shop, and you
+won't say one word to any one, and will wait for my return!'
+
+'Your return,' moaned Emil--and his voice quivered and broke, 'but if
+you're--'
+
+'Emil!' Sanin interrupted--and he pointed to the coachman, 'do control
+yourself! Emil, please, go home! Listen to me, my dear! You say you
+love me. Well, I beg you!' He held out his hand to him. Emil bent
+forward, sobbed, pressed it to his lips, and darting away from the
+road, ran back towards Frankfort across country.
+
+'A noble heart too,' muttered Pantaleone; but Sanin glanced severely
+at him.... The old man shrank into the corner of the carriage. He was
+conscious of his fault; and moreover, he felt more and more bewildered
+every instant; could it really be he who was acting as second, who had
+got horses, and had made all arrangements, and had left his peaceful
+abode at six o'clock? Besides, his legs were stiff and aching.
+
+Sanin thought it as well to cheer him up, and he chanced on the very
+thing, he hit on the right word.
+
+'Where is your old spirit, Signor Cippatola? Where is _il antico
+valor_?'
+
+Signor Cippatola drew himself up and scowled '_Il antico valor_?' he
+boomed in a bass voice. '_Non è ancora spento_ (it's not all lost
+yet), _il antico valor!_'
+
+He put himself in a dignified attitude, began talking of his career,
+of the opera, of the great tenor Garcia--and arrived at Hanau a hero.
+
+After all, if you think of it, nothing is stronger in the world ...
+and weaker--than a word!
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+The copse in which the duel was to take place was a quarter of a mile
+from Hanau. Sanin and Pantaleone arrived there first, as the latter
+had predicted; they gave orders for the carriage to remain outside
+the wood, and they plunged into the shade of the rather thick and
+close-growing trees. They had to wait about an hour.
+
+The time of waiting did not seem particularly disagreeable to Sanin;
+he walked up and down the path, listened to the birds singing, watched
+the dragonflies in their flight, and like the majority of Russians in
+similar circumstances, tried not to think. He only once dropped into
+reflection; he came across a young lime-tree, broken down, in all
+probability by the squall of the previous night. It was unmistakably
+dying ... all the leaves on it were dead. 'What is it? an omen?'
+was the thought that flashed across his mind; but he promptly began
+whistling, leaped over the very tree, and paced up and down the path.
+As for Pantaleone, he was grumbling, abusing the Germans, sighing
+and moaning, rubbing first his back and then his knees. He even
+yawned from agitation, which gave a very comic expression to his tiny
+shrivelled-up face. Sanin could scarcely help laughing when he looked
+at him.
+
+They heard, at last, the rolling of wheels along the soft road. 'It's
+they!' said Pantaleone, and he was on the alert and drew himself up,
+not without a momentary nervous shiver, which he made haste, however,
+to cover with the ejaculation 'B-r-r!' and the remark that the morning
+was rather fresh. A heavy dew drenched the grass and leaves, but the
+sultry heat penetrated even into the wood.
+
+Both the officers quickly made their appearance under its arched
+avenues; they were accompanied by a little thick-set man, with a
+phlegmatic, almost sleepy, expression of face--the army doctor. He
+carried in one hand an earthenware pitcher of water--to be ready for
+any emergency; a satchel with surgical instruments and bandages hung
+on his left shoulder. It was obvious that he was thoroughly used to
+such excursions; they constituted one of the sources of his income;
+each duel yielded him eight gold crowns--four from each of the
+combatants. Herr von Richter carried a case of pistols, Herr von
+Dönhof--probably considering it the thing--was swinging in his hand a
+little cane.
+
+'Pantaleone!' Sanin whispered to the old man; 'if ... if I'm
+killed--anything may happen--take out of my side pocket a
+paper--there's a flower wrapped up in it--and give the paper to
+Signorina Gemma. Do you hear? You promise?'
+
+The old man looked dejectedly at him, and nodded his head
+affirmatively.... But God knows whether he understood what Sanin was
+asking him to do.
+
+The combatants and the seconds exchanged the customary bows; the
+doctor alone did not move as much as an eyelash; he sat down yawning
+on the grass, as much as to say, 'I'm not here for expressions of
+chivalrous courtesy.' Herr von Richter proposed to Herr 'Tshibadola'
+that he should select the place; Herr 'Tshibadola' responded, moving
+his tongue with difficulty--'the wall' within him had completely given
+way again. 'You act, my dear sir; I will watch....'
+
+And Herr von Richter proceeded to act. He picked out in the wood close
+by a very pretty clearing all studded with flowers; he measured out
+the steps, and marked the two extreme points with sticks, which he cut
+and pointed. He took the pistols out of the case, and squatting on his
+heels, he rammed in the bullets; in short, he fussed about and exerted
+himself to the utmost, continually mopping his perspiring brow with a
+white handkerchief. Pantaleone, who accompanied him, was more like a
+man frozen. During all these preparations, the two principals stood at
+a little distance, looking like two schoolboys who have been punished,
+and are sulky with their tutors.
+
+The decisive moment arrived.... 'Each took his pistol....'
+
+But at this point Herr von Richter observed to Pantaleone that it was
+his duty, as the senior second, according to the rules of the duel,
+to address a final word of advice and exhortation to be reconciled
+to the combatants, before uttering the fatal 'one! two! three!'; that
+although this exhortation had no effect of any sort and was, as a
+rule, nothing but an empty formality, still, by the performance of
+this formality, Herr Cippatola would be rid of a certain share of
+responsibility; that, properly speaking, such an admonition formed the
+direct duty of the so-called 'impartial witness' (_unpartheiischer
+Zeuge_) but since they had no such person present, he, Herr von
+Richter, would readily yield this privilege to his honoured colleague.
+Pantaleone, who had already succeeded in obliterating himself behind
+a bush, so as not to see the offending officer at all, at first made
+out nothing at all of Herr von Richter's speech, especially, as it
+had been delivered through the nose, but all of a sudden he started,
+stepped hurriedly forward, and convulsively thumping at his chest, in
+a hoarse voice wailed out in his mixed jargon: '_A la la la ... Che
+bestialita! Deux zeun ommes comme ça que si battono--perchè? Che
+diavolo? An data a casa!_'
+
+'I will not consent to a reconciliation,' Sanin intervened hurriedly.
+
+'And I too will not,' his opponent repeated after him.
+
+'Well, then shout one, two, three!' von Richter said, addressing the
+distracted Pantaleone. The latter promptly ducked behind the bush
+again, and from there, all huddled together, his eyes screwed up, and
+his head turned away, he shouted at the top of his voice: '_Una ...
+due ... tre!_'
+
+The first shot was Sanin's, and he missed. His bullet went
+ping against a tree. Baron von Dönhof shot directly after
+him--intentionally, to one side, into the air.
+
+A constrained silence followed.... No one moved. Pantaleone uttered a
+faint moan.
+
+'Is it your wish to go on?' said Dönhof.
+
+'Why did you shoot in the air?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'That's nothing to do with you.'
+
+'Will you shoot in the air the second time?' Sanin asked again.
+
+'Possibly: I don't know.'
+
+'Excuse me, excuse me, gentlemen ...' began von Richter; 'duellists
+have not the right to talk together. That's out of order.'
+
+'I decline my shot,' said Sanin, and he threw his pistol on the
+ground.
+
+'And I too do not intend to go on with the duel,' cried Dönhof, and he
+too threw his pistol on the ground. 'And more than that, I am prepared
+to own that I was in the wrong--the day before yesterday.'
+
+He moved uneasily, and hesitatingly held out his hand. Sanin went
+rapidly up to him and shook it. Both the young men looked at each
+other with a smile, and both their faces flushed crimson.
+
+'_Bravi! bravi!_' Pantaleone roared suddenly as if he had gone mad,
+and clapping his hands, he rushed like a whirlwind from behind the
+bush; while the doctor, who had been sitting on one side on a felled
+tree, promptly rose, poured the water out of the jug and walked off
+with a lazy, rolling step out of the wood.
+
+'Honour is satisfied, and the duel is over!' von Richter announced.
+
+'_Fuori!_' Pantaleone boomed once more, through old associations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had exchanged bows with the officers, and taken his seat in
+the carriage, Sanin certainly felt all over him, if not a sense of
+pleasure, at least a certain lightness of heart, as after an operation
+is over; but there was another feeling astir within him too, a feeling
+akin to shame.... The duel, in which he had just played his part,
+struck him as something false, a got-up formality, a common officers'
+and students' farce. He recalled the phlegmatic doctor, he recalled
+how he had grinned, that is, wrinkled up his nose when he saw him
+coming out of the wood almost arm-in-arm with Baron Dönhof. And
+afterwards when Pantaleone had paid him the four crowns due to him ...
+Ah! there was something nasty about it!
+
+Yes, Sanin was a little conscience-smitten and ashamed ... though, on
+the other hand, what was there for him to have done? Could he have
+left the young officer's insolence unrebuked? could he have behaved
+like Herr Klüber? He had stood up for Gemma, he had championed her ...
+that was so; and yet, there was an uneasy pang in his heart, and he
+was conscience--smitten, and even ashamed.
+
+Not so Pantaleone--he was simply in his glory! He was suddenly
+possessed by a feeling of pride. A victorious general, returning from
+the field of battle he has won, could not have looked about him with
+greater self-satisfaction. Sanin's demeanour during the duel filled
+him with enthusiasm. He called him a hero, and would not listen to his
+exhortations and even his entreaties. He compared him to a monument
+of marble or of bronze, with the statue of the commander in Don Juan!
+For himself he admitted he had been conscious of some perturbation
+of mind, 'but, of course, I am an artist,' he observed; 'I have a
+highly-strung nature, while you are the son of the snows and the
+granite rocks.'
+
+Sanin was positively at a loss how to quiet the jubilant artist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost at the same place in the road where two hours before they had
+come upon Emil, he again jumped out from behind a tree, and, with a
+cry of joy upon his lips, waving his cap and leaping into the air,
+he rushed straight at the carriage, almost fell under the wheel,
+and, without waiting for the horses to stop, clambered up over the
+carriage-door and fairly clung to Sanin.
+
+'You are alive, you are not wounded!' he kept repeating. 'Forgive me,
+I did not obey you, I did not go back to Frankfort ... I could not! I
+waited for you here ... Tell me how was it? You ... killed him?'
+
+Sanin with some difficulty pacified Emil and made him sit down.
+
+With great verbosity, with evident pleasure, Pantaleone communicated
+to him all the details of the duel, and, of course, did not omit to
+refer again to the monument of bronze and the statue of the commander.
+He even rose from his seat and, standing with his feet wide apart to
+preserve his equilibrium, folding his arm on his chest and looking
+contemptuously over his shoulder, gave an ocular representation of the
+commander--Sanin! Emil listened with awe, occasionally interrupting
+the narrative with an exclamation, or swiftly getting up and as
+swiftly kissing his heroic friend.
+
+The carriage wheels rumbled over the paved roads of Frankfort, and
+stopped at last before the hotel where Sanin was living.
+
+Escorted by his two companions, he went up the stairs, when suddenly a
+woman came with hurried steps out of the dark corridor; her face was
+hidden by a veil, she stood still, facing Sanin, wavered a little,
+gave a trembling sigh, at once ran down into the street and vanished,
+to the great astonishment of the waiter, who explained that 'that
+lady had been for over an hour waiting for the return of the foreign
+gentleman.' Momentary as was the apparition, Sanin recognised Gemma.
+He recognised her eyes under the thick silk of her brown veil.
+
+'Did Fräulein Gemma know, then?'... he said slowly in a displeased
+voice in German, addressing Emil and Pantaleone, who were following
+close on his heels.
+
+Emil blushed and was confused.
+
+'I was obliged to tell her all,' he faltered; 'she guessed, and I
+could not help it.... But now that's of no consequence,' he hurried to
+add eagerly, 'everything has ended so splendidly, and she has seen you
+well and uninjured!'
+
+Sanin turned away.
+
+'What a couple of chatterboxes you are!' he observed in a tone of
+annoyance, as he went into his room and sat down on a chair.
+
+'Don't be angry, please,' Emil implored.
+
+'Very well, I won't be angry'--(Sanin was not, in fact, angry--and,
+after all, he could hardly have desired that Gemma should know nothing
+about it). 'Very well ... that's enough embracing. You get along now.
+I want to be alone. I'm going to sleep. I'm tired.'
+
+'An excellent idea!' cried Pantaleone. 'You need repose! You have
+fully earned it, noble signor! Come along, Emilio! On tip-toe! On
+tip-toe! Sh--sh--sh!'
+
+When he said he wanted to go to sleep, Sanin had simply wished to get
+rid of his companions; but when he was left alone, he was really aware
+of considerable weariness in all his limbs; he had hardly closed his
+eyes all the preceding night, and throwing himself on his bed he fell
+immediately into a sound sleep.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+He slept for some hours without waking. Then he began to dream that
+he was once more fighting a duel, that the antagonist standing facing
+him was Herr Klüber, and on a fir-tree was sitting a parrot, and this
+parrot was Pantaleone, and he kept tapping with his beak: one, one,
+one!
+
+'One ... one ... one!' he heard the tapping too distinctly; he opened
+his eyes, raised his head ... some one was knocking at his door.
+
+'Come in!' called Sanin.
+
+The waiter came in and answered that a lady very particularly wished
+to see him.
+
+'Gemma!' flashed into his head ... but the lady turned out to be her
+mother, Frau Lenore.
+
+Directly she came in, she dropped at once into a chair and began to
+cry.
+
+'What is the matter, my dear, good Madame Roselli?' began Sanin,
+sitting beside her and softly touching her hand. 'What has happened?
+calm yourself, I entreat you.'
+
+'Ah, Herr Dimitri, I am very ... very miserable!'
+
+'You are miserable?'
+
+'Ah, very! Could I have foreseen such a thing? All of a sudden, like
+thunder from a clear sky ...'
+
+She caught her breath.
+
+'But what is it? Explain! Would you like a glass of water?'
+
+'No, thank you.' Frau Lenore wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and
+began to cry with renewed energy. 'I know all, you see! All!'
+
+'All? that is to say?'
+
+'Everything that took place to-day! And the cause ... I know that too!
+You acted like an honourable man; but what an unfortunate combination
+of circumstances! I was quite right in not liking that excursion to
+Soden ... quite right!' (Frau Lenore had said nothing of the sort
+on the day of the excursion, but she was convinced now that she had
+foreseen 'all' even then.) 'I have come to you as to an honourable
+man, as to a friend, though I only saw you for the first time five
+days ago.... But you know I am a widow, a lonely woman.... My
+daughter ...'
+
+Tears choked Frau Lenore's voice. Sanin did not know what to think.
+'Your daughter?' he repeated.
+
+'My daughter, Gemma,' broke almost with a groan from Frau Lenore,
+behind the tear-soaked handkerchief, 'informed me to-day that she
+would not marry Herr Klüber, and that I must refuse him!'
+
+Sanin positively started back a little; he had not expected that.
+
+'I won't say anything now,' Frau Lenore went on, 'of the disgrace
+of it, of its being something unheard of in the world for a girl to
+jilt her betrothed; but you see it's ruin for us, Herr Dimitri!' Frau
+Lenore slowly and carefully twisted up her handkerchief in a tiny,
+tiny little ball, as though she would enclose all her grief within it.
+'We can't go on living on the takings of our shop, Herr Dimitri! and
+Herr Klüber is very rich, and will be richer still. And what is he to
+be refused for? Because he did not defend his betrothed? Allowing that
+was not very handsome on his part, still, he's a civilian, has not had
+a university education, and as a solid business man, it was for him
+to look with contempt on the frivolous prank of some unknown little
+officer. And what sort of insult was it, after all, Herr Dimitri?'
+
+'Excuse me, Frau Lenore, you seem to be blaming me.'
+
+'I am not blaming you in the least, not in the least! You're quite
+another matter; you are, like all Russians, a military man ...'
+
+'Excuse me, I'm not at all ...'
+
+'You're a foreigner, a visitor, and I'm grateful to you,' Frau Lenore
+went on, not heeding Sanin. She sighed, waved her hands, unwound her
+handkerchief again, and blew her nose. Simply from the way in which
+her distress expressed itself, it could be seen that she had not been
+born under a northern sky.
+
+'And how is Herr Klüber to look after his shop, if he is to fight
+with his customers? It's utterly inconsistent! And now I am to send
+him away! But what are we going to live on? At one time we were the
+only people that made angel cakes, and nougat of pistachio nuts, and
+we had plenty of customers; but now all the shops make angel cakes!
+Only consider; even without this, they'll talk in the town about your
+duel ... it's impossible to keep it secret. And all of a sudden, the
+marriage broken off! It will be a scandal, a scandal! Gemma is a
+splendid girl, she loves me; but she's an obstinate republican, she
+doesn't care for the opinion of others. You're the only person that
+can persuade her!'
+
+Sanin was more amazed than ever. 'I, Frau Lenore?'
+
+'Yes, you alone ... you alone. That's why I have come to you; I could
+not think of anything else to do! You are so clever, so good! You
+have fought in her defence. She will trust you! She is bound to trust
+you--why, you have risked your life on her account! You will make her
+understand, for I can do nothing more; you make her understand that
+she will bring ruin on herself and all of us. You saved my son--save
+my daughter too! God Himself sent you here ... I am ready on my knees
+to beseech you....' And Frau Lenore half rose from her seat as though
+about to fall at Sanin's feet.... He restrained her.
+
+'Frau Lenore! For mercy's sake! What are you doing?'
+
+She clutched his hand impulsively. 'You promise ...'
+
+'Frau Lenore, think a moment; what right have I ...'
+
+'You promise? You don't want me to die here at once before your eyes?'
+
+Sanin was utterly nonplussed. It was the first time in his life he had
+had to deal with any one of ardent Italian blood.
+
+'I will do whatever you like,' he cried. 'I will talk to Fräulein
+Gemma....'
+
+Frau Lenore uttered a cry of delight.
+
+'Only I really can't say what result will come of it ...'
+
+'Ah, don't go back, don't go back from your words!' cried Frau Lenore
+in an imploring voice; 'you have already consented! The result is
+certain to be excellent. Any way, _I_ can do nothing more! She won't
+listen to _me_!'
+
+'Has she so positively stated her disinclination to marry Herr
+Klüber?' Sanin inquired after a short silence.
+
+'As if she'd cut the knot with a knife! She's her father all over,
+Giovanni Battista! Wilful girl!'
+
+'Wilful? Is she!' ... Sanin said slowly. 'Yes ... yes ... but she's
+an angel too. She will mind you. Are you coming soon? Oh, my dear
+Russian friend!' Frau Lenore rose impulsively from her chair, and as
+impulsively clasped the head of Sanin, who was sitting opposite her.
+'Accept a mother's blessing--and give me some water!'
+
+Sanin brought Signora Roselli a glass of water, gave her his word of
+honour that he would come directly, escorted her down the stairs to
+the street, and when he was back in his own room, positively threw up
+his arms and opened his eyes wide in his amazement.
+
+'Well,' he thought, 'well, _now_ life is going round in a whirl! And
+it's whirling so that I'm giddy.' He did not attempt to look within,
+to realise what was going on in himself: it was all uproar and
+confusion, and that was all he knew! What a day it had been! His lips
+murmured unconsciously: 'Wilful ... her mother says ... and I have got
+to advise her ... her! And advise her what?'
+
+Sanin, really, was giddy, and above all this whirl of shifting
+sensations and impressions and unfinished thoughts, there floated
+continually the image of Gemma, the image so ineffaceably impressed on
+his memory on that hot night, quivering with electricity, in that dark
+window, in the light of the swarming stars!
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+With hesitating footsteps Sanin approached the house of Signora
+Roselli. His heart was beating violently; he distinctly felt, and even
+heard it thumping at his side. What should he say to Gemma, how should
+he begin? He went into the house, not through the shop, but by the
+back entrance. In the little outer room he met Frau Lenore. She was
+both relieved and scared at the sight of him.
+
+'I have been expecting you,' she said in a whisper, squeezing his hand
+with each of hers in turn. 'Go into the garden; she is there. Mind, I
+rely on you!'
+
+Sanin went into the garden.
+
+Gemma was sitting on a garden-seat near the path, she was sorting a
+big basket full of cherries, picking out the ripest, and putting them
+on a dish. The sun was low--it was seven o'clock in the evening--and
+there was more purple than gold in the full slanting light with which
+it flooded the whole of Signora Roselli's little garden. From time
+to time, faintly audibly, and as it were deliberately, the leaves
+rustled, and belated bees buzzed abruptly as they flew from one
+flower to the next, and somewhere a dove was cooing a never-changing,
+unceasing note. Gemma had on the same round hat in which she had
+driven to Soden. She peeped at Sanin from under its turned-down brim,
+and again bent over the basket.
+
+Sanin went up to Gemma, unconsciously making each step shorter, and
+... and ... and nothing better could he find to say to her than to ask
+why was she sorting the cherries.
+
+Gemma was in no haste to reply.
+
+'These are riper,' she observed at last, 'they will go into jam, and
+those are for tarts. You know the round sweet tarts we sell?'
+
+As she said those words, Gemma bent her head still lower, and her
+right hand with two cherries in her fingers was suspended in the air
+between the basket and the dish.
+
+'May I sit by you?' asked Sanin.
+
+'Yes.' Gemma moved a little along on the seat. Sanin placed himself
+beside her. 'How am I to begin?' was his thought. But Gemma got him
+out of his difficulty.
+
+'You have fought a duel to-day,' she began eagerly, and she turned
+all her lovely, bashfully flushing face to him--and what depths of
+gratitude were shining in those eyes! 'And you are so calm! I suppose
+for you danger does not exist?'
+
+'Oh, come! I have not been exposed to any danger. Everything went off
+very satisfactorily and inoffensively.'
+
+Gemma passed her finger to right and to left before her eyes ... Also
+an Italian gesture. 'No! no! don't say that! You won't deceive me!
+Pantaleone has told me everything!'
+
+'He's a trustworthy witness! Did he compare me to the statue of the
+commander?'
+
+'His expressions may be ridiculous, but his feeling is not ridiculous,
+nor is what you have done to-day. And all that on my account ... for
+me ... I shall never forget it.'
+
+'I assure you, Fräulein Gemma ...'
+
+'I shall never forget it,' she said deliberately; once more she looked
+intently at him, and turned away.
+
+He could now see her delicate pure profile, and it seemed to him that
+he had never seen anything like it, and had never known anything like
+what he was feeling at that instant. His soul was on fire.
+
+'And my promise!' flashed in among his thoughts.
+
+'Fräulein Gemma ...' he began after a momentary hesitation.
+
+'What?'
+
+She did not turn to him, she went on sorting the cherries, carefully
+taking them by their stalks with her finger-tips, assiduously picking
+out the leaves.... But what a confiding caress could be heard in that
+one word,
+
+'What?'
+
+'Has your mother said nothing to you ... about ...'
+
+'About?'
+
+'About me?'
+
+Gemma suddenly flung back into the basket the cherries she had taken.
+
+'Has she been talking to you?' she asked in her turn.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What has she been saying to you?'
+
+'She told me that you ... that you have suddenly decided to change
+... your former intention.' Gemma's head was bent again. She vanished
+altogether under her hat; nothing could be seen but her neck, supple
+and tender as the stalk of a big flower.
+
+'What intentions?'
+
+'Your intentions ... relative to ... the future arrangement of your
+life.'
+
+'That is ... you are speaking ... of Herr Klüber?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Mamma told you I don't want to be Herr Klüber's wife?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Gemma moved forward on the seat. The basket tottered, fell ... a few
+cherries rolled on to the path. A minute passed by ... another.
+
+'Why did she tell you so?' he heard her voice saying. Sanin as before
+could only see Gemma's neck. Her bosom rose and fell more rapidly than
+before.
+
+'Why? Your mother thought that as you and I, in a short time, have
+become, so to say, friends, and you have some confidence in me, I am
+in a position to give you good advice--and you would mind what I say.'
+
+Gemma's hands slowly slid on to her knees. She began plucking at the
+folds of her dress.
+
+'What advice will you give me, Monsieur Dimitri?' she asked, after a
+short pause.
+
+Sanin saw that Gemma's fingers were trembling on her knees.... She was
+only plucking at the folds of her dress to hide their trembling. He
+softly laid his hand on those pale, shaking fingers.
+
+'Gemma,' he said, 'why don't you look at me?' She instantly tossed her
+hat back on to her shoulder, and bent her eyes upon him, confiding and
+grateful as before. She waited for him to speak.... But the sight of
+her face had bewildered, and, as it were, dazed him. The warm glow of
+the evening sun lighted up her youthful head, and the expression of
+that head was brighter, more radiant than its glow.
+
+'I will mind what you say, Monsieur Dimitri,' she said, faintly
+smiling, and faintly arching her brows; 'but what advice do you give
+me?'
+
+'What advice?' repeated Sanin. 'Well, you see, your mother considers
+that to dismiss Herr Klüber simply because he did not show any special
+courage the day before yesterday ...'
+
+'Simply because?' said Gemma. She bent down, picked up the basket, and
+set it beside her on the garden seat.
+
+'That ... altogether ... to dismiss him, would be, on your part
+... unreasonable; that it is a step, all the consequences of which
+ought to be thoroughly weighed; that in fact the very position of
+your affairs imposes certain obligations on every member of your
+family ...'
+
+'All that is mamma's opinion,' Gemma interposed; 'those are her words;
+but what is your opinion?'
+
+'Mine?' Sanin was silent for a while. He felt a lump rising in his
+throat and catching at his breath. 'I too consider,' he began with an
+effort ...
+
+Gemma drew herself up. 'Too? You too?'
+
+'Yes ... that is ...' Sanin was unable, positively unable to add a
+single word more.
+
+'Very well,' said Gemma. 'If you, as a friend, advise me to change my
+decision--that is, not to change my former decision--I will think it
+over.' Not knowing what she was doing, she began to tip the cherries
+back from the plate into the basket.... 'Mamma hopes that I will mind
+what you say. Well ... perhaps I really will mind what you say.'
+
+'But excuse me, Fräulein Gemma, I should like first to know what
+reason impelled you ...'
+
+'I will mind what you say,' Gemma repeated, her face right up to her
+brows was working, her cheeks were white, she was biting her lower
+lip. 'You have done so much for me, that I am bound to do as you wish;
+bound to carry out your wishes. I will tell mamma ... I will think
+again. Here she is, by the way, coming here.'
+
+Frau Lenore did in fact appear in the doorway leading from the house
+to the garden. She was in an agony of impatience; she could not
+keep still. According to her calculations, Sanin must long ago have
+finished all he had to say to Gemma, though his conversation with her
+had not lasted a quarter of an hour.
+
+'No, no, no, for God's sake, don't tell her anything yet,' Sanin
+articulated hurriedly, almost in alarm. 'Wait a little ... I will tell
+you, I will write to you ... and till then don't decide on anything
+... wait!'
+
+He pressed Gemma's hand, jumped up from the seat, and to Frau Lenore's
+great amazement, rushed past her, and raising his hat, muttered
+something unintelligible--and vanished.
+
+She went up to her daughter.
+
+'Tell me, please, Gemma...'
+
+The latter suddenly got up and hugged her. 'Dear mamma, can you wait a
+little, a tiny bit ... till to-morrow? Can you? And till to-morrow not
+a word?... Ah!...'
+
+She burst into sudden happy tears, incomprehensible to herself. This
+surprised Frau Lenore, the more as the expression of Gemma's face was
+far from sorrowful,--rather joyful in fact.
+
+'What is it?' she asked. 'You never cry and here, all at once ...'
+
+'Nothing, mamma, never mind! you only wait. We must both wait a
+little. Don't ask me anything till to-morrow--and let us sort the
+cherries before the sun has set.'
+
+'But you will be reasonable?'
+
+'Oh, I'm very reasonable!' Gemma shook her head significantly. She
+began to make up little bunches of cherries, holding them high above
+her flushed face. She did not wipe away her tears; they had dried of
+themselves.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Almost running, Sanin returned to his hotel room. He felt, he knew
+that only there, only by himself, would it be clear to him at last
+what was the matter, what was happening to him. And so it was;
+directly he had got inside his room, directly he had sat down to the
+writing-table, with both elbows on the table and both hands pressed to
+his face, he cried in a sad and choked voice, 'I love her, love her
+madly!' and he was all aglow within, like a fire when a thick layer
+of dead ash has been suddenly blown off. An instant more ... and he
+was utterly unable to understand how he could have sat beside her
+... her!--and talked to her and not have felt that he worshipped the
+very hem of her garment, that he was ready as young people express
+it 'to die at her feet.' The last interview in the garden had decided
+everything. Now when he thought of her, she did not appear to him with
+blazing curls in the shining starlight; he saw her sitting on the
+garden-seat, saw her all at once tossing back her hat, and gazing at
+him so confidingly ... and the tremor and hunger of love ran through
+all his veins. He remembered the rose which he had been carrying about
+in his pocket for three days: he snatched it out, and pressed it with
+such feverish violence to his lips, that he could not help frowning
+with the pain. Now he considered nothing, reflected on nothing, did
+not deliberate, and did not look forward; he had done with all his
+past, he leaped forward into the future; from the dreary bank of his
+lonely bachelor life he plunged headlong into that glad, seething,
+mighty torrent--and little he cared, little he wished to know, where
+it would carry him, or whether it would dash him against a rock! No
+more the soft-flowing currents of the Uhland song, which had lulled
+him not long ago ... These were mighty, irresistible torrents! They
+rush flying onwards and he flies with them....
+
+He took a sheet of paper, and without blotting out a word, almost with
+one sweep of the pen, wrote as follows:--
+
+'DEAR GEMMA,--You know what advice I undertook to give you, what your
+mother desired, and what she asked of me; but what you don't know and
+what I must tell you now is, that I love you, love you with all the
+ardour of a heart that loves for the first time! This passion has
+flamed up in me suddenly, but with such force that I can find no words
+for it! When your mother came to me and asked me, it was still only
+smouldering in me, or else I should certainly, as an honest man, have
+refused to carry out her request.... The confession I make you now is
+the confession of an honest man. You ought to know whom you have to do
+with--between us there should exist no misunderstandings. You see that
+I cannot give you any advice.... I love you, love you, love you--and I
+have nothing else--either in my head or in my heart!!
+
+'DM. SANIN.'
+
+When he had folded and sealed this note, Sanin was on the point of
+ringing for the waiter and sending it by him.... 'No!' he thought, 'it
+would be awkward.... By Emil? But to go to the shop, and seek him out
+there among the other employés, would be awkward too. Besides, it's
+dark by now, and he has probably left the shop.' Reflecting after this
+fashion, Sanin put on his hat, however, and went into the street; he
+turned a corner, another, and to his unspeakable delight, saw Emil
+before him. With a satchel under his arm, and a roll of papers in his
+hand, the young enthusiast was hurrying home.
+
+'They may well say every lover has a lucky star,' thought Sanin, and
+he called to Emil.
+
+The latter turned and at once rushed to him.
+
+Sanin cut short his transports, handed him the note, and explained to
+whom and how he was to deliver it.... Emil listened attentively.
+
+'So that no one sees?' he inquired, assuming an important and
+mysterious air, that said, 'We understand the inner meaning of it
+all!'
+
+'Yes, my friend,' said Sanin and he was a little disconcerted;
+however, he patted Emil on the cheek.... 'And if there should be an
+answer.... You will bring me the answer, won't you? I will stay at
+home.'
+
+'Don't worry yourself about that!' Emil whispered gaily; he ran off,
+and as he ran nodded once more to him.
+
+Sanin went back home, and without lighting a candle, flung himself
+on the sofa, put his hands behind his head, and abandoned himself to
+those sensations of newly conscious love, which it is no good even to
+describe. One who has felt them knows their languor and sweetness; to
+one who has felt them not, one could never make them known.
+
+The door opened--Emil's head appeared.
+
+'I have brought it,' he said in a whisper: 'here it is--the answer!'
+
+He showed and waved above his head a folded sheet of paper.
+
+Sanin leaped up from the sofa and snatched it out of Emil's hand.
+Passion was working too powerfully within him: he had no thought of
+reserve now, nor of the observance of a suitable demeanour--even
+before this boy, her brother. He would have been scrupulous, he would
+have controlled himself--if he could!
+
+He went to the window, and by the light of a street lamp which stood
+just opposite the house, he read the following lines:--
+
+I beg you, I beseech you--_don't come to see us, don't show yourself
+all day to-morrow_. It's necessary, absolutely necessary for me,
+and then everything shall be settled. I know you will not say no,
+because ...
+
+'GEMMA.'
+
+Sanin read this note twice through. Oh, how touchingly sweet and
+beautiful her handwriting seemed to him! He thought a little, and
+turning to Emil, who, wishing to give him to understand what a
+discreet young person he was, was standing with his face to the wall,
+and scratching on it with his finger-nails, he called him aloud by
+name.
+
+Emil ran at once to Sanin. 'What do you want me to do?'
+
+'Listen, my young friend...'
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' Emil interrupted in a plaintive voice, 'why do you
+address me so formally?'
+
+Sanin laughed. 'Oh, very well. Listen, my dearest boy--(Emil gave a
+little skip of delight)--listen; _there_ you understand, there, you
+will say, that everything shall be done exactly as is wished--(Emil
+compressed his lips and nodded solemnly)--and as for me ... what are
+you doing to-morrow, my dear boy?'
+
+'I? what am I doing? What would you like me to do?'
+
+'If you can, come to me early in the morning--and we will walk about
+the country round Frankfort till evening.... Would you like to?'
+
+Emil gave another little skip. 'I say, what in the world could be
+jollier? Go a walk with you--why, it's simply glorious! I'll be sure
+to come!'
+
+'And if they won't let you?'
+
+'They will let me!'
+
+'Listen ... Don't say _there_ that I asked you to come for the whole
+day.'
+
+'Why should I? But I'll get away all the same! What does it matter?'
+
+Emil warmly kissed Sanin, and ran away.
+
+Sanin walked up and down the room a long while, and went late to bed.
+He gave himself up to the same delicate and sweet sensations, the same
+joyous thrill at facing a new life. Sanin was very glad that the idea
+had occurred to him to invite Emil to spend the next day with him; he
+was like his sister. 'He will recall her,' was his thought.
+
+But most of all, he marvelled how he could have been yesterday other
+than he was to-day. It seemed to him that he had loved Gemma for all
+time; and that he had loved her just as he loved her to-day.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+At eight o'clock next morning, Emil arrived at Sanin's hotel leading
+Tartaglia by a string. Had he sprung of German parentage, he could
+not have shown greater practicality. He had told a lie at home; he
+had said he was going for a walk with Sanin till lunch-time, and then
+going to the shop. While Sanin was dressing, Emil began to talk to
+him, rather hesitatingly, it is true, about Gemma, about her rupture
+with Herr Klüber; but Sanin preserved an austere silence in reply, and
+Emil, looking as though he understood why so serious a matter should
+not be touched on lightly, did not return to the subject, and only
+assumed from time to time an intense and even severe expression.
+
+After drinking coffee, the two friends set off together--on foot,
+of course--to Hausen, a little village lying a short distance from
+Frankfort, and surrounded by woods. The whole chain of the Taunus
+mountains could be seen clearly from there. The weather was lovely;
+the sunshine was bright and warm, but not blazing hot; a fresh wind
+rustled briskly among the green leaves; the shadows of high, round
+clouds glided swiftly and smoothly in small patches over the earth.
+The two young people soon got out of the town, and stepped out boldly
+and gaily along the well-kept road. They reached the woods, and
+wandered about there a long time; then they lunched very heartily at
+a country inn; then climbed on to the mountains, admired the views,
+rolled stones down and clapped their hands, watching the queer droll
+way in which the stones hopped along like rabbits, till a man passing
+below, unseen by them, began abusing them in a loud ringing voice.
+Then they lay full length on the short dry moss of yellowish-violet
+colour; then they drank beer at another inn; ran races, and tried for
+a wager which could jump farthest. They discovered an echo, and began
+to call to it; sang songs, hallooed, wrestled, broke up dry twigs,
+decked their hats with fern, and even danced. Tartaglia, as far as he
+could, shared in all these pastimes; he did not throw stones, it is
+true, but he rolled head over heels after them; he howled when they
+were singing, and even drank beer, though with evident aversion;
+he had been trained in this art by a student to whom he had once
+belonged. But he was not prompt in obeying Emil--not as he was with
+his master Pantaleone--and when Emil ordered him to 'speak,' or to
+'sneeze,' he only wagged his tail and thrust out his tongue like a
+pipe.
+
+The young people talked, too. At the beginning of the walk, Sanin, as
+the elder, and so more reflective, turned the conversation on fate and
+predestination, and the nature and meaning of man's destiny; but the
+conversation quickly took a less serious turn. Emil began to question
+his friend and patron about Russia, how duels were fought there, and
+whether the women there were beautiful, and whether one could learn
+Russian quickly, and what he had felt when the officer took aim
+at him. Sanin, on his side, questioned Emil about his father, his
+mother, and in general about their family affairs, trying every time
+not to mention Gemma's name--and thinking only of her. To speak more
+precisely, it was not of her he was thinking, but of the morrow, the
+mysterious morrow which was to bring him new, unknown happiness! It
+was as though a veil, a delicate, bright veil, hung faintly fluttering
+before his mental vision; and behind this veil he felt ... felt the
+presence of a youthful, motionless, divine image, with a tender smile
+on its lips, and eyelids severely--with affected seventy--downcast.
+And this image was not the face of Gemma, it was the face of happiness
+itself! For, behold, at last _his_ hour had come, the veil had
+vanished, the lips were parting, the eyelashes are raised--his
+divinity has looked upon him--and at once light as from the sun,
+and joy and bliss unending! He dreamed of this morrow--and his soul
+thrilled with joy again in the melting torture of ever-growing
+expectation!
+
+And this expectation, this torture, hindered nothing. It accompanied
+every action, and did not prevent anything. It did not prevent him
+from dining capitally at a third inn with Emil; and only occasionally,
+like a brief flash of lightning, the thought shot across him, What
+if any one in the world knew? This suspense did not prevent him from
+playing leap-frog with Emil after dinner. The game took place on an
+open green lawn. And the confusion, the stupefaction of Sanin may be
+imagined! At the very moment when, accompanied by a sharp bark from
+Tartaglia, he was flying like a bird, with his legs outspread over
+Emil, who was bent double, he suddenly saw on the farthest border of
+the lawn two officers, in whom he recognised at once his adversary and
+his second, Herr von Dönhof and Herr von Richter! Each of them had
+stuck an eyeglass in his eye, and was staring at him, chuckling!...
+Sanin got on his feet, turned away hurriedly, put on the coat he had
+flung down, jerked out a word to Emil; the latter, too, put on his
+jacket, and they both immediately made off.
+
+It was late when they got back to Frankfort. 'They'll scold me,' Emil
+said to Sanin as he said good-bye to him. 'Well, what does it matter?
+I've had such a splendid, splendid day!'
+
+When he got home to his hotel, Sanin found a note there from Gemma.
+She fixed a meeting with him for next day, at seven o'clock in the
+morning, in one of the public gardens which surround Frankfort on all
+sides.
+
+How his heart throbbed! How glad he was that he had obeyed her so
+unconditionally! And, my God, what was promised ... what was not
+promised, by that unknown, unique, impossible, and undubitably certain
+morrow!
+
+He feasted his eyes on Gemma's note. The long, elegant tail of the
+letter G, the first letter of her name, which stood at the bottom of
+the sheet, reminded him of her lovely fingers, her hand.... He thought
+that he had not once touched that hand with his lips.... 'Italian
+women,' he mused, 'in spite of what's said of them, are modest and
+severe.... And Gemma above all! Queen ... goddess ... pure, virginal
+marble....'
+
+'But the time will come; and it is not far off....' There was that
+night in Frankfort one happy man.... He slept; but he might have said
+of himself in the words of the poet:
+
+  'I sleep ... but my watchful heart sleeps not.'
+
+And it fluttered as lightly as a butterfly flutters his wings, as he
+stoops over the flowers in the summer sunshine.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+At five o'clock Sanin woke up, at six he was dressed, at half-past
+six he was walking up and down the public garden within sight of the
+little arbour which Gemma had mentioned in her note. It was a still,
+warm, grey morning. It sometimes seemed as though it were beginning
+to rain; but the outstretched hand felt nothing, and only looking at
+one's coat-sleeve, one could see traces of tiny drops like diminutive
+beads, but even these were soon gone. It seemed there had never been
+a breath of wind in the world. Every sound moved not, but was shed
+around in the stillness. In the distance was a faint thickening of
+whitish mist; in the air there was a scent of mignonette and white
+acacia flowers.
+
+In the streets the shops were not open yet, but there were already
+some people walking about; occasionally a solitary carriage rumbled
+along ... there was no one walking in the garden. A gardener was in a
+leisurely way scraping the path with a spade, and a decrepit old woman
+in a black woollen cloak was hobbling across the garden walk. Sanin
+could not for one instant mistake this poor old creature for Gemma;
+and yet his heart leaped, and he watched attentively the retreating
+patch of black.
+
+Seven! chimed the clock on the tower. Sanin stood still. Was it
+possible she would not come? A shiver of cold suddenly ran through
+his limbs. The same shiver came again an instant later, but from a
+different cause. Sanin heard behind him light footsteps, the light
+rustle of a woman's dress.... He turned round: she!
+
+Gemma was coming up behind him along the path. She was wearing a grey
+cape and a small dark hat. She glanced at Sanin, turned her head away,
+and catching him up, passed rapidly by him.
+
+'Gemma,' he articulated, hardly audibly.
+
+She gave him a little nod, and continued to walk on in front. He
+followed her.
+
+He breathed in broken gasps. His legs shook under him.
+
+Gemma passed by the arbour, turned to the right, passed by a small
+flat fountain, in which the sparrows were splashing busily, and, going
+behind a clump of high lilacs, sank down on a bench. The place was
+snug and hidden. Sanin sat down beside her.
+
+A minute passed, and neither he nor she uttered a word. She did not
+even look at him; and he gazed not at her face, but at her clasped
+hands, in which she held a small parasol. What was there to tell, what
+was there to say, which could compare, in importance, with the simple
+fact of their presence there, together, alone, so early, so close to
+each other.
+
+'You ... are not angry with me?' Sanin articulated at last.
+
+It would have been difficult for Sanin to have said anything more
+foolish than these words ... he was conscious of it himself.... But,
+at any rate, the silence was broken.
+
+'Angry?' she answered. 'What for? No.'
+
+'And you believe me?' he went on.
+
+'In what you wrote?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Gemma's head sank, and she said nothing. The parasol slipped out of
+her hands. She hastily caught it before it dropped on the path.
+
+'Ah, believe me! believe what I wrote to you!' cried Sanin; all his
+timidity suddenly vanished, he spoke with heat; 'if there is truth
+on earth--sacred, absolute truth--it's that I love, love you
+passionately, Gemma.'
+
+She flung him a sideway, momentary glance, and again almost dropped
+the parasol.
+
+'Believe me! believe me!' he repeated. He besought her, held out his
+hands to her, and did not dare to touch her. 'What do you want me to
+do ... to convince you?'
+
+She glanced at him again.
+
+'Tell me, Monsieur Dimitri,' she began; 'the day before yesterday,
+when you came to talk to me, you did not, I imagine, know then ... did
+not feel ...'
+
+'I felt it,' Sanin broke in; 'but I did not know it. I have loved you
+from the very instant I saw you; but I did not realise at once what
+you had become to me! And besides, I heard that you were solemnly
+betrothed.... As far as your mother's request is concerned--in the
+first place, how could I refuse?--and secondly, I think I carried out
+her request in such a way that you could guess....'
+
+They heard a heavy tread, and a rather stout gentleman with a knapsack
+over his shoulder, apparently a foreigner, emerged from behind the
+clump, and staring, with the unceremoniousness of a tourist, at the
+couple sitting on the garden-seat, gave a loud cough and went on.
+
+'Your mother,' Sanin began, as soon as the sound of the heavy
+footsteps had ceased, 'told me your breaking off your engagement would
+cause a scandal'--Gemma frowned a little--that I was myself in part
+responsible for unpleasant gossip, and that ... consequently ... I
+was, to some extent, under an obligation to advise you not to break
+with your betrothed, Herr Klüber....'
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' said Gemma, and she passed her hand over her hair
+on the side turned towards Sanin, 'don't, please, call Herr Klüber my
+betrothed. I shall never be his wife. I have broken with him.'
+
+'You have broken with him? when?'
+
+'Yesterday.'
+
+'You saw him?'
+
+'Yes. At our house. He came to see us.'
+
+'Gemma? Then you love me?'
+
+She turned to him.
+
+'Should ... I have come here, if not?' she whispered, and both her
+hands fell on the seat.
+
+Sanin snatched those powerless, upturned palms, and pressed them to
+his eyes, to his lips.... Now the veil was lifted of which he had
+dreamed the night before! Here was happiness, here was its radiant
+form!
+
+He raised his head, and looked at Gemma, boldly and directly. She,
+too, looked at him, a little downwards. Her half-shut eyes faintly
+glistened, dim with light, blissful tears. Her face was not smiling
+... no! it laughed, with a blissful, noiseless laugh.
+
+He tried to draw her to him, but she drew back, and never ceasing to
+laugh the same noiseless laugh, shook her head. 'Wait a little,' her
+happy eyes seemed to say.
+
+'O Gemma!' cried Sanin: 'I never dreamed that you would love me!'
+
+'I did not expect this myself,' Gemma said softly.
+
+'How could I ever have dreamed,' Sanin went on, 'when I came to
+Frankfort, where I only expected to remain a few hours, that I should
+find here the happiness of all my life!'
+
+'All your life? Really?' queried Gemma.
+
+'All my life, for ever and ever!' cried Sanin with fresh ardour.
+
+The gardener's spade suddenly scraped two paces from where they were
+sitting.
+
+'Let's go home,' whispered Gemma: 'we'll go together--will you?'
+
+If she had said to him at that instant 'Throw yourself in the sea,
+will you?' he would have been flying headlong into the ocean before
+she had uttered the last word.
+
+They went together out of the garden and turned homewards, not by the
+streets of the town, but through the outskirts.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+Sanin walked along, at one time by Gemma's side, at another time a
+little behind her. He never took his eyes off her and never ceased
+smiling. She seemed to hasten ... seemed to linger. As a matter of
+fact, they both--he all pale, and she all flushed with emotion--were
+moving along as in a dream. What they had done together a few instants
+before--that surrender of each soul to another soul--was so intense,
+so new, and so moving; so suddenly everything in their lives had been
+changed and displaced that they could not recover themselves, and were
+only aware of a whirlwind carrying them along, like the whirlwind
+on that night, which had almost flung them into each other's arms.
+Sanin walked along, and felt that he even looked at Gemma with other
+eyes; he instantly noted some peculiarities in her walk, in her
+movements,--and heavens! how infinitely sweet and precious they were
+to him! And she felt that that was how he was looking at her.
+
+Sanin and she were in love for the first time; all the miracles of
+first love were working in them. First love is like a revolution; the
+uniformly regular routine of ordered life is broken down and shattered
+in one instant; youth mounts the barricade, waves high its bright
+flag, and whatever awaits it in the future--death or a new life--all
+alike it goes to meet with ecstatic welcome.
+
+'What's this? Isn't that our old friend?' said Sanin, pointing to a
+muffled-up figure, which hurriedly slipped a little aside as though
+trying to remain unobserved. In the midst of his abundant happiness he
+felt a need to talk to Gemma, not of love--that was a settled thing
+and holy--but of something else.
+
+'Yes, it's Pantaleone,' Gemma answered gaily and happily. 'Most likely
+he has been following me ever since I left home; all day yesterday he
+kept watching every movement I made ... He guesses!'
+
+'He guesses!' Sanin repeated in ecstasy. What could Gemma have said at
+which he would not have been in ecstasy?
+
+Then he asked her to tell him in detail all that had passed the day
+before.
+
+And she began at once telling him, with haste, and confusion, and
+smiles, and brief sighs, and brief bright looks exchanged with Sanin.
+She said that after their conversation the day before yesterday,
+mamma had kept trying to get out of her something positive; but that
+she had put off Frau Lenore with a promise to tell her her decision
+within twenty-four hours; how she had demanded this limit of time
+for herself, and how difficult it had been to get it; how utterly
+unexpectedly Herr Klüber had made his appearance more starched and
+affected than ever; how he had given vent to his indignation at the
+childish, unpardonable action of the Russian stranger--'he meant
+your duel, Dimitri,'--which he described as deeply insulting to him,
+Klüber, and how he had demanded that 'you should be at once refused
+admittance to the house, Dimitri.' 'For,' he had added--and here
+Gemma slightly mimicked his voice and manner--'"it casts a slur on
+my honour; as though I were not able to defend my betrothed, had
+I thought it necessary or advisable! All Frankfort will know by
+to-morrow that an outsider has fought a duel with an officer on
+account of my betrothed--did any one ever hear of such a thing! It
+tarnishes my honour!" Mamma agreed with him--fancy!--but then I
+suddenly told him that he was troubling himself unnecessarily about
+his honour and his character, and was unnecessarily annoyed at the
+gossip about his betrothed, for I was no longer betrothed to him and
+would never be his wife! I must own, I had meant to talk to you first
+... before breaking with him finally; but he came ... and I could not
+restrain myself. Mamma positively screamed with horror, but I went
+into the next room and got his ring--you didn't notice, I took it off
+two days ago--and gave it to him. He was fearfully offended, but as he
+is fearfully self-conscious and conceited, he did not say much, and
+went away. Of course I had to go through a great deal with mamma, and
+it made me very wretched to see how distressed she was, and I thought
+I had been a little hasty; but you see I had your note, and even apart
+from it I knew ...'
+
+'That I love you,' put in Sanin.
+
+'Yes ... that you were in love with me.'
+
+So Gemma talked, hesitating and smiling and dropping her voice or
+stopping altogether every time any one met them or passed by. And
+Sanin listened ecstatically, enjoying the very sound of her voice, as
+the day before he had gloated over her handwriting.
+
+'Mamma is very much distressed,' Gemma began again, and her words
+flew very rapidly one after another; 'she refuses to take into
+consideration that I dislike Herr Klüber, that I never was betrothed
+to him from love, but only because of her urgent entreaties....
+She suspects--you, Dimitri; that's to say, to speak plainly, she's
+convinced I'm in love with you, and she is more unhappy about it
+because only the day before yesterday nothing of the sort had occurred
+to her, and she even begged you to advise me.... It was a strange
+request, wasn't it? Now she calls you ... Dimitri, a hypocrite and
+a cunning fellow, says that you have betrayed her confidence, and
+predicts that you will deceive me....'
+
+'But, Gemma,' cried Sanin, 'do you mean to say you didn't tell
+her?...'
+
+'I told her nothing! What right had I without consulting you?'
+
+Sanin threw up his arms. 'Gemma, I hope that now, at least, you will
+tell all to her and take me to her.... I want to convince your mother
+that I am not a base deceiver!'
+
+Sanin's bosom fairly heaved with the flood of generous and ardent
+emotions.
+
+Gemma looked him full in the face. 'You really want to go with me
+now to mamma? to mamma, who maintains that ... all this between us
+is impossible--and can never come to pass?' There was one word Gemma
+could not bring herself to utter.... It burnt her lips; but all the
+more eagerly Sanin pronounced it.
+
+'Marry you, Gemma, be your husband--I can imagine no bliss greater!'
+
+To his love, his magnanimity, his determination--he was aware of no
+limits now.
+
+When she heard those words, Gemma, who had stopped still for an
+instant, went on faster than ever.... She seemed trying to run away
+from this too great and unexpected happiness! But suddenly her
+steps faltered. Round the corner of a turning, a few paces from
+her, in a new hat and coat, straight as an arrow and curled like a
+poodle--emerged Herr Klüber. He caught sight of Gemma, caught sight
+of Sanin, and with a sort of inward snort and a backward bend of his
+supple figure, he advanced with a dashing swing to meet them. Sanin
+felt a pang; but glancing at Klüber's face, to which its owner
+endeavoured, as far as in him lay, to give an expression of scornful
+amazement, and even commiseration, glancing at that red-cheeked,
+vulgar face, he felt a sudden rush of anger, and took a step forward.
+
+Gemma seized his arm, and with quiet decision, giving him hers, she
+looked her former betrothed full in the face.... The latter screwed up
+his face, shrugged his shoulders, shuffled to one side, and muttering
+between his teeth, 'The usual end to the song!' (Das alte Ende vom
+Liede!)--walked away with the same dashing, slightly skipping gait.
+
+'What did he say, the wretched creature?' asked Sanin, and would have
+rushed after Klüber; but Gemma held him back and walked on with him,
+not taking away the arm she had slipped into his.
+
+The Rosellis' shop came into sight. Gemma stopped once more.
+
+'Dimitri, Monsieur Dimitri,' she said, 'we are not there yet, we have
+not seen mamma yet.... If you would rather think a little, if ... you
+are still free, Dimitri!'
+
+In reply Sanin pressed her hand tightly to his bosom, and drew her on.
+
+'Mamma,' said Gemma, going with Sanin to the room where Frau Lenore
+was sitting, 'I have brought the real one!'
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+If Gemma had announced that she had brought with her cholera or death
+itself, one can hardly imagine that Frau Lenore could have received
+the news with greater despair. She immediately sat down in a corner,
+with her face to the wall, and burst into floods of tears, positively
+wailed, for all the world like a Russian peasant woman on the grave of
+her husband or her son. For the first minute Gemma was so taken aback
+that she did not even go up to her mother, but stood still like a
+statue in the middle of the room; while Sanin was utterly stupefied,
+to the point of almost bursting into tears himself! For a whole hour
+that inconsolable wail went on--a whole hour! Pantaleone thought it
+better to shut the outer door of the shop, so that no stranger should
+come; luckily, it was still early. The old man himself did not know
+what to think, and in any case, did not approve of the haste with
+which Gemma and Sanin had acted; he could not bring himself to blame
+them, and was prepared to give them his support in case of need:
+he greatly disliked Klüber! Emil regarded himself as the medium of
+communication between his friend and his sister, and almost prided
+himself on its all having turned out so splendidly! He was positively
+unable to conceive why Frau Lenore was so upset, and in his heart he
+decided on the spot that women, even the best of them, suffer from a
+lack of reasoning power! Sanin fared worst of all. Frau Lenore rose to
+a howl and waved him off with her hands, directly he approached her;
+and it was in vain that he attempted once or twice to shout aloud,
+standing at a distance, 'I ask you for your daughter's hand!' Frau
+Lenore was particularly angry with herself. 'How could she have been
+so blind--have seen nothing? Had my Giovann' Battista been alive,'
+she persisted through her tears, 'nothing of this sort would have
+happened!' 'Heavens, what's it all about?' thought Sanin; 'why, it's
+positively senseless!' He did not dare to look at Gemma, nor could she
+pluck up courage to lift her eyes to him. She restricted herself to
+waiting patiently on her mother, who at first repelled even her....
+
+At last, by degrees, the storm abated. Frau Lenore gave over weeping,
+permitted Gemma to bring her out of the corner, where she sat huddled
+up, to put her into an arm-chair near the window, and to give her some
+orange-flower water to drink. She permitted Sanin--not to approach
+... oh, no!--but, at any rate, to remain in the room--she had kept
+clamouring for him to go away--and did not interrupt him when he
+spoke. Sanin immediately availed himself of the calm as it set in, and
+displayed an astounding eloquence. He could hardly have explained his
+intentions and emotions with more fire and persuasive force even to
+Gemma herself. Those emotions were of the sincerest, those intentions
+were of the purest, like Almaviva's in the _Barber of Seville_. He
+did not conceal from Frau Lenore nor from himself the disadvantageous
+side of those intentions; but the disadvantages were only apparent!
+It is true he was a foreigner; they had not known him long, they knew
+nothing positive about himself or his means; but he was prepared to
+bring forward all the necessary evidence that he was a respectable
+person and not poor; he would refer them to the most unimpeachable
+testimony of his fellow-countrymen! He hoped Gemma would be happy with
+him, and that he would be able to make up to her for the separation
+from her own people!... The allusion to 'separation'--the mere word
+'separation'--almost spoiled the whole business.... Frau Lenore began
+to tremble all over and move about uneasily.... Sanin hastened to
+observe that the separation would only be temporary, and that, in
+fact, possibly it would not take place at all!
+
+Sanin's eloquence was not thrown away. Frau Lenore began to glance at
+him, though still with bitterness and reproach, no longer with the
+same aversion and fury; then she suffered him to come near her, and
+even to sit down beside her (Gemma was sitting on the other side);
+then she fell to reproaching him,--not in looks only, but in words,
+which already indicated a certain softening of heart; she fell to
+complaining, and her complaints became quieter and gentler; they were
+interspersed with questions addressed at one time to her daughter, and
+at another to Sanin; then she suffered him to take her hand and did
+not at once pull it away ... then she wept again, but her tears were
+now quite of another kind.... Then she smiled mournfully, and lamented
+the absence of Giovanni Battista, but quite on different grounds from
+before.... An instant more and the two criminals, Sanin and Gemma,
+were on their knees at her feet, and she was laying her hands on their
+heads in turn; another instant and they were embracing and kissing
+her, and Emil, his face beaming rapturously, ran into the room and
+added himself to the group so warmly united.
+
+Pantaleone peeped into the room, smiled and frowned at the same time,
+and going into the shop, opened the front door.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+The transition from despair to sadness, and from that to 'gentle
+resignation,' was accomplished fairly quickly in Frau Lenore; but
+that gentle resignation, too, was not slow in changing into a
+secret satisfaction, which was, however, concealed in every way and
+suppressed for the sake of appearances. Sanin had won Frau Lenore's
+heart from the first day of their acquaintance; as she got used to
+the idea of his being her son-in-law, she found nothing particularly
+distasteful in it, though she thought it her duty to preserve
+a somewhat hurt, or rather careworn, expression on her face.
+Besides, everything that had happened the last few days had been so
+extraordinary.... One thing upon the top of another. As a practical
+woman and a mother, Frau Lenore considered it her duty also to put
+Sanin through various questions; and Sanin, who, on setting out that
+morning to meet Gemma, had not a notion that he should marry her--it
+is true he did not think of anything at all at that time, but simply
+gave himself up to the current of his passion--Sanin entered, with
+perfect readiness, one might even say with zeal, into his part--the
+part of the betrothed lover, and answered all her inquiries
+circumstantially, exactly, with alacrity. When she had satisfied
+herself that he was a real nobleman by birth, and had even expressed
+some surprise that he was not a prince, Frau Lenore assumed a serious
+air and 'warned him betimes' that she should be quite unceremoniously
+frank with him, as she was forced to be so by her sacred duty as a
+mother! To which Sanin replied that he expected nothing else from her,
+and that he earnestly begged her not to spare him!
+
+Then Frau Lenore observed that Herr Klüber--as she uttered the name,
+she sighed faintly, tightened her lips, and hesitated--Herr Klüber,
+Gemma's former betrothed, already possessed an income of eight
+thousand guldens, and that with every year this sum would rapidly be
+increased; and what was his, Herr Sanin's income? 'Eight thousand
+guldens,' Sanin repeated deliberately.... 'That's in our money ...
+about fifteen thousand roubles.... My income is much smaller. I have
+a small estate in the province of Tula.... With good management, it
+might yield--and, in fact, it could not fail to yield--five or six
+thousand ... and if I go into the government service, I can easily get
+a salary of two thousand a year.'
+
+'Into the service in Russia?' cried Frau Lenore, 'Then I must part
+with Gemma!'
+
+'One might be able to enter in the diplomatic service,' Sanin put
+in; 'I have some connections.... There one's duties lie abroad. Or
+else, this is what one might do, and that's much the best of all:
+sell my estate and employ the sum received for it in some profitable
+undertaking; for instance, the improvement of your shop.' Sanin was
+aware that he was saying something absurd, but he was possessed by an
+incomprehensible recklessness! He looked at Gemma, who, ever since
+the 'practical' conversation began, kept getting up, walking about
+the room, and sitting down again--he looked at her--and no obstacle
+existed for him, and he was ready to arrange everything at once in the
+best way, if only she were not troubled!
+
+'Herr Klüber, too, had intended to give me a small sum for the
+improvement of the shop,' Lenore observed after a slight hesitation.
+
+'Mother! for mercy's sake, mother!' cried Gemma in Italian.
+
+'These things must be discussed in good time, my daughter,' Frau
+Lenore replied in the same language. She addressed herself again to
+Sanin, and began questioning him as to the laws existing in Russia
+as to marriage, and whether there were no obstacles to contracting
+marriages with Catholics as in Prussia. (At that time, in 1840,
+all Germany still remembered the controversy between the Prussian
+Government and the Archbishop of Cologne upon mixed marriages.)
+When Frau Lenore heard that by marrying a Russian nobleman, her
+daughter would herself become of noble rank, she evinced a certain
+satisfaction. 'But, of course, you will first have to go to Russia?'
+
+'Why?'
+
+'Why? Why, to obtain the permission of your Tsar.'
+
+Sanin explained to her that that was not at all necessary ... but that
+he might certainly have to go to Russia for a very short time before
+his marriage--(he said these words, and his heart ached painfully,
+Gemma watching him, knew it was aching, and blushed and grew
+dreamy)--and that he would try to take advantage of being in his own
+country to sell his estate ... in any case he would bring back the
+money needed.
+
+'I would ask you to bring me back some good Astrakhan lambskin for
+a cape,' said Frau Lenore. 'They're wonderfully good, I hear, and
+wonderfully cheap!'
+
+'Certainly, with the greatest pleasure, I will bring some for you and
+for Gemma!' cried Sanin.
+
+'And for me a morocco cap worked in silver,' Emil interposed, putting
+his head in from the next room.
+
+'Very well, I will bring it you ... and some slippers for Pantaleone.'
+
+'Come, that's nonsense, nonsense,' observed Frau Lenore. 'We are
+talking now of serious matters. But there's another point,' added the
+practical lady. 'You talk of selling your estate. But how will you do
+that? Will you sell your peasants then, too?'
+
+Sanin felt something like a stab at his heart. He remembered that in
+a conversation with Signora Roselli and her daughter about serfdom,
+which, in his own words, aroused his deepest indignation, he had
+repeatedly assured them that never on any account would he sell his
+peasants, as he regarded such a sale as an immoral act.
+
+'I will try and sell my estate to some man I know something of,'
+he articulated, not without faltering, 'or perhaps the peasants
+themselves will want to buy their freedom.'
+
+'That would be best of all,' Frau Lenore agreed. 'Though indeed
+selling live people ...'
+
+'_Barbari_!' grumbled Pantaleone, who showed himself behind Emil in
+the doorway, shook his topknot, and vanished.
+
+'It's a bad business!' Sanin thought to himself, and stole a look
+at Gemma. She seemed not to have heard his last words. 'Well, never
+mind!' he thought again. In this way the practical talk continued
+almost uninterruptedly till dinner-time. Frau Lenore was completely
+softened at last, and already called Sanin 'Dimitri,' shook her finger
+affectionately at him, and promised she would punish him for his
+treachery. She asked many and minute questions about his relations,
+because 'that too is very important'; asked him to describe the
+ceremony of marriage as performed by the ritual of the Russian Church,
+and was in raptures already at Gemma in a white dress, with a gold
+crown on her head.
+
+'She's as lovely as a queen,' she murmured with motherly pride,'
+indeed there's no queen like her in the world!'
+
+'There is no one like Gemma in the world!' Sanin chimed in.
+
+'Yes; that's why she is Gemma!' (Gemma, as every one knows, means in
+Italian a precious stone.)
+
+Gemma flew to kiss her mother.... It seemed as if only then she
+breathed freely again, and the load that had been oppressing her
+dropped from off her soul.
+
+Sanin felt all at once so happy, his heart was filled with such
+childish gaiety at the thought, that here, after all, the dreams had
+come true to which he had abandoned himself not long ago in these very
+rooms, his whole being was in such a turmoil that he went quickly
+out into the shop. He felt a great desire, come what might, to sell
+something in the shop, as he had done a few days before.... 'I have a
+full right to do so now!' he felt. 'Why, I am one of the family now!'
+And he actually stood behind the counter, and actually kept shop, that
+is, sold two little girls, who came in, a pound of sweets, giving them
+fully two pounds, and only taking half the price from them.
+
+At dinner he received an official position, as betrothed, beside
+Gemma. Frau Lenore pursued her practical investigations. Emil kept
+laughing and urging Sanin to take him with him to Russia. It was
+decided that Sanin should set off in a fortnight. Only Pantaleone
+showed a somewhat sullen face, so much so that Frau Lenore reproached
+him. 'And he was his second!' Pantaleone gave her a glance from under
+his brows.
+
+Gemma was silent almost all the time, but her face had never been
+lovelier or brighter. After dinner she called Sanin out a minute into
+the garden, and stopping beside the very garden-seat where she had
+been sorting the cherries two days before, she said to him. 'Dimitri,
+don't be angry with me; but I must remind you once more that you are
+not to consider yourself bound ...'
+
+He did not let her go on....
+
+Gemma turned away her face. 'And as for what mamma spoke of, do you
+remember, the difference of our religion--see here!...'
+
+She snatched the garnet cross that hung round her neck on a thin cord,
+gave it a violent tug, snapped the cord, and handed him the cross.
+
+'If I am yours, your faith is my faith!' Sanin's eyes were still wet
+when he went back with Gemma into the house.
+
+By the evening everything went on in its accustomed way. They even
+played a game of _tresette_.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+Sanin woke up very early. He found himself at the highest pinnacle of
+human happiness; but it was not that prevented him from sleeping; the
+question, the vital, fateful question--how he could dispose of his
+estate as quickly and as advantageously as possible--disturbed his
+rest. The most diverse plans were mixed up in his head, but nothing
+had as yet come out clearly. He went out of the house to get air and
+freshen himself. He wanted to present himself to Gemma with a project
+ready prepared and not without.
+
+What was the figure, somewhat ponderous and thick in the legs, but
+well-dressed, walking in front of him, with a slight roll and waddle
+in his gait? Where had he seen that head, covered with tufts of flaxen
+hair, and as it were set right into the shoulders, that soft cushiony
+back, those plump arms hanging straight down at his sides? Could it be
+Polozov, his old schoolfellow, whom he had lost sight of for the last
+five years? Sanin overtook the figure walking in front of him, turned
+round.... A broad, yellowish face, little pig's eyes, with white
+lashes and eyebrows, a short flat nose, thick lips that looked glued
+together, a round smooth chin, and that expression, sour, sluggish,
+and mistrustful--yes; it was he, it was Ippolit Polozov!
+
+'Isn't my lucky star working for me again?' flashed through Sanin's
+mind.
+
+'Polozov! Ippolit Sidorovitch! Is it you?'
+
+The figure stopped, raised his diminutive eyes, waited a little, and
+ungluing his lips at last, brought out in a rather hoarse falsetto,
+'Dimitri Sanin?'
+
+'That's me!' cried Sanin, and he shook one of Polozov's hands; arrayed
+in tight kid-gloves of an ashen-grey colour, they hung as lifeless as
+before beside his barrel-shaped legs. 'Have you been here long? Where
+have you come from? Where are you stopping?'
+
+'I came yesterday from Wiesbaden,' Polozov replied in deliberate
+tones, 'to do some shopping for my wife, and I'm going back to
+Wiesbaden to-day.'
+
+'Oh, yes! You're married, to be sure, and they say, to such a beauty!'
+
+Polozov turned his eyes away. 'Yes, they say so.'
+
+Sanin laughed. 'I see you're just the same ... as phlegmatic as you
+were at school.'
+
+'Why should I be different?'
+
+'And they do say,' Sanin added with special emphasis on the word 'do,'
+'that your wife is very rich.'
+
+'They say that too.'
+
+'Do you mean to say, Ippolit Sidorovitch, you are not certain on that
+point?'
+
+'I don't meddle, my dear Dimitri ... Pavlovitch? Yes, Pavlovitch!--in
+my wife's affairs.'
+
+'You don't meddle? Not in any of her affairs?'
+
+Polozov again shifted his eyes. 'Not in any, my boy. She does as she
+likes, and so do I.'
+
+'Where are you going now?' Sanin inquired.
+
+'I'm not going anywhere just now; I'm standing in the street and
+talking to you; but when we've finished talking, I'm going back to my
+hotel, and am going to have lunch.'
+
+'Would you care for my company?'
+
+'You mean at lunch?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Delighted, it's much pleasanter to eat in company. You're not a great
+talker, are you?'
+
+'I think not.'
+
+'So much the better.'
+
+Polozov went on. Sanin walked beside him. And Sanin
+speculated--Polozov's lips were glued together, again he snorted
+heavily, and waddled along in silence--Sanin speculated in what way
+had this booby succeeded in catching a rich and beautiful wife. He
+was not rich himself, nor distinguished, nor clever; at school he had
+passed for a dull, slow-witted boy, sleepy, and greedy, and had borne
+the nickname 'driveller.' It was marvellous!
+
+'But if his wife is very rich, they say she's the daughter of some
+sort of a contractor, won't she buy my estate? Though he does say he
+doesn't interfere in any of his wife's affairs, that passes belief,
+really! Besides, I will name a moderate, reasonable price! Why not
+try? Perhaps, it's all my lucky star.... Resolved! I'll have a try!'
+
+Polozov led Sanin to one of the best hotels in Frankfort, in which
+he was, of course, occupying the best apartments. On the tables and
+chairs lay piles of packages, cardboard boxes, and parcels. 'All
+purchases, my boy, for Maria Nikolaevna!' (that was the name of the
+wife of Ippolit Sidorovitch). Polozov dropped into an arm-chair,
+groaned, 'Oh, the heat!' and loosened his cravat. Then he rang up the
+head-waiter, and ordered with intense care a very lavish luncheon.
+'And at one, the carriage is to be ready! Do you hear, at one o'clock
+sharp!'
+
+The head-waiter obsequiously bowed, and cringingly withdrew.
+
+Polozov unbuttoned his waistcoat. From the very way in which he raised
+his eyebrows, gasped, and wrinkled up his nose, one could see that
+talking would be a great labour to him, and that he was waiting in
+some trepidation to see whether Sanin was going to oblige him to
+use his tongue, or whether he would take the task of keeping up the
+conversation on himself.
+
+Sanin understood his companion's disposition of mind, and so he did
+not burden him with questions; he restricted himself to the most
+essential. He learnt that he had been for two years in the service (in
+the Uhlans! how nice he must have looked in the short uniform jacket!)
+that he had married three years before, and had now been for two years
+abroad with his wife, 'who is now undergoing some sort of cure at
+Wiesbaden,' and was then going to Paris. On his side too, Sanin did
+not enlarge much on his past life and his plans; he went straight to
+the principal point--that is, he began talking of his intention of
+selling his estate.
+
+Polozov listened to him in silence, his eyes straying from time to
+time to the door, by which the luncheon was to appear. The luncheon
+did appear at last. The head-waiter, accompanied by two other
+attendants, brought in several dishes under silver covers.
+
+'Is the property in the Tula province?' said Polozov, seating himself
+at the table, and tucking a napkin into his shirt collar.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'In the Efremovsky district ... I know it.'
+
+'Do you know my place, Aleksyevka?' Sanin asked, sitting down too at
+the table.
+
+'Yes, I know it.' Polozov thrust in his mouth a piece of omelette
+with truffles. 'Maria Nikolaevna, my wife, has an estate in that
+neighbourhood.... Uncork that bottle, waiter! You've a good piece of
+land, only your peasants have cut down the timber. Why are you selling
+it?'
+
+'I want the money, my friend. I would sell it cheap. Come, you might
+as well buy it ... by the way.'
+
+Polozov gulped down a glass of wine, wiped his lips with the napkin,
+and again set to work chewing slowly and noisily.
+
+'Oh,' he enunciated at last.... 'I don't go in for buying estates;
+I've no capital. Pass the butter. Perhaps my wife now would buy it.
+You talk to her about it. If you don't ask too much, she's not above
+thinking of that.... What asses these Germans are, really! They can't
+cook fish. What could be simpler, one wonders? And yet they go on
+about "uniting the Fatherland." Waiter, take away that beastly stuff!'
+
+'Does your wife really manage ... business matters herself?' Sanin
+inquired.
+
+'Yes. Try the cutlets--they're good. I can recommend them. I've told
+you already, Dimitri Pavlovitch, I don't interfere in any of my wife's
+concerns, and I tell you so again.'
+
+Polozov went on munching.
+
+'H'm.... But how can I have a talk with her, Ippolit Sidorovitch?'
+
+'It's very simple, Dimitri Pavlovitch. Go to Wiesbaden. It's not far
+from here. Waiter, haven't you any English mustard? No? Brutes! Only
+don't lose any time. We're starting the day after to-morrow. Let me
+pour you out a glass of wine; it's wine with a bouquet--no vinegary
+stuff.'
+
+Polozov's face was flushed and animated; it was never animated but
+when he was eating--or drinking.
+
+'Really, I don't know, how that could be managed,' Sanin muttered.
+
+'But what makes you in such a hurry about it all of a sudden?'
+
+'There is a reason for being in a hurry, brother.'
+
+'And do you need a lot of money?'
+
+'Yes, a lot. I ... how can I tell you? I propose ... getting married.'
+
+Polozov set the glass he had been lifting to his lips on the table.
+
+'Getting married!' he articulated in a voice thick with astonishment,
+and he folded his podgy hands on his stomach. 'So suddenly?'
+
+'Yes ... soon.'
+
+'Your intended is in Russia, of course?'
+
+'No, not in Russia.'
+
+'Where then?'
+
+'Here in Frankfort.'
+
+'And who is she?'
+
+'A German; that is, no--an Italian. A resident here.'
+
+'With a fortune?'
+
+'No, without a fortune.'
+
+'Then I suppose your love is very ardent?'
+
+'How absurd you are! Yes, very ardent.'
+
+'And it's for that you must have money?'
+
+'Well, yes ... yes, yes.'
+
+Polozov gulped down his wine, rinsed his mouth, and washed his hands,
+carefully wiped them on the napkin, took out and lighted a cigar.
+Sanin watched him in silence.
+
+'There's one means,' Polozov grunted at last, throwing his head back,
+and blowing out the smoke in a thin ring. 'Go to my wife. If she
+likes, she can take all the bother off your hands.'
+
+'But how can I see your wife? You say you are starting the day after
+to-morrow?'
+
+Polozov closed his eyes.
+
+'I'll tell you what,' he said at last, rolling the cigar in his lips,
+and sighing. 'Go home, get ready as quick as you can, and come here.
+At one o'clock I am going, there's plenty of room in my carriage. I'll
+take you with me. That's the best plan. And now I'm going to have a
+nap. I must always have a nap, brother, after a meal. Nature demands
+it, and I won't go against it And don't you disturb me.'
+
+Sanin thought and thought, and suddenly raised his head; he had made
+up his mind.
+
+'Very well, agreed, and thank you. At half-past twelve I'll be
+here, and we'll go together to Wiesbaden. I hope your wife won't be
+angry....'
+
+But Polozov was already snoring. He muttered, 'Don't disturb me!' gave
+a kick, and fell asleep, like a baby.
+
+Sanin once more scanned his clumsy figure, his head, his neck, his
+upturned chin, round as an apple, and going out of the hotel, set off
+with rapid strides to the Rosellis' shop. He had to let Gemma know.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+He found her in the shop with her mother. Frau Lenore was stooping
+down, measuring with a big folding foot-rule the space between the
+windows. On seeing Sanin, she stood up, and greeted him cheerfully,
+though with a shade of embarrassment.
+
+'What you said yesterday,' she began, 'has set my head in a whirl with
+ideas as to how we could improve our shop. Here, I fancy we might put
+a couple of cupboards with shelves of looking-glass. You know, that's
+the fashion nowadays. And then ...'
+
+'Excellent, excellent,' Sanin broke in, 'we must think it all over....
+But come here, I want to tell you something.' He took Frau Lenpre and
+Gemma by the arm, and led them into the next room. Frau Lenore was
+alarmed, and the foot-rule slipped out of her hands. Gemma too was
+almost frightened, but she took an intent look at Sanin, and was
+reassured. His face, though preoccupied, expressed at the same time
+keen self-confidence and determination. He asked both the women to sit
+down, while he remained standing before them, and gesticulating with
+his hands and ruffling up his hair, he told them all his story; his
+meeting with Polozov, his proposed expedition to Wiesbaden, the chance
+of selling the estate. 'Imagine my happiness,' he cried in conclusion:
+'things have taken such a turn that I may even, perhaps, not have
+to go to Russia! And we can have our wedding much sooner than I had
+anticipated!'
+
+'When must you go?' asked Gemma.
+
+'To-day, in an hour's time; my friend has ordered a carriage--he will
+take me.'
+
+'You will write to us?'
+
+'At once! directly I have had a talk with this lady, I will write.'
+
+'This lady, you say, is very rich?' queried the practical Frau Lenore.
+
+'Exceedingly rich! her father was a millionaire, and he left
+everything to her.'
+
+'Everything--to her alone? Well, that's so much the better for you.
+Only mind, don't let your property go too cheap! Be sensible and
+firm. Don't let yourself be carried away! I understand your wishing
+to be Gemma's husband as soon as possible ... but prudence before
+everything! Don't forget: the better price you get for your estate,
+the more there will be for you two, and for your children.'
+
+Gemma turned away, and Sanin gave another wave of his hand. 'You can
+rely on my prudence, Frau Lenore! Indeed, I shan't do any bargaining
+with her. I shall tell her the fair price; if she'll give it--good; if
+not, let her go.'
+
+'Do you know her--this lady?' asked Gemma.
+
+'I have never seen her.'
+
+'And when will you come back?'
+
+'If our negotiations come to nothing--the day after to-morrow; if they
+turn out favourably, perhaps I may have to stay a day or two longer.
+In any case I shall not linger a minute beyond what's necessary. I am
+leaving my heart here, you know! But I have said what I had to say to
+you, and I must run home before setting off too.... Give me your hand
+for luck, Frau Lenore--that's what we always do in Russia.'
+
+'The right or the left?'
+
+'The left, it's nearer the heart. I shall reappear the day after
+to-morrow with my shield or on it! Something tells me I shall come
+back in triumph! Good-bye, my good dear ones....'
+
+He embraced and kissed Frau Lenore, but he asked Gemma to follow him
+into her room--for just a minute--as he must tell her something of
+great importance. He simply wanted to say good-bye to her alone. Frau
+Lenore saw that, and felt no curiosity as to the matter of such great
+importance.
+
+Sanin had never been in Gemma's room before. All the magic of love,
+all its fire and rapture and sweet terror, seemed to flame up and
+burst into his soul, directly he crossed its sacred threshold.... He
+cast a look of tenderness about him, fell at the sweet girl's feet and
+pressed his face against her waist....
+
+'You are mine,' she whispered: 'you will be back soon?'
+
+'I am yours. I will come back,' he declared, catching his breath.
+
+'I shall be longing for you back, my dear one!'
+
+A few instants later Sanin was running along the street to his
+lodging. He did not even notice that Pantaleone, all dishevelled, had
+darted out of the shop-door after him, and was shouting something to
+him and was shaking, as though in menace, his lifted hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Exactly at a quarter to one Sanin presented himself before Polozov.
+The carriage with four horses was already standing at the hotel gates.
+On seeing Sanin, Polozov merely commented, 'Oh! you've made up your
+mind?' and putting on his hat, cloak, and over-shoes, and stuffing
+cotton-wool into his ears, though it was summer-time, went out on to
+the steps. The waiters, by his directions, disposed all his numerous
+purchases in the inside of the carriage, lined the place where he
+was to sit with silk cushions, bags, and bundles, put a hamper of
+provisions for his feet to rest on, and tied a trunk on to the box.
+Polozov paid with a liberal hand, and supported by the deferential
+door-keeper, whose face was still respectful, though he was unseen
+behind him, he climbed gasping into the carriage, sat down,
+disarranged everything about him thoroughly, took out and lighted a
+cigar, and only then extended a finger to Sanin, as though to say,
+'Get in, you too!' Sanin placed himself beside him. Polozov sent
+orders by the door-keeper to the postillion to drive carefully--if he
+wanted drinks; the carriage steps grated, the doors slammed, and the
+carriage rolled off.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+It takes less than an hour in these days by rail from Frankfort to
+Wiesbaden; at that time the extra post did it in three hours. They
+changed horses five times. Part of the time Polozov dozed and part of
+the time he simply shook from side to side, holding a cigar in his
+teeth; he talked very little; he did not once look out of the window;
+picturesque views did not interest them; he even announced that
+'nature was the death of him!' Sanin did not speak either, nor did he
+admire the scenery; he had no thought for it. He was all absorbed in
+reflections and memories. At the stations Polozov paid with exactness,
+took the time by his watch, and tipped the postillions--more or
+less--according to their zeal. When they had gone half way, he took
+two oranges out of the hamper of edibles, and choosing out the better,
+offered the other to Sanin. Sanin looked steadily at his companion,
+and suddenly burst out laughing.
+
+'What are you laughing at?' the latter inquired, very carefully
+peeling his orange with his short white nails.
+
+'What at?' repeated Sanin. 'Why, at our journey together.'
+
+'What about it?' Polozov inquired again, dropping into his mouth one
+of the longitudinal sections into which an orange parts.
+
+'It's so very strange. Yesterday I must confess I thought no more of
+you than of the Emperor of China, and to-day I'm driving with you to
+sell my estate to your wife, of whom, too, I have not the slightest
+idea.'
+
+'Anything may happen,' responded Polozov. 'When you've lived a bit
+longer, you won't be surprised at anything. For instance, can you
+fancy me riding as an orderly officer? But I did, and the Grand Duke
+Mihail Pavlovitch gave the order, 'Trot! let him trot, that fat
+cornet! Trot now! Look sharp!'
+
+Sanin scratched behind his ear.
+
+'Tell me, please, Ippolit Sidorovitch, what is your wife like? What is
+her character? It's very necessary for me to know that, you see.'
+
+'It was very well for him to shout, "Trot!"' Polozov went on with
+sudden vehemence, 'But me! how about me? I thought to myself, "You
+can take your honours and epaulettes--and leave me in peace!" But ...
+you asked about my wife? What my wife is? A person like any one else.
+Don't wear your heart upon your sleeve with her--she doesn't like
+that. The great thing is to talk a lot to her ... something for her to
+laugh at. Tell her about your love, or something ... but make it more
+amusing, you know.'
+
+'How more amusing?'
+
+'Oh, you told me, you know, that you were in love, wanting to get
+married. Well, then, describe that.'
+
+Sanin was offended. 'What do you find laughable in that?'
+
+Polozov only rolled his eyes. The juice from the orange was trickling
+down his chin.
+
+'Was it your wife sent you to Frankfort to shop for her?' asked Sanin
+after a short time.
+
+'Yes, it was she.'
+
+'What are the purchases?'
+
+'Toys, of course.'
+
+'Toys? have you any children?'
+
+Polozov positively moved away from Sanin.
+
+'That's likely! What do I want with children? Feminine fallals ...
+finery. For the toilet.'
+
+'Do you mean to say you understand such things?'
+
+'To be sure I do.'
+
+'But didn't you tell me you didn't interfere in any of your wife's
+affairs?'
+
+'I don't in any other. But this ... is no consequence. To pass the
+time--one may do it. And my wife has confidence in my taste. And I'm a
+first-rate hand at bargaining.'
+
+Polozov began to speak by jerks; he was exhausted already. 'And is
+your wife very rich?'
+
+'Rich; yes, rather! Only she keeps the most of it for herself.'
+
+'But I expect you can't complain either?'
+
+'Well, I'm her husband. I'm hardly likely not to get some benefit from
+it! And I'm of use to her. With me she can do just as she likes! I'm
+easy-going!'
+
+Polozov wiped his face with a silk handkerchief and puffed painfully,
+as though to say, 'Have mercy on me; don't force me to utter another
+word. You see how hard it is for me.'
+
+Sanin left him in peace, and again sank into meditation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hotel in Wiesbaden, before which the carriage stopped, was exactly
+like a palace. Bells were promptly set ringing in its inmost recesses;
+a fuss and bustle arose; men of good appearance in black frock-coats
+skipped out at the principal entrance; a door-keeper who was a blaze
+of gold opened the carriage doors with a flourish.
+
+Like some triumphant general Polozov alighted and began to ascend a
+staircase strewn with rugs and smelling of agreeable perfumes. To
+him flew up another man, also very well dressed but with a Russian
+face--his valet. Polozov observed to him that for the future he
+should always take him everywhere with him, for the night before at
+Frankfort, he, Polozov, had been left for the night without hot water!
+The valet portrayed his horror on his face, and bending down quickly,
+took off his master's goloshes.
+
+'Is Maria Nikolaevna at home?' inquired Polozov.
+
+'Yes, sir. Madam is pleased to be dressing. Madam is pleased to be
+dining to-night at the Countess Lasunsky's.'
+
+'Ah! there?... Stay! There are things there in the carriage; get them
+all yourself and bring them up. And you, Dmitri Pavlovitch,' added
+Polozov, 'take a room for yourself and come in in three-quarters of an
+hour. We will dine together.'
+
+Polozov waddled off, while Sanin asked for an inexpensive room for
+himself; and after setting his attire to rights, and resting a
+little, he repaired to the immense apartment occupied by his Serenity
+(Durchlaucht) Prince von Polozov.
+
+He found this 'prince' enthroned in a luxurious velvet arm-chair in
+the middle of a most magnificent drawing-room. Sanin's phlegmatic
+friend had already had time to have a bath and to array himself in a
+most sumptuous satin dressing-gown; he had put a crimson fez on his
+head. Sanin approached him and scrutinised him for some time. Polozov
+was sitting rigid as an idol; he did not even turn his face in his
+direction, did not even move an eyebrow, did not utter a sound. It was
+truly a sublime spectacle! After having admired him for a couple of
+minutes, Sanin was on the point of speaking, of breaking this hallowed
+silence, when suddenly the door from the next room was thrown open,
+and in the doorway appeared a young and beautiful lady in a white
+silk dress trimmed with black lace, and with diamonds on her arms and
+neck--Maria Nikolaevna Polozov. Her thick fair hair fell on both sides
+of her head, braided, but not fastened up into a knot.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+'Ah, I beg your pardon!' she said with a smile half-embarrassed,
+half-ironical, instantly taking hold of one end of a plait of her hair
+and fastening on Sanin her large, grey, clear eyes.
+
+'I did not think you had come yet.'
+
+'Sanin, Dmitri Pavlovitch--known him from a boy,' observed Polozov, as
+before not turning towards him and not getting up, but pointing at him
+with one finger.
+
+'Yes.... I know.... You told me before. Very glad to make your
+acquaintance. But I wanted to ask you, Ippolit Sidorovitch.... My maid
+seems to have lost her senses to-day ...'
+
+'To do your hair up?'
+
+'Yes, yes, please. I beg your pardon,' Maria Nikolaevna repeated with
+the same smile. She nodded to Sanin, and turning swiftly, vanished
+through the doorway, leaving behind her a fleeting but graceful
+impression of a charming neck, exquisite shoulders, an exquisite
+figure.
+
+Polozov got up, and rolling ponderously, went out by the same door.
+
+Sanin did not doubt for a single second that his presence in 'Prince
+Polozov's' drawing-room was a fact perfectly well known to its
+mistress; the whole point of her entry had been the display of her
+hair, which was certainly beautiful. Sanin was inwardly delighted
+indeed at this freak on the part of Madame Polozov; if, he thought,
+she is anxious to impress me, to dazzle me, perhaps, who knows, she
+will be accommodating about the price of the estate. His heart was so
+full of Gemma that all other women had absolutely no significance for
+him; he hardly noticed them; and this time he went no further than
+thinking, 'Yes, it was the truth they told me; that lady's really
+magnificent to look at!'
+
+But had he not been in such an exceptional state of mind he would most
+likely have expressed himself differently; Maria Nikolaevna Polozov,
+by birth Kolishkin, was a very striking personality. And not that she
+was of a beauty to which no exception could be taken; traces of her
+plebeian origin were rather clearly apparent in her. Her forehead was
+low, her nose rather fleshy and turned up; she could boast neither
+of the delicacy of her skin nor of the elegance of her hands and
+feet--but what did all that matter? Any one meeting her would not,
+to use Pushkin's words, have stood still before 'the holy shrine of
+beauty,' but before the sorcery of a half-Russian, half-Gipsy woman's
+body in its full flower and full power ... and he would have been
+nothing loath to stand still!
+
+But Gemma's image preserved Sanin like the three-fold armour of which
+the poets sing.
+
+Ten minutes later Maria Nikolaevna appeared again, escorted by her
+husband. She went up to Sanin ... and her walk was such that some
+eccentrics of that--alas!--already, distant day, were simply crazy
+over her walk alone. 'That woman, when she comes towards one, seems as
+though she is bringing all the happiness of one's life to meet one,'
+one of them used to say. She went up to Sanin, and holding out her
+hand to him, said in her caressing and, as it were, subdued voice in
+Russian, 'You will wait for me, won't you? I'll be back soon.'
+
+Sanin bowed respectfully, while Maria Nikolaevna vanished behind the
+curtain over the outside door; and as she vanished turned her head
+back over her shoulder, and smiled again, and again left behind her
+the same impression of grace.
+
+When she smiled, not one and not two, but three dimples came out on
+each cheek, and her eyes smiled more than her lips--long, crimson,
+juicy lips with two tiny moles on the left side of them.
+
+Polozov waddled into the room and again established himself in the
+arm-chair. He was speechless as before; but from time to time a queer
+smile puffed out his colourless and already wrinkled cheeks. He looked
+like an old man, though he was only three years older than Sanin.
+
+The dinner with which he regaled his guest would of course have
+satisfied the most exacting gourmand, but to Sanin it seemed endless,
+insupportable! Polozov ate slowly, 'with feeling, with judgment,
+with deliberation,' bending attentively over his plate, and sniffing
+at almost every morsel. First he rinsed his mouth with wine, then
+swallowed it and smacked his lips.... Over the roast meat he suddenly
+began to talk--but of what? Of merino sheep, of which he was intending
+to order a whole flock, and in such detail, with such tenderness,
+using all the while endearing pet names for them. After drinking a cup
+of coffee, hot to boiling point (he had several times in a voice of
+tearful irritation mentioned to the waiter that he had been served the
+evening before with coffee, cold--cold as ice!) and bitten off the end
+of a Havannah cigar with his crooked yellow teeth, he dropped off, as
+his habit was, into a nap, to the intense delight of Sanin, who began
+walking up and down with noiseless steps on the soft carpet, and
+dreaming of his life with Gemma and of what news he would bring back
+to her. Polozov, however, awoke, as he remarked himself, earlier than
+usual--he had slept only an hour and a half--and after drinking a
+glass of iced seltzer water, and swallowing eight spoonfuls of jam,
+Russian jam, which his valet brought him in a dark-green genuine
+'Kiev' jar, and without which, in his own words, he could not live,
+he stared with his swollen eyes at Sanin and asked him wouldn't he
+like to play a game of 'fools' with him. Sanin agreed readily; he
+was afraid that Polozov would begin talking again about lambs and
+ewes and fat tails. The host and the visitor both adjourned to the
+drawing-room, the waiter brought in the cards, and the game began,
+not,--of course, for money.
+
+At this innocent diversion Maria Nikolaevna found them on her return
+from the Countess Lasunsky's. She laughed aloud directly she came into
+the room and saw the cards and the open card-table. Sanin jumped up,
+but she cried, 'Sit still; go on with the game. I'll change my dress
+directly and come back to you,' and vanished again with a swish of her
+dress, pulling off her gloves as she went.
+
+She did in fact return very soon. Her evening dress she had exchanged
+for a full lilac silk tea-gown, with open hanging sleeves; a thick
+twisted cord was fastened round her waist. She sat down by her
+husband, and, waiting till he was left 'fool,' said to him, 'Come,
+dumpling, that's enough!' (At the word 'dumpling' Sanin glanced at her
+in surprise, and she smiled gaily, answering his look with a look,
+and displaying all the dimples on her cheeks.) 'I see you are sleepy;
+kiss my hand and get along; and Monsieur Sanin and I will have a chat
+together alone.'
+
+'I'm not sleepy,' observed Polozov, getting up ponderously from his
+easy-chair; 'but as for getting along, I'm ready to get along and to
+kiss your hand.' She gave him the palm of her hand, still smiling and
+looking at Sanin.
+
+Polozov, too, looked at him, and went away without taking leave of
+him.
+
+'Well, tell me, tell me,' said Maria Nikolaevna eagerly, setting both
+her bare elbows on the table and impatiently tapping the nails of one
+hand against the nails of the other, 'Is it true, they say, you are
+going to be married?'
+
+As she said these words, Maria Nikolaevna positively bent her head a
+little on one side so as to look more intently and piercingly into
+Sanin's eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+The free and easy deportment of Madame Polozov would probably for the
+first moment have disconcerted Sanin--though he was not quite a novice
+and had knocked about the world a little--if he had not again seen in
+this very freedom and familiarity a good omen for his undertaking.
+'We must humour this rich lady's caprices,' he decided inwardly; and
+as unconstrainedly as she had questioned him he answered, 'Yes; I am
+going to be married.'
+
+'To whom? To a foreigner?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Did you get acquainted with her lately? In Frankfort?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And what is she? May I know?'
+
+'Certainly. She is a confectioner's daughter.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna opened her eyes wide and lifted her eyebrows.
+
+'Why, this is delightful,' she commented in a drawling voice; 'this is
+exquisite! I imagined that young men like you were not to be met with
+anywhere in these days. A confectioner's daughter!'
+
+'I see that surprises you,' observed Sanin with some dignity; 'but in
+the first place, I have none of these prejudices ...'
+
+'In the first place, it doesn't surprise me in the least,' Maria
+Nikolaevna interrupted; 'I have no prejudices either. I'm the daughter
+of a peasant myself. There! what can you say to that? What does
+surprise and delight me is to have come across a man who's not afraid
+to love. You do love her, I suppose?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Is she very pretty?'
+
+Sanin was slightly stung by this last question.... However, there was
+no drawing back.
+
+'You know, Maria Nikolaevna,' he began, 'every man thinks the face
+of his beloved better than all others; but my betrothed is really
+beautiful.'
+
+'Really? In what style? Italian? antique?'
+
+'Yes; she has very regular features.'
+
+'You have not got her portrait with you?'
+
+'No.' (At that time photography was not yet talked off. Daguerrotypes
+had hardly begun to be common.)
+
+'What's her name?'
+
+'Her name is Gemma.'
+
+'And yours?'
+
+'Dimitri.'
+
+'And your father's?'
+
+'Pavlovitch.'
+
+'Do you know,' Maria Nikolaevna said, still in the same drawling
+voice, 'I like you very much, Dimitri Pavlovitch. You must be an
+excellent fellow. Give me your hand. Let us be friends.'
+
+She pressed his hand tightly in her beautiful, white, strong fingers.
+Her hand was a little smaller than his hand, but much warmer and
+smoother and whiter and more full of life.
+
+'Only, do you know what strikes me?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'You won't be angry? No? You say she is betrothed to you. But was that
+... was that quite necessary?'
+
+Sanin frowned. 'I don't understand you, Maria Nikolaevna.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna gave a soft low laugh, and shaking her head tossed
+back the hair that was falling on her cheeks. 'Decidedly--he's
+delightful,' she commented half pensively, half carelessly. 'A perfect
+knight! After that, there's no believing in the people who maintain
+that the race of idealists is extinct!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna talked Russian all the time, an astonishingly pure
+true Moscow Russian, such as the people, not the nobles speak.
+
+'You've been brought up at home, I expect, in a God-fearing, old
+orthodox family?' she queried. 'You're from what province?'
+
+'Tula.'
+
+'Oh! so we're from the same part. My father ... I daresay you know who
+my father was?'
+
+'Yes, I know.'
+
+'He was born in Tula.... He was a Tula man. Well ... well. Come, let
+us get to business now.'
+
+'That is ... how come to business? What do you mean to say by that?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna half-closed her eyes. 'Why, what did you come here
+for?' (when she screwed up her eyes, their expression became very
+kindly and a little bantering, when she opened them wide, into their
+clear, almost cold brilliancy, there came something-ill-natured
+... something menacing. Her eyes gained a peculiar beauty from her
+eyebrows, which were thick, and met in the centre, and had the
+smoothness of sable fur). 'Don't you want me to buy your estate? You
+want money for your nuptials? Don't you?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And do you want much?'
+
+'I should be satisfied with a few thousand francs at first. Your
+husband knows my estate. You can consult him--I would take a very
+moderate price.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna tossed her head from left to right. '_In the first
+place_,' she began in deliberate tones, drumming with the tips of
+her fingers on the cuff of Sanin's coat, 'I am not in the habit of
+consulting my husband, except about matters of dress--he's my right
+hand in that; _and in the second place_, why do you say that you will
+fix a low price? I don't want to take advantage of your being very
+much in love at the moment, and ready to make any sacrifices....
+I won't accept sacrifices of any kind from you. What? Instead of
+encouraging you ... come, how is one to express it properly?--in your
+noble sentiments, eh? am I to fleece you? that's not my way. I can be
+hard on people, on occasion--only not in that way.'
+
+Sanin was utterly unable to make out whether she was laughing at him
+or speaking seriously, and only said to himself: 'Oh, I can see one
+has to mind what one's about with you!'
+
+A man-servant came in with a Russian samovar, tea-things, cream,
+biscuits, etc., on a big tray; he set all these good things on the
+table between Sanin and Madame Polozov, and retired.
+
+She poured him out a cup of tea. 'You don't object?' she queried, as
+she put sugar in his cup with her fingers ... though sugar-tongs were
+lying close by.
+
+'Oh, please!... From such a lovely hand ...'
+
+He did not finish his phrase, and almost choked over a sip of tea,
+while she watched him attentively and brightly.
+
+'I spoke of a moderate price for my land,' he went on, 'because as you
+are abroad just now, I can hardly suppose you have a great deal of
+cash available, and in fact, I feel myself that the sale ... the
+purchase of my land, under such conditions is something exceptional,
+and I ought to take that into consideration.'
+
+Sanin got confused, and lost the thread of what he was saying, while
+Maria Nikolaevna softly leaned back in her easy-chair, folded her
+arms, and watched him with the same attentive bright look. He was
+silent at last.
+
+'Never mind, go on, go on,' she said, as it were coming to his aid;
+'I'm listening to you. I like to hear you; go on talking.'
+
+Sanin fell to describing his estate, how many acres it contained, and
+where it was situated, and what were its agricultural advantages,
+and what profit could be made from it ... he even referred to the
+picturesque situation of the house; while Maria Nikolaevna still
+watched him, and watched more and more intently and radiantly, and her
+lips faintly stirred, without smiling: she bit them. He felt awkward
+at last; he was silent a second time.
+
+'Dimitri Pavlovitch' began Maria Nikolaevna, and sank into thought
+again.... 'Dimitri Pavlovitch,' she repeated.... 'Do you know what:
+I am sure the purchase of your estate will be a very profitable
+transaction for me, and that we shall come to terms; but you must give
+me two days.... Yes, two days' grace. You are able to endure two days'
+separation from your betrothed, aren't you? Longer I won't keep you
+against your will--I give you my word of honour. But if you want five
+or six thousand francs at once, I am ready with great pleasure to let
+you have it as a loan, and then we'll settle later.'
+
+Sanin got up. 'I must thank you, Maria Nikolaevna, for your
+kindhearted and friendly readiness to do a service to a man almost
+unknown to you. But if that is your decided wish, then I prefer to
+await your decision about my estate--I will stay here two days.'
+
+'Yes; that is my wish, Dimitri Pavlovitch. And will it be very hard
+for you? Very? Tell me.'
+
+'I love my betrothed, Maria Nikolaevna, and to be separated from her
+is hard for me.'
+
+'Ah! you're a heart of gold!' Maria Nikolaevna commented with a sigh.
+'I promise not to torment you too much. Are you going?'
+
+'It is late,' observed Sanin.
+
+'And you want to rest after your journey, and your game of "fools"
+with my husband. Tell me, were you a great friend of Ippolit
+Sidorovitch, my husband?'
+
+'We were educated at the same school.'
+
+'And was he the same then?'
+
+'The same as what?' inquired Sanin. Maria Nikolaevna burst out
+laughing, and laughed till she was red in the face; she put her
+handkerchief to her lips, rose from her chair, and swaying as though
+she were tired, went up to Sanin, and held out her hand to him.
+
+He bowed over it, and went towards the door.
+
+'Come early to-morrow--do you hear?' she called after him. He looked
+back as he went out of the room, and saw that she had again dropped
+into an easy-chair, and flung both arms behind her head. The loose
+sleeves of her tea-gown fell open almost to her shoulders, and it was
+impossible not to admit that the pose of the arms, that the whole
+figure, was enchantingly beautiful.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+Long after midnight the lamp was burning in Sanin's room. He sat down
+to the table and wrote to 'his Gemma.' He told her everything; he
+described the Polozovs--husband and wife--but, more than all, enlarged
+on his own feelings, and ended by appointing a meeting with her in
+three days!!! (with three marks of exclamation). Early in the morning
+he took this letter to the post, and went for a walk in the garden
+of the Kurhaus, where music was already being played. There were few
+people in it as yet; he stood before the arbour in which the orchestra
+was placed, listened to an adaptation of airs from 'Robert le Diable,'
+and after drinking some coffee, turned into a solitary side walk, sat
+down on a bench, and fell into a reverie. The handle of a parasol
+gave him a rapid, and rather vigorous, thump on the shoulder. He
+started.... Before him in a light, grey-green barége dress, in a white
+tulle hat, and _suède_ gloves, stood Maria Nikolaevna, fresh and rosy
+as a summer morning, though the languor of sound unbroken sleep had
+not yet quite vanished from her movements and her eyes.
+
+'Good-morning,' she said. 'I sent after you to-day, but you'd already
+gone out. I've only just drunk my second glass--they're making me
+drink the water here, you know--whatever for, there's no telling ...
+am I not healthy enough? And now I have to walk for a whole hour. Will
+you be my companion? And then we'll have some coffee.'
+
+'I've had some already,' Sanin observed, getting up; 'but I shall be
+very glad to have a walk with you.'
+
+'Very well, give me your arm then; don't be afraid: your betrothed is
+not here--she won't see you.'
+
+Sanin gave a constrained smile. He experienced a disagreeable
+sensation every time Maria Nikolaevna referred to Gemma. However, he
+made haste to bend towards her obediently.... Maria Nikolaevna's arm
+slipped slowly and softly into his arm, and glided over it, and seemed
+to cling tight to it.
+
+'Come--this way,' she said to him, putting up her open parasol over
+her shoulder. 'I'm quite at home in this park; I will take you to the
+best places. And do you know what? (she very often made use of this
+expression), we won't talk just now about that sale, we'll have a
+thorough discussion of that after lunch; but you must tell me now
+about yourself ... so that I may know whom I have to do with. And
+afterwards, if you like, I will tell you about myself. Do you agree?'
+
+'But, Maria Nikolaevna, what interest can there be for you ...'
+
+'Stop, stop. You don't understand me. I don't want to flirt with you.'
+Maria Nikolaevna shrugged her shoulders. 'He's got a betrothed like an
+antique statue, is it likely I am going to flirt with him? But you've
+something to sell, and I'm the purchaser. I want to know what your
+goods are like. Well, of course, you must show what they are like.
+I don't only want to know what I'm buying, but whom I'm buying
+from. That was my father's rule. Come, begin ... come, if not from
+childhood--come now, have you been long abroad? And where have you
+been up till now? Only don't walk so fast, we're in no hurry.'
+
+'I came here from Italy, where I spent several months.'
+
+'Ah, you feel, it seems, a special attraction towards everything
+Italian. It's strange you didn't find your lady-love there. Are you
+fond of art? of pictures? or more of music?'
+
+'I am fond of art.... I like everything beautiful.'
+
+'And music?'
+
+'I like music too.'
+
+'Well, I don't at all. I don't care for anything but Russian
+songs--and that in the country and in the spring--with dancing, you
+know ... red shirts, wreaths of beads, the young grass in the meadows,
+the smell of smoke ... delicious! But we weren't talking of me. Go on,
+tell me.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna walked on, and kept looking at Sanin. She was
+tall--her face was almost on a level with his face.
+
+He began to talk--at first reluctantly, unskilfully--but afterwards
+he talked more freely, chattered away in fact. Maria Nikolaevna was
+a very good listener; and moreover she seemed herself so frank, that
+she led others unconsciously on to frankness. She possessed that
+great gift of 'intimateness'--_le terrible don de la familiarité_--to
+which Cardinal Retz refers. Sanin talked of his travels, of his life
+in Petersburg, of his youth.... Had Maria Nikolaevna been a lady
+of fashion, with refined manners, he would never have opened out
+so; but she herself spoke of herself as a 'good fellow,' who had
+no patience with ceremony of any sort; it was in those words that
+she characterised herself to Sanin. And at the same time this 'good
+fellow' walked by his side with feline grace, slightly bending towards
+him, and peeping into his face; and this 'good fellow' walked in the
+form of a young feminine creature, full of the tormenting, fiery, soft
+and seductive charm, of which--for the undoing of us poor weak sinful
+men--only Slav natures are possessed, and but few of them, and those
+never of pure Slav blood, with no foreign alloy. Sanin's walk with
+Maria Nikolaevna, Sanin's talk with Maria Nikolaevna lasted over an
+hour. And they did not stop once; they kept walking about the endless
+avenues of the park, now mounting a hill and admiring the view as
+they went, and now going down into the valley, and getting hidden in
+the thick shadows,--and all the while arm-in-arm. At times Sanin felt
+positively irritated; he had never walked so long with Gemma, his
+darling Gemma ... but this lady had simply taken possession of him,
+and there was no escape! 'Aren't you tired?' he said to her more
+than once. 'I never get tired,' she answered. Now and then they met
+other people walking in the park; almost all of them bowed--some
+respectfully, others even cringingly. To one of them, a very handsome,
+fashionably dressed dark man, she called from a distance with the best
+Parisian accent, '_Comte, vous savez, il ne faut pas venir me voir--ni
+aujourd'hui ni demain_.' The man took off his hat, without speaking,
+and dropped a low bow.
+
+'Who's that?' asked Sanin with the bad habit of asking questions
+characteristic of all Russians.
+
+'Oh, a Frenchman, there are lots of them here ... He's dancing
+attendance on me too. It's time for our coffee, though. Let's go home;
+you must be hungry by this time, I should say. My better half must
+have got his eye-peeps open by now.'
+
+'Better half! Eye-peeps!' Sanin repeated to himself ... 'And speaks
+French so well ... what a strange creature!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Maria Nikolaevna was not mistaken. When she went back into the hotel
+with Sanin, her 'better half or 'dumpling' was already seated, the
+invariable fez on his head, before a table laid for breakfast.
+
+'I've been waiting for you!' he cried, making a sour face. 'I was on
+the point of having coffee without you.'
+
+'Never mind, never mind,' Maria Nikolaevna responded cheerfully. 'Are
+you angry? That's good for you; without that you'd turn into a mummy
+altogether. Here I've brought a visitor. Make haste and ring! Let us
+have coffee--the best coffee--in Saxony cups on a snow-white cloth!'
+
+She threw off her hat and gloves, and clapped her hands.
+
+Polozov looked at her from under his brows.
+
+'What makes you so skittish to-day, Maria Nikolaevna?' he said in an
+undertone.
+
+'That's no business of yours, Ippolit Sidoritch! Ring! Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, sit down and have some coffee for the second time. Ah, how
+nice it is to give orders! There's no pleasure on earth like it!'
+
+'When you're obeyed,' grumbled her husband again.
+
+'Just so, when one's obeyed! That's why I'm so happy! Especially with
+you. Isn't it so, dumpling? Ah, here's the coffee.'
+
+On the immense tray, which the waiter brought in, there lay also a
+playbill. Maria Nikolaevna snatched it up at once.
+
+'A drama!' she pronounced with indignation, 'a German drama.
+No matter; it's better than a German comedy. Order a box for
+me--_baignoire_--or no ... better the _Fremden-Loge_,' she turned to
+the waiter. 'Do you hear: the _Fremden-Loge_ it must be!'
+
+'But if the _Fremden-Loge_ has been already taken by his excellency,
+the director of the town (_seine Excellenz der Herr Stadt-Director_),'
+the waiter ventured to demur.
+
+'Give his excellency ten _thalers_, and let the box be mine! Do you
+hear!'
+
+The waiter bent his head humbly and mournfully.
+
+'Dimitri Pavlovitch, you will go with me to the theatre? the German
+actors are awful, but you will go ... Yes? Yes? How obliging you are!
+Dumpling, are you not coming?
+
+'You settle it,' Polozov observed into the cup he had lifted to his
+lips.
+
+'Do you know what, you stay at home. You always go to sleep at the
+theatre, and you don't understand much German. I'll tell you what
+you'd better do, write an answer to the overseer--you remember, about
+our mill ... about the peasants' grinding. Tell him that I won't have
+it, and I won't and that's all about it! There's occupation for you
+for the whole evening.'
+
+'All right,' answered Polozov.
+
+'Well then, that's first-rate. You're a darling. And now, gentlemen,
+as we have just been speaking of my overseer, let's talk about our
+great business. Come, directly the waiter has cleared the table,
+you shall tell me all, Dimitri Pavlovitch, about your estate, what
+price you will sell it for, how much you want paid down in advance,
+everything, in fact! (At last, thought Sanin, thank God!) You have
+told me something about it already, you remember, you described your
+garden delightfully, but dumpling wasn't here.... Let him hear, he
+may pick a hole somewhere! I'm delighted to think that I can help you
+to get married, besides, I promised you that I would go into your
+business after lunch, and I always keep my promises, isn't that the
+truth, Ippolit Sidoritch?'
+
+Polozov rubbed his face with his open hand. 'The truth's the truth.
+You don't deceive any one.'
+
+'Never! and I never will deceive any one. Well, Dimitri Pavlovitch,
+expound the case as we express it in the senate.'
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+Sanin proceeded to expound his case, that is to say, again, a second
+time, to describe his property, not touching this time on the beauties
+of nature, and now and then appealing to Polozov for confirmation of
+his 'facts and figures.' But Polozov simply gasped and shook his head,
+whether in approval or disapproval, it would have puzzled the devil,
+one might fancy, to decide. However, Maria Nikolaevna stood in no need
+of his aid. She exhibited commercial and administrative abilities that
+were really astonishing! She was familiar with all the ins-and-outs of
+farming; she asked questions about everything with great exactitude,
+went into every point; every word of hers went straight to the root
+of the matter, and hit the nail on the head. Sanin had not expected
+such a close inquiry, he had not prepared himself for it. And this
+inquiry lasted for fully an hour and a half. Sanin experienced all
+the sensations of the criminal on his trial, sitting on a narrow
+bench confronted by a stern and penetrating judge. 'Why, it's
+a cross-examination!' he murmured to himself dejectedly. Maria
+Nikolaevna kept laughing all the while, as though it were a joke; but
+Sanin felt none the more at ease for that; and when in the course of
+the 'cross-examination' it turned out that he had not clearly realised
+the exact meaning of the words 'repartition' and 'tilth,' he was in a
+cold perspiration all over.
+
+'Well, that's all right!' Maria Nikolaevna decided at last. 'I know
+your estate now ... as well as you do. What price do you suggest per
+soul?' (At that time, as every one knows, the prices of estates were
+reckoned by the souls living as serfs on them.)
+
+'Well ... I imagine ... I could not take less than five hundred
+roubles for each,' Sanin articulated with difficulty. O Pantaleone,
+Pantaleone, where were you! This was when you ought to have cried
+again, 'Barbari!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her eyes upwards as though she were
+calculating.
+
+'Well?' she said at last. 'I think there's no harm in that price.
+But I reserved for myself two days' grace, and you must wait till
+to-morrow. I imagine we shall come to an arrangement, and then you
+will tell me how much you want paid down. And now, _basta cosi_!'
+she cried, noticing Sanin was about to make some reply. 'We've spent
+enough time over filthy lucre ... _à demain les affaires_. Do you
+know what, I'll let you go now ... (she glanced at a little enamelled
+watch, stuck in her belt) ... till three o'clock ... I must let you
+rest. Go and play roulette.'
+
+'I never play games of chance,' observed Sanin.
+
+'Really? Why, you're a paragon. Though I don't either. It's stupid
+throwing away one's money when one's no chance. But go into the
+gambling saloon, and look at the faces. Very comic ones there are
+there. There's one old woman with a rustic headband and a moustache,
+simply delicious! Our prince there's another, a good one too. A
+majestic figure with a nose like an eagle's, and when he puts down a
+_thaler_, he crosses himself under his waistcoat. Read the papers,
+go a walk, do what you like, in fact. But at three o'clock I expect
+you ... _de pied ferme_. We shall have to dine a little earlier. The
+theatre among these absurd Germans begins at half-past six. She held
+out her hand. '_Sans rancune, n'est-ce pas?_'
+
+'Really, Maria Nikolaevna, what reason have I to be annoyed?'
+
+'Why, because I've been tormenting you. Wait a little, you'll see.
+There's worse to come,' she added, fluttering her eyelids, and all her
+dimples suddenly came out on her flushing cheeks. 'Till we meet!'
+
+Sanin bowed and went out. A merry laugh rang out after him, and in
+the looking-glass which he was passing at that instant, the following
+scene was reflected: Maria Nikolaevna had pulled her husband's fez
+over his eyes, and he was helplessly struggling with both hands.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+Oh, what a deep sigh of delight Sanin heaved, when he found himself
+in his room! Indeed, Maria Nikolaevna had spoken the truth, he
+needed rest, rest from all these new acquaintances, collisions,
+conversations, from this suffocating atmosphere which was affecting
+his head and his heart, from this enigmatical, uninvited intimacy with
+a woman, so alien to him! And when was all this taking place? Almost
+the day after he had learnt that Gemma loved him, after he had become
+betrothed to her. Why, it was sacrilege! A thousand times he mentally
+asked forgiveness of his pure chaste dove, though he could not really
+blame himself for anything; a thousand times over he kissed the cross
+she had given him. Had he not the hope of bringing the business, for
+which he had come to Wiesbaden, to a speedy and successful conclusion,
+he would have rushed off headlong, back again, to sweet Frankfort, to
+that dear house, now his own home, to her, to throw himself at her
+loved feet.... But there was no help for it! The cup must be drunk
+to the dregs, he must dress, go to dinner, and from there to the
+theatre.... If only she would let him go to-morrow!
+
+One other thing confounded him, angered him; with love, with
+tenderness, with grateful transport he dreamed of Gemma, of their life
+together, of the happiness awaiting him in the future, and yet this
+strange woman, this Madame Polozov persistently floated--no! not
+floated, poked herself, so Sanin with special vindictiveness expressed
+it--_poked herself_ in and faced his eyes, and he could not rid
+himself of her image, could not help hearing her voice, recalling her
+words, could not help being aware even of the special scent, delicate,
+fresh and penetrating, like the scent of yellow lilies, that was
+wafted from her garments. This lady was obviously fooling him, and
+trying in every way to get over him ... what for? what did she want?
+Could it be merely the caprice of a spoiled, rich, and most likely
+unprincipled woman? And that husband! What a creature he was! What
+were his relations with her? And why would these questions keep coming
+into his head, when he, Sanin, had really no interest whatever in
+either Polozov or his wife? Why could he not drive away that intrusive
+image, even when he turned with his whole soul to another image,
+clear and bright as God's sunshine? How, through those almost divine
+features, dare _those others_ force themselves upon him? And not only
+that; those other features smiled insolently at him. Those grey,
+rapacious eyes, those dimples, those snake-like tresses, how was it
+all that seemed to cleave to him, and to shake it all off, and fling
+it away, he was unable, had not the power?
+
+Nonsense! nonsense! to-morrow it would all vanish and leave no
+trace.... But would she let him go to-morrow?
+
+Yes.... All these question he put to himself, but the time was moving
+on to three o'clock, and he put on a black frockcoat and after a turn
+in the park, went in to the Polozovs!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He found in their drawing-room a secretary of the legation, a very
+tall light-haired German, with the profile of a horse, and his hair
+parted down the back of his head (at that time a new fashion), and ...
+oh, wonder! whom besides? Von Dönhof, the very officer with whom he
+had fought a few days before! He had not the slightest expectation of
+meeting him there and could not help being taken aback. He greeted
+him, however.
+
+'Are you acquainted?' asked Maria Nikolaevna who had not failed to
+notice Sanin's embarrassment.
+
+'Yes ... I have already had the honour,' said Dönhof, and bending a
+little aside, in an undertone he added to Maria Nikolaevna, with a
+smile, 'The very man ... your compatriot ... the Russian ...'
+
+'Impossible!' she exclaimed also in an undertone; she shook her finger
+at him, and at once began to bid good-bye both to him and the long
+secretary, who was, to judge by every symptom, head over ears in love
+with her; he positively gaped every time he looked at her. Dönhof
+promptly took leave with amiable docility, like a friend of the family
+who understands at half a word what is expected of him; the secretary
+showed signs of restiveness, but Maria Nikolaevna turned him out
+without any kind of ceremony.
+
+'Get along to your sovereign mistress,' she said to him (there was
+at that time in Wiesbaden a certain princess di Monaco, who looked
+surprisingly like a _cocotte_ of the poorer sort); 'what do you want
+to stay with a plebeian like me for?'
+
+'Really, dear madam,' protested the luckless secretary,' all the
+princesses in the world....'
+
+But Maria Nikolaevna was remorseless, and the secretary went away,
+parting and all.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna was dressed that day very much 'to her advantage,'
+as our grandmothers used to say. She wore a pink glacé silk dress,
+with sleeves _à la Fontange_, and a big diamond in each ear. Her eyes
+sparkled as much as her diamonds; she seemed in a good humour and in
+high spirits.
+
+She made Sanin sit beside her, and began talking to him about Paris,
+where she was intending to go in a few days, of how sick she was of
+Germans, how stupid they were when they tried to be clever, and how
+inappropriately clever sometimes when they were stupid; and suddenly,
+point-blank, as they say--_à brûle pourpoint_--asked him, was it true
+that he had fought a duel with the very officer who had been there
+just now, only a few days ago, on account of a lady?
+
+'How did you know that?' muttered Sanin, dumfoundered.
+
+'The earth is full of rumours, Dimitri Pavlovitch; but anyway, I know
+you were quite right, perfectly right, and behaved like a knight. Tell
+me, was that lady your betrothed?'
+
+Sanin slightly frowned ...
+
+'There, I won't, I won't,' Maria Nikolaevna hastened to say. 'You
+don't like it, forgive me, I won't do it, don't be angry!' Polozov
+came in from the next room with a newspaper in his hand. 'What do you
+want? Or is dinner ready?'
+
+'Dinner'll be ready directly, but just see what I've read in the
+_Northern Bee_ ... Prince Gromoboy is dead.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna raised her head.
+
+'Ah! I wish him the joys of Paradise! He used,' she turned to Sanin,
+'to fill all my rooms with camellias every February on my birthday,
+But it wasn't worth spending the winter in Petersburg for that. He
+must have been over seventy, I should say?' she said to her husband.
+
+'Yes, he was. They describe his funeral in the paper. All the court
+were present. And here's a poem too, of Prince Kovrizhkin's on the
+occasion.'
+
+'That's nice!'
+
+'Shall I read them? The prince calls him the good man of wise
+counsel.'
+
+'No, don't. The good man of wise counsel? He was simply the goodman
+of Tatiana Yurevna. Come to dinner. Life is for the living. Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, your arm.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dinner was, as on the day before, superb, and the meal was a very
+lively one. Maria Nikolaevna knew how to tell a story ... a rare gift
+in a woman, and especially in a Russian one! She did not restrict
+herself in her expressions; her countrywomen received particularly
+severe treatment at her hands. Sanin was more than once set laughing
+by some bold and well-directed word. Above all, Maria Nikolaevna
+had no patience with hypocrisy, cant, and humbug. She discovered it
+almost everywhere. She, as it were, plumed herself on and boasted of
+the humble surroundings in which she had begun life. She told rather
+queer anecdotes of her relations in the days of her childhood, spoke
+of herself as quite as much of a clodhopper as Natalya Kirilovna
+Narishkin. It became apparent to Sanin that she had been through a
+great deal more in her time than the majority of women of her age.
+
+Polozov ate meditatively, drank attentively, and only occasionally
+cast first on his wife, then on Sanin, his lightish, dim-looking, but,
+in reality, very keen eyes.
+
+'What a clever darling you are!' cried Maria Nikolaevna, turning to
+him; 'how well you carried out all my commissions in Frankfort! I
+could give you a kiss on your forehead for it, but you're not very
+keen after kisses.'
+
+'I'm not,' responded Polozov, and he cut a pine-apple with a silver
+knife.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna looked at him and drummed with her fingers on the
+table. 'So our bet's on, isn't it?' she said significantly. 'Yes, it's
+on.'
+
+'All right. You'll lose it.'
+
+Polozov stuck out his chin. 'Well, this time you mustn't be too
+sanguine, Maria Nikolaevna, maybe you will lose.'
+
+'What is the bet? May I know?' asked Sanin.
+
+'No ... not now,' answered Maria Nikolaevna, and she laughed.
+
+It struck seven. The waiter announced that the carriage was ready.
+Polozov saw his wife out, and at once waddled back to his easy-chair.
+
+'Mind now! Don't forget the letter to the overseer,' Maria Nikolaevna
+shouted to him from the hall.
+
+'I'll write, don't worry yourself. I'm a business-like person.'
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+
+In the year 1840, the theatre at Wiesbaden was a poor affair even
+externally, and its company, for affected and pitiful mediocrity, for
+studious and vulgar commonplaceness, not one hair's-breadth above the
+level, which might be regarded up to now as the normal one in all
+German theatres, and which has been displayed in perfection lately by
+the company in Carlsruhe, under the 'illustrious' direction of Herr
+Devrient. At the back of the box taken for her 'Serenity Madame von
+Polozov' (how the waiter devised the means of getting it, God knows,
+he can hardly have really bribed the stadt-director!) was a little
+room, with sofas all round it; before she went into the box, Maria
+Nikolaevna asked Sanin to draw up the screen that shut the box off
+from the theatre.
+
+'I don't want to be seen,' she said, 'or else they'll be swarming
+round directly, you know.' She made him sit down beside her with his
+back to the house so that the box seemed to be empty. The orchestra
+played the overture from the _Marriage of Figaro_. The curtain rose,
+the play began.
+
+It was one of those numerous home-raised products in which well-read
+but talentless authors, in choice, but dead language, studiously and
+cautiously enunciated some 'profound' or 'vital and palpitating'
+idea, portrayed a so-called tragic conflict, and produced dulness ...
+an Asiatic dulness, like Asiatic cholera. Maria Nikolaevna listened
+patiently to half an act, but when the first lover, discovering the
+treachery of his mistress (he was dressed in a cinnamon-coloured
+coat with 'puffs' and a plush collar, a striped waistcoat with
+mother-of-pearl buttons, green trousers with straps of varnished
+leather, and white chamois leather gloves), when this lover pressed
+both fists to his bosom, and poking his two elbows out at an acute
+angle, howled like a dog, Maria Nikolaevna could not stand it.
+
+'The humblest French actor in the humblest little provincial town acts
+better and more naturally than the highest German celebrity,' she
+cried in indignation; and she moved away and sat down in the little
+room at the back. 'Come here,' she said to Sanin, patting the sofa
+beside her. 'Let's talk.'
+
+Sanin obeyed.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna glanced at him. 'Ah, I see you're as soft as silk!
+Your wife will have an easy time of it with you. That buffoon,' she
+went on, pointing with her fan towards the howling actor (he was
+acting the part of a tutor), 'reminded me of my young days; I, too,
+was in love with a teacher. It was my first ... no, my second passion.
+The first time I fell in love with a young monk of the Don monastery.
+I was twelve years old. I only saw him on Sundays. He used to wear
+a short velvet cassock, smelt of lavender water, and as he made his
+way through the crowd with the censer, used to say to the ladies in
+French, "_Pardon, excusez_" but never lifted his eyes, and he had
+eyelashes like that!' Maria Nikolaevna marked off with the nail of her
+middle finger quite half the length of the little finger and showed
+Sanin. 'My tutor was called--Monsieur Gaston! I must tell you he was
+an awfully learned and very severe person, a Swiss,--and with such an
+energetic face! Whiskers black as pitch, a Greek profile, and lips
+that looked like cast iron! I was afraid of him! He was the only man I
+have ever been afraid of in my life. He was tutor to my brother, who
+died ... was drowned. A gipsy woman has foretold a violent death for
+me too, but that's all moonshine. I don't believe in it. Only fancy
+Ippolit Sidoritch with a dagger!'
+
+'One may die from something else than a dagger,' observed Sanin.
+
+'All that's moonshine! Are you superstitious? I'm not a bit. What is
+to be, will be. Monsieur Gaston used to live in our house, in the room
+over my head. Sometimes I'd wake up at night and hear his footstep--he
+used to go to bed very late--and my heart would stand still with
+veneration, or some other feeling. My father could hardly read and
+write himself, but he gave us an excellent education. Do you know, I
+learnt Latin!'
+
+'You? learnt Latin?'
+
+'Yes; I did. Monsieur Gaston taught me. I read the _Æneid_ with him.
+It's a dull thing, but there are fine passages. Do you remember when
+Dido and Æneas are in the forest?...'
+
+'Yes, yes, I remember,' Sanin answered hurriedly. He had long ago
+forgotten all his Latin, and had only very faint notions about the
+_Æneid_.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna glanced at him, as her way was, a little from one
+side and looking upwards. 'Don't imagine, though, that I am very
+learned. Mercy on us! no; I'm not learned, and I've no talents of any
+sort. I scarcely know how to write ... really; I can't read aloud; nor
+play the piano, nor draw, nor sew--nothing! That's what I am--there
+you have me!'
+
+She threw out her hands. 'I tell you all this,' she said, 'first,
+so as not to hear those fools (she pointed to the stage where at
+that instant the actor's place was being filled by an actress, also
+howling, and also with her elbows projecting before her) and secondly,
+because I'm in your debt; you told me all about yourself yesterday.'
+
+'It was your pleasure to question me,' observed Sanin.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna suddenly turned to him. 'And it's not your pleasure
+to know just what sort of woman I am? I can't wonder at it, though,'
+she went on, leaning back again on the sofa cushions. 'A man just
+going to be married, and for love, and after a duel.... What thoughts
+could he have for anything else?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna relapsed into dreamy silence, and began biting the
+handle of her fan with her big, but even, milkwhite teeth.
+
+And Sanin felt mounting to his head again that intoxication which he
+had not been able to get rid of for the last two days.
+
+The conversation between him and Maria Nikolaevna was carried on in an
+undertone, almost in a whisper, and this irritated and disturbed him
+the more....
+
+When would it all end?
+
+Weak people never put an end to things themselves--they always wait
+for the end.
+
+Some one sneezed on the stage; this sneeze had been put into the play
+by the author as the 'comic relief' or 'element'; there was certainly
+no other comic element in it; and the audience made the most of it;
+they laughed.
+
+This laugh, too, jarred upon Sanin.
+
+There were moments when he actually did not know whether he was
+furious or delighted, bored or amused. Oh, if Gemma could have seen
+him!
+
+'It's really curious,' Maria Nikolaevna began all at once. 'A man
+informs one and in such a calm voice, "I am going to get married"; but
+no one calmly says to one, "I'm going to throw myself in the water."
+And yet what difference is there? It's curious, really.'
+
+Annoyance got the upper hand of Sanin. 'There's a great difference,
+Maria Nikolaevna! It's not dreadful at all to throw oneself in the
+water if one can swim; and besides ... as to the strangeness of
+marriages, if you come to that ...'
+
+He stopped short abruptly and bit his tongue.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna slapped her open hand with her fan.
+
+'Go on, Dimitri Pavlovitch, go on--I know what you were going to say.
+"If it comes to that, my dear madam, Maria Nikolaevna Polozov," you
+were going to say, "anything more curious than _your_ marriage it
+would be impossible to conceive.... I know your husband well, from a
+child!" That's what you were going to say, you who can swim!'
+
+'Excuse me,' Sanin was beginning....
+
+'Isn't it the truth? Isn't it the truth?' Maria Nikolaevna pronounced
+insistently.
+
+'Come, look me in the face and tell me I was wrong!'
+
+Sanin did not know what to do with his eyes. 'Well, if you like; it's
+the truth, if you absolutely insist upon it,' he said at last.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna shook her head. 'Quite so, quite so. Well, and did
+you ask yourself, you who can swim, what could be the reason of such
+a strange ... step on the part of a woman, not poor ... and not a
+fool ... and not ugly? All that does not interest you, perhaps, but
+no matter. I'll tell you the reason not this minute, but directly the
+_entr'acte_ is over. I am in continual uneasiness for fear some one
+should come in....'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna had hardly uttered this last word when the outer door
+actually was half opened, and into the box was thrust a head--red,
+oily, perspiring, still young, but toothless; with sleek long hair,
+a pendent nose, huge ears like a bat's, with gold spectacles on
+inquisitive dull eyes, and a _pince-nez_ over the spectacles. The head
+looked round, saw Maria Nikolaevna, gave a nasty grin, nodded.... A
+scraggy neck craned in after it....
+
+Maria Nikolaevna shook her handkerchief at it. 'I'm not at home! _Ich
+bin nicht zu Hause, Herr P....! Ich bin nicht zu Hause.... Ksh-sk!
+ksh-sh-sh!_'
+
+The head was disconcerted, gave a forced laugh, said with a sort of
+sob, in imitation of Liszt, at whose feet he had once reverently
+grovelled, '_Sehr gut, sehr gut!_' and vanished.
+
+'What is that object?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'Oh, a Wiesbaden critic. A literary man or a flunkey, as you like. He
+is in the pay of a local speculator here, and so is bound to praise
+everything and be ecstatic over every one, though for his part he is
+soaked through and through with the nastiest venom, to which he does
+not dare to give vent. I am afraid he's an awful scandalmonger; he'll
+run at once to tell every one I'm in the theatre. Well, what does it
+matter?'
+
+The orchestra played through a waltz, the curtain floated up again....
+The grimacing and whimpering began again on the stage.
+
+'Well,' began Maria Nikolaevna, sinking again on to the sofa. 'Since
+you are here and obliged to sit with me, instead of enjoying the
+society of your betrothed--don't turn away your eyes and get cross--I
+understand you, and have promised already to let you go to the other
+end of the earth--but now hear my confession. Do you care to know what
+I like more than anything?'
+
+'Freedom,' hazarded Sanin.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna laid her hand on his hand.
+
+'Yes, Dimitri Pavlovitch,' she said, and in her voice there was a note
+of something special, a sort of unmistakable sincerity and gravity,
+'freedom, more than all and before all. And don't imagine I am
+boasting of this--there is nothing praiseworthy in it; only it's _so_
+and always will be _so_ with me to the day of my death. I suppose it
+must have been that I saw a great deal of slavery in my childhood and
+suffered enough from it. Yes, and Monsieur Gaston, my tutor, opened
+my eyes too. Now you can, perhaps, understand why I married Ippolit
+Sidoritch: with him I'm free, perfectly free as air, as the wind....
+And I knew that before marriage; I knew that with him I should be a
+free Cossack!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna paused and flung her fan aside.
+
+'I will tell you one thing more; I have no distaste for reflection ...
+it's amusing, and indeed our brains are given us for that; but on the
+consequences of what I do I never reflect, and if I suffer I don't
+pity myself--not a little bit; it's not worth it. I have a favourite
+saying: _Cela ne tire pas à conséquence_,--I don't know how to say
+that in Russian. And after all, what does _tire à consequence_? I
+shan't be asked to give an account of myself here, you see--in this
+world; and up there (she pointed upwards with her finger), well, up
+there--let them manage as best they can. When they come to judge me
+up there, _I_ shall not be _I_! Are you listening to me? Aren't you
+bored?'
+
+Sanin was sitting bent up. He raised his head. 'I'm not at all bored,
+Maria Nikolaevna, and I am listening to you with curiosity. Only I ...
+confess ... I wonder why you say all this to me?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna edged a little away on the sofa.
+
+'You wonder?... Are you slow to guess? Or so modest?'
+
+Sanin lifted his head higher than before.
+
+'I tell you all this,' Maria Nikolaevna continued in an unmoved tone,
+which did not, however, at all correspond with the expression of her
+face, 'because I like you very much; yes, don't be surprised, I'm not
+joking; because since I have met you, it would be painful to me that
+you had a disagreeable recollection of me ... not disagreeable even,
+that I shouldn't mind, but untrue. That's why I have made you come
+here, and am staying alone with you and talking to you so openly....
+Yes, yes, openly. I'm not telling a lie. And observe, Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, I know you're in love with another woman, that you're
+going to be married to her.... Do justice to my disinterestedness!
+Though indeed it's a good opportunity for you to say in your turn:
+_Cela ne tire pas à conséquence_!'
+
+She laughed, but her laugh suddenly broke off, and she stayed
+motionless, as though her own words had suddenly struck her, and in
+her eyes, usually so gay and bold, there was a gleam of something like
+timidity, even like sadness.
+
+'Snake! ah, she's a snake!' Sanin was thinking meanwhile; 'but what a
+lovely snake!'
+
+'Give me my opera-glass,' Maria Nikolaevna said suddenly. 'I want to
+see whether this _jeune première_ really is so ugly. Upon my word, one
+might fancy the government appointed her in the interests of morality,
+so that the young men might not lose their heads over her.'
+
+Sanin handed her the opera-glass, and as she took it from him,
+swiftly, but hardly audibly, she snatched his hand in both of hers.
+
+'Please don't be serious,' she whispered with a smile. 'Do you know
+what, no one can put fetters on me, but then you see I put no fetters
+on others. I love freedom, and I don't acknowledge duties--not only
+for myself. Now move to one side a little, and let us listen to the
+play.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her opera-glass upon the stage, and Sanin
+proceeded to look in the same direction, sitting beside her in the
+half dark of the box, and involuntarily drinking in the warmth and
+fragrance of her luxurious body, and as involuntarily turning over
+and over in his head all she had said during the evening--especially
+during the last minutes.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+
+The play lasted over an hour longer, but Maria Nikolaevna and Sanin
+soon gave up looking at the stage. A conversation sprang up between
+them again, and went on the same lines as before; only this time Sanin
+was less silent. Inwardly he was angry with himself and with Maria
+Nikolaevna; he tried to prove to her all the inconsistency of her
+'theory,' as though she cared for theories! He began arguing with her,
+at which she was secretly rejoiced; if a man argues, it means that he
+is giving in or will give in. He had taken the bait, was giving way,
+had left off keeping shyly aloof! She retorted, laughed, agreed, mused
+dreamily, attacked him ... and meanwhile his face and her face were
+close together, his eyes no longer avoided her eyes.... Those eyes
+of hers seemed to ramble, seemed to hover over his features, and he
+smiled in response to them--a smile of civility, but still a smile.
+It was so much gained for her that he had gone off into abstractions,
+that he was discoursing upon truth in personal relations, upon
+duty, the sacredness of love and marriage.... It is well known that
+these abstract propositions serve admirably as a beginning ... as a
+starting-point....
+
+People who knew Maria Nikolaevna well used to maintain that when her
+strong and vigorous personality showed signs of something soft and
+modest, something almost of maidenly shamefacedness, though one
+wondered where she could have got it from ... then ... then, things
+were taking a dangerous turn.
+
+Things had apparently taken such a turn for Sanin.... He would have
+felt contempt for himself, if he could have succeeded in concentrating
+his attention for one instant; but he had not time to concentrate his
+mind nor to despise himself.
+
+She wasted no time. And it all came from his being so very
+good-looking! One can but exclaim, No man knows what may be his making
+or his undoing!
+
+The play was over. Maria Nikolaevna asked Sanin to put on her shawl
+and did not stir, while he wrapped the soft fabric round her really
+queenly shoulders. Then she took his arm, went out into the corridor,
+and almost cried out aloud. At the very door of the box Dönhof sprang
+up like some apparition; while behind his back she got a glimpse of
+the figure of the Wiesbaden critic. The 'literary man's' oily face was
+positively radiant with malignancy.
+
+'Is it your wish, madam, that I find you your carriage?' said
+the young officer addressing Maria Nikolaevna with a quiver of
+ill-disguised fury in his voice.
+
+'No, thank you,' she answered ... 'my man will find it. Stop!' she
+added in an imperious whisper, and rapidly withdrew drawing Sanin
+along with her.
+
+'Go to the devil! Why are you staring at me?' Dönhof roared suddenly
+at the literary man. He had to vent his feelings upon some one!
+
+'_Sehr gut! sehr gut!_' muttered the literary man, and shuffled off.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna's footman, waiting for her in the entrance, found her
+carriage in no time. She quickly took her seat in it; Sanin leapt in
+after her. The doors were slammed to, and Maria Nikolaevna exploded in
+a burst of laughter.
+
+'What are you laughing at?' Sanin inquired.
+
+'Oh, excuse me, please ... but it struck me: what if Dönhof were to
+have another duel with you ... on my account.... wouldn't that be
+wonderful?'
+
+'Are you very great friends with him?' Sanin asked.
+
+'With him? that boy? He's one of my followers. You needn't trouble
+yourself about him!'
+
+'Oh, I'm not troubling myself at all.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna sighed. 'Ah, I know you're not. But listen, do you
+know what, you're such a darling, you mustn't refuse me one last
+request. Remember in three days' time I am going to Paris, and you are
+returning to Frankfort.... Shall we ever meet again?'
+
+'What is this request?'
+
+'You can ride, of course?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, then, to-morrow morning I'll take you with me, and we'll go a
+ride together out of the town. We'll have splendid horses. Then we'll
+come home, wind up our business, and amen! Don't be surprised, don't
+tell me it's a caprice, and I'm a madcap--all that's very likely--but
+simply say, I consent.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her face towards him. It was dark in the
+carriage, but her eyes glittered even in the darkness.
+
+'Very well, I consent,' said Sanin with a sigh.
+
+'Ah! You sighed!' Maria Nikolaevna mimicked him. 'That means to say,
+as you've begun, you must go on to the bitter end. But no, no....
+You're charming, you're good, and I'll keep my promise. Here's my
+hand, without a glove on it, the right one, for business. Take it, and
+have faith in its pressure. What sort of a woman I am, I don't know;
+but I'm an honest fellow, and one can do business with me.'
+
+Sanin, without knowing very well what he was doing, lifted the hand to
+his lips. Maria Nikolaevna softly took it, and was suddenly still, and
+did not speak again till the carriage stopped.
+
+She began getting out.... What was it? Sanin's fancy? or did he really
+feel on his cheek a swift burning kiss?
+
+'Till to-morrow!' whispered Maria Nikolaevna on the steps, in the
+light of the four tapers of a candelabrum, held up on her appearance
+by the gold-laced door-keeper. She kept her eyes cast down. 'Till
+to-morrow!'
+
+When he got back to his room, Sanin found on the table a letter from
+Gemma. He felt a momentary dismay, and at once made haste to rejoice
+over it to disguise his dismay from himself. It consisted of a few
+lines. She was delighted at the 'successful opening of negotiations,'
+advised him to be patient, and added that all at home were well, and
+were already rejoicing at the prospect of seeing him back again. Sanin
+felt the letter rather stiff, he took pen and paper, however ... and
+threw it all aside again. 'Why write? I shall be back myself to-morrow
+... it's high time!'
+
+He went to bed immediately, and tried to get to sleep as quickly as
+possible. If he had stayed up and remained on his legs, he would
+certainly have begun thinking about Gemma, and he was for some reason
+... ashamed to think of her. His conscience was stirring within him.
+But he consoled himself with the reflection that to-morrow it would
+all be over for ever, and he would take leave for good of this
+feather-brained lady, and would forget all this rotten idiocy!...
+
+Weak people in their mental colloquies, eagerly make use of strong
+expressions.
+
+_Et puis ... cela ne tire pas à consequence!_
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+
+Such were Sanin's thoughts, as he went to bed; but what he thought
+next morning when Maria Nikolaevna knocked impatiently at his door
+with the coral handle of her riding-whip, when he saw her in the
+doorway, with the train of a dark-blue riding habit over her arm, with
+a man's small hat on her thickly coiled curls, with a veil thrown
+back over her shoulder, with a smile of invitation on her lips, in
+her eyes, over all her face--what he thought then--history does not
+record.
+
+'Well? are you ready?' rang out a joyous voice.
+
+Sanin buttoned his coat, and took his hat in silence. Maria Nikolaevna
+flung him a bright look, nodded to him, and ran swiftly down the
+staircase. And he ran after her.
+
+The horses were already waiting in the street at the steps. There
+were three of them, a golden chestnut thorough-bred mare, with a
+thin-lipped mouth, that showed the teeth, with black prominent eyes,
+and legs like a stag's, rather thin but beautifully shaped, and full
+of fire and spirit, for Maria Nikolaevna; a big, powerful, rather
+thick-set horse, raven black all over, for Sanin; the third horse was
+destined for the groom. Maria Nikolaevna leaped adroitly on to her
+mare, who stamped and wheeled round, lifting her tail, and sinking
+on to her haunches. But Maria Nikolaevna, who was a first-rate
+horse-woman, reined her in; they had to take leave of Polozov, who in
+his inevitable fez and in an open dressing-gown, came out on to the
+balcony, and from there waved a _batiste_ handkerchief, without the
+faintest smile, rather a frown, in fact, on his face. Sanin too
+mounted his horse; Maria Nikolaevna saluted Polozov with her whip,
+then gave her mare a lash with it on her arched and flat neck. The
+mare reared on her hind legs, made a dash forward, moving with a smart
+and shortened step, quivering in every sinew, biting the air and
+snorting abruptly. Sanin rode behind, and looked at Maria Nikolaevna;
+her slender supple figure, moulded by close-fitting but easy stays,
+swayed to and fro with self-confident grace and skill. She turned her
+head and beckoned him with her eyes alone. He came alongside of her.
+
+'See now, how delightful it is,' she said. 'I tell you at the last,
+before parting, you are charming, and you shan't regret it.'
+
+As she uttered those last words, she nodded her head several times as
+if to confirm them and make him feel their full weight.
+
+She seemed so happy that Sanin was simply astonished; her face even
+wore at times that sedate expression which children sometimes have
+when they are very ... very much pleased.
+
+They rode at a walking pace for the short distance to the city walls,
+but then started off at a vigorous gallop along the high road. It was
+magnificent, real summer weather; the wind blew in their faces, and
+sang and whistled sweetly in their ears. They felt very happy; the
+sense of youth, health and life, of free eager onward motion, gained
+possession of both; it grew stronger every instant.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna reined in her mare, and again went at a walking pace;
+Sanin followed her example.
+
+'This,' she began with a deep blissful sigh, 'this now is the only
+thing worth living for. When you succeed in doing what you want to,
+what seemed impossible--come, enjoy it, heart and soul, to the last
+drop!' She passed her hand across her throat. 'And how good and kind
+one feels oneself then! I now, at this moment ... how good I feel!
+I feel as if I could embrace the whole world! No, not the whole
+world.... That man now I couldn't.' She pointed with her whip at a
+poorly dressed old man who was stealing along on one side. 'But I
+am ready to make him happy. Here, take this,' she shouted loudly in
+German, and she flung a net purse at his feet. The heavy little bag
+(leather purses were not thought of at that time) fell with a ring
+on to the road. The old man was astounded, stood still, while Maria
+Nikolaevna chuckled, and put her mare into a gallop.
+
+'Do you enjoy riding so much?' Sanin asked, as he overtook her.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna reined her mare in once more: only in this way could
+she bring her to a stop.
+
+'I only wanted to get away from thanks. If any one thanks me, he
+spoils my pleasure. You see I didn't do that for his sake, but for my
+own. How dare he thank me? I didn't hear what you asked me.'
+
+'I asked ... I wanted to know what makes you so happy to-day.'
+
+'Do you know what,' said Maria Nikolaevna; either she had again not
+heard Sanin's question, or she did not consider it necessary to answer
+it. 'I'm awfully sick of that groom, who sticks up there behind us,
+and most likely does nothing but wonder when we gentlefolks are going
+home again. How shall we get rid of him?' She hastily pulled a little
+pocket-book out of her pocket. 'Send him back to the town with a note?
+No ... that won't do. Ah! I have it! What's that in front of us? Isn't
+it an inn?'
+
+Sanin looked in the direction she pointed. 'Yes, I believe it is an
+inn.'
+
+'Well, that's first-rate. I'll tell him to stop at that inn and drink
+beer till we come back.'
+
+'But what will he think?'
+
+'What does it matter to us? Besides, he won't think at all; he'll
+drink beer--that's all. Come, Sanin (it was the first time she had
+used his surname alone), on, gallop!'
+
+When they reached the inn, Maria Nikolaevna called the groom up
+and told him what she wished of him. The groom, a man of English
+extraction and English temperament, raised his hand to the beak of his
+cap without a word, jumped off his horse, and took him by the bridle.
+
+'Well, now we are free as the birds of the air!' cried Maria
+Nikolaevna. 'Where shall we go. North, south, east, or west? Look--I'm
+like the Hungarian king at his coronation (she pointed her whip in
+each direction in turn). All is ours! No, do you know what: see, those
+glorious mountains--and that forest! Let's go there, to the mountains,
+to the mountains!'
+
+'_In die Berge wo die Freiheit thront!_'
+
+She turned off the high-road and galloped along a narrow untrodden
+track, which certainly seemed to lead straight to the hills. Sanin
+galloped after her.
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+
+This track soon changed into a tiny footpath, and at last disappeared
+altogether, and was crossed by a stream. Sanin counselled turning
+back, but Maria Nikolaevna said, 'No! I want to get to the mountains!
+Let's go straight, as the birds fly,' and she made her mare leap the
+stream. Sanin leaped it too. Beyond the stream began a wide meadow,
+at first dry, then wet, and at last quite boggy; the water oozed up
+everywhere, and stood in pools in some places. Maria Nikolaevna rode
+her mare straight through these pools on purpose, laughed, and said,
+'Let's be naughty children.'
+
+'Do you know,' she asked Sanin, 'what is meant by pool-hunting?'
+
+'Yes,' answered Sanin.
+
+'I had an uncle a huntsman,' she went on.
+
+'I used to go out hunting with him--in the spring. It was delicious!
+Here we are now, on the pools with you. Only, I see, you're a Russian,
+and yet mean to marry an Italian. Well, that's your sorrow. What's
+that? A stream again! Gee up!'
+
+The horse took the leap, but Maria Nikolaevna's hat fell off her head,
+and her curls tumbled loose over her shoulders. Sanin was just going
+to get off his horse to pick up the hat, but she shouted to him,
+'Don't touch it, I'll get it myself,' bent low down from the saddle,
+hooked the handle of her whip into the veil, and actually did get the
+hat. She put it on her head, but did not fasten up her hair, and again
+darted off, positively holloaing. Sanin dashed along beside her, by
+her side leaped trenches, fences, brooks, fell in and scrambled out,
+flew down hill, flew up hill, and kept watching her face. What a face
+it was! It was all, as it were, wide open: wide-open eyes, eager,
+bright, and wild; lips, nostrils, open too, and breathing eagerly; she
+looked straight before her, and it seemed as though that soul longed
+to master everything it saw, the earth, the sky, the sun, the air
+itself; and would complain of one thing only--that dangers were so
+few, and all she could overcome. 'Sanin!' she cried, 'why, this is
+like Bürger's Lenore! Only you're not dead--eh? Not dead ... I am
+alive!' She let her force and daring have full fling. It seemed not an
+Amazon on a galloping horse, but a young female centaur at full speed,
+half-beast and half-god, and the sober, well-bred country seemed
+astounded, as it was trampled underfoot in her wild riot!
+
+Maria Nikolaevna at last drew up her foaming and bespattered mare; she
+was staggering under her, and Sanin's powerful but heavy horse was
+gasping for breath.
+
+'Well, do you like it?' Maria Nikolaevna asked in a sort of exquisite
+whisper.
+
+'I like it!' Sanin echoed back ecstatically. And his blood was on
+fire.
+
+'This isn't all, wait a bit.' She held out her hand. Her glove was
+torn across.
+
+'I told you I would lead you to the forest, to the mountains.... Here
+they are, the mountains!' The mountains, covered with tall forest,
+rose about two hundred feet from the place they had reached in their
+wild ride. 'Look, here is the road; let us turn into it--and forwards.
+Only at a walk. We must let our horses get their breath.'
+
+They rode on. With one vigorous sweep of her arm Maria Nikolaevna
+flung back her hair. Then she looked at her gloves and took them off.
+'My hands will smell of leather,' she said, 'you won't mind that, eh?'
+... Maria Nikolaevna smiled, and Sanin smiled too. Their mad gallop
+together seemed to have finally brought them together and made them
+friends.
+
+'How old are you?' she asked suddenly.
+
+'Twenty-two.'
+
+'Really? I'm twenty-two too. A nice age. Add both together and you're
+still far off old age. It's hot, though. Am I very red, eh?'
+
+'Like a poppy!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna rubbed her face with her handkerchief. 'We've only
+to get to the forest and there it will be cool. Such an old forest is
+like an old friend. Have you any friends?'
+
+Sanin thought a little. 'Yes ... only few. No real ones.'
+
+'I have; real ones--but not old ones. This is a friend too--a horse.
+How carefully it carries one! Ah, but it's splendid here! Is it
+possible I am going to Paris the day after to-morrow?'
+
+'Yes ... is it possible?' Sanin chimed in.
+
+'And you to Frankfort?'
+
+'I am certainly going to Frankfort.'
+
+'Well, what of it? Good luck go with you! Anyway, to-day's ours ...
+ours ... ours!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The horses reached the forest's edge and pushed on into the forest.
+The broad soft shade of the forest wrapt them round on all sides.
+
+'Oh, but this is paradise!' cried Maria Nikolaevna. 'Further, deeper
+into the shade, Sanin!'
+
+The horses moved slowly on, 'deeper into the shade,' slightly swaying
+and snorting. The path, by which they had come in, suddenly turned
+off and plunged into a rather narrow gorge. The smell of heather and
+bracken, of the resin of the pines, and the decaying leaves of last
+year, seemed to hang, close and drowsy, about it. Through the clefts
+of the big brown rocks came strong currents of fresh air. On both
+sides of the path rose round hillocks covered with green moss.
+
+'Stop!' cried Maria Nikolaevna, 'I want to sit down and rest on this
+velvet. Help me to get off.'
+
+Sanin leaped off his horse and ran up to her. She leaned on both his
+shoulders, sprang instantly to the ground, and seated herself on one
+of the mossy mounds. He stood before her, holding both the horses'
+bridles in his hand.
+
+She lifted her eyes to him.... 'Sanin, are you able to forget?'
+
+Sanin recollected what had happened yesterday ... in the carriage.
+'What is that--a question ... or a reproach?'
+
+'I have never in my life reproached any one for anything. Do you
+believe in magic?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'In magic?--you know what is sung of in our ballads--our Russian
+peasant ballads?'
+
+'Ah! That's what you're speaking of,' Sanin said slowly.
+
+'Yes, that's it. I believe in it ... and you will believe in it.'
+
+'Magic is sorcery ...' Sanin repeated, 'Anything in the world is
+possible. I used not to believe in it--but I do now. I don't know
+myself.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna thought a moment and looked about her. 'I fancy this
+place seems familiar to me. Look, Sanin, behind that bushy oak--is
+there a red wooden cross, or not?'
+
+Sanin moved a few steps to one side. 'Yes, there is.' Maria Nikolaevna
+smiled. 'Ah, that's good! I know where we are. We haven't got lost as
+yet. What's that tapping? A wood-cutter?'
+
+Sanin looked into the thicket. 'Yes ... there's a man there chopping
+up dry branches.'
+
+'I must put my hair to rights,' said Maria Nikolaevna. 'Else he'll see
+me and be shocked.' She took off her hat and began plaiting up her
+long hair, silently and seriously. Sanin stood facing her ... All the
+lines of her graceful limbs could be clearly seen through the dark
+folds of her habit, dotted here and there with tufts of moss.
+
+One of the horses suddenly shook itself behind Sanin's back; he
+himself started and trembled from head to foot. Everything was in
+confusion within him, his nerves were strung up like harpstrings. He
+might well say he did not know himself.... He really was bewitched.
+His whole being was filled full of one thing ... one idea, one desire.
+Maria Nikolaevna turned a keen look upon him.
+
+'Come, now everything's as it should be,' she observed, putting on her
+hat. 'Won't you sit down? Here! No, wait a minute ... don't sit down!
+What's that?'
+
+Over the tree-tops, over the air of the forest, rolled a dull
+rumbling.
+
+'Can it be thunder?'
+
+'I think it really is thunder,' answered Sanin.
+
+'Oh, this is a treat, a real treat! That was the only thing wanting!'
+The dull rumble was heard a second time, rose, and fell in a crash.
+'Bravo! Bis! Do you remember I spoke of the _Æneid_ yesterday? They
+too were overtaken by a storm in the forest, you know. We must be off,
+though.' She rose swiftly to her feet. 'Bring me my horse.... Give me
+your hand. There, so. I'm not heavy.'
+
+She hopped like a bird into the saddle. Sanin too mounted his horse.
+
+'Are you going home?' he asked in an unsteady voice.
+
+'Home indeed!' she answered deliberately and picked up the reins.
+'Follow me,' she commanded almost roughly. She came out on to the road
+and passing the red cross, rode down into a hollow, clambered up again
+to a cross road, turned to the right and again up the mountainside....
+She obviously knew where the path led, and the path led farther and
+farther into the heart of the forest. She said nothing and did not
+look round; she moved imperiously in front and humbly and submissively
+he followed without a spark of will in his sinking heart. Rain began
+to fall in spots. She quickened her horse's pace, and he did not
+linger behind her. At last through the dark green of the young firs
+under an overhanging grey rock, a tumbledown little hut peeped out at
+him, with a low door in its wattle wall.... Maria Nikolaevna made
+her mare push through the fir bushes, leaped off her, and appearing
+suddenly at the entrance to the hut, turned to Sanin, and whispered
+'Æneas.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four hours later, Maria Nikolaevna and Sanin, accompanied by the
+groom, who was nodding in the saddle, returned to Wiesbaden, to the
+hotel. Polozov met his wife with the letter to the overseer in his
+hand. After staring rather intently at her, he showed signs of some
+displeasure on his face, and even muttered, 'You don't mean to say
+you've won your bet?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna simply shrugged her shoulders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The same day, two hours later, Sanin was standing in his own room
+before her, like one distraught, ruined....
+
+'Where are you going, dear?' she asked him. 'To Paris, or to
+Frankfort?'
+
+'I am going where you will be, and will be with you till you drive me
+away,' he answered with despair and pressed close to him the hands
+of his sovereign. She freed her hands, laid them on his head, and
+clutched at his hair with her fingers. She slowly turned over and
+twisted the unresisting hair, drew herself up, her lips curled with
+triumph, while her eyes, wide and clear, almost white, expressed
+nothing but the ruthlessness and glutted joy of conquest. The hawk, as
+it clutches a captured bird, has eyes like that.
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+
+This was what Dimitri Sanin remembered when in the stillness of his
+room turning over his old papers he found among them a garnet cross.
+The events we have described rose clearly and consecutively before his
+mental vision.... But when he reached the moment when he addressed
+that humiliating prayer to Madame Polozov, when he grovelled at her
+feet, when his slavery began, he averted his gaze from the images he
+had evoked, he tried to recall no more. And not that his memory failed
+him, oh no! he knew only too well what followed upon that moment, but
+he was stifled by shame, even now, so many years after; he dreaded
+that feeling of self-contempt, which he knew for certain would
+overwhelm him, and like a torrent, flood all other feelings if he did
+not bid his memory be still. But try as he would to turn away from
+these memories, he could not stifle them entirely. He remembered the
+scoundrelly, tearful, lying, pitiful letter he had sent to Gemma, that
+never received an answer.... See her again, go back to her, after such
+falsehood, such treachery, no! no! he could not, so much conscience
+and honesty was left in him. Moreover, he had lost every trace of
+confidence in himself, every atom of self-respect; he dared not rely
+on himself for anything. Sanin recollected too how he had later
+on--oh, ignominy!--sent the Polozovs' footman to Frankfort for his
+things, what cowardly terror he had felt, how he had had one thought
+only, to get away as soon as might be to Paris--to Paris; how in
+obedience to Maria Nikolaevna, he had humoured and tried to please
+Ippolit Sidoritch and been amiable to Dönhof, on whose finger he
+noticed just such an iron ring as Maria Nikolaevna had given him!!!
+Then followed memories still worse, more ignominious ... the waiter
+hands him a visiting card, and on it is the name, 'Pantaleone
+Cippatola, court singer to His Highness the Duke of Modena!' He hides
+from the old man, but cannot escape meeting him in the corridor, and
+a face of exasperation rises before him under an upstanding topknot
+of grey hair; the old eyes blaze like red-hot coals, and he hears
+menacing cries and curses: '_Maledizione!_' hears even the terrible
+words: '_Codardo! Infame traditore!_' Sanin closes his eyes, shakes
+his head, turns away again and again, but still he sees himself
+sitting in a travelling carriage on the narrow front seat ... In the
+comfortable places facing the horses sit Maria Nikolaevna and Ippolit
+Sidoritch, the four horses trotting all together fly along the paved
+roads of Wiesbaden to Paris! to Paris! Ippolit Sidoritch is eating a
+pear which Sanin has peeled for him, while Maria Nikolaevna watches
+him and smiles at him, her bondslave, that smile he knows already, the
+smile of the proprietor, the slave-owner.... But, good God, out there
+at the corner of the street not far from the city walls, wasn't it
+Pantaleone again, and who with him? Can it be Emilio? Yes, it was
+he, the enthusiastic devoted boy! Not long since his young face had
+been full of reverence before his hero, his ideal, but now his pale
+handsome face, so handsome that Maria Nikolaevna noticed him and poked
+her head out of the carriage window, that noble face is glowing with
+anger and contempt; his eyes, so like _her_ eyes! are fastened upon
+Sanin, and the tightly compressed lips part to revile him....
+
+And Pantaleone stretches out his hand and points Sanin out to
+Tartaglia standing near, and Tartaglia barks at Sanin, and the very
+bark of the faithful dog sounds like an unbearable reproach....
+Hideous!
+
+And then, the life in Paris, and all the humiliations, all the
+loathsome tortures of the slave, who dare not be jealous or complain,
+and who is cast aside at last, like a worn-out garment....
+
+Then the going home to his own country, the poisoned, the devastated
+life, the petty interests and petty cares, bitter and fruitless
+regret, and as bitter and fruitless apathy, a punishment not apparent,
+but of every minute, continuous, like some trivial but incurable
+disease, the payment farthing by farthing of the debt, which can never
+be settled....
+
+The cup was full enough.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How had the garnet cross given Sanin by Gemma existed till now, why
+had he not sent it back, how had it happened that he had never come
+across it till that day? A long, long while he sat deep in thought,
+and taught as he was by the experience of so many years, he still
+could not comprehend how he could have deserted Gemma, so tenderly and
+passionately loved, for a woman he did not love at all.... Next day he
+surprised all his friends and acquaintances by announcing that he was
+going abroad.
+
+The surprise was general in society. Sanin was leaving Petersburg, in
+the middle of the winter, after having only just taken and furnished a
+capital flat, and having even secured seats for all the performances
+of the Italian Opera, in which Madame Patti ... Patti, herself,
+herself, was to take part! His friends and acquaintances wondered;
+but it is not human nature as a rule to be interested long in other
+people's affairs, and when Sanin set off for abroad, none came to the
+railway station to see him off but a French tailor, and he only in
+the hope of securing an unpaid account '_pour un saute-en-barque en
+velours noir tout à fait chic_.'
+
+
+
+
+XLIV
+
+
+Sanin told his friends he was going abroad, but he did not say where
+exactly: the reader will readily conjecture that he made straight for
+Frankfort. Thanks to the general extension of railways, on the fourth
+day after leaving Petersburg he was there. He had not visited the
+place since 1840. The hotel, the White Swan, was standing in its old
+place and still flourishing, though no longer regarded as first class.
+The _Zeile_, the principal street of Frankfort was little changed,
+but there was not only no trace of Signora Roselli's house, the very
+street in which it stood had disappeared. Sanin wandered like a man in
+a dream about the places once so familiar, and recognised nothing; the
+old buildings had vanished; they were replaced by new streets of huge
+continuous houses and fine villas; even the public garden, where that
+last interview with Gemma had taken place, had so grown up and altered
+that Sanin wondered if it really were the same garden. What was he to
+do? How and where could he get information? Thirty years, no little
+thing! had passed since those days. No one to whom he applied had
+even heard of the name Roselli; the hotel-keeper advised him to have
+recourse to the public library, there, he told him, he would find
+all the old newspapers, but what good he would get from that, the
+hotel-keeper owned he didn't see. Sanin in despair made inquiries
+about Herr Klüber. That name the hotel-keeper knew well, but there too
+no success awaited him. The elegant shop-manager, after making much
+noise in the world and rising to the position of a capitalist, had
+speculated, was made bankrupt, and died in prison.... This piece of
+news did not, however, occasion Sanin the slightest regret. He was
+beginning to feel that his journey had been rather precipitate....
+But, behold, one day, as he was turning over a Frankfort directory,
+he came on the name: Von Dönhof, retired major. He promptly took a
+carriage and drove to the address, though why was this Von Dönhof
+certain to be that Dönhof, and why even was the right Dönhof likely
+to be able to tell him any news of the Roselli family? No matter, a
+drowning man catches at straws.
+
+Sanin found the retired major von Dönhof at home, and in the
+grey-haired gentleman who received him he recognised at once his
+adversary of bygone days. Dönhof knew him too, and was positively
+delighted to see him; he recalled to him his young days, the escapades
+of his youth. Sanin heard from him that the Roselli family had long,
+long ago emigrated to America, to New York; that Gemma had married a
+merchant; that he, Dönhof, had an acquaintance also a merchant, who
+would probably know her husband's address, as he did a great deal of
+business with America. Sanin begged Dönhof to consult this friend,
+and, to his delight, Dönhof brought him the address of Gemma's
+husband, Mr. Jeremy Slocum, New York, Broadway, No. 501. Only this
+address dated from the year 1863.
+
+'Let us hope,' cried Dönhof, 'that our Frankfort belle is still alive
+and has not left New York! By the way,' he added, dropping his voice,
+'what about that Russian lady, who was staying, do you remember, about
+that time at Wiesbaden--Madame von Bo ... von Bolozov, is she still
+living?'
+
+'No,' answered Sanin, 'she died long ago.' Dönhof looked up, but
+observing that Sanin had turned away and was frowning, he did not say
+another word, but took his leave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That same day Sanin sent a letter to Madame Gemma Slocum, at New York.
+In the letter he told her he was writing to her from Frankfort, where
+he had come solely with the object of finding traces of her, that
+he was very well aware that he was absolutely without a right to
+expect that she would answer his appeal; that he had not deserved her
+forgiveness, and could only hope that among happy surroundings she had
+long ago forgotten his existence. He added that he had made up his
+mind to recall himself to her memory in consequence of a chance
+circumstance which had too vividly brought back to him the images
+of the past; he described his life, solitary, childless, joyless;
+he implored her to understand the grounds that had induced him to
+address her, not to let him carry to the grave the bitter sense of his
+own wrongdoing, expiated long since by suffering, but never forgiven,
+and to make him happy with even the briefest news of her life in the
+new world to which she had gone away. 'In writing one word to me,'
+so Sanin ended his letter, 'you will be doing a good action worthy
+of your noble soul, and I shall thank you to my last breath. I am
+stopping here at the _White Swan_ (he underlined those words) and
+shall wait, wait till spring, for your answer.'
+
+He despatched this letter, and proceeded to wait. For six whole weeks
+he lived in the hotel, scarcely leaving his room, and resolutely
+seeing no one. No one could write to him from Russia nor from
+anywhere; and that just suited his mood; if a letter came addressed to
+him he would know at once that it was the one he was waiting for.
+He read from morning till evening, and not journals, but serious
+books--historical works. These prolonged studies, this stillness, this
+hidden life, like a snail in its shell, suited his spiritual condition
+to perfection; and for this, if nothing more, thanks to Gemma! But was
+she alive? Would she answer?
+
+At last a letter came, with an American postmark, from New York,
+addressed to him. The handwriting of the address on the envelope was
+English.... He did not recognise it, and there was a pang at his
+heart. He could not at once bring himself to break open the envelope.
+He glanced at the signature--Gemma! The tears positively gushed from
+his eyes: the mere fact that she signed her name, without a surname,
+was a pledge to him of reconciliation, of forgiveness! He unfolded the
+thin sheet of blue notepaper: a photograph slipped out. He made haste
+to pick it up--and was struck dumb with amazement: Gemma, Gemma
+living, young as he had known her thirty years ago! The same eyes,
+the same lips, the same form of the whole face! On the back of the
+photograph was written, 'My daughter Mariana.' The whole letter was
+very kind and simple. Gemma thanked Sanin for not having hesitated to
+write to her, for having confidence in her; she did not conceal from
+him that she had passed some painful moments after his disappearance,
+but she added at once that for all that she considered--and had always
+considered--her meeting him as a happy thing, seeing that it was that
+meeting which had prevented her from becoming the wife of Mr. Klüber,
+and in that way, though indirectly, had led to her marriage with her
+husband, with whom she had now lived twenty-eight years, in perfect
+happiness, comfort, and prosperity; their house was known to every
+one in New York. Gemma informed Sanin that she was the mother of five
+children, four sons and one daughter, a girl of eighteen, engaged
+to be married, and her photograph she enclosed as she was generally
+considered very like her mother. The sorrowful news Gemma kept for the
+end of the letter. Frau Lenore had died in New York, where she had
+followed her daughter and son-in-law, but she had lived long enough to
+rejoice in her children's happiness and to nurse her grandchildren.
+Pantaleone, too, had meant to come out to America, but he had died on
+the very eve of leaving Frankfort. 'Emilio, our beloved, incomparable
+Emilio, died a glorious death for the freedom of his country in
+Sicily, where he was one of the "Thousand" under the leadership of the
+great Garibaldi; we all bitterly lamented the loss of our priceless
+brother, but, even in the midst of our tears, we were proud of
+him--and shall always be proud of him--and hold his memory sacred!
+His lofty, disinterested soul was worthy of a martyr's crown!' Then
+Gemma expressed her regret that Sanin's life had apparently been
+so unsuccessful, wished him before everything peace and a tranquil
+spirit, and said that she would be very glad to see him again, though
+she realised how unlikely such a meeting was....
+
+We will not attempt to describe the feelings Sanin experienced as
+he read this letter. For such feelings there is no satisfactory
+expression; they are too deep and too strong and too vague for any
+word. Only music could reproduce them.
+
+Sanin answered at once; and as a wedding gift to the young girl, sent
+to 'Mariana Slocum, from an unknown friend,' a garnet cross, set in a
+magnificent pearl necklace. This present, costly as it was, did not
+ruin him; during the thirty years that had elapsed since his first
+visit to Frankfort, he had succeeded in accumulating a considerable
+fortune. Early in May he went back to Petersburg, but hardly for long.
+It is rumoured that he is selling all his lands and preparing to go to
+America.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST LOVE
+
+
+The party had long ago broken up. The clock struck half-past twelve.
+There was left in the room only the master of the house and Sergei
+Nikolaevitch and Vladimir Petrovitch.
+
+The master of the house rang and ordered the remains of the supper
+to be cleared away. 'And so it's settled,' he observed, sitting back
+farther in his easy-chair and lighting a cigar; 'each of us is to tell
+the story of his first love. It's your turn, Sergei Nikolaevitch.'
+
+Sergei Nikolaevitch, a round little man with a plump,
+light-complexioned face, gazed first at the master of the house, then
+raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'I had no first love,' he said at
+last; 'I began with the second.'
+
+'How was that?'
+
+'It's very simple. I was eighteen when I had my first flirtation
+with a charming young lady, but I courted her just as though it
+were nothing new to me; just as I courted others later on. To speak
+accurately, the first and last time I was in love was with my nurse
+when I was six years old; but that's in the remote past. The details
+of our relations have slipped out of my memory, and even if I
+remembered them, whom could they interest?'
+
+'Then how's it to be?' began the master of the house. 'There was
+nothing much of interest about my first love either; I never fell
+in love with any one till I met Anna Nikolaevna, now my wife,--and
+everything went as smoothly as possible with us; our parents arranged
+the match, we were very soon in love with each other, and got married
+without loss of time. My story can be told in a couple of words. I
+must confess, gentlemen, in bringing up the subject of first love, I
+reckoned upon you, I won't say old, but no longer young, bachelors.
+Can't you enliven us with something, Vladimir Petrovitch?'
+
+'My first love, certainly, was not quite an ordinary one,' responded,
+with some reluctance, Vladimir Petrovitch, a man of forty, with black
+hair turning grey.
+
+'Ah!' said the master of the house and Sergei Nikolaevitch with one
+voice: 'So much the better.... Tell us about it.'
+
+'If you wish it ... or no; I won't tell the story; I'm no hand at
+telling a story; I make it dry and brief, or spun out and affected. If
+you'll allow me, I'll write out all I remember and read it you.'
+
+His friends at first would not agree, but Vladimir Petrovitch insisted
+on his own way. A fortnight later they were together again, and
+Vladimir Petrovitch kept his word.
+
+His manuscript contained the following story:--
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+I was sixteen then. It happened in the summer of 1833.
+
+I lived in Moscow with my parents. They had taken a country house for
+the summer near the Kalouga gate, facing the Neskutchny gardens. I
+was preparing for the university, but did not work much and was in no
+hurry.
+
+No one interfered with my freedom. I did what I liked, especially
+after parting with my last tutor, a Frenchman who had never been able
+to get used to the idea that he had fallen 'like a bomb' (_comme
+une bombe_) into Russia, and would lie sluggishly in bed with an
+expression of exasperation on his face for days together. My father
+treated me with careless kindness; my mother scarcely noticed me,
+though she had no children except me; other cares completely absorbed
+her. My father, a man still young and very handsome, had married her
+from mercenary considerations; she was ten years older than he. My
+mother led a melancholy life; she was for ever agitated, jealous and
+angry, but not in my father's presence; she was very much afraid of
+him, and he was severe, cold, and distant in his behaviour.... I
+have never seen a man more elaborately serene, self-confident, and
+commanding.
+
+I shall never forget the first weeks I spent at the country house.
+The weather was magnificent; we left town on the 9th of May, on St.
+Nicholas's day. I used to walk about in our garden, in the Neskutchny
+gardens, and beyond the town gates; I would take some book with
+me--Keidanov's Course, for instance--but I rarely looked into it, and
+more often than anything declaimed verses aloud; I knew a great deal
+of poetry by heart; my blood was in a ferment and my heart ached--so
+sweetly and absurdly; I was all hope and anticipation, was a little
+frightened of something, and full of wonder at everything, and was
+on the tiptoe of expectation; my imagination played continually,
+fluttering rapidly about the same fancies, like martins about a
+bell-tower at dawn; I dreamed, was sad, even wept; but through the
+tears and through the sadness, inspired by a musical verse, or the
+beauty of evening, shot up like grass in spring the delicious sense of
+youth and effervescent life.
+
+I had a horse to ride; I used to saddle it myself and set off alone
+for long rides, break into a rapid gallop and fancy myself a knight at
+a tournament. How gaily the wind whistled in my ears! or turning my
+face towards the sky, I would absorb its shining radiance and blue
+into my soul, that opened wide to welcome it.
+
+I remember that at that time the image of woman, the vision of love,
+scarcely ever arose in definite shape in my brain; but in all I
+thought, in all I felt, lay hidden a half-conscious, shamefaced
+presentiment of something new, unutterably sweet, feminine....
+
+This presentiment, this expectation, permeated my whole being; I
+breathed in it, it coursed through my veins with every drop of blood
+... it was destined to be soon fulfilled.
+
+The place, where we settled for the summer, consisted of a wooden
+manor-house with columns and two small lodges; in the lodge on
+the left there was a tiny factory for the manufacture of cheap
+wall-papers.... I had more than once strolled that way to look at
+about a dozen thin and dishevelled boys with greasy smocks and worn
+faces, who were perpetually jumping on to wooden levers, that pressed
+down the square blocks of the press, and so by the weight of their
+feeble bodies struck off the variegated patterns of the wall-papers.
+The lodge on the right stood empty, and was to let. One day--three
+weeks after the 9th of May--the blinds in the windows of this lodge
+were drawn up, women's faces appeared at them--some family had
+installed themselves in it. I remember the same day at dinner, my
+mother inquired of the butler who were our new neighbours, and hearing
+the name of the Princess Zasyekin, first observed with some respect,
+'Ah! a princess!' ... and then added, 'A poor one, I suppose?'
+
+'They arrived in three hired flies,' the butler remarked
+deferentially, as he handed a dish: 'they don't keep their own
+carriage, and the furniture's of the poorest.'
+
+'Ah,' replied my mother, 'so much the better.'
+
+My father gave her a chilly glance; she was silent.
+
+Certainly the Princess Zasyekin could not be a rich woman; the lodge
+she had taken was so dilapidated and small and low-pitched that
+people, even moderately well-off in the world, would hardly have
+consented to occupy it. At the time, however, all this went in at one
+ear and out at the other. The princely title had very little effect on
+me; I had just been reading Schiller's _Robbers_.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I was in the habit of wandering about our garden every evening on the
+look-out for rooks. I had long cherished a hatred for those wary, sly,
+and rapacious birds. On the day of which I have been speaking, I went
+as usual into the garden, and after patrolling all the walks without
+success (the rooks knew me, and merely cawed spasmodically at a
+distance), I chanced to go close to the low fence which separated our
+domain from the narrow strip of garden stretching beyond the lodge to
+the right, and belonging to it. I was walking along, my eyes on the
+ground. Suddenly I heard a voice; I looked across the fence, and was
+thunder-struck.... I was confronted with a curious spectacle.
+
+A few paces from me on the grass between the green raspberry bushes
+stood a tall slender girl in a striped pink dress, with a white
+kerchief on her head; four young men were close round her, and she
+was slapping them by turns on the forehead with those small grey
+flowers, the name of which I don't know, though they are well known to
+children; the flowers form little bags, and burst open with a pop when
+you strike them against anything hard. The young men presented their
+foreheads so eagerly, and in the gestures of the girl (I saw her in
+profile), there was something so fascinating, imperious, caressing,
+mocking, and charming, that I almost cried out with admiration and
+delight, and would, I thought, have given everything in the world on
+the spot only to have had those exquisite fingers strike me on the
+forehead. My gun slipped on to the grass, I forgot everything, I
+devoured with my eyes the graceful shape and neck and lovely arms and
+the slightly disordered fair hair under the white kerchief, and the
+half-closed clever eye, and the eyelashes and the soft cheek beneath
+them....
+
+'Young man, hey, young man,' said a voice suddenly near me: 'is it
+quite permissible to stare so at unknown young ladies?'
+
+I started, I was struck dumb.... Near me, the other side of the fence,
+stood a man with close-cropped black hair, looking ironically at me.
+At the same instant the girl too turned towards me.... I caught sight
+of big grey eyes in a bright mobile face, and the whole face suddenly
+quivered and laughed, there was a flash of white teeth, a droll
+lifting of the eyebrows.... I crimsoned, picked up my gun from the
+ground, and pursued by a musical but not ill-natured laugh, fled to
+my own room, flung myself on the bed, and hid my face in my hands. My
+heart was fairly leaping; I was greatly ashamed and overjoyed; I felt
+an excitement I had never known before.
+
+After a rest, I brushed my hair, washed, and went downstairs to tea.
+The image of the young girl floated before me, my heart was no longer
+leaping, but was full of a sort of sweet oppression.
+
+'What's the matter?' my father asked me all at once: 'have you killed
+a rook?'
+
+I was on the point of telling him all about it, but I checked myself,
+and merely smiled to myself. As I was going to bed, I rotated--I don't
+know why--three times on one leg, pomaded my hair, got into bed, and
+slept like a top all night. Before morning I woke up for an instant,
+raised my head, looked round me in ecstasy, and fell asleep again.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+'How can I make their acquaintance?' was my first thought when I waked
+in the morning. I went out in the garden before morning tea, but I
+did not go too near the fence, and saw no one. After drinking tea,
+I walked several times up and down the street before the house, and
+looked into the windows from a distance.... I fancied her face at a
+curtain, and I hurried away in alarm.
+
+'I must make her acquaintance, though,' I thought, pacing distractedly
+about the sandy plain that stretches before Neskutchny park ... 'but
+how, that is the question.' I recalled the minutest details of our
+meeting yesterday; I had for some reason or other a particularly vivid
+recollection of how she had laughed at me.... But while I racked my
+brains, and made various plans, fate had already provided for me.
+
+In my absence my mother had received from her new neighbour a letter
+on grey paper, sealed with brown wax, such as is only used in notices
+from the post-office or on the corks of bottles of cheap wine. In this
+letter, which was written in illiterate language and in a slovenly
+hand, the princess begged my mother to use her powerful influence
+in her behalf; my mother, in the words of the princess, was very
+intimate with persons of high position, upon whom her fortunes and her
+children's fortunes depended, as she had some very important business
+in hand. 'I address myself to you,' she wrote, 'as one gentlewoman to
+another gentlewoman, and for that reason am glad to avail myself of
+the opportunity.' Concluding, she begged my mother's permission to
+call upon her. I found my mother in an unpleasant state of indecision;
+my father was not at home, and she had no one of whom to ask advice.
+Not to answer a gentlewoman, and a princess into the bargain, was
+impossible. But my mother was in a difficulty as to how to answer
+her. To write a note in French struck her as unsuitable, and Russian
+spelling was not a strong point with my mother herself, and she was
+aware of it, and did not care to expose herself. She was overjoyed
+when I made my appearance, and at once told me to go round to the
+princess's, and to explain to her by word of mouth that my mother
+would always be glad to do her excellency any service within her
+powers, and begged her to come to see her at one o'clock. This
+unexpectedly rapid fulfilment of my secret desires both delighted and
+appalled me. I made no sign, however, of the perturbation which came
+over me, and as a preliminary step went to my own room to put on a new
+necktie and tail coat; at home I still wore short jackets and lay-down
+collars, much as I abominated them.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+In the narrow and untidy passage of the lodge, which I entered with an
+involuntary tremor in all my limbs, I was met by an old grey-headed
+servant with a dark copper-coloured face, surly little pig's eyes, and
+such deep furrows on his forehead and temples as I had never beheld
+in my life. He was carrying a plate containing the spine of a herring
+that had been gnawed at; and shutting the door that led into the room
+with his foot, he jerked out, 'What do you want?'
+
+'Is the Princess Zasyekin at home?' I inquired.
+
+'Vonifaty!' a jarring female voice screamed from within.
+
+The man without a word turned his back on me, exhibiting as he did
+so the extremely threadbare hindpart of his livery with a solitary
+reddish heraldic button on it; he put the plate down on the floor, and
+went away.
+
+'Did you go to the police station?' the same female voice called
+again. The man muttered something in reply. 'Eh.... Has some one
+come?' I heard again.... 'The young gentleman from next door. Ask him
+in, then.'
+
+'Will you step into the drawing-room?' said the servant, making his
+appearance once more, and picking up the plate from the floor. I
+mastered my emotions, and went into the drawing-room.
+
+I found myself in a small and not over clean apartment, containing
+some poor furniture that looked as if it had been hurriedly set down
+where it stood. At the window in an easy-chair with a broken arm was
+sitting a woman of fifty, bareheaded and ugly, in an old green dress,
+and a striped worsted wrap about her neck. Her small black eyes fixed
+me like pins.
+
+I went up to her and bowed.
+
+'I have the honour of addressing the Princess Zasyekin?'
+
+'I am the Princess Zasyekin; and you are the son of Mr. V.?'
+
+'Yes. I have come to you with a message from my mother.'
+
+'Sit down, please. Vonifaty, where are my keys, have you seen them?'
+
+I communicated to Madame Zasyekin my mother's reply to her note. She
+heard me out, drumming with her fat red fingers on the window-pane,
+and when I had finished, she stared at me once more.
+
+'Very good; I'll be sure to come,' she observed at last. 'But how
+young you are! How old are you, may I ask?'
+
+'Sixteen,' I replied, with an involuntary stammer.
+
+The princess drew out of her pocket some greasy papers covered with
+writing, raised them right up to her nose, and began looking through
+them.
+
+'A good age,' she ejaculated suddenly, turning round restlessly on
+her chair. 'And do you, pray, make yourself at home. I don't stand on
+ceremony.'
+
+'No, indeed,' I thought, scanning her unprepossessing person with a
+disgust I could not restrain.
+
+At that instant another door flew open quickly, and in the doorway
+stood the girl I had seen the previous evening in the garden. She
+lifted her hand, and a mocking smile gleamed in her face.
+
+'Here is my daughter,' observed the princess, indicating her with her
+elbow. 'Zinotchka, the son of our neighbour, Mr. V. What is your name,
+allow me to ask?'
+
+'Vladimir,' I answered, getting up, and stuttering in my excitement.
+
+'And your father's name?'
+
+'Petrovitch.'
+
+'Ah! I used to know a commissioner of police whose name was Vladimir
+Petrovitch too. Vonifaty! don't look for my keys; the keys are in my
+pocket.'
+
+The young girl was still looking at me with the same smile, faintly
+fluttering her eyelids, and putting her head a little on one side.
+
+'I have seen Monsieur Voldemar before,' she began. (The silvery note
+of her voice ran through me with a sort of sweet shiver.) 'You will
+let me call you so?'
+
+'Oh, please,' I faltered.
+
+'Where was that?' asked the princess.
+
+The young princess did not answer her mother.
+
+'Have you anything to do just now?' she said, not taking her eyes off
+me.
+
+'Oh, no.'
+
+'Would you like to help me wind some wool? Come in here, to me.'
+
+She nodded to me and went out of the drawing-room. I followed her.
+
+In the room we went into, the furniture was a little better, and
+was arranged with more taste. Though, indeed, at the moment, I was
+scarcely capable of noticing anything; I moved as in a dream and felt
+all through my being a sort of intense blissfulness that verged on
+imbecility.
+
+The young princess sat down, took out a skein of red wool and,
+motioning me to a seat opposite her, carefully untied the skein and
+laid it across my hands. All this she did in silence with a sort of
+droll deliberation and with the same bright sly smile on her slightly
+parted lips. She began to wind the wool on a bent card, and all at
+once she dazzled me with a glance so brilliant and rapid, that I
+could not help dropping my eyes. When her eyes, which were generally
+half closed, opened to their full extent, her face was completely
+transfigured; it was as though it were flooded with light.
+
+'What did you think of me yesterday, M'sieu Voldemar?' she asked after
+a brief pause. 'You thought ill of me, I expect?'
+
+'I ... princess ... I thought nothing ... how can I?...' I answered in
+confusion.
+
+'Listen,' she rejoined. 'You don't know me yet. I'm a very strange
+person; I like always to be told the truth. You, I have just heard,
+are sixteen, and I am twenty-one: you see I'm a great deal older than
+you, and so you ought always to tell me the truth ... and to do what I
+tell you,' she added. 'Look at me: why don't you look at me?'
+
+I was still more abashed; however, I raised my eyes to her. She
+smiled, not her former smile, but a smile of approbation. 'Look at
+me,' she said, dropping her voice caressingly: 'I don't dislike that
+... I like your face; I have a presentiment we shall be friends. But
+do you like me?' she added slyly.
+
+'Princess ...' I was beginning.
+
+'In the first place, you must call me Zinaïda Alexandrovna, and in the
+second place it's a bad habit for children'--(she corrected herself)
+'for young people--not to say straight out what they feel. That's all
+very well for grown-up people. You like me, don't you?'
+
+Though I was greatly delighted that she talked so freely to me, still
+I was a little hurt. I wanted to show her that she had not a mere boy
+to deal with, and assuming as easy and serious an air as I could, I
+observed, 'Certainly. I like you very much, Zinaïda Alexandrovna; I
+have no wish to conceal it.'
+
+She shook her head very deliberately. 'Have you a tutor?' she asked
+suddenly.
+
+'No; I've not had a tutor for a long, long while.'
+
+I told a lie; it was not a month since I had parted with my Frenchman.
+
+'Oh! I see then--you are quite grown-up.'
+
+She tapped me lightly on the fingers. 'Hold your hands straight!' And
+she applied herself busily to winding the ball.
+
+I seized the opportunity when she was looking down and fell to
+watching her, at first stealthily, then more and more boldly. Her
+face struck me as even more charming than on the previous evening;
+everything in it was so delicate, clever, and sweet. She was sitting
+with her back to a window covered with a white blind, the sunshine,
+streaming in through the blind, shed a soft light over her fluffy
+golden curls, her innocent neck, her sloping shoulders, and tender
+untroubled bosom. I gazed at her, and how dear and near she was
+already to me! It seemed to me I had known her a long while and had
+never known anything nor lived at all till I met her.... She was
+wearing a dark and rather shabby dress and an apron; I would gladly, I
+felt, have kissed every fold of that dress and apron. The tips of her
+little shoes peeped out from under her skirt; I could have bowed down
+in adoration to those shoes.... 'And here I am sitting before her,'
+I thought; 'I have made acquaintance with her ... what happiness, my
+God!' I could hardly keep from jumping up from my chair in ecstasy,
+but I only swung my legs a little, like a small child who has been
+given sweetmeats.
+
+I was as happy as a fish in water, and I could have stayed in that
+room for ever, have never left that place.
+
+Her eyelids were slowly lifted, and once more her clear eyes shone
+kindly upon me, and again she smiled.
+
+'How you look at me!' she said slowly, and she held up a threatening
+finger.
+
+I blushed ... 'She understands it all, she sees all,' flashed through
+my mind. 'And how could she fail to understand and see it all?'
+
+All at once there was a sound in the next room--the clink of a sabre.
+
+'Zina!' screamed the princess in the drawing-room, 'Byelovzorov has
+brought you a kitten.'
+
+'A kitten!' cried Zinaïda, and getting up from her chair impetuously,
+she flung the ball of worsted on my knees and ran away.
+
+I too got up and, laying the skein and the ball of wool on the
+window-sill, I went into the drawing-room and stood still, hesitating.
+In the middle of the room, a tabby kitten was lying with outstretched
+paws; Zinaïda was on her knees before it, cautiously lifting up its
+little face. Near the old princess, and filling up almost the whole
+space between the two windows, was a flaxen curly-headed young man, a
+hussar, with a rosy face and prominent eyes.
+
+'What a funny little thing!' Zinaïda was saying; 'and its eyes are not
+grey, but green, and what long ears! Thank you, Viktor Yegoritch! you
+are very kind.'
+
+The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men I had seen the
+evening before, smiled and bowed with a clink of his spurs and a
+jingle of the chain of his sabre.
+
+'You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a tabby
+kitten with long ears ... so I obtained it. Your word is law.' And he
+bowed again.
+
+The kitten gave a feeble mew and began sniffing the ground.
+
+'It's hungry!' cried Zinaïda. 'Vonifaty, Sonia! bring some milk.'
+
+A maid, in an old yellow gown with a faded kerchief at her neck, came
+in with a saucer of milk and set it before the kitten. The kitten
+started, blinked, and began lapping.
+
+'What a pink little tongue it has!' remarked Zinaïda, putting her head
+almost on the ground and peeping at it sideways under its very nose.
+
+The kitten having had enough began to purr and move its paws
+affectedly. Zinaïda got up, and turning to the maid said carelessly,
+'Take it away.'
+
+'For the kitten--your little hand,' said the hussar, with a simper and
+a shrug of his strongly-built frame, which was tightly buttoned up in
+a new uniform.
+
+'Both,' replied Zinaïda, and she held out her hands to him. While he
+was kissing them, she looked at me over his shoulder.
+
+I stood stockstill in the same place and did not know whether to
+laugh, to say something, or to be silent. Suddenly through the open
+door into the passage I caught sight of our footman, Fyodor. He was
+making signs to me. Mechanically I went out to him.
+
+'What do you want?' I asked.
+
+'Your mamma has sent for you,' he said in a whisper. 'She is angry
+that you have not come back with the answer.'
+
+'Why, have I been here long?'
+
+'Over an hour.'
+
+'Over an hour!' I repeated unconsciously, and going back to the
+drawing-room I began to make bows and scrape with my heels.
+
+'Where are you off to?' the young princess asked, glancing at me from
+behind the hussar.
+
+'I must go home. So I am to say,' I added, addressing the old lady,
+'that you will come to us about two.'
+
+'Do you say so, my good sir.'
+
+The princess hurriedly pulled out her snuff-box and took snuff so
+loudly that I positively jumped. 'Do you say so,' she repeated,
+blinking tearfully and sneezing.
+
+I bowed once more, turned, and went out of the room with that
+sensation of awkwardness in my spine which a very young man feels when
+he knows he is being looked at from behind.
+
+'Mind you come and see us again, M'sieu Voldemar,' Zinaïda called, and
+she laughed again.
+
+'Why is it she's always laughing?' I thought, as I went back home
+escorted by Fyodor, who said nothing to me, but walked behind me with
+an air of disapprobation. My mother scolded me and wondered what ever
+I could have been doing so long at the princess's. I made her no reply
+and went off to my own room. I felt suddenly very sad.... I tried hard
+not to cry.... I was jealous of the hussar.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The princess called on my mother as she had promised and made a
+disagreeable impression on her. I was not present at their interview,
+but at table my mother told my father that this Prince Zasyekin struck
+her as a _femme très vulgaire_, that she had quite worn her out
+begging her to interest Prince Sergei in their behalf, that she seemed
+to have no end of lawsuits and affairs on hand--_de vilaines affaires
+d'argent_--and must be a very troublesome and litigious person. My
+mother added, however, that she had asked her and her daughter to
+dinner the next day (hearing the word 'daughter' I buried my nose in
+my plate), for after all she was a neighbour and a person of title.
+Upon this my father informed my mother that he remembered now who this
+lady was; that he had in his youth known the deceased Prince Zasyekin,
+a very well-bred, but frivolous and absurd person; that he had been
+nicknamed in society '_le Parisien_,' from having lived a long while
+in Paris; that he had been very rich, but had gambled away all his
+property; and for some unknown reason, probably for money, though
+indeed he might have chosen better, if so, my father added with a cold
+smile, he had married the daughter of an agent, and after his marriage
+had entered upon speculations and ruined himself utterly.
+
+'If only she doesn't try to borrow money,' observed my mother.
+
+'That's exceedingly possible,' my father responded tranquilly. 'Does
+she speak French?'
+
+'Very badly.'
+
+'H'm. It's of no consequence anyway. I think you said you had asked
+the daughter too; some one was telling me she was a very charming and
+cultivated girl.'
+
+'Ah! Then she can't take after her mother.'
+
+'Nor her father either,' rejoined my father. 'He was cultivated
+indeed, but a fool.'
+
+My mother sighed and sank into thought. My father said no more. I felt
+very uncomfortable during this conversation.
+
+After dinner I went into the garden, but without my gun. I swore
+to myself that I would not go near the Zasyekins' garden, but an
+irresistible force drew me thither, and not in vain. I had hardly
+reached the fence when I caught sight of Zinaïda. This time she was
+alone. She held a book in her hands, and was coming slowly along the
+path. She did not notice me.
+
+I almost let her pass by; but all at once I changed my mind and
+coughed.
+
+She turned round, but did not stop, pushed back with one hand the
+broad blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled slowly,
+and again bent her eyes on the book.
+
+I took off my cap, and after hesitating a moment, walked away with a
+heavy heart. '_Que suis-je pour elle?_' I thought (God knows why) in
+French.
+
+Familiar footsteps sounded behind me; I looked round, my father came
+up to me with his light, rapid walk.
+
+'Is that the young princess?' he asked me.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Why, do you know her?'
+
+'I saw her this morning at the princess's.'
+
+My father stopped, and, turning sharply on his heel, went back. When
+he was on a level with Zinaïda, he made her a courteous bow. She,
+too, bowed to him, with some astonishment on her face, and dropped
+her book. I saw how she looked after him. My father was always
+irreproachably dressed, simple and in a style of his own; but his
+figure had never struck me as more graceful, never had his grey hat
+sat more becomingly on his curls, which were scarcely perceptibly
+thinner than they had once been.
+
+I bent my steps toward Zinaïda, but she did not even glance at me; she
+picked up her book again and went away.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The whole evening and the following day I spent in a sort of dejected
+apathy. I remember I tried to work and took up Keidanov, but the
+boldly printed lines and pages of the famous text-book passed before
+my eyes in vain. I read ten times over the words: 'Julius Caesar was
+distinguished by warlike courage.' I did not understand anything and
+threw the book aside. Before dinner-time I pomaded myself once more,
+and once more put on my tail-coat and necktie.
+
+'What's that for?' my mother demanded. 'You're not a student yet, and
+God knows whether you'll get through the examination. And you've not
+long had a new jacket! You can't throw it away!'
+
+'There will be visitors,' I murmured almost in despair.
+
+'What nonsense! fine visitors indeed!'
+
+I had to submit. I changed my tail-coat for my jacket, but I did
+not take off the necktie. The princess and her daughter made their
+appearance half an hour before dinner-time; the old lady had put on,
+in addition to the green dress with which I was already acquainted,
+a yellow shawl, and an old-fashioned cap adorned with flame-coloured
+ribbons. She began talking at once about her money difficulties,
+sighing, complaining of her poverty, and imploring assistance, but
+she made herself at home; she took snuff as noisily, and fidgeted and
+lolled about in her chair as freely as ever. It never seemed to have
+struck her that she was a princess. Zinaïda on the other hand was
+rigid, almost haughty in her demeanour, every inch a princess. There
+was a cold immobility and dignity in her face. I should not have
+recognised it; I should not have known her smiles, her glances, though
+I thought her exquisite in this new aspect too. She wore a light
+barége dress with pale blue flowers on it; her hair fell in long curls
+down her cheek in the English fashion; this style went well with the
+cold expression of her face. My father sat beside her during dinner,
+and entertained his neighbour with the finished and serene courtesy
+peculiar to him. He glanced at her from time to time, and she glanced
+at him, but so strangely, almost with hostility. Their conversation
+was carried on in French; I was surprised, I remember, at the purity
+of Zinaïda's accent. The princess, while we were at table, as before
+made no ceremony; she ate a great deal, and praised the dishes. My
+mother was obviously bored by her, and answered her with a sort of
+weary indifference; my father faintly frowned now and then. My mother
+did not like Zinaïda either. 'A conceited minx,' she said next day.
+'And fancy, what she has to be conceited about, _avec sa mine de
+grisette_!'
+
+'It's clear you have never seen any grisettes,' my father observed to
+her.
+
+'Thank God, I haven't!'
+
+'Thank God, to be sure ... only how can you form an opinion of them,
+then?'
+
+To me Zinaïda had paid no attention whatever. Soon after dinner the
+princess got up to go.
+
+'I shall rely on your kind offices, Maria Nikolaevna and Piotr
+Vassilitch,' she said in a doleful sing-song to my mother and father.
+'I've no help for it! There were days, but they are over. Here I am,
+an excellency, and a poor honour it is with nothing to eat!'
+
+My father made her a respectful bow and escorted her to the door of
+the hall. I was standing there in my short jacket, staring at the
+floor, like a man under sentence of death. Zinaïda's treatment of me
+had crushed me utterly. What was my astonishment, when, as she passed
+me, she whispered quickly with her former kind expression in her eyes:
+'Come to see us at eight, do you hear, be sure....' I simply threw up
+my hands, but already she was gone, flinging a white scarf over her
+head.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+At eight o'clock precisely, in my tail-coat and with my hair brushed
+up into a tuft on my head, I entered the passage of the lodge, where
+the princess lived. The old servant looked crossly at me and got up
+unwillingly from his bench. There was a sound of merry voices in
+the drawing-room. I opened the door and fell back in amazement. In
+the middle of the room was the young princess, standing on a chair,
+holding a man's hat in front of her; round the chair crowded some half
+a dozen men. They were trying to put their hands into the hat, while
+she held it above their heads, shaking it violently. On seeing me,
+she cried, 'Stay, stay, another guest, he must have a ticket too,'
+and leaping lightly down from the chair she took me by the cuff of my
+coat 'Come along,' she said, 'why are you standing still? _Messieurs_,
+let me make you acquainted: this is M'sieu Voldemar, the son of our
+neighbour. And this,' she went on, addressing me, and indicating her
+guests in turn, 'Count Malevsky, Doctor Lushin, Meidanov the poet, the
+retired captain Nirmatsky, and Byelovzorov the hussar, whom you've
+seen already. I hope you will be good friends.' I was so confused that
+I did not even bow to any one; in Doctor Lushin I recognised the dark
+man who had so mercilessly put me to shame in the garden; the others
+were unknown to me.
+
+'Count!' continued Zinaïda, 'write M'sieu Voldemar a ticket.'
+
+'That's not fair,' was objected in a slight Polish accent by the
+count, a very handsome and fashionably dressed brunette, with
+expressive brown eyes, a thin little white nose, and delicate little
+moustaches over a tiny mouth. 'This gentleman has not been playing
+forfeits with us.'
+
+'It's unfair,' repeated in chorus Byelovzorov and the gentleman
+described as a retired captain, a man of forty, pock-marked to
+a hideous degree, curly-headed as a negro, round-shouldered,
+bandy-legged, and dressed in a military coat without epaulets, worn
+unbuttoned.
+
+'Write him a ticket, I tell you,' repeated the young princess. 'What's
+this mutiny? M'sieu Voldemar is with us for the first time, and there
+are no rules for him yet. It's no use grumbling--write it, I wish it.'
+
+The count shrugged his shoulders but bowed submissively, took the pen
+in his white, ring-bedecked fingers, tore off a scrap of paper and
+wrote on it.
+
+'At least let us explain to Mr. Voldemar what we are about,' Lushin
+began in a sarcastic voice, 'or else he will be quite lost. Do you
+see, young man, we are playing forfeits? the princess has to pay a
+forfeit, and the one who draws the lucky lot is to have the privilege
+of kissing her hand. Do you understand what I've told you?'
+
+I simply stared at him, and continued to stand still in bewilderment,
+while the young princess jumped up on the chair again, and again began
+waving the hat. They all stretched up to her, and I went after the
+rest.
+
+'Meidanov,' said the princess to a tall young man with a thin face,
+little dim-sighted eyes, and exceedingly long black hair, 'you as
+a poet ought to be magnanimous, and give up your number to M'sieu
+Voldemar so that he may have two chances instead of one.'
+
+But Meidanov shook his head in refusal, and tossed his hair. After
+all the others I put my hand into the hat, and unfolded my lot....
+Heavens! what was my condition when I saw on it the word, Kiss!
+
+'Kiss!' I could not help crying aloud.
+
+'Bravo! he has won it,' the princess said quickly. 'How glad I am!'
+She came down from the chair and gave me such a bright sweet look,
+that my heart bounded. 'Are you glad?' she asked me.
+
+'Me?' ... I faltered.
+
+'Sell me your lot,' Byelovzorov growled suddenly just in my ear. 'I'll
+give you a hundred roubles.'
+
+I answered the hussar with such an indignant look, that Zinaïda
+clapped her hands, while Lushin cried, 'He's a fine fellow!'
+
+'But, as master of the ceremonies,' he went on, 'it's my duty to see
+that all the rules are kept. M'sieu Voldemar, go down on one knee.
+That is our regulation.'
+
+Zinaïda stood in front of me, her head a little on one side as though
+to get a better look at me; she held out her hand to me with dignity.
+A mist passed before my eyes; I meant to drop on one knee, sank on
+both, and pressed my lips to Zinaïda's fingers so awkwardly that I
+scratched myself a little with the tip of her nail.
+
+'Well done!' cried Lushin, and helped me to get up.
+
+The game of forfeits went on. Zinaïda sat me down beside her. She
+invented all sorts of extraordinary forfeits! She had among other
+things to represent a 'statue,' and she chose as a pedestal the
+hideous Nirmatsky, told him to bow down in an arch, and bend his
+head down on his breast. The laughter never paused for an instant.
+For me, a boy constantly brought up in the seclusion of a dignified
+manor-house, all this noise and uproar, this unceremonious, almost
+riotous gaiety, these relations with unknown persons, were simply
+intoxicating. My head went round, as though from wine. I began
+laughing and talking louder than the others, so much so that the old
+princess, who was sitting in the next room with some sort of clerk
+from the Tversky gate, invited by her for consultation on business,
+positively came in to look at me. But I felt so happy that I did not
+mind anything, I didn't care a straw for any one's jeers, or dubious
+looks. Zinaïda continued to show me a preference, and kept me at her
+side. In one forfeit, I had to sit by her, both hidden under one silk
+handkerchief: I was to tell her _my secret_. I remember our two heads
+being all at once in a warm, half-transparent, fragrant darkness, the
+soft, close brightness of her eyes in the dark, and the burning breath
+from her parted lips, and the gleam of her teeth and the ends of her
+hair tickling me and setting me on fire. I was silent. She smiled
+slyly and mysteriously, and at last whispered to me, 'Well, what
+is it?' but I merely blushed and laughed, and turned away, catching
+my breath. We got tired of forfeits--we began to play a game with
+a string. My God! what were my transports when, for not paying
+attention, I got a sharp and vigorous slap on my fingers from her,
+and how I tried afterwards to pretend that I was absent-minded, and
+she teased me, and would not touch the hands I held out to her! What
+didn't we do that evening! We played the piano, and sang and danced
+and acted a gypsy encampment. Nirmatsky was dressed up as a bear,
+and made to drink salt water. Count Malevsky showed us several sorts
+of card tricks, and finished, after shuffling the cards, by dealing
+himself all the trumps at whist, on which Lushin 'had the honour of
+congratulating him.' Meidanov recited portions from his poem 'The
+Manslayer' (romanticism was at its height at this period), which he
+intended to bring out in a black cover with the title in blood-red
+letters; they stole the clerk's cap off his knee, and made him dance a
+Cossack dance by way of ransom for it; they dressed up old Vonifaty in
+a woman's cap, and the young princess put on a man's hat.... I could
+not enumerate all we did. Only Byelovzorov kept more and more in
+the background, scowling and angry.... Sometimes his eyes looked
+bloodshot, he flushed all over, and it seemed every minute as though
+he would rush out upon us all and scatter us like shavings in all
+directions; but the young princess would glance at him, and shake her
+finger at him, and he would retire into his corner again.
+
+We were quite worn out at last. Even the old princess, though she was
+ready for anything, as she expressed it, and no noise wearied her,
+felt tired at last, and longed for peace and quiet. At twelve o'clock
+at night, supper was served, consisting of a piece of stale dry
+cheese, and some cold turnovers of minced ham, which seemed to me more
+delicious than any pastry I had ever tasted; there was only one bottle
+of wine, and that was a strange one; a dark-coloured bottle with a
+wide neck, and the wine in it was of a pink hue; no one drank it,
+however. Tired out and faint with happiness, I left the lodge; at
+parting Zinaïda pressed my hand warmly, and again smiled mysteriously.
+
+The night air was heavy and damp in my heated face; a storm seemed to
+be gathering; black stormclouds grew and crept across the sky, their
+smoky outlines visibly changing. A gust of wind shivered restlessly
+in the dark trees, and somewhere, far away on the horizon, muffled
+thunder angrily muttered as it were to itself.
+
+I made my way up to my room by the back stairs. My old man-nurse was
+asleep on the floor, and I had to step over him; he waked up, saw me,
+and told me that my mother had again been very angry with me, and had
+wished to send after me again, but that my father had prevented her.
+(I had never gone to bed without saying good-night to my mother, and
+asking her blessing. There was no help for it now!)
+
+I told my man that I would undress and go to bed by myself, and I put
+out the candle. But I did not undress, and did not go to bed.
+
+I sat down on a chair, and sat a long while, as though spell-bound.
+What I was feeling was so new and so sweet.... I sat still, hardly
+looking round and not moving, drew slow breaths, and only from time to
+time laughed silently at some recollection, or turned cold within at
+the thought that I was in love, that this was she, that this was love.
+Zinaïda's face floated slowly before me in the darkness--floated, and
+did not float away; her lips still wore the same enigmatic smile, her
+eyes watched me, a little from one side, with a questioning, dreamy,
+tender look ... as at the instant of parting from her. At last I got
+up, walked on tiptoe to my bed, and without undressing, laid my head
+carefully on the pillow, as though I were afraid by an abrupt movement
+to disturb what filled my soul.... I lay down, but did not even close
+my eyes. Soon I noticed that faint glimmers of light of some sort
+were thrown continually into the room.... I sat up and looked at the
+window. The window-frame could be clearly distinguished from the
+mysteriously and dimly-lighted panes. It is a storm, I thought; and
+a storm it really was, but it was raging so very far away that the
+thunder could not be heard; only blurred, long, as it were branching,
+gleams of lightning flashed continually over the sky; it was not
+flashing, though, so much as quivering and twitching like the wing
+of a dying bird. I got up, went to the window, and stood there till
+morning.... The lightning never ceased for an instant; it was what is
+called among the peasants a _sparrow night_. I gazed at the dumb sandy
+plain, at the dark mass of the Neskutchny gardens, at the yellowish
+façades of the distant buildings, which seemed to quiver too at
+each faint flash.... I gazed, and could not turn away; these silent
+lightning flashes, these gleams seemed in response to the secret
+silent fires which were aglow within me. Morning began to dawn; the
+sky was flushed in patches of crimson. As the sun came nearer, the
+lightning grew gradually paler, and ceased; the quivering gleams
+were fewer and fewer, and vanished at last, drowned in the sobering
+positive light of the coming day....
+
+And my lightning flashes vanished too. I felt great weariness and
+peace ... but Zinaïda's image still floated triumphant over my soul.
+But it too, this image, seemed more tranquil: like a swan rising out
+of the reeds of a bog, it stood out from the other unbeautiful figures
+surrounding it, and as I fell asleep, I flung myself before it in
+farewell, trusting adoration....
+
+Oh, sweet emotions, gentle harmony, goodness and peace of the softened
+heart, melting bliss of the first raptures of love, where are they,
+where are they?
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The next morning, when I came down to tea, my mother scolded me--less
+severely, however, than I had expected--and made me tell her how I had
+spent the previous evening. I answered her in few words, omitting many
+details, and trying to give the most innocent air to everything.
+
+'Anyway, they're people who're not _comme il faut_,' my mother
+commented, 'and you've no business to be hanging about there, instead
+of preparing yourself for the examination, and doing your work.'
+
+As I was well aware that my mother's anxiety about my studies was
+confined to these few words, I did not feel it necessary to make any
+rejoinder; but after morning tea was over, my father took me by the
+arm, and turning into the garden with me, forced me to tell him all I
+had seen at the Zasyekins'.
+
+A curious influence my father had over me, and curious were the
+relations existing between us. He took hardly any interest in my
+education, but he never hurt my feelings; he respected my freedom, he
+treated me--if I may so express it--with courtesy,... only he never
+let me be really close to him. I loved him, I admired him, he was my
+ideal of a man--and Heavens! how passionately devoted I should have
+been to him, if I had not been continually conscious of his holding me
+off! But when he liked, he could almost instantaneously, by a single
+word, a single gesture, call forth an unbounded confidence in him. My
+soul expanded, I chattered away to him, as to a wise friend, a kindly
+teacher ... then he as suddenly got rid of me, and again he was
+keeping me off, gently and affectionately, but still he kept me off.
+
+Sometimes he was in high spirits, and then he was ready to romp and
+frolic with me, like a boy (he was fond of vigorous physical exercise
+of every sort); once--it never happened a second time!--he caressed
+me with such tenderness that I almost shed tears.... But high spirits
+and tenderness alike vanished completely, and what had passed between
+us, gave me nothing to build on for the future--it was as though I
+had dreamed it all. Sometimes I would scrutinise his clever handsome
+bright face ... my heart would throb, and my whole being yearn to
+him ... he would seem to feel what was going on within me, would give
+me a passing pat on the cheek, and go away, or take up some work,
+or suddenly freeze all over as only he knew how to freeze, and I
+shrank into myself at once, and turned cold too. His rare fits
+of friendliness to me were never called forth by my silent, but
+intelligible entreaties: they always occurred unexpectedly. Thinking
+over my father's character later, I have come to the conclusion that
+he had no thoughts to spare for me and for family life; his heart was
+in other things, and found complete satisfaction elsewhere. 'Take for
+yourself what you can, and don't be ruled by others; to belong to
+oneself--the whole savour of life lies in that,' he said to me one
+day. Another time, I, as a young democrat, fell to airing my views on
+liberty (he was 'kind,' as I used to call it, that day; and at such
+times I could talk to him as I liked). 'Liberty,' he repeated; 'and do
+you know what can give a man liberty?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Will, his own will, and it gives power, which is better than liberty.
+Know how to will, and you will be free, and will lead.'
+
+'My father, before all, and above all, desired to live, and lived....
+Perhaps he had a presentiment that he would not have long to enjoy the
+'savour' of life: he died at forty-two.
+
+I described my evening at the Zasyekins' minutely to my father. Half
+attentively, half carelessly, he listened to me, sitting on a garden
+seat, drawing in the sand with his cane. Now and then he laughed, shot
+bright, droll glances at me, and spurred me on with short questions
+and assents. At first I could not bring myself even to utter the name
+of Zinaïda, but I could not restrain myself long, and began singing
+her praises. My father still laughed; then he grew thoughtful,
+stretched, and got up. I remembered that as he came out of the house
+he had ordered his horse to be saddled. He was a splendid horseman,
+and, long before Rarey, had the secret of breaking in the most vicious
+horses.
+
+'Shall I come with you, father?' I asked.
+
+'No,' he answered, and his face resumed its ordinary expression of
+friendly indifference. 'Go alone, if you like; and tell the coachman
+I'm not going.'
+
+He turned his back on me and walked rapidly away. I looked after him;
+he disappeared through the gates. I saw his hat moving along beside
+the fence; he went into the Zasyekins'.
+
+He stayed there not more than an hour, but then departed at once for
+the town, and did not return home till evening.
+
+After dinner I went myself to the Zasyekins'. In the drawing-room I
+found only the old princess. On seeing me she scratched her head under
+her cap with a knitting-needle, and suddenly asked me, could I copy a
+petition for her.
+
+'With pleasure,' I replied, sitting down on the edge of a chair.
+
+'Only mind and make the letters bigger,' observed the princess,
+handing me a dirty sheet of paper; 'and couldn't you do it to-day, my
+good sir?'
+
+'Certainly, I will copy it to-day.'
+
+The door of the next room was just opened, and in the crack I saw the
+face of Zinaïda, pale and pensive, her hair flung carelessly back; she
+stared at me with big chilly eyes, and softly closed the door.
+
+'Zina, Zina!' called the old lady. Zinaïda made no response. I took
+home the old lady's petition and spent the whole evening over it.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+My 'passion' dated from that day. I felt at that time, I recollect,
+something like what a man must feel on entering the service: I had
+ceased now to be simply a young boy; I was in love. I have said that
+my passion dated from that day; I might have added that my sufferings
+too dated from the same day. Away from Zinaïda I pined; nothing
+was to my mind; everything went wrong with me; I spent whole days
+thinking intensely about her ... I pined when away,... but in her
+presence I was no better off. I was jealous; I was conscious of my
+insignificance; I was stupidly sulky or stupidly abject, and, all
+the same, an invincible force drew me to her, and I could not help
+a shudder of delight whenever I stepped through the doorway of her
+room. Zinaïda guessed at once that I was in love with her, and indeed
+I never even thought of concealing it. She amused herself with my
+passion, made a fool of me, petted and tormented me. There is a
+sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible
+cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another, and I was
+like wax in Zinaïda's hands; though, indeed, I was not the only one in
+love with her. All the men who visited the house were crazy over her,
+and she kept them all in leading-strings at her feet. It amused her to
+arouse their hopes and then their fears, to turn them round her finger
+(she used to call it knocking their heads together), while they never
+dreamed of offering resistance and eagerly submitted to her. About
+her whole being, so full of life and beauty, there was a peculiarly
+bewitching mixture of slyness and carelessness, of artificiality and
+simplicity, of composure and frolicsomeness; about everything she did
+or said, about every action of hers, there clung a delicate, fine
+charm, in which an individual power was manifest at work. And her
+face was ever changing, working too; it expressed, almost at the same
+time, irony, dreaminess, and passion. Various emotions, delicate and
+quick-changing as the shadows of clouds on a sunny day of wind, chased
+one another continually over her lips and eyes.
+
+Each of her adorers was necessary to her. Byelovzorov, whom she
+sometimes called 'my wild beast,' and sometimes simply 'mine,' would
+gladly have flung himself into the fire for her sake. With little
+confidence in his intellectual abilities and other qualities, he was
+for ever offering her marriage, hinting that the others were merely
+hanging about with no serious intention. Meidanov responded to the
+poetic fibres of her nature; a man of rather cold temperament, like
+almost all writers, he forced himself to convince her, and perhaps
+himself, that he adored her, sang her praises in endless verses, and
+read them to her with a peculiar enthusiasm, at once affected and
+sincere. She sympathised with him, and at the same time jeered at him
+a little; she had no great faith in him, and after listening to his
+outpourings, she would make him read Pushkin, as she said, to clear
+the air. Lushin, the ironical doctor, so cynical in words, knew her
+better than any of them, and loved her more than all, though he abused
+her to her face and behind her back. She could not help respecting
+him, but made him smart for it, and at times, with a peculiar,
+malignant pleasure, made him feel that he too was at her mercy. 'I'm a
+flirt, I'm heartless, I'm an actress in my instincts,' she said to him
+one day in my presence; 'well and good! Give me your hand then; I'll
+stick this pin in it, you'll be ashamed of this young man's seeing it,
+it will hurt you, but you'll laugh for all that, you truthful person.'
+Lushin crimsoned, turned away, bit his lips, but ended by submitting
+his hand. She pricked it, and he did in fact begin to laugh,... and
+she laughed, thrusting the pin in pretty deeply, and peeping into his
+eyes, which he vainly strove to keep in other directions....
+
+I understood least of all the relations existing between Zinaïda and
+Count Malevsky. He was handsome, clever, and adroit, but something
+equivocal, something false in him was apparent even to me, a boy of
+sixteen, and I marvelled that Zinaïda did not notice it. But possibly
+she did notice this element of falsity really and was not repelled by
+it. Her irregular education, strange acquaintances and habits, the
+constant presence of her mother, the poverty and disorder in their
+house, everything, from the very liberty the young girl enjoyed, with
+the consciousness of her superiority to the people around her, had
+developed in her a sort of half-contemptuous carelessness and lack
+of fastidiousness. At any time anything might happen; Vonifaty might
+announce that there was no sugar, or some revolting scandal would
+come to her ears, or her guests would fall to quarrelling among
+themselves--she would only shake her curls, and say, 'What does it
+matter?' and care little enough about it.
+
+But my blood, anyway, was sometimes on fire with indignation when
+Malevsky approached her, with a sly, fox-like action, leaned
+gracefully on the back of her chair, and began whispering in her ear
+with a self-satisfied and ingratiating little smile, while she folded
+her arms across her bosom, looked intently at him and smiled too, and
+shook her head.
+
+'What induces you to receive Count Malevsky?' I asked her one day.
+
+'He has such pretty moustaches,' she answered. 'But that's rather
+beyond you.'
+
+'You needn't think I care for him,' she said to me another time. 'No;
+I can't care for people I have to look down upon. I must have some one
+who can master me.... But, merciful heavens, I hope I may never come
+across any one like that! I don't want to be caught in any one's
+claws, not for anything.'
+
+'You'll never be in love, then?'
+
+'And you? Don't I love you?' she said, and she flicked me on the nose
+with the tip of her glove.
+
+Yes, Zinaïda amused herself hugely at my expense. For three weeks I
+saw her every day, and what didn't she do with me! She rarely came to
+see us, and I was not sorry for it; in our house she was transformed
+into a young lady, a young princess, and I was a little overawed by
+her. I was afraid of betraying myself before my mother; she had taken
+a great dislike to Zinaïda, and kept a hostile eye upon us. My father
+I was not so much afraid of; he seemed not to notice me. He talked
+little to her, but always with special cleverness and significance.
+I gave up working and reading; I even gave up walking about the
+neighbourhood and riding my horse. Like a beetle tied by the leg, I
+moved continually round and round my beloved little lodge. I would
+gladly have stopped there altogether, it seemed ... but that was
+impossible. My mother scolded me, and sometimes Zinaïda herself drove
+me away. Then I used to shut myself up in my room, or go down to the
+very end of the garden, and climbing into what was left of a tall
+stone greenhouse, now in ruins, sit for hours with my legs hanging
+over the wall that looked on to the road, gazing and gazing and seeing
+nothing. White butterflies flitted lazily by me, over the dusty
+nettles; a saucy sparrow settled not far off on the half crumbling red
+brickwork and twittered irritably, incessantly twisting and turning
+and preening his tail-feathers; the still mistrustful rooks cawed now
+and then, sitting high, high up on the bare top of a birch-tree; the
+sun and wind played softly on its pliant branches; the tinkle of the
+bells of the Don monastery floated across to me from time to time,
+peaceful and dreary; while I sat, gazed, listened, and was filled full
+of a nameless sensation in which all was contained: sadness and joy
+and the foretaste of the future, and the desire and dread of life. But
+at that time I understood nothing of it, and could have given a name
+to nothing of all that was passing at random within me, or should have
+called it all by one name--the name of Zinaïda.
+
+Zinaïda continued to play cat and mouse with me. She flirted with me,
+and I was all agitation and rapture; then she would suddenly thrust me
+away, and I dared not go near her--dared not look at her.
+
+I remember she was very cold to me for several days together; I was
+completely crushed, and creeping timidly to their lodge, tried to keep
+close to the old princess, regardless of the circumstance that she was
+particularly scolding and grumbling just at that time; her
+financial affairs had been going badly, and she had already had two
+'explanations' with the police officials.
+
+One day I was walking in the garden beside the familiar fence, and I
+caught sight of Zinaïda; leaning on both arms, she was sitting on the
+grass, not stirring a muscle. I was about to make off cautiously, but
+she suddenly raised her head and beckoned me imperiously. My heart
+failed me; I did not understand her at first. She repeated her signal.
+I promptly jumped over the fence and ran joyfully up to her, but she
+brought me to a halt with a look, and motioned me to the path two
+paces from her. In confusion, not knowing what to do, I fell on my
+knees at the edge of the path. She was so pale, such bitter suffering,
+such intense weariness, was expressed in every feature of her face,
+that it sent a pang to my heart, and I muttered unconsciously, 'What
+is the matter?'
+
+Zinaïda stretched out her head, picked a blade of grass, bit it and
+flung it away from her.
+
+'You love me very much?' she asked at last. 'Yes.'
+
+I made no answer--indeed, what need was there to answer?
+
+'Yes,' she repeated, looking at me as before. 'That's so. The same
+eyes,'--she went on; sank into thought, and hid her face in her hands.
+'Everything's grown so loathsome to me,' she whispered, 'I would have
+gone to the other end of the world first--I can't bear it, I can't get
+over it.... And what is there before me!... Ah, I am wretched.... My
+God, how wretched I am!'
+
+'What for?' I asked timidly.
+
+Zinaïda made no answer, she simply shrugged her shoulders. I remained
+kneeling, gazing at her with intense sadness. Every word she had
+uttered simply cut me to the heart. At that instant I felt I would
+gladly have given my life, if only she should not grieve. I gazed at
+her--and though I could not understand why she was wretched, I vividly
+pictured to myself, how in a fit of insupportable anguish, she had
+suddenly come out into the garden, and sunk to the earth, as though
+mown down by a scythe. It was all bright and green about her; the wind
+was whispering in the leaves of the trees, and swinging now and then
+a long branch of a raspberry bush over Zinaïda's head. There was a
+sound of the cooing of doves, and the bees hummed, flying low over
+the scanty grass, Overhead the sun was radiantly blue--while I was so
+sorrowful....
+
+'Read me some poetry,' said Zinaïda in an undertone, and she propped
+herself on her elbow; 'I like your reading poetry. You read it in
+sing-song, but that's no matter, that comes of being young. Read me
+"On the Hills of Georgia." Only sit down first.'
+
+I sat down and read 'On the Hills of Georgia.'
+
+'"That the heart cannot choose but love,"' repeated Zinaïda. 'That's
+where poetry's so fine; it tells us what is not, and what's not only
+better than what is, but much more like the truth, "cannot choose
+but love,"--it might want not to, but it can't help it.' She was
+silent again, then all at once she started and got up. 'Come along.
+Meidanov's indoors with mamma, he brought me his poem, but I deserted
+him. His feelings are hurt too now ... I can't help it! you'll
+understand it all some day ... only don't be angry with me!'
+
+Zinaïda hurriedly pressed my hand and ran on ahead. We went back into
+the lodge. Meidanov set to reading us his 'Manslayer,' which had just
+appeared in print, but I did not hear him. He screamed and drawled his
+four-foot iambic lines, the alternating rhythms jingled like little
+bells, noisy and meaningless, while I still watched Zinaïda and tried
+to take in the import of her last words.
+
+  'Perchance some unknown rival
+  Has surprised and mastered thee?'
+
+Meidanov bawled suddenly through his nose--and my eyes and Zinaïda's
+met. She looked down and faintly blushed. I saw her blush, and grew
+cold with terror. I had been jealous before, but only at that instant
+the idea of her being in love flashed upon my mind. 'Good God! she is
+in love!'
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+My real torments began from that instant. I racked my brains, changed
+my mind, and changed it back again, and kept an unremitting, though,
+as far as possible, secret watch on Zinaïda. A change had come over
+her, that was obvious. She began going walks alone--and long walks.
+Sometimes she would not see visitors; she would sit for hours together
+in her room. This had never been a habit of hers till now. I suddenly
+became--or fancied I had become--extraordinarily penetrating.
+
+'Isn't it he? or isn't it he?' I asked myself, passing in inward
+agitation from one of her admirers to another. Count Malevsky secretly
+struck me as more to be feared than the others, though, for Zinaïda's
+sake, I was ashamed to confess it to myself.
+
+My watchfulness did not see beyond the end of my nose, and its secrecy
+probably deceived no one; any way, Doctor Lushin soon saw through me.
+But he, too, had changed of late; he had grown thin, he laughed as
+often, but his laugh seemed more hollow, more spiteful, shorter, an
+involuntary nervous irritability took the place of his former light
+irony and assumed cynicism.
+
+'Why are you incessantly hanging about here, young man?' he said
+to me one day, when we were left alone together in the Zasyekins'
+drawing-room. (The young princess had not come home from a walk, and
+the shrill voice of the old princess could be heard within; she was
+scolding the maid.) 'You ought to be studying, working--while you're
+young--and what are you doing?'
+
+'You can't tell whether I work at home,' I retorted with some
+haughtiness, but also with some hesitation.
+
+'A great deal of work you do! that's not what you're thinking about!
+Well, I won't find fault with that ... at your age that's in the
+natural order of things. But you've been awfully unlucky in your
+choice. Don't you see what this house is?'
+
+'I don't understand you,' I observed.
+
+'You don't understand? so much the worse for you. I regard it as a
+duty to warn you. Old bachelors, like me, can come here, what harm can
+it do us! we're tough, nothing can hurt us, what harm can it do us;
+but your skin's tender yet--this air is bad for you--believe me, you
+may get harm from it.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Why, are you well now? Are you in a normal condition? Is what you're
+feeling--beneficial to you--good for you?'
+
+'Why, what am I feeling?' I said, while in my heart I knew the doctor
+was right.
+
+'Ah, young man, young man,' the doctor went on with an intonation that
+suggested that something highly insulting to me was contained in these
+two words, 'what's the use of your prevaricating, when, thank God,
+what's in your heart is in your face, so far? But there, what's the
+use of talking? I shouldn't come here myself, if ... (the doctor
+compressed his lips) ... if I weren't such a queer fellow. Only this
+is what surprises me; how it is, you, with your intelligence, don't
+see what is going on around you?'
+
+'And what is going on?' I put in, all on the alert.
+
+The doctor looked at me with a sort of ironical compassion.
+
+'Nice of me!' he said as though to himself, 'as if he need know
+anything of it. In fact, I tell you again,' he added, raising his
+voice, 'the atmosphere here is not fit for you. You like being here,
+but what of that! it's nice and sweet-smelling in a greenhouse--but
+there's no living in it. Yes! do as I tell you, and go back to your
+Keidanov.'
+
+The old princess came in, and began complaining to the doctor of her
+toothache. Then Zinaïda appeared.
+
+'Come,' said the old princess, 'you must scold her, doctor. She's
+drinking iced water all day long; is that good for her, pray, with her
+delicate chest?'
+
+'Why do you do that?' asked Lushin.
+
+'Why, what effect could it have?'
+
+'What effect? You might get a chill and die.'
+
+'Truly? Do you mean it? Very well--so much the better.'
+
+'A fine idea!' muttered the doctor. The old princess had gone out.
+
+'Yes, a fine idea,' repeated Zinaïda. 'Is life such a festive affair?
+Just look about you.... Is it nice, eh? Or do you imagine I don't
+understand it, and don't feel it? It gives me pleasure--drinking iced
+water; and can you seriously assure me that such a life is worth too
+much to be risked for an instant's pleasure--happiness I won't even
+talk about.'
+
+'Oh, very well,' remarked Lushin, 'caprice and irresponsibility....
+Those two words sum you up; your whole nature's contained in those two
+words.'
+
+Zinaïda laughed nervously.
+
+'You're late for the post, my dear doctor. You don't keep a good
+look-out; you're behind the times. Put on your spectacles. I'm in no
+capricious humour now. To make fools of you, to make a fool of myself
+... much fun there is in that!--and as for irresponsibility ... M'sieu
+Voldemar,' Zinaïda added suddenly, stamping, 'don't make such a
+melancholy face. I can't endure people to pity me.' She went quickly
+out of the room.
+
+'It's bad for you, very bad for you, this atmosphere, young man,'
+Lushin said to me once more.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+On the evening of the same day the usual guests were assembled at the
+Zasyekins'. I was among them.
+
+The conversation turned on Meidanov's poem. Zinaïda expressed genuine
+admiration of it. 'But do you know what?' she said to him. 'If I were
+a poet, I would choose quite different subjects. Perhaps it's all
+nonsense, but strange ideas sometimes come into my head, especially
+when I'm not asleep in the early morning, when the sky begins to turn
+rosy and grey both at once. I would, for instance ... You won't laugh
+at me?'
+
+'No, no!' we all cried, with one voice.
+
+'I would describe,' she went on, folding her arms across her bosom
+and looking away, 'a whole company of young girls at night in a great
+boat, on a silent river. The moon is shining, and they are all in
+white, and wearing garlands of white flowers, and singing, you know,
+something in the nature of a hymn.'
+
+'I see--I see; go on,' Meidanov commented with dreamy significance.
+
+'All of a sudden, loud clamour, laughter, torches, tambourines on the
+bank.... It's a troop of Bacchantes dancing with songs and cries. It's
+your business to make a picture of it, Mr. Poet;... only I should like
+the torches to be red and to smoke a great deal, and the Bacchantes'
+eyes to gleam under their wreaths, and the wreaths to be dusky. Don't
+forget the tiger-skins, too, and goblets and gold--lots of gold....'
+
+'Where ought the gold to be?' asked Meidanov, tossing back his sleek
+hair and distending his nostrils.
+
+'Where? on their shoulders and arms and legs--everywhere. They say in
+ancient times women wore gold rings on their ankles. The Bacchantes
+call the girls in the boat to them. The girls have ceased singing
+their hymn--they cannot go on with it, but they do not stir, the river
+carries them to the bank. And suddenly one of them slowly rises....
+This you must describe nicely: how she slowly gets up in the
+moonlight, and how her companions are afraid.... She steps over the
+edge of the boat, the Bacchantes surround her, whirl her away into
+night and darkness.... Here put in smoke in clouds and everything in
+confusion. There is nothing but the sound of their shrill cry, and her
+wreath left lying on the bank.'
+
+Zinaïda ceased. ('Oh! she is in love!' I thought again.)
+
+'And is that all?' asked Meidanov.
+
+'That's all.'
+
+'That can't be the subject of a whole poem,' he observed pompously,
+'but I will make use of your idea for a lyrical fragment.'
+
+'In the romantic style?' queried Malevsky.
+
+'Of course, in the romantic style--Byronic.'
+
+'Well, to my mind, Hugo beats Byron,' the young count observed
+negligently; 'he's more interesting.'
+
+'Hugo is a writer of the first class,' replied Meidanov; 'and my
+friend, Tonkosheev, in his Spanish romance, _El Trovador_ ...'
+
+'Ah! is that the book with the question-marks turned upside down?'
+Zinaïda interrupted.
+
+'Yes. That's the custom with the Spanish. I was about to observe that
+Tonkosheev ...'
+
+'Come! you're going to argue about classicism and romanticism again,'
+Zinaïda interrupted him a second time.' We'd much better play ...
+
+'Forfeits?' put in Lushin.
+
+'No, forfeits are a bore; at comparisons.' (This game Zinaïda had
+invented herself. Some object was mentioned, every one tried to
+compare it with something, and the one who chose the best comparison
+got a prize.)
+
+She went up to the window. The sun was just setting; high up in the
+sky were large red clouds.
+
+'What are those clouds like?' questioned Zinaïda; and without waiting
+for our answer, she said, 'I think they are like the purple sails on
+the golden ship of Cleopatra, when she sailed to meet Antony. Do you
+remember, Meidanov, you were telling me about it not long ago?'
+
+All of us, like Polonius in _Hamlet_, opined that the clouds recalled
+nothing so much as those sails, and that not one of us could discover
+a better comparison.
+
+'And how old was Antony then?' inquired Zinaïda.
+
+'A young man, no doubt,' observed Malevsky.
+
+'Yes, a young man,' Meidanov chimed in in confirmation.
+
+'Excuse me,' cried Lushin, 'he was over forty.'
+
+'Over forty,' repeated Zinaïda, giving him a rapid glance....
+
+I soon went home. 'She is in love,' my lips unconsciously repeated....
+'But with whom?'
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+The days passed by. Zinaïda became stranger and stranger, and more and
+more incomprehensible. One day I went over to her, and saw her sitting
+in a basket-chair, her head pressed to the sharp edge of the table.
+She drew herself up ... her whole face was wet with tears.
+
+'Ah, you!' she said with a cruel smile. 'Come here.'
+
+I went up to her. She put her hand on my head, and suddenly catching
+hold of my hair, began pulling it.
+
+'It hurts me,' I said at last.
+
+'Ah! does it? And do you suppose nothing hurts me?' she replied.
+
+'Ai!' she cried suddenly, seeing she had pulled a little tuft of hair
+out. 'What have I done? Poor M'sieu Voldemar!'
+
+She carefully smoothed the hair she had torn out, stroked it round her
+finger, and twisted it into a ring.
+
+'I shall put your hair in a locket and wear it round my neck,' she
+said, while the tears still glittered in her eyes. 'That will be some
+small consolation to you, perhaps ... and now good-bye.'
+
+I went home, and found an unpleasant state of things there. My mother
+was having a scene with my father; she was reproaching him with
+something, while he, as his habit was, maintained a polite and chilly
+silence, and soon left her. I could not hear what my mother was
+talking of, and indeed I had no thought to spare for the subject; I
+only remember that when the interview was over, she sent for me to her
+room, and referred with great displeasure to the frequent visits I
+paid the princess, who was, in her words, _une femme capable de tout_.
+I kissed her hand (this was what I always did when I wanted to cut
+short a conversation) and went off to my room. Zinaïda's tears had
+completely overwhelmed me; I positively did not know what to think,
+and was ready to cry myself; I was a child after all, in spite of my
+sixteen years. I had now given up thinking about Malevsky, though
+Byelovzorov looked more and more threatening every day, and glared at
+the wily count like a wolf at a sheep; but I thought of nothing and
+of no one. I was lost in imaginings, and was always seeking seclusion
+and solitude. I was particularly fond of the ruined greenhouse. I
+would climb up on the high wall, and perch myself, and sit there,
+such an unhappy, lonely, and melancholy youth, that I felt sorry for
+myself--and how consolatory where those mournful sensations, how I
+revelled in them!...
+
+One day I was sitting on the wall looking into the distance and
+listening to the ringing of the bells.... Suddenly something floated
+up to me--not a breath of wind and not a shiver, but as it were a
+whiff of fragrance--as it were, a sense of some one's being near.... I
+looked down. Below, on the path, in a light greyish gown, with a pink
+parasol on her shoulder, was Zinaïda, hurrying along. She caught sight
+of me, stopped, and pushing back the brim of her straw hat, she raised
+her velvety eyes to me.
+
+'What are you doing up there at such a height?' she asked me with a
+rather queer smile. 'Come,' she went on, 'you always declare you love
+me; jump down into the road to me if you really do love me.'
+
+Zinaïda had hardly uttered those words when I flew down, just as
+though some one had given me a violent push from behind. The wall was
+about fourteen feet high. I reached the ground on my feet, but the
+shock was so great that I could not keep my footing; I fell down, and
+for an instant fainted away. When I came to myself again, without
+opening my eyes, I felt Zinaïda beside me. 'My dear boy,' she was
+saying, bending over me, and there was a note of alarmed tenderness in
+her voice, 'how could you do it, dear; how could you obey?... You know
+I love you.... Get up.'
+
+Her bosom was heaving close to me, her hands were caressing my head,
+and suddenly--what were my emotions at that moment--her soft, fresh
+lips began covering my face with kisses ... they touched my lips....
+But then Zinaïda probably guessed by the expression of my face that I
+had regained consciousness, though I still kept my eyes closed, and
+rising rapidly to her feet, she said: 'Come, get up, naughty boy,
+silly, why are you lying in the dust?' I got up. 'Give me my parasol,'
+said Zinaïda, 'I threw it down somewhere, and don't stare at me like
+that ... what ridiculous nonsense! you're not hurt, are you? stung
+by the nettles, I daresay? Don't stare at me, I tell you.... But
+he doesn't understand, he doesn't answer,' she added, as though to
+herself.... 'Go home, M'sieu' Voldemar, brush yourself, and don't dare
+to follow me, or I shall be angry, and never again ...'
+
+She did not finish her sentence, but walked rapidly away, while I sat
+down by the side of the road ... my legs would not support me. The
+nettles had stung my hands, my back ached, and my head was giddy; but
+the feeling of rapture I experienced then has never come a second
+time in my life. It turned to a sweet ache in all my limbs and found
+expression at last in joyful hops and skips and shouts. Yes, I was
+still a child.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+I was so proud and light-hearted all that day, I so vividly retained
+on my face the feeling of Zinaïda's kisses, with such a shudder
+of delight I recalled every word she had uttered, I so hugged my
+unexpected happiness that I felt positively afraid, positively
+unwilling to see her, who had given rise to these new sensations. It
+seemed to me that now I could ask nothing more of fate, that now I
+ought to 'go, and draw a deep last sigh and die.' But, next day, when
+I went into the lodge, I felt great embarrassment, which I tried to
+conceal under a show of modest confidence, befitting a man who wishes
+to make it apparent that he knows how to keep a secret. Zinaïda
+received me very simply, without any emotion, she simply shook her
+finger at me and asked me, whether I wasn't black and blue? All my
+modest confidence and air of mystery vanished instantaneously and
+with them my embarrassment. Of course, I had not expected anything
+particular, but Zinaïda's composure was like a bucket of cold water
+thrown over me. I realised that in her eyes I was a child, and was
+extremely miserable! Zinaïda walked up and down the room, giving me
+a quick smile, whenever she caught my eye, but her thoughts were
+far away, I saw that clearly.... 'Shall I begin about what happened
+yesterday myself,' I pondered; 'ask her, where she was hurrying off
+so fast, so as to find out once for all' ... but with a gesture of
+despair, I merely went and sat down in a corner.
+
+Byelovzorov came in; I felt relieved to see him.
+
+'I've not been able to find you a quiet horse,' he said in a sulky
+voice; 'Freitag warrants one, but I don't feel any confidence in it, I
+am afraid.'
+
+'What are you afraid of?' said Zinaïda; 'allow me to inquire?'
+
+'What am I afraid of? Why, you don't know how to ride. Lord save
+us, what might happen! What whim is this has come over you all of a
+sudden?'
+
+'Come, that's my business, Sir Wild Beast. In that case I will ask
+Piotr Vassilievitch.' ... (My father's name was Piotr Vassilievitch.
+I was surprised at her mentioning his name so lightly and freely, as
+though she were confident of his readiness to do her a service.)
+
+'Oh, indeed,' retorted Byelovzorov, 'you mean to go out riding with
+him then?'
+
+'With him or with some one else is nothing to do with you. Only not
+with you, anyway.'
+
+'Not with me,' repeated Byelovzorov. 'As you wish. Well, I shall find
+you a horse.'
+
+'Yes, only mind now, don't send some old cow. I warn you I want to
+gallop.'
+
+'Gallop away by all means ... with whom is it, with Malevsky, you are
+going to ride?'
+
+'And why not with him, Mr. Pugnacity? Come, be quiet,' she added,
+'and don't glare. I'll take you too. You know that to my mind now
+Malevsky's--ugh!' She shook her head.
+
+'You say that to console me,' growled Byelovzorov.
+
+Zinaïda half closed her eyes. 'Does that console you? O ... O ... O
+... Mr. Pugnacity!' she said at last, as though she could find no
+other word. 'And you, M'sieu' Voldemar, would you come with us?'
+
+'I don't care to ... in a large party,' I muttered, not raising my
+eyes.
+
+'You prefer a _tête-à-tête_?... Well, freedom to the free, and heaven
+to the saints,' she commented with a sigh. 'Go along, Byelovzorov, and
+bestir yourself. I must have a horse for to-morrow.'
+
+'Oh, and where's the money to come from?' put in the old princess.
+
+Zinaïda scowled.
+
+'I won't ask you for it; Byelovzorov will trust me.'
+
+'He'll trust you, will he?' ... grumbled the old princess, and all of
+a sudden she screeched at the top of her voice, 'Duniashka!'
+
+'Maman, I have given you a bell to ring,' observed Zinaïda.
+
+'Duniashka!' repeated the old lady.
+
+Byelovzorov took leave; I went away with him. Zinaïda did not try to
+detain me.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+The next day I got up early, cut myself a stick, and set off beyond
+the town-gates. I thought I would walk off my sorrow. It was a lovely
+day, bright and not too hot, a fresh sportive breeze roved over the
+earth with temperate rustle and frolic, setting all things a-flutter
+and harassing nothing. I wandered a long while over hills and through
+woods; I had not felt happy, I had left home with the intention of
+giving myself up to melancholy, but youth, the exquisite weather, the
+fresh air, the pleasure of rapid motion, the sweetness of repose,
+lying on the thick grass in a solitary nook, gained the upper hand;
+the memory of those never-to-be-forgotten words, those kisses, forced
+itself once more upon my soul. It was sweet to me to think that
+Zinaïda could not, anyway, fail to do justice to my courage, my
+heroism....' Others may seem better to her than I,' I mused, 'let
+them! But others only say what they would do, while I have done it.
+And what more would I not do for her?' My fancy set to work. I began
+picturing to myself how I would save her from the hands of enemies;
+how, covered with blood I would tear her by force from prison,
+and expire at her feet. I remembered a picture hanging in our
+drawing-room--Malek-Adel bearing away Matilda--but at that point my
+attention was absorbed by the appearance of a speckled woodpecker who
+climbed busily up the slender stem of a birch-tree and peeped out
+uneasily from behind it, first to the right, then to the left, like a
+musician behind the bass-viol.
+
+Then I sang 'Not the white snows,' and passed from that to a song well
+known at that period: 'I await thee, when the wanton zephyr,' then
+I began reading aloud Yermak's address to the stars from Homyakov's
+tragedy. I made an attempt to compose something myself in a
+sentimental vein, and invented the line which was to conclude each
+verse: 'O Zinaïda, Zinaïda!' but could get no further with it.
+Meanwhile it was getting on towards dinner-time. I went down into the
+valley; a narrow sandy path winding through it led to the town. I
+walked along this path.... The dull thud of horses' hoofs resounded
+behind me. I looked round instinctively, stood still and took off my
+cap. I saw my father and Zinaïda. They were riding side by side. My
+father was saying something to her, bending right over to her, his
+hand propped on the horses' neck, he was smiling. Zinaïda listened
+to him in silence, her eyes severely cast down, and her lips tightly
+pressed together. At first I saw them only; but a few instants later,
+Byelovzorov came into sight round a bend in the glade, he was wearing
+a hussar's uniform with a pelisse, and riding a foaming black horse.
+The gallant horse tossed its head, snorted and pranced from side
+to side, his rider was at once holding him in and spurring him on.
+I stood aside. My father gathered up the reins, moved away from
+Zinaïda, she slowly raised her eyes to him, and both galloped off ...
+Byelovzorov flew after them, his sabre clattering behind him. 'He's
+as red as a crab,' I reflected, 'while she ... why's she so pale? out
+riding the whole morning, and pale?'
+
+I redoubled my pace, and got home just at dinner-time. My father was
+already sitting by my mother's chair, dressed for dinner, washed and
+fresh; he was reading an article from the _Journal des Débats_ in his
+smooth musical voice; but my mother heard him without attention, and
+when she saw me, asked where I had been to all day long, and added
+that she didn't like this gadding about God knows where, and God knows
+in what company. 'But I have been walking alone,' I was on the point
+of replying, but I looked at my father, and for some reason or other
+held my peace.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+For the next five or six days I hardly saw Zinaïda; she said she was
+ill, which did not, however, prevent the usual visitors from calling
+at the lodge to pay--as they expressed it, their duty--all, that is,
+except Meidanov, who promptly grew dejected and sulky when he had
+not an opportunity of being enthusiastic. Byelovzorov sat sullen and
+red-faced in a corner, buttoned up to the throat; on the refined face
+of Malevsky there flickered continually an evil smile; he had really
+fallen into disfavour with Zinaïda, and waited with special assiduity
+on the old princess, and even went with her in a hired coach to call
+on the Governor-General. This expedition turned out unsuccessful,
+however, and even led to an unpleasant experience for Malevsky; he was
+reminded of some scandal to do with certain officers of the engineers,
+and was forced in his explanations to plead his youth and inexperience
+at the time. Lushin came twice a day, but did not stay long; I was
+rather afraid of him after our last unreserved conversation, and at
+the same time felt a genuine attraction to him. He went a walk with
+me one day in the Neskutchny gardens, was very good-natured and nice,
+told me the names and properties of various plants and flowers, and
+suddenly, _à propos_ of nothing at all, cried, hitting himself on
+his forehead, 'And I, poor fool, thought her a flirt! it's clear
+self-sacrifice is sweet for some people!'
+
+'What do you mean by that?' I inquired.
+
+'I don't mean to tell you anything,' Lushin replied abruptly.
+
+Zinaïda avoided me; my presence--I could not help noticing
+it--affected her disagreeably. She involuntarily turned away from me
+... involuntarily; that was what was so bitter, that was what crushed
+me! But there was no help for it, and I tried not to cross her path,
+and only to watch her from a distance, in which I was not always
+successful. As before, something incomprehensible was happening to
+her; her face was different, she was different altogether. I was
+specially struck by the change that had taken place in her one warm
+still evening. I was sitting on a low garden bench under a spreading
+elderbush; I was fond of that nook; I could see from there the window
+of Zinaïda's room. I sat there; over my head a little bird was busily
+hopping about in the darkness of the leaves; a grey cat, stretching
+herself at full length, crept warily about the garden, and the first
+beetles were heavily droning in the air, which was still clear, though
+it was not light. I sat and gazed at the window, and waited to see if
+it would open; it did open, and Zinaïda appeared at it. She had on a
+white dress, and she herself, her face, shoulders, and arms, were pale
+to whiteness. She stayed a long while without moving, and looked out
+straight before her from under her knitted brows. I had never known
+such a look on her. Then she clasped her hands tightly, raised them to
+her lips, to her forehead, and suddenly pulling her fingers apart, she
+pushed back her hair behind her ears, tossed it, and with a sort of
+determination nodded her head, and slammed-to the window.
+
+Three days later she met me in the garden. I was turning away, but she
+stopped me of herself.
+
+'Give me your arm,' she said to me with her old affectionateness,
+'it's a long while since we have had a talk together.'
+
+I stole a look at her; her eyes were full of a soft light, and her
+face seemed as it were smiling through a mist.
+
+'Are you still not well?' I asked her.
+
+'No, that's all over now,' she answered, and she picked a small red
+rose. 'I am a little tired, but that too will pass off.'
+
+'And will you be as you used to be again?' I asked.
+
+Zinaïda put the rose up to her face, and I fancied the reflection of
+its bright petals had fallen on her cheeks. 'Why, am I changed?' she
+questioned me.
+
+'Yes, you are changed,' I answered in a low voice.
+
+'I have been cold to you, I know,' began Zinaïda, 'but you mustn't pay
+attention to that ... I couldn't help it.... Come, why talk about it!'
+
+'You don't want me to love you, that's what it is!' I cried gloomily,
+in an involuntary outburst.
+
+'No, love me, but not as you did.'
+
+'How then?'
+
+'Let us be friends--come now!' Zinaïda gave me the rose to smell.
+'Listen, you know I'm much older than you--I might be your aunt,
+really; well, not your aunt, but an older sister. And you ...'
+
+'You think me a child,' I interrupted.
+
+'Well, yes, a child, but a dear, good clever one, whom I love very
+much. Do you know what? From this day forth I confer on you the rank
+of page to me; and don't you forget that pages have to keep close
+to their ladies. Here is the token of your new dignity,' she added,
+sticking the rose in the buttonhole of my jacket, 'the token of my
+favour.'
+
+'I once received other favours from you,' I muttered.
+
+'Ah!' commented Zinaïda, and she gave me a sidelong look, 'What a
+memory he has! Well? I'm quite ready now ...' And stooping to me, she
+imprinted on my forehead a pure, tranquil kiss.
+
+I only looked at her, while she turned away, and saying, 'Follow me,
+my page,' went into the lodge. I followed her--all in amazement. 'Can
+this gentle, reasonable girl,' I thought, 'be the Zinaïda I used to
+know?' I fancied her very walk was quieter, her whole figure statelier
+and more graceful ...
+
+And, mercy! with what fresh force love burned within me!
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+After dinner the usual party assembled again at the lodge, and the
+young princess came out to them. All were there in full force, just as
+on that first evening which I never forgot; even Nirmatsky had limped
+to see her; Meidanov came this time earliest of all, he brought some
+new verses. The games of forfeits began again, but without the strange
+pranks, the practical jokes and noise--the gipsy element had vanished.
+Zinaïda gave a different tone to the proceedings. I sat beside her by
+virtue of my office as page. Among other things, she proposed that
+any one who had to pay a forfeit should tell his dream; but this was
+not successful. The dreams were either uninteresting (Byelovzorov had
+dreamed that he fed his mare on carp, and that she had a wooden head),
+or unnatural and invented. Meidanov regaled us with a regular romance;
+there were sepulchres in it, and angels with lyres, and talking
+flowers and music wafted from afar. Zinaïda did not let him finish.
+'If we are to have compositions,' she said, 'let every one tell
+something made up, and no pretence about it.' The first who had to
+speak was again Byelovzorov.
+
+The young hussar was confused. 'I can't make up anything!' he cried.
+
+'What nonsense!' said Zinaïda. 'Well, imagine, for instance, you are
+married, and tell us how you would treat your wife. Would you lock her
+up?'
+
+'Yes, I should lock her up.'
+
+'And would you stay with her yourself?'
+
+'Yes, I should certainly stay with her myself.'
+
+'Very good. Well, but if she got sick of that, and she deceived you?'
+
+'I should kill her.'
+
+'And if she ran away?'
+
+'I should catch her up and kill her all the same.'
+
+'Oh. And suppose now I were your wife, what would you do then?'
+
+Byelovzorov was silent a minute. 'I should kill myself....'
+
+Zinaïda laughed. 'I see yours is not a long story.'
+
+The next forfeit was Zinaïda's. She looked at the ceiling and
+considered. 'Well, listen, she began at last, 'what I have thought
+of.... Picture to yourselves a magnificent palace, a summer night, and
+a marvellous ball. This ball is given by a young queen. Everywhere
+gold and marble, crystal, silk, lights, diamonds, flowers, fragrant
+scents, every caprice of luxury.'
+
+'You love luxury?' Lushin interposed. 'Luxury is beautiful,' she
+retorted; 'I love everything beautiful.'
+
+'More than what is noble?' he asked.
+
+'That's something clever, I don't understand it. Don't interrupt me.
+So the ball is magnificent. There are crowds of guests, all of them
+are young, handsome, and brave, all are frantically in love with the
+queen.'
+
+'Are there no women among the guests?' queried Malevsky.
+
+'No--or wait a minute--yes, there are some.'
+
+'Are they all ugly?'
+
+'No, charming. But the men are all in love with the queen. She is tall
+and graceful; she has a little gold diadem on her black hair.'
+
+I looked at Zinaïda, and at that instant she seemed to me so much
+above all of us, there was such bright intelligence, and such power
+about her unruffled brows, that I thought: 'You are that queen!'
+
+'They all throng about her,' Zinaïda went on, 'and all lavish the most
+flattering speeches upon her.'
+
+'And she likes flattery?' Lushin queried.
+
+'What an intolerable person! he keeps interrupting ... who doesn't
+like flattery?'
+
+'One more last question,' observed Malevsky, 'has the queen a
+husband?'
+
+'I hadn't thought about that. No, why should she have a husband?'
+
+'To be sure,' assented Malevsky, 'why should she have a husband?'
+
+'_Silence!_' cried Meidanov in French, which he spoke very badly.
+
+'_Merci!_' Zinaïda said to him. 'And so the queen hears their
+speeches, and hears the music, but does not look at one of the guests.
+Six windows are open from top to bottom, from floor to ceiling, and
+beyond them is a dark sky with big stars, a dark garden with big
+trees. The queen gazes out into the garden. Out there among the trees
+is a fountain; it is white in the darkness, and rises up tall, tall
+as an apparition. The queen hears, through the talk and the music,
+the soft splash of its waters. She gazes and thinks: you are all,
+gentlemen, noble, clever, and rich, you crowd round me, you treasure
+every word I utter, you are all ready to die at my feet, I hold you in
+my power ... but out there, by the fountain, by that splashing water,
+stands and waits he whom I love, who holds me in his power. He has
+neither rich raiment nor precious stones, no one knows him, but he
+awaits me, and is certain I shall come--and I shall come--and there
+is no power that could stop me when I want to go out to him, and to
+stay with him, and be lost with him out there in the darkness of the
+garden, under the whispering of the trees, and the splash of the
+fountain ...' Zinaïda ceased.
+
+'Is that a made-up story?' Malevsky inquired slyly. Zinaïda did not
+even look at him.
+
+'And what should we have done, gentlemen?' Lushin began suddenly, 'if
+we had been among the guests, and had known of the lucky fellow at the
+fountain?'
+
+'Stop a minute, stop a minute,' interposed Zinaïda, 'I will tell you
+myself what each of you would have done. You, Byelovzorov, would have
+challenged him to a duel; you, Meidanov, would have written an epigram
+on him ... No, though, you can't write epigrams, you would have made
+up a long poem on him in the style of Barbier, and would have inserted
+your production in the _Telegraph_. You, Nirmatsky, would have
+borrowed ... no, you would have lent him money at high interest; you,
+doctor,...' she stopped. 'There, I really don't know what you would
+have done....'
+
+'In the capacity of court physician,' answered Lushin, 'I would have
+advised the queen not to give balls when she was not in the humour for
+entertaining her guests....'
+
+'Perhaps you would have been right. And you, Count?...'
+
+'And I?' repeated Malevsky with his evil smile....
+
+'You would offer him a poisoned sweetmeat.' Malevsky's face changed
+slightly, and assumed for an instant a Jewish expression, but he
+laughed directly.
+
+'And as for you, Voldemar,...' Zinaïda went on, 'but that's enough,
+though; let us play another game.'
+
+'M'sieu Voldemar, as the queen's page, would have held up her train
+when she ran into the garden,' Malevsky remarked malignantly.
+
+I was crimson with anger, but Zinaïda hurriedly laid a hand on my
+shoulder, and getting up, said in a rather shaky voice: 'I have never
+given your excellency the right to be rude, and therefore I will ask
+you to leave us.' She pointed to the door.
+
+'Upon my word, princess,' muttered Malevsky, and he turned quite pale.
+
+'The princess is right,' cried Byelovzorov, and he too rose.
+
+'Good God, I'd not the least idea,' Malevsky went on, 'in my words
+there was nothing, I think, that could ... I had no notion of
+offending you.... Forgive me.'
+
+Zinaïda looked him up and down coldly, and coldly smiled. 'Stay, then,
+certainly,' she pronounced with a careless gesture of her arm.
+
+'M'sieu Voldemar and I were needlessly incensed. It is your pleasure
+to sting ... may it do you good.'
+
+'Forgive me,' Malevsky repeated once more; while I, my thoughts
+dwelling on Zinaïda's gesture, said to myself again that no real queen
+could with greater dignity have shown a presumptuous subject to the
+door.
+
+The game of forfeits went on for a short time after this little scene;
+every one felt rather ill at ease, not so much on account of this
+scene, as from another, not quite definite, but oppressive feeling. No
+one spoke of it, but every one was conscious of it in himself and in
+his neighbour. Meidanov read us his verses; and Malevsky praised them
+with exaggerated warmth. 'He wants to show how good he is now,' Lushin
+whispered to me. We soon broke up. A mood of reverie seemed to have
+come upon Zinaïda; the old princess sent word that she had a headache;
+Nirmatsky began to complain of his rheumatism....
+
+I could not for a long while get to sleep. I had been impressed by
+Zinaïda's story. 'Can there have been a hint in it?' I asked myself:
+'and at whom and at what was she hinting? And if there really is
+anything to hint at ... how is one to make up one's mind? No, no, it
+can't be,' I whispered, turning over from one hot cheek on to the
+other.... But I remembered the expression of Zinaïda's face during her
+story.... I remembered the exclamation that had broken from Lushin in
+the Neskutchny gardens, the sudden change in her behaviour to me, and
+I was lost in conjectures. 'Who is he?' These three words seemed to
+stand before my eyes traced upon the darkness; a lowering malignant
+cloud seemed hanging over me, and I felt its oppressiveness, and
+waited for it to break. I had grown used to many things of late; I had
+learned much from what I had seen at the Zasyekins; their disorderly
+ways, tallow candle-ends, broken knives and forks, grumpy Vonifaty,
+and shabby maid-servants, the manners of the old princess--all
+their strange mode of life no longer struck me.... But what I was
+dimly discerning now in Zinaïda, I could never get used to.... 'An
+adventuress!' my mother had said of her one day. An adventuress--she,
+my idol, my divinity? This word stabbed me, I tried to get away from
+it into my pillow, I was indignant--and at the same time what would I
+not have agreed to, what would I not have given only to be that lucky
+fellow at the fountain!... My blood was on fire and boiling within
+me. 'The garden ... the fountain,' I mused.... 'I will go into the
+garden.' I dressed quickly and slipped out of the house. The night
+was dark, the trees scarcely whispered, a soft chill air breathed
+down from the sky, a smell of fennel trailed across from the kitchen
+garden. I went through all the walks; the light sound of my own
+footsteps at once confused and emboldened me; I stood still, waited
+and heard my heart beating fast and loudly. At last I went up to the
+fence and leaned against the thin bar. Suddenly, or was it my fancy, a
+woman's figure flashed by, a few paces from me ... I strained my eyes
+eagerly into the darkness, I held my breath. What was that? Did I hear
+steps, or was it my heart beating again? 'Who is here?' I faltered,
+hardly audibly. What was that again, a smothered laugh ... or a
+rustling in the leaves ... or a sigh just at my ear? I felt afraid ...
+'Who is here?' I repeated still more softly.
+
+The air blew in a gust for an instant; a streak of fire flashed across
+the sky; it was a star falling. 'Zinaïda?' I wanted to call, but
+the word died away on my lips. And all at once everything became
+profoundly still around, as is often the case in the middle of the
+night.... Even the grasshoppers ceased their churr in the trees--only
+a window rattled somewhere. I stood and stood, and then went back to
+my room, to my chilled bed. I felt a strange sensation; as though I
+had gone to a tryst, and had been left lonely, and had passed close by
+another's happiness.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+The following day I only had a passing glimpse of Zinaïda: she was
+driving somewhere with the old princess in a cab. But I saw Lushin,
+who, however, barely vouchsafed me a greeting, and Malevsky. The young
+count grinned, and began affably talking to me. Of all those who
+visited at the lodge, he alone had succeeded in forcing his way into
+our house, and had favourably impressed my mother. My father did not
+take to him, and treated him with a civility almost insulting.
+
+'Ah, _monsieur le page_,' began Malevsky, 'delighted to meet you. What
+is your lovely queen doing?'
+
+His fresh handsome face was so detestable to me at that moment, and he
+looked at me with such contemptuous amusement that I did not answer
+him at all.
+
+'Are you still angry?' he went on. 'You've no reason to be. It wasn't
+I who called you a page, you know, and pages attend queens especially.
+But allow me to remark that you perform your duties very badly.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Pages ought to be inseparable from their mistresses; pages ought to
+know everything they do, they ought, indeed, to watch over them,' he
+added, lowering his voice, 'day and night.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'What do I mean? I express myself pretty clearly, I fancy. Day and
+night. By day it's not so much matter; it's light, and people are
+about in the daytime; but by night, then look out for misfortune. I
+advise you not to sleep at nights and to watch, watch with all your
+energies. You remember, in the garden, by night, at the fountain,
+that's where there's need to look out. You will thank me.'
+
+Malevsky laughed and turned his back on me. He, most likely, attached
+no great importance to what he had said to me, he had a reputation
+for mystifying, and was noted for his power of taking people in at
+masquerades, which was greatly augmented by the almost unconscious
+falsity in which his whole nature was steeped.... He only wanted to
+tease me; but every word he uttered was a poison that ran through my
+veins. The blood rushed to my head. 'Ah! so that's it!' I said to
+myself; 'good! So there was reason for me to feel drawn into the
+garden! That shan't be so!' I cried aloud, and struck myself on the
+chest with my fist, though precisely what should not be so I could not
+have said. 'Whether Malevsky himself goes into the garden,' I thought
+(he was bragging, perhaps; he has insolence enough for that), 'or
+some one else (the fence of our garden was very low, and there was
+no difficulty in getting over it), anyway, if any one falls into
+my hands, it will be the worse for him! I don't advise any one to
+meet me! I will prove to all the world and to her, the traitress (I
+actually used the word 'traitress') that I can be revenged!'
+
+I returned to my own room, took out of the writing-table an English
+knife I had recently bought, felt its sharp edge, and knitting my
+brows with an air of cold and concentrated determination, thrust it
+into my pocket, as though doing such deeds was nothing out of the way
+for me, and not the first time. My heart heaved angrily, and felt
+heavy as a stone. All day long I kept a scowling brow and lips tightly
+compressed, and was continually walking up and down, clutching, with
+my hand in my pocket, the knife, which was warm from my grasp, while I
+prepared myself beforehand for something terrible. These new unknown
+sensations so occupied and even delighted me, that I hardly thought
+of Zinaïda herself. I was continually haunted by Aleko, the young
+gipsy--'Where art thou going, young handsome man? Lie there,' and
+then, 'thou art all besprent with blood.... Oh, what hast thou
+done?... Naught!' With what a cruel smile I repeated that 'Naught!' My
+father was not at home; but my mother, who had for some time past been
+in an almost continual state of dumb exasperation, noticed my gloomy
+and heroic aspect, and said to me at supper, 'Why are you sulking like
+a mouse in a meal-tub?' I merely smiled condescendingly in reply, and
+thought, 'If only they knew!' It struck eleven; I went to my room, but
+did not undress; I waited for midnight; at last it struck. 'The time
+has come!' I muttered between my teeth; and buttoning myself up to the
+throat, and even pulling my sleeves up, I went into the garden.
+
+I had already fixed on the spot from which to keep watch. At the end
+of the garden, at the point where the fence, separating our domain
+from the Zasyekins,' joined the common wall, grew a pine-tree,
+standing alone. Standing under its low thick branches, I could see
+well, as far as the darkness of the night permitted, what took
+place around. Close by, ran a winding path which had always seemed
+mysterious to me; it coiled like a snake under the fence, which at
+that point bore traces of having been climbed over, and led to a round
+arbour formed of thick acacias. I made my way to the pine-tree, leaned
+my back against its trunk, and began my watch.
+
+The night was as still as the night before, but there were fewer
+clouds in the sky, and the outlines of bushes, even of tall flowers,
+could be more distinctly seen. The first moments of expectation were
+oppressive, almost terrible. I had made up my mind to everything. I
+only debated how to act; whether to thunder, 'Where goest thou? Stand!
+show thyself--or death!' or simply to strike.... Every sound, every
+whisper and rustle, seemed to me portentous and extraordinary.... I
+prepared myself.... I bent forward.... But half-an-hour passed, an
+hour passed; my blood had grown quieter, colder; the consciousness
+that I was doing all this for nothing, that I was even a little
+absurd, that Malevsky had been making fun of me, began to steal over
+me. I left my ambush, and walked all about the garden. As if to taunt
+me, there was not the smallest sound to be heard anywhere; everything
+was at rest. Even our dog was asleep, curled up into a ball at the
+gate. I climbed up into the ruins of the greenhouse, saw the open
+country far away before me, recalled my meeting with Zinaïda, and fell
+to dreaming....
+
+I started.... I fancied I heard the creak of a door opening, then the
+faint crack of a broken twig. In two bounds I got down from the ruin,
+and stood still, all aghast. Rapid, light, but cautious footsteps
+sounded distinctly in the garden. They were approaching me. 'Here he
+is ... here he is, at last!' flashed through my heart. With spasmodic
+haste, I pulled the knife out of my pocket; with spasmodic haste, I
+opened it. Flashes of red were whirling before my eyes; my hair stood
+up on my head in my fear and fury.... The steps were coming straight
+towards me; I bent--I craned forward to meet him.... A man came into
+view.... My God! it was my father! I recognised him at once, though
+he was all muffled up in a dark cloak, and his hat was pulled down
+over his face. On tip-toe he walked by. He did not notice me, though
+nothing concealed me; but I was so huddled up and shrunk together that
+I fancy I was almost on the level of the ground. The jealous Othello,
+ready for murder, was suddenly transformed into a school-boy.... I was
+so taken aback by my father's unexpected appearance that for the first
+moment I did not notice where he had come from or in what direction he
+disappeared. I only drew myself up, and thought, 'Why is it my father
+is walking about in the garden at night?' when everything was still
+again. In my horror I had dropped my knife in the grass, but I did not
+even attempt to look for it; I was very much ashamed of myself. I was
+completely sobered at once. On my way to the house, however, I went up
+to my seat under the elder-tree, and looked up at Zinaïda's window.
+The small slightly-convex panes of the window shone dimly blue in the
+faint light thrown on them by the night sky. All at once--their colour
+began to change.... Behind them--I saw this, saw it distinctly--softly
+and cautiously a white blind was let down, let down right to the
+window-frame, and so stayed.
+
+'What is that for?' I said aloud almost involuntarily when I found
+myself once more in my room. 'A dream, a chance, or ...' The
+suppositions which suddenly rushed into my head were so new and
+strange that I did not dare to entertain them.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+I got up in the morning with a headache. My emotion of the previous
+day had vanished. It was replaced by a dreary sense of blankness and
+a sort of sadness I had not known till then, as though something had
+died in me.
+
+'Why is it you're looking like a rabbit with half its brain removed?'
+said Lushin on meeting me. At lunch I stole a look first at my father,
+then at my mother: he was composed, as usual; she was, as usual,
+secretly irritated. I waited to see whether my father would make some
+friendly remarks to me, as he sometimes did.... But he did not even
+bestow his everyday cold greeting upon me. 'Shall I tell Zinaïda all?'
+I wondered.... 'It's all the same, anyway; all is at an end between
+us.' I went to see her, but told her nothing, and, indeed, I could not
+even have managed to get a talk with her if I had wanted to. The old
+princess's son, a cadet of twelve years old, had come from Petersburg
+for his holidays; Zinaïda at once handed her brother over to me.
+'Here,' she said,' my dear Volodya,'--it was the first time she
+had used this pet-name to me--'is a companion for you. His name is
+Volodya, too. Please, like him; he is still shy, but he has a good
+heart. Show him Neskutchny gardens, go walks with him, take him under
+your protection. You'll do that, won't you? you're so good, too!' She
+laid both her hands affectionately on my shoulders, and I was utterly
+bewildered. The presence of this boy transformed me, too, into a
+boy. I looked in silence at the cadet, who stared as silently at me.
+Zinaïda laughed, and pushed us towards each other. 'Embrace each
+other, children!' We embraced each other. 'Would you like me to show
+you the garden?' I inquired of the cadet. 'If you please,' he replied,
+in the regular cadet's hoarse voice. Zinaïda laughed again.... I had
+time to notice that she had never had such an exquisite colour in her
+face before. I set off with the cadet. There was an old-fashioned
+swing in our garden. I sat him down on the narrow plank seat, and
+began swinging him. He sat rigid in his new little uniform of stout
+cloth, with its broad gold braiding, and kept tight hold of the cords.
+'You'd better unbutton your collar,' I said to him. 'It's all right;
+we're used to it,' he said, and cleared his throat. He was like his
+sister. The eyes especially recalled her, I liked being nice to him;
+and at the same time an aching sadness was gnawing at my heart. 'Now
+I certainly am a child,' I thought; 'but yesterday....' I remembered
+where I had dropped my knife the night before, and looked for it. The
+cadet asked me for it, picked a thick stalk of wild parsley, cut a
+pipe out of it, and began whistling. Othello whistled too.
+
+But in the evening how he wept, this Othello, in Zinaïda's arms, when,
+seeking him out in a corner of the garden, she asked him why he was so
+depressed. My tears flowed with such violence that she was frightened.
+'What is wrong with you? What is it, Volodya?' she repeated; and
+seeing I made no answer, and did not cease weeping, she was about to
+kiss my wet cheek. But I turned away from her, and whispered through
+my sobs, 'I know all. Why did you play with me?... What need had you
+of my love?'
+
+'I am to blame, Volodya ...' said Zinaïda. 'I am very much to blame
+...' she added, wringing her hands. 'How much there is bad and black
+and sinful in me!... But I am not playing with you now. I love you;
+you don't even suspect why and how.... But what is it you know?'
+
+What could I say to her? She stood facing me, and looked at me; and I
+belonged to her altogether from head to foot directly she looked at
+me.... A quarter of an hour later I was running races with the cadet
+and Zinaïda. I was not crying, I was laughing, though my swollen
+eyelids dropped a tear or two as I laughed. I had Zinaïda's ribbon
+round my neck for a cravat, and I shouted with delight whenever I
+succeeded in catching her round the waist. She did just as she liked
+with me.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+I should be in a great difficulty, if I were forced to describe
+exactly what passed within me in the course of the week after my
+unsuccessful midnight expedition. It was a strange feverish time, a
+sort of chaos, in which the most violently opposed feelings, thoughts,
+suspicions, hopes, joys, and sufferings, whirled together in a kind
+of hurricane. I was afraid to look into myself, if a boy of sixteen
+ever can look into himself; I was afraid to take stock of anything; I
+simply hastened to live through every day till evening; and at night I
+slept ... the light-heartedness of childhood came to my aid. I did not
+want to know whether I was loved, and I did not want to acknowledge to
+myself that I was not loved; my father I avoided--but Zinaïda I could
+not avoid.... I burnt as in a fire in her presence ... but what did I
+care to know what the fire was in which I burned and melted--it was
+enough that it was sweet to burn and melt. I gave myself up to all my
+passing sensations, and cheated myself, turning away from memories,
+and shutting my eyes to what I foreboded before me.... This weakness
+would not most likely have lasted long in any case ... a thunderbolt
+cut it all short in a moment, and flung me into a new track
+altogether.
+
+Coming in one day to dinner from a rather long walk, I learnt with
+amazement that I was to dine alone, that my father had gone away and
+my mother was unwell, did not want any dinner, and had shut herself
+up in her bedroom. From the faces of the footmen, I surmised that
+something extraordinary had taken place.... I did not dare to
+cross-examine them, but I had a friend in the young waiter Philip,
+who was passionately fond of poetry, and a performer on the guitar. I
+addressed myself to him. From him I learned that a terrible scene had
+taken place between my father and mother (and every word had been
+overheard in the maids' room; much of it had been in French, but Masha
+the lady's-maid had lived five years' with a dressmaker from Paris,
+and she understood it all); that my mother had reproached my father
+with infidelity, with an intimacy with the young lady next door, that
+my father at first had defended himself, but afterwards had lost his
+temper, and he too had said something cruel, 'reflecting on her age,'
+which had made my mother cry; that my mother too had alluded to some
+loan which it seemed had been made to the old princess, and had spoken
+very ill of her and of the young lady too, and that then my father had
+threatened her. 'And all the mischief,' continued Philip, 'came from
+an anonymous letter; and who wrote it, no one knows, or else there'd
+have been no reason whatever for the matter to have come out at all.'
+
+'But was there really any ground,' I brought out with difficulty,
+while my hands and feet went cold, and a sort of shudder ran through
+my inmost being.
+
+Philip winked meaningly. 'There was. There's no hiding those things;
+for all that your father was careful this time--but there, you see,
+he'd, for instance, to hire a carriage or something ... no getting on
+without servants, either.'
+
+I dismissed Philip, and fell on to my bed. I did not sob, I did not
+give myself up to despair; I did not ask myself when and how this had
+happened; I did not wonder how it was I had not guessed it before,
+long ago; I did not even upbraid my father.... What I had learnt was
+more than I could take in; this sudden revelation stunned me....
+All was at an end. All the fair blossoms of my heart were roughly
+plucked at once, and lay about me, flung on the ground, and trampled
+underfoot.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+My mother next day announced her intention of returning to the town.
+In the morning my father had gone into her bedroom, and stayed there a
+long while alone with her. No one had overheard what he said to her;
+but my mother wept no more; she regained her composure, and asked for
+food, but did not make her appearance nor change her plans. I remember
+I wandered about the whole day, but did not go into the garden,
+and never once glanced at the lodge, and in the evening I was the
+spectator of an amazing occurrence: my father conducted Count Malevsky
+by the arm through the dining-room into the hall, and, in the presence
+of a footman, said icily to him: 'A few days ago your excellency was
+shown the door in our house; and now I am not going to enter into any
+kind of explanation with you, but I have the honour to announce to you
+that if you ever visit me again, I shall throw you out of window. I
+don't like your handwriting.' The count bowed, bit his lips, shrank
+away, and vanished.
+
+Preparations were beginning for our removal to town, to Arbaty Street,
+where we had a house. My father himself probably no longer cared
+to remain at the country house; but clearly he had succeeded in
+persuading my mother not to make a public scandal. Everything was
+done quietly, without hurry; my mother even sent her compliments to
+the old princess, and expressed her regret that she was prevented by
+indisposition from seeing her again before her departure. I wandered
+about like one possessed, and only longed for one thing, for it all
+to be over as soon as possible. One thought I could not get out of
+my head: how could she, a young girl, and a princess too, after all,
+bring herself to such a step, knowing that my father was not a free
+man, and having an opportunity of marrying, for instance, Byelovzorov?
+What did she hope for? How was it she was not afraid of ruining her
+whole future? Yes, I thought, this is love, this is passion, this
+is devotion ... and Lushin's words came back to me: to sacrifice
+oneself for some people is sweet. I chanced somehow to catch sight
+of something white in one of the windows of the lodge.... 'Can it be
+Zinaïda's face?' I thought ... yes, it really was her face. I could
+not restrain myself. I could not part from her without saying a last
+good-bye to her. I seized a favourable instant, and went into the
+lodge.
+
+In the drawing-room the old princess met me with her usual slovenly
+and careless greetings.
+
+'How's this, my good man, your folks are off in such a hurry?' she
+observed, thrusting snuff into her nose. I looked at her, and a load
+was taken off my heart. The word 'loan,' dropped by Philip, had been
+torturing me. She had no suspicion ... at least I thought so then.
+Zinaïda came in from the next room, pale, and dressed in black, with
+her hair hanging loose; she took me by the hand without a word, and
+drew me away with her.
+
+'I heard your voice,' she began, 'and came out at once. Is it so easy
+for you to leave us, bad boy?'
+
+'I have come to say good-bye to you, princess,' I answered, 'probably
+for ever. You have heard, perhaps, we are going away.'
+
+Zinaïda looked intently at me.
+
+'Yes, I have heard. Thanks for coming. I was beginning to think I
+should not see you again. Don't remember evil against me. I have
+sometimes tormented you, but all the same I am not what you imagine
+me.' She turned away, and leaned against the window.
+
+'Really, I am not like that. I know you have a bad opinion of me.'
+
+'I?'
+
+'Yes, you ... you.'
+
+'I?' I repeated mournfully, and my heart throbbed as of old under the
+influence of her overpowering, indescribable fascination. 'I? Believe
+me, Zinaïda Alexandrovna, whatever you did, however you tormented me,
+I should love and adore you to the end of my days.'
+
+She turned with a rapid motion to me, and flinging wide her arms,
+embraced my head, and gave me a warm and passionate kiss. God knows
+whom that long farewell kiss was seeking, but I eagerly tasted
+its sweetness. I knew that it would never be repeated. 'Good-bye,
+good-bye,' I kept saying ...
+
+She tore herself away, and went out. And I went away. I cannot
+describe the emotion with which I went away. I should not wish it
+ever to come again; but I should think myself unfortunate had I never
+experienced such an emotion.
+
+We went back to town. I did not quickly shake off the past; I did
+not quickly get to work. My wound slowly began to heal; but I had no
+ill-feeling against my father. On the contrary he had, as it were,
+gained in my eyes ... let psychologists explain the contradiction
+as best they can. One day I was walking along a boulevard, and to
+my indescribable delight, I came across Lushin. I liked him for his
+straightforward and unaffected character, and besides he was dear to
+me for the sake of the memories he aroused in me. I rushed up to him.
+'Aha!' he said, knitting his brows,' so it's you, young man. Let me
+have a look at you. You're still as yellow as ever, but yet there's
+not the same nonsense in your eyes. You look like a man, not a
+lap-dog. That's good. Well, what are you doing? working?'
+
+I gave a sigh. I did not like to tell a lie, while I was ashamed to
+tell the truth.
+
+'Well, never mind,' Lushin went on, 'don't be shy. The great thing is
+to lead a normal life, and not be the slave of your passions. What do
+you get if not? Wherever you are carried by the tide--it's all a bad
+look-out; a man must stand on his own feet, if he can get nothing but
+a rock to stand on. Here, I've got a cough ... and Byelovzorov--have
+you heard anything of him?'
+
+'No. What is it?'
+
+'He's lost, and no news of him; they say he's gone away to the
+Caucasus. A lesson to you, young man. And it's all from not knowing
+how to part in time, to break out of the net. You seem to have got off
+very well. Mind you don't fall into the same snare again. Good-bye.'
+
+'I shan't,' I thought.... 'I shan't see her again.' But I was destined
+to see Zinaïda once more.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+My father used every day to ride out on horse-back. He had a splendid
+English mare, a chestnut piebald, with a long slender neck and long
+legs, an inexhaustible and vicious beast. Her name was Electric. No
+one could ride her except my father. One day he came up to me in a
+good humour, a frame of mind in which I had not seen him for a long
+while; he was getting ready for his ride, and had already put on his
+spurs. I began entreating him to take me with him.
+
+'We'd much better have a game of leap-frog,' my father replied.
+'You'll never keep up with me on your cob.'
+
+'Yes, I will; I'll put on spurs too.'
+
+'All right, come along then.'
+
+We set off. I had a shaggy black horse, strong, and fairly spirited.
+It is true it had to gallop its utmost, when Electric went at full
+trot, still I was not left behind. I have never seen any one ride like
+my father; he had such a fine carelessly easy seat, that it seemed
+that the horse under him was conscious of it, and proud of its rider.
+We rode through all the boulevards, reached the 'Maidens' Field,'
+jumped several fences (at first I had been afraid to take a leap, but
+my father had a contempt for cowards, and I soon ceased to feel fear),
+twice crossed the river Moskva, and I was under the impression that
+we were on our way home, especially as my father of his own accord
+observed that my horse was tired, when suddenly he turned off away
+from me at the Crimean ford, and galloped along the river-bank. I rode
+after him. When he had reached a high stack of old timber, he slid
+quickly off Electric, told me to dismount, and giving me his horse's
+bridle, told me to wait for him there at the timber-stack, and,
+turning off into a small street, disappeared. I began walking up and
+down the river-bank, leading the horses, and scolding Electric, who
+kept pulling, shaking her head, snorting and neighing as she went; and
+when I stood still, never failed to paw the ground, and whining, bite
+my cob on the neck; in fact she conducted herself altogether like a
+spoilt thorough-bred. My father did not come back. A disagreeable damp
+mist rose from the river; a fine rain began softly blowing up, and
+spotting with tiny dark flecks the stupid grey timber-stack, which
+I kept passing and repassing, and was deadly sick of by now. I
+was terribly bored, and still my father did not come. A sort of
+sentry-man, a Fin, grey all over like the timber, and with a huge
+old-fashioned shako, like a pot, on his head, and with a halberd
+(and how ever came a sentry, if you think of it, on the banks of
+the Moskva!) drew near, and turning his wrinkled face, like an old
+woman's, towards me, he observed, 'What are you doing here with the
+horses, young master? Let me hold them.'
+
+I made him no reply. He asked me for tobacco. To get rid of him (I was
+in a fret of impatience, too), I took a few steps in the direction in
+which my father had disappeared, then walked along the little street
+to the end, turned the corner, and stood still. In the street, forty
+paces from me, at the open window of a little wooden house, stood
+my father, his back turned to me; he was leaning forward over the
+window-sill, and in the house, half hidden by a curtain, sat a woman
+in a dark dress talking to my father; this woman was Zinaïda.
+
+I was petrified. This, I confess, I had never expected. My first
+impulse was to run away. 'My father will look round,' I thought,
+'and I am lost ...' but a strange feeling--a feeling stronger than
+curiosity, stronger than jealousy, stronger even than fear--held me
+there. I began to watch; I strained my ears to listen. It seemed
+as though my father were insisting on something. Zinaïda would not
+consent. I seem to see her face now--mournful, serious, lovely, and
+with an inexpressible impress of devotion, grief, love, and a sort of
+despair--I can find no other word for it. She uttered monosyllables,
+not raising her eyes, simply smiling--submissively, but without
+yielding. By that smile alone, I should have known my Zinaïda of old
+days. My father shrugged his shoulders, and straightened his hat on
+his head, which was always a sign of impatience with him.... Then I
+caught the words: '_Vous devez vous séparer de cette..._' Zinaïda sat
+up, and stretched out her arm.... Suddenly, before my very eyes, the
+impossible happened. My father suddenly lifted the whip, with which
+he had been switching the dust off his coat, and I heard a sharp blow
+on that arm, bare to the elbow. I could scarcely restrain myself from
+crying out; while Zinaïda shuddered, looked without a word at my
+father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of
+red upon it. My father flung away the whip, and running quickly up
+the steps, dashed into the house.... Zinaïda turned round, and with
+outstretched arms and downcast head, she too moved away from the
+window.
+
+My heart sinking with panic, with a sort of awe-struck horror, I
+rushed back, and running down the lane, almost letting go my hold
+of Electric, went back to the bank of the river. I could not think
+clearly of anything. I knew that my cold and reserved father was
+sometimes seized by fits of fury; and all the same, I could never
+comprehend what I had just seen.... But I felt at the time that,
+however long I lived, I could never forget the gesture, the glance,
+the smile, of Zinaïda; that her image, this image so suddenly
+presented to me, was imprinted for ever on my memory. I stared
+vacantly at the river, and never noticed that my tears were streaming.
+'She is beaten,' I was thinking,... 'beaten ... beaten....'
+
+'Hullo! what are you doing? Give me the mare!' I heard my father's
+voice saying behind me.
+
+Mechanically I gave him the bridle. He leaped on to Electric ... the
+mare, chill with standing, reared on her haunches, and leaped ten feet
+away ... but my father soon subdued her; he drove the spurs into her
+sides, and gave her a blow on the neck with his fist.... 'Ah, I've no
+whip,' he muttered.
+
+I remembered the swish and fall of the whip, heard so short a time
+before, and shuddered.
+
+'Where did you put it?' I asked my father, after a brief pause.
+
+My father made no answer, and galloped on ahead. I overtook him. I
+felt that I must see his face.
+
+'Were you bored waiting for me?' he muttered through his teeth.
+
+'A little. Where did you drop your whip?' I asked again.
+
+My father glanced quickly at me. 'I didn't drop it,' he replied; 'I
+threw it away.' He sank into thought, and dropped his head ... and
+then, for the first, and almost for the last time, I saw how much
+tenderness and pity his stern features were capable of expressing.
+
+He galloped on again, and this time I could not overtake him; I got
+home a quarter-of-an-hour after him.
+
+'That's love,' I said to myself again, as I sat at night before my
+writing-table, on which books and papers had begun to make their
+appearance; 'that's passion!... To think of not revolting, of bearing
+a blow from any one whatever ... even the dearest hand! But it seems
+one can, if one loves.... While I ... I imagined ...'
+
+I had grown much older during the last month; and my love, with all
+its transports and sufferings, struck me myself as something small and
+childish and pitiful beside this other unimagined something, which I
+could hardly fully grasp, and which frightened me like an unknown,
+beautiful, but menacing face, which one strives in vain to make out
+clearly in the half-darkness....
+
+A strange and fearful dream came to me that same night. I dreamed I
+went into a low dark room.... My father was standing with a whip in
+his hand, stamping with anger; in the corner crouched Zinaïda, and not
+on her arm, but on her forehead, was a stripe of red ... while behind
+them both towered Byelovzorov, covered with blood; he opened his white
+lips, and wrathfully threatened my father.
+
+Two months later, I entered the university; and within six months my
+father died of a stroke in Petersburg, where he had just moved with
+my mother and me. A few days before his death he received a letter
+from Moscow which threw him into a violent agitation.... He went to
+my mother to beg some favour of her: and, I was told, he positively
+shed tears--he, my father! On the very morning of the day when he
+was stricken down, he had begun a letter to me in French. 'My son,'
+he wrote to me, 'fear the love of woman; fear that bliss, that
+poison....' After his death, my mother sent a considerable sum of
+money to Moscow.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+Four years passed. I had just left the university, and did not know
+exactly what to do with myself, at what door to knock; I was hanging
+about for a time with nothing to do. One fine evening I met Meidanov
+at the theatre. He had got married, and had entered the civil service;
+but I found no change in him. He fell into ecstasies in just the same
+superfluous way, and just as suddenly grew depressed again.
+
+'You know,' he told me among other things, 'Madame Dolsky's here.'
+
+'What Madame Dolsky?'
+
+'Can you have forgotten her?--the young Princess Zasyekin whom we were
+all in love with, and you too. Do you remember at the country-house
+near Neskutchny gardens?'
+
+'She married a Dolsky?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And is she here, in the theatre?'
+
+'No: but she's in Petersburg. She came here a few days ago. She's
+going abroad.'
+
+'What sort of fellow is her husband?' I asked.
+
+'A splendid fellow, with property. He's a colleague of mine in Moscow.
+You can well understand--after the scandal ... you must know all
+about it ...' (Meidanov smiled significantly) 'it was no easy task
+for her to make a good marriage; there were consequences ... but with
+her cleverness, everything is possible. Go and see her; she'll be
+delighted to see you. She's prettier than ever.'
+
+Meidanov gave me Zinaïda's address. She was staying at the Hotel
+Demut. Old memories were astir within me.... I determined next day to
+go to see my former 'flame.' But some business happened to turn up; a
+week passed, and then another, and when at last I went to the Hotel
+Demut and asked for Madame Dolsky, I learnt that four days before, she
+had died, almost suddenly, in childbirth.
+
+I felt a sort of stab at my heart. The thought that I might have seen
+her, and had not seen her, and should never see her--that bitter
+thought stung me with all the force of overwhelming reproach. 'She is
+dead!' I repeated, staring stupidly at the hall-porter. I slowly made
+my way back to the street, and walked on without knowing myself where
+I was going. All the past swam up and rose at once before me. So this
+was the solution, this was the goal to which that young, ardent,
+brilliant life had striven, all haste and agitation! I mused on
+this; I fancied those dear features, those eyes, those curls--in the
+narrow box, in the damp underground darkness--lying here, not far
+from me--while I was still alive, and, maybe, a few paces from my
+father.... I thought all this; I strained my imagination, and yet all
+the while the lines:
+
+  'From lips indifferent of her death I heard,
+  Indifferently I listened to it, too,'
+
+were echoing in my heart. O youth, youth! little dost thou care for
+anything; thou art master, as it were, of all the treasures of the
+universe--even sorrow gives thee pleasure, even grief thou canst turn
+to thy profit; thou art self-confident and insolent; thou sayest, 'I
+alone am living--look you!'--but thy days fly by all the while, and
+vanish without trace or reckoning; and everything in thee vanishes,
+like wax in the sun, like snow.... And, perhaps, the whole secret of
+thy charm lies, not in being able to do anything, but in being able
+to think thou wilt do anything; lies just in thy throwing to the
+winds, forces which thou couldst not make other use of; in each of us
+gravely regarding himself as a prodigal, gravely supposing that he
+is justified in saying, 'Oh, what might I not have done if I had not
+wasted my time!'
+
+I, now ... what did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future
+did I foresee, when the phantom of my first love, rising up for an
+instant, barely called forth one sigh, one mournful sentiment?
+
+And what has come to pass of all I hoped for? And now, when the shades
+of evening begin to steal over my life, what have I left fresher,
+more precious, than the memories of the storm--so soon over--of early
+morning, of spring?
+
+But I do myself injustice. Even then, in those light-hearted young
+days, I was not deaf to the voice of sorrow, when it called upon me,
+to the solemn strains floating to me from beyond the tomb. I remember,
+a few days after I heard of Zinaïda's death, I was present, through
+a peculiar, irresistible impulse, at the death of a poor old woman
+who lived in the same house as we. Covered with rags, lying on hard
+boards, with a sack under her head, she died hardly and painfully. Her
+whole life had been passed in the bitter struggle with daily want; she
+had known no joy, had not tasted the honey of happiness. One would
+have thought, surely she would rejoice at death, at her deliverance,
+her rest. But yet, as long as her decrepit body held out, as long as
+her breast still heaved in agony under the icy hand weighing upon it,
+until her last forces left her, the old woman crossed herself, and
+kept whispering, 'Lord, forgive my sins'; and only with the last spark
+of consciousness, vanished from her eyes the look of fear, of horror
+of the end. And I remember that then, by the death-bed of that poor
+old woman, I felt aghast for Zinaïda, and longed to pray for her, for
+my father--and for myself.
+
+
+
+
+MUMU
+
+
+In one of the outlying streets of Moscow, in a grey house with white
+columns and a balcony, warped all askew, there was once living a lady,
+a widow, surrounded by a numerous household of serfs. Her sons were in
+the government service at Petersburg; her daughters were married; she
+went out very little, and in solitude lived through the last years of
+her miserly and dreary old age. Her day, a joyless and gloomy day, had
+long been over; but the evening of her life was blacker than night.
+
+Of all her servants, the most remarkable personage was the porter,
+Gerasim, a man full twelve inches over the normal height, of heroic
+build, and deaf and dumb from his birth. The lady, his owner, had
+brought him up from the village where he lived alone in a little hut,
+apart from his brothers, and was reckoned about the most punctual
+of her peasants in the payment of the seignorial dues. Endowed with
+extraordinary strength, he did the work of four men; work flew apace
+under his hands, and it was a pleasant sight to see him when he was
+ploughing, while, with his huge palms pressing hard upon the plough,
+he seemed alone, unaided by his poor horse, to cleave the yielding
+bosom of the earth, or when, about St. Peter's Day, he plied his
+scythe with a. furious energy that might have mown a young birch copse
+up by the roots, or swiftly and untiringly wielded a flail over two
+yards long; while the hard oblong muscles of his shoulders rose and
+fell like a lever. His perpetual silence lent a solemn dignity to his
+unwearying labour. He was a splendid peasant, and, except for his
+affliction, any girl would have been glad to marry him.... But now
+they had taken Gerasim to Moscow, bought him boots, had him made a
+full-skirted coat for summer, a sheepskin for winter, put into his
+hand a broom and a spade, and appointed him porter.
+
+At first he intensely disliked his new mode of life. From his
+childhood he had been used to field labour, to village life. Shut off
+by his affliction from the society of men, he had grown up, dumb and
+mighty, as a tree grows on a fruitful soil. When he was transported to
+the town, he could not understand what was being done with him; he was
+miserable and stupefied, with the stupefaction of some strong young
+bull, taken straight from the meadow, where the rich grass stood up to
+his belly, taken and put in the truck of a railway train, and there,
+while smoke and sparks and gusts of steam puff out upon the sturdy
+beast, he is whirled onwards, whirled along with loud roar and
+whistle, whither--God knows! What Gerasim had to do in his new duties
+seemed a mere trifle to him after his hard toil as a peasant; in
+half-an-hour, all his work was done, and he would once more stand
+stock-still in the middle of the courtyard, staring open-mouthed
+at all the passers-by, as though trying to wrest from them the
+explanation of his perplexing position; or he would suddenly go off
+into some corner, and flinging a long way off the broom or the spade,
+throw himself on his face on the ground, and lie for hours together
+without stirring, like a caged beast. But man gets used to anything,
+and Gerasim got used at last to living in town. He had little work to
+do; his whole duty consisted in keeping the courtyard clean, bringing
+in a barrel of water twice a day, splitting and dragging in wood for
+the kitchen and the house, keeping out strangers, and watching at
+night. And it must be said he did his duty zealously. In his courtyard
+there was never a shaving lying about, never a speck of dust; if
+sometimes, in the muddy season, the wretched nag, put under his charge
+for fetching water, got stuck in the road, he would simply give it
+a shove with his shoulder, and set not only the cart but the horse
+itself moving. If he set to chopping wood, the axe fairly rang
+like glass, and chips and chunks flew in all directions. And as for
+strangers, after he had one night caught two thieves and knocked
+their heads together--knocked them so that there was not the slightest
+need to take them to the police-station afterwards--every one in the
+neighbourhood began to feel a great respect for him; even those who
+came in the day-time, by no means robbers, but simply unknown persons,
+at the sight of the terrible porter, waved and shouted to him as
+though he could hear their shouts. With all the rest of the servants,
+Gerasim was on terms, hardly friendly--they were afraid of him--but
+familiar; he regarded them as his fellows. They explained themselves
+to him by signs, and he understood them, and exactly carried out all
+orders, but knew his own rights too, and soon no one dared to take
+his seat at the table. Gerasim was altogether of a strict and serious
+temper, he liked order in everything; even the cocks did not dare to
+fight in his presence, or woe betide them! directly he caught sight of
+them, he would seize them by the legs, swing them ten times round in
+the air like a wheel, and throw them in different directions. There
+were geese, too, kept in the yard; but the goose, as is well known,
+is a dignified and reasonable bird; Gerasim felt a respect for them,
+looked after them, and fed them; he was himself not unlike a gander
+of the steppes. He was assigned a little garret over the kitchen; he
+arranged it himself to his own liking, made a bedstead in it of oak
+boards on four stumps of wood for legs--a truly Titanic bedstead; one
+might have put a ton or two on it--it would not have bent under the
+load; under the bed was a solid chest; in a corner stood a little
+table of the same strong kind, and near the table a three-legged
+stool, so solid and squat that Gerasim himself would sometimes pick it
+up and drop it again with a smile of delight. The garret was locked
+up by means of a padlock that looked like a kalatch or basket-shaped
+loaf, only black; the key of this padlock Gerasim always carried about
+him in his girdle. He did not like people to come to his garret.
+
+So passed a year, at the end of which a little incident befell
+Gerasim.
+
+The old lady, in whose service he lived as porter, adhered in
+everything to the ancient ways, and kept a large number of servants.
+In her house were not only laundresses, sempstresses, carpenters,
+tailors and tailoresses, there was even a harness-maker--he was
+reckoned as a veterinary surgeon, too,--and a doctor for the servants;
+there was a household doctor for the mistress; there was, lastly, a
+shoemaker, by name Kapiton Klimov, a sad drunkard. Klimov regarded
+himself as an injured creature, whose merits were unappreciated, a
+cultivated man from Petersburg, who ought not to be living in Moscow
+without occupation--in the wilds, so to speak; and if he drank, as he
+himself expressed it emphatically, with a blow on his chest, it was
+sorrow drove him to it. So one day his mistress had a conversation
+about him with her head steward, Gavrila, a man whom, judging solely
+from his little yellow eyes and nose like a duck's beak, fate itself,
+it seemed, had marked out as a person in authority. The lady expressed
+her regret at the corruption of the morals of Kapiton, who had, only
+the evening before, been picked up somewhere in the street.
+
+'Now, Gavrila,' she observed, all of a sudden, 'now, if we were to
+marry him, what do you think, perhaps he would be steadier?'
+
+'Why not marry him, indeed, 'm? He could be married, 'm,' answered
+Gavrila, 'and it would be a very good thing, to be sure, 'm.'
+
+'Yes; only who is to marry him?'
+
+'Ay, 'm. But that's at your pleasure, 'm. He may, any way, so to say,
+be wanted for something; he can't be turned adrift altogether.'
+
+'I fancy he likes Tatiana.'
+
+Gavrila was on the point of making some reply, but he shut his lips
+tightly.
+
+'Yes!... let him marry Tatiana,' the lady decided, taking a pinch of
+snuff complacently, 'Do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, 'm,' Gavrila articulated, and he withdrew.
+
+Returning to his own room (it was in a little lodge, and was almost
+filled up with metal-bound trunks), Gavrila first sent his wife
+away, and then sat down at the window and pondered. His mistress's
+unexpected arrangement had clearly put him in a difficulty. At last he
+got up and sent to call Kapiton. Kapiton made his appearance.... But
+before reporting their conversation to the reader, we consider it not
+out of place to relate in few words who was this Tatiana, whom it
+was to be Kapiton's lot to marry, and why the great lady's order had
+disturbed the steward.
+
+Tatiana, one of the laundresses referred to above (as a trained and
+skilful laundress she was in charge of the fine linen only), was
+a woman of twenty-eight, thin, fair-haired, with moles on her left
+cheek. Moles on the left cheek are regarded as of evil omen in
+Russia--a token of unhappy life.... Tatiana could not boast of her
+good luck. From her earliest youth she had been badly treated; she
+had done the work of two, and had never known affection; she had been
+poorly clothed and had received the smallest wages. Relations she had
+practically none; an uncle she had once had, a butler, left behind in
+the country as useless, and other uncles of hers were peasants--that
+was all. At one time she had passed for a beauty, but her good looks
+were very soon over. In disposition, she was very meek, or, rather,
+scared; towards herself, she felt perfect indifference; of others, she
+stood in mortal dread; she thought of nothing but how to get her work
+done in good time, never talked to any one, and trembled at the very
+name of her mistress, though the latter scarcely knew her by sight.
+When Gerasim was brought from the country, she was ready to die with
+fear on seeing his huge figure, tried all she could to avoid meeting
+him, even dropped her eyelids when sometimes she chanced to run past
+him, hurrying from the house to the laundry. Gerasim at first paid
+no special attention to her, then he used to smile when she came his
+way, then he began even to stare admiringly at her, and at last he
+never took his eyes off her. She took his fancy, whether by the mild
+expression of her face or the timidity of her movements, who can
+tell? So one day she was stealing across the yard, with a starched
+dressing-jacket of her mistress's carefully poised on her outspread
+fingers ... some one suddenly grasped her vigorously by the elbow;
+she turned round and fairly screamed; behind her stood Gerasim. With
+a foolish smile, making inarticulate caressing grunts, he held out to
+her a gingerbread cock with gold tinsel on his tail and wings. She was
+about to refuse it, but he thrust it forcibly into her hand, shook his
+head, walked away, and turning round, once more grunted something very
+affectionately to her. From that day forward he gave her no peace;
+wherever she went, he was on the spot at once, coming to meet her,
+smiling, grunting, waving his hands; all at once he would pull a
+ribbon out of the bosom of his smock and put it in her hand, or would
+sweep the dust out of her way. The poor girl simply did not know how
+to behave or what to do. Soon the whole household knew of the dumb
+porter's wiles; jeers, jokes, sly hints were showered upon Tatiana. At
+Gerasim, however, it was not every one who would dare to scoff; he did
+not like jokes; indeed, in his presence, she, too, was left in peace.
+Whether she liked it or not, the girl found herself to be under his
+protection. Like all deaf-mutes, he was very suspicious, and very
+readily perceived when they were laughing at him or at her. One day,
+at dinner, the wardrobe-keeper, Tatiana's superior, fell to nagging,
+as it is called, at her, and brought the poor thing to such a state
+that she did not know where to look, and was almost crying with
+vexation. Gerasim got up all of a sudden, stretched out his gigantic
+hand, laid it on the wardrobe-maid's head, and looked into her face
+with such grim ferocity that her head positively flopped upon the
+table. Every one was still. Gerasim took up his spoon again and
+went on with his cabbage-soup. 'Look at him, the dumb devil, the
+wood-demon!' they all muttered in under-tones, while the wardrobe-maid
+got up and went out into the maids' room. Another time, noticing that
+Kapiton--the same Kapiton who was the subject of the conversation
+reported above--was gossiping somewhat too attentively with Tatiana,
+Gerasim beckoned him to him, led him into the cartshed, and taking
+up a shaft that was standing in a corner by one end, lightly, but
+most significantly, menaced him with it. Since then no one addressed
+a word to Tatiana. And all this cost him nothing. It is true the
+wardrobe-maid, as soon as she reached the maids' room, promptly
+fell into a fainting-fit, and behaved altogether so skilfully that
+Gerasim's rough action reached his mistress's knowledge the same day.
+But the capricious old lady only laughed, and several times, to the
+great offence of the wardrobe-maid, forced her to repeat 'how he bent
+your head down with his heavy hand,' and next day she sent Gerasim
+a rouble. She looked on him with favour as a strong and faithful
+watchman. Gerasim stood in considerable awe of her, but, all the same,
+he had hopes of her favour, and was preparing to go to her with a
+petition for leave to marry Tatiana. He was only waiting for a new
+coat, promised him by the steward, to present a proper appearance
+before his mistress, when this same mistress suddenly took it into her
+head to marry Tatiana to Kapiton.
+
+The reader will now readily understand the perturbation of mind that
+overtook the steward Gavrila after his conversation with his mistress.
+'My lady,' he thought, as he sat at the window, 'favours Gerasim, to
+be sure'--(Gavrila was well aware of this, and that was why he himself
+looked on him with an indulgent eye)--'still he is a speechless
+creature. I could not, indeed, put it before the mistress that
+Gerasim's courting Tatiana. But, after all, it's true enough; he's a
+queer sort of husband. But on the other hand, that devil, God forgive
+me, has only got to find out they're marrying Tatiana to Kapiton,
+he'll smash up everything in the house, 'pon my soul! There's no
+reasoning with him; why, he's such a devil, God forgive my sins,
+there's no getting over him no how ... 'pon my soul!'
+
+Kapiton's entrance broke the thread of Gavrila's reflections. The
+dissipated shoemaker came in, his hands behind him, and lounging
+carelessly against a projecting angle of the wall, near the door,
+crossed his right foot in front of his left, and tossed his head, as
+much as to say, 'What do you want?'
+
+Gavrila looked at Kapiton, and drummed with his fingers on the
+window-frame. Kapiton merely screwed up his leaden eyes a little, but
+he did not look down, he even grinned slightly, and passed his hand
+over his whitish locks which were sticking up in all directions.
+'Well, here I am. What is it?'
+
+'You're a pretty fellow,' said Gavrila, and paused. 'A pretty fellow
+you are, there's no denying!'
+
+Kapiton only twitched his little shoulders.
+
+'Are you any better, pray?' he thought to himself.
+
+'Just look at yourself, now, look at yourself,' Gavrila went on
+reproachfully; 'now, what ever do you look like?'
+
+Kapiton serenely surveyed his shabby tattered coat, and his patched
+trousers, and with special attention stared at his burst boots,
+especially the one on the tip-toe of which his right foot so
+gracefully poised, and he fixed his eyes again on the steward.
+
+'Well?'
+
+'Well?' repeated Gavrila. 'Well? And then you say well? You look like
+old Nick himself, God forgive my saying so, that's what you look
+like.'
+
+Kapiton blinked rapidly.
+
+'Go on abusing me, go on, if you like, Gavrila Andreitch,' he thought
+to himself again.
+
+'Here you've been drunk again,' Gavrila began, 'drunk again, haven't
+you? Eh? Come, answer me!'
+
+'Owing to the weakness of my health, I have exposed myself to
+spirituous beverages, certainly,' replied Kapiton.
+
+'Owing to the weakness of your health!... They let you off too easy,
+that's what it is; and you've been apprenticed in Petersburg.... Much
+you learned in your apprenticeship! You simply eat your bread in
+idleness.'
+
+'In that matter, Gavrila Andreitch, there is one to judge me, the Lord
+God Himself, and no one else. He also knows what manner of man I be in
+this world, and whether I eat my bread in idleness. And as concerning
+your contention regarding drunkenness, in that matter, too, I am not
+to blame, but rather a friend; he led me into temptation, but was
+diplomatic and got away, while I....'
+
+'While you were left, like a goose, in the street. Ah, you're a
+dissolute fellow! But that's not the point,' the steward went on,
+'I've something to tell you. Our lady...' here he paused a minute,
+'it's our lady's pleasure that you should be married. Do you hear? She
+imagines you may be steadier when you're married. Do you understand?'
+
+'To be sure I do.'
+
+'Well, then. For my part I think it would be better to give you a
+good hiding. But there--it's her business. Well? are you agreeable?'
+Kapiton grinned.
+
+'Matrimony is an excellent thing for any one, Gavrila Andreitch; and,
+as far as I am concerned, I shall be quite agreeable.'
+
+'Very well, then,' replied Gavrila, while he reflected to himself:
+'there's no denying the man expresses himself very properly. Only
+there's one thing,' he pursued aloud: 'the wife our lady's picked out
+for you is an unlucky choice.'
+
+'Why, who is she, permit me to inquire?'
+
+'Tatiana.'
+
+'Tatiana?'
+
+And Kapiton opened his eyes, and moved a little away from the wall.
+
+'Well, what are you in such a taking for?... Isn't she to your taste,
+hey?'
+
+'Not to my taste, do you say, Gavrila Andreitch! She's right enough, a
+hard-working steady girl.... But you know very well yourself, Gavrila
+Andreitch, why that fellow, that wild man of the woods, that monster
+of the steppes, he's after her, you know....'
+
+'I know, mate, I know all about it,' the butler cut him short in a
+tone of annoyance: 'but there, you see....'
+
+'But upon my soul, Gavrila Andreitch! why, he'll kill me, by God, he
+will, he'll crush me like some fly; why, he's got a fist--why, you
+kindly look yourself what a fist he's got; why, he's simply got a fist
+like Minin Pozharsky's. You see he's deaf, he beats and does not hear
+how he's beating! He swings his great fists, as if he's asleep. And
+there's no possibility of pacifying him; and for why? Why, because, as
+you know yourself, Gavrila Andreitch, he's deaf, and what's more, has
+no more wit than the heel of my foot. Why, he's a sort of beast, a
+heathen idol, Gavrila Andreitch, and worse ... a block of wood; what
+have I done that I should have to suffer from him now? Sure it is,
+it's all over with me now; I've knocked about, I've had enough to put
+up with, I've been battered like an earthenware pot, but still I'm a
+man, after all, and not a worthless pot.'
+
+'I know, I know, don't go talking away....'
+
+'Lord, my God!' the shoemaker continued warmly, 'when is the end?
+when, O Lord! A poor wretch I am, a poor wretch whose sufferings are
+endless! What a life, what a life mine's been, come to think of it!
+In my young days, I was beaten by a German I was 'prentice to; in the
+prime of life beaten by my own countrymen, and last of all, in ripe
+years, see what I have been brought to....'
+
+'Ugh, you flabby soul!' said Gavrila Andreitch. 'Why do you make so
+many words about it?'
+
+'Why, do you say, Gavrila Andreitch? It's not a beating I'm afraid of,
+Gavrila Andreitch. A gentleman may chastise me in private, but give me
+a civil word before folks, and I'm a man still; but see now, whom I've
+to do with....'
+
+'Come, get along,' Gavrila interposed impatiently. Kapiton turned away
+and staggered off.
+
+'But, if it were not for him,' the steward shouted after him, 'you
+would consent for your part?'
+
+'I signify my acquiescence,' retorted Kapiton as he disappeared.
+
+His fine language did not desert him, even in the most trying
+positions.
+
+The steward walked several times up and down the room.
+
+'Well, call Tatiana now,' he said at last.
+
+A few instants later, Tatiana had come up almost noiselessly, and was
+standing in the doorway.
+
+'What are your orders, Gavrila Andreitch?' she said in a soft voice.
+
+The steward looked at her intently.
+
+'Well, Taniusha,' he said, 'would you like to be married? Our lady has
+chosen a husband for you.'
+
+'Yes, Gavrila Andreitch. And whom has she deigned to name as a husband
+for me?' she added falteringly.
+
+'Kapiton, the shoemaker.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'He's a feather-brained fellow, that's certain. But it's just for that
+the mistress reckons upon you.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'There's one difficulty ... you know the deaf man, Gerasim, he's
+courting you, you see. How did you come to bewitch such a bear? But
+you see, he'll kill you, very like, he's such a bear....'
+
+'He'll kill me, Gavrila Andreitch, he'll kill me, and no mistake.'
+
+'Kill you.... Well, we shall see about that. What do you mean
+by saying he'll kill you? Has he any right to kill you? tell me
+yourself.'
+
+'I don't know, Gavrila Andreitch, about his having any right or not.'
+
+'What a woman! why, you've made him no promise, I suppose....'
+
+'What are you pleased to ask of me?'
+
+The steward was silent for a little, thinking, 'You're a meek soul!
+Well, that's right,' he said aloud; 'we'll have another talk with you
+later, now you can go, Taniusha; I see you're not unruly, certainly.'
+
+Tatiana turned, steadied herself a little against the doorpost, and
+went away.
+
+'And, perhaps, our lady will forget all about this wedding by
+to-morrow,' thought the steward; 'and here am I worrying myself for
+nothing! As for that insolent fellow, we must tie him down, if it
+comes to that, we must let the police know' ... 'Ustinya Fyedorovna!'
+he shouted in a loud voice to his wife, 'heat the samovar, my good
+soul....' All that day Tatiana hardly went out of the laundry. At
+first she had started crying, then she wiped away her tears, and set
+to work as before. Kapiton stayed till late at night at the ginshop
+with a friend of his, a man of gloomy appearance, to whom he related
+in detail how he used to live in Petersburg with a gentleman, who
+would have been all right, except he was a bit too strict, and he had
+a slight weakness besides, he was too fond of drink; and, as to the
+fair sex, he didn't stick at anything. His gloomy companion merely
+said yes; but when Kapiton announced at last that, in a certain event,
+he would have to lay hands on himself to-morrow, his gloomy companion
+remarked that it was bedtime. And they parted in surly silence.
+
+Meanwhile, the steward's anticipations were not fulfilled. The old
+lady was so much taken up with the idea of Kapiton's wedding, that
+even in the night she talked of nothing else to one of her companions,
+who was kept in her house solely to entertain her in case of
+sleeplessness, and, like a night cabman, slept in the day. When
+Gavrila came to her after morning tea with his report, her first
+question was: 'And how about our wedding--is it getting on all right?'
+He replied, of course, that it was getting on first rate, and that
+Kapiton would appear before her to pay his reverence to her that
+day. The old lady was not quite well; she did not give much time to
+business. The steward went back to his own room, and called a council.
+The matter certainly called for serious consideration. Tatiana would
+make no difficulty, of course; but Kapiton had declared in the hearing
+of all that he had but one head to lose, not two or three.... Gerasim
+turned rapid sullen looks on every one, would not budge from the steps
+of the maids' quarters, and seemed to guess that some mischief was
+being hatched against him. They met together. Among them was an old
+sideboard waiter, nicknamed Uncle Tail, to whom every one looked
+respectfully for counsel, though all they got out of him was, 'Here's
+a pretty pass! to be sure, to be sure, to be sure!' As a preliminary
+measure of security, to provide against contingencies, they locked
+Kapiton up in the lumber-room where the filter was kept; then
+considered the question with the gravest deliberation, It would, to
+be sure, be easy to have recourse to force. But Heaven save us! there
+would be an uproar, the mistress would be put out--it would be awful!
+What should they do? They thought and thought, and at last thought out
+a solution. It had many a time been observed that Gerasim could not
+bear drunkards.... As he sat at the gates, he would always turn away
+with disgust when some one passed by intoxicated, with unsteady steps
+and his cap on one side of his ear. They resolved that Tatiana should
+be instructed to pretend to be tipsy, and should pass by Gerasim
+staggering and reeling about. The poor girl refused for a long while
+to agree to this, but they persuaded her at last; she saw, too, that
+it was the only possible way of getting rid of her adorer. She went
+out. Kapiton was released from the lumber-room; for, after all, he
+had an interest in the affair. Gerasim was sitting on the curb-stone
+at the gates, scraping the ground with a spade.... From behind every
+corner, from behind every window-blind, the others were watching
+him.... The trick succeeded beyond all expectations. On seeing
+Tatiana, at first, he nodded as usual, making caressing, inarticulate
+sounds; then he looked carefully at her, dropped his spade, jumped up,
+went up to her, brought his face close to her face.... In her fright
+she staggered more than ever, and shut her eyes.... He took her by the
+arm, whirled her right across the yard, and going into the room where
+the council had been sitting, pushed her straight at Kapiton. Tatiana
+fairly swooned away.... Gerasim stood, looked at her, waved his hand,
+laughed, and went off, stepping heavily, to his garret.... For the
+next twenty-four hours, he did not come out of it. The postillion
+Antipka said afterwards that he saw Gerasim through a. crack in the
+wall, sitting on his bedstead, his face in his hand. From time to
+time he uttered soft regular sounds; he was wailing a dirge, that is,
+swaying backwards and forwards with his eyes shut, and shaking his
+head as drivers or bargemen do when they chant their melancholy songs.
+Antipka could not bear it, and he came away from the crack. When
+Gerasim came out of the garret next day, no particular change could be
+observed in him. He only seemed, as it were, more morose, and took not
+the slightest notice of Tatiana or Kapiton. The same evening, they
+both had to appear before their mistress with geese under their arms,
+and in a week's time they were married. Even on the day of the wedding
+Gerasim showed no change of any sort in his behaviour. Only, he came
+back from the river without water, he had somehow broken the barrel on
+the road; and at night, in the stable, he washed and rubbed down his
+horse so vigorously, that it swayed like a blade of grass in the wind,
+and staggered from one leg to the other under his fists of iron.
+
+All this had taken place in the spring. Another year passed by, during
+which Kapiton became a hopeless drunkard, and as being absolutely of
+no use for anything, was sent away with the store waggons to a distant
+village with his wife. On the day of his departure, he put a very good
+face on it at first, and declared that he would always be at home,
+send him where they would, even to the other end of the world; but
+later on he lost heart, began grumbling that he was being taken to
+uneducated people, and collapsed so completely at last that he could
+not even put his own hat on. Some charitable soul stuck it on his
+forehead, set the peak straight in front, and thrust it on with a slap
+from above. When everything was quite ready, and the peasants already
+held the reins in their hands, and were only waiting for the words
+'With God's blessing!' to start, Gerasim came out of his garret,
+went up to Tatiana, and gave her as a parting present a red cotton
+handkerchief he had bought for her a year ago. Tatiana, who had up to
+that instant borne all the revolting details of her life with great
+indifference, could not control herself upon that; she burst into
+tears, and as she took her seat in the cart, she kissed Gerasim three
+times like a good Christian. He meant to accompany her as far as the
+town-barrier, and did walk beside her cart for a while, but he stopped
+suddenly at the Crimean ford, waved his hand, and walked away along
+the riverside.
+
+It was getting towards evening. He walked slowly, watching the water.
+All of a sudden he fancied something was floundering in the mud close
+to the bank. He stooped over, and saw a little white-and-black puppy,
+who, in spite of all its efforts, could not get out of the water; it
+was struggling, slipping back, and trembling all over its thin wet
+little body. Gerasim looked at the unlucky little dog, picked it up
+with one hand, put it into the bosom of his coat, and hurried with
+long steps homewards. He went into his garret, put the rescued puppy
+on his bed, covered it with his thick overcoat, ran first to the
+stable for straw, and then to the kitchen for a cup of milk. Carefully
+folding back the overcoat, and spreading out the straw, he set the
+milk on the bedstead. The poor little puppy was not more than three
+weeks old, its eyes were only just open--one eye still seemed rather
+larger than the other; it did not know how to lap out of a cup, and
+did nothing but shiver and blink. Gerasim took hold of its head softly
+with two fingers, and dipped its little nose into the milk. The
+pup suddenly began lapping greedily, sniffing, shaking itself, and
+choking. Gerasim watched and watched it, and all at once he laughed
+outright.... All night long he was waiting on it, keeping it covered,
+and rubbing it dry. He fell asleep himself at last, and slept quietly
+and happily by its side.
+
+No mother could have looked after her baby as Gerasim looked after
+his little nursling. At first, she--for the pup turned out to be
+a bitch--was very weak, feeble, and ugly, but by degrees she grew
+stronger and improved in looks, and thanks to the unflagging care of
+her preserver, in eight months' time she was transformed into a very
+pretty dog of the spaniel breed, with long ears, a bushy spiral tail,
+and large expressive eyes. She was devotedly attached to Gerasim, and
+was never a yard from his side; she always followed him about wagging
+her tail. He had even given her a name--the dumb know that their
+inarticulate noises call the attention of others. He called her Mumu.
+All the servants in the house liked her, and called her Mumu, too. She
+was very intelligent, she was friendly with every one, but was only
+fond of Gerasim. Gerasim, on his side, loved her passionately, and he
+did not like it when other people stroked her; whether he was afraid
+for her, or jealous--God knows! She used to wake him in the morning,
+pulling at his coat; she used to take the reins in her mouth, and
+bring him up the old horse that carried the water, with whom she was
+on very friendly terms. With a face of great importance, she used to
+go with him to the river; she used to watch his brooms and spades,
+and never allowed any one to go into his garret. He cut a little hole
+in his door on purpose for her, and she seemed to feel that only in
+Gerasim's garret she was completely mistress and at home; and directly
+she went in, she used to jump with a satisfied air upon the bed.
+At night she did not sleep at all, but she never barked without
+sufficient cause, like some stupid house-dog, who, sitting on its
+hind-legs, blinking, with its nose in the air, barks simply from
+dulness, at the stars, usually three times in succession. No! Mumu's
+delicate little voice was never raised without good reason; either
+some stranger was passing close to the fence, or there was some
+suspicious sound or rustle somewhere.... In fact, she was an excellent
+watch-dog. It is true that there was another dog in the yard, a tawny
+old dog with brown spots, called Wolf, but he was never, even at
+night, let off the chain; and, indeed, he was so decrepit that he did
+not even wish for freedom. He used to lie curled up in his kennel,
+and only rarely uttered a sleepy, almost noiseless bark, which broke
+off at once, as though he were himself aware of its uselessness. Mumu
+never went into the mistress's house; and when Gerasim carried wood
+into the rooms, she always stayed behind, impatiently waiting for him
+at the steps, pricking up her ears and turning her head to right and
+to left at the slightest creak of the door....
+
+So passed another year. Gerasim went on performing his duties as
+house-porter, and was very well content with his lot, when suddenly
+an unexpected incident occurred.... One fine summer day the old lady
+was walking up and down the drawing-room with her dependants. She was
+in high spirits; she laughed and made jokes. Her servile companions
+laughed and joked too, but they did not feel particularly mirthful;
+the household did not much like it, when their mistress was in a
+lively mood, for, to begin with, she expected from every one prompt
+and complete participation in her merriment, and was furious if any
+one showed a face that did not beam with delight, and secondly, these
+outbursts never lasted long with her, and were usually followed by
+a sour and gloomy mood. That day she had got up in a lucky hour; at
+cards she took the four knaves, which means the fulfilment of one's
+wishes (she used to try her fortune on the cards every morning), and
+her tea struck her as particularly delicious, for which her maid was
+rewarded by words of praise, and by twopence in money. With a sweet
+smile on her wrinkled lips, the lady walked about the drawing-room and
+went up to the window. A flower-garden had been laid out before the
+window, and in the very middle bed, under a rose-bush, lay Mumu busily
+gnawing a bone. The lady caught sight of her.
+
+'Mercy on us!' she cried suddenly; 'what dog is that?'
+
+The companion, addressed by the old lady, hesitated, poor thing, in
+that wretched state of uneasiness which is common in any person in a
+dependent position who doesn't know very well what significance to
+give to the exclamation of a superior.
+
+'I d ... d ... don't know,' she faltered: 'I fancy it's the dumb man's
+dog.'
+
+'Mercy!' the lady cut her short: 'but it's a charming little dog!
+order it to be brought in. Has he had it long? How is it I've never
+seen it before?... Order it to be brought in.'
+
+The companion flew at once into the hall.
+
+'Boy, boy!' she shouted: 'bring Mumu in at once! She's in the
+flower-garden.'
+
+'Her name's Mumu then,' observed the lady: 'a very nice name.'
+
+'Oh, very, indeed!' chimed in the companion. 'Make haste, Stepan!'
+
+Stepan, a sturdily-built young fellow, whose duties were those of a
+footman, rushed headlong into the flower-garden, and tried to capture
+Mumu, but she cleverly slipped from his fingers, and with her tail in
+the air, fled full speed to Gerasim, who was at that instant in the
+kitchen, knocking out and cleaning a barrel, turning it upside down
+in his hands like a child's drum. Stepan ran after her, and tried to
+catch her just at her master's feet; but the sensible dog would not
+let a stranger touch her, and with a bound, she got away. Gerasim
+looked on with a smile at all this ado; at last, Stepan got up, much
+amazed, and hurriedly explained to him by signs that the mistress
+wanted the dog brought in to her. Gerasim was a little astonished;
+he called Mumu, however, picked her up, and handed her over to
+Stepan. Stepan carried her into the drawing-room, and put her down
+on the parquette floor. The old lady began calling the dog to her
+in a coaxing voice. Mumu, who had never in her life been in such
+magnificent apartments, was very much frightened, and made a rush for
+the door, but, being driven back by the obsequious Stepan, she began
+trembling, and huddled close up against the wall.
+
+'Mumu, Mumu, come to me, come to your mistress,' said the lady; 'come,
+silly thing ... don't be afraid.'
+
+'Come, Mumu, come to the mistress,' repeated the companions. 'Come
+along!'
+
+But Mumu looked round her uneasily, and did not stir.
+
+'Bring her something to eat,' said the old lady. 'How stupid she is!
+she won't come to her mistress. What's she afraid of?'
+
+'She's not used to your honour yet,' ventured one of the companions in
+a timid and conciliatory voice.
+
+Stepan brought in a saucer of milk, and set it down before Mumu, but
+Mumu would not even sniff at the milk, and still shivered, and looked
+round as before.
+
+'Ah, what a silly you are!' said the lady, and going up to her, she
+stooped down, and was about to stroke her, but Mumu turned her head
+abruptly, and showed her teeth. The lady hurriedly drew back her
+hand....
+
+A momentary silence followed. Mumu gave a faint whine, as though she
+would complain and apologise.... The old lady moved back, scowling.
+The dog's sudden movement had frightened her.
+
+'Ah!' shrieked all the companions at once, 'she's not bitten you, has
+she? Heaven forbid! (Mumu had never bitten any one in her life.) Ah!
+ah!'
+
+'Take her away,' said the old lady in a changed voice. 'Wretched
+little dog! What a spiteful creature!'
+
+And, turning round deliberately, she went towards her boudoir. Her
+companions looked timidly at one another, and were about to follow
+her, but she stopped, stared coldly at them, and said, 'What's that
+for, pray? I've not called you,' and went out.
+
+The companions waved their hands to Stepan in despair. He picked up
+Mumu, and flung her promptly outside the door, just at Gerasim's feet,
+and half-an-hour later a profound stillness reigned in the house, and
+the old lady sat on her sofa looking blacker than a thunder-cloud.
+
+What trifles, if you think of it, will sometimes disturb any one!
+
+Till evening the lady was out of humour; she did not talk to any
+one, did not play cards, and passed a bad night. She fancied the
+eau-de-Cologne they gave her was not the same as she usually had, and
+that her pillow smelt of soap, and she made the wardrobe-maid smell
+all the bed linen--in fact she was very upset and cross altogether.
+Next morning she ordered Gavrila to be summoned an hour earlier than
+usual.
+
+'Tell me, please,' she began, directly the latter, not without some
+inward trepidation, crossed the threshold of her boudoir, 'what dog
+was that barking all night in our yard? It wouldn't let me sleep!'
+
+'A dog, 'm ... what dog, 'm ... may be, the dumb man's dog, 'm,' he
+brought out in a rather unsteady voice.
+
+'I don't know whether it was the dumb man's or whose, but it wouldn't
+let me sleep. And I wonder what we have such a lot of dogs for! I wish
+to know. We have a yard dog, haven't we?'
+
+'Oh yes, 'm, we have, 'm. Wolf, 'm.'
+
+'Well, why more, what do we want more dogs for? It's simply
+introducing disorder. There's no one in control in the house--that's
+what it is. And what does the dumb man want with a dog? Who gave him
+leave to keep dogs in my yard? Yesterday I went to the window, and
+there it was lying in the flower--garden; it had dragged in some
+nastiness it was gnawing, and my roses are planted there....'
+
+The lady ceased.
+
+'Let her be gone from to-day ... do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, 'm.'
+
+'To-day. Now go. I will send for you later for the report.'
+
+Gavrila went away.
+
+As he went through the drawing-room, the steward by way of maintaining
+order moved a bell from one table to another; he stealthily blew his
+duck-like nose in the hall, and went into the outer-hall. In the
+outer-hall, on a locker was Stepan asleep in the attitude of a slain
+warrior in a battalion picture, his bare legs thrust out below the
+coat which served him for a blanket. The steward gave him a shove,
+and whispered some instructions to him, to which Stepan responded
+with something between a yawn and a laugh. The steward went away,
+and Stepan got up, put on his coat and his boots, went out and stood
+on the steps. Five minutes had not passed before Gerasim made his
+appearance with a huge bundle of hewn logs on his back, accompanied by
+the inseparable Mumu. (The lady had given orders that her bedroom and
+boudoir should be heated at times even in the summer.) Gerasim turned
+sideways before the door, shoved it open with his shoulder, and
+staggered into the house with his load. Mumu, as usual, stayed behind
+to wait for him. Then Stepan, seizing his chance, suddenly pounced on
+her, like a kite on a chicken, held her down to the ground, gathered
+her up in his arms, and without even putting on his cap, ran out of
+the yard with her, got into the first fly he met, and galloped off to
+a market-place. There he soon found a purchaser, to whom he sold her
+for a shilling, on condition that he would keep her for at least a
+week tied up; then he returned at once. But before he got home, he got
+off the fly, and going right round the yard, jumped over the fence
+into the yard from a back street. He was afraid to go in at the gate
+for fear of meeting Gerasim.
+
+His anxiety was unnecessary, however; Gerasim was no longer in the
+yard. On coming out of the house he had at once missed Mumu. He never
+remembered her failing to wait for his return, and began running up
+and down, looking for her, and calling her in his own way.... He
+rushed up to his garret, up to the hay-loft, ran out into the street,
+this way and that.... She was lost! He turned to the other serfs, with
+the most despairing signs, questioned them about her, pointing to her
+height from the ground, describing her with his hands.... Some of them
+really did not know what had become of Mumu, and merely shook their
+heads, others did know, and smiled to him for all response, while the
+steward assumed an important air, and began scolding the coachmen.
+Then Gerasim ran right away out of the yard.
+
+It was dark by the time he came back. From his worn-out look, his
+unsteady walk, and his dusty clothes, it might be surmised that he had
+been running over half Moscow. He stood still opposite the windows of
+the mistress' house, took a searching look at the steps where a group
+of house-serfs were crowded together, turned away, and uttered once
+more his inarticulate 'Mumu.' Mumu did not answer. He went away.
+Every one looked after him, but no one smiled or said a word, and the
+inquisitive postillion Antipka reported next morning in the kitchen
+that the dumb man had been groaning all night.
+
+All the next day Gerasim did not show himself, so that they were
+obliged to send the coachman Potap for water instead of him, at which
+the coachman Potap was anything but pleased. The lady asked Gavrila
+if her orders had been carried out. Gavrila replied that they had.
+The next morning Gerasim came out of his garret, and went about his
+work. He came in to his dinner, ate it, and went out again, without
+a greeting to any one. His face, which had always been lifeless, as
+with all deaf-mutes, seemed now to be turned to stone. After dinner he
+went out of the yard again, but not for long; he came back, and went
+straight up to the hay-loft. Night came on, a clear moonlight night.
+Gerasim lay breathing heavily, and incessantly turning from side to
+side. Suddenly he felt something pull at the skirt of his coat. He
+started, but did not raise his head, and even shut his eyes tighter.
+But again there was a pull, stronger than before; he jumped up ...
+before him, with an end of string round her neck, was Mumu, twisting
+and turning. A prolonged cry of delight broke from his speechless
+breast; he caught up Mumu, and hugged her tight in his arms, she
+licked his nose and eyes, and beard and moustache, all in one
+instant.... He stood a little, thought a minute, crept cautiously down
+from the hay-loft, looked round, and having satisfied himself that no
+one could see him, made his way successfully to his garret. Gerasim
+had guessed before that his dog had not got lost by her own doing,
+that she must have been taken away by the mistress' orders; the
+servants had explained to him by signs that his Mumu had snapped at
+her, and he determined to take his own measures. First he fed Mumu
+with a bit of bread, fondled her, and put her to bed, then he fell to
+meditating, and spent the whole night long in meditating how he could
+best conceal her. At last he decided to leave her all day in the
+garret, and only to come in now and then to see her, and to take her
+out at night. The hole in the door he stopped up effectually with his
+old overcoat, and almost before it was light he was already in the
+yard, as though nothing had happened, even--innocent guile!--the
+same expression of melancholy on his face. It did not even occur to
+the poor deaf man that Mumu would betray herself by her whining; in
+reality, every one in the house was soon aware that the dumb man's dog
+had come back, and was locked up in his garret, but from sympathy with
+him and with her, and partly, perhaps, from dread of him, they did not
+let him know that they had found out his secret. The steward scratched
+his hand, and gave a despairing wave of his hand, as much as to say,
+'Well, well, God have mercy on him! If only it doesn't come to the
+mistress' ears!'
+
+But the dumb man had never shown such energy as on that day; he
+cleaned and scraped the whole courtyard, pulled up every single
+weed with his own hand, tugged up every stake in the fence of the
+flower-garden, to satisfy himself that they were strong enough, and
+unaided drove them in again; in fact, he toiled and laboured so that
+even the old lady noticed his zeal. Twice in the course of the day
+Gerasim went stealthily in to see his prisoner when night came on, he
+lay down to sleep with her in the garret, not in the hay-loft, and
+only at two o'clock in the night he went out to take her a turn in the
+fresh air. After walking about the courtyard a good while with her,
+he was just turning back, when suddenly a rustle was heard behind
+the fence on the side of the back street. Mumu pricked up her ears,
+growled--went up to the fence, sniffed, and gave vent to a loud shrill
+bark. Some drunkard had thought fit to take refuge under the fence for
+the night. At that very time the old lady had just fallen asleep after
+a prolonged fit of 'nervous agitation'; these fits of agitation always
+overtook her after too hearty a supper. The sudden bark waked her up:
+her heart palpitated, and she felt faint. 'Girls, girls!' she moaned.
+'Girls!' The terrified maids ran into her bedroom. 'Oh, oh, I am
+dying!' she said, flinging her arms about in her agitation. 'Again,
+that dog again!... Oh, send for the doctor. They mean to be the death
+of me.... The dog, the dog again! Oh!' And she let her head fall back,
+which always signified a swoon. They rushed for the doctor, that
+is, for the household physician, Hariton. This doctor, whose whole
+qualification consisted in wearing soft-soled boots, knew how to
+feel the pulse delicately. He used to sleep fourteen hours out of
+the twenty-four, but the rest of the time he was always sighing, and
+continually dosing the old lady with cherrybay drops. This doctor ran
+up at once, fumigated the room with burnt feathers, and when the old
+lady opened her eyes, promptly offered her a wineglass of the hallowed
+drops on a silver tray. The old lady took them, but began again at
+once in a tearful voice complaining of the dog, of Gavrila, and of her
+fate, declaring that she was a poor old woman, and that every one had
+forsaken her, no one pitied her, every one wished her dead. Meanwhile
+the luckless Mumu had gone on barking, while Gerasim tried in vain to
+call her away from the fence. 'There ... there ... again,' groaned
+the old lady, and once more she turned up the whites of her eyes. The
+doctor whispered to a maid, she rushed into the outer-hall, and shook
+Stepan, he ran to wake Gavrila, Gavrila in a fury ordered the whole
+household to get up.
+
+Gerasim turned round, saw lights and shadows moving in the windows,
+and with an instinct of coming trouble in his heart, put Mumu under
+his arm, ran into his garret, and locked himself in. A few minutes
+later five men were banging at his door, but feeling the resistance
+of the bolt, they stopped. Gavrila ran up in a fearful state of mind,
+and ordered them all to wait there and watch till morning. Then he
+flew off himself to the maids' quarter, and through an old companion,
+Liubov Liubimovna, with whose assistance he used to steal tea, sugar,
+and other groceries and to falsify the accounts, sent word to the
+mistress that the dog had unhappily run back from somewhere, but that
+to-morrow she should be killed, and would the mistress be so gracious
+as not to be angry and to overlook it. The old lady would probably
+not have been so soon appeased, but the doctor had in his haste given
+her fully forty drops instead of twelve. The strong dose of narcotic
+acted; in a quarter of an hour the old lady was in a sound and
+peaceful sleep; while Gerasim was lying with a white face on his bed,
+holding Mumu's mouth tightly shut.
+
+Next morning the lady woke up rather late. Gavrila was waiting
+till she should be awake, to give the order for a final assault on
+Gerasim's stronghold, while he prepared himself to face a fearful
+storm. But the storm did not come off. The old lady lay in bed and
+sent for the eldest of her dependent companions.
+
+'Liubov Liubimovna,' she began in a subdued weak voice--she was fond
+of playing the part of an oppressed and forsaken victim; needless to
+say, every one in the house was made extremely uncomfortable at such
+times--'Liubov Liubimovna, you see my position; go, my love to Gavrila
+Andreitch, and talk to him a little Can he really prize some wretched
+cur above the repose--the very life--of his mistress? I could not bear
+to think so,' she added, with an expression of deep feeling. 'Go, my
+love; be so good as to go to Gavrila Andreitch for me.'
+
+Liubov Liubimovna went to Gavrila's room. What conversation passed
+between them is not known, but a short time after, a whole crowd
+of people was moving across the yard in the direction of Gerasim's
+garret. Gavrila walked in front, holding his cap on with his hand,
+though there was no wind. The footmen and cooks were close behind him;
+Uncle Tail was looking out of a window, giving instructions, that is
+to say, simply waving his hands. At the rear there was a crowd of
+small boys skipping and hopping along; half of them were outsiders
+who had run up. On the narrow staircase leading to the garret sat one
+guard; at the door were standing two more with sticks. They began to
+mount the stairs, which they entirely blocked up. Gavrila went up to
+the door, knocked with his fist, shouting, 'Open the door!'
+
+A stifled bark was audible, but there was no answer.
+
+'Open the door, I tell you,' he repeated.
+
+'But, Gavrila Andreitch,' Stepan observed from below, 'he's deaf, you
+know--he doesn't hear.'
+
+They all laughed.
+
+'What are we to do?' Gavrila rejoined from above.
+
+'Why, there's a hole there in the door,' answered Stepan, 'so you
+shake the stick in there.'
+
+Gavrila bent down.
+
+'He's stuffed it up with a coat or something.'
+
+'Well, you just push the coat in.'
+
+At this moment a smothered bark was heard again.
+
+'See, see--she speaks for herself,' was remarked in the crowd, and
+again they laughed.
+
+Gavrila scratched his ear.
+
+'No, mate,' he responded at last, 'you can poke the coat in yourself,
+if you like.'
+
+'All right, let me.'
+
+And Stepan scrambled up, took the stick, pushed in the coat, and began
+waving the stick about in the opening, saying, 'Come out, come out!'
+as he did so. He was still waving the stick, when suddenly the door
+of the garret was flung open; all the crowd flew pell-mell down the
+stairs instantly, Gavrila first of all. Uncle Tail locked the window.
+
+'Come, come, come,' shouted Gavrila from the yard, 'mind what you're
+about.'
+
+Gerasim stood without stirring in his doorway. The crowd gathered at
+the foot of the stairs. Gerasim, with his arms akimbo, looked down at
+all these poor creatures in German coats; in his red peasant's shirt
+he looked like a giant before them. Gavrila took a step forward.
+
+'Mind, mate,' said he, 'don't be insolent.'
+
+And he began to explain to him by signs that the mistress insists on
+having his dog; that he must hand it over at once, or it would be the
+worse for him.
+
+Gerasim looked at him, pointed to the dog, made a motion with his hand
+round his neck, as though he were pulling a noose tight, and glanced
+with a face of inquiry at the steward.
+
+'Yes, yes,' the latter assented, nodding; 'yes, just so.'
+
+Gerasim dropped his eyes, then all of a sudden roused himself and
+pointed to Mumu, who was all the while standing beside him, innocently
+wagging her tail and pricking up her ears inquisitively. Then he
+repeated the strangling action round his neck and significantly struck
+himself on the breast, as though announcing he would take upon himself
+the task of killing Mumu.
+
+'But you'll deceive us,' Gavrila waved back in response.
+
+Gerasim looked at him, smiled scornfully, struck himself again on the
+breast, and slammed-to the door.
+
+They all looked at one another in silence.
+
+'What does that mean?' Gavrila began. 'He's locked himself in.'
+
+'Let him be, Gavrila Andreitch,' Stepan advised; 'he'll do it if he's
+promised. He's like that, you know.... If he makes a promise, it's a
+certain thing. He's not like us others in that. The truth's the truth
+with him. Yes, indeed.'
+
+'Yes,' they all repeated, nodding their heads, 'yes--that's so--yes.'
+
+Uncle Tail opened his window, and he too said, 'Yes.'
+
+'Well, may be, we shall see,' responded Gavrila; 'any way, we won't
+take off the guard. Here you, Eroshka!' he added, addressing a poor
+fellow in a yellow nankeen coat, who considered himself to be a
+gardener, 'what have you to do? Take a stick and sit here, and if
+anything happens, run to me at once!'
+
+Eroshka took a stick, and sat down on the bottom stair. The crowd
+dispersed, all except a few inquisitive small boys, while Gavrila went
+home and sent word through Liubov Liubimovna to the mistress, that
+everything had been done, while he sent a postillion for a policeman
+in case of need. The old lady tied a knot in her handkerchief,
+sprinkled some eau-de-Cologne on it, sniffed at it, and rubbed her
+temples with it, drank some tea, and, being still under the influence
+of the cherrybay drops, fell asleep again.
+
+An hour after all this hubbub the garret door opened, and Gerasim
+showed himself. He had on his best coat; he was leading Mumu by a
+string. Eroshka moved aside and let him pass. Gerasim went to the
+gates. All the small boys in the yard stared at him in silence. He did
+not even turn round; he only put his cap on in the street. Gavrila
+sent the same Eroshka to follow him and keep watch on him as a spy.
+Eroshka, seeing from a distance that he had gone into a cookshop with
+his dog, waited for him to come out again.
+
+Gerasim was well known at the cookshop, and his signs were understood.
+He asked for cabbage soup with meat in it, and sat down with his arms
+on the table. Mumu stood beside his chair, looking calmly at him with
+her intelligent eyes. Her coat was glossy; one could see she had just
+been combed down. They brought Gerasim the soup. He crumbled some
+bread into it, cut the meat up small, and put the plate on the ground.
+Mumu began eating in her usual refined way, her little muzzle daintily
+held so as scarcely to touch her food. Gerasim gazed a long while at
+her; two big tears suddenly rolled from his eyes; one fell on the
+dog's brow, the other into the soup. He shaded his face with his hand.
+Mumu ate up half the plateful, and came away from it, licking her
+lips. Gerasim got up, paid for the soup, and went out, followed by the
+rather perplexed glances of the waiter. Eroshka, seeing Gerasim, hid
+round a corner, and letting him get in front, followed him again.
+
+Gerasim walked without haste, still holding Mumu by a string. When he
+got to the corner of the street, he stood still as though reflecting,
+and suddenly set off with rapid steps to the Crimean Ford. On the
+way he went into the yard of a house, where a lodge was being built,
+and carried away two bricks under his arm. At the Crimean Ford, he
+turned along the bank, went to a place where there were two little
+rowing-boats fastened to stakes (he had noticed them there before),
+and jumped into one of them with Mumu. A lame old man came out of a
+shed in the corner of a kitchen-garden and shouted after him; but
+Gerasim only nodded, and began rowing so vigorously, though against
+stream, that in an instant he had darted two hundred yards away. The
+old man stood for a while, scratched his back first with the left and
+then with the right hand, and went back hobbling to the shed.
+
+Gerasim rowed on and on. Moscow was soon left behind. Meadows
+stretched each side of the bank, market gardens, fields, and copses;
+peasants' huts began to make their appearance. There was the fragrance
+of the country. He threw down his oars, bent his head down to Mumu,
+who was sitting facing him on a dry cross seat--the bottom of the boat
+was full of water--and stayed motionless, his mighty hands clasped
+upon her back, while the boat was gradually carried back by the
+current towards the town. At last Gerasim drew himself up hurriedly,
+with a sort of sick anger in his face, he tied up the bricks he had
+taken with string, made a running noose, put it round Mumu's neck,
+lifted her up over the river, and for the last time looked at her....
+she watched him confidingly and without any fear, faintly wagging her
+tail. He turned away, frowned, and wrung his hands.... Gerasim heard
+nothing, neither the quick shrill whine of Mumu as she fell, nor the
+heavy splash of the water; for him the noisiest day was soundless and
+silent as even the stillest night is not silent to us. When he opened
+his eyes again, little wavelets were hurrying over the river, chasing
+one another; as before they broke against the boat's side, and only
+far away behind wide circles moved widening to the bank.
+
+Directly Gerasim had vanished from Eroshka's sight, the latter
+returned home and reported what he had seen.
+
+'Well, then,' observed Stepan, 'he'll drown her. Now we can feel easy
+about it. If he once promises a thing....'
+
+No one saw Gerasim during the day. He did not have dinner at home.
+Evening came on; they were all gathered together to supper, except
+him.
+
+'What a strange creature that Gerasim is!' piped a fat laundrymaid;
+'fancy, upsetting himself like that over a dog.... Upon my word!'
+
+'But Gerasim has been here,' Stepan cried all at once, scraping up his
+porridge with a spoon.
+
+'How? when?'
+
+'Why, a couple of hours ago. Yes, indeed! I ran against him at the
+gate; he was going out again from here; he was coming out of the
+yard. I tried to ask him about his dog, but he wasn't in the best of
+humours, I could see. Well, he gave me a shove; I suppose he only
+meant to put me out of his way, as if he'd say, "Let me go, do!" but
+he fetched me such a crack on my neck, so seriously, that--oh! oh!'
+And Stepan, who could not help laughing, shrugged up and rubbed the
+back of his head. 'Yes,' he added; 'he has got a fist; it's something
+like a fist, there's no denying that!'
+
+They all laughed at Stepan, and after supper they separated to go to
+bed.
+
+Meanwhile, at that very time, a gigantic figure with a bag on his
+shoulders and a stick in his hand, was eagerly and persistently
+stepping out along the T---- highroad. It was Gerasim. He was hurrying
+on without looking round; hurrying homewards, to his own village, to
+his own country. After drowning poor Mumu, he had run back to his
+garret, hurriedly packed a few things together in an old horsecloth,
+tied it up in a bundle, tossed it on his shoulder, and so was ready.
+He had noticed the road carefully when he was brought to Moscow; the
+village his mistress had taken him from lay only about twenty miles
+off the highroad. He walked along it with a sort of invincible
+purpose, a desperate and at the same time joyous determination. He
+walked, his shoulders thrown back and his chest expanded; his eyes
+were fixed greedily straight before him. He hastened as though his old
+mother were waiting for him at home, as though she were calling him
+to her after long wanderings in strange parts, among strangers. The
+summer night, that was just drawing in, was still and warm; on one
+side, where the sun had set, the horizon was still light and faintly
+flushed with the last glow of the vanished day; on the other side a
+blue-grey twilight had already risen up. The night was coming up from
+that quarter. Quails were in hundreds around; corncrakes were calling
+to one another in the thickets.... Gerasim could not hear them; he
+could not hear the delicate night-whispering of the trees, by which
+his strong legs carried him, but he smelt the familiar scent of the
+ripening rye, which was wafted from the dark fields; he felt the wind,
+flying to meet him--the wind from home--beat caressingly upon his
+face, and play with his hair and his beard. He saw before him the
+whitening road homewards, straight as an arrow. He saw in the sky
+stars innumerable, lighting up his way, and stepped out, strong and
+bold as a lion, so that when the rising sun shed its moist rosy light
+upon the still fresh and unwearied traveller, already thirty miles lay
+between him and Moscow.
+
+In a couple of days he was at home, in his little hut, to the great
+astonishment of the soldier's wife who had been put in there. After
+praying before the holy pictures, he set off at once to the village
+elder. The village elder was at first surprised; but the haycutting
+had just begun; Gerasim was a first-rate mower, and they put a scythe
+into his hand on the spot, and he went to mow in his old way, mowing
+so that the peasants were fairly astounded as they watched his wide
+sweeping strokes and the heaps he raked together....
+
+In Moscow the day after Gerasim's flight they missed him. They went
+to his garret, rummaged about in it, and spoke to Gavrila. He came,
+looked, shrugged his shoulders, and decided that the dumb man had
+either run away or had drowned himself with his stupid dog. They
+gave information to the police, and informed the lady. The old lady
+was furious, burst into tears, gave orders that he was to be found
+whatever happened, declared she had never ordered the dog to be
+destroyed, and, in fact, gave Gavrila such a rating that he could do
+nothing all day but shake his head and murmur, 'Well!' until Uncle
+Tail checked him at last, sympathetically echoing 'We-ell!' At last
+the news came from the country of Gerasim's being there. The old
+lady was somewhat pacified; at first she issued a mandate for him to
+be brought back without delay to Moscow; afterwards, however, she
+declared that such an ungrateful creature was absolutely of no use to
+her. Soon after this she died herself; and her heirs had no thought to
+spare for Gerasim; they let their mother's other servants redeem their
+freedom on payment of an annual rent.
+
+And Gerasim is living still, a lonely man in his lonely hut; he is
+strong and healthy as before, and does the work of four men as before,
+and as before is serious and steady. But his neighbours have observed
+that ever since his return from Moscow he has quite given up the
+society of women; he will not even look at them, and does not keep
+even a single dog. 'It's his good luck, though,' the peasants reason;
+'that he can get on without female folk; and as for a dog--what need
+has he of a dog? you wouldn't get a thief to go into his yard for any
+money!' Such is the fame of the dumb man's Titanic strength.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Torrents of Spring, by Ivan Turgenev
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Torrents of Spring, 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 Torrents of Spring
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+
+Translator: Constance Garnett
+
+Posting Date: December 11, 2011 [EBook #9911]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 30, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TORRENTS OF SPRING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Keren Vergon, William Flis, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+BY IVAN TURGENEV
+
+Translated from the Russian
+
+BY CONSTANCE GARNETT
+
+1897
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+FIRST LOVE
+
+MUMU
+
+
+
+
+THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+
+
+  'Years of gladness,
+    Days of joy,
+  Like the torrents of spring
+    They hurried away.'
+
+--_From an Old Ballad_.
+
+
+... At two o'clock in the night he had gone back to his study. He had
+dismissed the servant after the candles were lighted, and throwing
+himself into a low chair by the hearth, he hid his face in both hands.
+
+Never had he felt such weariness of body and of spirit. He had passed
+the whole evening in the company of charming ladies and cultivated
+men; some of the ladies were beautiful, almost all the men were
+distinguished by intellect or talent; he himself had talked with great
+success, even with brilliance ... and, for all that, never yet had
+the _taedium vitae_ of which the Romans talked of old, the 'disgust
+for life,' taken hold of him with such irresistible, such suffocating
+force. Had he been a little younger, he would have cried with misery,
+weariness, and exasperation: a biting, burning bitterness, like
+the bitter of wormwood, filled his whole soul. A sort of clinging
+repugnance, a weight of loathing closed in upon him on all sides like
+a dark night of autumn; and he did not know how to get free from this
+darkness, this bitterness. Sleep it was useless to reckon upon; he
+knew he should not sleep.
+
+He fell to thinking ... slowly, listlessly, wrathfully. He thought of
+the vanity, the uselessness, the vulgar falsity of all things human.
+All the stages of man's life passed in order before his mental gaze
+(he had himself lately reached his fifty-second year), and not one
+found grace in his eyes. Everywhere the same ever-lasting pouring of
+water into a sieve, the ever-lasting beating of the air, everywhere
+the same self-deception--half in good faith, half conscious--any toy
+to amuse the child, so long as it keeps him from crying. And then, all
+of a sudden, old age drops down like snow on the head, and with it the
+ever-growing, ever-gnawing, and devouring dread of death ... and the
+plunge into the abyss! Lucky indeed if life works out so to the end!
+May be, before the end, like rust on iron, sufferings, infirmities
+come.... He did not picture life's sea, as the poets depict it,
+covered with tempestuous waves; no, he thought of that sea as a
+smooth, untroubled surface, stagnant and transparent to its darkest
+depths. He himself sits in a little tottering boat, and down below
+in those dark oozy depths, like prodigious fishes, he can just make
+out the shapes of hideous monsters: all the ills of life, diseases,
+sorrows, madness, poverty, blindness.... He gazes, and behold, one
+of these monsters separates itself off from the darkness, rises
+higher and higher, stands out more and more distinct, more and more
+loathsomely distinct.... An instant yet, and the boat that bears him
+will be overturned! But behold, it grows dim again, it withdraws,
+sinks down to the bottom, and there it lies, faintly stirring in the
+slime.... But the fated day will come, and it will overturn the boat.
+
+He shook his head, jumped up from his low chair, took two turns up and
+down the room, sat down to the writing-table, and opening one drawer
+after another, began to rummage among his papers, among old letters,
+mostly from women. He could not have said why he was doing it; he was
+not looking for anything--he simply wanted by some kind of external
+occupation to get away from the thoughts oppressing him. Opening
+several letters at random (in one of them there was a withered flower
+tied with a bit of faded ribbon), he merely shrugged his shoulders,
+and glancing at the hearth, he tossed them on one side, probably with
+the idea of burning all this useless rubbish. Hurriedly, thrusting his
+hands first into one, and then into another drawer, he suddenly opened
+his eyes wide, and slowly bringing out a little octagonal box of
+old-fashioned make, he slowly raised its lid. In the box, under two
+layers of cotton wool, yellow with age, was a little garnet cross.
+
+For a few instants he looked in perplexity at this cross--suddenly
+he gave a faint cry.... Something between regret and delight was
+expressed in his features. Such an expression a man's face wears when
+he suddenly meets some one whom he has long lost sight of, whom he has
+at one time tenderly loved, and who suddenly springs up before his
+eyes, still the same, and utterly transformed by the years.
+
+He got up, and going back to the hearth, he sat down again in the
+arm-chair, and again hid his face in his hands.... 'Why to-day? just
+to-day?' was his thought, and he remembered many things, long since
+past.
+
+This is what he remembered....
+
+But first I must mention his name, his father's name and his surname.
+He was called Dimitri Pavlovitch Sanin.
+
+Here follows what he remembered.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was the summer of 1840. Sanin was in his twenty-second year, and he
+was in Frankfort on his way home from Italy to Russia. He was a man of
+small property, but independent, almost without family ties. By the
+death of a distant relative, he had come into a few thousand roubles,
+and he had decided to spend this sum abroad before entering the
+service, before finally putting on the government yoke, without which
+he could not obtain a secure livelihood. Sanin had carried out this
+intention, and had fitted things in to such a nicety that on the day
+of his arrival in Frankfort he had only just enough money left to take
+him back to Petersburg. In the year 1840 there were few railroads in
+existence; tourists travelled by diligence. Sanin had taken a place in
+the '_bei-wagon_'; but the diligence did not start till eleven o'clock
+in the evening. There was a great deal of time to be got through
+before then. Fortunately it was lovely weather, and Sanin after dining
+at a hotel, famous in those days, the White Swan, set off to stroll
+about the town. He went in to look at Danneker's Ariadne, which he did
+not much care for, visited the house of Goethe, of whose works he had,
+however, only read _Werter_, and that in the French translation. He
+walked along the bank of the Maine, and was bored as a well-conducted
+tourist should be; at last at six o'clock in the evening, tired, and
+with dusty boots, he found himself in one of the least remarkable
+streets in Frankfort. That street he was fated not to forget long,
+long after. On one of its few houses he saw a signboard: 'Giovanni
+Roselli, Italian confectionery,' was announced upon it. Sanin went
+into it to get a glass of lemonade; but in the shop, where, behind
+the modest counter, on the shelves of a stained cupboard, recalling
+a chemist's shop, stood a few bottles with gold labels, and as many
+glass jars of biscuits, chocolate cakes, and sweetmeats--in this room,
+there was not a soul; only a grey cat blinked and purred, sharpening
+its claws on a tall wicker chair near the window and a bright patch
+of colour was made in the evening sunlight, by a big ball of red wool
+lying on the floor beside a carved wooden basket turned upside down. A
+confused noise was audible in the next room. Sanin stood a moment, and
+making the bell on the door ring its loudest, he called, raising his
+voice, 'Is there no one here?' At that instant the door from an inner
+room was thrown open, and Sanin was struck dumb with amazement.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+A young girl of nineteen ran impetuously into the shop, her dark curls
+hanging in disorder on her bare shoulders, her bare arms stretched out
+in front of her. Seeing Sanin, she rushed up to him at once, seized
+him by the hand, and pulled him after her, saying in a breathless
+voice, 'Quick, quick, here, save him!' Not through disinclination
+to obey, but simply from excess of amazement, Sanin did not at once
+follow the girl. He stood, as it were, rooted to the spot; he had
+never in his life seen such a beautiful creature. She turned towards
+him, and with such despair in her voice, in her eyes, in the gesture
+of her clenched hand, which was lifted with a spasmodic movement to
+her pale cheek, she articulated, 'Come, come!' that he at once darted
+after her to the open door.
+
+In the room, into which he ran behind the girl, on an old-fashioned
+horse-hair sofa, lay a boy of fourteen, white all over--white, with
+a yellowish tinge like wax or old marble--he was strikingly like the
+girl, obviously her brother. His eyes were closed, a patch of shadow
+fell from his thick black hair on a forehead like stone, and delicate,
+motionless eyebrows; between the blue lips could be seen clenched
+teeth. He seemed not to be breathing; one arm hung down to the floor,
+the other he had tossed above his head. The boy was dressed, and his
+clothes were closely buttoned; a tight cravat was twisted round his
+neck.
+
+The girl rushed up to him with a wail of distress. 'He is dead, he is
+dead!' she cried; 'he was sitting here just now, talking to me--and
+all of a sudden he fell down and became rigid.... My God! can nothing
+be done to help him? And mamma not here! Pantaleone, Pantaleone, the
+doctor!' she went on suddenly in Italian. 'Have you been for the
+doctor?'
+
+'Signora, I did not go, I sent Luise,' said a hoarse voice at the
+door, and a little bandy-legged old man came hobbling into the room in
+a lavender frock coat with black buttons, a high white cravat, short
+nankeen trousers, and blue worsted stockings. His diminutive little
+face was positively lost in a mass of iron-grey hair. Standing up in
+all directions, and falling back in ragged tufts, it gave the old
+man's figure a resemblance to a crested hen--a resemblance the more
+striking, that under the dark-grey mass nothing could be distinguished
+but a beak nose and round yellow eyes.
+
+'Luise will run fast, and I can't run,' the old man went on in
+Italian, dragging his flat gouty feet, shod in high slippers with
+knots of ribbon. 'I've brought some water.'
+
+In his withered, knotted fingers, he clutched a long bottle neck.
+
+'But meanwhile Emil will die!' cried the girl, and holding out her
+hand to Sanin, 'O, sir, O _mein Herr_! can't you do something for
+him?'
+
+'He ought to be bled--it's an apoplectic fit,' observed the old man
+addressed as Pantaleone.
+
+Though Sanin had not the slightest notion of medicine, he knew one
+thing for certain, that boys of fourteen do not have apoplectic fits.
+
+'It's a swoon, not a fit,' he said, turning to Pantaleone. 'Have you
+got any brushes?'
+
+The old man raised his little face. 'Eh?'
+
+'Brushes, brushes,' repeated Sanin in German and in French. 'Brushes,'
+he added, making as though he would brush his clothes.
+
+The little old man understood him at last.
+
+'Ah, brushes! _Spazzette_! to be sure we have!'
+
+'Bring them here; we will take off his coat and try rubbing him.'
+
+'Good ... _Benone_! And ought we not to sprinkle water on his head?'
+
+'No ... later on; get the brushes now as quick as you can.'
+
+Pantaleone put the bottle on the floor, ran out and returned at once
+with two brushes, one a hair-brush, and one a clothes-brush. A curly
+poodle followed him in, and vigorously wagging its tail, it looked up
+inquisitively at the old man, the girl, and even Sanin, as though it
+wanted to know what was the meaning of all this fuss.
+
+Sanin quickly took the boy's coat off, unbuttoned his collar, and
+pushed up his shirt-sleeves, and arming himself with a brush, he
+began brushing his chest and arms with all his might. Pantaleone as
+zealously brushed away with the other--the hair-brush--at his boots
+and trousers. The girl flung herself on her knees by the sofa, and,
+clutching her head in both hands, fastened her eyes, not an eyelash
+quivering, on her brother.
+
+Sanin rubbed on, and kept stealing glances at her. Mercy! what a
+beautiful creature she was!
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Her nose was rather large, but handsome, aquiline-shaped; her upper
+lip was shaded by a light down; but then the colour of her face,
+smooth, uniform, like ivory or very pale milky amber, the wavering
+shimmer of her hair, like that of the Judith of Allorio in the
+Palazzo-Pitti; and above all, her eyes, dark-grey, with a black ring
+round the pupils, splendid, triumphant eyes, even now, when terror and
+distress dimmed their lustre.... Sanin could not help recalling the
+marvellous country he had just come from.... But even in Italy he had
+never met anything like her! The girl drew slow, uneven breaths; she
+seemed between each breath to be waiting to see whether her brother
+would not begin to breathe.
+
+Sanin went on rubbing him, but he did not only watch the girl. The
+original figure of Pantaleone drew his attention too. The old man was
+quite exhausted and panting; at every movement of the brush he hopped
+up and down and groaned noisily, while his immense tufts of hair,
+soaked with perspiration, flapped heavily from side to side, like the
+roots of some strong plant, torn up by the water.
+
+'You'd better, at least, take off his boots,' Sanin was just saying to
+him.
+
+The poodle, probably excited by the unusualness of all the
+proceedings, suddenly sank on to its front paws and began barking.
+
+'_Tartaglia--canaglia_!' the old man hissed at it. But at that instant
+the girl's face was transformed. Her eyebrows rose, her eyes grew
+wider, and shone with joy.
+
+Sanin looked round ... A flush had over-spread the lad's face; his
+eyelids stirred ... his nostrils twitched. He drew in a breath through
+his still clenched teeth, sighed....
+
+'Emil!' cried the girl ... 'Emilio mio!'
+
+Slowly the big black eyes opened. They still had a dazed look, but
+already smiled faintly; the same faint smile hovered on his pale lips.
+Then he moved the arm that hung down, and laid it on his chest.
+
+'Emilio!' repeated the girl, and she got up. The expression on her
+face was so tense and vivid, that it seemed that in an instant either
+she would burst into tears or break into laughter.
+
+'Emil! what is it? Emil!' was heard outside, and a neatly-dressed lady
+with silvery grey hair and a dark face came with rapid steps into the
+room.
+
+A middle-aged man followed her; the head of a maid-servant was visible
+over their shoulders.
+
+The girl ran to meet them.
+
+'He is saved, mother, he is alive!' she cried, impulsively embracing
+the lady who had just entered.
+
+'But what is it?' she repeated. 'I come back ... and all of a sudden I
+meet the doctor and Luise ...'
+
+The girl proceeded to explain what had happened, while the doctor went
+up to the invalid who was coming more and more to himself, and was
+still smiling: he seemed to be beginning to feel shy at the commotion
+he had caused.
+
+'You've been using friction with brushes, I see,' said the doctor to
+Sanin and Pantaleone, 'and you did very well.... A very good idea ...
+and now let us see what further measures ...'
+
+He felt the youth's pulse. 'H'm! show me your tongue!'
+
+The lady bent anxiously over him. He smiled still more ingenuously,
+raised his eyes to her, and blushed a little.
+
+It struck Sanin that he was no longer wanted; he went into the shop.
+But before he had time to touch the handle of the street-door, the
+girl was once more before him; she stopped him.
+
+'You are going,' she began, looking warmly into his face; 'I will not
+keep you, but you must be sure to come to see us this evening: we are
+so indebted to you--you, perhaps, saved my brother's life, we want to
+thank you--mother wants to. You must tell us who you are, you must
+rejoice with us ...'
+
+'But I am leaving for Berlin to-day,' Sanin faltered out.
+
+'You will have time though,' the girl rejoined eagerly. 'Come to us
+in an hour's time to drink a cup of chocolate with us. You promise? I
+must go back to him! You will come?'
+
+What could Sanin do?
+
+'I will come,' he replied.
+
+The beautiful girl pressed his hand, fluttered away, and he found
+himself in the street.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+When Sanin, an hour and a half later, returned to the Rosellis' shop
+he was received there like one of the family. Emilio was sitting on
+the same sofa, on which he had been rubbed; the doctor had prescribed
+him medicine and recommended 'great discretion in avoiding strong
+emotions' as being a subject of nervous temperament with a tendency to
+weakness of the heart. He had previously been liable to fainting-fits;
+but never had he lost consciousness so completely and for so long.
+However, the doctor declared that all danger was over. Emil, as
+was only suitable for an invalid, was dressed in a comfortable
+dressing-gown; his mother wound a blue woollen wrap round his neck;
+but he had a cheerful, almost a festive air; indeed everything had
+a festive air. Before the sofa, on a round table, covered with a
+clean cloth, towered a huge china coffee-pot, filled with fragrant
+chocolate, and encircled by cups, decanters of liqueur, biscuits
+and rolls, and even flowers; six slender wax candles were burning
+in two old-fashioned silver chandeliers; on one side of the sofa,
+a comfortable lounge-chair offered its soft embraces, and in this
+chair they made Sanin sit. All the inhabitants of the confectioner's
+shop, with whom he had made acquaintance that day, were present, not
+excluding the poodle, Tartaglia, and the cat; they all seemed happy
+beyond expression; the poodle positively sneezed with delight, only
+the cat was coy and blinked sleepily as before. They made Sanin tell
+them who he was, where he came from, and what was his name; when
+he said he was a Russian, both the ladies were a little surprised,
+uttered ejaculations of wonder, and declared with one voice that he
+spoke German splendidly; but if he preferred to speak French, he
+might make use of that language, as they both understood it and spoke
+it well. Sanin at once availed himself of this suggestion. 'Sanin!
+Sanin!' The ladies would never have expected that a Russian surname
+could be so easy to pronounce. His Christian name--'Dimitri'--they
+liked very much too. The elder lady observed that in her youth she had
+heard a fine opera--Demetrio e Polibio'--but that 'Dimitri' was much
+nicer than 'Demetrio.' In this way Sanin talked for about an hour. The
+ladies on their side initiated him into all the details of their own
+life. The talking was mostly done by the mother, the lady with grey
+hair. Sanin learnt from her that her name was Leonora Roselli; that
+she had lost her husband, Giovanni Battista Roselli, who had settled
+in Frankfort as a confectioner twenty--five years ago; that Giovanni
+Battista had come from Vicenza and had been a most excellent, though
+fiery and irascible man, and a republican withal! At those words
+Signora Roselli pointed to his portrait, painted in oil-colours, and
+hanging over the sofa. It must be presumed that the painter, 'also
+a republican!' as Signora Roselli observed with a sigh, had not
+fully succeeded in catching a likeness, for in his portrait the late
+Giovanni Battista appeared as a morose and gloomy brigand, after the
+style of Rinaldo Rinaldini! Signora Roselli herself had come from
+'the ancient and splendid city of Parma where there is the wonderful
+cupola, painted by the immortal Correggio!' But from her long
+residence in Germany she had become almost completely Germanised.
+Then she added, mournfully shaking her head, that all she had left
+was _this_ daughter and _this_ son (pointing to each in turn with her
+finger); that the daughter's name was Gemma, and the son's Emilio;
+that they were both very good and obedient children--especially Emilio
+... ('Me not obedient!' her daughter put in at that point. 'Oh,
+you're a republican, too!' answered her mother). That the business,
+of course, was not what it had been in the days of her husband, who
+had a great gift for the confectionery line ... ('_Un grand uomo_!'
+Pantaleone confirmed with a severe air); but that still, thank God,
+they managed to get along!
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Gemma listened to her mother, and at one minute laughed, then sighed,
+then patted her on the shoulder, and shook her finger at her, and then
+looked at Sanin; at last, she got up, embraced her mother and kissed
+her in the hollow of her neck, which made the latter laugh extremely
+and shriek a little. Pantaleone too was presented to Sanin. It
+appeared he had once been an opera singer, a baritone, but had long
+ago given up the theatre, and occupied in the Roselli family a
+position between that of a family friend and a servant. In spite of
+his prolonged residence in Germany, he had learnt very little German,
+and only knew how to swear in it, mercilessly distorting even the
+terms of abuse. '_Ferroflucto spitchebubbio_' was his favourite
+epithet for almost every German. He spoke Italian with a perfect
+accent--for was he not by birth from Sinigali, where may be heard
+'_lingua toscana in bocca romana_'! Emilio, obviously, played the
+invalid and indulged himself in the pleasant sensations of one who has
+only just escaped a danger or is returning to health after illness;
+it was evident, too, that the family spoiled him. He thanked Sanin
+bashfully, but devoted himself chiefly to the biscuits and sweetmeats.
+Sanin was compelled to drink two large cups of excellent chocolate,
+and to eat a considerable number of biscuits; no sooner had he
+swallowed one than Gemma offered him another--and to refuse was
+impossible! He soon felt at home: the time flew by with incredible
+swiftness. He had to tell them a great deal--about Russia in general,
+the Russian climate, Russian society, the Russian peasant--and
+especially about the Cossacks; about the war of 1812, about Peter the
+Great, about the Kremlin, and the Russian songs and bells. Both ladies
+had a very faint conception of our vast and remote fatherland; Signora
+Roselli, or as she was more often called, Frau Lenore, positively
+dumfoundered Sanin with the question, whether there was still existing
+at Petersburg the celebrated house of ice, built last century, about
+which she had lately read a very curious article in one of her
+husband's books, '_Bettezze delle arti_.' And in reply to Sanin's
+exclamation, 'Do you really suppose that there is never any summer in
+Russia?' Frau Lenore replied that till then she had always pictured
+Russia like this--eternal snow, every one going about in furs, and all
+military men, but the greatest hospitality, and all the peasants very
+submissive! Sanin tried to impart to her and her daughter some more
+exact information. When the conversation touched on Russian music,
+they begged him at once to sing some Russian air and showed him a
+diminutive piano with black keys instead of white and white instead
+of black. He obeyed without making much ado and accompanying himself
+with two fingers of the right hand and three of the left (the first,
+second, and little finger) he sang in a thin nasal tenor, first 'The
+Sarafan,' then 'Along a Paved Street.' The ladies praised his voice
+and the music, but were more struck with the softness and sonorousness
+of the Russian language and asked for a translation of the text. Sanin
+complied with their wishes--but as the words of 'The Sarafan,' and
+still more of 'Along a Paved Street' (_sur une rue pavee une jeune
+fille allait a l'eau_ was how he rendered the sense of the original)
+were not calculated to inspire his listeners with an exalted idea
+of Russian poetry, he first recited, then translated, and then sang
+Pushkin's, 'I remember a marvellous moment,' set to music by Glinka,
+whose minor bars he did not render quite faithfully. Then the ladies
+went into ecstasies. Frau Lenore positively discovered in Russian
+a wonderful likeness to the Italian. Even the names Pushkin (she
+pronounced it Pussekin) and Glinka sounded somewhat familiar to her.
+Sanin on his side begged the ladies to sing something; they too did
+not wait to be pressed. Frau Lenore sat down to the piano and sang
+with Gemma some duets and 'stornelle.' The mother had once had a fine
+contralto; the daughter's voice was not strong, but was pleasing.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+But it was not Gemma's voice--it was herself Sanin was admiring. He
+was sitting a little behind and on one side of her, and kept thinking
+to himself that no palm-tree, even in the poems of Benediktov--the
+poet in fashion in those days--could rival the slender grace of her
+figure. When, at the most emotional passages, she raised her eyes
+upwards--it seemed to him no heaven could fail to open at such a look!
+Even the old man, Pantaleone, who with his shoulder propped against
+the doorpost, and his chin and mouth tucked into his capacious cravat,
+was listening solemnly with the air of a connoisseur--even he was
+admiring the girl's lovely face and marvelling at it, though one would
+have thought he must have been used to it! When she had finished the
+duet with her daughter, Frau Lenore observed that Emilio had a fine
+voice, like a silver bell, but that now he was at the age when the
+voice changes--he did, in fact, talk in a sort of bass constantly
+falling into falsetto--and that he was therefore forbidden to sing;
+but that Pantaleone now really might try his skill of old days in
+honour of their guest! Pantaleone promptly put on a displeased air,
+frowned, ruffled up his hair, and declared that he had given it all
+up long ago, though he could certainly in his youth hold his own,
+and indeed had belonged to that great period, when there were real
+classical singers, not to be compared to the squeaking performers of
+to-day! and a real school of singing; that he, Pantaleone Cippatola of
+Varese, had once been brought a laurel wreath from Modena, and that
+on that occasion some white doves had positively been let fly in the
+theatre; that among others a Russian prince Tarbusky--'_il principe
+Tarbusski_'--with whom he had been on the most friendly terms, had
+after supper persistently invited him to Russia, promising him
+mountains of gold, mountains!... but that he had been unwilling to
+leave Italy, the land of Dante--_il paese del Dante!_ Afterward, to
+be sure, there came ... unfortunate circumstances, he had himself
+been imprudent.... At this point the old man broke off, sighed
+deeply twice, looked dejected, and began again talking of the
+classical period of singing, of the celebrated tenor Garcia, for
+whom he cherished a devout, unbounded veneration. 'He was a man!'
+he exclaimed. 'Never had the great Garcia (_il gran Garcia_)
+demeaned himself by singing falsetto like the paltry tenors of
+to-day--_tenoracci_; always from the chest, from the chest, _voce di
+petto, si!_' and the old man aimed a vigorous blow with his little
+shrivelled fist at his own shirt-front! 'And what an actor! A volcano,
+_signori miei_, a volcano, _un Vesuvio_! I had the honour and the
+happiness of singing with him in the _opera dell' illustrissimo
+maestro_ Rossini--in Otello! Garcia was Otello,--I was Iago--and
+when he rendered the phrase':--here Pantaleone threw himself into an
+attitude and began singing in a hoarse and shaky, but still moving
+voice:
+
+  "L'i ... ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato
+  lo piu no ... no ... no ... non temero!"
+
+The theatre was all a-quiver, _signori miei_! though I too did not
+fall short, I too after him.
+
+  "L'i ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato
+  Temer piu non davro!"
+
+And all of a sudden, he crashed like lightning, like a tiger:
+_Morro!... ma vendicato ..._ Again when he was singing ... when he was
+singing that celebrated air from "_Matrimonio segreto_," _Pria che
+spunti_ ... then he, _il gran Garcia_, after the words, "_I cavalli
+di galoppo_"--at the words, "_Senza posa cacciera_,"--listen, how
+stupendous, _come e stupendo_! At that point he made ...' The old man
+began a sort of extraordinary flourish, and at the tenth note broke
+down, cleared his throat, and with a wave of his arm turned away,
+muttering, 'Why do you torment me?' Gemma jumped up at once and
+clapping loudly and shouting, bravo!... bravo!... she ran to the poor
+old super-annuated Iago and with both hands patted him affectionately
+on the shoulders. Only Emil laughed ruthlessly. _Cet age est sans
+pitie_--that age knows no mercy--Lafontaine has said already.
+
+Sanin tried to soothe the aged singer and began talking to him
+in Italian--(he had picked up a smattering during his last tour
+there)--began talking of '_paese del Dante, dove il si suona_.' This
+phrase, together with '_Lasciate ogni speranza_,' made up the whole
+stock of poetic Italian of the young tourist; but Pantaleone was
+not won over by his blandishments. Tucking his chin deeper than ever
+into his cravat and sullenly rolling his eyes, he was once more
+like a bird, an angry one too,--a crow or a kite. Then Emil, with a
+faint momentary blush, such as one so often sees in spoilt children,
+addressing his sister, said if she wanted to entertain their guest,
+she could do nothing better than read him one of those little comedies
+of Malz, that she read so nicely. Gemma laughed, slapped her brother
+on the arm, exclaimed that he 'always had such ideas!' She went
+promptly, however, to her room, and returning thence with a small
+book in her hand, seated herself at the table before the lamp, looked
+round, lifted one finger as much as to say, 'hush!'--a typically
+Italian gesture--and began reading.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Malz was a writer flourishing at Frankfort about 1830, whose short
+comedies, written in a light vein in the local dialect, hit off local
+Frankfort types with bright and amusing, though not deep, humour.
+It turned out that Gemma really did read excellently--quite like an
+actress in fact. She indicated each personage, and sustained the
+character capitally, making full use of the talent of mimicry she had
+inherited with her Italian blood; she had no mercy on her soft voice
+or her lovely face, and when she had to represent some old crone in
+her dotage, or a stupid burgomaster, she made the drollest grimaces,
+screwing up her eyes, wrinkling up her nose, lisping, squeaking....
+She did not herself laugh during the reading; but when her audience
+(with the exception of Pantaleone: he had walked off in indignation
+so soon as the conversation turned _o quel ferroflucto Tedesco_)
+interrupted her by an outburst of unanimous laughter, she dropped the
+book on her knee, and laughed musically too, her head thrown back, and
+her black hair dancing in little ringlets on her neck and her shaking
+shoulders. When the laughter ceased, she picked up the book at once,
+and again resuming a suitable expression, began the reading seriously.
+Sanin could not get over his admiration; he was particularly
+astonished at the marvellous way in which a face so ideally beautiful
+assumed suddenly a comic, sometimes almost a vulgar expression. Gemma
+was less successful in the parts of young girls--of so-called '_jeunes
+premieres_'; in the love-scenes in particular she failed; she was
+conscious of this herself, and for that reason gave them a faint shade
+of irony as though she did not quite believe in all these rapturous
+vows and elevated sentiments, of which the author, however, was
+himself rather sparing--so far as he could be.
+
+Sanin did not notice how the evening was flying by, and only
+recollected the journey before him when the clock struck ten. He
+leaped up from his seat as though he had been stung.
+
+'What is the matter?' inquired Frau Lenore.
+
+'Why, I had to start for Berlin to-night, and I have taken a place in
+the diligence!'
+
+'And when does the diligence start?'
+
+'At half-past ten!'
+
+'Well, then, you won't catch it now,' observed Gemma; 'you must stay
+... and I will go on reading.'
+
+'Have you paid the whole fare or only given a deposit?' Frau Lenore
+queried.
+
+'The whole fare!' Sanin said dolefully with a gloomy face.
+
+Gemma looked at him, half closed her eyes, and laughed, while her
+mother scolded her:
+
+'The young gentleman has paid away his money for nothing, and you
+laugh!'
+
+'Never mind,' answered Gemma; 'it won't ruin him, and we will try and
+amuse him. Will you have some lemonade?'
+
+Sanin drank a glass of lemonade, Gemma took up Malz once more; and all
+went merrily again.
+
+The clock struck twelve. Sanin rose to take leave.
+
+'You must stay some days now in Frankfort,' said Gemma: 'why should
+you hurry away? It would be no nicer in any other town.' She paused.
+'It wouldn't, really,' she added with a smile. Sanin made no reply,
+and reflected that considering the emptiness of his purse, he would
+have no choice about remaining in Frankfort till he got an answer from
+a friend in Berlin, to whom he proposed writing for money.
+
+'Yes, do stay,' urged Frau Lenore too. 'We will introduce you to Mr.
+Karl Klueber, who is engaged to Gemma. He could not come to-day, as he
+was very busy at his shop ... you must have seen the biggest draper's
+and silk mercer's shop in the _Zeile_. Well, he is the manager there.
+But he will be delighted to call on you himself.'
+
+Sanin--heaven knows why--was slightly disconcerted by this piece of
+information. 'He's a lucky fellow, that fiance!' flashed across his
+mind. He looked at Gemma, and fancied he detected an ironical look in
+her eyes. He began saying good-bye.
+
+'Till to-morrow? Till to-morrow, isn't it?' queried Frau Lenore.
+
+'Till to-morrow!' Gemma declared in a tone not of interrogation, but
+of affirmation, as though it could not be otherwise.
+
+'Till to-morrow!' echoed Sanin.
+
+Emil, Pantaleone, and the poodle Tartaglia accompanied him to the
+corner of the street. Pantaleone could not refrain from expressing his
+displeasure at Gemma's reading.
+
+'She ought to be ashamed! She mouths and whines, _una caricatura_!
+She ought to represent Merope or Clytemnaestra--something grand,
+tragic--and she apes some wretched German woman! I can do that ...
+_merz, kerz, smerz_,' he went on in a hoarse voice poking his face
+forward, and brandishing his fingers. Tartaglia began barking at him,
+while Emil burst out laughing. The old man turned sharply back.
+
+Sanin went back to the White Swan (he had left his things there in the
+public hall) in a rather confused frame of mind. All the talk he had
+had in French, German, and Italian was ringing in his ears.
+
+'Engaged!' he whispered as he lay in bed, in the modest apartment
+assigned to him. 'And what a beauty! But what did I stay for?'
+
+Next day he sent a letter to his friend in Berlin.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+He had not finished dressing, when a waiter announced the arrival
+of two gentlemen. One of them turned out to be Emil; the other, a
+good-looking and well-grown young man, with a handsome face, was Herr
+Karl Klueber, the betrothed of the lovely Gemma.
+
+One may safely assume that at that time in all Frankfort, there was
+not in a single shop a manager as civil, as decorous, as dignified,
+and as affable as Herr Klueber. The irreproachable perfection of his
+get-up was on a level with the dignity of his deportment, with the
+elegance--a little affected and stiff, it is true, in the English
+style (he had spent two years in England)--but still fascinating,
+elegance of his manners! It was clear from the first glance that this
+handsome, rather severe, excellently brought-up and superbly washed
+young man was accustomed to obey his superior and to command his
+inferior, and that behind the counter of his shop he must infallibly
+inspire respect even in his customers! Of his supernatural honesty
+there could never be a particle of doubt: one had but to look at his
+stiffly starched collars! And his voice, it appeared, was just what
+one would expect; deep, and of a self-confident richness, but not too
+loud, with positively a certain caressing note in its timbre. Such a
+voice was peculiarly fitted to give orders to assistants under his
+control: 'Show the crimson Lyons velvet!' or, 'Hand the lady a chair!'
+
+Herr Klueber began with introducing himself; as he did so, he bowed
+with such loftiness, moved his legs with such an agreeable air, and
+drew his heels together with such polished courtesy that no one could
+fail to feel, 'that man has both linen and moral principles of the
+first quality!' The finish of his bare right hand--(the left, in a
+suede glove, held a hat shining like a looking-glass, with the right
+glove placed within it)--the finish of the right hand, proffered
+modestly but resolutely to Sanin, surpassed all belief; each
+finger-nail was a perfection in its own way! Then he proceeded
+to explain in the choicest German that he was anxious to express
+his respect and his indebtedness to the foreign gentleman who had
+performed so signal a service to his future kinsman, the brother of
+his betrothed; as he spoke, he waved his left hand with the hat in it
+in the direction of Emil, who seemed bashful and turning away to the
+window, put his finger in his mouth. Herr Klueber added that he should
+esteem himself happy should he be able in return to do anything for
+the foreign gentleman. Sanin, with some difficulty, replied, also
+in German, that he was delighted ... that the service was not worth
+speaking of ... and he begged his guests to sit down. Herr Klueber
+thanked him, and lifting his coat-tails, sat down on a chair; but he
+perched there so lightly and with such a transitory air that no one
+could fail to realise, 'this man is sitting down from politeness,
+and will fly up again in an instant.' And he did in fact fly up again
+quickly, and advancing with two discreet little dance-steps, he
+announced that to his regret he was unable to stay any longer, as he
+had to hasten to his shop--business before everything! but as the next
+day was Sunday, he had, with the consent of Frau Lenore and Fraeulein
+Gemma, arranged a holiday excursion to Soden, to which he had the
+honour of inviting the foreign gentleman, and he cherished the hope
+that he would not refuse to grace the party with his presence. Sanin
+did not refuse so to grace it; and Herr Klueber repeating once more his
+complimentary sentiments, took leave, his pea-green trousers making a
+spot of cheerful colour, and his brand-new boots squeaking cheerfully
+as he moved.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Emil, who had continued to stand with his face to the window, even
+after Sanin's invitation to him to sit down, turned round directly his
+future kinsman had gone out, and with a childish pout and blush, asked
+Sanin if he might remain a little while with him. 'I am much better
+to-day,' he added, 'but the doctor has forbidden me to do any work.'
+
+'Stay by all means! You won't be in the least in my way,' Sanin cried
+at once. Like every true Russian he was glad to clutch at any excuse
+that saved him from the necessity of doing anything himself.
+
+Emil thanked him, and in a very short time he was completely at home
+with him and with his room; he looked at all his things, asked him
+about almost every one of them, where he had bought it, and what was
+its value. He helped him to shave, observing that it was a mistake not
+to let his moustache grow; and finally told him a number of details
+about his mother, his sister, Pantaleone, the poodle Tartaglia, and
+all their daily life. Every semblance of timidity vanished in Emil; he
+suddenly felt extraordinarily attracted to Sanin--not at all because
+he had saved his life the day before, but because he was such a nice
+person! He lost no time in confiding all his secrets to Sanin. He
+expatiated with special warmth on the fact that his mother was set
+on making him a shopkeeper, while he _knew_, knew for certain, that
+he was born an artist, a musician, a singer; that Pantaleone even
+encouraged him, but that Herr Klueber supported mamma, over whom he had
+great influence; that the very idea of his being a shopkeeper really
+originated with Herr Klueber, who considered that nothing in the world
+could compare with trade! To measure out cloth--and cheat the public,
+extorting from it '_Narren--oder Russen Preise_' (fools'--or Russian
+prices)--that was his ideal! [Footnote: In former days--and very
+likely it is not different now--when, from May onwards, a great number
+of Russians visited Frankfort, prices rose in all the shops, and were
+called 'Russians',' or, alas! 'fools' prices.']
+
+'Come! now you must come and see us!' he cried, directly Sanin had
+finished his toilet and written his letter to Berlin.
+
+'It's early yet,' observed Sanin.
+
+'That's no matter,' replied Emil caressingly. 'Come along! We'll go to
+the post--and from there to our place. Gemma will be so glad to see
+you! You must have lunch with us.... You might say a word to mamma
+about me, my career....'
+
+'Very well, let's go,' said Sanin, and they set off.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Gemma certainly was delighted to see him, and Frau Lenore gave him a
+very friendly welcome; he had obviously made a good impression on both
+of them the evening before. Emil ran to see to getting lunch ready,
+after a preliminary whisper, 'don't forget!' in Sanin's ear.
+
+'I won't forget,' responded Sanin.
+
+Frau Lenore was not quite well; she had a sick headache, and,
+half-lying down in an easy chair, she tried to keep perfectly still.
+Gemma wore a full yellow blouse, with a black leather belt round the
+waist; she too seemed exhausted, and was rather pale; there were dark
+rings round her eyes, but their lustre was not the less for it; it
+added something of charm and mystery to the classical lines of her
+face. Sanin was especially struck that day by the exquisite beauty of
+her hands; when she smoothed and put back her dark, glossy tresses he
+could not take his eyes off her long supple fingers, held slightly
+apart from one another like the hand of Raphael's Fornarina.
+
+It was very hot out-of-doors; after lunch Sanin was about to take
+leave, but they told him that on such a day the best thing was to stay
+where one was, and he agreed; he stayed. In the back room where he was
+sitting with the ladies of the household, coolness reigned supreme;
+the windows looked out upon a little garden overgrown with acacias.
+Multitudes of bees, wasps, and humming beetles kept up a steady,
+eager buzz in their thick branches, which were studded with golden
+blossoms; through the half-drawn curtains and the lowered blinds this
+never-ceasing hum made its way into the room, telling of the sultry
+heat in the air outside, and making the cool of the closed and snug
+abode seem the sweeter.
+
+Sanin talked a great deal, as on the day before, but not of Russia,
+nor of Russian life. Being anxious to please his young friend, who
+had been sent off to Herr Klueber's immediately after lunch, to
+acquire a knowledge of book-keeping, he turned the conversation on
+the comparative advantages and disadvantages of art and commerce. He
+was not surprised at Frau Lenore's standing up for commerce--he had
+expected that; but Gemma too shared her opinion.
+
+'If one's an artist, and especially a singer,' she declared with a
+vigorous downward sweep of her hand, 'one's got to be first-rate!
+Second-rate's worse than nothing; and who can tell if one will
+arrive at being first-rate?' Pantaleone, who took part too in the
+conversation--(as an old servant and an old man he had the privilege
+of sitting down in the presence of the ladies of the house; Italians
+are not, as a rule, strict in matters of etiquette)--Pantaleone, as a
+matter of course, stood like a rock for art. To tell the truth, his
+arguments were somewhat feeble; he kept expatiating for the most part
+on the necessity, before all things, of possessing '_un certo estro
+d'inspirazione_'--a certain force of inspiration! Frau Lenore remarked
+to him that he had, to be sure, possessed such an '_estro_'--and
+yet ... 'I had enemies,' Pantaleone observed gloomily. 'And how do
+you know that Emil will not have enemies, even if this "_estro_" is
+found in him?' 'Very well, make a tradesman of him, then,' retorted
+Pantaleone in vexation; 'but Giovan' Battista would never have done
+it, though he was a confectioner himself!' 'Giovan' Battista, my
+husband, was a reasonable man, and even though he was in his youth led
+away ...' But the old man would hear nothing more, and walked away,
+repeating reproachfully, 'Ah! Giovan' Battista!...' Gemma exclaimed
+that if Emil felt like a patriot, and wanted to devote all his powers
+to the liberation of Italy, then, of course, for such a high and holy
+cause he might sacrifice the security of the future--but not for the
+theatre! Thereupon Frau Lenore became much agitated, and began to
+implore her daughter to refrain at least from turning her brother's
+head, and to content herself with being such a desperate republican
+herself! Frau Lenore groaned as she uttered these words, and began
+complaining of her head, which was 'ready to split.' (Frau Lenore, in
+deference to their guest, talked to her daughter in French.)
+
+Gemma began at once to wait upon her; she moistened her forehead with
+eau-de-Cologne, gently blew on it, gently kissed her cheek, made her
+lay her head on a pillow, forbade her to speak, and kissed her again.
+Then, turning to Sanin, she began telling him in a half-joking,
+half-tender tone what a splendid mother she had, and what a beauty she
+had been. '"Had been," did I say? she is charming now! Look, look,
+what eyes!'
+
+Gemma instantly pulled a white handkerchief out of her pocket, covered
+her mother's face with it, and slowly drawing it downwards, gradually
+uncovered Frau Lenore's forehead, eyebrows, and eyes; she waited a
+moment and asked her to open them. Her mother obeyed; Gemma cried
+out in ecstasy (Frau Lenore's eyes really were very beautiful), and
+rapidly sliding the handkerchief over the lower, less regular part of
+the face, fell to kissing her again. Frau Lenore laughed, and turning
+a little away, with a pretence of violence, pushed her daughter away.
+She too pretended to struggle with her mother, and lavished caresses
+on her--not like a cat, in the French manner, but with that special
+Italian grace in which is always felt the presence of power.
+
+At last Frau Lenore declared she was tired out ... Then Gemma at once
+advised her to have a little nap, where she was, in her chair, 'and
+I and the Russian gentleman--"_avec le monsieur russe_"--will be as
+quiet, as quiet ... as little mice ... "_comme des petites souris_."'
+Frau Lenore smiled at her in reply, closed her eyes, and after a few
+sighs began to doze. Gemma quickly dropped down on a bench beside her
+and did not stir again, only from time to time she put a finger of
+one hand to her lips--with the other hand she was holding up a pillow
+behind her mother's head--and said softly, 'sh-sh!' with a sidelong
+look at Sanin, if he permitted himself the smallest movement. In the
+end he too sank into a kind of dream, and sat motionless as though
+spell-bound, while all his faculties were absorbed in admiring the
+picture presented him by the half-dark room, here and there spotted
+with patches of light crimson, where fresh, luxuriant roses stood in
+the old-fashioned green glasses, and the sleeping woman with demurely
+folded hands and kind, weary face, framed in the snowy whiteness
+of the pillow, and the young, keenly-alert and also kind, clever,
+pure, and unspeakably beautiful creature with such black, deep,
+overshadowed, yet shining eyes.... What was it? A dream? a fairy
+tale? And how came _he_ to be in it?
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The bell tinkled at the outer door. A young peasant lad in a fur
+cap and a red waistcoat came into the shop from the street. Not one
+customer had looked into it since early morning ... 'You see how much
+business we do!' Frau Lenore observed to Sanin at lunch-time with a
+sigh. She was still asleep; Gemma was afraid to take her arm from the
+pillow, and whispered to Sanin: 'You go, and mind the shop for me!'
+Sanin went on tiptoe into the shop at once. The boy wanted a quarter
+of a pound of peppermints. 'How much must I take?' Sanin whispered
+from the door to Gemma. 'Six kreutzers!' she answered in the same
+whisper. Sanin weighed out a quarter of a pound, found some paper,
+twisted it into a cone, tipped the peppermints into it, spilt them,
+tipped them in again, spilt them again, at last handed them to the
+boy, and took the money.... The boy gazed at him in amazement,
+twisting his cap in his hands on his stomach, and in the next room,
+Gemma was stifling with suppressed laughter. Before the first customer
+had walked out, a second appeared, then a third.... 'I bring luck,
+it's clear!' thought Sanin. The second customer wanted a glass of
+orangeade, the third, half-a-pound of sweets. Sanin satisfied their
+needs, zealously clattering the spoons, changing the saucers, and
+eagerly plunging his fingers into drawers and jars. On reckoning up,
+it appeared that he had charged too little for the orangeade, and
+taken two kreutzers too much for the sweets. Gemma did not cease
+laughing softly, and Sanin too was aware of an extraordinary lightness
+of heart, a peculiarly happy state of mind. He felt as if he had
+for ever been standing behind the counter and dealing in orangeade
+and sweetmeats, with that exquisite creature looking at him through
+the doorway with affectionately mocking eyes, while the summer sun,
+forcing its way through the sturdy leafage of the chestnuts that grew
+in front of the windows, filled the whole room with the greenish-gold
+of the midday light and shade, and the heart grew soft in the sweet
+languor of idleness, carelessness, and youth--first youth!
+
+A fourth customer asked for a cup of coffee; Pantaleone had to be
+appealed to. (Emil had not yet come back from Herr Klueber's shop.)
+Sanin went and sat by Gemma again. Frau Lenore still went on sleeping,
+to her daughter's great delight. 'Mamma always sleeps off her sick
+headaches,' she observed. Sanin began talking--in a whisper, of
+course, as before--of his minding the shop; very seriously inquired
+the price of various articles of confectionery; Gemma just as
+seriously told him these prices, and meanwhile both of them were
+inwardly laughing together, as though conscious they were playing
+in a very amusing farce. All of a sudden, an organ-grinder in the
+street began playing an air from the Freischuetz: '_Durch die Felder,
+durch die Auen_ ...' The dance tune fell shrill and quivering on
+the motionless air. Gemma started ... 'He will wake mamma!' Sanin
+promptly darted out into the street, thrust a few kreutzers into
+the organ-grinder's hand, and made him cease playing and move away.
+When he came back, Gemma thanked him with a little nod of the head,
+and with a pensive smile she began herself just audibly humming
+the beautiful melody of Weber's, in which Max expresses all the
+perplexities of first love. Then she asked Sanin whether he knew
+'Freischuetz,' whether he was fond of Weber, and added that though
+she was herself an Italian, she liked _such_ music best of all. From
+Weber the conversation glided off on to poetry and romanticism, on to
+Hoffmann, whom every one was still reading at that time.
+
+And Frau Lenore still slept, and even snored just a little, and the
+sunbeams, piercing in narrow streaks through the shutters, were
+incessantly and imperceptibly shifting and travelling over the floor,
+the furniture, Gemma's dress, and the leaves and petals of the
+flowers.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+It appeared that Gemma was not very fond of Hoffmann, that she even
+thought him ... tedious! The fantastic, misty northern element in
+his stories was too remote from her clear, southern nature. 'It's
+all fairy-tales, all written for children!' she declared with some
+contempt. She was vaguely conscious, too, of the lack of poetry in
+Hoffmann. But there was one of his stories, the title of which she
+had forgotten, which she greatly liked; more precisely speaking, it
+was only the beginning of this story that she liked; the end she had
+either not read or had forgotten. The story was about a young man who
+in some place, a sort of restaurant perhaps, meets a girl of striking
+beauty, a Greek; she is accompanied by a mysterious and strange,
+wicked old man. The young man falls in love with the girl at first
+sight; she looks at him so mournfully, as though beseeching him to
+deliver her.... He goes out for an instant, and, coming back into the
+restaurant, finds there neither the girl nor the old man; he rushes
+off in pursuit of her, continually comes upon fresh traces of her,
+follows them up, and can never by any means come upon her anywhere.
+The lovely girl has vanished for him for ever and ever, and he is
+never able to forget her imploring glance, and is tortured by the
+thought that all the happiness of his life, perhaps, has slipped
+through his fingers.
+
+Hoffmann does not end his story quite in that way; but so it had taken
+shape, so it had remained, in Gemma's memory.
+
+'I fancy,' she said, 'such meetings and such partings happen oftener
+in the world than we suppose.'
+
+Sanin was silent ... and soon after he began talking ... of Herr
+Klueber. It was the first time he had referred to him; he had not once
+remembered him till that instant.
+
+Gemma was silent in her turn, and sank into thought, biting the nail
+of her forefinger and fixing her eyes away. Then she began to speak in
+praise of her betrothed, alluded to the excursion he had planned for
+the next day, and, glancing swiftly at Sanin, was silent again.
+
+Sanin did not know on what subject to turn the conversation.
+
+Emil ran in noisily and waked Frau Lenore ... Sanin was relieved by
+his appearance.
+
+Frau Lenore got up from her low chair. Pantaleone came in and
+announced that dinner was ready. The friend of the family, ex-singer,
+and servant also performed the duties of cook.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Sanin stayed on after dinner too. They did not let him go, still on
+the same pretext of the terrible heat; and when the heat began to
+decrease, they proposed going out into the garden to drink coffee in
+the shade of the acacias. Sanin consented. He felt very happy. In the
+quietly monotonous, smooth current of life lie hid great delights,
+and he gave himself up to these delights with zest, asking nothing
+much of the present day, but also thinking nothing of the morrow, nor
+recalling the day before. How much the mere society of such a girl as
+Gemma meant to him! He would shortly part from her and, most likely,
+for ever; but so long as they were borne, as in Uhland's song, in
+one skiff over the sea of life, untossed by tempest, well might
+the traveller rejoice and be glad. And everything seemed sweet
+and delightful to the happy voyager. Frau Lenore offered to play
+against him and Pantaleone at 'tresette,' instructed him in this not
+complicated Italian game, and won a few kreutzers from him, and he
+was well content. Pantaleone, at Emil's request, made the poodle,
+Tartaglia, perform all his tricks, and Tartaglia jumped over a stick
+'spoke,' that is, barked, sneezed, shut the door with his nose,
+fetched his master's trodden-down slippers; and, finally, with an
+old cap on his head, he portrayed Marshal Bernadotte, subjected to
+the bitterest upbraidings by the Emperor Napoleon on account of his
+treachery. Napoleon's part was, of course, performed by Pantaleone,
+and very faithfully he performed it: he folded his arms across his
+chest, pulled a cocked hat over his eyes, and spoke very gruffly and
+sternly, in French--and heavens! what French! Tartaglia sat before his
+sovereign, all huddled up, with dejected tail, and eyes blinking and
+twitching in confusion, under the peak of his cap which was stuck on
+awry; from time to time when Napoleon raised his voice, Bernadotte
+rose on his hind paws. '_Fuori, traditore!_' cried Napoleon at last,
+forgetting in the excess of his wrath that he had to sustain his role
+as a Frenchman to the end; and Bernadotte promptly flew under the
+sofa, but quickly darted out again with a joyful bark, as though to
+announce that the performance was over. All the spectators laughed,
+and Sanin more than all.
+
+Gemma had a particularly charming, continual, soft laugh, with very
+droll little shrieks.... Sanin was fairly enchanted by that laugh--he
+could have kissed her for those shrieks!
+
+Night came on at last. He had in decency to take leave! After saying
+good-bye several times over to every one, and repeating several times
+to all, 'till to-morrow!'--Emil he went so far as to kiss--Sanin
+started home, carrying with him the image of the young girl, at one
+time laughing, at another thoughtful, calm, and even indifferent--but
+always attractive! Her eyes, at one time wide open, clear and bright
+as day, at another time half shrouded by the lashes and deep and dark
+as night, seemed to float before his eyes, piercing in a strange sweet
+way across all other images and recollections.
+
+Of Herr Klueber, of the causes impelling him to remain in Frankfort--in
+short, of everything that had disturbed his mind the evening
+before--he never thought once.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+We must, however, say a few words about Sanin himself.
+
+In the first place, he was very, very good-looking. A handsome,
+graceful figure, agreeable, rather unformed features, kindly bluish
+eyes, golden hair, a clear white and red skin, and, above all, that
+peculiar, naively-cheerful, confiding, open, at the first glance,
+somewhat foolish expression, by which in former days one could
+recognise directly the children of steady-going, noble families,
+'sons of their fathers,' fine young landowners, born and reared in
+our open, half-wild country parts,--a hesitating gait, a voice with a
+lisp, a smile like a child's the minute you looked at him ... lastly,
+freshness, health, softness, softness, softness,--there you have the
+whole of Sanin. And secondly, he was not stupid and had picked up a
+fair amount of knowledge. Fresh he had remained, for all his foreign
+tour; the disturbing emotions in which the greater part of the young
+people of that day were tempest-tossed were very little known to him.
+
+Of late years, in response to the assiduous search for 'new types,'
+young men have begun to appear in our literature, determined at
+all hazards to be 'fresh'... as fresh as Flensburg oysters, when
+they reach Petersburg.... Sanin was not like them. Since we have
+had recourse already to simile, he rather recalled a young, leafy,
+freshly-grafted apple-tree in one of our fertile orchards--or
+better still, a well-groomed, sleek, sturdy-limbed, tender young
+'three-year-old' in some old-fashioned seignorial stud stable, a
+young horse that they have hardly begun to break in to the traces....
+Those who came across Sanin in later years, when life had knocked him
+about a good deal, and the sleekness and plumpness of youth had long
+vanished, saw in him a totally different man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day Sanin was still in bed when Emil, in his best clothes, with
+a cane in his hand and much pomade on his head, burst into his room,
+announcing that Herr Klueber would be here directly with the carriage,
+that the weather promised to be exquisite, that they had everything
+ready by now, but that mamma was not going, as her head was bad again.
+He began to hurry Sanin, telling him that there was not a minute to
+lose.... And Herr Klueber did, in fact, find Sanin still at his toilet.
+He knocked at the door, came in, bowed with a bend from the waist,
+expressed his readiness to wait as long as might be desired, and
+sat down, his hat balanced elegantly on his knees. The handsome
+shop-manager had got himself up and perfumed himself to excess: his
+every action was accompanied by a powerful whiff of the most refined
+aroma. He arrived in a comfortable open carriage--one of the kind
+called landau--drawn by two tall and powerful but not well-shaped
+horses. A quarter of an hour later Sanin, Klueber, and Emil, in this
+same carriage, drew up triumphantly at the steps of the confectioner's
+shop. Madame Roselli resolutely refused to join the party; Gemma
+wanted to stay with her mother; but she simply turned her out.
+
+'I don't want any one,' she declared; 'I shall go to sleep. I would
+send Pantaleone with you too, only there would be no one to mind the
+shop.'
+
+'May we take Tartaglia?' asked Emil.
+
+'Of course you may.'
+
+Tartaglia immediately scrambled, with delighted struggles, on to the
+box and sat there, licking himself; it was obviously a thing he was
+accustomed to. Gemma put on a large straw hat with brown ribbons; the
+hat was bent down in front, so as to shade almost the whole of her
+face from the sun. The line of shadow stopped just at her lips; they
+wore a tender maiden flush, like the petals of a centifoil rose, and
+her teeth gleamed stealthily--innocently too, as when children smile.
+Gemma sat facing the horses, with Sanin; Klueber and Emil sat opposite.
+The pale face of Frau Lenore appeared at the window; Gemma waved her
+handkerchief to her, and the horses started.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Soden is a little town half an hour's distance from Frankfort. It lies
+in a beautiful country among the spurs of the Taunus Mountains, and
+is known among us in Russia for its waters, which are supposed to be
+beneficial to people with weak lungs. The Frankforters visit it more
+for purposes of recreation, as Soden possesses a fine park and various
+'wirthschaften,' where one may drink beer and coffee in the shade
+of the tall limes and maples. The road from Frankfort to Soden runs
+along the right bank of the Maine, and is planted all along with fruit
+trees. While the carriage was rolling slowly along an excellent road,
+Sanin stealthily watched how Gemma behaved to her betrothed; it was
+the first time he had seen them together. _She_ was quiet and simple
+in her manner, but rather more reserved and serious than usual; _he_
+had the air of a condescending schoolmaster, permitting himself and
+those under his authority a discreet and decorous pleasure. Sanin saw
+no signs in him of any marked attentiveness, of what the French call
+'_empressement_,' in his demeanour to Gemma. It was clear that Herr
+Klueber considered that it was a matter settled once for all, and
+that therefore he saw no reason to trouble or excite himself. But
+his condescension never left him for an instant! Even during a long
+ramble before dinner about the wooded hills and valleys behind Soden,
+even when enjoying the beauties of nature, he treated nature itself
+with the same condescension, through which his habitual magisterial
+severity peeped out from time to time. So, for example, he observed
+in regard to one stream that it ran too straight through the glade,
+instead of making a few picturesque curves; he disapproved, too, of
+the conduct of a bird--a chaffinch--for singing so monotonously.
+Gemma was not bored, and even, apparently, was enjoying herself; but
+Sanin did not recognise her as the Gemma of the preceding days; it
+was not that she seemed under a cloud--her beauty had never been more
+dazzling--but her soul seemed to have withdrawn into herself. With her
+parasol open and her gloves still buttoned up, she walked sedately,
+deliberately, as well-bred young girls walk, and spoke little.
+Emil, too, felt stiff, and Sanin more so than all. He was somewhat
+embarrassed too by the fact that the conversation was all the time
+in German. Only Tartaglia was in high spirits! He darted, barking
+frantically, after blackbirds, leaped over ravines, stumps and roots,
+rushed headlong into the water, lapped at it in desperate haste, shook
+himself, whining, and was off like an arrow, his red tongue trailing
+after him almost to his shoulder. Herr Klueber, for his part, did
+everything he supposed conducive to the mirthfulness of the company;
+he begged them to sit down in the shade of a spreading oak-tree, and
+taking out of a side pocket a small booklet entitled, '_Knallerbsen;
+oder du sollst und wirst lachen!_' (Squibs; or you must and shall
+laugh!) began reading the funny anecdotes of which the little book was
+full. He read them twelve specimens; he aroused very little mirth,
+however; only Sanin smiled, from politeness, and he himself, Herr
+Klueber, after each anecdote, gave vent to a brief, business-like, but
+still condescending laugh. At twelve o'clock the whole party returned
+to Soden to the best tavern there.
+
+They had to make arrangements about dinner. Herr Klueber proposed
+that the dinner should be served in a summer-house closed in on all
+sides--'_im Gartensalon_'; but at this point Gemma rebelled and
+declared that she would have dinner in the open air, in the garden, at
+one of the little tables set before the tavern; that she was tired of
+being all the while with the same faces, and she wanted to see fresh
+ones. At some of the little tables, groups of visitors were already
+sitting.
+
+While Herr Klueber, yielding condescendingly to 'the caprice of his
+betrothed,' went off to interview the head waiter, Gemma stood
+immovable, biting her lips and looking on the ground; she was
+conscious that Sanin was persistently and, as it were, inquiringly
+looking at her--it seemed to enrage her. At last Herr Klueber returned,
+announced that dinner would be ready in half an hour, and proposed
+their employing the interval in a game of skittles, adding that this
+was very good for the appetite, he, he, he! Skittles he played in
+masterly fashion; as he threw the ball, he put himself into amazingly
+heroic postures, with artistic play of the muscles, with artistic
+flourish and shake of the leg. In his own way he was an athlete--and
+was superbly built! His hands, too, were so white and handsome, and he
+wiped them on such a sumptuous, gold-striped, Indian bandana!
+
+The moment of dinner arrived, and the whole party seated themselves at
+the table.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Who does not know what a German dinner is like? Watery soup with
+knobby dumplings and pieces of cinnamon, boiled beef dry as cork,
+with white fat attached, slimy potatoes, soft beetroot and mashed
+horseradish, a bluish eel with French capers and vinegar, a roast
+joint with jam, and the inevitable '_Mehlspeise_,' something of the
+nature of a pudding with sourish red sauce; but to make up, the beer
+and wine first-rate! With just such a dinner the tavernkeeper at
+Soden regaled his customers. The dinner, itself, however, went off
+satisfactorily. No special liveliness was perceptible, certainly;
+not even when Herr Klueber proposed the toast 'What we like!' (Was
+wir lieben!) But at least everything was decorous and seemly. After
+dinner, coffee was served, thin, reddish, typically German coffee.
+Herr Klueber, with true gallantry, asked Gemma's permission to smoke a
+cigar.... But at this point suddenly something occurred, unexpected,
+and decidedly unpleasant, and even unseemly!
+
+At one of the tables near were sitting several officers of the
+garrison of the Maine. From their glances and whispering together
+it was easy to perceive that they were struck by Gemma's beauty;
+one of them, who had probably stayed in Frankfort, stared at her
+persistently, as at a figure familiar to him; he obviously knew who
+she was. He suddenly got up, and glass in hand--all the officers
+had been drinking hard, and the cloth before them was crowded with
+bottles--approached the table at which Gemma was sitting. He was
+a very young flaxen-haired man, with a rather pleasing and even
+attractive face, but his features were distorted with the wine he had
+drunk, his cheeks were twitching, his blood-shot eyes wandered, and
+wore an insolent expression. His companions at first tried to hold him
+back, but afterwards let him go, interested apparently to see what he
+would do, and how it would end. Slightly unsteady on his legs, the
+officer stopped before Gemma, and in an unnaturally screaming voice,
+in which, in spite of himself, an inward struggle could be discerned,
+he articulated, 'I drink to the health of the prettiest confectioner
+in all Frankfort, in all the world (he emptied his glass), and in
+return I take this flower, picked by her divine little fingers!' He
+took from the table a rose that lay beside Gemma's plate. At first she
+was astonished, alarmed, and turned fearfully white ... then alarm
+was replaced by indignation; she suddenly crimsoned all over, to her
+very hair--and her eyes, fastened directly on the offender, at the
+same time darkened and flamed, they were filled with black gloom, and
+burned with the fire of irrepressible fury. The officer must have been
+confused by this look; he muttered something unintelligible, bowed,
+and walked back to his friends. They greeted him with a laugh, and
+faint applause.
+
+Herr Klueber rose spasmodically from his seat, drew himself up to his
+full height, and putting on his hat pronounced with dignity, but not
+too loud, 'Unheard of! Unheard of! Unheard of impertinence!' and at
+once calling up the waiter, in a severe voice asked for the bill ...
+more than that, ordered the carriage to be put to, adding that it was
+impossible for respectable people to frequent the establishment if
+they were exposed to insult! At those words Gemma, who still sat in
+her place without stirring--her bosom was heaving violently--Gemma
+raised her eyes to Herr Klueber ... and she gazed as intently, with the
+same expression at him as at the officer. Emil was simply shaking with
+rage.
+
+'Get up, _mein Fraeulein_,' Klueber admonished her with the same
+severity, 'it is not proper for you to remain here. We will go inside,
+in the tavern!'
+
+Gemma rose in silence; he offered her his arm, she gave him hers, and
+he walked into the tavern with a majestic step, which became, with his
+whole bearing, more majestic and haughty the farther he got from the
+place where they had dined. Poor Emil dragged himself after them.
+
+But while Herr Klueber was settling up with the waiter, to whom, by way
+of punishment, he gave not a single kreutzer for himself, Sanin with
+rapid steps approached the table at which the officers were sitting,
+and addressing Gemma's assailant, who was at that instant offering her
+rose to his companions in turns to smell, he uttered very distinctly
+in French, 'What you have just done, sir, is conduct unworthy of an
+honest man, unworthy of the uniform you wear, and I have come to tell
+you you are an ill-bred cur!' The young man leaped on to his feet, but
+another officer, rather older, checked him with a gesture, made him
+sit down, and turning to Sanin asked him also in French, 'Was he a
+relation, brother, or betrothed of the girl?'
+
+'I am nothing to her at all,' cried Sanin, 'I am a Russian, but I
+cannot look on at such insolence with indifference; but here is my
+card and my address; _monsieur l'officier_ can find me.'
+
+As he uttered these words, Sanin threw his visiting-card on the table,
+and at the same moment hastily snatched Gemma's rose, which one of the
+officers sitting at the table had dropped into his plate. The young
+man was again on the point of jumping up from the table, but his
+companion again checked him, saying, 'Doenhof, be quiet! Doenhof, sit
+still.' Then he got up himself, and putting his hand to the peak of
+his cap, with a certain shade of respectfulness in his voice and
+manner, told Sanin that to-morrow morning an officer of the regiment
+would have the honour of calling upon him. Sanin replied with a short
+bow, and hurriedly returned to his friends.
+
+Herr Klueber pretended he had not noticed either Sanin's absence
+nor his interview with the officers; he was urging on the coachman,
+who was putting in the horses, and was furiously angry at his
+deliberateness. Gemma too said nothing to Sanin, she did not even
+look at him; from her knitted brows, from her pale and compressed
+lips, from her very immobility it could be seen that she was suffering
+inwardly. Only Emil obviously wanted to speak to Sanin, wanted to
+question him; he had seen Sanin go up to the officers, he had seen him
+give them something white--a scrap of paper, a note, or a card.... The
+poor boy's heart was beating, his cheeks burned, he was ready to throw
+himself on Sanin's neck, ready to cry, or to go with him at once to
+crush all those accursed officers into dust and ashes! He controlled
+himself, however, and did no more than watch intently every movement
+of his noble Russian friend.
+
+The coachman had at last harnessed the horses; the whole party
+seated themselves in the carriage. Emil climbed on to the box, after
+Tartaglia; he was more comfortable there, and had not Klueber, whom he
+could hardly bear the sight of, sitting opposite to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The whole way home Herr Klueber discoursed ... and he discoursed alone;
+no one, absolutely no one, opposed him, nor did any one agree with
+him. He especially insisted on the point that they had been wrong
+in not following his advice when he suggested dining in a shut-up
+summer-house. There no unpleasantness could have occurred! Then
+he expressed a few decided and even liberal sentiments on the
+unpardonable way in which the government favoured the military,
+neglected their discipline, and did not sufficiently consider
+the civilian element in society (_das buergerliche Element in der
+Societaet_!), and foretold that in time this cause would give rise to
+discontent, which might well pass into revolution, of which (here
+he dropped a sympathetic though severe sigh) France had given them
+a sorrowful example! He added, however, that he personally had the
+greatest respect for authority, and never ... no, never!... could be a
+revolutionist--but he could not but express his ... disapprobation at
+the sight of such licence! Then he made a few general observations on
+morality and immorality, good-breeding, and the sense of dignity.
+
+During all these lucubrations, Gemma, who even while they were walking
+before dinner had not seemed quite pleased with Herr Klueber, and had
+therefore held rather aloof from Sanin, and had been, as it were,
+embarrassed by his presence--Gemma was unmistakably ashamed of her
+betrothed! Towards the end of the drive she was positively wretched,
+and though, as before, she did not address a word to Sanin, she
+suddenly flung an imploring glance at him.... He, for his part, felt
+much more sorry for her than indignant with Herr Klueber; he was even
+secretly, half-consciously, delighted at what had happened in the
+course of that day, even though he had every reason to expect a
+challenge next morning.
+
+This miserable _partie de plaisir_ came to an end at last. As he
+helped Gemma out of the carriage at the confectionery shop, Sanin
+without a word put into her hand the rose he had recovered. She
+flushed crimson, pressed his hand, and instantly hid the rose. He
+did not want to go into the house, though the evening was only just
+beginning. She did not even invite him. Moreover Pantaleone, who came
+out on the steps, announced that Frau Lenore was asleep. Emil took a
+shy good-bye of Sanin; he felt as it were in awe of him; he greatly
+admired him. Klueber saw Sanin to his lodging, and took leave of him
+stiffly. The well-regulated German, for all his self-confidence, felt
+awkward. And indeed every one felt awkward.
+
+But in Sanin this feeling of awkwardness soon passed off. It was
+replaced by a vague, but pleasant, even triumphant feeling. He walked
+up and down his room, whistling, and not caring to think about
+anything, and was very well pleased with himself.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+'I will wait for the officer's visit till ten o'clock,' he reflected
+next morning, as he dressed,' and then let him come and look for me!'
+But Germans rise early: it had not yet struck nine when the waiter
+informed Sanin that the Herr Seconde Lieutenant von Richter wished
+to see him. Sanin made haste to put on his coat, and told him to ask
+him up. Herr Richter turned out, contrary to Sanin's expectation, to
+be a very young man, almost a boy. He tried to give an expression of
+dignity to his beardless face, but did not succeed at all: he could
+not even conceal his embarrassment, and as he sat down on a chair, he
+tripped over his sword, and almost fell. Stammering and hesitating, he
+announced to Sanin in bad French that he had come with a message from
+his friend, Baron von Doenhof; that this message was to demand from
+Herr von Sanin an apology for the insulting expressions used by him
+on the previous day; and in case of refusal on the part of Herr von
+Sanin, Baron von Doenhof would ask for satisfaction. Sanin replied that
+he did not mean to apologise, but was ready to give him satisfaction.
+Then Herr von Richter, still with the same hesitation, asked with
+whom, at what time and place, should he arrange the necessary
+preliminaries. Sanin answered that he might come to him in two hours'
+time, and that meanwhile, he, Sanin, would try and find a second.
+('Who the devil is there I can have for a second?' he was thinking to
+himself meantime.) Herr von Richter got up and began to take leave
+... but at the doorway he stopped, as though stung by a prick of
+conscience, and turning to Sanin observed that his friend, Baron von
+Doenhof, could not but recognise ... that he had been ... to a certain
+extent, to blame himself in the incident of the previous day, and
+would, therefore, be satisfied with slight apologies ('_des exghizes
+lecheres_.') To this Sanin replied that he did not intend to make any
+apology whatever, either slight or considerable, since he did not
+consider himself to blame. 'In that case,' answered Herr von Richter,
+blushing more than ever,' you will have to exchange friendly
+shots--_des goups de bisdolet a l'amiaple_!'
+
+'I don't understand that at all,' observed Sanin; 'are we to fire in
+the air or what?'
+
+'Oh, not exactly that,' stammered the sub-lieutenant, utterly
+disconcerted, 'but I supposed since it is an affair between men of
+honour ... I will talk to your second,' he broke off, and went away.
+
+Sanin dropped into a chair directly he had gone, and stared at the
+floor. 'What does it all mean? How is it my life has taken such a turn
+all of a sudden? All the past, all the future has suddenly vanished,
+gone,--and all that's left is that I am going to fight some one about
+something in Frankfort.' He recalled a crazy aunt of his who used to
+dance and sing:
+
+  'O my lieutenant!
+  My little cucumber!
+  My little love!
+  Dance with me, my little dove!'
+
+And he laughed and hummed as she used to: 'O my lieutenant! Dance with
+me, little dove!' 'But I must act, though, I mustn't waste time,' he
+cried aloud--jumped up and saw Pantaleone facing him with a note in
+his hand.
+
+'I knocked several times, but you did not answer; I thought you
+weren't at home,' said the old man, as he gave him the note. 'From
+Signorina Gemma.'
+
+Sanin took the note, mechanically, as they say, tore it open, and
+read it. Gemma wrote to him that she was very anxious--about he knew
+what--and would be very glad to see him at once.
+
+'The Signorina is anxious,' began Pantaleone, who obviously knew what
+was in the note, 'she told me to see what you are doing and to bring
+you to her.'
+
+Sanin glanced at the old Italian, and pondered. A sudden idea flashed
+upon his brain. For the first instant it struck him as too absurd to
+be possible.
+
+'After all ... why not?' he asked himself.
+
+'M. Pantaleone!' he said aloud.
+
+The old man started, tucked his chin into his cravat and stared at
+Sanin.
+
+'Do you know,' pursued Sanin,' what happened yesterday?'
+
+Pantaleone chewed his lips and shook his immense top-knot of hair.
+'Yes.'
+
+(Emil had told him all about it directly he got home.)
+
+'Oh, you know! Well, an officer has just this minute left me. That
+scoundrel challenges me to a duel. I have accepted his challenge. But
+I have no second. Will _you_ be my second?'
+
+Pantaleone started and raised his eyebrows so high that they were lost
+under his overhanging hair.
+
+'You are absolutely obliged to fight?' he said at last in Italian;
+till that instant he had made use of French.
+
+'Absolutely. I can't do otherwise--it would mean disgracing myself for
+ever.'
+
+'H'm. If I don't consent to be your second you will find some one
+else.'
+
+'Yes ... undoubtedly.'
+
+Pantaleone looked down. 'But allow me to ask you, Signor de Tsanin,
+will not your duel throw a slur on the reputation of a certain lady?'
+
+'I don't suppose so; but in any case, there's no help for it.'
+
+'H'm!' Pantaleone retired altogether into his cravat. 'Hey, but that
+_ferroflucto Klueberio_--what's he about?' he cried all of a sudden,
+looking up again.
+
+'He? Nothing.'
+
+'_Che_!' Pantaleone shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. 'I have, in
+any case, to thank you,' he articulated at last in an unsteady voice
+'that even in my present humble condition you recognise that I am a
+gentleman--_un galant'uomo_! In that way you have shown yourself to be
+a real _galant'uomo_. But I must consider your proposal.'
+
+'There's no time to lose, dear Signor Ci ... cippa ...'
+
+'Tola,' the old man chimed in. 'I ask only for one hour for
+reflection.... The daughter of my benefactor is involved in this....
+And, therefore, I ought, I am bound, to reflect!... In an hour, in
+three-quarters of an hour, you shall know my decision.'
+
+'Very well; I will wait.'
+
+'And now ... what answer am I to give to Signorina Gemma?'
+
+Sanin took a sheet of paper, wrote on it, 'Set your mind at rest, dear
+friend; in three hours' time I will come to you, and everything shall
+be explained. I thank you from my heart for your sympathy,' and handed
+this sheet to Pantaleone.
+
+He put it carefully into his side-pocket, and once more repeating 'In
+an hour!' made towards the door; but turning sharply back, ran up to
+Sanin, seized his hand, and pressing it to his shirt-front, cried,
+with his eyes to the ceiling: 'Noble youth! Great heart! (_Nobil
+giovanotto! Gran cuore!_) permit a weak old man (_a un vecchiotto!_)
+to press your valorous right hand (_la vostra valorosa destra!_)' Then
+he skipped back a pace or two, threw up both hands, and went away.
+
+Sanin looked after him ... took up the newspaper and tried to read.
+But his eyes wandered in vain over the lines: he understood nothing.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+An hour later the waiter came in again to Sanin, and handed him
+an old, soiled visiting-card, on which were the following words:
+'Pantaleone Cippatola of Varese, court singer (_cantante di camera_)
+to his Royal Highness the Duke of Modena'; and behind the waiter in
+walked Pantaleone himself. He had changed his clothes from top to toe.
+He had on a black frock coat, reddish with long wear, and a white
+pique waistcoat, upon which a pinch-beck chain meandered playfully; a
+heavy cornelian seal hung low down on to his narrow black trousers. In
+his right hand he carried a black beaver hat, in his left two stout
+chamois gloves; he had tied his cravat in a taller and broader bow
+than ever, and had stuck into his starched shirt-front a pin with a
+stone, a so-called 'cat's eye.' On his forefinger was displayed a
+ring, consisting of two clasped hands with a burning heart between
+them. A smell of garments long laid by, a smell of camphor and of musk
+hung about the whole person of the old man; the anxious solemnity of
+his deportment must have struck the most casual spectator! Sanin rose
+to meet him.
+
+'I am your second,' Pantaleone announced in French, and he bowed
+bending his whole body forward, and turning out his toes like a
+dancer. 'I have come for instructions. Do you want to fight to the
+death?'
+
+'Why to the death, my dear Signor Cippatola? I will not for any
+consideration take back my words--but I am not a bloodthirsty
+person!... But come, wait a little, my opponent's second will be here
+directly. I will go into the next room, and you can make arrangements
+with him. Believe me I shall never forget your kindness, and I thank
+you from my heart.'
+
+'Honour before everything!' answered Pantaleone, and he sank into
+an arm-chair, without waiting for Sanin to ask him to sit down. 'If
+that _ferroflucto spitchebubbio_,' he said, passing from French into
+Italian, 'if that counter-jumper Klueberio could not appreciate his
+obvious duty or was afraid, so much the worse for him!... A cheap
+soul, and that's all about it!... As for the conditions of the duel, I
+am your second, and your interests are sacred to me!... When I lived
+in Padua there was a regiment of the white dragoons stationed there,
+and I was very intimate with many of the officers!... I was quite
+familiar with their whole code. And I used often to converse on these
+subjects with your principe Tarbuski too.... Is this second to come
+soon?'
+
+'I am expecting him every minute--and here he comes,' added Sanin,
+looking into the street.
+
+Pantaleone got up, looked at his watch, straightened his topknot of
+hair, and hurriedly stuffed into his shoe an end of tape which was
+sticking out below his trouser-leg, and the young sub-lieutenant came
+in, as red and embarrassed as ever.
+
+Sanin presented the seconds to each other. 'M. Richter,
+sous-lieutenant, M. Cippatola, artiste!' The sub-lieutenant was
+slightly disconcerted by the old man's appearance ... Oh, what would
+he have said had any one whispered to him at that instant that the
+'artist' presented to him was also employed in the culinary art! But
+Pantaleone assumed an air as though taking part in the preliminaries
+of duels was for him the most everyday affair: probably he was
+assisted at this juncture by the recollections of his theatrical
+career, and he played the part of second simply as a part. Both he and
+the sub-lieutenant were silent for a little.
+
+'Well? Let us come to business!' Pantaleone spoke first, playing with
+his cornelian seal.
+
+'By all means,' responded the sub-lieutenant, 'but ... the presence of
+one of the principals ...'
+
+'I will leave you at once, gentlemen,' cried Sanin, and with a bow he
+went away into the bedroom and closed the door after him.
+
+He flung himself on the bed and began thinking of Gemma ... but the
+conversation of the seconds reached him through the shut door. It was
+conducted in the French language; both maltreated it mercilessly,
+each after his own fashion. Pantaleone again alluded to the dragoons
+in Padua, and Principe Tarbuski; the sub-lieutenant to '_exghizes
+lecheres_' and '_goups de bistolet a l'amiaple_.' But the old man
+would not even hear of any _exghizes_! To Sanin's horror, he suddenly
+proceeded to talk of a certain young lady, an innocent maiden, whose
+little finger was worth more than all the officers in the world ...
+(_oune zeune damigella innoucenta, qu'a elle sola dans soun peti doa
+vale pin que tout le zouffissie del mondo_.'), and repeated several
+times with heat: 'It's shameful! it's shameful!' (_E ouna onta, ouna
+onta_!) The sub-lieutenant at first made him no reply, but presently
+an angry quiver could be heard in the young man's voice, and he
+observed that he had not come there to listen to sermonising.
+
+'At your age it is always a good thing to hear the truth!' cried
+Pantaleone.
+
+The debate between the seconds several times became stormy; it lasted
+over an hour, and was concluded at last on the following conditions:
+'Baron von Doenhof and M. de Sanin to meet the next day at ten o'clock
+in a small wood near Hanau, at the distance of twenty paces; each to
+have the right to fire twice at a signal given by the seconds, the
+pistols to be single-triggered and not rifle-barrelled.' Herr von
+Richter withdrew, and Pantaleone solemnly opened the bedroom door, and
+after communicating the result of their deliberations, cried again:
+'_Bravo Russo_! _Bravo giovanotto_! You will be victor!'
+
+A few minutes later they both set off to the Rosellis' shop. Sanin, as
+a preliminary measure, had exacted a promise from Pantaleone to keep
+the affair of the duel a most profound secret. In reply, the old man
+had merely held up his finger, and half closing his eyes, whispered
+twice over, _Segredezza_! He was obviously in good spirits, and even
+walked with a freer step. All these unusual incidents, unpleasant
+though they might be, carried him vividly back to the time when he
+himself both received and gave challenges--only, it is true, on the
+stage. Baritones, as we all know, have a great deal of strutting and
+fuming to do in their parts.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Emil ran out to meet Sanin--he had been watching for his arrival over
+an hour--and hurriedly whispered into his ear that his mother knew
+nothing of the disagreeable incident of the day before, that he must
+not even hint of it to her, and that he was being sent to Klueber's
+shop again!... but that he wouldn't go there, but would hide
+somewhere! Communicating all this information in a few seconds, he
+suddenly fell on Sanin's shoulder, kissed him impulsively, and rushed
+away down the street. Gemma met Sanin in the shop; tried to say
+something and could not. Her lips were trembling a little, while her
+eyes were half-closed and turned away. He made haste to soothe her by
+the assurance that the whole affair had ended ... in utter nonsense.
+
+'Has no one been to see you to-day?' she asked.
+
+'A person did come to me and we had an explanation, and we ... we came
+to the most satisfactory conclusion.'
+
+Gemma went back behind the counter.
+
+'She does not believe me!' he thought ... he went into the next room,
+however, and there found Frau Lenore.
+
+Her sick headache had passed off, but she was in a depressed state of
+mind. She gave him a smile of welcome, but warned him at the same time
+that he would be dull with her to-day, as she was not in a mood to
+entertain him. He sat down beside her, and noticed that her eyelids
+were red and swollen.
+
+'What is wrong, Frau Lenore? You've never been crying, surely?'
+
+'Oh!' she whispered, nodding her head towards the room where her
+daughter was.
+
+'Don't speak of it ... aloud.'
+
+'But what have you been crying for?'
+
+'Ah, M'sieu Sanin, I don't know myself what for!'
+
+'No one has hurt your feelings?'
+
+'Oh no!... I felt very low all of a sudden. I thought of Giovanni
+Battista ... of my youth ... Then how quickly it had all passed away.
+I have grown old, my friend, and I can't reconcile myself to that
+anyhow. I feel I'm just the same as I was ... but old age--it's here!
+it is here!' Tears came into Frau Lenore's eyes. 'You look at me, I
+see, and wonder.... But you will get old too, my friend, and will find
+out how bitter it is!'
+
+Sanin tried to comfort her, spoke of her children, in whom her own
+youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring
+that she was fishing for compliments ... but she quite seriously
+begged him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for
+such a sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or
+cure; one has to wait till it passes off of itself. He proposed a game
+of tresette, and he could have thought of nothing better. She agreed
+at once and seemed to get more cheerful.
+
+Sanin played with her until dinner-time and after dinner Pantaleone
+too took a hand in the game. Never had his topknot hung so low over
+his forehead, never had his chin retreated so far into his cravat!
+Every movement was accompanied by such intense solemnity that as one
+looked at him the thought involuntarily arose, 'What secret is that
+man guarding with such determination?' But _segredezza_! _segredezza_!
+
+During the whole of that day he tried in every possible way to show
+the profoundest respect for Sanin; at table, passing by the ladies, he
+solemnly and sedately handed the dishes first to him; when they were
+at cards he intentionally gave him the game; he announced, apropos of
+nothing at all, that the Russians were the most great-hearted, brave,
+and resolute people in the world!
+
+'Ah, you old flatterer!' Sanin thought to himself.
+
+And he was not so much surprised at Signora Roselli's unexpected state
+of mind, as at the way her daughter behaved to him. It was not that
+she avoided him ... on the contrary she sat continually a little
+distance from him, listened to what he said, and looked at him;
+but she absolutely declined to get into conversation with him, and
+directly he began talking to her, she softly rose from her place, and
+went out for some instants. Then she came in again, and again seated
+herself in some corner, and sat without stirring, seeming meditative
+and perplexed ... perplexed above all. Frau Lenore herself noticed
+at last, that she was not as usual, and asked her twice what was the
+matter.
+
+'Nothing,' answered Gemma; 'you know I am sometimes like this.'
+
+'That is true,' her mother assented.
+
+So passed all that long day, neither gaily nor drearily--neither
+cheerfully nor sadly. Had Gemma been different--Sanin ... who
+knows?... might not perhaps have been able to resist the temptation
+for a little display--or he might simply have succumbed to melancholy
+at the possibility of a separation for ever.... But as he did not
+once succeed in getting a word with Gemma, he was obliged to confine
+himself to striking minor chords on the piano for a quarter of an hour
+before evening coffee.
+
+Emil came home late, and to avoid questions about Herr Klueber, beat a
+hasty retreat. The time came for Sanin too to retire.
+
+He began saying good-bye to Gemma. He recollected for some reason
+Lensky's parting from Olga in _Oniegin_. He pressed her hand warmly,
+and tried to get a look at her face, but she turned a little away and
+released her fingers.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+It was bright starlight when he came out on the steps. What
+multitudes of stars, big and little, yellow, red, blue and white were
+scattered over the sky! They seemed all flashing, swarming, twinkling
+unceasingly. There was no moon in the sky, but without it every object
+could be clearly discerned in the half-clear, shadowless twilight.
+Sanin walked down the street to the end ... He did not want to go home
+at once; he felt a desire to wander about a little in the fresh air.
+He turned back and had hardly got on a level with the house, where was
+the Rosellis' shop, when one of the windows looking out on the street,
+suddenly creaked and opened; in its square of blackness--there was
+no light in the room--appeared a woman's figure, and he heard his
+name--'Monsieur Dimitri!'
+
+He rushed at once up to the window ... Gemma! She was leaning with her
+elbows on the window-sill, bending forward.
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' she began in a cautious voice, 'I have been
+wanting all day long to give you something ... but I could not make
+up my mind to; and just now, seeing you, quite unexpectedly again, I
+thought that it seems it is fated' ...
+
+Gemma was forced to stop at this word. She could not go on; something
+extraordinary happened at that instant.
+
+All of a sudden, in the midst of the profound stillness, over the
+perfectly unclouded sky, there blew such a violent blast of wind, that
+the very earth seemed shaking underfoot, the delicate starlight seemed
+quivering and trembling, the air went round in a whirlwind. The wind,
+not cold, but hot, almost sultry, smote against the trees, the roof
+of the house, its walls, and the street; it instantaneously snatched
+off Sanin's hat, crumpled up and tangled Gemma's curls. Sanin's head
+was on a level with the window-sill; he could not help clinging close
+to it, and Gemma clutched hold of his shoulders with both hands, and
+pressed her bosom against his head. The roar, the din, and the rattle
+lasted about a minute.... Like a flock of huge birds the revelling
+whirlwind darted revelling away. A profound stillness reigned once
+more.
+
+Sanin raised his head and saw above him such an exquisite, scared,
+excited face, such immense, large, magnificent eyes--it was such a
+beautiful creature he saw, that his heart stood still within him, he
+pressed his lips to the delicate tress of hair, that had fallen on his
+bosom, and could only murmur, 'O Gemma!'
+
+'What was that? Lightning?' she asked, her eyes wandering afar, while
+she did not take her bare arms from his shoulder.
+
+'Gemma!' repeated Sanin.
+
+She sighed, looked around behind her into the room, and with a rapid
+movement pulling the now faded rose out of her bodice, she threw it to
+Sanin.
+
+'I wanted to give you this flower.'
+
+He recognised the rose, which he had won back the day before....
+
+But already the window had slammed-to, and through the dark pane
+nothing could be seen, no trace of white.
+
+Sanin went home without his hat.... He did not even notice that he had
+lost it.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+It was quite morning when he fell asleep. And no wonder! In the
+blast of that instantaneous summer hurricane, he had almost as
+instantaneously felt, not that Gemma was lovely, not that he liked
+her--that he had known before ... but that he almost ... loved her!
+As suddenly as that blast of wind, had love pounced down upon him.
+And then this senseless duel! He began to be tormented by mournful
+forebodings. And even suppose they didn't kill him.... What could come
+of his love for this girl, another man's betrothed? Even supposing
+this 'other man' was no danger, that Gemma herself would care for him,
+or even cared for him already ... What would come of it? How ask what!
+Such a lovely creature!...
+
+He walked about the room, sat down to the table, took a sheet of
+paper, traced a few lines on it, and at once blotted them out....
+He recalled Gemma's wonderful figure in the dark window, in the
+starlight, set all a-fluttering by the warm hurricane; he remembered
+her marble arms, like the arms of the Olympian goddesses, felt their
+living weight on his shoulders.... Then he took the rose she had
+thrown him, and it seemed to him that its half-withered petals exhaled
+a fragrance of her, more delicate than the ordinary scent of the rose.
+
+'And would they kill him straight away or maim him?'
+
+He did not go to bed, and fell asleep in his clothes on the sofa.
+
+Some one slapped him on the shoulder.... He opened his eyes, and saw
+Pantaleone.
+
+'He sleeps like Alexander of Macedon on the eve of the battle of
+Babylon!' cried the old man.
+
+'What o'clock is it?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'A quarter to seven; it's a two hours' drive to Hanau, and we must
+be the first on the field. Russians are always beforehand with their
+enemies! I have engaged the best carriage in Frankfort!'
+
+Sanin began washing. 'And where are the pistols?'
+
+'That _ferroflucto Tedesco_ will bring the pistols. He'll bring a
+doctor too.'
+
+Pantaleone was obviously putting a good face on it as he had done the
+day before; but when he was seated in the carriage with Sanin, when
+the coachman had cracked his whip and the horses had started off at a
+gallop, a sudden change came over the old singer and friend of Paduan
+dragoons. He began to be confused and positively faint-hearted.
+Something seemed to have given way in him, like a badly built wall.
+
+'What are we doing, my God, _Santissima Madonna!_' he cried in an
+unexpectedly high pipe, and he clutched at his head. 'What am I about,
+old fool, madman, _frenetico_?'
+
+Sanin wondered and laughed, and putting his arm lightly round
+Pantaleone's waist, he reminded him of the French proverb: '_Le vin
+est tire--il faut le boire_.'
+
+'Yes, yes,' answered the old man, 'we will drain the cup together to
+the dregs--but still I'm a madman! I'm a madman! All was going on so
+quietly, so well ... and all of a sudden: ta-ta-ta, tra-ta-ta!'
+
+'Like the _tutti_ in the orchestra,' observed Sanin with a forced
+smile. 'But it's not your fault.'
+
+'I know it's not. I should think not indeed! And yet ... such insolent
+conduct! _Diavolo, diavolo_!' repeated Pantaleone, sighing and shaking
+his topknot.
+
+The carriage still rolled on and on.
+
+It was an exquisite morning. The streets of Frankfort, which were just
+beginning to show signs of life, looked so clean and snug; the windows
+of the houses glittered in flashes like tinfoil; and as soon as the
+carriage had driven beyond the city walls, from overhead, from a blue
+but not yet glaring sky, the larks' loud trills showered down in
+floods. Suddenly at a turn in the road, a familiar figure came from
+behind a tall poplar, took a few steps forward and stood still. Sanin
+looked more closely.... Heavens! it was Emil!
+
+'But does he know anything about it?' he demanded of Pantaleone.
+
+'I tell you I'm a madman,' the poor Italian wailed despairingly,
+almost in a shriek. 'The wretched boy gave me no peace all night, and
+this morning at last I revealed all to him!'
+
+'So much for your _segredezza_!' thought Sanin. The carriage had got
+up to Emil. Sanin told the coachman to stop the horses, and called the
+'wretched boy' up to him. Emil approached with hesitating steps, pale
+as he had been on the day he fainted. He could scarcely stand.
+
+'What are you doing here?' Sanin asked him sternly. 'Why aren't you at
+home?'
+
+'Let ... let me come with you,' faltered Emil in a trembling voice,
+and he clasped his hands. His teeth were chattering as in a fever. 'I
+won't get in your way--only take me.'
+
+'If you feel the very slightest affection or respect for me,' said
+Sanin, 'you will go at once home or to Herr Klueber's shop, and you
+won't say one word to any one, and will wait for my return!'
+
+'Your return,' moaned Emil--and his voice quivered and broke, 'but if
+you're--'
+
+'Emil!' Sanin interrupted--and he pointed to the coachman, 'do control
+yourself! Emil, please, go home! Listen to me, my dear! You say you
+love me. Well, I beg you!' He held out his hand to him. Emil bent
+forward, sobbed, pressed it to his lips, and darting away from the
+road, ran back towards Frankfort across country.
+
+'A noble heart too,' muttered Pantaleone; but Sanin glanced severely
+at him.... The old man shrank into the corner of the carriage. He was
+conscious of his fault; and moreover, he felt more and more bewildered
+every instant; could it really be he who was acting as second, who had
+got horses, and had made all arrangements, and had left his peaceful
+abode at six o'clock? Besides, his legs were stiff and aching.
+
+Sanin thought it as well to cheer him up, and he chanced on the very
+thing, he hit on the right word.
+
+'Where is your old spirit, Signor Cippatola? Where is _il antico
+valor_?'
+
+Signor Cippatola drew himself up and scowled '_Il antico valor_?' he
+boomed in a bass voice. '_Non e ancora spento_ (it's not all lost
+yet), _il antico valor!_'
+
+He put himself in a dignified attitude, began talking of his career,
+of the opera, of the great tenor Garcia--and arrived at Hanau a hero.
+
+After all, if you think of it, nothing is stronger in the world ...
+and weaker--than a word!
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+The copse in which the duel was to take place was a quarter of a mile
+from Hanau. Sanin and Pantaleone arrived there first, as the latter
+had predicted; they gave orders for the carriage to remain outside
+the wood, and they plunged into the shade of the rather thick and
+close-growing trees. They had to wait about an hour.
+
+The time of waiting did not seem particularly disagreeable to Sanin;
+he walked up and down the path, listened to the birds singing, watched
+the dragonflies in their flight, and like the majority of Russians in
+similar circumstances, tried not to think. He only once dropped into
+reflection; he came across a young lime-tree, broken down, in all
+probability by the squall of the previous night. It was unmistakably
+dying ... all the leaves on it were dead. 'What is it? an omen?'
+was the thought that flashed across his mind; but he promptly began
+whistling, leaped over the very tree, and paced up and down the path.
+As for Pantaleone, he was grumbling, abusing the Germans, sighing
+and moaning, rubbing first his back and then his knees. He even
+yawned from agitation, which gave a very comic expression to his tiny
+shrivelled-up face. Sanin could scarcely help laughing when he looked
+at him.
+
+They heard, at last, the rolling of wheels along the soft road. 'It's
+they!' said Pantaleone, and he was on the alert and drew himself up,
+not without a momentary nervous shiver, which he made haste, however,
+to cover with the ejaculation 'B-r-r!' and the remark that the morning
+was rather fresh. A heavy dew drenched the grass and leaves, but the
+sultry heat penetrated even into the wood.
+
+Both the officers quickly made their appearance under its arched
+avenues; they were accompanied by a little thick-set man, with a
+phlegmatic, almost sleepy, expression of face--the army doctor. He
+carried in one hand an earthenware pitcher of water--to be ready for
+any emergency; a satchel with surgical instruments and bandages hung
+on his left shoulder. It was obvious that he was thoroughly used to
+such excursions; they constituted one of the sources of his income;
+each duel yielded him eight gold crowns--four from each of the
+combatants. Herr von Richter carried a case of pistols, Herr von
+Doenhof--probably considering it the thing--was swinging in his hand a
+little cane.
+
+'Pantaleone!' Sanin whispered to the old man; 'if ... if I'm
+killed--anything may happen--take out of my side pocket a
+paper--there's a flower wrapped up in it--and give the paper to
+Signorina Gemma. Do you hear? You promise?'
+
+The old man looked dejectedly at him, and nodded his head
+affirmatively.... But God knows whether he understood what Sanin was
+asking him to do.
+
+The combatants and the seconds exchanged the customary bows; the
+doctor alone did not move as much as an eyelash; he sat down yawning
+on the grass, as much as to say, 'I'm not here for expressions of
+chivalrous courtesy.' Herr von Richter proposed to Herr 'Tshibadola'
+that he should select the place; Herr 'Tshibadola' responded, moving
+his tongue with difficulty--'the wall' within him had completely given
+way again. 'You act, my dear sir; I will watch....'
+
+And Herr von Richter proceeded to act. He picked out in the wood close
+by a very pretty clearing all studded with flowers; he measured out
+the steps, and marked the two extreme points with sticks, which he cut
+and pointed. He took the pistols out of the case, and squatting on his
+heels, he rammed in the bullets; in short, he fussed about and exerted
+himself to the utmost, continually mopping his perspiring brow with a
+white handkerchief. Pantaleone, who accompanied him, was more like a
+man frozen. During all these preparations, the two principals stood at
+a little distance, looking like two schoolboys who have been punished,
+and are sulky with their tutors.
+
+The decisive moment arrived.... 'Each took his pistol....'
+
+But at this point Herr von Richter observed to Pantaleone that it was
+his duty, as the senior second, according to the rules of the duel,
+to address a final word of advice and exhortation to be reconciled
+to the combatants, before uttering the fatal 'one! two! three!'; that
+although this exhortation had no effect of any sort and was, as a
+rule, nothing but an empty formality, still, by the performance of
+this formality, Herr Cippatola would be rid of a certain share of
+responsibility; that, properly speaking, such an admonition formed the
+direct duty of the so-called 'impartial witness' (_unpartheiischer
+Zeuge_) but since they had no such person present, he, Herr von
+Richter, would readily yield this privilege to his honoured colleague.
+Pantaleone, who had already succeeded in obliterating himself behind
+a bush, so as not to see the offending officer at all, at first made
+out nothing at all of Herr von Richter's speech, especially, as it
+had been delivered through the nose, but all of a sudden he started,
+stepped hurriedly forward, and convulsively thumping at his chest, in
+a hoarse voice wailed out in his mixed jargon: '_A la la la ... Che
+bestialita! Deux zeun ommes comme ca que si battono--perche? Che
+diavolo? An data a casa!_'
+
+'I will not consent to a reconciliation,' Sanin intervened hurriedly.
+
+'And I too will not,' his opponent repeated after him.
+
+'Well, then shout one, two, three!' von Richter said, addressing the
+distracted Pantaleone. The latter promptly ducked behind the bush
+again, and from there, all huddled together, his eyes screwed up, and
+his head turned away, he shouted at the top of his voice: '_Una ...
+due ... tre!_'
+
+The first shot was Sanin's, and he missed. His bullet went
+ping against a tree. Baron von Doenhof shot directly after
+him--intentionally, to one side, into the air.
+
+A constrained silence followed.... No one moved. Pantaleone uttered a
+faint moan.
+
+'Is it your wish to go on?' said Doenhof.
+
+'Why did you shoot in the air?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'That's nothing to do with you.'
+
+'Will you shoot in the air the second time?' Sanin asked again.
+
+'Possibly: I don't know.'
+
+'Excuse me, excuse me, gentlemen ...' began von Richter; 'duellists
+have not the right to talk together. That's out of order.'
+
+'I decline my shot,' said Sanin, and he threw his pistol on the
+ground.
+
+'And I too do not intend to go on with the duel,' cried Doenhof, and he
+too threw his pistol on the ground. 'And more than that, I am prepared
+to own that I was in the wrong--the day before yesterday.'
+
+He moved uneasily, and hesitatingly held out his hand. Sanin went
+rapidly up to him and shook it. Both the young men looked at each
+other with a smile, and both their faces flushed crimson.
+
+'_Bravi! bravi!_' Pantaleone roared suddenly as if he had gone mad,
+and clapping his hands, he rushed like a whirlwind from behind the
+bush; while the doctor, who had been sitting on one side on a felled
+tree, promptly rose, poured the water out of the jug and walked off
+with a lazy, rolling step out of the wood.
+
+'Honour is satisfied, and the duel is over!' von Richter announced.
+
+'_Fuori!_' Pantaleone boomed once more, through old associations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had exchanged bows with the officers, and taken his seat in
+the carriage, Sanin certainly felt all over him, if not a sense of
+pleasure, at least a certain lightness of heart, as after an operation
+is over; but there was another feeling astir within him too, a feeling
+akin to shame.... The duel, in which he had just played his part,
+struck him as something false, a got-up formality, a common officers'
+and students' farce. He recalled the phlegmatic doctor, he recalled
+how he had grinned, that is, wrinkled up his nose when he saw him
+coming out of the wood almost arm-in-arm with Baron Doenhof. And
+afterwards when Pantaleone had paid him the four crowns due to him ...
+Ah! there was something nasty about it!
+
+Yes, Sanin was a little conscience-smitten and ashamed ... though, on
+the other hand, what was there for him to have done? Could he have
+left the young officer's insolence unrebuked? could he have behaved
+like Herr Klueber? He had stood up for Gemma, he had championed her ...
+that was so; and yet, there was an uneasy pang in his heart, and he
+was conscience--smitten, and even ashamed.
+
+Not so Pantaleone--he was simply in his glory! He was suddenly
+possessed by a feeling of pride. A victorious general, returning from
+the field of battle he has won, could not have looked about him with
+greater self-satisfaction. Sanin's demeanour during the duel filled
+him with enthusiasm. He called him a hero, and would not listen to his
+exhortations and even his entreaties. He compared him to a monument
+of marble or of bronze, with the statue of the commander in Don Juan!
+For himself he admitted he had been conscious of some perturbation
+of mind, 'but, of course, I am an artist,' he observed; 'I have a
+highly-strung nature, while you are the son of the snows and the
+granite rocks.'
+
+Sanin was positively at a loss how to quiet the jubilant artist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost at the same place in the road where two hours before they had
+come upon Emil, he again jumped out from behind a tree, and, with a
+cry of joy upon his lips, waving his cap and leaping into the air,
+he rushed straight at the carriage, almost fell under the wheel,
+and, without waiting for the horses to stop, clambered up over the
+carriage-door and fairly clung to Sanin.
+
+'You are alive, you are not wounded!' he kept repeating. 'Forgive me,
+I did not obey you, I did not go back to Frankfort ... I could not! I
+waited for you here ... Tell me how was it? You ... killed him?'
+
+Sanin with some difficulty pacified Emil and made him sit down.
+
+With great verbosity, with evident pleasure, Pantaleone communicated
+to him all the details of the duel, and, of course, did not omit to
+refer again to the monument of bronze and the statue of the commander.
+He even rose from his seat and, standing with his feet wide apart to
+preserve his equilibrium, folding his arm on his chest and looking
+contemptuously over his shoulder, gave an ocular representation of the
+commander--Sanin! Emil listened with awe, occasionally interrupting
+the narrative with an exclamation, or swiftly getting up and as
+swiftly kissing his heroic friend.
+
+The carriage wheels rumbled over the paved roads of Frankfort, and
+stopped at last before the hotel where Sanin was living.
+
+Escorted by his two companions, he went up the stairs, when suddenly a
+woman came with hurried steps out of the dark corridor; her face was
+hidden by a veil, she stood still, facing Sanin, wavered a little,
+gave a trembling sigh, at once ran down into the street and vanished,
+to the great astonishment of the waiter, who explained that 'that
+lady had been for over an hour waiting for the return of the foreign
+gentleman.' Momentary as was the apparition, Sanin recognised Gemma.
+He recognised her eyes under the thick silk of her brown veil.
+
+'Did Fraeulein Gemma know, then?'... he said slowly in a displeased
+voice in German, addressing Emil and Pantaleone, who were following
+close on his heels.
+
+Emil blushed and was confused.
+
+'I was obliged to tell her all,' he faltered; 'she guessed, and I
+could not help it.... But now that's of no consequence,' he hurried to
+add eagerly, 'everything has ended so splendidly, and she has seen you
+well and uninjured!'
+
+Sanin turned away.
+
+'What a couple of chatterboxes you are!' he observed in a tone of
+annoyance, as he went into his room and sat down on a chair.
+
+'Don't be angry, please,' Emil implored.
+
+'Very well, I won't be angry'--(Sanin was not, in fact, angry--and,
+after all, he could hardly have desired that Gemma should know nothing
+about it). 'Very well ... that's enough embracing. You get along now.
+I want to be alone. I'm going to sleep. I'm tired.'
+
+'An excellent idea!' cried Pantaleone. 'You need repose! You have
+fully earned it, noble signor! Come along, Emilio! On tip-toe! On
+tip-toe! Sh--sh--sh!'
+
+When he said he wanted to go to sleep, Sanin had simply wished to get
+rid of his companions; but when he was left alone, he was really aware
+of considerable weariness in all his limbs; he had hardly closed his
+eyes all the preceding night, and throwing himself on his bed he fell
+immediately into a sound sleep.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+He slept for some hours without waking. Then he began to dream that
+he was once more fighting a duel, that the antagonist standing facing
+him was Herr Klueber, and on a fir-tree was sitting a parrot, and this
+parrot was Pantaleone, and he kept tapping with his beak: one, one,
+one!
+
+'One ... one ... one!' he heard the tapping too distinctly; he opened
+his eyes, raised his head ... some one was knocking at his door.
+
+'Come in!' called Sanin.
+
+The waiter came in and answered that a lady very particularly wished
+to see him.
+
+'Gemma!' flashed into his head ... but the lady turned out to be her
+mother, Frau Lenore.
+
+Directly she came in, she dropped at once into a chair and began to
+cry.
+
+'What is the matter, my dear, good Madame Roselli?' began Sanin,
+sitting beside her and softly touching her hand. 'What has happened?
+calm yourself, I entreat you.'
+
+'Ah, Herr Dimitri, I am very ... very miserable!'
+
+'You are miserable?'
+
+'Ah, very! Could I have foreseen such a thing? All of a sudden, like
+thunder from a clear sky ...'
+
+She caught her breath.
+
+'But what is it? Explain! Would you like a glass of water?'
+
+'No, thank you.' Frau Lenore wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and
+began to cry with renewed energy. 'I know all, you see! All!'
+
+'All? that is to say?'
+
+'Everything that took place to-day! And the cause ... I know that too!
+You acted like an honourable man; but what an unfortunate combination
+of circumstances! I was quite right in not liking that excursion to
+Soden ... quite right!' (Frau Lenore had said nothing of the sort
+on the day of the excursion, but she was convinced now that she had
+foreseen 'all' even then.) 'I have come to you as to an honourable
+man, as to a friend, though I only saw you for the first time five
+days ago.... But you know I am a widow, a lonely woman.... My
+daughter ...'
+
+Tears choked Frau Lenore's voice. Sanin did not know what to think.
+'Your daughter?' he repeated.
+
+'My daughter, Gemma,' broke almost with a groan from Frau Lenore,
+behind the tear-soaked handkerchief, 'informed me to-day that she
+would not marry Herr Klueber, and that I must refuse him!'
+
+Sanin positively started back a little; he had not expected that.
+
+'I won't say anything now,' Frau Lenore went on, 'of the disgrace
+of it, of its being something unheard of in the world for a girl to
+jilt her betrothed; but you see it's ruin for us, Herr Dimitri!' Frau
+Lenore slowly and carefully twisted up her handkerchief in a tiny,
+tiny little ball, as though she would enclose all her grief within it.
+'We can't go on living on the takings of our shop, Herr Dimitri! and
+Herr Klueber is very rich, and will be richer still. And what is he to
+be refused for? Because he did not defend his betrothed? Allowing that
+was not very handsome on his part, still, he's a civilian, has not had
+a university education, and as a solid business man, it was for him
+to look with contempt on the frivolous prank of some unknown little
+officer. And what sort of insult was it, after all, Herr Dimitri?'
+
+'Excuse me, Frau Lenore, you seem to be blaming me.'
+
+'I am not blaming you in the least, not in the least! You're quite
+another matter; you are, like all Russians, a military man ...'
+
+'Excuse me, I'm not at all ...'
+
+'You're a foreigner, a visitor, and I'm grateful to you,' Frau Lenore
+went on, not heeding Sanin. She sighed, waved her hands, unwound her
+handkerchief again, and blew her nose. Simply from the way in which
+her distress expressed itself, it could be seen that she had not been
+born under a northern sky.
+
+'And how is Herr Klueber to look after his shop, if he is to fight
+with his customers? It's utterly inconsistent! And now I am to send
+him away! But what are we going to live on? At one time we were the
+only people that made angel cakes, and nougat of pistachio nuts, and
+we had plenty of customers; but now all the shops make angel cakes!
+Only consider; even without this, they'll talk in the town about your
+duel ... it's impossible to keep it secret. And all of a sudden, the
+marriage broken off! It will be a scandal, a scandal! Gemma is a
+splendid girl, she loves me; but she's an obstinate republican, she
+doesn't care for the opinion of others. You're the only person that
+can persuade her!'
+
+Sanin was more amazed than ever. 'I, Frau Lenore?'
+
+'Yes, you alone ... you alone. That's why I have come to you; I could
+not think of anything else to do! You are so clever, so good! You
+have fought in her defence. She will trust you! She is bound to trust
+you--why, you have risked your life on her account! You will make her
+understand, for I can do nothing more; you make her understand that
+she will bring ruin on herself and all of us. You saved my son--save
+my daughter too! God Himself sent you here ... I am ready on my knees
+to beseech you....' And Frau Lenore half rose from her seat as though
+about to fall at Sanin's feet.... He restrained her.
+
+'Frau Lenore! For mercy's sake! What are you doing?'
+
+She clutched his hand impulsively. 'You promise ...'
+
+'Frau Lenore, think a moment; what right have I ...'
+
+'You promise? You don't want me to die here at once before your eyes?'
+
+Sanin was utterly nonplussed. It was the first time in his life he had
+had to deal with any one of ardent Italian blood.
+
+'I will do whatever you like,' he cried. 'I will talk to Fraeulein
+Gemma....'
+
+Frau Lenore uttered a cry of delight.
+
+'Only I really can't say what result will come of it ...'
+
+'Ah, don't go back, don't go back from your words!' cried Frau Lenore
+in an imploring voice; 'you have already consented! The result is
+certain to be excellent. Any way, _I_ can do nothing more! She won't
+listen to _me_!'
+
+'Has she so positively stated her disinclination to marry Herr
+Klueber?' Sanin inquired after a short silence.
+
+'As if she'd cut the knot with a knife! She's her father all over,
+Giovanni Battista! Wilful girl!'
+
+'Wilful? Is she!' ... Sanin said slowly. 'Yes ... yes ... but she's
+an angel too. She will mind you. Are you coming soon? Oh, my dear
+Russian friend!' Frau Lenore rose impulsively from her chair, and as
+impulsively clasped the head of Sanin, who was sitting opposite her.
+'Accept a mother's blessing--and give me some water!'
+
+Sanin brought Signora Roselli a glass of water, gave her his word of
+honour that he would come directly, escorted her down the stairs to
+the street, and when he was back in his own room, positively threw up
+his arms and opened his eyes wide in his amazement.
+
+'Well,' he thought, 'well, _now_ life is going round in a whirl! And
+it's whirling so that I'm giddy.' He did not attempt to look within,
+to realise what was going on in himself: it was all uproar and
+confusion, and that was all he knew! What a day it had been! His lips
+murmured unconsciously: 'Wilful ... her mother says ... and I have got
+to advise her ... her! And advise her what?'
+
+Sanin, really, was giddy, and above all this whirl of shifting
+sensations and impressions and unfinished thoughts, there floated
+continually the image of Gemma, the image so ineffaceably impressed on
+his memory on that hot night, quivering with electricity, in that dark
+window, in the light of the swarming stars!
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+With hesitating footsteps Sanin approached the house of Signora
+Roselli. His heart was beating violently; he distinctly felt, and even
+heard it thumping at his side. What should he say to Gemma, how should
+he begin? He went into the house, not through the shop, but by the
+back entrance. In the little outer room he met Frau Lenore. She was
+both relieved and scared at the sight of him.
+
+'I have been expecting you,' she said in a whisper, squeezing his hand
+with each of hers in turn. 'Go into the garden; she is there. Mind, I
+rely on you!'
+
+Sanin went into the garden.
+
+Gemma was sitting on a garden-seat near the path, she was sorting a
+big basket full of cherries, picking out the ripest, and putting them
+on a dish. The sun was low--it was seven o'clock in the evening--and
+there was more purple than gold in the full slanting light with which
+it flooded the whole of Signora Roselli's little garden. From time
+to time, faintly audibly, and as it were deliberately, the leaves
+rustled, and belated bees buzzed abruptly as they flew from one
+flower to the next, and somewhere a dove was cooing a never-changing,
+unceasing note. Gemma had on the same round hat in which she had
+driven to Soden. She peeped at Sanin from under its turned-down brim,
+and again bent over the basket.
+
+Sanin went up to Gemma, unconsciously making each step shorter, and
+... and ... and nothing better could he find to say to her than to ask
+why was she sorting the cherries.
+
+Gemma was in no haste to reply.
+
+'These are riper,' she observed at last, 'they will go into jam, and
+those are for tarts. You know the round sweet tarts we sell?'
+
+As she said those words, Gemma bent her head still lower, and her
+right hand with two cherries in her fingers was suspended in the air
+between the basket and the dish.
+
+'May I sit by you?' asked Sanin.
+
+'Yes.' Gemma moved a little along on the seat. Sanin placed himself
+beside her. 'How am I to begin?' was his thought. But Gemma got him
+out of his difficulty.
+
+'You have fought a duel to-day,' she began eagerly, and she turned
+all her lovely, bashfully flushing face to him--and what depths of
+gratitude were shining in those eyes! 'And you are so calm! I suppose
+for you danger does not exist?'
+
+'Oh, come! I have not been exposed to any danger. Everything went off
+very satisfactorily and inoffensively.'
+
+Gemma passed her finger to right and to left before her eyes ... Also
+an Italian gesture. 'No! no! don't say that! You won't deceive me!
+Pantaleone has told me everything!'
+
+'He's a trustworthy witness! Did he compare me to the statue of the
+commander?'
+
+'His expressions may be ridiculous, but his feeling is not ridiculous,
+nor is what you have done to-day. And all that on my account ... for
+me ... I shall never forget it.'
+
+'I assure you, Fraeulein Gemma ...'
+
+'I shall never forget it,' she said deliberately; once more she looked
+intently at him, and turned away.
+
+He could now see her delicate pure profile, and it seemed to him that
+he had never seen anything like it, and had never known anything like
+what he was feeling at that instant. His soul was on fire.
+
+'And my promise!' flashed in among his thoughts.
+
+'Fraeulein Gemma ...' he began after a momentary hesitation.
+
+'What?'
+
+She did not turn to him, she went on sorting the cherries, carefully
+taking them by their stalks with her finger-tips, assiduously picking
+out the leaves.... But what a confiding caress could be heard in that
+one word,
+
+'What?'
+
+'Has your mother said nothing to you ... about ...'
+
+'About?'
+
+'About me?'
+
+Gemma suddenly flung back into the basket the cherries she had taken.
+
+'Has she been talking to you?' she asked in her turn.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What has she been saying to you?'
+
+'She told me that you ... that you have suddenly decided to change
+... your former intention.' Gemma's head was bent again. She vanished
+altogether under her hat; nothing could be seen but her neck, supple
+and tender as the stalk of a big flower.
+
+'What intentions?'
+
+'Your intentions ... relative to ... the future arrangement of your
+life.'
+
+'That is ... you are speaking ... of Herr Klueber?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Mamma told you I don't want to be Herr Klueber's wife?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Gemma moved forward on the seat. The basket tottered, fell ... a few
+cherries rolled on to the path. A minute passed by ... another.
+
+'Why did she tell you so?' he heard her voice saying. Sanin as before
+could only see Gemma's neck. Her bosom rose and fell more rapidly than
+before.
+
+'Why? Your mother thought that as you and I, in a short time, have
+become, so to say, friends, and you have some confidence in me, I am
+in a position to give you good advice--and you would mind what I say.'
+
+Gemma's hands slowly slid on to her knees. She began plucking at the
+folds of her dress.
+
+'What advice will you give me, Monsieur Dimitri?' she asked, after a
+short pause.
+
+Sanin saw that Gemma's fingers were trembling on her knees.... She was
+only plucking at the folds of her dress to hide their trembling. He
+softly laid his hand on those pale, shaking fingers.
+
+'Gemma,' he said, 'why don't you look at me?' She instantly tossed her
+hat back on to her shoulder, and bent her eyes upon him, confiding and
+grateful as before. She waited for him to speak.... But the sight of
+her face had bewildered, and, as it were, dazed him. The warm glow of
+the evening sun lighted up her youthful head, and the expression of
+that head was brighter, more radiant than its glow.
+
+'I will mind what you say, Monsieur Dimitri,' she said, faintly
+smiling, and faintly arching her brows; 'but what advice do you give
+me?'
+
+'What advice?' repeated Sanin. 'Well, you see, your mother considers
+that to dismiss Herr Klueber simply because he did not show any special
+courage the day before yesterday ...'
+
+'Simply because?' said Gemma. She bent down, picked up the basket, and
+set it beside her on the garden seat.
+
+'That ... altogether ... to dismiss him, would be, on your part
+... unreasonable; that it is a step, all the consequences of which
+ought to be thoroughly weighed; that in fact the very position of
+your affairs imposes certain obligations on every member of your
+family ...'
+
+'All that is mamma's opinion,' Gemma interposed; 'those are her words;
+but what is your opinion?'
+
+'Mine?' Sanin was silent for a while. He felt a lump rising in his
+throat and catching at his breath. 'I too consider,' he began with an
+effort ...
+
+Gemma drew herself up. 'Too? You too?'
+
+'Yes ... that is ...' Sanin was unable, positively unable to add a
+single word more.
+
+'Very well,' said Gemma. 'If you, as a friend, advise me to change my
+decision--that is, not to change my former decision--I will think it
+over.' Not knowing what she was doing, she began to tip the cherries
+back from the plate into the basket.... 'Mamma hopes that I will mind
+what you say. Well ... perhaps I really will mind what you say.'
+
+'But excuse me, Fraeulein Gemma, I should like first to know what
+reason impelled you ...'
+
+'I will mind what you say,' Gemma repeated, her face right up to her
+brows was working, her cheeks were white, she was biting her lower
+lip. 'You have done so much for me, that I am bound to do as you wish;
+bound to carry out your wishes. I will tell mamma ... I will think
+again. Here she is, by the way, coming here.'
+
+Frau Lenore did in fact appear in the doorway leading from the house
+to the garden. She was in an agony of impatience; she could not
+keep still. According to her calculations, Sanin must long ago have
+finished all he had to say to Gemma, though his conversation with her
+had not lasted a quarter of an hour.
+
+'No, no, no, for God's sake, don't tell her anything yet,' Sanin
+articulated hurriedly, almost in alarm. 'Wait a little ... I will tell
+you, I will write to you ... and till then don't decide on anything
+... wait!'
+
+He pressed Gemma's hand, jumped up from the seat, and to Frau Lenore's
+great amazement, rushed past her, and raising his hat, muttered
+something unintelligible--and vanished.
+
+She went up to her daughter.
+
+'Tell me, please, Gemma...'
+
+The latter suddenly got up and hugged her. 'Dear mamma, can you wait a
+little, a tiny bit ... till to-morrow? Can you? And till to-morrow not
+a word?... Ah!...'
+
+She burst into sudden happy tears, incomprehensible to herself. This
+surprised Frau Lenore, the more as the expression of Gemma's face was
+far from sorrowful,--rather joyful in fact.
+
+'What is it?' she asked. 'You never cry and here, all at once ...'
+
+'Nothing, mamma, never mind! you only wait. We must both wait a
+little. Don't ask me anything till to-morrow--and let us sort the
+cherries before the sun has set.'
+
+'But you will be reasonable?'
+
+'Oh, I'm very reasonable!' Gemma shook her head significantly. She
+began to make up little bunches of cherries, holding them high above
+her flushed face. She did not wipe away her tears; they had dried of
+themselves.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Almost running, Sanin returned to his hotel room. He felt, he knew
+that only there, only by himself, would it be clear to him at last
+what was the matter, what was happening to him. And so it was;
+directly he had got inside his room, directly he had sat down to the
+writing-table, with both elbows on the table and both hands pressed to
+his face, he cried in a sad and choked voice, 'I love her, love her
+madly!' and he was all aglow within, like a fire when a thick layer
+of dead ash has been suddenly blown off. An instant more ... and he
+was utterly unable to understand how he could have sat beside her
+... her!--and talked to her and not have felt that he worshipped the
+very hem of her garment, that he was ready as young people express
+it 'to die at her feet.' The last interview in the garden had decided
+everything. Now when he thought of her, she did not appear to him with
+blazing curls in the shining starlight; he saw her sitting on the
+garden-seat, saw her all at once tossing back her hat, and gazing at
+him so confidingly ... and the tremor and hunger of love ran through
+all his veins. He remembered the rose which he had been carrying about
+in his pocket for three days: he snatched it out, and pressed it with
+such feverish violence to his lips, that he could not help frowning
+with the pain. Now he considered nothing, reflected on nothing, did
+not deliberate, and did not look forward; he had done with all his
+past, he leaped forward into the future; from the dreary bank of his
+lonely bachelor life he plunged headlong into that glad, seething,
+mighty torrent--and little he cared, little he wished to know, where
+it would carry him, or whether it would dash him against a rock! No
+more the soft-flowing currents of the Uhland song, which had lulled
+him not long ago ... These were mighty, irresistible torrents! They
+rush flying onwards and he flies with them....
+
+He took a sheet of paper, and without blotting out a word, almost with
+one sweep of the pen, wrote as follows:--
+
+'DEAR GEMMA,--You know what advice I undertook to give you, what your
+mother desired, and what she asked of me; but what you don't know and
+what I must tell you now is, that I love you, love you with all the
+ardour of a heart that loves for the first time! This passion has
+flamed up in me suddenly, but with such force that I can find no words
+for it! When your mother came to me and asked me, it was still only
+smouldering in me, or else I should certainly, as an honest man, have
+refused to carry out her request.... The confession I make you now is
+the confession of an honest man. You ought to know whom you have to do
+with--between us there should exist no misunderstandings. You see that
+I cannot give you any advice.... I love you, love you, love you--and I
+have nothing else--either in my head or in my heart!!
+
+'DM. SANIN.'
+
+When he had folded and sealed this note, Sanin was on the point of
+ringing for the waiter and sending it by him.... 'No!' he thought, 'it
+would be awkward.... By Emil? But to go to the shop, and seek him out
+there among the other employes, would be awkward too. Besides, it's
+dark by now, and he has probably left the shop.' Reflecting after this
+fashion, Sanin put on his hat, however, and went into the street; he
+turned a corner, another, and to his unspeakable delight, saw Emil
+before him. With a satchel under his arm, and a roll of papers in his
+hand, the young enthusiast was hurrying home.
+
+'They may well say every lover has a lucky star,' thought Sanin, and
+he called to Emil.
+
+The latter turned and at once rushed to him.
+
+Sanin cut short his transports, handed him the note, and explained to
+whom and how he was to deliver it.... Emil listened attentively.
+
+'So that no one sees?' he inquired, assuming an important and
+mysterious air, that said, 'We understand the inner meaning of it
+all!'
+
+'Yes, my friend,' said Sanin and he was a little disconcerted;
+however, he patted Emil on the cheek.... 'And if there should be an
+answer.... You will bring me the answer, won't you? I will stay at
+home.'
+
+'Don't worry yourself about that!' Emil whispered gaily; he ran off,
+and as he ran nodded once more to him.
+
+Sanin went back home, and without lighting a candle, flung himself
+on the sofa, put his hands behind his head, and abandoned himself to
+those sensations of newly conscious love, which it is no good even to
+describe. One who has felt them knows their languor and sweetness; to
+one who has felt them not, one could never make them known.
+
+The door opened--Emil's head appeared.
+
+'I have brought it,' he said in a whisper: 'here it is--the answer!'
+
+He showed and waved above his head a folded sheet of paper.
+
+Sanin leaped up from the sofa and snatched it out of Emil's hand.
+Passion was working too powerfully within him: he had no thought of
+reserve now, nor of the observance of a suitable demeanour--even
+before this boy, her brother. He would have been scrupulous, he would
+have controlled himself--if he could!
+
+He went to the window, and by the light of a street lamp which stood
+just opposite the house, he read the following lines:--
+
+I beg you, I beseech you--_don't come to see us, don't show yourself
+all day to-morrow_. It's necessary, absolutely necessary for me,
+and then everything shall be settled. I know you will not say no,
+because ...
+
+'GEMMA.'
+
+Sanin read this note twice through. Oh, how touchingly sweet and
+beautiful her handwriting seemed to him! He thought a little, and
+turning to Emil, who, wishing to give him to understand what a
+discreet young person he was, was standing with his face to the wall,
+and scratching on it with his finger-nails, he called him aloud by
+name.
+
+Emil ran at once to Sanin. 'What do you want me to do?'
+
+'Listen, my young friend...'
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' Emil interrupted in a plaintive voice, 'why do you
+address me so formally?'
+
+Sanin laughed. 'Oh, very well. Listen, my dearest boy--(Emil gave a
+little skip of delight)--listen; _there_ you understand, there, you
+will say, that everything shall be done exactly as is wished--(Emil
+compressed his lips and nodded solemnly)--and as for me ... what are
+you doing to-morrow, my dear boy?'
+
+'I? what am I doing? What would you like me to do?'
+
+'If you can, come to me early in the morning--and we will walk about
+the country round Frankfort till evening.... Would you like to?'
+
+Emil gave another little skip. 'I say, what in the world could be
+jollier? Go a walk with you--why, it's simply glorious! I'll be sure
+to come!'
+
+'And if they won't let you?'
+
+'They will let me!'
+
+'Listen ... Don't say _there_ that I asked you to come for the whole
+day.'
+
+'Why should I? But I'll get away all the same! What does it matter?'
+
+Emil warmly kissed Sanin, and ran away.
+
+Sanin walked up and down the room a long while, and went late to bed.
+He gave himself up to the same delicate and sweet sensations, the same
+joyous thrill at facing a new life. Sanin was very glad that the idea
+had occurred to him to invite Emil to spend the next day with him; he
+was like his sister. 'He will recall her,' was his thought.
+
+But most of all, he marvelled how he could have been yesterday other
+than he was to-day. It seemed to him that he had loved Gemma for all
+time; and that he had loved her just as he loved her to-day.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+At eight o'clock next morning, Emil arrived at Sanin's hotel leading
+Tartaglia by a string. Had he sprung of German parentage, he could
+not have shown greater practicality. He had told a lie at home; he
+had said he was going for a walk with Sanin till lunch-time, and then
+going to the shop. While Sanin was dressing, Emil began to talk to
+him, rather hesitatingly, it is true, about Gemma, about her rupture
+with Herr Klueber; but Sanin preserved an austere silence in reply, and
+Emil, looking as though he understood why so serious a matter should
+not be touched on lightly, did not return to the subject, and only
+assumed from time to time an intense and even severe expression.
+
+After drinking coffee, the two friends set off together--on foot,
+of course--to Hausen, a little village lying a short distance from
+Frankfort, and surrounded by woods. The whole chain of the Taunus
+mountains could be seen clearly from there. The weather was lovely;
+the sunshine was bright and warm, but not blazing hot; a fresh wind
+rustled briskly among the green leaves; the shadows of high, round
+clouds glided swiftly and smoothly in small patches over the earth.
+The two young people soon got out of the town, and stepped out boldly
+and gaily along the well-kept road. They reached the woods, and
+wandered about there a long time; then they lunched very heartily at
+a country inn; then climbed on to the mountains, admired the views,
+rolled stones down and clapped their hands, watching the queer droll
+way in which the stones hopped along like rabbits, till a man passing
+below, unseen by them, began abusing them in a loud ringing voice.
+Then they lay full length on the short dry moss of yellowish-violet
+colour; then they drank beer at another inn; ran races, and tried for
+a wager which could jump farthest. They discovered an echo, and began
+to call to it; sang songs, hallooed, wrestled, broke up dry twigs,
+decked their hats with fern, and even danced. Tartaglia, as far as he
+could, shared in all these pastimes; he did not throw stones, it is
+true, but he rolled head over heels after them; he howled when they
+were singing, and even drank beer, though with evident aversion;
+he had been trained in this art by a student to whom he had once
+belonged. But he was not prompt in obeying Emil--not as he was with
+his master Pantaleone--and when Emil ordered him to 'speak,' or to
+'sneeze,' he only wagged his tail and thrust out his tongue like a
+pipe.
+
+The young people talked, too. At the beginning of the walk, Sanin, as
+the elder, and so more reflective, turned the conversation on fate and
+predestination, and the nature and meaning of man's destiny; but the
+conversation quickly took a less serious turn. Emil began to question
+his friend and patron about Russia, how duels were fought there, and
+whether the women there were beautiful, and whether one could learn
+Russian quickly, and what he had felt when the officer took aim
+at him. Sanin, on his side, questioned Emil about his father, his
+mother, and in general about their family affairs, trying every time
+not to mention Gemma's name--and thinking only of her. To speak more
+precisely, it was not of her he was thinking, but of the morrow, the
+mysterious morrow which was to bring him new, unknown happiness! It
+was as though a veil, a delicate, bright veil, hung faintly fluttering
+before his mental vision; and behind this veil he felt ... felt the
+presence of a youthful, motionless, divine image, with a tender smile
+on its lips, and eyelids severely--with affected seventy--downcast.
+And this image was not the face of Gemma, it was the face of happiness
+itself! For, behold, at last _his_ hour had come, the veil had
+vanished, the lips were parting, the eyelashes are raised--his
+divinity has looked upon him--and at once light as from the sun,
+and joy and bliss unending! He dreamed of this morrow--and his soul
+thrilled with joy again in the melting torture of ever-growing
+expectation!
+
+And this expectation, this torture, hindered nothing. It accompanied
+every action, and did not prevent anything. It did not prevent him
+from dining capitally at a third inn with Emil; and only occasionally,
+like a brief flash of lightning, the thought shot across him, What
+if any one in the world knew? This suspense did not prevent him from
+playing leap-frog with Emil after dinner. The game took place on an
+open green lawn. And the confusion, the stupefaction of Sanin may be
+imagined! At the very moment when, accompanied by a sharp bark from
+Tartaglia, he was flying like a bird, with his legs outspread over
+Emil, who was bent double, he suddenly saw on the farthest border of
+the lawn two officers, in whom he recognised at once his adversary and
+his second, Herr von Doenhof and Herr von Richter! Each of them had
+stuck an eyeglass in his eye, and was staring at him, chuckling!...
+Sanin got on his feet, turned away hurriedly, put on the coat he had
+flung down, jerked out a word to Emil; the latter, too, put on his
+jacket, and they both immediately made off.
+
+It was late when they got back to Frankfort. 'They'll scold me,' Emil
+said to Sanin as he said good-bye to him. 'Well, what does it matter?
+I've had such a splendid, splendid day!'
+
+When he got home to his hotel, Sanin found a note there from Gemma.
+She fixed a meeting with him for next day, at seven o'clock in the
+morning, in one of the public gardens which surround Frankfort on all
+sides.
+
+How his heart throbbed! How glad he was that he had obeyed her so
+unconditionally! And, my God, what was promised ... what was not
+promised, by that unknown, unique, impossible, and undubitably certain
+morrow!
+
+He feasted his eyes on Gemma's note. The long, elegant tail of the
+letter G, the first letter of her name, which stood at the bottom of
+the sheet, reminded him of her lovely fingers, her hand.... He thought
+that he had not once touched that hand with his lips.... 'Italian
+women,' he mused, 'in spite of what's said of them, are modest and
+severe.... And Gemma above all! Queen ... goddess ... pure, virginal
+marble....'
+
+'But the time will come; and it is not far off....' There was that
+night in Frankfort one happy man.... He slept; but he might have said
+of himself in the words of the poet:
+
+  'I sleep ... but my watchful heart sleeps not.'
+
+And it fluttered as lightly as a butterfly flutters his wings, as he
+stoops over the flowers in the summer sunshine.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+At five o'clock Sanin woke up, at six he was dressed, at half-past
+six he was walking up and down the public garden within sight of the
+little arbour which Gemma had mentioned in her note. It was a still,
+warm, grey morning. It sometimes seemed as though it were beginning
+to rain; but the outstretched hand felt nothing, and only looking at
+one's coat-sleeve, one could see traces of tiny drops like diminutive
+beads, but even these were soon gone. It seemed there had never been
+a breath of wind in the world. Every sound moved not, but was shed
+around in the stillness. In the distance was a faint thickening of
+whitish mist; in the air there was a scent of mignonette and white
+acacia flowers.
+
+In the streets the shops were not open yet, but there were already
+some people walking about; occasionally a solitary carriage rumbled
+along ... there was no one walking in the garden. A gardener was in a
+leisurely way scraping the path with a spade, and a decrepit old woman
+in a black woollen cloak was hobbling across the garden walk. Sanin
+could not for one instant mistake this poor old creature for Gemma;
+and yet his heart leaped, and he watched attentively the retreating
+patch of black.
+
+Seven! chimed the clock on the tower. Sanin stood still. Was it
+possible she would not come? A shiver of cold suddenly ran through
+his limbs. The same shiver came again an instant later, but from a
+different cause. Sanin heard behind him light footsteps, the light
+rustle of a woman's dress.... He turned round: she!
+
+Gemma was coming up behind him along the path. She was wearing a grey
+cape and a small dark hat. She glanced at Sanin, turned her head away,
+and catching him up, passed rapidly by him.
+
+'Gemma,' he articulated, hardly audibly.
+
+She gave him a little nod, and continued to walk on in front. He
+followed her.
+
+He breathed in broken gasps. His legs shook under him.
+
+Gemma passed by the arbour, turned to the right, passed by a small
+flat fountain, in which the sparrows were splashing busily, and, going
+behind a clump of high lilacs, sank down on a bench. The place was
+snug and hidden. Sanin sat down beside her.
+
+A minute passed, and neither he nor she uttered a word. She did not
+even look at him; and he gazed not at her face, but at her clasped
+hands, in which she held a small parasol. What was there to tell, what
+was there to say, which could compare, in importance, with the simple
+fact of their presence there, together, alone, so early, so close to
+each other.
+
+'You ... are not angry with me?' Sanin articulated at last.
+
+It would have been difficult for Sanin to have said anything more
+foolish than these words ... he was conscious of it himself.... But,
+at any rate, the silence was broken.
+
+'Angry?' she answered. 'What for? No.'
+
+'And you believe me?' he went on.
+
+'In what you wrote?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Gemma's head sank, and she said nothing. The parasol slipped out of
+her hands. She hastily caught it before it dropped on the path.
+
+'Ah, believe me! believe what I wrote to you!' cried Sanin; all his
+timidity suddenly vanished, he spoke with heat; 'if there is truth
+on earth--sacred, absolute truth--it's that I love, love you
+passionately, Gemma.'
+
+She flung him a sideway, momentary glance, and again almost dropped
+the parasol.
+
+'Believe me! believe me!' he repeated. He besought her, held out his
+hands to her, and did not dare to touch her. 'What do you want me to
+do ... to convince you?'
+
+She glanced at him again.
+
+'Tell me, Monsieur Dimitri,' she began; 'the day before yesterday,
+when you came to talk to me, you did not, I imagine, know then ... did
+not feel ...'
+
+'I felt it,' Sanin broke in; 'but I did not know it. I have loved you
+from the very instant I saw you; but I did not realise at once what
+you had become to me! And besides, I heard that you were solemnly
+betrothed.... As far as your mother's request is concerned--in the
+first place, how could I refuse?--and secondly, I think I carried out
+her request in such a way that you could guess....'
+
+They heard a heavy tread, and a rather stout gentleman with a knapsack
+over his shoulder, apparently a foreigner, emerged from behind the
+clump, and staring, with the unceremoniousness of a tourist, at the
+couple sitting on the garden-seat, gave a loud cough and went on.
+
+'Your mother,' Sanin began, as soon as the sound of the heavy
+footsteps had ceased, 'told me your breaking off your engagement would
+cause a scandal'--Gemma frowned a little--that I was myself in part
+responsible for unpleasant gossip, and that ... consequently ... I
+was, to some extent, under an obligation to advise you not to break
+with your betrothed, Herr Klueber....'
+
+'Monsieur Dimitri,' said Gemma, and she passed her hand over her hair
+on the side turned towards Sanin, 'don't, please, call Herr Klueber my
+betrothed. I shall never be his wife. I have broken with him.'
+
+'You have broken with him? when?'
+
+'Yesterday.'
+
+'You saw him?'
+
+'Yes. At our house. He came to see us.'
+
+'Gemma? Then you love me?'
+
+She turned to him.
+
+'Should ... I have come here, if not?' she whispered, and both her
+hands fell on the seat.
+
+Sanin snatched those powerless, upturned palms, and pressed them to
+his eyes, to his lips.... Now the veil was lifted of which he had
+dreamed the night before! Here was happiness, here was its radiant
+form!
+
+He raised his head, and looked at Gemma, boldly and directly. She,
+too, looked at him, a little downwards. Her half-shut eyes faintly
+glistened, dim with light, blissful tears. Her face was not smiling
+... no! it laughed, with a blissful, noiseless laugh.
+
+He tried to draw her to him, but she drew back, and never ceasing to
+laugh the same noiseless laugh, shook her head. 'Wait a little,' her
+happy eyes seemed to say.
+
+'O Gemma!' cried Sanin: 'I never dreamed that you would love me!'
+
+'I did not expect this myself,' Gemma said softly.
+
+'How could I ever have dreamed,' Sanin went on, 'when I came to
+Frankfort, where I only expected to remain a few hours, that I should
+find here the happiness of all my life!'
+
+'All your life? Really?' queried Gemma.
+
+'All my life, for ever and ever!' cried Sanin with fresh ardour.
+
+The gardener's spade suddenly scraped two paces from where they were
+sitting.
+
+'Let's go home,' whispered Gemma: 'we'll go together--will you?'
+
+If she had said to him at that instant 'Throw yourself in the sea,
+will you?' he would have been flying headlong into the ocean before
+she had uttered the last word.
+
+They went together out of the garden and turned homewards, not by the
+streets of the town, but through the outskirts.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+Sanin walked along, at one time by Gemma's side, at another time a
+little behind her. He never took his eyes off her and never ceased
+smiling. She seemed to hasten ... seemed to linger. As a matter of
+fact, they both--he all pale, and she all flushed with emotion--were
+moving along as in a dream. What they had done together a few instants
+before--that surrender of each soul to another soul--was so intense,
+so new, and so moving; so suddenly everything in their lives had been
+changed and displaced that they could not recover themselves, and were
+only aware of a whirlwind carrying them along, like the whirlwind
+on that night, which had almost flung them into each other's arms.
+Sanin walked along, and felt that he even looked at Gemma with other
+eyes; he instantly noted some peculiarities in her walk, in her
+movements,--and heavens! how infinitely sweet and precious they were
+to him! And she felt that that was how he was looking at her.
+
+Sanin and she were in love for the first time; all the miracles of
+first love were working in them. First love is like a revolution; the
+uniformly regular routine of ordered life is broken down and shattered
+in one instant; youth mounts the barricade, waves high its bright
+flag, and whatever awaits it in the future--death or a new life--all
+alike it goes to meet with ecstatic welcome.
+
+'What's this? Isn't that our old friend?' said Sanin, pointing to a
+muffled-up figure, which hurriedly slipped a little aside as though
+trying to remain unobserved. In the midst of his abundant happiness he
+felt a need to talk to Gemma, not of love--that was a settled thing
+and holy--but of something else.
+
+'Yes, it's Pantaleone,' Gemma answered gaily and happily. 'Most likely
+he has been following me ever since I left home; all day yesterday he
+kept watching every movement I made ... He guesses!'
+
+'He guesses!' Sanin repeated in ecstasy. What could Gemma have said at
+which he would not have been in ecstasy?
+
+Then he asked her to tell him in detail all that had passed the day
+before.
+
+And she began at once telling him, with haste, and confusion, and
+smiles, and brief sighs, and brief bright looks exchanged with Sanin.
+She said that after their conversation the day before yesterday,
+mamma had kept trying to get out of her something positive; but that
+she had put off Frau Lenore with a promise to tell her her decision
+within twenty-four hours; how she had demanded this limit of time
+for herself, and how difficult it had been to get it; how utterly
+unexpectedly Herr Klueber had made his appearance more starched and
+affected than ever; how he had given vent to his indignation at the
+childish, unpardonable action of the Russian stranger--'he meant
+your duel, Dimitri,'--which he described as deeply insulting to him,
+Klueber, and how he had demanded that 'you should be at once refused
+admittance to the house, Dimitri.' 'For,' he had added--and here
+Gemma slightly mimicked his voice and manner--'"it casts a slur on
+my honour; as though I were not able to defend my betrothed, had
+I thought it necessary or advisable! All Frankfort will know by
+to-morrow that an outsider has fought a duel with an officer on
+account of my betrothed--did any one ever hear of such a thing! It
+tarnishes my honour!" Mamma agreed with him--fancy!--but then I
+suddenly told him that he was troubling himself unnecessarily about
+his honour and his character, and was unnecessarily annoyed at the
+gossip about his betrothed, for I was no longer betrothed to him and
+would never be his wife! I must own, I had meant to talk to you first
+... before breaking with him finally; but he came ... and I could not
+restrain myself. Mamma positively screamed with horror, but I went
+into the next room and got his ring--you didn't notice, I took it off
+two days ago--and gave it to him. He was fearfully offended, but as he
+is fearfully self-conscious and conceited, he did not say much, and
+went away. Of course I had to go through a great deal with mamma, and
+it made me very wretched to see how distressed she was, and I thought
+I had been a little hasty; but you see I had your note, and even apart
+from it I knew ...'
+
+'That I love you,' put in Sanin.
+
+'Yes ... that you were in love with me.'
+
+So Gemma talked, hesitating and smiling and dropping her voice or
+stopping altogether every time any one met them or passed by. And
+Sanin listened ecstatically, enjoying the very sound of her voice, as
+the day before he had gloated over her handwriting.
+
+'Mamma is very much distressed,' Gemma began again, and her words
+flew very rapidly one after another; 'she refuses to take into
+consideration that I dislike Herr Klueber, that I never was betrothed
+to him from love, but only because of her urgent entreaties....
+She suspects--you, Dimitri; that's to say, to speak plainly, she's
+convinced I'm in love with you, and she is more unhappy about it
+because only the day before yesterday nothing of the sort had occurred
+to her, and she even begged you to advise me.... It was a strange
+request, wasn't it? Now she calls you ... Dimitri, a hypocrite and
+a cunning fellow, says that you have betrayed her confidence, and
+predicts that you will deceive me....'
+
+'But, Gemma,' cried Sanin, 'do you mean to say you didn't tell
+her?...'
+
+'I told her nothing! What right had I without consulting you?'
+
+Sanin threw up his arms. 'Gemma, I hope that now, at least, you will
+tell all to her and take me to her.... I want to convince your mother
+that I am not a base deceiver!'
+
+Sanin's bosom fairly heaved with the flood of generous and ardent
+emotions.
+
+Gemma looked him full in the face. 'You really want to go with me
+now to mamma? to mamma, who maintains that ... all this between us
+is impossible--and can never come to pass?' There was one word Gemma
+could not bring herself to utter.... It burnt her lips; but all the
+more eagerly Sanin pronounced it.
+
+'Marry you, Gemma, be your husband--I can imagine no bliss greater!'
+
+To his love, his magnanimity, his determination--he was aware of no
+limits now.
+
+When she heard those words, Gemma, who had stopped still for an
+instant, went on faster than ever.... She seemed trying to run away
+from this too great and unexpected happiness! But suddenly her
+steps faltered. Round the corner of a turning, a few paces from
+her, in a new hat and coat, straight as an arrow and curled like a
+poodle--emerged Herr Klueber. He caught sight of Gemma, caught sight
+of Sanin, and with a sort of inward snort and a backward bend of his
+supple figure, he advanced with a dashing swing to meet them. Sanin
+felt a pang; but glancing at Klueber's face, to which its owner
+endeavoured, as far as in him lay, to give an expression of scornful
+amazement, and even commiseration, glancing at that red-cheeked,
+vulgar face, he felt a sudden rush of anger, and took a step forward.
+
+Gemma seized his arm, and with quiet decision, giving him hers, she
+looked her former betrothed full in the face.... The latter screwed up
+his face, shrugged his shoulders, shuffled to one side, and muttering
+between his teeth, 'The usual end to the song!' (Das alte Ende vom
+Liede!)--walked away with the same dashing, slightly skipping gait.
+
+'What did he say, the wretched creature?' asked Sanin, and would have
+rushed after Klueber; but Gemma held him back and walked on with him,
+not taking away the arm she had slipped into his.
+
+The Rosellis' shop came into sight. Gemma stopped once more.
+
+'Dimitri, Monsieur Dimitri,' she said, 'we are not there yet, we have
+not seen mamma yet.... If you would rather think a little, if ... you
+are still free, Dimitri!'
+
+In reply Sanin pressed her hand tightly to his bosom, and drew her on.
+
+'Mamma,' said Gemma, going with Sanin to the room where Frau Lenore
+was sitting, 'I have brought the real one!'
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+If Gemma had announced that she had brought with her cholera or death
+itself, one can hardly imagine that Frau Lenore could have received
+the news with greater despair. She immediately sat down in a corner,
+with her face to the wall, and burst into floods of tears, positively
+wailed, for all the world like a Russian peasant woman on the grave of
+her husband or her son. For the first minute Gemma was so taken aback
+that she did not even go up to her mother, but stood still like a
+statue in the middle of the room; while Sanin was utterly stupefied,
+to the point of almost bursting into tears himself! For a whole hour
+that inconsolable wail went on--a whole hour! Pantaleone thought it
+better to shut the outer door of the shop, so that no stranger should
+come; luckily, it was still early. The old man himself did not know
+what to think, and in any case, did not approve of the haste with
+which Gemma and Sanin had acted; he could not bring himself to blame
+them, and was prepared to give them his support in case of need:
+he greatly disliked Klueber! Emil regarded himself as the medium of
+communication between his friend and his sister, and almost prided
+himself on its all having turned out so splendidly! He was positively
+unable to conceive why Frau Lenore was so upset, and in his heart he
+decided on the spot that women, even the best of them, suffer from a
+lack of reasoning power! Sanin fared worst of all. Frau Lenore rose to
+a howl and waved him off with her hands, directly he approached her;
+and it was in vain that he attempted once or twice to shout aloud,
+standing at a distance, 'I ask you for your daughter's hand!' Frau
+Lenore was particularly angry with herself. 'How could she have been
+so blind--have seen nothing? Had my Giovann' Battista been alive,'
+she persisted through her tears, 'nothing of this sort would have
+happened!' 'Heavens, what's it all about?' thought Sanin; 'why, it's
+positively senseless!' He did not dare to look at Gemma, nor could she
+pluck up courage to lift her eyes to him. She restricted herself to
+waiting patiently on her mother, who at first repelled even her....
+
+At last, by degrees, the storm abated. Frau Lenore gave over weeping,
+permitted Gemma to bring her out of the corner, where she sat huddled
+up, to put her into an arm-chair near the window, and to give her some
+orange-flower water to drink. She permitted Sanin--not to approach
+... oh, no!--but, at any rate, to remain in the room--she had kept
+clamouring for him to go away--and did not interrupt him when he
+spoke. Sanin immediately availed himself of the calm as it set in, and
+displayed an astounding eloquence. He could hardly have explained his
+intentions and emotions with more fire and persuasive force even to
+Gemma herself. Those emotions were of the sincerest, those intentions
+were of the purest, like Almaviva's in the _Barber of Seville_. He
+did not conceal from Frau Lenore nor from himself the disadvantageous
+side of those intentions; but the disadvantages were only apparent!
+It is true he was a foreigner; they had not known him long, they knew
+nothing positive about himself or his means; but he was prepared to
+bring forward all the necessary evidence that he was a respectable
+person and not poor; he would refer them to the most unimpeachable
+testimony of his fellow-countrymen! He hoped Gemma would be happy with
+him, and that he would be able to make up to her for the separation
+from her own people!... The allusion to 'separation'--the mere word
+'separation'--almost spoiled the whole business.... Frau Lenore began
+to tremble all over and move about uneasily.... Sanin hastened to
+observe that the separation would only be temporary, and that, in
+fact, possibly it would not take place at all!
+
+Sanin's eloquence was not thrown away. Frau Lenore began to glance at
+him, though still with bitterness and reproach, no longer with the
+same aversion and fury; then she suffered him to come near her, and
+even to sit down beside her (Gemma was sitting on the other side);
+then she fell to reproaching him,--not in looks only, but in words,
+which already indicated a certain softening of heart; she fell to
+complaining, and her complaints became quieter and gentler; they were
+interspersed with questions addressed at one time to her daughter, and
+at another to Sanin; then she suffered him to take her hand and did
+not at once pull it away ... then she wept again, but her tears were
+now quite of another kind.... Then she smiled mournfully, and lamented
+the absence of Giovanni Battista, but quite on different grounds from
+before.... An instant more and the two criminals, Sanin and Gemma,
+were on their knees at her feet, and she was laying her hands on their
+heads in turn; another instant and they were embracing and kissing
+her, and Emil, his face beaming rapturously, ran into the room and
+added himself to the group so warmly united.
+
+Pantaleone peeped into the room, smiled and frowned at the same time,
+and going into the shop, opened the front door.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+The transition from despair to sadness, and from that to 'gentle
+resignation,' was accomplished fairly quickly in Frau Lenore; but
+that gentle resignation, too, was not slow in changing into a
+secret satisfaction, which was, however, concealed in every way and
+suppressed for the sake of appearances. Sanin had won Frau Lenore's
+heart from the first day of their acquaintance; as she got used to
+the idea of his being her son-in-law, she found nothing particularly
+distasteful in it, though she thought it her duty to preserve
+a somewhat hurt, or rather careworn, expression on her face.
+Besides, everything that had happened the last few days had been so
+extraordinary.... One thing upon the top of another. As a practical
+woman and a mother, Frau Lenore considered it her duty also to put
+Sanin through various questions; and Sanin, who, on setting out that
+morning to meet Gemma, had not a notion that he should marry her--it
+is true he did not think of anything at all at that time, but simply
+gave himself up to the current of his passion--Sanin entered, with
+perfect readiness, one might even say with zeal, into his part--the
+part of the betrothed lover, and answered all her inquiries
+circumstantially, exactly, with alacrity. When she had satisfied
+herself that he was a real nobleman by birth, and had even expressed
+some surprise that he was not a prince, Frau Lenore assumed a serious
+air and 'warned him betimes' that she should be quite unceremoniously
+frank with him, as she was forced to be so by her sacred duty as a
+mother! To which Sanin replied that he expected nothing else from her,
+and that he earnestly begged her not to spare him!
+
+Then Frau Lenore observed that Herr Klueber--as she uttered the name,
+she sighed faintly, tightened her lips, and hesitated--Herr Klueber,
+Gemma's former betrothed, already possessed an income of eight
+thousand guldens, and that with every year this sum would rapidly be
+increased; and what was his, Herr Sanin's income? 'Eight thousand
+guldens,' Sanin repeated deliberately.... 'That's in our money ...
+about fifteen thousand roubles.... My income is much smaller. I have
+a small estate in the province of Tula.... With good management, it
+might yield--and, in fact, it could not fail to yield--five or six
+thousand ... and if I go into the government service, I can easily get
+a salary of two thousand a year.'
+
+'Into the service in Russia?' cried Frau Lenore, 'Then I must part
+with Gemma!'
+
+'One might be able to enter in the diplomatic service,' Sanin put
+in; 'I have some connections.... There one's duties lie abroad. Or
+else, this is what one might do, and that's much the best of all:
+sell my estate and employ the sum received for it in some profitable
+undertaking; for instance, the improvement of your shop.' Sanin was
+aware that he was saying something absurd, but he was possessed by an
+incomprehensible recklessness! He looked at Gemma, who, ever since
+the 'practical' conversation began, kept getting up, walking about
+the room, and sitting down again--he looked at her--and no obstacle
+existed for him, and he was ready to arrange everything at once in the
+best way, if only she were not troubled!
+
+'Herr Klueber, too, had intended to give me a small sum for the
+improvement of the shop,' Lenore observed after a slight hesitation.
+
+'Mother! for mercy's sake, mother!' cried Gemma in Italian.
+
+'These things must be discussed in good time, my daughter,' Frau
+Lenore replied in the same language. She addressed herself again to
+Sanin, and began questioning him as to the laws existing in Russia
+as to marriage, and whether there were no obstacles to contracting
+marriages with Catholics as in Prussia. (At that time, in 1840,
+all Germany still remembered the controversy between the Prussian
+Government and the Archbishop of Cologne upon mixed marriages.)
+When Frau Lenore heard that by marrying a Russian nobleman, her
+daughter would herself become of noble rank, she evinced a certain
+satisfaction. 'But, of course, you will first have to go to Russia?'
+
+'Why?'
+
+'Why? Why, to obtain the permission of your Tsar.'
+
+Sanin explained to her that that was not at all necessary ... but that
+he might certainly have to go to Russia for a very short time before
+his marriage--(he said these words, and his heart ached painfully,
+Gemma watching him, knew it was aching, and blushed and grew
+dreamy)--and that he would try to take advantage of being in his own
+country to sell his estate ... in any case he would bring back the
+money needed.
+
+'I would ask you to bring me back some good Astrakhan lambskin for
+a cape,' said Frau Lenore. 'They're wonderfully good, I hear, and
+wonderfully cheap!'
+
+'Certainly, with the greatest pleasure, I will bring some for you and
+for Gemma!' cried Sanin.
+
+'And for me a morocco cap worked in silver,' Emil interposed, putting
+his head in from the next room.
+
+'Very well, I will bring it you ... and some slippers for Pantaleone.'
+
+'Come, that's nonsense, nonsense,' observed Frau Lenore. 'We are
+talking now of serious matters. But there's another point,' added the
+practical lady. 'You talk of selling your estate. But how will you do
+that? Will you sell your peasants then, too?'
+
+Sanin felt something like a stab at his heart. He remembered that in
+a conversation with Signora Roselli and her daughter about serfdom,
+which, in his own words, aroused his deepest indignation, he had
+repeatedly assured them that never on any account would he sell his
+peasants, as he regarded such a sale as an immoral act.
+
+'I will try and sell my estate to some man I know something of,'
+he articulated, not without faltering, 'or perhaps the peasants
+themselves will want to buy their freedom.'
+
+'That would be best of all,' Frau Lenore agreed. 'Though indeed
+selling live people ...'
+
+'_Barbari_!' grumbled Pantaleone, who showed himself behind Emil in
+the doorway, shook his topknot, and vanished.
+
+'It's a bad business!' Sanin thought to himself, and stole a look
+at Gemma. She seemed not to have heard his last words. 'Well, never
+mind!' he thought again. In this way the practical talk continued
+almost uninterruptedly till dinner-time. Frau Lenore was completely
+softened at last, and already called Sanin 'Dimitri,' shook her finger
+affectionately at him, and promised she would punish him for his
+treachery. She asked many and minute questions about his relations,
+because 'that too is very important'; asked him to describe the
+ceremony of marriage as performed by the ritual of the Russian Church,
+and was in raptures already at Gemma in a white dress, with a gold
+crown on her head.
+
+'She's as lovely as a queen,' she murmured with motherly pride,'
+indeed there's no queen like her in the world!'
+
+'There is no one like Gemma in the world!' Sanin chimed in.
+
+'Yes; that's why she is Gemma!' (Gemma, as every one knows, means in
+Italian a precious stone.)
+
+Gemma flew to kiss her mother.... It seemed as if only then she
+breathed freely again, and the load that had been oppressing her
+dropped from off her soul.
+
+Sanin felt all at once so happy, his heart was filled with such
+childish gaiety at the thought, that here, after all, the dreams had
+come true to which he had abandoned himself not long ago in these very
+rooms, his whole being was in such a turmoil that he went quickly
+out into the shop. He felt a great desire, come what might, to sell
+something in the shop, as he had done a few days before.... 'I have a
+full right to do so now!' he felt. 'Why, I am one of the family now!'
+And he actually stood behind the counter, and actually kept shop, that
+is, sold two little girls, who came in, a pound of sweets, giving them
+fully two pounds, and only taking half the price from them.
+
+At dinner he received an official position, as betrothed, beside
+Gemma. Frau Lenore pursued her practical investigations. Emil kept
+laughing and urging Sanin to take him with him to Russia. It was
+decided that Sanin should set off in a fortnight. Only Pantaleone
+showed a somewhat sullen face, so much so that Frau Lenore reproached
+him. 'And he was his second!' Pantaleone gave her a glance from under
+his brows.
+
+Gemma was silent almost all the time, but her face had never been
+lovelier or brighter. After dinner she called Sanin out a minute into
+the garden, and stopping beside the very garden-seat where she had
+been sorting the cherries two days before, she said to him. 'Dimitri,
+don't be angry with me; but I must remind you once more that you are
+not to consider yourself bound ...'
+
+He did not let her go on....
+
+Gemma turned away her face. 'And as for what mamma spoke of, do you
+remember, the difference of our religion--see here!...'
+
+She snatched the garnet cross that hung round her neck on a thin cord,
+gave it a violent tug, snapped the cord, and handed him the cross.
+
+'If I am yours, your faith is my faith!' Sanin's eyes were still wet
+when he went back with Gemma into the house.
+
+By the evening everything went on in its accustomed way. They even
+played a game of _tresette_.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+Sanin woke up very early. He found himself at the highest pinnacle of
+human happiness; but it was not that prevented him from sleeping; the
+question, the vital, fateful question--how he could dispose of his
+estate as quickly and as advantageously as possible--disturbed his
+rest. The most diverse plans were mixed up in his head, but nothing
+had as yet come out clearly. He went out of the house to get air and
+freshen himself. He wanted to present himself to Gemma with a project
+ready prepared and not without.
+
+What was the figure, somewhat ponderous and thick in the legs, but
+well-dressed, walking in front of him, with a slight roll and waddle
+in his gait? Where had he seen that head, covered with tufts of flaxen
+hair, and as it were set right into the shoulders, that soft cushiony
+back, those plump arms hanging straight down at his sides? Could it be
+Polozov, his old schoolfellow, whom he had lost sight of for the last
+five years? Sanin overtook the figure walking in front of him, turned
+round.... A broad, yellowish face, little pig's eyes, with white
+lashes and eyebrows, a short flat nose, thick lips that looked glued
+together, a round smooth chin, and that expression, sour, sluggish,
+and mistrustful--yes; it was he, it was Ippolit Polozov!
+
+'Isn't my lucky star working for me again?' flashed through Sanin's
+mind.
+
+'Polozov! Ippolit Sidorovitch! Is it you?'
+
+The figure stopped, raised his diminutive eyes, waited a little, and
+ungluing his lips at last, brought out in a rather hoarse falsetto,
+'Dimitri Sanin?'
+
+'That's me!' cried Sanin, and he shook one of Polozov's hands; arrayed
+in tight kid-gloves of an ashen-grey colour, they hung as lifeless as
+before beside his barrel-shaped legs. 'Have you been here long? Where
+have you come from? Where are you stopping?'
+
+'I came yesterday from Wiesbaden,' Polozov replied in deliberate
+tones, 'to do some shopping for my wife, and I'm going back to
+Wiesbaden to-day.'
+
+'Oh, yes! You're married, to be sure, and they say, to such a beauty!'
+
+Polozov turned his eyes away. 'Yes, they say so.'
+
+Sanin laughed. 'I see you're just the same ... as phlegmatic as you
+were at school.'
+
+'Why should I be different?'
+
+'And they do say,' Sanin added with special emphasis on the word 'do,'
+'that your wife is very rich.'
+
+'They say that too.'
+
+'Do you mean to say, Ippolit Sidorovitch, you are not certain on that
+point?'
+
+'I don't meddle, my dear Dimitri ... Pavlovitch? Yes, Pavlovitch!--in
+my wife's affairs.'
+
+'You don't meddle? Not in any of her affairs?'
+
+Polozov again shifted his eyes. 'Not in any, my boy. She does as she
+likes, and so do I.'
+
+'Where are you going now?' Sanin inquired.
+
+'I'm not going anywhere just now; I'm standing in the street and
+talking to you; but when we've finished talking, I'm going back to my
+hotel, and am going to have lunch.'
+
+'Would you care for my company?'
+
+'You mean at lunch?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Delighted, it's much pleasanter to eat in company. You're not a great
+talker, are you?'
+
+'I think not.'
+
+'So much the better.'
+
+Polozov went on. Sanin walked beside him. And Sanin
+speculated--Polozov's lips were glued together, again he snorted
+heavily, and waddled along in silence--Sanin speculated in what way
+had this booby succeeded in catching a rich and beautiful wife. He
+was not rich himself, nor distinguished, nor clever; at school he had
+passed for a dull, slow-witted boy, sleepy, and greedy, and had borne
+the nickname 'driveller.' It was marvellous!
+
+'But if his wife is very rich, they say she's the daughter of some
+sort of a contractor, won't she buy my estate? Though he does say he
+doesn't interfere in any of his wife's affairs, that passes belief,
+really! Besides, I will name a moderate, reasonable price! Why not
+try? Perhaps, it's all my lucky star.... Resolved! I'll have a try!'
+
+Polozov led Sanin to one of the best hotels in Frankfort, in which
+he was, of course, occupying the best apartments. On the tables and
+chairs lay piles of packages, cardboard boxes, and parcels. 'All
+purchases, my boy, for Maria Nikolaevna!' (that was the name of the
+wife of Ippolit Sidorovitch). Polozov dropped into an arm-chair,
+groaned, 'Oh, the heat!' and loosened his cravat. Then he rang up the
+head-waiter, and ordered with intense care a very lavish luncheon.
+'And at one, the carriage is to be ready! Do you hear, at one o'clock
+sharp!'
+
+The head-waiter obsequiously bowed, and cringingly withdrew.
+
+Polozov unbuttoned his waistcoat. From the very way in which he raised
+his eyebrows, gasped, and wrinkled up his nose, one could see that
+talking would be a great labour to him, and that he was waiting in
+some trepidation to see whether Sanin was going to oblige him to
+use his tongue, or whether he would take the task of keeping up the
+conversation on himself.
+
+Sanin understood his companion's disposition of mind, and so he did
+not burden him with questions; he restricted himself to the most
+essential. He learnt that he had been for two years in the service (in
+the Uhlans! how nice he must have looked in the short uniform jacket!)
+that he had married three years before, and had now been for two years
+abroad with his wife, 'who is now undergoing some sort of cure at
+Wiesbaden,' and was then going to Paris. On his side too, Sanin did
+not enlarge much on his past life and his plans; he went straight to
+the principal point--that is, he began talking of his intention of
+selling his estate.
+
+Polozov listened to him in silence, his eyes straying from time to
+time to the door, by which the luncheon was to appear. The luncheon
+did appear at last. The head-waiter, accompanied by two other
+attendants, brought in several dishes under silver covers.
+
+'Is the property in the Tula province?' said Polozov, seating himself
+at the table, and tucking a napkin into his shirt collar.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'In the Efremovsky district ... I know it.'
+
+'Do you know my place, Aleksyevka?' Sanin asked, sitting down too at
+the table.
+
+'Yes, I know it.' Polozov thrust in his mouth a piece of omelette
+with truffles. 'Maria Nikolaevna, my wife, has an estate in that
+neighbourhood.... Uncork that bottle, waiter! You've a good piece of
+land, only your peasants have cut down the timber. Why are you selling
+it?'
+
+'I want the money, my friend. I would sell it cheap. Come, you might
+as well buy it ... by the way.'
+
+Polozov gulped down a glass of wine, wiped his lips with the napkin,
+and again set to work chewing slowly and noisily.
+
+'Oh,' he enunciated at last.... 'I don't go in for buying estates;
+I've no capital. Pass the butter. Perhaps my wife now would buy it.
+You talk to her about it. If you don't ask too much, she's not above
+thinking of that.... What asses these Germans are, really! They can't
+cook fish. What could be simpler, one wonders? And yet they go on
+about "uniting the Fatherland." Waiter, take away that beastly stuff!'
+
+'Does your wife really manage ... business matters herself?' Sanin
+inquired.
+
+'Yes. Try the cutlets--they're good. I can recommend them. I've told
+you already, Dimitri Pavlovitch, I don't interfere in any of my wife's
+concerns, and I tell you so again.'
+
+Polozov went on munching.
+
+'H'm.... But how can I have a talk with her, Ippolit Sidorovitch?'
+
+'It's very simple, Dimitri Pavlovitch. Go to Wiesbaden. It's not far
+from here. Waiter, haven't you any English mustard? No? Brutes! Only
+don't lose any time. We're starting the day after to-morrow. Let me
+pour you out a glass of wine; it's wine with a bouquet--no vinegary
+stuff.'
+
+Polozov's face was flushed and animated; it was never animated but
+when he was eating--or drinking.
+
+'Really, I don't know, how that could be managed,' Sanin muttered.
+
+'But what makes you in such a hurry about it all of a sudden?'
+
+'There is a reason for being in a hurry, brother.'
+
+'And do you need a lot of money?'
+
+'Yes, a lot. I ... how can I tell you? I propose ... getting married.'
+
+Polozov set the glass he had been lifting to his lips on the table.
+
+'Getting married!' he articulated in a voice thick with astonishment,
+and he folded his podgy hands on his stomach. 'So suddenly?'
+
+'Yes ... soon.'
+
+'Your intended is in Russia, of course?'
+
+'No, not in Russia.'
+
+'Where then?'
+
+'Here in Frankfort.'
+
+'And who is she?'
+
+'A German; that is, no--an Italian. A resident here.'
+
+'With a fortune?'
+
+'No, without a fortune.'
+
+'Then I suppose your love is very ardent?'
+
+'How absurd you are! Yes, very ardent.'
+
+'And it's for that you must have money?'
+
+'Well, yes ... yes, yes.'
+
+Polozov gulped down his wine, rinsed his mouth, and washed his hands,
+carefully wiped them on the napkin, took out and lighted a cigar.
+Sanin watched him in silence.
+
+'There's one means,' Polozov grunted at last, throwing his head back,
+and blowing out the smoke in a thin ring. 'Go to my wife. If she
+likes, she can take all the bother off your hands.'
+
+'But how can I see your wife? You say you are starting the day after
+to-morrow?'
+
+Polozov closed his eyes.
+
+'I'll tell you what,' he said at last, rolling the cigar in his lips,
+and sighing. 'Go home, get ready as quick as you can, and come here.
+At one o'clock I am going, there's plenty of room in my carriage. I'll
+take you with me. That's the best plan. And now I'm going to have a
+nap. I must always have a nap, brother, after a meal. Nature demands
+it, and I won't go against it And don't you disturb me.'
+
+Sanin thought and thought, and suddenly raised his head; he had made
+up his mind.
+
+'Very well, agreed, and thank you. At half-past twelve I'll be
+here, and we'll go together to Wiesbaden. I hope your wife won't be
+angry....'
+
+But Polozov was already snoring. He muttered, 'Don't disturb me!' gave
+a kick, and fell asleep, like a baby.
+
+Sanin once more scanned his clumsy figure, his head, his neck, his
+upturned chin, round as an apple, and going out of the hotel, set off
+with rapid strides to the Rosellis' shop. He had to let Gemma know.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+He found her in the shop with her mother. Frau Lenore was stooping
+down, measuring with a big folding foot-rule the space between the
+windows. On seeing Sanin, she stood up, and greeted him cheerfully,
+though with a shade of embarrassment.
+
+'What you said yesterday,' she began, 'has set my head in a whirl with
+ideas as to how we could improve our shop. Here, I fancy we might put
+a couple of cupboards with shelves of looking-glass. You know, that's
+the fashion nowadays. And then ...'
+
+'Excellent, excellent,' Sanin broke in, 'we must think it all over....
+But come here, I want to tell you something.' He took Frau Lenpre and
+Gemma by the arm, and led them into the next room. Frau Lenore was
+alarmed, and the foot-rule slipped out of her hands. Gemma too was
+almost frightened, but she took an intent look at Sanin, and was
+reassured. His face, though preoccupied, expressed at the same time
+keen self-confidence and determination. He asked both the women to sit
+down, while he remained standing before them, and gesticulating with
+his hands and ruffling up his hair, he told them all his story; his
+meeting with Polozov, his proposed expedition to Wiesbaden, the chance
+of selling the estate. 'Imagine my happiness,' he cried in conclusion:
+'things have taken such a turn that I may even, perhaps, not have
+to go to Russia! And we can have our wedding much sooner than I had
+anticipated!'
+
+'When must you go?' asked Gemma.
+
+'To-day, in an hour's time; my friend has ordered a carriage--he will
+take me.'
+
+'You will write to us?'
+
+'At once! directly I have had a talk with this lady, I will write.'
+
+'This lady, you say, is very rich?' queried the practical Frau Lenore.
+
+'Exceedingly rich! her father was a millionaire, and he left
+everything to her.'
+
+'Everything--to her alone? Well, that's so much the better for you.
+Only mind, don't let your property go too cheap! Be sensible and
+firm. Don't let yourself be carried away! I understand your wishing
+to be Gemma's husband as soon as possible ... but prudence before
+everything! Don't forget: the better price you get for your estate,
+the more there will be for you two, and for your children.'
+
+Gemma turned away, and Sanin gave another wave of his hand. 'You can
+rely on my prudence, Frau Lenore! Indeed, I shan't do any bargaining
+with her. I shall tell her the fair price; if she'll give it--good; if
+not, let her go.'
+
+'Do you know her--this lady?' asked Gemma.
+
+'I have never seen her.'
+
+'And when will you come back?'
+
+'If our negotiations come to nothing--the day after to-morrow; if they
+turn out favourably, perhaps I may have to stay a day or two longer.
+In any case I shall not linger a minute beyond what's necessary. I am
+leaving my heart here, you know! But I have said what I had to say to
+you, and I must run home before setting off too.... Give me your hand
+for luck, Frau Lenore--that's what we always do in Russia.'
+
+'The right or the left?'
+
+'The left, it's nearer the heart. I shall reappear the day after
+to-morrow with my shield or on it! Something tells me I shall come
+back in triumph! Good-bye, my good dear ones....'
+
+He embraced and kissed Frau Lenore, but he asked Gemma to follow him
+into her room--for just a minute--as he must tell her something of
+great importance. He simply wanted to say good-bye to her alone. Frau
+Lenore saw that, and felt no curiosity as to the matter of such great
+importance.
+
+Sanin had never been in Gemma's room before. All the magic of love,
+all its fire and rapture and sweet terror, seemed to flame up and
+burst into his soul, directly he crossed its sacred threshold.... He
+cast a look of tenderness about him, fell at the sweet girl's feet and
+pressed his face against her waist....
+
+'You are mine,' she whispered: 'you will be back soon?'
+
+'I am yours. I will come back,' he declared, catching his breath.
+
+'I shall be longing for you back, my dear one!'
+
+A few instants later Sanin was running along the street to his
+lodging. He did not even notice that Pantaleone, all dishevelled, had
+darted out of the shop-door after him, and was shouting something to
+him and was shaking, as though in menace, his lifted hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Exactly at a quarter to one Sanin presented himself before Polozov.
+The carriage with four horses was already standing at the hotel gates.
+On seeing Sanin, Polozov merely commented, 'Oh! you've made up your
+mind?' and putting on his hat, cloak, and over-shoes, and stuffing
+cotton-wool into his ears, though it was summer-time, went out on to
+the steps. The waiters, by his directions, disposed all his numerous
+purchases in the inside of the carriage, lined the place where he
+was to sit with silk cushions, bags, and bundles, put a hamper of
+provisions for his feet to rest on, and tied a trunk on to the box.
+Polozov paid with a liberal hand, and supported by the deferential
+door-keeper, whose face was still respectful, though he was unseen
+behind him, he climbed gasping into the carriage, sat down,
+disarranged everything about him thoroughly, took out and lighted a
+cigar, and only then extended a finger to Sanin, as though to say,
+'Get in, you too!' Sanin placed himself beside him. Polozov sent
+orders by the door-keeper to the postillion to drive carefully--if he
+wanted drinks; the carriage steps grated, the doors slammed, and the
+carriage rolled off.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+It takes less than an hour in these days by rail from Frankfort to
+Wiesbaden; at that time the extra post did it in three hours. They
+changed horses five times. Part of the time Polozov dozed and part of
+the time he simply shook from side to side, holding a cigar in his
+teeth; he talked very little; he did not once look out of the window;
+picturesque views did not interest them; he even announced that
+'nature was the death of him!' Sanin did not speak either, nor did he
+admire the scenery; he had no thought for it. He was all absorbed in
+reflections and memories. At the stations Polozov paid with exactness,
+took the time by his watch, and tipped the postillions--more or
+less--according to their zeal. When they had gone half way, he took
+two oranges out of the hamper of edibles, and choosing out the better,
+offered the other to Sanin. Sanin looked steadily at his companion,
+and suddenly burst out laughing.
+
+'What are you laughing at?' the latter inquired, very carefully
+peeling his orange with his short white nails.
+
+'What at?' repeated Sanin. 'Why, at our journey together.'
+
+'What about it?' Polozov inquired again, dropping into his mouth one
+of the longitudinal sections into which an orange parts.
+
+'It's so very strange. Yesterday I must confess I thought no more of
+you than of the Emperor of China, and to-day I'm driving with you to
+sell my estate to your wife, of whom, too, I have not the slightest
+idea.'
+
+'Anything may happen,' responded Polozov. 'When you've lived a bit
+longer, you won't be surprised at anything. For instance, can you
+fancy me riding as an orderly officer? But I did, and the Grand Duke
+Mihail Pavlovitch gave the order, 'Trot! let him trot, that fat
+cornet! Trot now! Look sharp!'
+
+Sanin scratched behind his ear.
+
+'Tell me, please, Ippolit Sidorovitch, what is your wife like? What is
+her character? It's very necessary for me to know that, you see.'
+
+'It was very well for him to shout, "Trot!"' Polozov went on with
+sudden vehemence, 'But me! how about me? I thought to myself, "You
+can take your honours and epaulettes--and leave me in peace!" But ...
+you asked about my wife? What my wife is? A person like any one else.
+Don't wear your heart upon your sleeve with her--she doesn't like
+that. The great thing is to talk a lot to her ... something for her to
+laugh at. Tell her about your love, or something ... but make it more
+amusing, you know.'
+
+'How more amusing?'
+
+'Oh, you told me, you know, that you were in love, wanting to get
+married. Well, then, describe that.'
+
+Sanin was offended. 'What do you find laughable in that?'
+
+Polozov only rolled his eyes. The juice from the orange was trickling
+down his chin.
+
+'Was it your wife sent you to Frankfort to shop for her?' asked Sanin
+after a short time.
+
+'Yes, it was she.'
+
+'What are the purchases?'
+
+'Toys, of course.'
+
+'Toys? have you any children?'
+
+Polozov positively moved away from Sanin.
+
+'That's likely! What do I want with children? Feminine fallals ...
+finery. For the toilet.'
+
+'Do you mean to say you understand such things?'
+
+'To be sure I do.'
+
+'But didn't you tell me you didn't interfere in any of your wife's
+affairs?'
+
+'I don't in any other. But this ... is no consequence. To pass the
+time--one may do it. And my wife has confidence in my taste. And I'm a
+first-rate hand at bargaining.'
+
+Polozov began to speak by jerks; he was exhausted already. 'And is
+your wife very rich?'
+
+'Rich; yes, rather! Only she keeps the most of it for herself.'
+
+'But I expect you can't complain either?'
+
+'Well, I'm her husband. I'm hardly likely not to get some benefit from
+it! And I'm of use to her. With me she can do just as she likes! I'm
+easy-going!'
+
+Polozov wiped his face with a silk handkerchief and puffed painfully,
+as though to say, 'Have mercy on me; don't force me to utter another
+word. You see how hard it is for me.'
+
+Sanin left him in peace, and again sank into meditation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hotel in Wiesbaden, before which the carriage stopped, was exactly
+like a palace. Bells were promptly set ringing in its inmost recesses;
+a fuss and bustle arose; men of good appearance in black frock-coats
+skipped out at the principal entrance; a door-keeper who was a blaze
+of gold opened the carriage doors with a flourish.
+
+Like some triumphant general Polozov alighted and began to ascend a
+staircase strewn with rugs and smelling of agreeable perfumes. To
+him flew up another man, also very well dressed but with a Russian
+face--his valet. Polozov observed to him that for the future he
+should always take him everywhere with him, for the night before at
+Frankfort, he, Polozov, had been left for the night without hot water!
+The valet portrayed his horror on his face, and bending down quickly,
+took off his master's goloshes.
+
+'Is Maria Nikolaevna at home?' inquired Polozov.
+
+'Yes, sir. Madam is pleased to be dressing. Madam is pleased to be
+dining to-night at the Countess Lasunsky's.'
+
+'Ah! there?... Stay! There are things there in the carriage; get them
+all yourself and bring them up. And you, Dmitri Pavlovitch,' added
+Polozov, 'take a room for yourself and come in in three-quarters of an
+hour. We will dine together.'
+
+Polozov waddled off, while Sanin asked for an inexpensive room for
+himself; and after setting his attire to rights, and resting a
+little, he repaired to the immense apartment occupied by his Serenity
+(Durchlaucht) Prince von Polozov.
+
+He found this 'prince' enthroned in a luxurious velvet arm-chair in
+the middle of a most magnificent drawing-room. Sanin's phlegmatic
+friend had already had time to have a bath and to array himself in a
+most sumptuous satin dressing-gown; he had put a crimson fez on his
+head. Sanin approached him and scrutinised him for some time. Polozov
+was sitting rigid as an idol; he did not even turn his face in his
+direction, did not even move an eyebrow, did not utter a sound. It was
+truly a sublime spectacle! After having admired him for a couple of
+minutes, Sanin was on the point of speaking, of breaking this hallowed
+silence, when suddenly the door from the next room was thrown open,
+and in the doorway appeared a young and beautiful lady in a white
+silk dress trimmed with black lace, and with diamonds on her arms and
+neck--Maria Nikolaevna Polozov. Her thick fair hair fell on both sides
+of her head, braided, but not fastened up into a knot.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+'Ah, I beg your pardon!' she said with a smile half-embarrassed,
+half-ironical, instantly taking hold of one end of a plait of her hair
+and fastening on Sanin her large, grey, clear eyes.
+
+'I did not think you had come yet.'
+
+'Sanin, Dmitri Pavlovitch--known him from a boy,' observed Polozov, as
+before not turning towards him and not getting up, but pointing at him
+with one finger.
+
+'Yes.... I know.... You told me before. Very glad to make your
+acquaintance. But I wanted to ask you, Ippolit Sidorovitch.... My maid
+seems to have lost her senses to-day ...'
+
+'To do your hair up?'
+
+'Yes, yes, please. I beg your pardon,' Maria Nikolaevna repeated with
+the same smile. She nodded to Sanin, and turning swiftly, vanished
+through the doorway, leaving behind her a fleeting but graceful
+impression of a charming neck, exquisite shoulders, an exquisite
+figure.
+
+Polozov got up, and rolling ponderously, went out by the same door.
+
+Sanin did not doubt for a single second that his presence in 'Prince
+Polozov's' drawing-room was a fact perfectly well known to its
+mistress; the whole point of her entry had been the display of her
+hair, which was certainly beautiful. Sanin was inwardly delighted
+indeed at this freak on the part of Madame Polozov; if, he thought,
+she is anxious to impress me, to dazzle me, perhaps, who knows, she
+will be accommodating about the price of the estate. His heart was so
+full of Gemma that all other women had absolutely no significance for
+him; he hardly noticed them; and this time he went no further than
+thinking, 'Yes, it was the truth they told me; that lady's really
+magnificent to look at!'
+
+But had he not been in such an exceptional state of mind he would most
+likely have expressed himself differently; Maria Nikolaevna Polozov,
+by birth Kolishkin, was a very striking personality. And not that she
+was of a beauty to which no exception could be taken; traces of her
+plebeian origin were rather clearly apparent in her. Her forehead was
+low, her nose rather fleshy and turned up; she could boast neither
+of the delicacy of her skin nor of the elegance of her hands and
+feet--but what did all that matter? Any one meeting her would not,
+to use Pushkin's words, have stood still before 'the holy shrine of
+beauty,' but before the sorcery of a half-Russian, half-Gipsy woman's
+body in its full flower and full power ... and he would have been
+nothing loath to stand still!
+
+But Gemma's image preserved Sanin like the three-fold armour of which
+the poets sing.
+
+Ten minutes later Maria Nikolaevna appeared again, escorted by her
+husband. She went up to Sanin ... and her walk was such that some
+eccentrics of that--alas!--already, distant day, were simply crazy
+over her walk alone. 'That woman, when she comes towards one, seems as
+though she is bringing all the happiness of one's life to meet one,'
+one of them used to say. She went up to Sanin, and holding out her
+hand to him, said in her caressing and, as it were, subdued voice in
+Russian, 'You will wait for me, won't you? I'll be back soon.'
+
+Sanin bowed respectfully, while Maria Nikolaevna vanished behind the
+curtain over the outside door; and as she vanished turned her head
+back over her shoulder, and smiled again, and again left behind her
+the same impression of grace.
+
+When she smiled, not one and not two, but three dimples came out on
+each cheek, and her eyes smiled more than her lips--long, crimson,
+juicy lips with two tiny moles on the left side of them.
+
+Polozov waddled into the room and again established himself in the
+arm-chair. He was speechless as before; but from time to time a queer
+smile puffed out his colourless and already wrinkled cheeks. He looked
+like an old man, though he was only three years older than Sanin.
+
+The dinner with which he regaled his guest would of course have
+satisfied the most exacting gourmand, but to Sanin it seemed endless,
+insupportable! Polozov ate slowly, 'with feeling, with judgment,
+with deliberation,' bending attentively over his plate, and sniffing
+at almost every morsel. First he rinsed his mouth with wine, then
+swallowed it and smacked his lips.... Over the roast meat he suddenly
+began to talk--but of what? Of merino sheep, of which he was intending
+to order a whole flock, and in such detail, with such tenderness,
+using all the while endearing pet names for them. After drinking a cup
+of coffee, hot to boiling point (he had several times in a voice of
+tearful irritation mentioned to the waiter that he had been served the
+evening before with coffee, cold--cold as ice!) and bitten off the end
+of a Havannah cigar with his crooked yellow teeth, he dropped off, as
+his habit was, into a nap, to the intense delight of Sanin, who began
+walking up and down with noiseless steps on the soft carpet, and
+dreaming of his life with Gemma and of what news he would bring back
+to her. Polozov, however, awoke, as he remarked himself, earlier than
+usual--he had slept only an hour and a half--and after drinking a
+glass of iced seltzer water, and swallowing eight spoonfuls of jam,
+Russian jam, which his valet brought him in a dark-green genuine
+'Kiev' jar, and without which, in his own words, he could not live,
+he stared with his swollen eyes at Sanin and asked him wouldn't he
+like to play a game of 'fools' with him. Sanin agreed readily; he
+was afraid that Polozov would begin talking again about lambs and
+ewes and fat tails. The host and the visitor both adjourned to the
+drawing-room, the waiter brought in the cards, and the game began,
+not,--of course, for money.
+
+At this innocent diversion Maria Nikolaevna found them on her return
+from the Countess Lasunsky's. She laughed aloud directly she came into
+the room and saw the cards and the open card-table. Sanin jumped up,
+but she cried, 'Sit still; go on with the game. I'll change my dress
+directly and come back to you,' and vanished again with a swish of her
+dress, pulling off her gloves as she went.
+
+She did in fact return very soon. Her evening dress she had exchanged
+for a full lilac silk tea-gown, with open hanging sleeves; a thick
+twisted cord was fastened round her waist. She sat down by her
+husband, and, waiting till he was left 'fool,' said to him, 'Come,
+dumpling, that's enough!' (At the word 'dumpling' Sanin glanced at her
+in surprise, and she smiled gaily, answering his look with a look,
+and displaying all the dimples on her cheeks.) 'I see you are sleepy;
+kiss my hand and get along; and Monsieur Sanin and I will have a chat
+together alone.'
+
+'I'm not sleepy,' observed Polozov, getting up ponderously from his
+easy-chair; 'but as for getting along, I'm ready to get along and to
+kiss your hand.' She gave him the palm of her hand, still smiling and
+looking at Sanin.
+
+Polozov, too, looked at him, and went away without taking leave of
+him.
+
+'Well, tell me, tell me,' said Maria Nikolaevna eagerly, setting both
+her bare elbows on the table and impatiently tapping the nails of one
+hand against the nails of the other, 'Is it true, they say, you are
+going to be married?'
+
+As she said these words, Maria Nikolaevna positively bent her head a
+little on one side so as to look more intently and piercingly into
+Sanin's eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+The free and easy deportment of Madame Polozov would probably for the
+first moment have disconcerted Sanin--though he was not quite a novice
+and had knocked about the world a little--if he had not again seen in
+this very freedom and familiarity a good omen for his undertaking.
+'We must humour this rich lady's caprices,' he decided inwardly; and
+as unconstrainedly as she had questioned him he answered, 'Yes; I am
+going to be married.'
+
+'To whom? To a foreigner?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Did you get acquainted with her lately? In Frankfort?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And what is she? May I know?'
+
+'Certainly. She is a confectioner's daughter.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna opened her eyes wide and lifted her eyebrows.
+
+'Why, this is delightful,' she commented in a drawling voice; 'this is
+exquisite! I imagined that young men like you were not to be met with
+anywhere in these days. A confectioner's daughter!'
+
+'I see that surprises you,' observed Sanin with some dignity; 'but in
+the first place, I have none of these prejudices ...'
+
+'In the first place, it doesn't surprise me in the least,' Maria
+Nikolaevna interrupted; 'I have no prejudices either. I'm the daughter
+of a peasant myself. There! what can you say to that? What does
+surprise and delight me is to have come across a man who's not afraid
+to love. You do love her, I suppose?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Is she very pretty?'
+
+Sanin was slightly stung by this last question.... However, there was
+no drawing back.
+
+'You know, Maria Nikolaevna,' he began, 'every man thinks the face
+of his beloved better than all others; but my betrothed is really
+beautiful.'
+
+'Really? In what style? Italian? antique?'
+
+'Yes; she has very regular features.'
+
+'You have not got her portrait with you?'
+
+'No.' (At that time photography was not yet talked off. Daguerrotypes
+had hardly begun to be common.)
+
+'What's her name?'
+
+'Her name is Gemma.'
+
+'And yours?'
+
+'Dimitri.'
+
+'And your father's?'
+
+'Pavlovitch.'
+
+'Do you know,' Maria Nikolaevna said, still in the same drawling
+voice, 'I like you very much, Dimitri Pavlovitch. You must be an
+excellent fellow. Give me your hand. Let us be friends.'
+
+She pressed his hand tightly in her beautiful, white, strong fingers.
+Her hand was a little smaller than his hand, but much warmer and
+smoother and whiter and more full of life.
+
+'Only, do you know what strikes me?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'You won't be angry? No? You say she is betrothed to you. But was that
+... was that quite necessary?'
+
+Sanin frowned. 'I don't understand you, Maria Nikolaevna.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna gave a soft low laugh, and shaking her head tossed
+back the hair that was falling on her cheeks. 'Decidedly--he's
+delightful,' she commented half pensively, half carelessly. 'A perfect
+knight! After that, there's no believing in the people who maintain
+that the race of idealists is extinct!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna talked Russian all the time, an astonishingly pure
+true Moscow Russian, such as the people, not the nobles speak.
+
+'You've been brought up at home, I expect, in a God-fearing, old
+orthodox family?' she queried. 'You're from what province?'
+
+'Tula.'
+
+'Oh! so we're from the same part. My father ... I daresay you know who
+my father was?'
+
+'Yes, I know.'
+
+'He was born in Tula.... He was a Tula man. Well ... well. Come, let
+us get to business now.'
+
+'That is ... how come to business? What do you mean to say by that?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna half-closed her eyes. 'Why, what did you come here
+for?' (when she screwed up her eyes, their expression became very
+kindly and a little bantering, when she opened them wide, into their
+clear, almost cold brilliancy, there came something-ill-natured
+... something menacing. Her eyes gained a peculiar beauty from her
+eyebrows, which were thick, and met in the centre, and had the
+smoothness of sable fur). 'Don't you want me to buy your estate? You
+want money for your nuptials? Don't you?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And do you want much?'
+
+'I should be satisfied with a few thousand francs at first. Your
+husband knows my estate. You can consult him--I would take a very
+moderate price.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna tossed her head from left to right. '_In the first
+place_,' she began in deliberate tones, drumming with the tips of
+her fingers on the cuff of Sanin's coat, 'I am not in the habit of
+consulting my husband, except about matters of dress--he's my right
+hand in that; _and in the second place_, why do you say that you will
+fix a low price? I don't want to take advantage of your being very
+much in love at the moment, and ready to make any sacrifices....
+I won't accept sacrifices of any kind from you. What? Instead of
+encouraging you ... come, how is one to express it properly?--in your
+noble sentiments, eh? am I to fleece you? that's not my way. I can be
+hard on people, on occasion--only not in that way.'
+
+Sanin was utterly unable to make out whether she was laughing at him
+or speaking seriously, and only said to himself: 'Oh, I can see one
+has to mind what one's about with you!'
+
+A man-servant came in with a Russian samovar, tea-things, cream,
+biscuits, etc., on a big tray; he set all these good things on the
+table between Sanin and Madame Polozov, and retired.
+
+She poured him out a cup of tea. 'You don't object?' she queried, as
+she put sugar in his cup with her fingers ... though sugar-tongs were
+lying close by.
+
+'Oh, please!... From such a lovely hand ...'
+
+He did not finish his phrase, and almost choked over a sip of tea,
+while she watched him attentively and brightly.
+
+'I spoke of a moderate price for my land,' he went on, 'because as you
+are abroad just now, I can hardly suppose you have a great deal of
+cash available, and in fact, I feel myself that the sale ... the
+purchase of my land, under such conditions is something exceptional,
+and I ought to take that into consideration.'
+
+Sanin got confused, and lost the thread of what he was saying, while
+Maria Nikolaevna softly leaned back in her easy-chair, folded her
+arms, and watched him with the same attentive bright look. He was
+silent at last.
+
+'Never mind, go on, go on,' she said, as it were coming to his aid;
+'I'm listening to you. I like to hear you; go on talking.'
+
+Sanin fell to describing his estate, how many acres it contained, and
+where it was situated, and what were its agricultural advantages,
+and what profit could be made from it ... he even referred to the
+picturesque situation of the house; while Maria Nikolaevna still
+watched him, and watched more and more intently and radiantly, and her
+lips faintly stirred, without smiling: she bit them. He felt awkward
+at last; he was silent a second time.
+
+'Dimitri Pavlovitch' began Maria Nikolaevna, and sank into thought
+again.... 'Dimitri Pavlovitch,' she repeated.... 'Do you know what:
+I am sure the purchase of your estate will be a very profitable
+transaction for me, and that we shall come to terms; but you must give
+me two days.... Yes, two days' grace. You are able to endure two days'
+separation from your betrothed, aren't you? Longer I won't keep you
+against your will--I give you my word of honour. But if you want five
+or six thousand francs at once, I am ready with great pleasure to let
+you have it as a loan, and then we'll settle later.'
+
+Sanin got up. 'I must thank you, Maria Nikolaevna, for your
+kindhearted and friendly readiness to do a service to a man almost
+unknown to you. But if that is your decided wish, then I prefer to
+await your decision about my estate--I will stay here two days.'
+
+'Yes; that is my wish, Dimitri Pavlovitch. And will it be very hard
+for you? Very? Tell me.'
+
+'I love my betrothed, Maria Nikolaevna, and to be separated from her
+is hard for me.'
+
+'Ah! you're a heart of gold!' Maria Nikolaevna commented with a sigh.
+'I promise not to torment you too much. Are you going?'
+
+'It is late,' observed Sanin.
+
+'And you want to rest after your journey, and your game of "fools"
+with my husband. Tell me, were you a great friend of Ippolit
+Sidorovitch, my husband?'
+
+'We were educated at the same school.'
+
+'And was he the same then?'
+
+'The same as what?' inquired Sanin. Maria Nikolaevna burst out
+laughing, and laughed till she was red in the face; she put her
+handkerchief to her lips, rose from her chair, and swaying as though
+she were tired, went up to Sanin, and held out her hand to him.
+
+He bowed over it, and went towards the door.
+
+'Come early to-morrow--do you hear?' she called after him. He looked
+back as he went out of the room, and saw that she had again dropped
+into an easy-chair, and flung both arms behind her head. The loose
+sleeves of her tea-gown fell open almost to her shoulders, and it was
+impossible not to admit that the pose of the arms, that the whole
+figure, was enchantingly beautiful.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+Long after midnight the lamp was burning in Sanin's room. He sat down
+to the table and wrote to 'his Gemma.' He told her everything; he
+described the Polozovs--husband and wife--but, more than all, enlarged
+on his own feelings, and ended by appointing a meeting with her in
+three days!!! (with three marks of exclamation). Early in the morning
+he took this letter to the post, and went for a walk in the garden
+of the Kurhaus, where music was already being played. There were few
+people in it as yet; he stood before the arbour in which the orchestra
+was placed, listened to an adaptation of airs from 'Robert le Diable,'
+and after drinking some coffee, turned into a solitary side walk, sat
+down on a bench, and fell into a reverie. The handle of a parasol
+gave him a rapid, and rather vigorous, thump on the shoulder. He
+started.... Before him in a light, grey-green barege dress, in a white
+tulle hat, and _suede_ gloves, stood Maria Nikolaevna, fresh and rosy
+as a summer morning, though the languor of sound unbroken sleep had
+not yet quite vanished from her movements and her eyes.
+
+'Good-morning,' she said. 'I sent after you to-day, but you'd already
+gone out. I've only just drunk my second glass--they're making me
+drink the water here, you know--whatever for, there's no telling ...
+am I not healthy enough? And now I have to walk for a whole hour. Will
+you be my companion? And then we'll have some coffee.'
+
+'I've had some already,' Sanin observed, getting up; 'but I shall be
+very glad to have a walk with you.'
+
+'Very well, give me your arm then; don't be afraid: your betrothed is
+not here--she won't see you.'
+
+Sanin gave a constrained smile. He experienced a disagreeable
+sensation every time Maria Nikolaevna referred to Gemma. However, he
+made haste to bend towards her obediently.... Maria Nikolaevna's arm
+slipped slowly and softly into his arm, and glided over it, and seemed
+to cling tight to it.
+
+'Come--this way,' she said to him, putting up her open parasol over
+her shoulder. 'I'm quite at home in this park; I will take you to the
+best places. And do you know what? (she very often made use of this
+expression), we won't talk just now about that sale, we'll have a
+thorough discussion of that after lunch; but you must tell me now
+about yourself ... so that I may know whom I have to do with. And
+afterwards, if you like, I will tell you about myself. Do you agree?'
+
+'But, Maria Nikolaevna, what interest can there be for you ...'
+
+'Stop, stop. You don't understand me. I don't want to flirt with you.'
+Maria Nikolaevna shrugged her shoulders. 'He's got a betrothed like an
+antique statue, is it likely I am going to flirt with him? But you've
+something to sell, and I'm the purchaser. I want to know what your
+goods are like. Well, of course, you must show what they are like.
+I don't only want to know what I'm buying, but whom I'm buying
+from. That was my father's rule. Come, begin ... come, if not from
+childhood--come now, have you been long abroad? And where have you
+been up till now? Only don't walk so fast, we're in no hurry.'
+
+'I came here from Italy, where I spent several months.'
+
+'Ah, you feel, it seems, a special attraction towards everything
+Italian. It's strange you didn't find your lady-love there. Are you
+fond of art? of pictures? or more of music?'
+
+'I am fond of art.... I like everything beautiful.'
+
+'And music?'
+
+'I like music too.'
+
+'Well, I don't at all. I don't care for anything but Russian
+songs--and that in the country and in the spring--with dancing, you
+know ... red shirts, wreaths of beads, the young grass in the meadows,
+the smell of smoke ... delicious! But we weren't talking of me. Go on,
+tell me.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna walked on, and kept looking at Sanin. She was
+tall--her face was almost on a level with his face.
+
+He began to talk--at first reluctantly, unskilfully--but afterwards
+he talked more freely, chattered away in fact. Maria Nikolaevna was
+a very good listener; and moreover she seemed herself so frank, that
+she led others unconsciously on to frankness. She possessed that
+great gift of 'intimateness'--_le terrible don de la familiarite_--to
+which Cardinal Retz refers. Sanin talked of his travels, of his life
+in Petersburg, of his youth.... Had Maria Nikolaevna been a lady
+of fashion, with refined manners, he would never have opened out
+so; but she herself spoke of herself as a 'good fellow,' who had
+no patience with ceremony of any sort; it was in those words that
+she characterised herself to Sanin. And at the same time this 'good
+fellow' walked by his side with feline grace, slightly bending towards
+him, and peeping into his face; and this 'good fellow' walked in the
+form of a young feminine creature, full of the tormenting, fiery, soft
+and seductive charm, of which--for the undoing of us poor weak sinful
+men--only Slav natures are possessed, and but few of them, and those
+never of pure Slav blood, with no foreign alloy. Sanin's walk with
+Maria Nikolaevna, Sanin's talk with Maria Nikolaevna lasted over an
+hour. And they did not stop once; they kept walking about the endless
+avenues of the park, now mounting a hill and admiring the view as
+they went, and now going down into the valley, and getting hidden in
+the thick shadows,--and all the while arm-in-arm. At times Sanin felt
+positively irritated; he had never walked so long with Gemma, his
+darling Gemma ... but this lady had simply taken possession of him,
+and there was no escape! 'Aren't you tired?' he said to her more
+than once. 'I never get tired,' she answered. Now and then they met
+other people walking in the park; almost all of them bowed--some
+respectfully, others even cringingly. To one of them, a very handsome,
+fashionably dressed dark man, she called from a distance with the best
+Parisian accent, '_Comte, vous savez, il ne faut pas venir me voir--ni
+aujourd'hui ni demain_.' The man took off his hat, without speaking,
+and dropped a low bow.
+
+'Who's that?' asked Sanin with the bad habit of asking questions
+characteristic of all Russians.
+
+'Oh, a Frenchman, there are lots of them here ... He's dancing
+attendance on me too. It's time for our coffee, though. Let's go home;
+you must be hungry by this time, I should say. My better half must
+have got his eye-peeps open by now.'
+
+'Better half! Eye-peeps!' Sanin repeated to himself ... 'And speaks
+French so well ... what a strange creature!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Maria Nikolaevna was not mistaken. When she went back into the hotel
+with Sanin, her 'better half or 'dumpling' was already seated, the
+invariable fez on his head, before a table laid for breakfast.
+
+'I've been waiting for you!' he cried, making a sour face. 'I was on
+the point of having coffee without you.'
+
+'Never mind, never mind,' Maria Nikolaevna responded cheerfully. 'Are
+you angry? That's good for you; without that you'd turn into a mummy
+altogether. Here I've brought a visitor. Make haste and ring! Let us
+have coffee--the best coffee--in Saxony cups on a snow-white cloth!'
+
+She threw off her hat and gloves, and clapped her hands.
+
+Polozov looked at her from under his brows.
+
+'What makes you so skittish to-day, Maria Nikolaevna?' he said in an
+undertone.
+
+'That's no business of yours, Ippolit Sidoritch! Ring! Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, sit down and have some coffee for the second time. Ah, how
+nice it is to give orders! There's no pleasure on earth like it!'
+
+'When you're obeyed,' grumbled her husband again.
+
+'Just so, when one's obeyed! That's why I'm so happy! Especially with
+you. Isn't it so, dumpling? Ah, here's the coffee.'
+
+On the immense tray, which the waiter brought in, there lay also a
+playbill. Maria Nikolaevna snatched it up at once.
+
+'A drama!' she pronounced with indignation, 'a German drama.
+No matter; it's better than a German comedy. Order a box for
+me--_baignoire_--or no ... better the _Fremden-Loge_,' she turned to
+the waiter. 'Do you hear: the _Fremden-Loge_ it must be!'
+
+'But if the _Fremden-Loge_ has been already taken by his excellency,
+the director of the town (_seine Excellenz der Herr Stadt-Director_),'
+the waiter ventured to demur.
+
+'Give his excellency ten _thalers_, and let the box be mine! Do you
+hear!'
+
+The waiter bent his head humbly and mournfully.
+
+'Dimitri Pavlovitch, you will go with me to the theatre? the German
+actors are awful, but you will go ... Yes? Yes? How obliging you are!
+Dumpling, are you not coming?
+
+'You settle it,' Polozov observed into the cup he had lifted to his
+lips.
+
+'Do you know what, you stay at home. You always go to sleep at the
+theatre, and you don't understand much German. I'll tell you what
+you'd better do, write an answer to the overseer--you remember, about
+our mill ... about the peasants' grinding. Tell him that I won't have
+it, and I won't and that's all about it! There's occupation for you
+for the whole evening.'
+
+'All right,' answered Polozov.
+
+'Well then, that's first-rate. You're a darling. And now, gentlemen,
+as we have just been speaking of my overseer, let's talk about our
+great business. Come, directly the waiter has cleared the table,
+you shall tell me all, Dimitri Pavlovitch, about your estate, what
+price you will sell it for, how much you want paid down in advance,
+everything, in fact! (At last, thought Sanin, thank God!) You have
+told me something about it already, you remember, you described your
+garden delightfully, but dumpling wasn't here.... Let him hear, he
+may pick a hole somewhere! I'm delighted to think that I can help you
+to get married, besides, I promised you that I would go into your
+business after lunch, and I always keep my promises, isn't that the
+truth, Ippolit Sidoritch?'
+
+Polozov rubbed his face with his open hand. 'The truth's the truth.
+You don't deceive any one.'
+
+'Never! and I never will deceive any one. Well, Dimitri Pavlovitch,
+expound the case as we express it in the senate.'
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+Sanin proceeded to expound his case, that is to say, again, a second
+time, to describe his property, not touching this time on the beauties
+of nature, and now and then appealing to Polozov for confirmation of
+his 'facts and figures.' But Polozov simply gasped and shook his head,
+whether in approval or disapproval, it would have puzzled the devil,
+one might fancy, to decide. However, Maria Nikolaevna stood in no need
+of his aid. She exhibited commercial and administrative abilities that
+were really astonishing! She was familiar with all the ins-and-outs of
+farming; she asked questions about everything with great exactitude,
+went into every point; every word of hers went straight to the root
+of the matter, and hit the nail on the head. Sanin had not expected
+such a close inquiry, he had not prepared himself for it. And this
+inquiry lasted for fully an hour and a half. Sanin experienced all
+the sensations of the criminal on his trial, sitting on a narrow
+bench confronted by a stern and penetrating judge. 'Why, it's
+a cross-examination!' he murmured to himself dejectedly. Maria
+Nikolaevna kept laughing all the while, as though it were a joke; but
+Sanin felt none the more at ease for that; and when in the course of
+the 'cross-examination' it turned out that he had not clearly realised
+the exact meaning of the words 'repartition' and 'tilth,' he was in a
+cold perspiration all over.
+
+'Well, that's all right!' Maria Nikolaevna decided at last. 'I know
+your estate now ... as well as you do. What price do you suggest per
+soul?' (At that time, as every one knows, the prices of estates were
+reckoned by the souls living as serfs on them.)
+
+'Well ... I imagine ... I could not take less than five hundred
+roubles for each,' Sanin articulated with difficulty. O Pantaleone,
+Pantaleone, where were you! This was when you ought to have cried
+again, 'Barbari!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her eyes upwards as though she were
+calculating.
+
+'Well?' she said at last. 'I think there's no harm in that price.
+But I reserved for myself two days' grace, and you must wait till
+to-morrow. I imagine we shall come to an arrangement, and then you
+will tell me how much you want paid down. And now, _basta cosi_!'
+she cried, noticing Sanin was about to make some reply. 'We've spent
+enough time over filthy lucre ... _a demain les affaires_. Do you
+know what, I'll let you go now ... (she glanced at a little enamelled
+watch, stuck in her belt) ... till three o'clock ... I must let you
+rest. Go and play roulette.'
+
+'I never play games of chance,' observed Sanin.
+
+'Really? Why, you're a paragon. Though I don't either. It's stupid
+throwing away one's money when one's no chance. But go into the
+gambling saloon, and look at the faces. Very comic ones there are
+there. There's one old woman with a rustic headband and a moustache,
+simply delicious! Our prince there's another, a good one too. A
+majestic figure with a nose like an eagle's, and when he puts down a
+_thaler_, he crosses himself under his waistcoat. Read the papers,
+go a walk, do what you like, in fact. But at three o'clock I expect
+you ... _de pied ferme_. We shall have to dine a little earlier. The
+theatre among these absurd Germans begins at half-past six. She held
+out her hand. '_Sans rancune, n'est-ce pas?_'
+
+'Really, Maria Nikolaevna, what reason have I to be annoyed?'
+
+'Why, because I've been tormenting you. Wait a little, you'll see.
+There's worse to come,' she added, fluttering her eyelids, and all her
+dimples suddenly came out on her flushing cheeks. 'Till we meet!'
+
+Sanin bowed and went out. A merry laugh rang out after him, and in
+the looking-glass which he was passing at that instant, the following
+scene was reflected: Maria Nikolaevna had pulled her husband's fez
+over his eyes, and he was helplessly struggling with both hands.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+Oh, what a deep sigh of delight Sanin heaved, when he found himself
+in his room! Indeed, Maria Nikolaevna had spoken the truth, he
+needed rest, rest from all these new acquaintances, collisions,
+conversations, from this suffocating atmosphere which was affecting
+his head and his heart, from this enigmatical, uninvited intimacy with
+a woman, so alien to him! And when was all this taking place? Almost
+the day after he had learnt that Gemma loved him, after he had become
+betrothed to her. Why, it was sacrilege! A thousand times he mentally
+asked forgiveness of his pure chaste dove, though he could not really
+blame himself for anything; a thousand times over he kissed the cross
+she had given him. Had he not the hope of bringing the business, for
+which he had come to Wiesbaden, to a speedy and successful conclusion,
+he would have rushed off headlong, back again, to sweet Frankfort, to
+that dear house, now his own home, to her, to throw himself at her
+loved feet.... But there was no help for it! The cup must be drunk
+to the dregs, he must dress, go to dinner, and from there to the
+theatre.... If only she would let him go to-morrow!
+
+One other thing confounded him, angered him; with love, with
+tenderness, with grateful transport he dreamed of Gemma, of their life
+together, of the happiness awaiting him in the future, and yet this
+strange woman, this Madame Polozov persistently floated--no! not
+floated, poked herself, so Sanin with special vindictiveness expressed
+it--_poked herself_ in and faced his eyes, and he could not rid
+himself of her image, could not help hearing her voice, recalling her
+words, could not help being aware even of the special scent, delicate,
+fresh and penetrating, like the scent of yellow lilies, that was
+wafted from her garments. This lady was obviously fooling him, and
+trying in every way to get over him ... what for? what did she want?
+Could it be merely the caprice of a spoiled, rich, and most likely
+unprincipled woman? And that husband! What a creature he was! What
+were his relations with her? And why would these questions keep coming
+into his head, when he, Sanin, had really no interest whatever in
+either Polozov or his wife? Why could he not drive away that intrusive
+image, even when he turned with his whole soul to another image,
+clear and bright as God's sunshine? How, through those almost divine
+features, dare _those others_ force themselves upon him? And not only
+that; those other features smiled insolently at him. Those grey,
+rapacious eyes, those dimples, those snake-like tresses, how was it
+all that seemed to cleave to him, and to shake it all off, and fling
+it away, he was unable, had not the power?
+
+Nonsense! nonsense! to-morrow it would all vanish and leave no
+trace.... But would she let him go to-morrow?
+
+Yes.... All these question he put to himself, but the time was moving
+on to three o'clock, and he put on a black frockcoat and after a turn
+in the park, went in to the Polozovs!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He found in their drawing-room a secretary of the legation, a very
+tall light-haired German, with the profile of a horse, and his hair
+parted down the back of his head (at that time a new fashion), and ...
+oh, wonder! whom besides? Von Doenhof, the very officer with whom he
+had fought a few days before! He had not the slightest expectation of
+meeting him there and could not help being taken aback. He greeted
+him, however.
+
+'Are you acquainted?' asked Maria Nikolaevna who had not failed to
+notice Sanin's embarrassment.
+
+'Yes ... I have already had the honour,' said Doenhof, and bending a
+little aside, in an undertone he added to Maria Nikolaevna, with a
+smile, 'The very man ... your compatriot ... the Russian ...'
+
+'Impossible!' she exclaimed also in an undertone; she shook her finger
+at him, and at once began to bid good-bye both to him and the long
+secretary, who was, to judge by every symptom, head over ears in love
+with her; he positively gaped every time he looked at her. Doenhof
+promptly took leave with amiable docility, like a friend of the family
+who understands at half a word what is expected of him; the secretary
+showed signs of restiveness, but Maria Nikolaevna turned him out
+without any kind of ceremony.
+
+'Get along to your sovereign mistress,' she said to him (there was
+at that time in Wiesbaden a certain princess di Monaco, who looked
+surprisingly like a _cocotte_ of the poorer sort); 'what do you want
+to stay with a plebeian like me for?'
+
+'Really, dear madam,' protested the luckless secretary,' all the
+princesses in the world....'
+
+But Maria Nikolaevna was remorseless, and the secretary went away,
+parting and all.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna was dressed that day very much 'to her advantage,'
+as our grandmothers used to say. She wore a pink glace silk dress,
+with sleeves _a la Fontange_, and a big diamond in each ear. Her eyes
+sparkled as much as her diamonds; she seemed in a good humour and in
+high spirits.
+
+She made Sanin sit beside her, and began talking to him about Paris,
+where she was intending to go in a few days, of how sick she was of
+Germans, how stupid they were when they tried to be clever, and how
+inappropriately clever sometimes when they were stupid; and suddenly,
+point-blank, as they say--_a brule pourpoint_--asked him, was it true
+that he had fought a duel with the very officer who had been there
+just now, only a few days ago, on account of a lady?
+
+'How did you know that?' muttered Sanin, dumfoundered.
+
+'The earth is full of rumours, Dimitri Pavlovitch; but anyway, I know
+you were quite right, perfectly right, and behaved like a knight. Tell
+me, was that lady your betrothed?'
+
+Sanin slightly frowned ...
+
+'There, I won't, I won't,' Maria Nikolaevna hastened to say. 'You
+don't like it, forgive me, I won't do it, don't be angry!' Polozov
+came in from the next room with a newspaper in his hand. 'What do you
+want? Or is dinner ready?'
+
+'Dinner'll be ready directly, but just see what I've read in the
+_Northern Bee_ ... Prince Gromoboy is dead.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna raised her head.
+
+'Ah! I wish him the joys of Paradise! He used,' she turned to Sanin,
+'to fill all my rooms with camellias every February on my birthday,
+But it wasn't worth spending the winter in Petersburg for that. He
+must have been over seventy, I should say?' she said to her husband.
+
+'Yes, he was. They describe his funeral in the paper. All the court
+were present. And here's a poem too, of Prince Kovrizhkin's on the
+occasion.'
+
+'That's nice!'
+
+'Shall I read them? The prince calls him the good man of wise
+counsel.'
+
+'No, don't. The good man of wise counsel? He was simply the goodman
+of Tatiana Yurevna. Come to dinner. Life is for the living. Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, your arm.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dinner was, as on the day before, superb, and the meal was a very
+lively one. Maria Nikolaevna knew how to tell a story ... a rare gift
+in a woman, and especially in a Russian one! She did not restrict
+herself in her expressions; her countrywomen received particularly
+severe treatment at her hands. Sanin was more than once set laughing
+by some bold and well-directed word. Above all, Maria Nikolaevna
+had no patience with hypocrisy, cant, and humbug. She discovered it
+almost everywhere. She, as it were, plumed herself on and boasted of
+the humble surroundings in which she had begun life. She told rather
+queer anecdotes of her relations in the days of her childhood, spoke
+of herself as quite as much of a clodhopper as Natalya Kirilovna
+Narishkin. It became apparent to Sanin that she had been through a
+great deal more in her time than the majority of women of her age.
+
+Polozov ate meditatively, drank attentively, and only occasionally
+cast first on his wife, then on Sanin, his lightish, dim-looking, but,
+in reality, very keen eyes.
+
+'What a clever darling you are!' cried Maria Nikolaevna, turning to
+him; 'how well you carried out all my commissions in Frankfort! I
+could give you a kiss on your forehead for it, but you're not very
+keen after kisses.'
+
+'I'm not,' responded Polozov, and he cut a pine-apple with a silver
+knife.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna looked at him and drummed with her fingers on the
+table. 'So our bet's on, isn't it?' she said significantly. 'Yes, it's
+on.'
+
+'All right. You'll lose it.'
+
+Polozov stuck out his chin. 'Well, this time you mustn't be too
+sanguine, Maria Nikolaevna, maybe you will lose.'
+
+'What is the bet? May I know?' asked Sanin.
+
+'No ... not now,' answered Maria Nikolaevna, and she laughed.
+
+It struck seven. The waiter announced that the carriage was ready.
+Polozov saw his wife out, and at once waddled back to his easy-chair.
+
+'Mind now! Don't forget the letter to the overseer,' Maria Nikolaevna
+shouted to him from the hall.
+
+'I'll write, don't worry yourself. I'm a business-like person.'
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+
+In the year 1840, the theatre at Wiesbaden was a poor affair even
+externally, and its company, for affected and pitiful mediocrity, for
+studious and vulgar commonplaceness, not one hair's-breadth above the
+level, which might be regarded up to now as the normal one in all
+German theatres, and which has been displayed in perfection lately by
+the company in Carlsruhe, under the 'illustrious' direction of Herr
+Devrient. At the back of the box taken for her 'Serenity Madame von
+Polozov' (how the waiter devised the means of getting it, God knows,
+he can hardly have really bribed the stadt-director!) was a little
+room, with sofas all round it; before she went into the box, Maria
+Nikolaevna asked Sanin to draw up the screen that shut the box off
+from the theatre.
+
+'I don't want to be seen,' she said, 'or else they'll be swarming
+round directly, you know.' She made him sit down beside her with his
+back to the house so that the box seemed to be empty. The orchestra
+played the overture from the _Marriage of Figaro_. The curtain rose,
+the play began.
+
+It was one of those numerous home-raised products in which well-read
+but talentless authors, in choice, but dead language, studiously and
+cautiously enunciated some 'profound' or 'vital and palpitating'
+idea, portrayed a so-called tragic conflict, and produced dulness ...
+an Asiatic dulness, like Asiatic cholera. Maria Nikolaevna listened
+patiently to half an act, but when the first lover, discovering the
+treachery of his mistress (he was dressed in a cinnamon-coloured
+coat with 'puffs' and a plush collar, a striped waistcoat with
+mother-of-pearl buttons, green trousers with straps of varnished
+leather, and white chamois leather gloves), when this lover pressed
+both fists to his bosom, and poking his two elbows out at an acute
+angle, howled like a dog, Maria Nikolaevna could not stand it.
+
+'The humblest French actor in the humblest little provincial town acts
+better and more naturally than the highest German celebrity,' she
+cried in indignation; and she moved away and sat down in the little
+room at the back. 'Come here,' she said to Sanin, patting the sofa
+beside her. 'Let's talk.'
+
+Sanin obeyed.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna glanced at him. 'Ah, I see you're as soft as silk!
+Your wife will have an easy time of it with you. That buffoon,' she
+went on, pointing with her fan towards the howling actor (he was
+acting the part of a tutor), 'reminded me of my young days; I, too,
+was in love with a teacher. It was my first ... no, my second passion.
+The first time I fell in love with a young monk of the Don monastery.
+I was twelve years old. I only saw him on Sundays. He used to wear
+a short velvet cassock, smelt of lavender water, and as he made his
+way through the crowd with the censer, used to say to the ladies in
+French, "_Pardon, excusez_" but never lifted his eyes, and he had
+eyelashes like that!' Maria Nikolaevna marked off with the nail of her
+middle finger quite half the length of the little finger and showed
+Sanin. 'My tutor was called--Monsieur Gaston! I must tell you he was
+an awfully learned and very severe person, a Swiss,--and with such an
+energetic face! Whiskers black as pitch, a Greek profile, and lips
+that looked like cast iron! I was afraid of him! He was the only man I
+have ever been afraid of in my life. He was tutor to my brother, who
+died ... was drowned. A gipsy woman has foretold a violent death for
+me too, but that's all moonshine. I don't believe in it. Only fancy
+Ippolit Sidoritch with a dagger!'
+
+'One may die from something else than a dagger,' observed Sanin.
+
+'All that's moonshine! Are you superstitious? I'm not a bit. What is
+to be, will be. Monsieur Gaston used to live in our house, in the room
+over my head. Sometimes I'd wake up at night and hear his footstep--he
+used to go to bed very late--and my heart would stand still with
+veneration, or some other feeling. My father could hardly read and
+write himself, but he gave us an excellent education. Do you know, I
+learnt Latin!'
+
+'You? learnt Latin?'
+
+'Yes; I did. Monsieur Gaston taught me. I read the _AEneid_ with him.
+It's a dull thing, but there are fine passages. Do you remember when
+Dido and AEneas are in the forest?...'
+
+'Yes, yes, I remember,' Sanin answered hurriedly. He had long ago
+forgotten all his Latin, and had only very faint notions about the
+_AEneid_.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna glanced at him, as her way was, a little from one
+side and looking upwards. 'Don't imagine, though, that I am very
+learned. Mercy on us! no; I'm not learned, and I've no talents of any
+sort. I scarcely know how to write ... really; I can't read aloud; nor
+play the piano, nor draw, nor sew--nothing! That's what I am--there
+you have me!'
+
+She threw out her hands. 'I tell you all this,' she said, 'first,
+so as not to hear those fools (she pointed to the stage where at
+that instant the actor's place was being filled by an actress, also
+howling, and also with her elbows projecting before her) and secondly,
+because I'm in your debt; you told me all about yourself yesterday.'
+
+'It was your pleasure to question me,' observed Sanin.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna suddenly turned to him. 'And it's not your pleasure
+to know just what sort of woman I am? I can't wonder at it, though,'
+she went on, leaning back again on the sofa cushions. 'A man just
+going to be married, and for love, and after a duel.... What thoughts
+could he have for anything else?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna relapsed into dreamy silence, and began biting the
+handle of her fan with her big, but even, milkwhite teeth.
+
+And Sanin felt mounting to his head again that intoxication which he
+had not been able to get rid of for the last two days.
+
+The conversation between him and Maria Nikolaevna was carried on in an
+undertone, almost in a whisper, and this irritated and disturbed him
+the more....
+
+When would it all end?
+
+Weak people never put an end to things themselves--they always wait
+for the end.
+
+Some one sneezed on the stage; this sneeze had been put into the play
+by the author as the 'comic relief' or 'element'; there was certainly
+no other comic element in it; and the audience made the most of it;
+they laughed.
+
+This laugh, too, jarred upon Sanin.
+
+There were moments when he actually did not know whether he was
+furious or delighted, bored or amused. Oh, if Gemma could have seen
+him!
+
+'It's really curious,' Maria Nikolaevna began all at once. 'A man
+informs one and in such a calm voice, "I am going to get married"; but
+no one calmly says to one, "I'm going to throw myself in the water."
+And yet what difference is there? It's curious, really.'
+
+Annoyance got the upper hand of Sanin. 'There's a great difference,
+Maria Nikolaevna! It's not dreadful at all to throw oneself in the
+water if one can swim; and besides ... as to the strangeness of
+marriages, if you come to that ...'
+
+He stopped short abruptly and bit his tongue.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna slapped her open hand with her fan.
+
+'Go on, Dimitri Pavlovitch, go on--I know what you were going to say.
+"If it comes to that, my dear madam, Maria Nikolaevna Polozov," you
+were going to say, "anything more curious than _your_ marriage it
+would be impossible to conceive.... I know your husband well, from a
+child!" That's what you were going to say, you who can swim!'
+
+'Excuse me,' Sanin was beginning....
+
+'Isn't it the truth? Isn't it the truth?' Maria Nikolaevna pronounced
+insistently.
+
+'Come, look me in the face and tell me I was wrong!'
+
+Sanin did not know what to do with his eyes. 'Well, if you like; it's
+the truth, if you absolutely insist upon it,' he said at last.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna shook her head. 'Quite so, quite so. Well, and did
+you ask yourself, you who can swim, what could be the reason of such
+a strange ... step on the part of a woman, not poor ... and not a
+fool ... and not ugly? All that does not interest you, perhaps, but
+no matter. I'll tell you the reason not this minute, but directly the
+_entr'acte_ is over. I am in continual uneasiness for fear some one
+should come in....'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna had hardly uttered this last word when the outer door
+actually was half opened, and into the box was thrust a head--red,
+oily, perspiring, still young, but toothless; with sleek long hair,
+a pendent nose, huge ears like a bat's, with gold spectacles on
+inquisitive dull eyes, and a _pince-nez_ over the spectacles. The head
+looked round, saw Maria Nikolaevna, gave a nasty grin, nodded.... A
+scraggy neck craned in after it....
+
+Maria Nikolaevna shook her handkerchief at it. 'I'm not at home! _Ich
+bin nicht zu Hause, Herr P....! Ich bin nicht zu Hause.... Ksh-sk!
+ksh-sh-sh!_'
+
+The head was disconcerted, gave a forced laugh, said with a sort of
+sob, in imitation of Liszt, at whose feet he had once reverently
+grovelled, '_Sehr gut, sehr gut!_' and vanished.
+
+'What is that object?' inquired Sanin.
+
+'Oh, a Wiesbaden critic. A literary man or a flunkey, as you like. He
+is in the pay of a local speculator here, and so is bound to praise
+everything and be ecstatic over every one, though for his part he is
+soaked through and through with the nastiest venom, to which he does
+not dare to give vent. I am afraid he's an awful scandalmonger; he'll
+run at once to tell every one I'm in the theatre. Well, what does it
+matter?'
+
+The orchestra played through a waltz, the curtain floated up again....
+The grimacing and whimpering began again on the stage.
+
+'Well,' began Maria Nikolaevna, sinking again on to the sofa. 'Since
+you are here and obliged to sit with me, instead of enjoying the
+society of your betrothed--don't turn away your eyes and get cross--I
+understand you, and have promised already to let you go to the other
+end of the earth--but now hear my confession. Do you care to know what
+I like more than anything?'
+
+'Freedom,' hazarded Sanin.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna laid her hand on his hand.
+
+'Yes, Dimitri Pavlovitch,' she said, and in her voice there was a note
+of something special, a sort of unmistakable sincerity and gravity,
+'freedom, more than all and before all. And don't imagine I am
+boasting of this--there is nothing praiseworthy in it; only it's _so_
+and always will be _so_ with me to the day of my death. I suppose it
+must have been that I saw a great deal of slavery in my childhood and
+suffered enough from it. Yes, and Monsieur Gaston, my tutor, opened
+my eyes too. Now you can, perhaps, understand why I married Ippolit
+Sidoritch: with him I'm free, perfectly free as air, as the wind....
+And I knew that before marriage; I knew that with him I should be a
+free Cossack!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna paused and flung her fan aside.
+
+'I will tell you one thing more; I have no distaste for reflection ...
+it's amusing, and indeed our brains are given us for that; but on the
+consequences of what I do I never reflect, and if I suffer I don't
+pity myself--not a little bit; it's not worth it. I have a favourite
+saying: _Cela ne tire pas a consequence_,--I don't know how to say
+that in Russian. And after all, what does _tire a consequence_? I
+shan't be asked to give an account of myself here, you see--in this
+world; and up there (she pointed upwards with her finger), well, up
+there--let them manage as best they can. When they come to judge me
+up there, _I_ shall not be _I_! Are you listening to me? Aren't you
+bored?'
+
+Sanin was sitting bent up. He raised his head. 'I'm not at all bored,
+Maria Nikolaevna, and I am listening to you with curiosity. Only I ...
+confess ... I wonder why you say all this to me?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna edged a little away on the sofa.
+
+'You wonder?... Are you slow to guess? Or so modest?'
+
+Sanin lifted his head higher than before.
+
+'I tell you all this,' Maria Nikolaevna continued in an unmoved tone,
+which did not, however, at all correspond with the expression of her
+face, 'because I like you very much; yes, don't be surprised, I'm not
+joking; because since I have met you, it would be painful to me that
+you had a disagreeable recollection of me ... not disagreeable even,
+that I shouldn't mind, but untrue. That's why I have made you come
+here, and am staying alone with you and talking to you so openly....
+Yes, yes, openly. I'm not telling a lie. And observe, Dimitri
+Pavlovitch, I know you're in love with another woman, that you're
+going to be married to her.... Do justice to my disinterestedness!
+Though indeed it's a good opportunity for you to say in your turn:
+_Cela ne tire pas a consequence_!'
+
+She laughed, but her laugh suddenly broke off, and she stayed
+motionless, as though her own words had suddenly struck her, and in
+her eyes, usually so gay and bold, there was a gleam of something like
+timidity, even like sadness.
+
+'Snake! ah, she's a snake!' Sanin was thinking meanwhile; 'but what a
+lovely snake!'
+
+'Give me my opera-glass,' Maria Nikolaevna said suddenly. 'I want to
+see whether this _jeune premiere_ really is so ugly. Upon my word, one
+might fancy the government appointed her in the interests of morality,
+so that the young men might not lose their heads over her.'
+
+Sanin handed her the opera-glass, and as she took it from him,
+swiftly, but hardly audibly, she snatched his hand in both of hers.
+
+'Please don't be serious,' she whispered with a smile. 'Do you know
+what, no one can put fetters on me, but then you see I put no fetters
+on others. I love freedom, and I don't acknowledge duties--not only
+for myself. Now move to one side a little, and let us listen to the
+play.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her opera-glass upon the stage, and Sanin
+proceeded to look in the same direction, sitting beside her in the
+half dark of the box, and involuntarily drinking in the warmth and
+fragrance of her luxurious body, and as involuntarily turning over
+and over in his head all she had said during the evening--especially
+during the last minutes.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+
+The play lasted over an hour longer, but Maria Nikolaevna and Sanin
+soon gave up looking at the stage. A conversation sprang up between
+them again, and went on the same lines as before; only this time Sanin
+was less silent. Inwardly he was angry with himself and with Maria
+Nikolaevna; he tried to prove to her all the inconsistency of her
+'theory,' as though she cared for theories! He began arguing with her,
+at which she was secretly rejoiced; if a man argues, it means that he
+is giving in or will give in. He had taken the bait, was giving way,
+had left off keeping shyly aloof! She retorted, laughed, agreed, mused
+dreamily, attacked him ... and meanwhile his face and her face were
+close together, his eyes no longer avoided her eyes.... Those eyes
+of hers seemed to ramble, seemed to hover over his features, and he
+smiled in response to them--a smile of civility, but still a smile.
+It was so much gained for her that he had gone off into abstractions,
+that he was discoursing upon truth in personal relations, upon
+duty, the sacredness of love and marriage.... It is well known that
+these abstract propositions serve admirably as a beginning ... as a
+starting-point....
+
+People who knew Maria Nikolaevna well used to maintain that when her
+strong and vigorous personality showed signs of something soft and
+modest, something almost of maidenly shamefacedness, though one
+wondered where she could have got it from ... then ... then, things
+were taking a dangerous turn.
+
+Things had apparently taken such a turn for Sanin.... He would have
+felt contempt for himself, if he could have succeeded in concentrating
+his attention for one instant; but he had not time to concentrate his
+mind nor to despise himself.
+
+She wasted no time. And it all came from his being so very
+good-looking! One can but exclaim, No man knows what may be his making
+or his undoing!
+
+The play was over. Maria Nikolaevna asked Sanin to put on her shawl
+and did not stir, while he wrapped the soft fabric round her really
+queenly shoulders. Then she took his arm, went out into the corridor,
+and almost cried out aloud. At the very door of the box Doenhof sprang
+up like some apparition; while behind his back she got a glimpse of
+the figure of the Wiesbaden critic. The 'literary man's' oily face was
+positively radiant with malignancy.
+
+'Is it your wish, madam, that I find you your carriage?' said
+the young officer addressing Maria Nikolaevna with a quiver of
+ill-disguised fury in his voice.
+
+'No, thank you,' she answered ... 'my man will find it. Stop!' she
+added in an imperious whisper, and rapidly withdrew drawing Sanin
+along with her.
+
+'Go to the devil! Why are you staring at me?' Doenhof roared suddenly
+at the literary man. He had to vent his feelings upon some one!
+
+'_Sehr gut! sehr gut!_' muttered the literary man, and shuffled off.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna's footman, waiting for her in the entrance, found her
+carriage in no time. She quickly took her seat in it; Sanin leapt in
+after her. The doors were slammed to, and Maria Nikolaevna exploded in
+a burst of laughter.
+
+'What are you laughing at?' Sanin inquired.
+
+'Oh, excuse me, please ... but it struck me: what if Doenhof were to
+have another duel with you ... on my account.... wouldn't that be
+wonderful?'
+
+'Are you very great friends with him?' Sanin asked.
+
+'With him? that boy? He's one of my followers. You needn't trouble
+yourself about him!'
+
+'Oh, I'm not troubling myself at all.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna sighed. 'Ah, I know you're not. But listen, do you
+know what, you're such a darling, you mustn't refuse me one last
+request. Remember in three days' time I am going to Paris, and you are
+returning to Frankfort.... Shall we ever meet again?'
+
+'What is this request?'
+
+'You can ride, of course?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, then, to-morrow morning I'll take you with me, and we'll go a
+ride together out of the town. We'll have splendid horses. Then we'll
+come home, wind up our business, and amen! Don't be surprised, don't
+tell me it's a caprice, and I'm a madcap--all that's very likely--but
+simply say, I consent.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna turned her face towards him. It was dark in the
+carriage, but her eyes glittered even in the darkness.
+
+'Very well, I consent,' said Sanin with a sigh.
+
+'Ah! You sighed!' Maria Nikolaevna mimicked him. 'That means to say,
+as you've begun, you must go on to the bitter end. But no, no....
+You're charming, you're good, and I'll keep my promise. Here's my
+hand, without a glove on it, the right one, for business. Take it, and
+have faith in its pressure. What sort of a woman I am, I don't know;
+but I'm an honest fellow, and one can do business with me.'
+
+Sanin, without knowing very well what he was doing, lifted the hand to
+his lips. Maria Nikolaevna softly took it, and was suddenly still, and
+did not speak again till the carriage stopped.
+
+She began getting out.... What was it? Sanin's fancy? or did he really
+feel on his cheek a swift burning kiss?
+
+'Till to-morrow!' whispered Maria Nikolaevna on the steps, in the
+light of the four tapers of a candelabrum, held up on her appearance
+by the gold-laced door-keeper. She kept her eyes cast down. 'Till
+to-morrow!'
+
+When he got back to his room, Sanin found on the table a letter from
+Gemma. He felt a momentary dismay, and at once made haste to rejoice
+over it to disguise his dismay from himself. It consisted of a few
+lines. She was delighted at the 'successful opening of negotiations,'
+advised him to be patient, and added that all at home were well, and
+were already rejoicing at the prospect of seeing him back again. Sanin
+felt the letter rather stiff, he took pen and paper, however ... and
+threw it all aside again. 'Why write? I shall be back myself to-morrow
+... it's high time!'
+
+He went to bed immediately, and tried to get to sleep as quickly as
+possible. If he had stayed up and remained on his legs, he would
+certainly have begun thinking about Gemma, and he was for some reason
+... ashamed to think of her. His conscience was stirring within him.
+But he consoled himself with the reflection that to-morrow it would
+all be over for ever, and he would take leave for good of this
+feather-brained lady, and would forget all this rotten idiocy!...
+
+Weak people in their mental colloquies, eagerly make use of strong
+expressions.
+
+_Et puis ... cela ne tire pas a consequence!_
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+
+Such were Sanin's thoughts, as he went to bed; but what he thought
+next morning when Maria Nikolaevna knocked impatiently at his door
+with the coral handle of her riding-whip, when he saw her in the
+doorway, with the train of a dark-blue riding habit over her arm, with
+a man's small hat on her thickly coiled curls, with a veil thrown
+back over her shoulder, with a smile of invitation on her lips, in
+her eyes, over all her face--what he thought then--history does not
+record.
+
+'Well? are you ready?' rang out a joyous voice.
+
+Sanin buttoned his coat, and took his hat in silence. Maria Nikolaevna
+flung him a bright look, nodded to him, and ran swiftly down the
+staircase. And he ran after her.
+
+The horses were already waiting in the street at the steps. There
+were three of them, a golden chestnut thorough-bred mare, with a
+thin-lipped mouth, that showed the teeth, with black prominent eyes,
+and legs like a stag's, rather thin but beautifully shaped, and full
+of fire and spirit, for Maria Nikolaevna; a big, powerful, rather
+thick-set horse, raven black all over, for Sanin; the third horse was
+destined for the groom. Maria Nikolaevna leaped adroitly on to her
+mare, who stamped and wheeled round, lifting her tail, and sinking
+on to her haunches. But Maria Nikolaevna, who was a first-rate
+horse-woman, reined her in; they had to take leave of Polozov, who in
+his inevitable fez and in an open dressing-gown, came out on to the
+balcony, and from there waved a _batiste_ handkerchief, without the
+faintest smile, rather a frown, in fact, on his face. Sanin too
+mounted his horse; Maria Nikolaevna saluted Polozov with her whip,
+then gave her mare a lash with it on her arched and flat neck. The
+mare reared on her hind legs, made a dash forward, moving with a smart
+and shortened step, quivering in every sinew, biting the air and
+snorting abruptly. Sanin rode behind, and looked at Maria Nikolaevna;
+her slender supple figure, moulded by close-fitting but easy stays,
+swayed to and fro with self-confident grace and skill. She turned her
+head and beckoned him with her eyes alone. He came alongside of her.
+
+'See now, how delightful it is,' she said. 'I tell you at the last,
+before parting, you are charming, and you shan't regret it.'
+
+As she uttered those last words, she nodded her head several times as
+if to confirm them and make him feel their full weight.
+
+She seemed so happy that Sanin was simply astonished; her face even
+wore at times that sedate expression which children sometimes have
+when they are very ... very much pleased.
+
+They rode at a walking pace for the short distance to the city walls,
+but then started off at a vigorous gallop along the high road. It was
+magnificent, real summer weather; the wind blew in their faces, and
+sang and whistled sweetly in their ears. They felt very happy; the
+sense of youth, health and life, of free eager onward motion, gained
+possession of both; it grew stronger every instant.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna reined in her mare, and again went at a walking pace;
+Sanin followed her example.
+
+'This,' she began with a deep blissful sigh, 'this now is the only
+thing worth living for. When you succeed in doing what you want to,
+what seemed impossible--come, enjoy it, heart and soul, to the last
+drop!' She passed her hand across her throat. 'And how good and kind
+one feels oneself then! I now, at this moment ... how good I feel!
+I feel as if I could embrace the whole world! No, not the whole
+world.... That man now I couldn't.' She pointed with her whip at a
+poorly dressed old man who was stealing along on one side. 'But I
+am ready to make him happy. Here, take this,' she shouted loudly in
+German, and she flung a net purse at his feet. The heavy little bag
+(leather purses were not thought of at that time) fell with a ring
+on to the road. The old man was astounded, stood still, while Maria
+Nikolaevna chuckled, and put her mare into a gallop.
+
+'Do you enjoy riding so much?' Sanin asked, as he overtook her.
+
+Maria Nikolaevna reined her mare in once more: only in this way could
+she bring her to a stop.
+
+'I only wanted to get away from thanks. If any one thanks me, he
+spoils my pleasure. You see I didn't do that for his sake, but for my
+own. How dare he thank me? I didn't hear what you asked me.'
+
+'I asked ... I wanted to know what makes you so happy to-day.'
+
+'Do you know what,' said Maria Nikolaevna; either she had again not
+heard Sanin's question, or she did not consider it necessary to answer
+it. 'I'm awfully sick of that groom, who sticks up there behind us,
+and most likely does nothing but wonder when we gentlefolks are going
+home again. How shall we get rid of him?' She hastily pulled a little
+pocket-book out of her pocket. 'Send him back to the town with a note?
+No ... that won't do. Ah! I have it! What's that in front of us? Isn't
+it an inn?'
+
+Sanin looked in the direction she pointed. 'Yes, I believe it is an
+inn.'
+
+'Well, that's first-rate. I'll tell him to stop at that inn and drink
+beer till we come back.'
+
+'But what will he think?'
+
+'What does it matter to us? Besides, he won't think at all; he'll
+drink beer--that's all. Come, Sanin (it was the first time she had
+used his surname alone), on, gallop!'
+
+When they reached the inn, Maria Nikolaevna called the groom up
+and told him what she wished of him. The groom, a man of English
+extraction and English temperament, raised his hand to the beak of his
+cap without a word, jumped off his horse, and took him by the bridle.
+
+'Well, now we are free as the birds of the air!' cried Maria
+Nikolaevna. 'Where shall we go. North, south, east, or west? Look--I'm
+like the Hungarian king at his coronation (she pointed her whip in
+each direction in turn). All is ours! No, do you know what: see, those
+glorious mountains--and that forest! Let's go there, to the mountains,
+to the mountains!'
+
+'_In die Berge wo die Freiheit thront!_'
+
+She turned off the high-road and galloped along a narrow untrodden
+track, which certainly seemed to lead straight to the hills. Sanin
+galloped after her.
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+
+This track soon changed into a tiny footpath, and at last disappeared
+altogether, and was crossed by a stream. Sanin counselled turning
+back, but Maria Nikolaevna said, 'No! I want to get to the mountains!
+Let's go straight, as the birds fly,' and she made her mare leap the
+stream. Sanin leaped it too. Beyond the stream began a wide meadow,
+at first dry, then wet, and at last quite boggy; the water oozed up
+everywhere, and stood in pools in some places. Maria Nikolaevna rode
+her mare straight through these pools on purpose, laughed, and said,
+'Let's be naughty children.'
+
+'Do you know,' she asked Sanin, 'what is meant by pool-hunting?'
+
+'Yes,' answered Sanin.
+
+'I had an uncle a huntsman,' she went on.
+
+'I used to go out hunting with him--in the spring. It was delicious!
+Here we are now, on the pools with you. Only, I see, you're a Russian,
+and yet mean to marry an Italian. Well, that's your sorrow. What's
+that? A stream again! Gee up!'
+
+The horse took the leap, but Maria Nikolaevna's hat fell off her head,
+and her curls tumbled loose over her shoulders. Sanin was just going
+to get off his horse to pick up the hat, but she shouted to him,
+'Don't touch it, I'll get it myself,' bent low down from the saddle,
+hooked the handle of her whip into the veil, and actually did get the
+hat. She put it on her head, but did not fasten up her hair, and again
+darted off, positively holloaing. Sanin dashed along beside her, by
+her side leaped trenches, fences, brooks, fell in and scrambled out,
+flew down hill, flew up hill, and kept watching her face. What a face
+it was! It was all, as it were, wide open: wide-open eyes, eager,
+bright, and wild; lips, nostrils, open too, and breathing eagerly; she
+looked straight before her, and it seemed as though that soul longed
+to master everything it saw, the earth, the sky, the sun, the air
+itself; and would complain of one thing only--that dangers were so
+few, and all she could overcome. 'Sanin!' she cried, 'why, this is
+like Buerger's Lenore! Only you're not dead--eh? Not dead ... I am
+alive!' She let her force and daring have full fling. It seemed not an
+Amazon on a galloping horse, but a young female centaur at full speed,
+half-beast and half-god, and the sober, well-bred country seemed
+astounded, as it was trampled underfoot in her wild riot!
+
+Maria Nikolaevna at last drew up her foaming and bespattered mare; she
+was staggering under her, and Sanin's powerful but heavy horse was
+gasping for breath.
+
+'Well, do you like it?' Maria Nikolaevna asked in a sort of exquisite
+whisper.
+
+'I like it!' Sanin echoed back ecstatically. And his blood was on
+fire.
+
+'This isn't all, wait a bit.' She held out her hand. Her glove was
+torn across.
+
+'I told you I would lead you to the forest, to the mountains.... Here
+they are, the mountains!' The mountains, covered with tall forest,
+rose about two hundred feet from the place they had reached in their
+wild ride. 'Look, here is the road; let us turn into it--and forwards.
+Only at a walk. We must let our horses get their breath.'
+
+They rode on. With one vigorous sweep of her arm Maria Nikolaevna
+flung back her hair. Then she looked at her gloves and took them off.
+'My hands will smell of leather,' she said, 'you won't mind that, eh?'
+... Maria Nikolaevna smiled, and Sanin smiled too. Their mad gallop
+together seemed to have finally brought them together and made them
+friends.
+
+'How old are you?' she asked suddenly.
+
+'Twenty-two.'
+
+'Really? I'm twenty-two too. A nice age. Add both together and you're
+still far off old age. It's hot, though. Am I very red, eh?'
+
+'Like a poppy!'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna rubbed her face with her handkerchief. 'We've only
+to get to the forest and there it will be cool. Such an old forest is
+like an old friend. Have you any friends?'
+
+Sanin thought a little. 'Yes ... only few. No real ones.'
+
+'I have; real ones--but not old ones. This is a friend too--a horse.
+How carefully it carries one! Ah, but it's splendid here! Is it
+possible I am going to Paris the day after to-morrow?'
+
+'Yes ... is it possible?' Sanin chimed in.
+
+'And you to Frankfort?'
+
+'I am certainly going to Frankfort.'
+
+'Well, what of it? Good luck go with you! Anyway, to-day's ours ...
+ours ... ours!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The horses reached the forest's edge and pushed on into the forest.
+The broad soft shade of the forest wrapt them round on all sides.
+
+'Oh, but this is paradise!' cried Maria Nikolaevna. 'Further, deeper
+into the shade, Sanin!'
+
+The horses moved slowly on, 'deeper into the shade,' slightly swaying
+and snorting. The path, by which they had come in, suddenly turned
+off and plunged into a rather narrow gorge. The smell of heather and
+bracken, of the resin of the pines, and the decaying leaves of last
+year, seemed to hang, close and drowsy, about it. Through the clefts
+of the big brown rocks came strong currents of fresh air. On both
+sides of the path rose round hillocks covered with green moss.
+
+'Stop!' cried Maria Nikolaevna, 'I want to sit down and rest on this
+velvet. Help me to get off.'
+
+Sanin leaped off his horse and ran up to her. She leaned on both his
+shoulders, sprang instantly to the ground, and seated herself on one
+of the mossy mounds. He stood before her, holding both the horses'
+bridles in his hand.
+
+She lifted her eyes to him.... 'Sanin, are you able to forget?'
+
+Sanin recollected what had happened yesterday ... in the carriage.
+'What is that--a question ... or a reproach?'
+
+'I have never in my life reproached any one for anything. Do you
+believe in magic?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'In magic?--you know what is sung of in our ballads--our Russian
+peasant ballads?'
+
+'Ah! That's what you're speaking of,' Sanin said slowly.
+
+'Yes, that's it. I believe in it ... and you will believe in it.'
+
+'Magic is sorcery ...' Sanin repeated, 'Anything in the world is
+possible. I used not to believe in it--but I do now. I don't know
+myself.'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna thought a moment and looked about her. 'I fancy this
+place seems familiar to me. Look, Sanin, behind that bushy oak--is
+there a red wooden cross, or not?'
+
+Sanin moved a few steps to one side. 'Yes, there is.' Maria Nikolaevna
+smiled. 'Ah, that's good! I know where we are. We haven't got lost as
+yet. What's that tapping? A wood-cutter?'
+
+Sanin looked into the thicket. 'Yes ... there's a man there chopping
+up dry branches.'
+
+'I must put my hair to rights,' said Maria Nikolaevna. 'Else he'll see
+me and be shocked.' She took off her hat and began plaiting up her
+long hair, silently and seriously. Sanin stood facing her ... All the
+lines of her graceful limbs could be clearly seen through the dark
+folds of her habit, dotted here and there with tufts of moss.
+
+One of the horses suddenly shook itself behind Sanin's back; he
+himself started and trembled from head to foot. Everything was in
+confusion within him, his nerves were strung up like harpstrings. He
+might well say he did not know himself.... He really was bewitched.
+His whole being was filled full of one thing ... one idea, one desire.
+Maria Nikolaevna turned a keen look upon him.
+
+'Come, now everything's as it should be,' she observed, putting on her
+hat. 'Won't you sit down? Here! No, wait a minute ... don't sit down!
+What's that?'
+
+Over the tree-tops, over the air of the forest, rolled a dull
+rumbling.
+
+'Can it be thunder?'
+
+'I think it really is thunder,' answered Sanin.
+
+'Oh, this is a treat, a real treat! That was the only thing wanting!'
+The dull rumble was heard a second time, rose, and fell in a crash.
+'Bravo! Bis! Do you remember I spoke of the _AEneid_ yesterday? They
+too were overtaken by a storm in the forest, you know. We must be off,
+though.' She rose swiftly to her feet. 'Bring me my horse.... Give me
+your hand. There, so. I'm not heavy.'
+
+She hopped like a bird into the saddle. Sanin too mounted his horse.
+
+'Are you going home?' he asked in an unsteady voice.
+
+'Home indeed!' she answered deliberately and picked up the reins.
+'Follow me,' she commanded almost roughly. She came out on to the road
+and passing the red cross, rode down into a hollow, clambered up again
+to a cross road, turned to the right and again up the mountainside....
+She obviously knew where the path led, and the path led farther and
+farther into the heart of the forest. She said nothing and did not
+look round; she moved imperiously in front and humbly and submissively
+he followed without a spark of will in his sinking heart. Rain began
+to fall in spots. She quickened her horse's pace, and he did not
+linger behind her. At last through the dark green of the young firs
+under an overhanging grey rock, a tumbledown little hut peeped out at
+him, with a low door in its wattle wall.... Maria Nikolaevna made
+her mare push through the fir bushes, leaped off her, and appearing
+suddenly at the entrance to the hut, turned to Sanin, and whispered
+'AEneas.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four hours later, Maria Nikolaevna and Sanin, accompanied by the
+groom, who was nodding in the saddle, returned to Wiesbaden, to the
+hotel. Polozov met his wife with the letter to the overseer in his
+hand. After staring rather intently at her, he showed signs of some
+displeasure on his face, and even muttered, 'You don't mean to say
+you've won your bet?'
+
+Maria Nikolaevna simply shrugged her shoulders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The same day, two hours later, Sanin was standing in his own room
+before her, like one distraught, ruined....
+
+'Where are you going, dear?' she asked him. 'To Paris, or to
+Frankfort?'
+
+'I am going where you will be, and will be with you till you drive me
+away,' he answered with despair and pressed close to him the hands
+of his sovereign. She freed her hands, laid them on his head, and
+clutched at his hair with her fingers. She slowly turned over and
+twisted the unresisting hair, drew herself up, her lips curled with
+triumph, while her eyes, wide and clear, almost white, expressed
+nothing but the ruthlessness and glutted joy of conquest. The hawk, as
+it clutches a captured bird, has eyes like that.
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+
+This was what Dimitri Sanin remembered when in the stillness of his
+room turning over his old papers he found among them a garnet cross.
+The events we have described rose clearly and consecutively before his
+mental vision.... But when he reached the moment when he addressed
+that humiliating prayer to Madame Polozov, when he grovelled at her
+feet, when his slavery began, he averted his gaze from the images he
+had evoked, he tried to recall no more. And not that his memory failed
+him, oh no! he knew only too well what followed upon that moment, but
+he was stifled by shame, even now, so many years after; he dreaded
+that feeling of self-contempt, which he knew for certain would
+overwhelm him, and like a torrent, flood all other feelings if he did
+not bid his memory be still. But try as he would to turn away from
+these memories, he could not stifle them entirely. He remembered the
+scoundrelly, tearful, lying, pitiful letter he had sent to Gemma, that
+never received an answer.... See her again, go back to her, after such
+falsehood, such treachery, no! no! he could not, so much conscience
+and honesty was left in him. Moreover, he had lost every trace of
+confidence in himself, every atom of self-respect; he dared not rely
+on himself for anything. Sanin recollected too how he had later
+on--oh, ignominy!--sent the Polozovs' footman to Frankfort for his
+things, what cowardly terror he had felt, how he had had one thought
+only, to get away as soon as might be to Paris--to Paris; how in
+obedience to Maria Nikolaevna, he had humoured and tried to please
+Ippolit Sidoritch and been amiable to Doenhof, on whose finger he
+noticed just such an iron ring as Maria Nikolaevna had given him!!!
+Then followed memories still worse, more ignominious ... the waiter
+hands him a visiting card, and on it is the name, 'Pantaleone
+Cippatola, court singer to His Highness the Duke of Modena!' He hides
+from the old man, but cannot escape meeting him in the corridor, and
+a face of exasperation rises before him under an upstanding topknot
+of grey hair; the old eyes blaze like red-hot coals, and he hears
+menacing cries and curses: '_Maledizione!_' hears even the terrible
+words: '_Codardo! Infame traditore!_' Sanin closes his eyes, shakes
+his head, turns away again and again, but still he sees himself
+sitting in a travelling carriage on the narrow front seat ... In the
+comfortable places facing the horses sit Maria Nikolaevna and Ippolit
+Sidoritch, the four horses trotting all together fly along the paved
+roads of Wiesbaden to Paris! to Paris! Ippolit Sidoritch is eating a
+pear which Sanin has peeled for him, while Maria Nikolaevna watches
+him and smiles at him, her bondslave, that smile he knows already, the
+smile of the proprietor, the slave-owner.... But, good God, out there
+at the corner of the street not far from the city walls, wasn't it
+Pantaleone again, and who with him? Can it be Emilio? Yes, it was
+he, the enthusiastic devoted boy! Not long since his young face had
+been full of reverence before his hero, his ideal, but now his pale
+handsome face, so handsome that Maria Nikolaevna noticed him and poked
+her head out of the carriage window, that noble face is glowing with
+anger and contempt; his eyes, so like _her_ eyes! are fastened upon
+Sanin, and the tightly compressed lips part to revile him....
+
+And Pantaleone stretches out his hand and points Sanin out to
+Tartaglia standing near, and Tartaglia barks at Sanin, and the very
+bark of the faithful dog sounds like an unbearable reproach....
+Hideous!
+
+And then, the life in Paris, and all the humiliations, all the
+loathsome tortures of the slave, who dare not be jealous or complain,
+and who is cast aside at last, like a worn-out garment....
+
+Then the going home to his own country, the poisoned, the devastated
+life, the petty interests and petty cares, bitter and fruitless
+regret, and as bitter and fruitless apathy, a punishment not apparent,
+but of every minute, continuous, like some trivial but incurable
+disease, the payment farthing by farthing of the debt, which can never
+be settled....
+
+The cup was full enough.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How had the garnet cross given Sanin by Gemma existed till now, why
+had he not sent it back, how had it happened that he had never come
+across it till that day? A long, long while he sat deep in thought,
+and taught as he was by the experience of so many years, he still
+could not comprehend how he could have deserted Gemma, so tenderly and
+passionately loved, for a woman he did not love at all.... Next day he
+surprised all his friends and acquaintances by announcing that he was
+going abroad.
+
+The surprise was general in society. Sanin was leaving Petersburg, in
+the middle of the winter, after having only just taken and furnished a
+capital flat, and having even secured seats for all the performances
+of the Italian Opera, in which Madame Patti ... Patti, herself,
+herself, was to take part! His friends and acquaintances wondered;
+but it is not human nature as a rule to be interested long in other
+people's affairs, and when Sanin set off for abroad, none came to the
+railway station to see him off but a French tailor, and he only in
+the hope of securing an unpaid account '_pour un saute-en-barque en
+velours noir tout a fait chic_.'
+
+
+
+
+XLIV
+
+
+Sanin told his friends he was going abroad, but he did not say where
+exactly: the reader will readily conjecture that he made straight for
+Frankfort. Thanks to the general extension of railways, on the fourth
+day after leaving Petersburg he was there. He had not visited the
+place since 1840. The hotel, the White Swan, was standing in its old
+place and still flourishing, though no longer regarded as first class.
+The _Zeile_, the principal street of Frankfort was little changed,
+but there was not only no trace of Signora Roselli's house, the very
+street in which it stood had disappeared. Sanin wandered like a man in
+a dream about the places once so familiar, and recognised nothing; the
+old buildings had vanished; they were replaced by new streets of huge
+continuous houses and fine villas; even the public garden, where that
+last interview with Gemma had taken place, had so grown up and altered
+that Sanin wondered if it really were the same garden. What was he to
+do? How and where could he get information? Thirty years, no little
+thing! had passed since those days. No one to whom he applied had
+even heard of the name Roselli; the hotel-keeper advised him to have
+recourse to the public library, there, he told him, he would find
+all the old newspapers, but what good he would get from that, the
+hotel-keeper owned he didn't see. Sanin in despair made inquiries
+about Herr Klueber. That name the hotel-keeper knew well, but there too
+no success awaited him. The elegant shop-manager, after making much
+noise in the world and rising to the position of a capitalist, had
+speculated, was made bankrupt, and died in prison.... This piece of
+news did not, however, occasion Sanin the slightest regret. He was
+beginning to feel that his journey had been rather precipitate....
+But, behold, one day, as he was turning over a Frankfort directory,
+he came on the name: Von Doenhof, retired major. He promptly took a
+carriage and drove to the address, though why was this Von Doenhof
+certain to be that Doenhof, and why even was the right Doenhof likely
+to be able to tell him any news of the Roselli family? No matter, a
+drowning man catches at straws.
+
+Sanin found the retired major von Doenhof at home, and in the
+grey-haired gentleman who received him he recognised at once his
+adversary of bygone days. Doenhof knew him too, and was positively
+delighted to see him; he recalled to him his young days, the escapades
+of his youth. Sanin heard from him that the Roselli family had long,
+long ago emigrated to America, to New York; that Gemma had married a
+merchant; that he, Doenhof, had an acquaintance also a merchant, who
+would probably know her husband's address, as he did a great deal of
+business with America. Sanin begged Doenhof to consult this friend,
+and, to his delight, Doenhof brought him the address of Gemma's
+husband, Mr. Jeremy Slocum, New York, Broadway, No. 501. Only this
+address dated from the year 1863.
+
+'Let us hope,' cried Doenhof, 'that our Frankfort belle is still alive
+and has not left New York! By the way,' he added, dropping his voice,
+'what about that Russian lady, who was staying, do you remember, about
+that time at Wiesbaden--Madame von Bo ... von Bolozov, is she still
+living?'
+
+'No,' answered Sanin, 'she died long ago.' Doenhof looked up, but
+observing that Sanin had turned away and was frowning, he did not say
+another word, but took his leave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That same day Sanin sent a letter to Madame Gemma Slocum, at New York.
+In the letter he told her he was writing to her from Frankfort, where
+he had come solely with the object of finding traces of her, that
+he was very well aware that he was absolutely without a right to
+expect that she would answer his appeal; that he had not deserved her
+forgiveness, and could only hope that among happy surroundings she had
+long ago forgotten his existence. He added that he had made up his
+mind to recall himself to her memory in consequence of a chance
+circumstance which had too vividly brought back to him the images
+of the past; he described his life, solitary, childless, joyless;
+he implored her to understand the grounds that had induced him to
+address her, not to let him carry to the grave the bitter sense of his
+own wrongdoing, expiated long since by suffering, but never forgiven,
+and to make him happy with even the briefest news of her life in the
+new world to which she had gone away. 'In writing one word to me,'
+so Sanin ended his letter, 'you will be doing a good action worthy
+of your noble soul, and I shall thank you to my last breath. I am
+stopping here at the _White Swan_ (he underlined those words) and
+shall wait, wait till spring, for your answer.'
+
+He despatched this letter, and proceeded to wait. For six whole weeks
+he lived in the hotel, scarcely leaving his room, and resolutely
+seeing no one. No one could write to him from Russia nor from
+anywhere; and that just suited his mood; if a letter came addressed to
+him he would know at once that it was the one he was waiting for.
+He read from morning till evening, and not journals, but serious
+books--historical works. These prolonged studies, this stillness, this
+hidden life, like a snail in its shell, suited his spiritual condition
+to perfection; and for this, if nothing more, thanks to Gemma! But was
+she alive? Would she answer?
+
+At last a letter came, with an American postmark, from New York,
+addressed to him. The handwriting of the address on the envelope was
+English.... He did not recognise it, and there was a pang at his
+heart. He could not at once bring himself to break open the envelope.
+He glanced at the signature--Gemma! The tears positively gushed from
+his eyes: the mere fact that she signed her name, without a surname,
+was a pledge to him of reconciliation, of forgiveness! He unfolded the
+thin sheet of blue notepaper: a photograph slipped out. He made haste
+to pick it up--and was struck dumb with amazement: Gemma, Gemma
+living, young as he had known her thirty years ago! The same eyes,
+the same lips, the same form of the whole face! On the back of the
+photograph was written, 'My daughter Mariana.' The whole letter was
+very kind and simple. Gemma thanked Sanin for not having hesitated to
+write to her, for having confidence in her; she did not conceal from
+him that she had passed some painful moments after his disappearance,
+but she added at once that for all that she considered--and had always
+considered--her meeting him as a happy thing, seeing that it was that
+meeting which had prevented her from becoming the wife of Mr. Klueber,
+and in that way, though indirectly, had led to her marriage with her
+husband, with whom she had now lived twenty-eight years, in perfect
+happiness, comfort, and prosperity; their house was known to every
+one in New York. Gemma informed Sanin that she was the mother of five
+children, four sons and one daughter, a girl of eighteen, engaged
+to be married, and her photograph she enclosed as she was generally
+considered very like her mother. The sorrowful news Gemma kept for the
+end of the letter. Frau Lenore had died in New York, where she had
+followed her daughter and son-in-law, but she had lived long enough to
+rejoice in her children's happiness and to nurse her grandchildren.
+Pantaleone, too, had meant to come out to America, but he had died on
+the very eve of leaving Frankfort. 'Emilio, our beloved, incomparable
+Emilio, died a glorious death for the freedom of his country in
+Sicily, where he was one of the "Thousand" under the leadership of the
+great Garibaldi; we all bitterly lamented the loss of our priceless
+brother, but, even in the midst of our tears, we were proud of
+him--and shall always be proud of him--and hold his memory sacred!
+His lofty, disinterested soul was worthy of a martyr's crown!' Then
+Gemma expressed her regret that Sanin's life had apparently been
+so unsuccessful, wished him before everything peace and a tranquil
+spirit, and said that she would be very glad to see him again, though
+she realised how unlikely such a meeting was....
+
+We will not attempt to describe the feelings Sanin experienced as
+he read this letter. For such feelings there is no satisfactory
+expression; they are too deep and too strong and too vague for any
+word. Only music could reproduce them.
+
+Sanin answered at once; and as a wedding gift to the young girl, sent
+to 'Mariana Slocum, from an unknown friend,' a garnet cross, set in a
+magnificent pearl necklace. This present, costly as it was, did not
+ruin him; during the thirty years that had elapsed since his first
+visit to Frankfort, he had succeeded in accumulating a considerable
+fortune. Early in May he went back to Petersburg, but hardly for long.
+It is rumoured that he is selling all his lands and preparing to go to
+America.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST LOVE
+
+
+The party had long ago broken up. The clock struck half-past twelve.
+There was left in the room only the master of the house and Sergei
+Nikolaevitch and Vladimir Petrovitch.
+
+The master of the house rang and ordered the remains of the supper
+to be cleared away. 'And so it's settled,' he observed, sitting back
+farther in his easy-chair and lighting a cigar; 'each of us is to tell
+the story of his first love. It's your turn, Sergei Nikolaevitch.'
+
+Sergei Nikolaevitch, a round little man with a plump,
+light-complexioned face, gazed first at the master of the house, then
+raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'I had no first love,' he said at
+last; 'I began with the second.'
+
+'How was that?'
+
+'It's very simple. I was eighteen when I had my first flirtation
+with a charming young lady, but I courted her just as though it
+were nothing new to me; just as I courted others later on. To speak
+accurately, the first and last time I was in love was with my nurse
+when I was six years old; but that's in the remote past. The details
+of our relations have slipped out of my memory, and even if I
+remembered them, whom could they interest?'
+
+'Then how's it to be?' began the master of the house. 'There was
+nothing much of interest about my first love either; I never fell
+in love with any one till I met Anna Nikolaevna, now my wife,--and
+everything went as smoothly as possible with us; our parents arranged
+the match, we were very soon in love with each other, and got married
+without loss of time. My story can be told in a couple of words. I
+must confess, gentlemen, in bringing up the subject of first love, I
+reckoned upon you, I won't say old, but no longer young, bachelors.
+Can't you enliven us with something, Vladimir Petrovitch?'
+
+'My first love, certainly, was not quite an ordinary one,' responded,
+with some reluctance, Vladimir Petrovitch, a man of forty, with black
+hair turning grey.
+
+'Ah!' said the master of the house and Sergei Nikolaevitch with one
+voice: 'So much the better.... Tell us about it.'
+
+'If you wish it ... or no; I won't tell the story; I'm no hand at
+telling a story; I make it dry and brief, or spun out and affected. If
+you'll allow me, I'll write out all I remember and read it you.'
+
+His friends at first would not agree, but Vladimir Petrovitch insisted
+on his own way. A fortnight later they were together again, and
+Vladimir Petrovitch kept his word.
+
+His manuscript contained the following story:--
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+I was sixteen then. It happened in the summer of 1833.
+
+I lived in Moscow with my parents. They had taken a country house for
+the summer near the Kalouga gate, facing the Neskutchny gardens. I
+was preparing for the university, but did not work much and was in no
+hurry.
+
+No one interfered with my freedom. I did what I liked, especially
+after parting with my last tutor, a Frenchman who had never been able
+to get used to the idea that he had fallen 'like a bomb' (_comme
+une bombe_) into Russia, and would lie sluggishly in bed with an
+expression of exasperation on his face for days together. My father
+treated me with careless kindness; my mother scarcely noticed me,
+though she had no children except me; other cares completely absorbed
+her. My father, a man still young and very handsome, had married her
+from mercenary considerations; she was ten years older than he. My
+mother led a melancholy life; she was for ever agitated, jealous and
+angry, but not in my father's presence; she was very much afraid of
+him, and he was severe, cold, and distant in his behaviour.... I
+have never seen a man more elaborately serene, self-confident, and
+commanding.
+
+I shall never forget the first weeks I spent at the country house.
+The weather was magnificent; we left town on the 9th of May, on St.
+Nicholas's day. I used to walk about in our garden, in the Neskutchny
+gardens, and beyond the town gates; I would take some book with
+me--Keidanov's Course, for instance--but I rarely looked into it, and
+more often than anything declaimed verses aloud; I knew a great deal
+of poetry by heart; my blood was in a ferment and my heart ached--so
+sweetly and absurdly; I was all hope and anticipation, was a little
+frightened of something, and full of wonder at everything, and was
+on the tiptoe of expectation; my imagination played continually,
+fluttering rapidly about the same fancies, like martins about a
+bell-tower at dawn; I dreamed, was sad, even wept; but through the
+tears and through the sadness, inspired by a musical verse, or the
+beauty of evening, shot up like grass in spring the delicious sense of
+youth and effervescent life.
+
+I had a horse to ride; I used to saddle it myself and set off alone
+for long rides, break into a rapid gallop and fancy myself a knight at
+a tournament. How gaily the wind whistled in my ears! or turning my
+face towards the sky, I would absorb its shining radiance and blue
+into my soul, that opened wide to welcome it.
+
+I remember that at that time the image of woman, the vision of love,
+scarcely ever arose in definite shape in my brain; but in all I
+thought, in all I felt, lay hidden a half-conscious, shamefaced
+presentiment of something new, unutterably sweet, feminine....
+
+This presentiment, this expectation, permeated my whole being; I
+breathed in it, it coursed through my veins with every drop of blood
+... it was destined to be soon fulfilled.
+
+The place, where we settled for the summer, consisted of a wooden
+manor-house with columns and two small lodges; in the lodge on
+the left there was a tiny factory for the manufacture of cheap
+wall-papers.... I had more than once strolled that way to look at
+about a dozen thin and dishevelled boys with greasy smocks and worn
+faces, who were perpetually jumping on to wooden levers, that pressed
+down the square blocks of the press, and so by the weight of their
+feeble bodies struck off the variegated patterns of the wall-papers.
+The lodge on the right stood empty, and was to let. One day--three
+weeks after the 9th of May--the blinds in the windows of this lodge
+were drawn up, women's faces appeared at them--some family had
+installed themselves in it. I remember the same day at dinner, my
+mother inquired of the butler who were our new neighbours, and hearing
+the name of the Princess Zasyekin, first observed with some respect,
+'Ah! a princess!' ... and then added, 'A poor one, I suppose?'
+
+'They arrived in three hired flies,' the butler remarked
+deferentially, as he handed a dish: 'they don't keep their own
+carriage, and the furniture's of the poorest.'
+
+'Ah,' replied my mother, 'so much the better.'
+
+My father gave her a chilly glance; she was silent.
+
+Certainly the Princess Zasyekin could not be a rich woman; the lodge
+she had taken was so dilapidated and small and low-pitched that
+people, even moderately well-off in the world, would hardly have
+consented to occupy it. At the time, however, all this went in at one
+ear and out at the other. The princely title had very little effect on
+me; I had just been reading Schiller's _Robbers_.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I was in the habit of wandering about our garden every evening on the
+look-out for rooks. I had long cherished a hatred for those wary, sly,
+and rapacious birds. On the day of which I have been speaking, I went
+as usual into the garden, and after patrolling all the walks without
+success (the rooks knew me, and merely cawed spasmodically at a
+distance), I chanced to go close to the low fence which separated our
+domain from the narrow strip of garden stretching beyond the lodge to
+the right, and belonging to it. I was walking along, my eyes on the
+ground. Suddenly I heard a voice; I looked across the fence, and was
+thunder-struck.... I was confronted with a curious spectacle.
+
+A few paces from me on the grass between the green raspberry bushes
+stood a tall slender girl in a striped pink dress, with a white
+kerchief on her head; four young men were close round her, and she
+was slapping them by turns on the forehead with those small grey
+flowers, the name of which I don't know, though they are well known to
+children; the flowers form little bags, and burst open with a pop when
+you strike them against anything hard. The young men presented their
+foreheads so eagerly, and in the gestures of the girl (I saw her in
+profile), there was something so fascinating, imperious, caressing,
+mocking, and charming, that I almost cried out with admiration and
+delight, and would, I thought, have given everything in the world on
+the spot only to have had those exquisite fingers strike me on the
+forehead. My gun slipped on to the grass, I forgot everything, I
+devoured with my eyes the graceful shape and neck and lovely arms and
+the slightly disordered fair hair under the white kerchief, and the
+half-closed clever eye, and the eyelashes and the soft cheek beneath
+them....
+
+'Young man, hey, young man,' said a voice suddenly near me: 'is it
+quite permissible to stare so at unknown young ladies?'
+
+I started, I was struck dumb.... Near me, the other side of the fence,
+stood a man with close-cropped black hair, looking ironically at me.
+At the same instant the girl too turned towards me.... I caught sight
+of big grey eyes in a bright mobile face, and the whole face suddenly
+quivered and laughed, there was a flash of white teeth, a droll
+lifting of the eyebrows.... I crimsoned, picked up my gun from the
+ground, and pursued by a musical but not ill-natured laugh, fled to
+my own room, flung myself on the bed, and hid my face in my hands. My
+heart was fairly leaping; I was greatly ashamed and overjoyed; I felt
+an excitement I had never known before.
+
+After a rest, I brushed my hair, washed, and went downstairs to tea.
+The image of the young girl floated before me, my heart was no longer
+leaping, but was full of a sort of sweet oppression.
+
+'What's the matter?' my father asked me all at once: 'have you killed
+a rook?'
+
+I was on the point of telling him all about it, but I checked myself,
+and merely smiled to myself. As I was going to bed, I rotated--I don't
+know why--three times on one leg, pomaded my hair, got into bed, and
+slept like a top all night. Before morning I woke up for an instant,
+raised my head, looked round me in ecstasy, and fell asleep again.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+'How can I make their acquaintance?' was my first thought when I waked
+in the morning. I went out in the garden before morning tea, but I
+did not go too near the fence, and saw no one. After drinking tea,
+I walked several times up and down the street before the house, and
+looked into the windows from a distance.... I fancied her face at a
+curtain, and I hurried away in alarm.
+
+'I must make her acquaintance, though,' I thought, pacing distractedly
+about the sandy plain that stretches before Neskutchny park ... 'but
+how, that is the question.' I recalled the minutest details of our
+meeting yesterday; I had for some reason or other a particularly vivid
+recollection of how she had laughed at me.... But while I racked my
+brains, and made various plans, fate had already provided for me.
+
+In my absence my mother had received from her new neighbour a letter
+on grey paper, sealed with brown wax, such as is only used in notices
+from the post-office or on the corks of bottles of cheap wine. In this
+letter, which was written in illiterate language and in a slovenly
+hand, the princess begged my mother to use her powerful influence
+in her behalf; my mother, in the words of the princess, was very
+intimate with persons of high position, upon whom her fortunes and her
+children's fortunes depended, as she had some very important business
+in hand. 'I address myself to you,' she wrote, 'as one gentlewoman to
+another gentlewoman, and for that reason am glad to avail myself of
+the opportunity.' Concluding, she begged my mother's permission to
+call upon her. I found my mother in an unpleasant state of indecision;
+my father was not at home, and she had no one of whom to ask advice.
+Not to answer a gentlewoman, and a princess into the bargain, was
+impossible. But my mother was in a difficulty as to how to answer
+her. To write a note in French struck her as unsuitable, and Russian
+spelling was not a strong point with my mother herself, and she was
+aware of it, and did not care to expose herself. She was overjoyed
+when I made my appearance, and at once told me to go round to the
+princess's, and to explain to her by word of mouth that my mother
+would always be glad to do her excellency any service within her
+powers, and begged her to come to see her at one o'clock. This
+unexpectedly rapid fulfilment of my secret desires both delighted and
+appalled me. I made no sign, however, of the perturbation which came
+over me, and as a preliminary step went to my own room to put on a new
+necktie and tail coat; at home I still wore short jackets and lay-down
+collars, much as I abominated them.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+In the narrow and untidy passage of the lodge, which I entered with an
+involuntary tremor in all my limbs, I was met by an old grey-headed
+servant with a dark copper-coloured face, surly little pig's eyes, and
+such deep furrows on his forehead and temples as I had never beheld
+in my life. He was carrying a plate containing the spine of a herring
+that had been gnawed at; and shutting the door that led into the room
+with his foot, he jerked out, 'What do you want?'
+
+'Is the Princess Zasyekin at home?' I inquired.
+
+'Vonifaty!' a jarring female voice screamed from within.
+
+The man without a word turned his back on me, exhibiting as he did
+so the extremely threadbare hindpart of his livery with a solitary
+reddish heraldic button on it; he put the plate down on the floor, and
+went away.
+
+'Did you go to the police station?' the same female voice called
+again. The man muttered something in reply. 'Eh.... Has some one
+come?' I heard again.... 'The young gentleman from next door. Ask him
+in, then.'
+
+'Will you step into the drawing-room?' said the servant, making his
+appearance once more, and picking up the plate from the floor. I
+mastered my emotions, and went into the drawing-room.
+
+I found myself in a small and not over clean apartment, containing
+some poor furniture that looked as if it had been hurriedly set down
+where it stood. At the window in an easy-chair with a broken arm was
+sitting a woman of fifty, bareheaded and ugly, in an old green dress,
+and a striped worsted wrap about her neck. Her small black eyes fixed
+me like pins.
+
+I went up to her and bowed.
+
+'I have the honour of addressing the Princess Zasyekin?'
+
+'I am the Princess Zasyekin; and you are the son of Mr. V.?'
+
+'Yes. I have come to you with a message from my mother.'
+
+'Sit down, please. Vonifaty, where are my keys, have you seen them?'
+
+I communicated to Madame Zasyekin my mother's reply to her note. She
+heard me out, drumming with her fat red fingers on the window-pane,
+and when I had finished, she stared at me once more.
+
+'Very good; I'll be sure to come,' she observed at last. 'But how
+young you are! How old are you, may I ask?'
+
+'Sixteen,' I replied, with an involuntary stammer.
+
+The princess drew out of her pocket some greasy papers covered with
+writing, raised them right up to her nose, and began looking through
+them.
+
+'A good age,' she ejaculated suddenly, turning round restlessly on
+her chair. 'And do you, pray, make yourself at home. I don't stand on
+ceremony.'
+
+'No, indeed,' I thought, scanning her unprepossessing person with a
+disgust I could not restrain.
+
+At that instant another door flew open quickly, and in the doorway
+stood the girl I had seen the previous evening in the garden. She
+lifted her hand, and a mocking smile gleamed in her face.
+
+'Here is my daughter,' observed the princess, indicating her with her
+elbow. 'Zinotchka, the son of our neighbour, Mr. V. What is your name,
+allow me to ask?'
+
+'Vladimir,' I answered, getting up, and stuttering in my excitement.
+
+'And your father's name?'
+
+'Petrovitch.'
+
+'Ah! I used to know a commissioner of police whose name was Vladimir
+Petrovitch too. Vonifaty! don't look for my keys; the keys are in my
+pocket.'
+
+The young girl was still looking at me with the same smile, faintly
+fluttering her eyelids, and putting her head a little on one side.
+
+'I have seen Monsieur Voldemar before,' she began. (The silvery note
+of her voice ran through me with a sort of sweet shiver.) 'You will
+let me call you so?'
+
+'Oh, please,' I faltered.
+
+'Where was that?' asked the princess.
+
+The young princess did not answer her mother.
+
+'Have you anything to do just now?' she said, not taking her eyes off
+me.
+
+'Oh, no.'
+
+'Would you like to help me wind some wool? Come in here, to me.'
+
+She nodded to me and went out of the drawing-room. I followed her.
+
+In the room we went into, the furniture was a little better, and
+was arranged with more taste. Though, indeed, at the moment, I was
+scarcely capable of noticing anything; I moved as in a dream and felt
+all through my being a sort of intense blissfulness that verged on
+imbecility.
+
+The young princess sat down, took out a skein of red wool and,
+motioning me to a seat opposite her, carefully untied the skein and
+laid it across my hands. All this she did in silence with a sort of
+droll deliberation and with the same bright sly smile on her slightly
+parted lips. She began to wind the wool on a bent card, and all at
+once she dazzled me with a glance so brilliant and rapid, that I
+could not help dropping my eyes. When her eyes, which were generally
+half closed, opened to their full extent, her face was completely
+transfigured; it was as though it were flooded with light.
+
+'What did you think of me yesterday, M'sieu Voldemar?' she asked after
+a brief pause. 'You thought ill of me, I expect?'
+
+'I ... princess ... I thought nothing ... how can I?...' I answered in
+confusion.
+
+'Listen,' she rejoined. 'You don't know me yet. I'm a very strange
+person; I like always to be told the truth. You, I have just heard,
+are sixteen, and I am twenty-one: you see I'm a great deal older than
+you, and so you ought always to tell me the truth ... and to do what I
+tell you,' she added. 'Look at me: why don't you look at me?'
+
+I was still more abashed; however, I raised my eyes to her. She
+smiled, not her former smile, but a smile of approbation. 'Look at
+me,' she said, dropping her voice caressingly: 'I don't dislike that
+... I like your face; I have a presentiment we shall be friends. But
+do you like me?' she added slyly.
+
+'Princess ...' I was beginning.
+
+'In the first place, you must call me Zinaida Alexandrovna, and in the
+second place it's a bad habit for children'--(she corrected herself)
+'for young people--not to say straight out what they feel. That's all
+very well for grown-up people. You like me, don't you?'
+
+Though I was greatly delighted that she talked so freely to me, still
+I was a little hurt. I wanted to show her that she had not a mere boy
+to deal with, and assuming as easy and serious an air as I could, I
+observed, 'Certainly. I like you very much, Zinaida Alexandrovna; I
+have no wish to conceal it.'
+
+She shook her head very deliberately. 'Have you a tutor?' she asked
+suddenly.
+
+'No; I've not had a tutor for a long, long while.'
+
+I told a lie; it was not a month since I had parted with my Frenchman.
+
+'Oh! I see then--you are quite grown-up.'
+
+She tapped me lightly on the fingers. 'Hold your hands straight!' And
+she applied herself busily to winding the ball.
+
+I seized the opportunity when she was looking down and fell to
+watching her, at first stealthily, then more and more boldly. Her
+face struck me as even more charming than on the previous evening;
+everything in it was so delicate, clever, and sweet. She was sitting
+with her back to a window covered with a white blind, the sunshine,
+streaming in through the blind, shed a soft light over her fluffy
+golden curls, her innocent neck, her sloping shoulders, and tender
+untroubled bosom. I gazed at her, and how dear and near she was
+already to me! It seemed to me I had known her a long while and had
+never known anything nor lived at all till I met her.... She was
+wearing a dark and rather shabby dress and an apron; I would gladly, I
+felt, have kissed every fold of that dress and apron. The tips of her
+little shoes peeped out from under her skirt; I could have bowed down
+in adoration to those shoes.... 'And here I am sitting before her,'
+I thought; 'I have made acquaintance with her ... what happiness, my
+God!' I could hardly keep from jumping up from my chair in ecstasy,
+but I only swung my legs a little, like a small child who has been
+given sweetmeats.
+
+I was as happy as a fish in water, and I could have stayed in that
+room for ever, have never left that place.
+
+Her eyelids were slowly lifted, and once more her clear eyes shone
+kindly upon me, and again she smiled.
+
+'How you look at me!' she said slowly, and she held up a threatening
+finger.
+
+I blushed ... 'She understands it all, she sees all,' flashed through
+my mind. 'And how could she fail to understand and see it all?'
+
+All at once there was a sound in the next room--the clink of a sabre.
+
+'Zina!' screamed the princess in the drawing-room, 'Byelovzorov has
+brought you a kitten.'
+
+'A kitten!' cried Zinaida, and getting up from her chair impetuously,
+she flung the ball of worsted on my knees and ran away.
+
+I too got up and, laying the skein and the ball of wool on the
+window-sill, I went into the drawing-room and stood still, hesitating.
+In the middle of the room, a tabby kitten was lying with outstretched
+paws; Zinaida was on her knees before it, cautiously lifting up its
+little face. Near the old princess, and filling up almost the whole
+space between the two windows, was a flaxen curly-headed young man, a
+hussar, with a rosy face and prominent eyes.
+
+'What a funny little thing!' Zinaida was saying; 'and its eyes are not
+grey, but green, and what long ears! Thank you, Viktor Yegoritch! you
+are very kind.'
+
+The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men I had seen the
+evening before, smiled and bowed with a clink of his spurs and a
+jingle of the chain of his sabre.
+
+'You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a tabby
+kitten with long ears ... so I obtained it. Your word is law.' And he
+bowed again.
+
+The kitten gave a feeble mew and began sniffing the ground.
+
+'It's hungry!' cried Zinaida. 'Vonifaty, Sonia! bring some milk.'
+
+A maid, in an old yellow gown with a faded kerchief at her neck, came
+in with a saucer of milk and set it before the kitten. The kitten
+started, blinked, and began lapping.
+
+'What a pink little tongue it has!' remarked Zinaida, putting her head
+almost on the ground and peeping at it sideways under its very nose.
+
+The kitten having had enough began to purr and move its paws
+affectedly. Zinaida got up, and turning to the maid said carelessly,
+'Take it away.'
+
+'For the kitten--your little hand,' said the hussar, with a simper and
+a shrug of his strongly-built frame, which was tightly buttoned up in
+a new uniform.
+
+'Both,' replied Zinaida, and she held out her hands to him. While he
+was kissing them, she looked at me over his shoulder.
+
+I stood stockstill in the same place and did not know whether to
+laugh, to say something, or to be silent. Suddenly through the open
+door into the passage I caught sight of our footman, Fyodor. He was
+making signs to me. Mechanically I went out to him.
+
+'What do you want?' I asked.
+
+'Your mamma has sent for you,' he said in a whisper. 'She is angry
+that you have not come back with the answer.'
+
+'Why, have I been here long?'
+
+'Over an hour.'
+
+'Over an hour!' I repeated unconsciously, and going back to the
+drawing-room I began to make bows and scrape with my heels.
+
+'Where are you off to?' the young princess asked, glancing at me from
+behind the hussar.
+
+'I must go home. So I am to say,' I added, addressing the old lady,
+'that you will come to us about two.'
+
+'Do you say so, my good sir.'
+
+The princess hurriedly pulled out her snuff-box and took snuff so
+loudly that I positively jumped. 'Do you say so,' she repeated,
+blinking tearfully and sneezing.
+
+I bowed once more, turned, and went out of the room with that
+sensation of awkwardness in my spine which a very young man feels when
+he knows he is being looked at from behind.
+
+'Mind you come and see us again, M'sieu Voldemar,' Zinaida called, and
+she laughed again.
+
+'Why is it she's always laughing?' I thought, as I went back home
+escorted by Fyodor, who said nothing to me, but walked behind me with
+an air of disapprobation. My mother scolded me and wondered what ever
+I could have been doing so long at the princess's. I made her no reply
+and went off to my own room. I felt suddenly very sad.... I tried hard
+not to cry.... I was jealous of the hussar.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The princess called on my mother as she had promised and made a
+disagreeable impression on her. I was not present at their interview,
+but at table my mother told my father that this Prince Zasyekin struck
+her as a _femme tres vulgaire_, that she had quite worn her out
+begging her to interest Prince Sergei in their behalf, that she seemed
+to have no end of lawsuits and affairs on hand--_de vilaines affaires
+d'argent_--and must be a very troublesome and litigious person. My
+mother added, however, that she had asked her and her daughter to
+dinner the next day (hearing the word 'daughter' I buried my nose in
+my plate), for after all she was a neighbour and a person of title.
+Upon this my father informed my mother that he remembered now who this
+lady was; that he had in his youth known the deceased Prince Zasyekin,
+a very well-bred, but frivolous and absurd person; that he had been
+nicknamed in society '_le Parisien_,' from having lived a long while
+in Paris; that he had been very rich, but had gambled away all his
+property; and for some unknown reason, probably for money, though
+indeed he might have chosen better, if so, my father added with a cold
+smile, he had married the daughter of an agent, and after his marriage
+had entered upon speculations and ruined himself utterly.
+
+'If only she doesn't try to borrow money,' observed my mother.
+
+'That's exceedingly possible,' my father responded tranquilly. 'Does
+she speak French?'
+
+'Very badly.'
+
+'H'm. It's of no consequence anyway. I think you said you had asked
+the daughter too; some one was telling me she was a very charming and
+cultivated girl.'
+
+'Ah! Then she can't take after her mother.'
+
+'Nor her father either,' rejoined my father. 'He was cultivated
+indeed, but a fool.'
+
+My mother sighed and sank into thought. My father said no more. I felt
+very uncomfortable during this conversation.
+
+After dinner I went into the garden, but without my gun. I swore
+to myself that I would not go near the Zasyekins' garden, but an
+irresistible force drew me thither, and not in vain. I had hardly
+reached the fence when I caught sight of Zinaida. This time she was
+alone. She held a book in her hands, and was coming slowly along the
+path. She did not notice me.
+
+I almost let her pass by; but all at once I changed my mind and
+coughed.
+
+She turned round, but did not stop, pushed back with one hand the
+broad blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled slowly,
+and again bent her eyes on the book.
+
+I took off my cap, and after hesitating a moment, walked away with a
+heavy heart. '_Que suis-je pour elle?_' I thought (God knows why) in
+French.
+
+Familiar footsteps sounded behind me; I looked round, my father came
+up to me with his light, rapid walk.
+
+'Is that the young princess?' he asked me.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Why, do you know her?'
+
+'I saw her this morning at the princess's.'
+
+My father stopped, and, turning sharply on his heel, went back. When
+he was on a level with Zinaida, he made her a courteous bow. She,
+too, bowed to him, with some astonishment on her face, and dropped
+her book. I saw how she looked after him. My father was always
+irreproachably dressed, simple and in a style of his own; but his
+figure had never struck me as more graceful, never had his grey hat
+sat more becomingly on his curls, which were scarcely perceptibly
+thinner than they had once been.
+
+I bent my steps toward Zinaida, but she did not even glance at me; she
+picked up her book again and went away.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The whole evening and the following day I spent in a sort of dejected
+apathy. I remember I tried to work and took up Keidanov, but the
+boldly printed lines and pages of the famous text-book passed before
+my eyes in vain. I read ten times over the words: 'Julius Caesar was
+distinguished by warlike courage.' I did not understand anything and
+threw the book aside. Before dinner-time I pomaded myself once more,
+and once more put on my tail-coat and necktie.
+
+'What's that for?' my mother demanded. 'You're not a student yet, and
+God knows whether you'll get through the examination. And you've not
+long had a new jacket! You can't throw it away!'
+
+'There will be visitors,' I murmured almost in despair.
+
+'What nonsense! fine visitors indeed!'
+
+I had to submit. I changed my tail-coat for my jacket, but I did
+not take off the necktie. The princess and her daughter made their
+appearance half an hour before dinner-time; the old lady had put on,
+in addition to the green dress with which I was already acquainted,
+a yellow shawl, and an old-fashioned cap adorned with flame-coloured
+ribbons. She began talking at once about her money difficulties,
+sighing, complaining of her poverty, and imploring assistance, but
+she made herself at home; she took snuff as noisily, and fidgeted and
+lolled about in her chair as freely as ever. It never seemed to have
+struck her that she was a princess. Zinaida on the other hand was
+rigid, almost haughty in her demeanour, every inch a princess. There
+was a cold immobility and dignity in her face. I should not have
+recognised it; I should not have known her smiles, her glances, though
+I thought her exquisite in this new aspect too. She wore a light
+barege dress with pale blue flowers on it; her hair fell in long curls
+down her cheek in the English fashion; this style went well with the
+cold expression of her face. My father sat beside her during dinner,
+and entertained his neighbour with the finished and serene courtesy
+peculiar to him. He glanced at her from time to time, and she glanced
+at him, but so strangely, almost with hostility. Their conversation
+was carried on in French; I was surprised, I remember, at the purity
+of Zinaida's accent. The princess, while we were at table, as before
+made no ceremony; she ate a great deal, and praised the dishes. My
+mother was obviously bored by her, and answered her with a sort of
+weary indifference; my father faintly frowned now and then. My mother
+did not like Zinaida either. 'A conceited minx,' she said next day.
+'And fancy, what she has to be conceited about, _avec sa mine de
+grisette_!'
+
+'It's clear you have never seen any grisettes,' my father observed to
+her.
+
+'Thank God, I haven't!'
+
+'Thank God, to be sure ... only how can you form an opinion of them,
+then?'
+
+To me Zinaida had paid no attention whatever. Soon after dinner the
+princess got up to go.
+
+'I shall rely on your kind offices, Maria Nikolaevna and Piotr
+Vassilitch,' she said in a doleful sing-song to my mother and father.
+'I've no help for it! There were days, but they are over. Here I am,
+an excellency, and a poor honour it is with nothing to eat!'
+
+My father made her a respectful bow and escorted her to the door of
+the hall. I was standing there in my short jacket, staring at the
+floor, like a man under sentence of death. Zinaida's treatment of me
+had crushed me utterly. What was my astonishment, when, as she passed
+me, she whispered quickly with her former kind expression in her eyes:
+'Come to see us at eight, do you hear, be sure....' I simply threw up
+my hands, but already she was gone, flinging a white scarf over her
+head.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+At eight o'clock precisely, in my tail-coat and with my hair brushed
+up into a tuft on my head, I entered the passage of the lodge, where
+the princess lived. The old servant looked crossly at me and got up
+unwillingly from his bench. There was a sound of merry voices in
+the drawing-room. I opened the door and fell back in amazement. In
+the middle of the room was the young princess, standing on a chair,
+holding a man's hat in front of her; round the chair crowded some half
+a dozen men. They were trying to put their hands into the hat, while
+she held it above their heads, shaking it violently. On seeing me,
+she cried, 'Stay, stay, another guest, he must have a ticket too,'
+and leaping lightly down from the chair she took me by the cuff of my
+coat 'Come along,' she said, 'why are you standing still? _Messieurs_,
+let me make you acquainted: this is M'sieu Voldemar, the son of our
+neighbour. And this,' she went on, addressing me, and indicating her
+guests in turn, 'Count Malevsky, Doctor Lushin, Meidanov the poet, the
+retired captain Nirmatsky, and Byelovzorov the hussar, whom you've
+seen already. I hope you will be good friends.' I was so confused that
+I did not even bow to any one; in Doctor Lushin I recognised the dark
+man who had so mercilessly put me to shame in the garden; the others
+were unknown to me.
+
+'Count!' continued Zinaida, 'write M'sieu Voldemar a ticket.'
+
+'That's not fair,' was objected in a slight Polish accent by the
+count, a very handsome and fashionably dressed brunette, with
+expressive brown eyes, a thin little white nose, and delicate little
+moustaches over a tiny mouth. 'This gentleman has not been playing
+forfeits with us.'
+
+'It's unfair,' repeated in chorus Byelovzorov and the gentleman
+described as a retired captain, a man of forty, pock-marked to
+a hideous degree, curly-headed as a negro, round-shouldered,
+bandy-legged, and dressed in a military coat without epaulets, worn
+unbuttoned.
+
+'Write him a ticket, I tell you,' repeated the young princess. 'What's
+this mutiny? M'sieu Voldemar is with us for the first time, and there
+are no rules for him yet. It's no use grumbling--write it, I wish it.'
+
+The count shrugged his shoulders but bowed submissively, took the pen
+in his white, ring-bedecked fingers, tore off a scrap of paper and
+wrote on it.
+
+'At least let us explain to Mr. Voldemar what we are about,' Lushin
+began in a sarcastic voice, 'or else he will be quite lost. Do you
+see, young man, we are playing forfeits? the princess has to pay a
+forfeit, and the one who draws the lucky lot is to have the privilege
+of kissing her hand. Do you understand what I've told you?'
+
+I simply stared at him, and continued to stand still in bewilderment,
+while the young princess jumped up on the chair again, and again began
+waving the hat. They all stretched up to her, and I went after the
+rest.
+
+'Meidanov,' said the princess to a tall young man with a thin face,
+little dim-sighted eyes, and exceedingly long black hair, 'you as
+a poet ought to be magnanimous, and give up your number to M'sieu
+Voldemar so that he may have two chances instead of one.'
+
+But Meidanov shook his head in refusal, and tossed his hair. After
+all the others I put my hand into the hat, and unfolded my lot....
+Heavens! what was my condition when I saw on it the word, Kiss!
+
+'Kiss!' I could not help crying aloud.
+
+'Bravo! he has won it,' the princess said quickly. 'How glad I am!'
+She came down from the chair and gave me such a bright sweet look,
+that my heart bounded. 'Are you glad?' she asked me.
+
+'Me?' ... I faltered.
+
+'Sell me your lot,' Byelovzorov growled suddenly just in my ear. 'I'll
+give you a hundred roubles.'
+
+I answered the hussar with such an indignant look, that Zinaida
+clapped her hands, while Lushin cried, 'He's a fine fellow!'
+
+'But, as master of the ceremonies,' he went on, 'it's my duty to see
+that all the rules are kept. M'sieu Voldemar, go down on one knee.
+That is our regulation.'
+
+Zinaida stood in front of me, her head a little on one side as though
+to get a better look at me; she held out her hand to me with dignity.
+A mist passed before my eyes; I meant to drop on one knee, sank on
+both, and pressed my lips to Zinaida's fingers so awkwardly that I
+scratched myself a little with the tip of her nail.
+
+'Well done!' cried Lushin, and helped me to get up.
+
+The game of forfeits went on. Zinaida sat me down beside her. She
+invented all sorts of extraordinary forfeits! She had among other
+things to represent a 'statue,' and she chose as a pedestal the
+hideous Nirmatsky, told him to bow down in an arch, and bend his
+head down on his breast. The laughter never paused for an instant.
+For me, a boy constantly brought up in the seclusion of a dignified
+manor-house, all this noise and uproar, this unceremonious, almost
+riotous gaiety, these relations with unknown persons, were simply
+intoxicating. My head went round, as though from wine. I began
+laughing and talking louder than the others, so much so that the old
+princess, who was sitting in the next room with some sort of clerk
+from the Tversky gate, invited by her for consultation on business,
+positively came in to look at me. But I felt so happy that I did not
+mind anything, I didn't care a straw for any one's jeers, or dubious
+looks. Zinaida continued to show me a preference, and kept me at her
+side. In one forfeit, I had to sit by her, both hidden under one silk
+handkerchief: I was to tell her _my secret_. I remember our two heads
+being all at once in a warm, half-transparent, fragrant darkness, the
+soft, close brightness of her eyes in the dark, and the burning breath
+from her parted lips, and the gleam of her teeth and the ends of her
+hair tickling me and setting me on fire. I was silent. She smiled
+slyly and mysteriously, and at last whispered to me, 'Well, what
+is it?' but I merely blushed and laughed, and turned away, catching
+my breath. We got tired of forfeits--we began to play a game with
+a string. My God! what were my transports when, for not paying
+attention, I got a sharp and vigorous slap on my fingers from her,
+and how I tried afterwards to pretend that I was absent-minded, and
+she teased me, and would not touch the hands I held out to her! What
+didn't we do that evening! We played the piano, and sang and danced
+and acted a gypsy encampment. Nirmatsky was dressed up as a bear,
+and made to drink salt water. Count Malevsky showed us several sorts
+of card tricks, and finished, after shuffling the cards, by dealing
+himself all the trumps at whist, on which Lushin 'had the honour of
+congratulating him.' Meidanov recited portions from his poem 'The
+Manslayer' (romanticism was at its height at this period), which he
+intended to bring out in a black cover with the title in blood-red
+letters; they stole the clerk's cap off his knee, and made him dance a
+Cossack dance by way of ransom for it; they dressed up old Vonifaty in
+a woman's cap, and the young princess put on a man's hat.... I could
+not enumerate all we did. Only Byelovzorov kept more and more in
+the background, scowling and angry.... Sometimes his eyes looked
+bloodshot, he flushed all over, and it seemed every minute as though
+he would rush out upon us all and scatter us like shavings in all
+directions; but the young princess would glance at him, and shake her
+finger at him, and he would retire into his corner again.
+
+We were quite worn out at last. Even the old princess, though she was
+ready for anything, as she expressed it, and no noise wearied her,
+felt tired at last, and longed for peace and quiet. At twelve o'clock
+at night, supper was served, consisting of a piece of stale dry
+cheese, and some cold turnovers of minced ham, which seemed to me more
+delicious than any pastry I had ever tasted; there was only one bottle
+of wine, and that was a strange one; a dark-coloured bottle with a
+wide neck, and the wine in it was of a pink hue; no one drank it,
+however. Tired out and faint with happiness, I left the lodge; at
+parting Zinaida pressed my hand warmly, and again smiled mysteriously.
+
+The night air was heavy and damp in my heated face; a storm seemed to
+be gathering; black stormclouds grew and crept across the sky, their
+smoky outlines visibly changing. A gust of wind shivered restlessly
+in the dark trees, and somewhere, far away on the horizon, muffled
+thunder angrily muttered as it were to itself.
+
+I made my way up to my room by the back stairs. My old man-nurse was
+asleep on the floor, and I had to step over him; he waked up, saw me,
+and told me that my mother had again been very angry with me, and had
+wished to send after me again, but that my father had prevented her.
+(I had never gone to bed without saying good-night to my mother, and
+asking her blessing. There was no help for it now!)
+
+I told my man that I would undress and go to bed by myself, and I put
+out the candle. But I did not undress, and did not go to bed.
+
+I sat down on a chair, and sat a long while, as though spell-bound.
+What I was feeling was so new and so sweet.... I sat still, hardly
+looking round and not moving, drew slow breaths, and only from time to
+time laughed silently at some recollection, or turned cold within at
+the thought that I was in love, that this was she, that this was love.
+Zinaida's face floated slowly before me in the darkness--floated, and
+did not float away; her lips still wore the same enigmatic smile, her
+eyes watched me, a little from one side, with a questioning, dreamy,
+tender look ... as at the instant of parting from her. At last I got
+up, walked on tiptoe to my bed, and without undressing, laid my head
+carefully on the pillow, as though I were afraid by an abrupt movement
+to disturb what filled my soul.... I lay down, but did not even close
+my eyes. Soon I noticed that faint glimmers of light of some sort
+were thrown continually into the room.... I sat up and looked at the
+window. The window-frame could be clearly distinguished from the
+mysteriously and dimly-lighted panes. It is a storm, I thought; and
+a storm it really was, but it was raging so very far away that the
+thunder could not be heard; only blurred, long, as it were branching,
+gleams of lightning flashed continually over the sky; it was not
+flashing, though, so much as quivering and twitching like the wing
+of a dying bird. I got up, went to the window, and stood there till
+morning.... The lightning never ceased for an instant; it was what is
+called among the peasants a _sparrow night_. I gazed at the dumb sandy
+plain, at the dark mass of the Neskutchny gardens, at the yellowish
+facades of the distant buildings, which seemed to quiver too at
+each faint flash.... I gazed, and could not turn away; these silent
+lightning flashes, these gleams seemed in response to the secret
+silent fires which were aglow within me. Morning began to dawn; the
+sky was flushed in patches of crimson. As the sun came nearer, the
+lightning grew gradually paler, and ceased; the quivering gleams
+were fewer and fewer, and vanished at last, drowned in the sobering
+positive light of the coming day....
+
+And my lightning flashes vanished too. I felt great weariness and
+peace ... but Zinaida's image still floated triumphant over my soul.
+But it too, this image, seemed more tranquil: like a swan rising out
+of the reeds of a bog, it stood out from the other unbeautiful figures
+surrounding it, and as I fell asleep, I flung myself before it in
+farewell, trusting adoration....
+
+Oh, sweet emotions, gentle harmony, goodness and peace of the softened
+heart, melting bliss of the first raptures of love, where are they,
+where are they?
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The next morning, when I came down to tea, my mother scolded me--less
+severely, however, than I had expected--and made me tell her how I had
+spent the previous evening. I answered her in few words, omitting many
+details, and trying to give the most innocent air to everything.
+
+'Anyway, they're people who're not _comme il faut_,' my mother
+commented, 'and you've no business to be hanging about there, instead
+of preparing yourself for the examination, and doing your work.'
+
+As I was well aware that my mother's anxiety about my studies was
+confined to these few words, I did not feel it necessary to make any
+rejoinder; but after morning tea was over, my father took me by the
+arm, and turning into the garden with me, forced me to tell him all I
+had seen at the Zasyekins'.
+
+A curious influence my father had over me, and curious were the
+relations existing between us. He took hardly any interest in my
+education, but he never hurt my feelings; he respected my freedom, he
+treated me--if I may so express it--with courtesy,... only he never
+let me be really close to him. I loved him, I admired him, he was my
+ideal of a man--and Heavens! how passionately devoted I should have
+been to him, if I had not been continually conscious of his holding me
+off! But when he liked, he could almost instantaneously, by a single
+word, a single gesture, call forth an unbounded confidence in him. My
+soul expanded, I chattered away to him, as to a wise friend, a kindly
+teacher ... then he as suddenly got rid of me, and again he was
+keeping me off, gently and affectionately, but still he kept me off.
+
+Sometimes he was in high spirits, and then he was ready to romp and
+frolic with me, like a boy (he was fond of vigorous physical exercise
+of every sort); once--it never happened a second time!--he caressed
+me with such tenderness that I almost shed tears.... But high spirits
+and tenderness alike vanished completely, and what had passed between
+us, gave me nothing to build on for the future--it was as though I
+had dreamed it all. Sometimes I would scrutinise his clever handsome
+bright face ... my heart would throb, and my whole being yearn to
+him ... he would seem to feel what was going on within me, would give
+me a passing pat on the cheek, and go away, or take up some work,
+or suddenly freeze all over as only he knew how to freeze, and I
+shrank into myself at once, and turned cold too. His rare fits
+of friendliness to me were never called forth by my silent, but
+intelligible entreaties: they always occurred unexpectedly. Thinking
+over my father's character later, I have come to the conclusion that
+he had no thoughts to spare for me and for family life; his heart was
+in other things, and found complete satisfaction elsewhere. 'Take for
+yourself what you can, and don't be ruled by others; to belong to
+oneself--the whole savour of life lies in that,' he said to me one
+day. Another time, I, as a young democrat, fell to airing my views on
+liberty (he was 'kind,' as I used to call it, that day; and at such
+times I could talk to him as I liked). 'Liberty,' he repeated; 'and do
+you know what can give a man liberty?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Will, his own will, and it gives power, which is better than liberty.
+Know how to will, and you will be free, and will lead.'
+
+'My father, before all, and above all, desired to live, and lived....
+Perhaps he had a presentiment that he would not have long to enjoy the
+'savour' of life: he died at forty-two.
+
+I described my evening at the Zasyekins' minutely to my father. Half
+attentively, half carelessly, he listened to me, sitting on a garden
+seat, drawing in the sand with his cane. Now and then he laughed, shot
+bright, droll glances at me, and spurred me on with short questions
+and assents. At first I could not bring myself even to utter the name
+of Zinaida, but I could not restrain myself long, and began singing
+her praises. My father still laughed; then he grew thoughtful,
+stretched, and got up. I remembered that as he came out of the house
+he had ordered his horse to be saddled. He was a splendid horseman,
+and, long before Rarey, had the secret of breaking in the most vicious
+horses.
+
+'Shall I come with you, father?' I asked.
+
+'No,' he answered, and his face resumed its ordinary expression of
+friendly indifference. 'Go alone, if you like; and tell the coachman
+I'm not going.'
+
+He turned his back on me and walked rapidly away. I looked after him;
+he disappeared through the gates. I saw his hat moving along beside
+the fence; he went into the Zasyekins'.
+
+He stayed there not more than an hour, but then departed at once for
+the town, and did not return home till evening.
+
+After dinner I went myself to the Zasyekins'. In the drawing-room I
+found only the old princess. On seeing me she scratched her head under
+her cap with a knitting-needle, and suddenly asked me, could I copy a
+petition for her.
+
+'With pleasure,' I replied, sitting down on the edge of a chair.
+
+'Only mind and make the letters bigger,' observed the princess,
+handing me a dirty sheet of paper; 'and couldn't you do it to-day, my
+good sir?'
+
+'Certainly, I will copy it to-day.'
+
+The door of the next room was just opened, and in the crack I saw the
+face of Zinaida, pale and pensive, her hair flung carelessly back; she
+stared at me with big chilly eyes, and softly closed the door.
+
+'Zina, Zina!' called the old lady. Zinaida made no response. I took
+home the old lady's petition and spent the whole evening over it.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+My 'passion' dated from that day. I felt at that time, I recollect,
+something like what a man must feel on entering the service: I had
+ceased now to be simply a young boy; I was in love. I have said that
+my passion dated from that day; I might have added that my sufferings
+too dated from the same day. Away from Zinaida I pined; nothing
+was to my mind; everything went wrong with me; I spent whole days
+thinking intensely about her ... I pined when away,... but in her
+presence I was no better off. I was jealous; I was conscious of my
+insignificance; I was stupidly sulky or stupidly abject, and, all
+the same, an invincible force drew me to her, and I could not help
+a shudder of delight whenever I stepped through the doorway of her
+room. Zinaida guessed at once that I was in love with her, and indeed
+I never even thought of concealing it. She amused herself with my
+passion, made a fool of me, petted and tormented me. There is a
+sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible
+cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another, and I was
+like wax in Zinaida's hands; though, indeed, I was not the only one in
+love with her. All the men who visited the house were crazy over her,
+and she kept them all in leading-strings at her feet. It amused her to
+arouse their hopes and then their fears, to turn them round her finger
+(she used to call it knocking their heads together), while they never
+dreamed of offering resistance and eagerly submitted to her. About
+her whole being, so full of life and beauty, there was a peculiarly
+bewitching mixture of slyness and carelessness, of artificiality and
+simplicity, of composure and frolicsomeness; about everything she did
+or said, about every action of hers, there clung a delicate, fine
+charm, in which an individual power was manifest at work. And her
+face was ever changing, working too; it expressed, almost at the same
+time, irony, dreaminess, and passion. Various emotions, delicate and
+quick-changing as the shadows of clouds on a sunny day of wind, chased
+one another continually over her lips and eyes.
+
+Each of her adorers was necessary to her. Byelovzorov, whom she
+sometimes called 'my wild beast,' and sometimes simply 'mine,' would
+gladly have flung himself into the fire for her sake. With little
+confidence in his intellectual abilities and other qualities, he was
+for ever offering her marriage, hinting that the others were merely
+hanging about with no serious intention. Meidanov responded to the
+poetic fibres of her nature; a man of rather cold temperament, like
+almost all writers, he forced himself to convince her, and perhaps
+himself, that he adored her, sang her praises in endless verses, and
+read them to her with a peculiar enthusiasm, at once affected and
+sincere. She sympathised with him, and at the same time jeered at him
+a little; she had no great faith in him, and after listening to his
+outpourings, she would make him read Pushkin, as she said, to clear
+the air. Lushin, the ironical doctor, so cynical in words, knew her
+better than any of them, and loved her more than all, though he abused
+her to her face and behind her back. She could not help respecting
+him, but made him smart for it, and at times, with a peculiar,
+malignant pleasure, made him feel that he too was at her mercy. 'I'm a
+flirt, I'm heartless, I'm an actress in my instincts,' she said to him
+one day in my presence; 'well and good! Give me your hand then; I'll
+stick this pin in it, you'll be ashamed of this young man's seeing it,
+it will hurt you, but you'll laugh for all that, you truthful person.'
+Lushin crimsoned, turned away, bit his lips, but ended by submitting
+his hand. She pricked it, and he did in fact begin to laugh,... and
+she laughed, thrusting the pin in pretty deeply, and peeping into his
+eyes, which he vainly strove to keep in other directions....
+
+I understood least of all the relations existing between Zinaida and
+Count Malevsky. He was handsome, clever, and adroit, but something
+equivocal, something false in him was apparent even to me, a boy of
+sixteen, and I marvelled that Zinaida did not notice it. But possibly
+she did notice this element of falsity really and was not repelled by
+it. Her irregular education, strange acquaintances and habits, the
+constant presence of her mother, the poverty and disorder in their
+house, everything, from the very liberty the young girl enjoyed, with
+the consciousness of her superiority to the people around her, had
+developed in her a sort of half-contemptuous carelessness and lack
+of fastidiousness. At any time anything might happen; Vonifaty might
+announce that there was no sugar, or some revolting scandal would
+come to her ears, or her guests would fall to quarrelling among
+themselves--she would only shake her curls, and say, 'What does it
+matter?' and care little enough about it.
+
+But my blood, anyway, was sometimes on fire with indignation when
+Malevsky approached her, with a sly, fox-like action, leaned
+gracefully on the back of her chair, and began whispering in her ear
+with a self-satisfied and ingratiating little smile, while she folded
+her arms across her bosom, looked intently at him and smiled too, and
+shook her head.
+
+'What induces you to receive Count Malevsky?' I asked her one day.
+
+'He has such pretty moustaches,' she answered. 'But that's rather
+beyond you.'
+
+'You needn't think I care for him,' she said to me another time. 'No;
+I can't care for people I have to look down upon. I must have some one
+who can master me.... But, merciful heavens, I hope I may never come
+across any one like that! I don't want to be caught in any one's
+claws, not for anything.'
+
+'You'll never be in love, then?'
+
+'And you? Don't I love you?' she said, and she flicked me on the nose
+with the tip of her glove.
+
+Yes, Zinaida amused herself hugely at my expense. For three weeks I
+saw her every day, and what didn't she do with me! She rarely came to
+see us, and I was not sorry for it; in our house she was transformed
+into a young lady, a young princess, and I was a little overawed by
+her. I was afraid of betraying myself before my mother; she had taken
+a great dislike to Zinaida, and kept a hostile eye upon us. My father
+I was not so much afraid of; he seemed not to notice me. He talked
+little to her, but always with special cleverness and significance.
+I gave up working and reading; I even gave up walking about the
+neighbourhood and riding my horse. Like a beetle tied by the leg, I
+moved continually round and round my beloved little lodge. I would
+gladly have stopped there altogether, it seemed ... but that was
+impossible. My mother scolded me, and sometimes Zinaida herself drove
+me away. Then I used to shut myself up in my room, or go down to the
+very end of the garden, and climbing into what was left of a tall
+stone greenhouse, now in ruins, sit for hours with my legs hanging
+over the wall that looked on to the road, gazing and gazing and seeing
+nothing. White butterflies flitted lazily by me, over the dusty
+nettles; a saucy sparrow settled not far off on the half crumbling red
+brickwork and twittered irritably, incessantly twisting and turning
+and preening his tail-feathers; the still mistrustful rooks cawed now
+and then, sitting high, high up on the bare top of a birch-tree; the
+sun and wind played softly on its pliant branches; the tinkle of the
+bells of the Don monastery floated across to me from time to time,
+peaceful and dreary; while I sat, gazed, listened, and was filled full
+of a nameless sensation in which all was contained: sadness and joy
+and the foretaste of the future, and the desire and dread of life. But
+at that time I understood nothing of it, and could have given a name
+to nothing of all that was passing at random within me, or should have
+called it all by one name--the name of Zinaida.
+
+Zinaida continued to play cat and mouse with me. She flirted with me,
+and I was all agitation and rapture; then she would suddenly thrust me
+away, and I dared not go near her--dared not look at her.
+
+I remember she was very cold to me for several days together; I was
+completely crushed, and creeping timidly to their lodge, tried to keep
+close to the old princess, regardless of the circumstance that she was
+particularly scolding and grumbling just at that time; her
+financial affairs had been going badly, and she had already had two
+'explanations' with the police officials.
+
+One day I was walking in the garden beside the familiar fence, and I
+caught sight of Zinaida; leaning on both arms, she was sitting on the
+grass, not stirring a muscle. I was about to make off cautiously, but
+she suddenly raised her head and beckoned me imperiously. My heart
+failed me; I did not understand her at first. She repeated her signal.
+I promptly jumped over the fence and ran joyfully up to her, but she
+brought me to a halt with a look, and motioned me to the path two
+paces from her. In confusion, not knowing what to do, I fell on my
+knees at the edge of the path. She was so pale, such bitter suffering,
+such intense weariness, was expressed in every feature of her face,
+that it sent a pang to my heart, and I muttered unconsciously, 'What
+is the matter?'
+
+Zinaida stretched out her head, picked a blade of grass, bit it and
+flung it away from her.
+
+'You love me very much?' she asked at last. 'Yes.'
+
+I made no answer--indeed, what need was there to answer?
+
+'Yes,' she repeated, looking at me as before. 'That's so. The same
+eyes,'--she went on; sank into thought, and hid her face in her hands.
+'Everything's grown so loathsome to me,' she whispered, 'I would have
+gone to the other end of the world first--I can't bear it, I can't get
+over it.... And what is there before me!... Ah, I am wretched.... My
+God, how wretched I am!'
+
+'What for?' I asked timidly.
+
+Zinaida made no answer, she simply shrugged her shoulders. I remained
+kneeling, gazing at her with intense sadness. Every word she had
+uttered simply cut me to the heart. At that instant I felt I would
+gladly have given my life, if only she should not grieve. I gazed at
+her--and though I could not understand why she was wretched, I vividly
+pictured to myself, how in a fit of insupportable anguish, she had
+suddenly come out into the garden, and sunk to the earth, as though
+mown down by a scythe. It was all bright and green about her; the wind
+was whispering in the leaves of the trees, and swinging now and then
+a long branch of a raspberry bush over Zinaida's head. There was a
+sound of the cooing of doves, and the bees hummed, flying low over
+the scanty grass, Overhead the sun was radiantly blue--while I was so
+sorrowful....
+
+'Read me some poetry,' said Zinaida in an undertone, and she propped
+herself on her elbow; 'I like your reading poetry. You read it in
+sing-song, but that's no matter, that comes of being young. Read me
+"On the Hills of Georgia." Only sit down first.'
+
+I sat down and read 'On the Hills of Georgia.'
+
+'"That the heart cannot choose but love,"' repeated Zinaida. 'That's
+where poetry's so fine; it tells us what is not, and what's not only
+better than what is, but much more like the truth, "cannot choose
+but love,"--it might want not to, but it can't help it.' She was
+silent again, then all at once she started and got up. 'Come along.
+Meidanov's indoors with mamma, he brought me his poem, but I deserted
+him. His feelings are hurt too now ... I can't help it! you'll
+understand it all some day ... only don't be angry with me!'
+
+Zinaida hurriedly pressed my hand and ran on ahead. We went back into
+the lodge. Meidanov set to reading us his 'Manslayer,' which had just
+appeared in print, but I did not hear him. He screamed and drawled his
+four-foot iambic lines, the alternating rhythms jingled like little
+bells, noisy and meaningless, while I still watched Zinaida and tried
+to take in the import of her last words.
+
+  'Perchance some unknown rival
+  Has surprised and mastered thee?'
+
+Meidanov bawled suddenly through his nose--and my eyes and Zinaida's
+met. She looked down and faintly blushed. I saw her blush, and grew
+cold with terror. I had been jealous before, but only at that instant
+the idea of her being in love flashed upon my mind. 'Good God! she is
+in love!'
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+My real torments began from that instant. I racked my brains, changed
+my mind, and changed it back again, and kept an unremitting, though,
+as far as possible, secret watch on Zinaida. A change had come over
+her, that was obvious. She began going walks alone--and long walks.
+Sometimes she would not see visitors; she would sit for hours together
+in her room. This had never been a habit of hers till now. I suddenly
+became--or fancied I had become--extraordinarily penetrating.
+
+'Isn't it he? or isn't it he?' I asked myself, passing in inward
+agitation from one of her admirers to another. Count Malevsky secretly
+struck me as more to be feared than the others, though, for Zinaida's
+sake, I was ashamed to confess it to myself.
+
+My watchfulness did not see beyond the end of my nose, and its secrecy
+probably deceived no one; any way, Doctor Lushin soon saw through me.
+But he, too, had changed of late; he had grown thin, he laughed as
+often, but his laugh seemed more hollow, more spiteful, shorter, an
+involuntary nervous irritability took the place of his former light
+irony and assumed cynicism.
+
+'Why are you incessantly hanging about here, young man?' he said
+to me one day, when we were left alone together in the Zasyekins'
+drawing-room. (The young princess had not come home from a walk, and
+the shrill voice of the old princess could be heard within; she was
+scolding the maid.) 'You ought to be studying, working--while you're
+young--and what are you doing?'
+
+'You can't tell whether I work at home,' I retorted with some
+haughtiness, but also with some hesitation.
+
+'A great deal of work you do! that's not what you're thinking about!
+Well, I won't find fault with that ... at your age that's in the
+natural order of things. But you've been awfully unlucky in your
+choice. Don't you see what this house is?'
+
+'I don't understand you,' I observed.
+
+'You don't understand? so much the worse for you. I regard it as a
+duty to warn you. Old bachelors, like me, can come here, what harm can
+it do us! we're tough, nothing can hurt us, what harm can it do us;
+but your skin's tender yet--this air is bad for you--believe me, you
+may get harm from it.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Why, are you well now? Are you in a normal condition? Is what you're
+feeling--beneficial to you--good for you?'
+
+'Why, what am I feeling?' I said, while in my heart I knew the doctor
+was right.
+
+'Ah, young man, young man,' the doctor went on with an intonation that
+suggested that something highly insulting to me was contained in these
+two words, 'what's the use of your prevaricating, when, thank God,
+what's in your heart is in your face, so far? But there, what's the
+use of talking? I shouldn't come here myself, if ... (the doctor
+compressed his lips) ... if I weren't such a queer fellow. Only this
+is what surprises me; how it is, you, with your intelligence, don't
+see what is going on around you?'
+
+'And what is going on?' I put in, all on the alert.
+
+The doctor looked at me with a sort of ironical compassion.
+
+'Nice of me!' he said as though to himself, 'as if he need know
+anything of it. In fact, I tell you again,' he added, raising his
+voice, 'the atmosphere here is not fit for you. You like being here,
+but what of that! it's nice and sweet-smelling in a greenhouse--but
+there's no living in it. Yes! do as I tell you, and go back to your
+Keidanov.'
+
+The old princess came in, and began complaining to the doctor of her
+toothache. Then Zinaida appeared.
+
+'Come,' said the old princess, 'you must scold her, doctor. She's
+drinking iced water all day long; is that good for her, pray, with her
+delicate chest?'
+
+'Why do you do that?' asked Lushin.
+
+'Why, what effect could it have?'
+
+'What effect? You might get a chill and die.'
+
+'Truly? Do you mean it? Very well--so much the better.'
+
+'A fine idea!' muttered the doctor. The old princess had gone out.
+
+'Yes, a fine idea,' repeated Zinaida. 'Is life such a festive affair?
+Just look about you.... Is it nice, eh? Or do you imagine I don't
+understand it, and don't feel it? It gives me pleasure--drinking iced
+water; and can you seriously assure me that such a life is worth too
+much to be risked for an instant's pleasure--happiness I won't even
+talk about.'
+
+'Oh, very well,' remarked Lushin, 'caprice and irresponsibility....
+Those two words sum you up; your whole nature's contained in those two
+words.'
+
+Zinaida laughed nervously.
+
+'You're late for the post, my dear doctor. You don't keep a good
+look-out; you're behind the times. Put on your spectacles. I'm in no
+capricious humour now. To make fools of you, to make a fool of myself
+... much fun there is in that!--and as for irresponsibility ... M'sieu
+Voldemar,' Zinaida added suddenly, stamping, 'don't make such a
+melancholy face. I can't endure people to pity me.' She went quickly
+out of the room.
+
+'It's bad for you, very bad for you, this atmosphere, young man,'
+Lushin said to me once more.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+On the evening of the same day the usual guests were assembled at the
+Zasyekins'. I was among them.
+
+The conversation turned on Meidanov's poem. Zinaida expressed genuine
+admiration of it. 'But do you know what?' she said to him. 'If I were
+a poet, I would choose quite different subjects. Perhaps it's all
+nonsense, but strange ideas sometimes come into my head, especially
+when I'm not asleep in the early morning, when the sky begins to turn
+rosy and grey both at once. I would, for instance ... You won't laugh
+at me?'
+
+'No, no!' we all cried, with one voice.
+
+'I would describe,' she went on, folding her arms across her bosom
+and looking away, 'a whole company of young girls at night in a great
+boat, on a silent river. The moon is shining, and they are all in
+white, and wearing garlands of white flowers, and singing, you know,
+something in the nature of a hymn.'
+
+'I see--I see; go on,' Meidanov commented with dreamy significance.
+
+'All of a sudden, loud clamour, laughter, torches, tambourines on the
+bank.... It's a troop of Bacchantes dancing with songs and cries. It's
+your business to make a picture of it, Mr. Poet;... only I should like
+the torches to be red and to smoke a great deal, and the Bacchantes'
+eyes to gleam under their wreaths, and the wreaths to be dusky. Don't
+forget the tiger-skins, too, and goblets and gold--lots of gold....'
+
+'Where ought the gold to be?' asked Meidanov, tossing back his sleek
+hair and distending his nostrils.
+
+'Where? on their shoulders and arms and legs--everywhere. They say in
+ancient times women wore gold rings on their ankles. The Bacchantes
+call the girls in the boat to them. The girls have ceased singing
+their hymn--they cannot go on with it, but they do not stir, the river
+carries them to the bank. And suddenly one of them slowly rises....
+This you must describe nicely: how she slowly gets up in the
+moonlight, and how her companions are afraid.... She steps over the
+edge of the boat, the Bacchantes surround her, whirl her away into
+night and darkness.... Here put in smoke in clouds and everything in
+confusion. There is nothing but the sound of their shrill cry, and her
+wreath left lying on the bank.'
+
+Zinaida ceased. ('Oh! she is in love!' I thought again.)
+
+'And is that all?' asked Meidanov.
+
+'That's all.'
+
+'That can't be the subject of a whole poem,' he observed pompously,
+'but I will make use of your idea for a lyrical fragment.'
+
+'In the romantic style?' queried Malevsky.
+
+'Of course, in the romantic style--Byronic.'
+
+'Well, to my mind, Hugo beats Byron,' the young count observed
+negligently; 'he's more interesting.'
+
+'Hugo is a writer of the first class,' replied Meidanov; 'and my
+friend, Tonkosheev, in his Spanish romance, _El Trovador_ ...'
+
+'Ah! is that the book with the question-marks turned upside down?'
+Zinaida interrupted.
+
+'Yes. That's the custom with the Spanish. I was about to observe that
+Tonkosheev ...'
+
+'Come! you're going to argue about classicism and romanticism again,'
+Zinaida interrupted him a second time.' We'd much better play ...
+
+'Forfeits?' put in Lushin.
+
+'No, forfeits are a bore; at comparisons.' (This game Zinaida had
+invented herself. Some object was mentioned, every one tried to
+compare it with something, and the one who chose the best comparison
+got a prize.)
+
+She went up to the window. The sun was just setting; high up in the
+sky were large red clouds.
+
+'What are those clouds like?' questioned Zinaida; and without waiting
+for our answer, she said, 'I think they are like the purple sails on
+the golden ship of Cleopatra, when she sailed to meet Antony. Do you
+remember, Meidanov, you were telling me about it not long ago?'
+
+All of us, like Polonius in _Hamlet_, opined that the clouds recalled
+nothing so much as those sails, and that not one of us could discover
+a better comparison.
+
+'And how old was Antony then?' inquired Zinaida.
+
+'A young man, no doubt,' observed Malevsky.
+
+'Yes, a young man,' Meidanov chimed in in confirmation.
+
+'Excuse me,' cried Lushin, 'he was over forty.'
+
+'Over forty,' repeated Zinaida, giving him a rapid glance....
+
+I soon went home. 'She is in love,' my lips unconsciously repeated....
+'But with whom?'
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+The days passed by. Zinaida became stranger and stranger, and more and
+more incomprehensible. One day I went over to her, and saw her sitting
+in a basket-chair, her head pressed to the sharp edge of the table.
+She drew herself up ... her whole face was wet with tears.
+
+'Ah, you!' she said with a cruel smile. 'Come here.'
+
+I went up to her. She put her hand on my head, and suddenly catching
+hold of my hair, began pulling it.
+
+'It hurts me,' I said at last.
+
+'Ah! does it? And do you suppose nothing hurts me?' she replied.
+
+'Ai!' she cried suddenly, seeing she had pulled a little tuft of hair
+out. 'What have I done? Poor M'sieu Voldemar!'
+
+She carefully smoothed the hair she had torn out, stroked it round her
+finger, and twisted it into a ring.
+
+'I shall put your hair in a locket and wear it round my neck,' she
+said, while the tears still glittered in her eyes. 'That will be some
+small consolation to you, perhaps ... and now good-bye.'
+
+I went home, and found an unpleasant state of things there. My mother
+was having a scene with my father; she was reproaching him with
+something, while he, as his habit was, maintained a polite and chilly
+silence, and soon left her. I could not hear what my mother was
+talking of, and indeed I had no thought to spare for the subject; I
+only remember that when the interview was over, she sent for me to her
+room, and referred with great displeasure to the frequent visits I
+paid the princess, who was, in her words, _une femme capable de tout_.
+I kissed her hand (this was what I always did when I wanted to cut
+short a conversation) and went off to my room. Zinaida's tears had
+completely overwhelmed me; I positively did not know what to think,
+and was ready to cry myself; I was a child after all, in spite of my
+sixteen years. I had now given up thinking about Malevsky, though
+Byelovzorov looked more and more threatening every day, and glared at
+the wily count like a wolf at a sheep; but I thought of nothing and
+of no one. I was lost in imaginings, and was always seeking seclusion
+and solitude. I was particularly fond of the ruined greenhouse. I
+would climb up on the high wall, and perch myself, and sit there,
+such an unhappy, lonely, and melancholy youth, that I felt sorry for
+myself--and how consolatory where those mournful sensations, how I
+revelled in them!...
+
+One day I was sitting on the wall looking into the distance and
+listening to the ringing of the bells.... Suddenly something floated
+up to me--not a breath of wind and not a shiver, but as it were a
+whiff of fragrance--as it were, a sense of some one's being near.... I
+looked down. Below, on the path, in a light greyish gown, with a pink
+parasol on her shoulder, was Zinaida, hurrying along. She caught sight
+of me, stopped, and pushing back the brim of her straw hat, she raised
+her velvety eyes to me.
+
+'What are you doing up there at such a height?' she asked me with a
+rather queer smile. 'Come,' she went on, 'you always declare you love
+me; jump down into the road to me if you really do love me.'
+
+Zinaida had hardly uttered those words when I flew down, just as
+though some one had given me a violent push from behind. The wall was
+about fourteen feet high. I reached the ground on my feet, but the
+shock was so great that I could not keep my footing; I fell down, and
+for an instant fainted away. When I came to myself again, without
+opening my eyes, I felt Zinaida beside me. 'My dear boy,' she was
+saying, bending over me, and there was a note of alarmed tenderness in
+her voice, 'how could you do it, dear; how could you obey?... You know
+I love you.... Get up.'
+
+Her bosom was heaving close to me, her hands were caressing my head,
+and suddenly--what were my emotions at that moment--her soft, fresh
+lips began covering my face with kisses ... they touched my lips....
+But then Zinaida probably guessed by the expression of my face that I
+had regained consciousness, though I still kept my eyes closed, and
+rising rapidly to her feet, she said: 'Come, get up, naughty boy,
+silly, why are you lying in the dust?' I got up. 'Give me my parasol,'
+said Zinaida, 'I threw it down somewhere, and don't stare at me like
+that ... what ridiculous nonsense! you're not hurt, are you? stung
+by the nettles, I daresay? Don't stare at me, I tell you.... But
+he doesn't understand, he doesn't answer,' she added, as though to
+herself.... 'Go home, M'sieu' Voldemar, brush yourself, and don't dare
+to follow me, or I shall be angry, and never again ...'
+
+She did not finish her sentence, but walked rapidly away, while I sat
+down by the side of the road ... my legs would not support me. The
+nettles had stung my hands, my back ached, and my head was giddy; but
+the feeling of rapture I experienced then has never come a second
+time in my life. It turned to a sweet ache in all my limbs and found
+expression at last in joyful hops and skips and shouts. Yes, I was
+still a child.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+I was so proud and light-hearted all that day, I so vividly retained
+on my face the feeling of Zinaida's kisses, with such a shudder
+of delight I recalled every word she had uttered, I so hugged my
+unexpected happiness that I felt positively afraid, positively
+unwilling to see her, who had given rise to these new sensations. It
+seemed to me that now I could ask nothing more of fate, that now I
+ought to 'go, and draw a deep last sigh and die.' But, next day, when
+I went into the lodge, I felt great embarrassment, which I tried to
+conceal under a show of modest confidence, befitting a man who wishes
+to make it apparent that he knows how to keep a secret. Zinaida
+received me very simply, without any emotion, she simply shook her
+finger at me and asked me, whether I wasn't black and blue? All my
+modest confidence and air of mystery vanished instantaneously and
+with them my embarrassment. Of course, I had not expected anything
+particular, but Zinaida's composure was like a bucket of cold water
+thrown over me. I realised that in her eyes I was a child, and was
+extremely miserable! Zinaida walked up and down the room, giving me
+a quick smile, whenever she caught my eye, but her thoughts were
+far away, I saw that clearly.... 'Shall I begin about what happened
+yesterday myself,' I pondered; 'ask her, where she was hurrying off
+so fast, so as to find out once for all' ... but with a gesture of
+despair, I merely went and sat down in a corner.
+
+Byelovzorov came in; I felt relieved to see him.
+
+'I've not been able to find you a quiet horse,' he said in a sulky
+voice; 'Freitag warrants one, but I don't feel any confidence in it, I
+am afraid.'
+
+'What are you afraid of?' said Zinaida; 'allow me to inquire?'
+
+'What am I afraid of? Why, you don't know how to ride. Lord save
+us, what might happen! What whim is this has come over you all of a
+sudden?'
+
+'Come, that's my business, Sir Wild Beast. In that case I will ask
+Piotr Vassilievitch.' ... (My father's name was Piotr Vassilievitch.
+I was surprised at her mentioning his name so lightly and freely, as
+though she were confident of his readiness to do her a service.)
+
+'Oh, indeed,' retorted Byelovzorov, 'you mean to go out riding with
+him then?'
+
+'With him or with some one else is nothing to do with you. Only not
+with you, anyway.'
+
+'Not with me,' repeated Byelovzorov. 'As you wish. Well, I shall find
+you a horse.'
+
+'Yes, only mind now, don't send some old cow. I warn you I want to
+gallop.'
+
+'Gallop away by all means ... with whom is it, with Malevsky, you are
+going to ride?'
+
+'And why not with him, Mr. Pugnacity? Come, be quiet,' she added,
+'and don't glare. I'll take you too. You know that to my mind now
+Malevsky's--ugh!' She shook her head.
+
+'You say that to console me,' growled Byelovzorov.
+
+Zinaida half closed her eyes. 'Does that console you? O ... O ... O
+... Mr. Pugnacity!' she said at last, as though she could find no
+other word. 'And you, M'sieu' Voldemar, would you come with us?'
+
+'I don't care to ... in a large party,' I muttered, not raising my
+eyes.
+
+'You prefer a _tete-a-tete_?... Well, freedom to the free, and heaven
+to the saints,' she commented with a sigh. 'Go along, Byelovzorov, and
+bestir yourself. I must have a horse for to-morrow.'
+
+'Oh, and where's the money to come from?' put in the old princess.
+
+Zinaida scowled.
+
+'I won't ask you for it; Byelovzorov will trust me.'
+
+'He'll trust you, will he?' ... grumbled the old princess, and all of
+a sudden she screeched at the top of her voice, 'Duniashka!'
+
+'Maman, I have given you a bell to ring,' observed Zinaida.
+
+'Duniashka!' repeated the old lady.
+
+Byelovzorov took leave; I went away with him. Zinaida did not try to
+detain me.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+The next day I got up early, cut myself a stick, and set off beyond
+the town-gates. I thought I would walk off my sorrow. It was a lovely
+day, bright and not too hot, a fresh sportive breeze roved over the
+earth with temperate rustle and frolic, setting all things a-flutter
+and harassing nothing. I wandered a long while over hills and through
+woods; I had not felt happy, I had left home with the intention of
+giving myself up to melancholy, but youth, the exquisite weather, the
+fresh air, the pleasure of rapid motion, the sweetness of repose,
+lying on the thick grass in a solitary nook, gained the upper hand;
+the memory of those never-to-be-forgotten words, those kisses, forced
+itself once more upon my soul. It was sweet to me to think that
+Zinaida could not, anyway, fail to do justice to my courage, my
+heroism....' Others may seem better to her than I,' I mused, 'let
+them! But others only say what they would do, while I have done it.
+And what more would I not do for her?' My fancy set to work. I began
+picturing to myself how I would save her from the hands of enemies;
+how, covered with blood I would tear her by force from prison,
+and expire at her feet. I remembered a picture hanging in our
+drawing-room--Malek-Adel bearing away Matilda--but at that point my
+attention was absorbed by the appearance of a speckled woodpecker who
+climbed busily up the slender stem of a birch-tree and peeped out
+uneasily from behind it, first to the right, then to the left, like a
+musician behind the bass-viol.
+
+Then I sang 'Not the white snows,' and passed from that to a song well
+known at that period: 'I await thee, when the wanton zephyr,' then
+I began reading aloud Yermak's address to the stars from Homyakov's
+tragedy. I made an attempt to compose something myself in a
+sentimental vein, and invented the line which was to conclude each
+verse: 'O Zinaida, Zinaida!' but could get no further with it.
+Meanwhile it was getting on towards dinner-time. I went down into the
+valley; a narrow sandy path winding through it led to the town. I
+walked along this path.... The dull thud of horses' hoofs resounded
+behind me. I looked round instinctively, stood still and took off my
+cap. I saw my father and Zinaida. They were riding side by side. My
+father was saying something to her, bending right over to her, his
+hand propped on the horses' neck, he was smiling. Zinaida listened
+to him in silence, her eyes severely cast down, and her lips tightly
+pressed together. At first I saw them only; but a few instants later,
+Byelovzorov came into sight round a bend in the glade, he was wearing
+a hussar's uniform with a pelisse, and riding a foaming black horse.
+The gallant horse tossed its head, snorted and pranced from side
+to side, his rider was at once holding him in and spurring him on.
+I stood aside. My father gathered up the reins, moved away from
+Zinaida, she slowly raised her eyes to him, and both galloped off ...
+Byelovzorov flew after them, his sabre clattering behind him. 'He's
+as red as a crab,' I reflected, 'while she ... why's she so pale? out
+riding the whole morning, and pale?'
+
+I redoubled my pace, and got home just at dinner-time. My father was
+already sitting by my mother's chair, dressed for dinner, washed and
+fresh; he was reading an article from the _Journal des Debats_ in his
+smooth musical voice; but my mother heard him without attention, and
+when she saw me, asked where I had been to all day long, and added
+that she didn't like this gadding about God knows where, and God knows
+in what company. 'But I have been walking alone,' I was on the point
+of replying, but I looked at my father, and for some reason or other
+held my peace.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+For the next five or six days I hardly saw Zinaida; she said she was
+ill, which did not, however, prevent the usual visitors from calling
+at the lodge to pay--as they expressed it, their duty--all, that is,
+except Meidanov, who promptly grew dejected and sulky when he had
+not an opportunity of being enthusiastic. Byelovzorov sat sullen and
+red-faced in a corner, buttoned up to the throat; on the refined face
+of Malevsky there flickered continually an evil smile; he had really
+fallen into disfavour with Zinaida, and waited with special assiduity
+on the old princess, and even went with her in a hired coach to call
+on the Governor-General. This expedition turned out unsuccessful,
+however, and even led to an unpleasant experience for Malevsky; he was
+reminded of some scandal to do with certain officers of the engineers,
+and was forced in his explanations to plead his youth and inexperience
+at the time. Lushin came twice a day, but did not stay long; I was
+rather afraid of him after our last unreserved conversation, and at
+the same time felt a genuine attraction to him. He went a walk with
+me one day in the Neskutchny gardens, was very good-natured and nice,
+told me the names and properties of various plants and flowers, and
+suddenly, _a propos_ of nothing at all, cried, hitting himself on
+his forehead, 'And I, poor fool, thought her a flirt! it's clear
+self-sacrifice is sweet for some people!'
+
+'What do you mean by that?' I inquired.
+
+'I don't mean to tell you anything,' Lushin replied abruptly.
+
+Zinaida avoided me; my presence--I could not help noticing
+it--affected her disagreeably. She involuntarily turned away from me
+... involuntarily; that was what was so bitter, that was what crushed
+me! But there was no help for it, and I tried not to cross her path,
+and only to watch her from a distance, in which I was not always
+successful. As before, something incomprehensible was happening to
+her; her face was different, she was different altogether. I was
+specially struck by the change that had taken place in her one warm
+still evening. I was sitting on a low garden bench under a spreading
+elderbush; I was fond of that nook; I could see from there the window
+of Zinaida's room. I sat there; over my head a little bird was busily
+hopping about in the darkness of the leaves; a grey cat, stretching
+herself at full length, crept warily about the garden, and the first
+beetles were heavily droning in the air, which was still clear, though
+it was not light. I sat and gazed at the window, and waited to see if
+it would open; it did open, and Zinaida appeared at it. She had on a
+white dress, and she herself, her face, shoulders, and arms, were pale
+to whiteness. She stayed a long while without moving, and looked out
+straight before her from under her knitted brows. I had never known
+such a look on her. Then she clasped her hands tightly, raised them to
+her lips, to her forehead, and suddenly pulling her fingers apart, she
+pushed back her hair behind her ears, tossed it, and with a sort of
+determination nodded her head, and slammed-to the window.
+
+Three days later she met me in the garden. I was turning away, but she
+stopped me of herself.
+
+'Give me your arm,' she said to me with her old affectionateness,
+'it's a long while since we have had a talk together.'
+
+I stole a look at her; her eyes were full of a soft light, and her
+face seemed as it were smiling through a mist.
+
+'Are you still not well?' I asked her.
+
+'No, that's all over now,' she answered, and she picked a small red
+rose. 'I am a little tired, but that too will pass off.'
+
+'And will you be as you used to be again?' I asked.
+
+Zinaida put the rose up to her face, and I fancied the reflection of
+its bright petals had fallen on her cheeks. 'Why, am I changed?' she
+questioned me.
+
+'Yes, you are changed,' I answered in a low voice.
+
+'I have been cold to you, I know,' began Zinaida, 'but you mustn't pay
+attention to that ... I couldn't help it.... Come, why talk about it!'
+
+'You don't want me to love you, that's what it is!' I cried gloomily,
+in an involuntary outburst.
+
+'No, love me, but not as you did.'
+
+'How then?'
+
+'Let us be friends--come now!' Zinaida gave me the rose to smell.
+'Listen, you know I'm much older than you--I might be your aunt,
+really; well, not your aunt, but an older sister. And you ...'
+
+'You think me a child,' I interrupted.
+
+'Well, yes, a child, but a dear, good clever one, whom I love very
+much. Do you know what? From this day forth I confer on you the rank
+of page to me; and don't you forget that pages have to keep close
+to their ladies. Here is the token of your new dignity,' she added,
+sticking the rose in the buttonhole of my jacket, 'the token of my
+favour.'
+
+'I once received other favours from you,' I muttered.
+
+'Ah!' commented Zinaida, and she gave me a sidelong look, 'What a
+memory he has! Well? I'm quite ready now ...' And stooping to me, she
+imprinted on my forehead a pure, tranquil kiss.
+
+I only looked at her, while she turned away, and saying, 'Follow me,
+my page,' went into the lodge. I followed her--all in amazement. 'Can
+this gentle, reasonable girl,' I thought, 'be the Zinaida I used to
+know?' I fancied her very walk was quieter, her whole figure statelier
+and more graceful ...
+
+And, mercy! with what fresh force love burned within me!
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+After dinner the usual party assembled again at the lodge, and the
+young princess came out to them. All were there in full force, just as
+on that first evening which I never forgot; even Nirmatsky had limped
+to see her; Meidanov came this time earliest of all, he brought some
+new verses. The games of forfeits began again, but without the strange
+pranks, the practical jokes and noise--the gipsy element had vanished.
+Zinaida gave a different tone to the proceedings. I sat beside her by
+virtue of my office as page. Among other things, she proposed that
+any one who had to pay a forfeit should tell his dream; but this was
+not successful. The dreams were either uninteresting (Byelovzorov had
+dreamed that he fed his mare on carp, and that she had a wooden head),
+or unnatural and invented. Meidanov regaled us with a regular romance;
+there were sepulchres in it, and angels with lyres, and talking
+flowers and music wafted from afar. Zinaida did not let him finish.
+'If we are to have compositions,' she said, 'let every one tell
+something made up, and no pretence about it.' The first who had to
+speak was again Byelovzorov.
+
+The young hussar was confused. 'I can't make up anything!' he cried.
+
+'What nonsense!' said Zinaida. 'Well, imagine, for instance, you are
+married, and tell us how you would treat your wife. Would you lock her
+up?'
+
+'Yes, I should lock her up.'
+
+'And would you stay with her yourself?'
+
+'Yes, I should certainly stay with her myself.'
+
+'Very good. Well, but if she got sick of that, and she deceived you?'
+
+'I should kill her.'
+
+'And if she ran away?'
+
+'I should catch her up and kill her all the same.'
+
+'Oh. And suppose now I were your wife, what would you do then?'
+
+Byelovzorov was silent a minute. 'I should kill myself....'
+
+Zinaida laughed. 'I see yours is not a long story.'
+
+The next forfeit was Zinaida's. She looked at the ceiling and
+considered. 'Well, listen, she began at last, 'what I have thought
+of.... Picture to yourselves a magnificent palace, a summer night, and
+a marvellous ball. This ball is given by a young queen. Everywhere
+gold and marble, crystal, silk, lights, diamonds, flowers, fragrant
+scents, every caprice of luxury.'
+
+'You love luxury?' Lushin interposed. 'Luxury is beautiful,' she
+retorted; 'I love everything beautiful.'
+
+'More than what is noble?' he asked.
+
+'That's something clever, I don't understand it. Don't interrupt me.
+So the ball is magnificent. There are crowds of guests, all of them
+are young, handsome, and brave, all are frantically in love with the
+queen.'
+
+'Are there no women among the guests?' queried Malevsky.
+
+'No--or wait a minute--yes, there are some.'
+
+'Are they all ugly?'
+
+'No, charming. But the men are all in love with the queen. She is tall
+and graceful; she has a little gold diadem on her black hair.'
+
+I looked at Zinaida, and at that instant she seemed to me so much
+above all of us, there was such bright intelligence, and such power
+about her unruffled brows, that I thought: 'You are that queen!'
+
+'They all throng about her,' Zinaida went on, 'and all lavish the most
+flattering speeches upon her.'
+
+'And she likes flattery?' Lushin queried.
+
+'What an intolerable person! he keeps interrupting ... who doesn't
+like flattery?'
+
+'One more last question,' observed Malevsky, 'has the queen a
+husband?'
+
+'I hadn't thought about that. No, why should she have a husband?'
+
+'To be sure,' assented Malevsky, 'why should she have a husband?'
+
+'_Silence!_' cried Meidanov in French, which he spoke very badly.
+
+'_Merci!_' Zinaida said to him. 'And so the queen hears their
+speeches, and hears the music, but does not look at one of the guests.
+Six windows are open from top to bottom, from floor to ceiling, and
+beyond them is a dark sky with big stars, a dark garden with big
+trees. The queen gazes out into the garden. Out there among the trees
+is a fountain; it is white in the darkness, and rises up tall, tall
+as an apparition. The queen hears, through the talk and the music,
+the soft splash of its waters. She gazes and thinks: you are all,
+gentlemen, noble, clever, and rich, you crowd round me, you treasure
+every word I utter, you are all ready to die at my feet, I hold you in
+my power ... but out there, by the fountain, by that splashing water,
+stands and waits he whom I love, who holds me in his power. He has
+neither rich raiment nor precious stones, no one knows him, but he
+awaits me, and is certain I shall come--and I shall come--and there
+is no power that could stop me when I want to go out to him, and to
+stay with him, and be lost with him out there in the darkness of the
+garden, under the whispering of the trees, and the splash of the
+fountain ...' Zinaida ceased.
+
+'Is that a made-up story?' Malevsky inquired slyly. Zinaida did not
+even look at him.
+
+'And what should we have done, gentlemen?' Lushin began suddenly, 'if
+we had been among the guests, and had known of the lucky fellow at the
+fountain?'
+
+'Stop a minute, stop a minute,' interposed Zinaida, 'I will tell you
+myself what each of you would have done. You, Byelovzorov, would have
+challenged him to a duel; you, Meidanov, would have written an epigram
+on him ... No, though, you can't write epigrams, you would have made
+up a long poem on him in the style of Barbier, and would have inserted
+your production in the _Telegraph_. You, Nirmatsky, would have
+borrowed ... no, you would have lent him money at high interest; you,
+doctor,...' she stopped. 'There, I really don't know what you would
+have done....'
+
+'In the capacity of court physician,' answered Lushin, 'I would have
+advised the queen not to give balls when she was not in the humour for
+entertaining her guests....'
+
+'Perhaps you would have been right. And you, Count?...'
+
+'And I?' repeated Malevsky with his evil smile....
+
+'You would offer him a poisoned sweetmeat.' Malevsky's face changed
+slightly, and assumed for an instant a Jewish expression, but he
+laughed directly.
+
+'And as for you, Voldemar,...' Zinaida went on, 'but that's enough,
+though; let us play another game.'
+
+'M'sieu Voldemar, as the queen's page, would have held up her train
+when she ran into the garden,' Malevsky remarked malignantly.
+
+I was crimson with anger, but Zinaida hurriedly laid a hand on my
+shoulder, and getting up, said in a rather shaky voice: 'I have never
+given your excellency the right to be rude, and therefore I will ask
+you to leave us.' She pointed to the door.
+
+'Upon my word, princess,' muttered Malevsky, and he turned quite pale.
+
+'The princess is right,' cried Byelovzorov, and he too rose.
+
+'Good God, I'd not the least idea,' Malevsky went on, 'in my words
+there was nothing, I think, that could ... I had no notion of
+offending you.... Forgive me.'
+
+Zinaida looked him up and down coldly, and coldly smiled. 'Stay, then,
+certainly,' she pronounced with a careless gesture of her arm.
+
+'M'sieu Voldemar and I were needlessly incensed. It is your pleasure
+to sting ... may it do you good.'
+
+'Forgive me,' Malevsky repeated once more; while I, my thoughts
+dwelling on Zinaida's gesture, said to myself again that no real queen
+could with greater dignity have shown a presumptuous subject to the
+door.
+
+The game of forfeits went on for a short time after this little scene;
+every one felt rather ill at ease, not so much on account of this
+scene, as from another, not quite definite, but oppressive feeling. No
+one spoke of it, but every one was conscious of it in himself and in
+his neighbour. Meidanov read us his verses; and Malevsky praised them
+with exaggerated warmth. 'He wants to show how good he is now,' Lushin
+whispered to me. We soon broke up. A mood of reverie seemed to have
+come upon Zinaida; the old princess sent word that she had a headache;
+Nirmatsky began to complain of his rheumatism....
+
+I could not for a long while get to sleep. I had been impressed by
+Zinaida's story. 'Can there have been a hint in it?' I asked myself:
+'and at whom and at what was she hinting? And if there really is
+anything to hint at ... how is one to make up one's mind? No, no, it
+can't be,' I whispered, turning over from one hot cheek on to the
+other.... But I remembered the expression of Zinaida's face during her
+story.... I remembered the exclamation that had broken from Lushin in
+the Neskutchny gardens, the sudden change in her behaviour to me, and
+I was lost in conjectures. 'Who is he?' These three words seemed to
+stand before my eyes traced upon the darkness; a lowering malignant
+cloud seemed hanging over me, and I felt its oppressiveness, and
+waited for it to break. I had grown used to many things of late; I had
+learned much from what I had seen at the Zasyekins; their disorderly
+ways, tallow candle-ends, broken knives and forks, grumpy Vonifaty,
+and shabby maid-servants, the manners of the old princess--all
+their strange mode of life no longer struck me.... But what I was
+dimly discerning now in Zinaida, I could never get used to.... 'An
+adventuress!' my mother had said of her one day. An adventuress--she,
+my idol, my divinity? This word stabbed me, I tried to get away from
+it into my pillow, I was indignant--and at the same time what would I
+not have agreed to, what would I not have given only to be that lucky
+fellow at the fountain!... My blood was on fire and boiling within
+me. 'The garden ... the fountain,' I mused.... 'I will go into the
+garden.' I dressed quickly and slipped out of the house. The night
+was dark, the trees scarcely whispered, a soft chill air breathed
+down from the sky, a smell of fennel trailed across from the kitchen
+garden. I went through all the walks; the light sound of my own
+footsteps at once confused and emboldened me; I stood still, waited
+and heard my heart beating fast and loudly. At last I went up to the
+fence and leaned against the thin bar. Suddenly, or was it my fancy, a
+woman's figure flashed by, a few paces from me ... I strained my eyes
+eagerly into the darkness, I held my breath. What was that? Did I hear
+steps, or was it my heart beating again? 'Who is here?' I faltered,
+hardly audibly. What was that again, a smothered laugh ... or a
+rustling in the leaves ... or a sigh just at my ear? I felt afraid ...
+'Who is here?' I repeated still more softly.
+
+The air blew in a gust for an instant; a streak of fire flashed across
+the sky; it was a star falling. 'Zinaida?' I wanted to call, but
+the word died away on my lips. And all at once everything became
+profoundly still around, as is often the case in the middle of the
+night.... Even the grasshoppers ceased their churr in the trees--only
+a window rattled somewhere. I stood and stood, and then went back to
+my room, to my chilled bed. I felt a strange sensation; as though I
+had gone to a tryst, and had been left lonely, and had passed close by
+another's happiness.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+The following day I only had a passing glimpse of Zinaida: she was
+driving somewhere with the old princess in a cab. But I saw Lushin,
+who, however, barely vouchsafed me a greeting, and Malevsky. The young
+count grinned, and began affably talking to me. Of all those who
+visited at the lodge, he alone had succeeded in forcing his way into
+our house, and had favourably impressed my mother. My father did not
+take to him, and treated him with a civility almost insulting.
+
+'Ah, _monsieur le page_,' began Malevsky, 'delighted to meet you. What
+is your lovely queen doing?'
+
+His fresh handsome face was so detestable to me at that moment, and he
+looked at me with such contemptuous amusement that I did not answer
+him at all.
+
+'Are you still angry?' he went on. 'You've no reason to be. It wasn't
+I who called you a page, you know, and pages attend queens especially.
+But allow me to remark that you perform your duties very badly.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Pages ought to be inseparable from their mistresses; pages ought to
+know everything they do, they ought, indeed, to watch over them,' he
+added, lowering his voice, 'day and night.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'What do I mean? I express myself pretty clearly, I fancy. Day and
+night. By day it's not so much matter; it's light, and people are
+about in the daytime; but by night, then look out for misfortune. I
+advise you not to sleep at nights and to watch, watch with all your
+energies. You remember, in the garden, by night, at the fountain,
+that's where there's need to look out. You will thank me.'
+
+Malevsky laughed and turned his back on me. He, most likely, attached
+no great importance to what he had said to me, he had a reputation
+for mystifying, and was noted for his power of taking people in at
+masquerades, which was greatly augmented by the almost unconscious
+falsity in which his whole nature was steeped.... He only wanted to
+tease me; but every word he uttered was a poison that ran through my
+veins. The blood rushed to my head. 'Ah! so that's it!' I said to
+myself; 'good! So there was reason for me to feel drawn into the
+garden! That shan't be so!' I cried aloud, and struck myself on the
+chest with my fist, though precisely what should not be so I could not
+have said. 'Whether Malevsky himself goes into the garden,' I thought
+(he was bragging, perhaps; he has insolence enough for that), 'or
+some one else (the fence of our garden was very low, and there was
+no difficulty in getting over it), anyway, if any one falls into
+my hands, it will be the worse for him! I don't advise any one to
+meet me! I will prove to all the world and to her, the traitress (I
+actually used the word 'traitress') that I can be revenged!'
+
+I returned to my own room, took out of the writing-table an English
+knife I had recently bought, felt its sharp edge, and knitting my
+brows with an air of cold and concentrated determination, thrust it
+into my pocket, as though doing such deeds was nothing out of the way
+for me, and not the first time. My heart heaved angrily, and felt
+heavy as a stone. All day long I kept a scowling brow and lips tightly
+compressed, and was continually walking up and down, clutching, with
+my hand in my pocket, the knife, which was warm from my grasp, while I
+prepared myself beforehand for something terrible. These new unknown
+sensations so occupied and even delighted me, that I hardly thought
+of Zinaida herself. I was continually haunted by Aleko, the young
+gipsy--'Where art thou going, young handsome man? Lie there,' and
+then, 'thou art all besprent with blood.... Oh, what hast thou
+done?... Naught!' With what a cruel smile I repeated that 'Naught!' My
+father was not at home; but my mother, who had for some time past been
+in an almost continual state of dumb exasperation, noticed my gloomy
+and heroic aspect, and said to me at supper, 'Why are you sulking like
+a mouse in a meal-tub?' I merely smiled condescendingly in reply, and
+thought, 'If only they knew!' It struck eleven; I went to my room, but
+did not undress; I waited for midnight; at last it struck. 'The time
+has come!' I muttered between my teeth; and buttoning myself up to the
+throat, and even pulling my sleeves up, I went into the garden.
+
+I had already fixed on the spot from which to keep watch. At the end
+of the garden, at the point where the fence, separating our domain
+from the Zasyekins,' joined the common wall, grew a pine-tree,
+standing alone. Standing under its low thick branches, I could see
+well, as far as the darkness of the night permitted, what took
+place around. Close by, ran a winding path which had always seemed
+mysterious to me; it coiled like a snake under the fence, which at
+that point bore traces of having been climbed over, and led to a round
+arbour formed of thick acacias. I made my way to the pine-tree, leaned
+my back against its trunk, and began my watch.
+
+The night was as still as the night before, but there were fewer
+clouds in the sky, and the outlines of bushes, even of tall flowers,
+could be more distinctly seen. The first moments of expectation were
+oppressive, almost terrible. I had made up my mind to everything. I
+only debated how to act; whether to thunder, 'Where goest thou? Stand!
+show thyself--or death!' or simply to strike.... Every sound, every
+whisper and rustle, seemed to me portentous and extraordinary.... I
+prepared myself.... I bent forward.... But half-an-hour passed, an
+hour passed; my blood had grown quieter, colder; the consciousness
+that I was doing all this for nothing, that I was even a little
+absurd, that Malevsky had been making fun of me, began to steal over
+me. I left my ambush, and walked all about the garden. As if to taunt
+me, there was not the smallest sound to be heard anywhere; everything
+was at rest. Even our dog was asleep, curled up into a ball at the
+gate. I climbed up into the ruins of the greenhouse, saw the open
+country far away before me, recalled my meeting with Zinaida, and fell
+to dreaming....
+
+I started.... I fancied I heard the creak of a door opening, then the
+faint crack of a broken twig. In two bounds I got down from the ruin,
+and stood still, all aghast. Rapid, light, but cautious footsteps
+sounded distinctly in the garden. They were approaching me. 'Here he
+is ... here he is, at last!' flashed through my heart. With spasmodic
+haste, I pulled the knife out of my pocket; with spasmodic haste, I
+opened it. Flashes of red were whirling before my eyes; my hair stood
+up on my head in my fear and fury.... The steps were coming straight
+towards me; I bent--I craned forward to meet him.... A man came into
+view.... My God! it was my father! I recognised him at once, though
+he was all muffled up in a dark cloak, and his hat was pulled down
+over his face. On tip-toe he walked by. He did not notice me, though
+nothing concealed me; but I was so huddled up and shrunk together that
+I fancy I was almost on the level of the ground. The jealous Othello,
+ready for murder, was suddenly transformed into a school-boy.... I was
+so taken aback by my father's unexpected appearance that for the first
+moment I did not notice where he had come from or in what direction he
+disappeared. I only drew myself up, and thought, 'Why is it my father
+is walking about in the garden at night?' when everything was still
+again. In my horror I had dropped my knife in the grass, but I did not
+even attempt to look for it; I was very much ashamed of myself. I was
+completely sobered at once. On my way to the house, however, I went up
+to my seat under the elder-tree, and looked up at Zinaida's window.
+The small slightly-convex panes of the window shone dimly blue in the
+faint light thrown on them by the night sky. All at once--their colour
+began to change.... Behind them--I saw this, saw it distinctly--softly
+and cautiously a white blind was let down, let down right to the
+window-frame, and so stayed.
+
+'What is that for?' I said aloud almost involuntarily when I found
+myself once more in my room. 'A dream, a chance, or ...' The
+suppositions which suddenly rushed into my head were so new and
+strange that I did not dare to entertain them.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+I got up in the morning with a headache. My emotion of the previous
+day had vanished. It was replaced by a dreary sense of blankness and
+a sort of sadness I had not known till then, as though something had
+died in me.
+
+'Why is it you're looking like a rabbit with half its brain removed?'
+said Lushin on meeting me. At lunch I stole a look first at my father,
+then at my mother: he was composed, as usual; she was, as usual,
+secretly irritated. I waited to see whether my father would make some
+friendly remarks to me, as he sometimes did.... But he did not even
+bestow his everyday cold greeting upon me. 'Shall I tell Zinaida all?'
+I wondered.... 'It's all the same, anyway; all is at an end between
+us.' I went to see her, but told her nothing, and, indeed, I could not
+even have managed to get a talk with her if I had wanted to. The old
+princess's son, a cadet of twelve years old, had come from Petersburg
+for his holidays; Zinaida at once handed her brother over to me.
+'Here,' she said,' my dear Volodya,'--it was the first time she
+had used this pet-name to me--'is a companion for you. His name is
+Volodya, too. Please, like him; he is still shy, but he has a good
+heart. Show him Neskutchny gardens, go walks with him, take him under
+your protection. You'll do that, won't you? you're so good, too!' She
+laid both her hands affectionately on my shoulders, and I was utterly
+bewildered. The presence of this boy transformed me, too, into a
+boy. I looked in silence at the cadet, who stared as silently at me.
+Zinaida laughed, and pushed us towards each other. 'Embrace each
+other, children!' We embraced each other. 'Would you like me to show
+you the garden?' I inquired of the cadet. 'If you please,' he replied,
+in the regular cadet's hoarse voice. Zinaida laughed again.... I had
+time to notice that she had never had such an exquisite colour in her
+face before. I set off with the cadet. There was an old-fashioned
+swing in our garden. I sat him down on the narrow plank seat, and
+began swinging him. He sat rigid in his new little uniform of stout
+cloth, with its broad gold braiding, and kept tight hold of the cords.
+'You'd better unbutton your collar,' I said to him. 'It's all right;
+we're used to it,' he said, and cleared his throat. He was like his
+sister. The eyes especially recalled her, I liked being nice to him;
+and at the same time an aching sadness was gnawing at my heart. 'Now
+I certainly am a child,' I thought; 'but yesterday....' I remembered
+where I had dropped my knife the night before, and looked for it. The
+cadet asked me for it, picked a thick stalk of wild parsley, cut a
+pipe out of it, and began whistling. Othello whistled too.
+
+But in the evening how he wept, this Othello, in Zinaida's arms, when,
+seeking him out in a corner of the garden, she asked him why he was so
+depressed. My tears flowed with such violence that she was frightened.
+'What is wrong with you? What is it, Volodya?' she repeated; and
+seeing I made no answer, and did not cease weeping, she was about to
+kiss my wet cheek. But I turned away from her, and whispered through
+my sobs, 'I know all. Why did you play with me?... What need had you
+of my love?'
+
+'I am to blame, Volodya ...' said Zinaida. 'I am very much to blame
+...' she added, wringing her hands. 'How much there is bad and black
+and sinful in me!... But I am not playing with you now. I love you;
+you don't even suspect why and how.... But what is it you know?'
+
+What could I say to her? She stood facing me, and looked at me; and I
+belonged to her altogether from head to foot directly she looked at
+me.... A quarter of an hour later I was running races with the cadet
+and Zinaida. I was not crying, I was laughing, though my swollen
+eyelids dropped a tear or two as I laughed. I had Zinaida's ribbon
+round my neck for a cravat, and I shouted with delight whenever I
+succeeded in catching her round the waist. She did just as she liked
+with me.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+I should be in a great difficulty, if I were forced to describe
+exactly what passed within me in the course of the week after my
+unsuccessful midnight expedition. It was a strange feverish time, a
+sort of chaos, in which the most violently opposed feelings, thoughts,
+suspicions, hopes, joys, and sufferings, whirled together in a kind
+of hurricane. I was afraid to look into myself, if a boy of sixteen
+ever can look into himself; I was afraid to take stock of anything; I
+simply hastened to live through every day till evening; and at night I
+slept ... the light-heartedness of childhood came to my aid. I did not
+want to know whether I was loved, and I did not want to acknowledge to
+myself that I was not loved; my father I avoided--but Zinaida I could
+not avoid.... I burnt as in a fire in her presence ... but what did I
+care to know what the fire was in which I burned and melted--it was
+enough that it was sweet to burn and melt. I gave myself up to all my
+passing sensations, and cheated myself, turning away from memories,
+and shutting my eyes to what I foreboded before me.... This weakness
+would not most likely have lasted long in any case ... a thunderbolt
+cut it all short in a moment, and flung me into a new track
+altogether.
+
+Coming in one day to dinner from a rather long walk, I learnt with
+amazement that I was to dine alone, that my father had gone away and
+my mother was unwell, did not want any dinner, and had shut herself
+up in her bedroom. From the faces of the footmen, I surmised that
+something extraordinary had taken place.... I did not dare to
+cross-examine them, but I had a friend in the young waiter Philip,
+who was passionately fond of poetry, and a performer on the guitar. I
+addressed myself to him. From him I learned that a terrible scene had
+taken place between my father and mother (and every word had been
+overheard in the maids' room; much of it had been in French, but Masha
+the lady's-maid had lived five years' with a dressmaker from Paris,
+and she understood it all); that my mother had reproached my father
+with infidelity, with an intimacy with the young lady next door, that
+my father at first had defended himself, but afterwards had lost his
+temper, and he too had said something cruel, 'reflecting on her age,'
+which had made my mother cry; that my mother too had alluded to some
+loan which it seemed had been made to the old princess, and had spoken
+very ill of her and of the young lady too, and that then my father had
+threatened her. 'And all the mischief,' continued Philip, 'came from
+an anonymous letter; and who wrote it, no one knows, or else there'd
+have been no reason whatever for the matter to have come out at all.'
+
+'But was there really any ground,' I brought out with difficulty,
+while my hands and feet went cold, and a sort of shudder ran through
+my inmost being.
+
+Philip winked meaningly. 'There was. There's no hiding those things;
+for all that your father was careful this time--but there, you see,
+he'd, for instance, to hire a carriage or something ... no getting on
+without servants, either.'
+
+I dismissed Philip, and fell on to my bed. I did not sob, I did not
+give myself up to despair; I did not ask myself when and how this had
+happened; I did not wonder how it was I had not guessed it before,
+long ago; I did not even upbraid my father.... What I had learnt was
+more than I could take in; this sudden revelation stunned me....
+All was at an end. All the fair blossoms of my heart were roughly
+plucked at once, and lay about me, flung on the ground, and trampled
+underfoot.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+My mother next day announced her intention of returning to the town.
+In the morning my father had gone into her bedroom, and stayed there a
+long while alone with her. No one had overheard what he said to her;
+but my mother wept no more; she regained her composure, and asked for
+food, but did not make her appearance nor change her plans. I remember
+I wandered about the whole day, but did not go into the garden,
+and never once glanced at the lodge, and in the evening I was the
+spectator of an amazing occurrence: my father conducted Count Malevsky
+by the arm through the dining-room into the hall, and, in the presence
+of a footman, said icily to him: 'A few days ago your excellency was
+shown the door in our house; and now I am not going to enter into any
+kind of explanation with you, but I have the honour to announce to you
+that if you ever visit me again, I shall throw you out of window. I
+don't like your handwriting.' The count bowed, bit his lips, shrank
+away, and vanished.
+
+Preparations were beginning for our removal to town, to Arbaty Street,
+where we had a house. My father himself probably no longer cared
+to remain at the country house; but clearly he had succeeded in
+persuading my mother not to make a public scandal. Everything was
+done quietly, without hurry; my mother even sent her compliments to
+the old princess, and expressed her regret that she was prevented by
+indisposition from seeing her again before her departure. I wandered
+about like one possessed, and only longed for one thing, for it all
+to be over as soon as possible. One thought I could not get out of
+my head: how could she, a young girl, and a princess too, after all,
+bring herself to such a step, knowing that my father was not a free
+man, and having an opportunity of marrying, for instance, Byelovzorov?
+What did she hope for? How was it she was not afraid of ruining her
+whole future? Yes, I thought, this is love, this is passion, this
+is devotion ... and Lushin's words came back to me: to sacrifice
+oneself for some people is sweet. I chanced somehow to catch sight
+of something white in one of the windows of the lodge.... 'Can it be
+Zinaida's face?' I thought ... yes, it really was her face. I could
+not restrain myself. I could not part from her without saying a last
+good-bye to her. I seized a favourable instant, and went into the
+lodge.
+
+In the drawing-room the old princess met me with her usual slovenly
+and careless greetings.
+
+'How's this, my good man, your folks are off in such a hurry?' she
+observed, thrusting snuff into her nose. I looked at her, and a load
+was taken off my heart. The word 'loan,' dropped by Philip, had been
+torturing me. She had no suspicion ... at least I thought so then.
+Zinaida came in from the next room, pale, and dressed in black, with
+her hair hanging loose; she took me by the hand without a word, and
+drew me away with her.
+
+'I heard your voice,' she began, 'and came out at once. Is it so easy
+for you to leave us, bad boy?'
+
+'I have come to say good-bye to you, princess,' I answered, 'probably
+for ever. You have heard, perhaps, we are going away.'
+
+Zinaida looked intently at me.
+
+'Yes, I have heard. Thanks for coming. I was beginning to think I
+should not see you again. Don't remember evil against me. I have
+sometimes tormented you, but all the same I am not what you imagine
+me.' She turned away, and leaned against the window.
+
+'Really, I am not like that. I know you have a bad opinion of me.'
+
+'I?'
+
+'Yes, you ... you.'
+
+'I?' I repeated mournfully, and my heart throbbed as of old under the
+influence of her overpowering, indescribable fascination. 'I? Believe
+me, Zinaida Alexandrovna, whatever you did, however you tormented me,
+I should love and adore you to the end of my days.'
+
+She turned with a rapid motion to me, and flinging wide her arms,
+embraced my head, and gave me a warm and passionate kiss. God knows
+whom that long farewell kiss was seeking, but I eagerly tasted
+its sweetness. I knew that it would never be repeated. 'Good-bye,
+good-bye,' I kept saying ...
+
+She tore herself away, and went out. And I went away. I cannot
+describe the emotion with which I went away. I should not wish it
+ever to come again; but I should think myself unfortunate had I never
+experienced such an emotion.
+
+We went back to town. I did not quickly shake off the past; I did
+not quickly get to work. My wound slowly began to heal; but I had no
+ill-feeling against my father. On the contrary he had, as it were,
+gained in my eyes ... let psychologists explain the contradiction
+as best they can. One day I was walking along a boulevard, and to
+my indescribable delight, I came across Lushin. I liked him for his
+straightforward and unaffected character, and besides he was dear to
+me for the sake of the memories he aroused in me. I rushed up to him.
+'Aha!' he said, knitting his brows,' so it's you, young man. Let me
+have a look at you. You're still as yellow as ever, but yet there's
+not the same nonsense in your eyes. You look like a man, not a
+lap-dog. That's good. Well, what are you doing? working?'
+
+I gave a sigh. I did not like to tell a lie, while I was ashamed to
+tell the truth.
+
+'Well, never mind,' Lushin went on, 'don't be shy. The great thing is
+to lead a normal life, and not be the slave of your passions. What do
+you get if not? Wherever you are carried by the tide--it's all a bad
+look-out; a man must stand on his own feet, if he can get nothing but
+a rock to stand on. Here, I've got a cough ... and Byelovzorov--have
+you heard anything of him?'
+
+'No. What is it?'
+
+'He's lost, and no news of him; they say he's gone away to the
+Caucasus. A lesson to you, young man. And it's all from not knowing
+how to part in time, to break out of the net. You seem to have got off
+very well. Mind you don't fall into the same snare again. Good-bye.'
+
+'I shan't,' I thought.... 'I shan't see her again.' But I was destined
+to see Zinaida once more.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+My father used every day to ride out on horse-back. He had a splendid
+English mare, a chestnut piebald, with a long slender neck and long
+legs, an inexhaustible and vicious beast. Her name was Electric. No
+one could ride her except my father. One day he came up to me in a
+good humour, a frame of mind in which I had not seen him for a long
+while; he was getting ready for his ride, and had already put on his
+spurs. I began entreating him to take me with him.
+
+'We'd much better have a game of leap-frog,' my father replied.
+'You'll never keep up with me on your cob.'
+
+'Yes, I will; I'll put on spurs too.'
+
+'All right, come along then.'
+
+We set off. I had a shaggy black horse, strong, and fairly spirited.
+It is true it had to gallop its utmost, when Electric went at full
+trot, still I was not left behind. I have never seen any one ride like
+my father; he had such a fine carelessly easy seat, that it seemed
+that the horse under him was conscious of it, and proud of its rider.
+We rode through all the boulevards, reached the 'Maidens' Field,'
+jumped several fences (at first I had been afraid to take a leap, but
+my father had a contempt for cowards, and I soon ceased to feel fear),
+twice crossed the river Moskva, and I was under the impression that
+we were on our way home, especially as my father of his own accord
+observed that my horse was tired, when suddenly he turned off away
+from me at the Crimean ford, and galloped along the river-bank. I rode
+after him. When he had reached a high stack of old timber, he slid
+quickly off Electric, told me to dismount, and giving me his horse's
+bridle, told me to wait for him there at the timber-stack, and,
+turning off into a small street, disappeared. I began walking up and
+down the river-bank, leading the horses, and scolding Electric, who
+kept pulling, shaking her head, snorting and neighing as she went; and
+when I stood still, never failed to paw the ground, and whining, bite
+my cob on the neck; in fact she conducted herself altogether like a
+spoilt thorough-bred. My father did not come back. A disagreeable damp
+mist rose from the river; a fine rain began softly blowing up, and
+spotting with tiny dark flecks the stupid grey timber-stack, which
+I kept passing and repassing, and was deadly sick of by now. I
+was terribly bored, and still my father did not come. A sort of
+sentry-man, a Fin, grey all over like the timber, and with a huge
+old-fashioned shako, like a pot, on his head, and with a halberd
+(and how ever came a sentry, if you think of it, on the banks of
+the Moskva!) drew near, and turning his wrinkled face, like an old
+woman's, towards me, he observed, 'What are you doing here with the
+horses, young master? Let me hold them.'
+
+I made him no reply. He asked me for tobacco. To get rid of him (I was
+in a fret of impatience, too), I took a few steps in the direction in
+which my father had disappeared, then walked along the little street
+to the end, turned the corner, and stood still. In the street, forty
+paces from me, at the open window of a little wooden house, stood
+my father, his back turned to me; he was leaning forward over the
+window-sill, and in the house, half hidden by a curtain, sat a woman
+in a dark dress talking to my father; this woman was Zinaida.
+
+I was petrified. This, I confess, I had never expected. My first
+impulse was to run away. 'My father will look round,' I thought,
+'and I am lost ...' but a strange feeling--a feeling stronger than
+curiosity, stronger than jealousy, stronger even than fear--held me
+there. I began to watch; I strained my ears to listen. It seemed
+as though my father were insisting on something. Zinaida would not
+consent. I seem to see her face now--mournful, serious, lovely, and
+with an inexpressible impress of devotion, grief, love, and a sort of
+despair--I can find no other word for it. She uttered monosyllables,
+not raising her eyes, simply smiling--submissively, but without
+yielding. By that smile alone, I should have known my Zinaida of old
+days. My father shrugged his shoulders, and straightened his hat on
+his head, which was always a sign of impatience with him.... Then I
+caught the words: '_Vous devez vous separer de cette..._' Zinaida sat
+up, and stretched out her arm.... Suddenly, before my very eyes, the
+impossible happened. My father suddenly lifted the whip, with which
+he had been switching the dust off his coat, and I heard a sharp blow
+on that arm, bare to the elbow. I could scarcely restrain myself from
+crying out; while Zinaida shuddered, looked without a word at my
+father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of
+red upon it. My father flung away the whip, and running quickly up
+the steps, dashed into the house.... Zinaida turned round, and with
+outstretched arms and downcast head, she too moved away from the
+window.
+
+My heart sinking with panic, with a sort of awe-struck horror, I
+rushed back, and running down the lane, almost letting go my hold
+of Electric, went back to the bank of the river. I could not think
+clearly of anything. I knew that my cold and reserved father was
+sometimes seized by fits of fury; and all the same, I could never
+comprehend what I had just seen.... But I felt at the time that,
+however long I lived, I could never forget the gesture, the glance,
+the smile, of Zinaida; that her image, this image so suddenly
+presented to me, was imprinted for ever on my memory. I stared
+vacantly at the river, and never noticed that my tears were streaming.
+'She is beaten,' I was thinking,... 'beaten ... beaten....'
+
+'Hullo! what are you doing? Give me the mare!' I heard my father's
+voice saying behind me.
+
+Mechanically I gave him the bridle. He leaped on to Electric ... the
+mare, chill with standing, reared on her haunches, and leaped ten feet
+away ... but my father soon subdued her; he drove the spurs into her
+sides, and gave her a blow on the neck with his fist.... 'Ah, I've no
+whip,' he muttered.
+
+I remembered the swish and fall of the whip, heard so short a time
+before, and shuddered.
+
+'Where did you put it?' I asked my father, after a brief pause.
+
+My father made no answer, and galloped on ahead. I overtook him. I
+felt that I must see his face.
+
+'Were you bored waiting for me?' he muttered through his teeth.
+
+'A little. Where did you drop your whip?' I asked again.
+
+My father glanced quickly at me. 'I didn't drop it,' he replied; 'I
+threw it away.' He sank into thought, and dropped his head ... and
+then, for the first, and almost for the last time, I saw how much
+tenderness and pity his stern features were capable of expressing.
+
+He galloped on again, and this time I could not overtake him; I got
+home a quarter-of-an-hour after him.
+
+'That's love,' I said to myself again, as I sat at night before my
+writing-table, on which books and papers had begun to make their
+appearance; 'that's passion!... To think of not revolting, of bearing
+a blow from any one whatever ... even the dearest hand! But it seems
+one can, if one loves.... While I ... I imagined ...'
+
+I had grown much older during the last month; and my love, with all
+its transports and sufferings, struck me myself as something small and
+childish and pitiful beside this other unimagined something, which I
+could hardly fully grasp, and which frightened me like an unknown,
+beautiful, but menacing face, which one strives in vain to make out
+clearly in the half-darkness....
+
+A strange and fearful dream came to me that same night. I dreamed I
+went into a low dark room.... My father was standing with a whip in
+his hand, stamping with anger; in the corner crouched Zinaida, and not
+on her arm, but on her forehead, was a stripe of red ... while behind
+them both towered Byelovzorov, covered with blood; he opened his white
+lips, and wrathfully threatened my father.
+
+Two months later, I entered the university; and within six months my
+father died of a stroke in Petersburg, where he had just moved with
+my mother and me. A few days before his death he received a letter
+from Moscow which threw him into a violent agitation.... He went to
+my mother to beg some favour of her: and, I was told, he positively
+shed tears--he, my father! On the very morning of the day when he
+was stricken down, he had begun a letter to me in French. 'My son,'
+he wrote to me, 'fear the love of woman; fear that bliss, that
+poison....' After his death, my mother sent a considerable sum of
+money to Moscow.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+Four years passed. I had just left the university, and did not know
+exactly what to do with myself, at what door to knock; I was hanging
+about for a time with nothing to do. One fine evening I met Meidanov
+at the theatre. He had got married, and had entered the civil service;
+but I found no change in him. He fell into ecstasies in just the same
+superfluous way, and just as suddenly grew depressed again.
+
+'You know,' he told me among other things, 'Madame Dolsky's here.'
+
+'What Madame Dolsky?'
+
+'Can you have forgotten her?--the young Princess Zasyekin whom we were
+all in love with, and you too. Do you remember at the country-house
+near Neskutchny gardens?'
+
+'She married a Dolsky?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And is she here, in the theatre?'
+
+'No: but she's in Petersburg. She came here a few days ago. She's
+going abroad.'
+
+'What sort of fellow is her husband?' I asked.
+
+'A splendid fellow, with property. He's a colleague of mine in Moscow.
+You can well understand--after the scandal ... you must know all
+about it ...' (Meidanov smiled significantly) 'it was no easy task
+for her to make a good marriage; there were consequences ... but with
+her cleverness, everything is possible. Go and see her; she'll be
+delighted to see you. She's prettier than ever.'
+
+Meidanov gave me Zinaida's address. She was staying at the Hotel
+Demut. Old memories were astir within me.... I determined next day to
+go to see my former 'flame.' But some business happened to turn up; a
+week passed, and then another, and when at last I went to the Hotel
+Demut and asked for Madame Dolsky, I learnt that four days before, she
+had died, almost suddenly, in childbirth.
+
+I felt a sort of stab at my heart. The thought that I might have seen
+her, and had not seen her, and should never see her--that bitter
+thought stung me with all the force of overwhelming reproach. 'She is
+dead!' I repeated, staring stupidly at the hall-porter. I slowly made
+my way back to the street, and walked on without knowing myself where
+I was going. All the past swam up and rose at once before me. So this
+was the solution, this was the goal to which that young, ardent,
+brilliant life had striven, all haste and agitation! I mused on
+this; I fancied those dear features, those eyes, those curls--in the
+narrow box, in the damp underground darkness--lying here, not far
+from me--while I was still alive, and, maybe, a few paces from my
+father.... I thought all this; I strained my imagination, and yet all
+the while the lines:
+
+  'From lips indifferent of her death I heard,
+  Indifferently I listened to it, too,'
+
+were echoing in my heart. O youth, youth! little dost thou care for
+anything; thou art master, as it were, of all the treasures of the
+universe--even sorrow gives thee pleasure, even grief thou canst turn
+to thy profit; thou art self-confident and insolent; thou sayest, 'I
+alone am living--look you!'--but thy days fly by all the while, and
+vanish without trace or reckoning; and everything in thee vanishes,
+like wax in the sun, like snow.... And, perhaps, the whole secret of
+thy charm lies, not in being able to do anything, but in being able
+to think thou wilt do anything; lies just in thy throwing to the
+winds, forces which thou couldst not make other use of; in each of us
+gravely regarding himself as a prodigal, gravely supposing that he
+is justified in saying, 'Oh, what might I not have done if I had not
+wasted my time!'
+
+I, now ... what did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future
+did I foresee, when the phantom of my first love, rising up for an
+instant, barely called forth one sigh, one mournful sentiment?
+
+And what has come to pass of all I hoped for? And now, when the shades
+of evening begin to steal over my life, what have I left fresher,
+more precious, than the memories of the storm--so soon over--of early
+morning, of spring?
+
+But I do myself injustice. Even then, in those light-hearted young
+days, I was not deaf to the voice of sorrow, when it called upon me,
+to the solemn strains floating to me from beyond the tomb. I remember,
+a few days after I heard of Zinaida's death, I was present, through
+a peculiar, irresistible impulse, at the death of a poor old woman
+who lived in the same house as we. Covered with rags, lying on hard
+boards, with a sack under her head, she died hardly and painfully. Her
+whole life had been passed in the bitter struggle with daily want; she
+had known no joy, had not tasted the honey of happiness. One would
+have thought, surely she would rejoice at death, at her deliverance,
+her rest. But yet, as long as her decrepit body held out, as long as
+her breast still heaved in agony under the icy hand weighing upon it,
+until her last forces left her, the old woman crossed herself, and
+kept whispering, 'Lord, forgive my sins'; and only with the last spark
+of consciousness, vanished from her eyes the look of fear, of horror
+of the end. And I remember that then, by the death-bed of that poor
+old woman, I felt aghast for Zinaida, and longed to pray for her, for
+my father--and for myself.
+
+
+
+
+MUMU
+
+
+In one of the outlying streets of Moscow, in a grey house with white
+columns and a balcony, warped all askew, there was once living a lady,
+a widow, surrounded by a numerous household of serfs. Her sons were in
+the government service at Petersburg; her daughters were married; she
+went out very little, and in solitude lived through the last years of
+her miserly and dreary old age. Her day, a joyless and gloomy day, had
+long been over; but the evening of her life was blacker than night.
+
+Of all her servants, the most remarkable personage was the porter,
+Gerasim, a man full twelve inches over the normal height, of heroic
+build, and deaf and dumb from his birth. The lady, his owner, had
+brought him up from the village where he lived alone in a little hut,
+apart from his brothers, and was reckoned about the most punctual
+of her peasants in the payment of the seignorial dues. Endowed with
+extraordinary strength, he did the work of four men; work flew apace
+under his hands, and it was a pleasant sight to see him when he was
+ploughing, while, with his huge palms pressing hard upon the plough,
+he seemed alone, unaided by his poor horse, to cleave the yielding
+bosom of the earth, or when, about St. Peter's Day, he plied his
+scythe with a. furious energy that might have mown a young birch copse
+up by the roots, or swiftly and untiringly wielded a flail over two
+yards long; while the hard oblong muscles of his shoulders rose and
+fell like a lever. His perpetual silence lent a solemn dignity to his
+unwearying labour. He was a splendid peasant, and, except for his
+affliction, any girl would have been glad to marry him.... But now
+they had taken Gerasim to Moscow, bought him boots, had him made a
+full-skirted coat for summer, a sheepskin for winter, put into his
+hand a broom and a spade, and appointed him porter.
+
+At first he intensely disliked his new mode of life. From his
+childhood he had been used to field labour, to village life. Shut off
+by his affliction from the society of men, he had grown up, dumb and
+mighty, as a tree grows on a fruitful soil. When he was transported to
+the town, he could not understand what was being done with him; he was
+miserable and stupefied, with the stupefaction of some strong young
+bull, taken straight from the meadow, where the rich grass stood up to
+his belly, taken and put in the truck of a railway train, and there,
+while smoke and sparks and gusts of steam puff out upon the sturdy
+beast, he is whirled onwards, whirled along with loud roar and
+whistle, whither--God knows! What Gerasim had to do in his new duties
+seemed a mere trifle to him after his hard toil as a peasant; in
+half-an-hour, all his work was done, and he would once more stand
+stock-still in the middle of the courtyard, staring open-mouthed
+at all the passers-by, as though trying to wrest from them the
+explanation of his perplexing position; or he would suddenly go off
+into some corner, and flinging a long way off the broom or the spade,
+throw himself on his face on the ground, and lie for hours together
+without stirring, like a caged beast. But man gets used to anything,
+and Gerasim got used at last to living in town. He had little work to
+do; his whole duty consisted in keeping the courtyard clean, bringing
+in a barrel of water twice a day, splitting and dragging in wood for
+the kitchen and the house, keeping out strangers, and watching at
+night. And it must be said he did his duty zealously. In his courtyard
+there was never a shaving lying about, never a speck of dust; if
+sometimes, in the muddy season, the wretched nag, put under his charge
+for fetching water, got stuck in the road, he would simply give it
+a shove with his shoulder, and set not only the cart but the horse
+itself moving. If he set to chopping wood, the axe fairly rang
+like glass, and chips and chunks flew in all directions. And as for
+strangers, after he had one night caught two thieves and knocked
+their heads together--knocked them so that there was not the slightest
+need to take them to the police-station afterwards--every one in the
+neighbourhood began to feel a great respect for him; even those who
+came in the day-time, by no means robbers, but simply unknown persons,
+at the sight of the terrible porter, waved and shouted to him as
+though he could hear their shouts. With all the rest of the servants,
+Gerasim was on terms, hardly friendly--they were afraid of him--but
+familiar; he regarded them as his fellows. They explained themselves
+to him by signs, and he understood them, and exactly carried out all
+orders, but knew his own rights too, and soon no one dared to take
+his seat at the table. Gerasim was altogether of a strict and serious
+temper, he liked order in everything; even the cocks did not dare to
+fight in his presence, or woe betide them! directly he caught sight of
+them, he would seize them by the legs, swing them ten times round in
+the air like a wheel, and throw them in different directions. There
+were geese, too, kept in the yard; but the goose, as is well known,
+is a dignified and reasonable bird; Gerasim felt a respect for them,
+looked after them, and fed them; he was himself not unlike a gander
+of the steppes. He was assigned a little garret over the kitchen; he
+arranged it himself to his own liking, made a bedstead in it of oak
+boards on four stumps of wood for legs--a truly Titanic bedstead; one
+might have put a ton or two on it--it would not have bent under the
+load; under the bed was a solid chest; in a corner stood a little
+table of the same strong kind, and near the table a three-legged
+stool, so solid and squat that Gerasim himself would sometimes pick it
+up and drop it again with a smile of delight. The garret was locked
+up by means of a padlock that looked like a kalatch or basket-shaped
+loaf, only black; the key of this padlock Gerasim always carried about
+him in his girdle. He did not like people to come to his garret.
+
+So passed a year, at the end of which a little incident befell
+Gerasim.
+
+The old lady, in whose service he lived as porter, adhered in
+everything to the ancient ways, and kept a large number of servants.
+In her house were not only laundresses, sempstresses, carpenters,
+tailors and tailoresses, there was even a harness-maker--he was
+reckoned as a veterinary surgeon, too,--and a doctor for the servants;
+there was a household doctor for the mistress; there was, lastly, a
+shoemaker, by name Kapiton Klimov, a sad drunkard. Klimov regarded
+himself as an injured creature, whose merits were unappreciated, a
+cultivated man from Petersburg, who ought not to be living in Moscow
+without occupation--in the wilds, so to speak; and if he drank, as he
+himself expressed it emphatically, with a blow on his chest, it was
+sorrow drove him to it. So one day his mistress had a conversation
+about him with her head steward, Gavrila, a man whom, judging solely
+from his little yellow eyes and nose like a duck's beak, fate itself,
+it seemed, had marked out as a person in authority. The lady expressed
+her regret at the corruption of the morals of Kapiton, who had, only
+the evening before, been picked up somewhere in the street.
+
+'Now, Gavrila,' she observed, all of a sudden, 'now, if we were to
+marry him, what do you think, perhaps he would be steadier?'
+
+'Why not marry him, indeed, 'm? He could be married, 'm,' answered
+Gavrila, 'and it would be a very good thing, to be sure, 'm.'
+
+'Yes; only who is to marry him?'
+
+'Ay, 'm. But that's at your pleasure, 'm. He may, any way, so to say,
+be wanted for something; he can't be turned adrift altogether.'
+
+'I fancy he likes Tatiana.'
+
+Gavrila was on the point of making some reply, but he shut his lips
+tightly.
+
+'Yes!... let him marry Tatiana,' the lady decided, taking a pinch of
+snuff complacently, 'Do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, 'm,' Gavrila articulated, and he withdrew.
+
+Returning to his own room (it was in a little lodge, and was almost
+filled up with metal-bound trunks), Gavrila first sent his wife
+away, and then sat down at the window and pondered. His mistress's
+unexpected arrangement had clearly put him in a difficulty. At last he
+got up and sent to call Kapiton. Kapiton made his appearance.... But
+before reporting their conversation to the reader, we consider it not
+out of place to relate in few words who was this Tatiana, whom it
+was to be Kapiton's lot to marry, and why the great lady's order had
+disturbed the steward.
+
+Tatiana, one of the laundresses referred to above (as a trained and
+skilful laundress she was in charge of the fine linen only), was
+a woman of twenty-eight, thin, fair-haired, with moles on her left
+cheek. Moles on the left cheek are regarded as of evil omen in
+Russia--a token of unhappy life.... Tatiana could not boast of her
+good luck. From her earliest youth she had been badly treated; she
+had done the work of two, and had never known affection; she had been
+poorly clothed and had received the smallest wages. Relations she had
+practically none; an uncle she had once had, a butler, left behind in
+the country as useless, and other uncles of hers were peasants--that
+was all. At one time she had passed for a beauty, but her good looks
+were very soon over. In disposition, she was very meek, or, rather,
+scared; towards herself, she felt perfect indifference; of others, she
+stood in mortal dread; she thought of nothing but how to get her work
+done in good time, never talked to any one, and trembled at the very
+name of her mistress, though the latter scarcely knew her by sight.
+When Gerasim was brought from the country, she was ready to die with
+fear on seeing his huge figure, tried all she could to avoid meeting
+him, even dropped her eyelids when sometimes she chanced to run past
+him, hurrying from the house to the laundry. Gerasim at first paid
+no special attention to her, then he used to smile when she came his
+way, then he began even to stare admiringly at her, and at last he
+never took his eyes off her. She took his fancy, whether by the mild
+expression of her face or the timidity of her movements, who can
+tell? So one day she was stealing across the yard, with a starched
+dressing-jacket of her mistress's carefully poised on her outspread
+fingers ... some one suddenly grasped her vigorously by the elbow;
+she turned round and fairly screamed; behind her stood Gerasim. With
+a foolish smile, making inarticulate caressing grunts, he held out to
+her a gingerbread cock with gold tinsel on his tail and wings. She was
+about to refuse it, but he thrust it forcibly into her hand, shook his
+head, walked away, and turning round, once more grunted something very
+affectionately to her. From that day forward he gave her no peace;
+wherever she went, he was on the spot at once, coming to meet her,
+smiling, grunting, waving his hands; all at once he would pull a
+ribbon out of the bosom of his smock and put it in her hand, or would
+sweep the dust out of her way. The poor girl simply did not know how
+to behave or what to do. Soon the whole household knew of the dumb
+porter's wiles; jeers, jokes, sly hints were showered upon Tatiana. At
+Gerasim, however, it was not every one who would dare to scoff; he did
+not like jokes; indeed, in his presence, she, too, was left in peace.
+Whether she liked it or not, the girl found herself to be under his
+protection. Like all deaf-mutes, he was very suspicious, and very
+readily perceived when they were laughing at him or at her. One day,
+at dinner, the wardrobe-keeper, Tatiana's superior, fell to nagging,
+as it is called, at her, and brought the poor thing to such a state
+that she did not know where to look, and was almost crying with
+vexation. Gerasim got up all of a sudden, stretched out his gigantic
+hand, laid it on the wardrobe-maid's head, and looked into her face
+with such grim ferocity that her head positively flopped upon the
+table. Every one was still. Gerasim took up his spoon again and
+went on with his cabbage-soup. 'Look at him, the dumb devil, the
+wood-demon!' they all muttered in under-tones, while the wardrobe-maid
+got up and went out into the maids' room. Another time, noticing that
+Kapiton--the same Kapiton who was the subject of the conversation
+reported above--was gossiping somewhat too attentively with Tatiana,
+Gerasim beckoned him to him, led him into the cartshed, and taking
+up a shaft that was standing in a corner by one end, lightly, but
+most significantly, menaced him with it. Since then no one addressed
+a word to Tatiana. And all this cost him nothing. It is true the
+wardrobe-maid, as soon as she reached the maids' room, promptly
+fell into a fainting-fit, and behaved altogether so skilfully that
+Gerasim's rough action reached his mistress's knowledge the same day.
+But the capricious old lady only laughed, and several times, to the
+great offence of the wardrobe-maid, forced her to repeat 'how he bent
+your head down with his heavy hand,' and next day she sent Gerasim
+a rouble. She looked on him with favour as a strong and faithful
+watchman. Gerasim stood in considerable awe of her, but, all the same,
+he had hopes of her favour, and was preparing to go to her with a
+petition for leave to marry Tatiana. He was only waiting for a new
+coat, promised him by the steward, to present a proper appearance
+before his mistress, when this same mistress suddenly took it into her
+head to marry Tatiana to Kapiton.
+
+The reader will now readily understand the perturbation of mind that
+overtook the steward Gavrila after his conversation with his mistress.
+'My lady,' he thought, as he sat at the window, 'favours Gerasim, to
+be sure'--(Gavrila was well aware of this, and that was why he himself
+looked on him with an indulgent eye)--'still he is a speechless
+creature. I could not, indeed, put it before the mistress that
+Gerasim's courting Tatiana. But, after all, it's true enough; he's a
+queer sort of husband. But on the other hand, that devil, God forgive
+me, has only got to find out they're marrying Tatiana to Kapiton,
+he'll smash up everything in the house, 'pon my soul! There's no
+reasoning with him; why, he's such a devil, God forgive my sins,
+there's no getting over him no how ... 'pon my soul!'
+
+Kapiton's entrance broke the thread of Gavrila's reflections. The
+dissipated shoemaker came in, his hands behind him, and lounging
+carelessly against a projecting angle of the wall, near the door,
+crossed his right foot in front of his left, and tossed his head, as
+much as to say, 'What do you want?'
+
+Gavrila looked at Kapiton, and drummed with his fingers on the
+window-frame. Kapiton merely screwed up his leaden eyes a little, but
+he did not look down, he even grinned slightly, and passed his hand
+over his whitish locks which were sticking up in all directions.
+'Well, here I am. What is it?'
+
+'You're a pretty fellow,' said Gavrila, and paused. 'A pretty fellow
+you are, there's no denying!'
+
+Kapiton only twitched his little shoulders.
+
+'Are you any better, pray?' he thought to himself.
+
+'Just look at yourself, now, look at yourself,' Gavrila went on
+reproachfully; 'now, what ever do you look like?'
+
+Kapiton serenely surveyed his shabby tattered coat, and his patched
+trousers, and with special attention stared at his burst boots,
+especially the one on the tip-toe of which his right foot so
+gracefully poised, and he fixed his eyes again on the steward.
+
+'Well?'
+
+'Well?' repeated Gavrila. 'Well? And then you say well? You look like
+old Nick himself, God forgive my saying so, that's what you look
+like.'
+
+Kapiton blinked rapidly.
+
+'Go on abusing me, go on, if you like, Gavrila Andreitch,' he thought
+to himself again.
+
+'Here you've been drunk again,' Gavrila began, 'drunk again, haven't
+you? Eh? Come, answer me!'
+
+'Owing to the weakness of my health, I have exposed myself to
+spirituous beverages, certainly,' replied Kapiton.
+
+'Owing to the weakness of your health!... They let you off too easy,
+that's what it is; and you've been apprenticed in Petersburg.... Much
+you learned in your apprenticeship! You simply eat your bread in
+idleness.'
+
+'In that matter, Gavrila Andreitch, there is one to judge me, the Lord
+God Himself, and no one else. He also knows what manner of man I be in
+this world, and whether I eat my bread in idleness. And as concerning
+your contention regarding drunkenness, in that matter, too, I am not
+to blame, but rather a friend; he led me into temptation, but was
+diplomatic and got away, while I....'
+
+'While you were left, like a goose, in the street. Ah, you're a
+dissolute fellow! But that's not the point,' the steward went on,
+'I've something to tell you. Our lady...' here he paused a minute,
+'it's our lady's pleasure that you should be married. Do you hear? She
+imagines you may be steadier when you're married. Do you understand?'
+
+'To be sure I do.'
+
+'Well, then. For my part I think it would be better to give you a
+good hiding. But there--it's her business. Well? are you agreeable?'
+Kapiton grinned.
+
+'Matrimony is an excellent thing for any one, Gavrila Andreitch; and,
+as far as I am concerned, I shall be quite agreeable.'
+
+'Very well, then,' replied Gavrila, while he reflected to himself:
+'there's no denying the man expresses himself very properly. Only
+there's one thing,' he pursued aloud: 'the wife our lady's picked out
+for you is an unlucky choice.'
+
+'Why, who is she, permit me to inquire?'
+
+'Tatiana.'
+
+'Tatiana?'
+
+And Kapiton opened his eyes, and moved a little away from the wall.
+
+'Well, what are you in such a taking for?... Isn't she to your taste,
+hey?'
+
+'Not to my taste, do you say, Gavrila Andreitch! She's right enough, a
+hard-working steady girl.... But you know very well yourself, Gavrila
+Andreitch, why that fellow, that wild man of the woods, that monster
+of the steppes, he's after her, you know....'
+
+'I know, mate, I know all about it,' the butler cut him short in a
+tone of annoyance: 'but there, you see....'
+
+'But upon my soul, Gavrila Andreitch! why, he'll kill me, by God, he
+will, he'll crush me like some fly; why, he's got a fist--why, you
+kindly look yourself what a fist he's got; why, he's simply got a fist
+like Minin Pozharsky's. You see he's deaf, he beats and does not hear
+how he's beating! He swings his great fists, as if he's asleep. And
+there's no possibility of pacifying him; and for why? Why, because, as
+you know yourself, Gavrila Andreitch, he's deaf, and what's more, has
+no more wit than the heel of my foot. Why, he's a sort of beast, a
+heathen idol, Gavrila Andreitch, and worse ... a block of wood; what
+have I done that I should have to suffer from him now? Sure it is,
+it's all over with me now; I've knocked about, I've had enough to put
+up with, I've been battered like an earthenware pot, but still I'm a
+man, after all, and not a worthless pot.'
+
+'I know, I know, don't go talking away....'
+
+'Lord, my God!' the shoemaker continued warmly, 'when is the end?
+when, O Lord! A poor wretch I am, a poor wretch whose sufferings are
+endless! What a life, what a life mine's been, come to think of it!
+In my young days, I was beaten by a German I was 'prentice to; in the
+prime of life beaten by my own countrymen, and last of all, in ripe
+years, see what I have been brought to....'
+
+'Ugh, you flabby soul!' said Gavrila Andreitch. 'Why do you make so
+many words about it?'
+
+'Why, do you say, Gavrila Andreitch? It's not a beating I'm afraid of,
+Gavrila Andreitch. A gentleman may chastise me in private, but give me
+a civil word before folks, and I'm a man still; but see now, whom I've
+to do with....'
+
+'Come, get along,' Gavrila interposed impatiently. Kapiton turned away
+and staggered off.
+
+'But, if it were not for him,' the steward shouted after him, 'you
+would consent for your part?'
+
+'I signify my acquiescence,' retorted Kapiton as he disappeared.
+
+His fine language did not desert him, even in the most trying
+positions.
+
+The steward walked several times up and down the room.
+
+'Well, call Tatiana now,' he said at last.
+
+A few instants later, Tatiana had come up almost noiselessly, and was
+standing in the doorway.
+
+'What are your orders, Gavrila Andreitch?' she said in a soft voice.
+
+The steward looked at her intently.
+
+'Well, Taniusha,' he said, 'would you like to be married? Our lady has
+chosen a husband for you.'
+
+'Yes, Gavrila Andreitch. And whom has she deigned to name as a husband
+for me?' she added falteringly.
+
+'Kapiton, the shoemaker.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'He's a feather-brained fellow, that's certain. But it's just for that
+the mistress reckons upon you.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'There's one difficulty ... you know the deaf man, Gerasim, he's
+courting you, you see. How did you come to bewitch such a bear? But
+you see, he'll kill you, very like, he's such a bear....'
+
+'He'll kill me, Gavrila Andreitch, he'll kill me, and no mistake.'
+
+'Kill you.... Well, we shall see about that. What do you mean
+by saying he'll kill you? Has he any right to kill you? tell me
+yourself.'
+
+'I don't know, Gavrila Andreitch, about his having any right or not.'
+
+'What a woman! why, you've made him no promise, I suppose....'
+
+'What are you pleased to ask of me?'
+
+The steward was silent for a little, thinking, 'You're a meek soul!
+Well, that's right,' he said aloud; 'we'll have another talk with you
+later, now you can go, Taniusha; I see you're not unruly, certainly.'
+
+Tatiana turned, steadied herself a little against the doorpost, and
+went away.
+
+'And, perhaps, our lady will forget all about this wedding by
+to-morrow,' thought the steward; 'and here am I worrying myself for
+nothing! As for that insolent fellow, we must tie him down, if it
+comes to that, we must let the police know' ... 'Ustinya Fyedorovna!'
+he shouted in a loud voice to his wife, 'heat the samovar, my good
+soul....' All that day Tatiana hardly went out of the laundry. At
+first she had started crying, then she wiped away her tears, and set
+to work as before. Kapiton stayed till late at night at the ginshop
+with a friend of his, a man of gloomy appearance, to whom he related
+in detail how he used to live in Petersburg with a gentleman, who
+would have been all right, except he was a bit too strict, and he had
+a slight weakness besides, he was too fond of drink; and, as to the
+fair sex, he didn't stick at anything. His gloomy companion merely
+said yes; but when Kapiton announced at last that, in a certain event,
+he would have to lay hands on himself to-morrow, his gloomy companion
+remarked that it was bedtime. And they parted in surly silence.
+
+Meanwhile, the steward's anticipations were not fulfilled. The old
+lady was so much taken up with the idea of Kapiton's wedding, that
+even in the night she talked of nothing else to one of her companions,
+who was kept in her house solely to entertain her in case of
+sleeplessness, and, like a night cabman, slept in the day. When
+Gavrila came to her after morning tea with his report, her first
+question was: 'And how about our wedding--is it getting on all right?'
+He replied, of course, that it was getting on first rate, and that
+Kapiton would appear before her to pay his reverence to her that
+day. The old lady was not quite well; she did not give much time to
+business. The steward went back to his own room, and called a council.
+The matter certainly called for serious consideration. Tatiana would
+make no difficulty, of course; but Kapiton had declared in the hearing
+of all that he had but one head to lose, not two or three.... Gerasim
+turned rapid sullen looks on every one, would not budge from the steps
+of the maids' quarters, and seemed to guess that some mischief was
+being hatched against him. They met together. Among them was an old
+sideboard waiter, nicknamed Uncle Tail, to whom every one looked
+respectfully for counsel, though all they got out of him was, 'Here's
+a pretty pass! to be sure, to be sure, to be sure!' As a preliminary
+measure of security, to provide against contingencies, they locked
+Kapiton up in the lumber-room where the filter was kept; then
+considered the question with the gravest deliberation, It would, to
+be sure, be easy to have recourse to force. But Heaven save us! there
+would be an uproar, the mistress would be put out--it would be awful!
+What should they do? They thought and thought, and at last thought out
+a solution. It had many a time been observed that Gerasim could not
+bear drunkards.... As he sat at the gates, he would always turn away
+with disgust when some one passed by intoxicated, with unsteady steps
+and his cap on one side of his ear. They resolved that Tatiana should
+be instructed to pretend to be tipsy, and should pass by Gerasim
+staggering and reeling about. The poor girl refused for a long while
+to agree to this, but they persuaded her at last; she saw, too, that
+it was the only possible way of getting rid of her adorer. She went
+out. Kapiton was released from the lumber-room; for, after all, he
+had an interest in the affair. Gerasim was sitting on the curb-stone
+at the gates, scraping the ground with a spade.... From behind every
+corner, from behind every window-blind, the others were watching
+him.... The trick succeeded beyond all expectations. On seeing
+Tatiana, at first, he nodded as usual, making caressing, inarticulate
+sounds; then he looked carefully at her, dropped his spade, jumped up,
+went up to her, brought his face close to her face.... In her fright
+she staggered more than ever, and shut her eyes.... He took her by the
+arm, whirled her right across the yard, and going into the room where
+the council had been sitting, pushed her straight at Kapiton. Tatiana
+fairly swooned away.... Gerasim stood, looked at her, waved his hand,
+laughed, and went off, stepping heavily, to his garret.... For the
+next twenty-four hours, he did not come out of it. The postillion
+Antipka said afterwards that he saw Gerasim through a. crack in the
+wall, sitting on his bedstead, his face in his hand. From time to
+time he uttered soft regular sounds; he was wailing a dirge, that is,
+swaying backwards and forwards with his eyes shut, and shaking his
+head as drivers or bargemen do when they chant their melancholy songs.
+Antipka could not bear it, and he came away from the crack. When
+Gerasim came out of the garret next day, no particular change could be
+observed in him. He only seemed, as it were, more morose, and took not
+the slightest notice of Tatiana or Kapiton. The same evening, they
+both had to appear before their mistress with geese under their arms,
+and in a week's time they were married. Even on the day of the wedding
+Gerasim showed no change of any sort in his behaviour. Only, he came
+back from the river without water, he had somehow broken the barrel on
+the road; and at night, in the stable, he washed and rubbed down his
+horse so vigorously, that it swayed like a blade of grass in the wind,
+and staggered from one leg to the other under his fists of iron.
+
+All this had taken place in the spring. Another year passed by, during
+which Kapiton became a hopeless drunkard, and as being absolutely of
+no use for anything, was sent away with the store waggons to a distant
+village with his wife. On the day of his departure, he put a very good
+face on it at first, and declared that he would always be at home,
+send him where they would, even to the other end of the world; but
+later on he lost heart, began grumbling that he was being taken to
+uneducated people, and collapsed so completely at last that he could
+not even put his own hat on. Some charitable soul stuck it on his
+forehead, set the peak straight in front, and thrust it on with a slap
+from above. When everything was quite ready, and the peasants already
+held the reins in their hands, and were only waiting for the words
+'With God's blessing!' to start, Gerasim came out of his garret,
+went up to Tatiana, and gave her as a parting present a red cotton
+handkerchief he had bought for her a year ago. Tatiana, who had up to
+that instant borne all the revolting details of her life with great
+indifference, could not control herself upon that; she burst into
+tears, and as she took her seat in the cart, she kissed Gerasim three
+times like a good Christian. He meant to accompany her as far as the
+town-barrier, and did walk beside her cart for a while, but he stopped
+suddenly at the Crimean ford, waved his hand, and walked away along
+the riverside.
+
+It was getting towards evening. He walked slowly, watching the water.
+All of a sudden he fancied something was floundering in the mud close
+to the bank. He stooped over, and saw a little white-and-black puppy,
+who, in spite of all its efforts, could not get out of the water; it
+was struggling, slipping back, and trembling all over its thin wet
+little body. Gerasim looked at the unlucky little dog, picked it up
+with one hand, put it into the bosom of his coat, and hurried with
+long steps homewards. He went into his garret, put the rescued puppy
+on his bed, covered it with his thick overcoat, ran first to the
+stable for straw, and then to the kitchen for a cup of milk. Carefully
+folding back the overcoat, and spreading out the straw, he set the
+milk on the bedstead. The poor little puppy was not more than three
+weeks old, its eyes were only just open--one eye still seemed rather
+larger than the other; it did not know how to lap out of a cup, and
+did nothing but shiver and blink. Gerasim took hold of its head softly
+with two fingers, and dipped its little nose into the milk. The
+pup suddenly began lapping greedily, sniffing, shaking itself, and
+choking. Gerasim watched and watched it, and all at once he laughed
+outright.... All night long he was waiting on it, keeping it covered,
+and rubbing it dry. He fell asleep himself at last, and slept quietly
+and happily by its side.
+
+No mother could have looked after her baby as Gerasim looked after
+his little nursling. At first, she--for the pup turned out to be
+a bitch--was very weak, feeble, and ugly, but by degrees she grew
+stronger and improved in looks, and thanks to the unflagging care of
+her preserver, in eight months' time she was transformed into a very
+pretty dog of the spaniel breed, with long ears, a bushy spiral tail,
+and large expressive eyes. She was devotedly attached to Gerasim, and
+was never a yard from his side; she always followed him about wagging
+her tail. He had even given her a name--the dumb know that their
+inarticulate noises call the attention of others. He called her Mumu.
+All the servants in the house liked her, and called her Mumu, too. She
+was very intelligent, she was friendly with every one, but was only
+fond of Gerasim. Gerasim, on his side, loved her passionately, and he
+did not like it when other people stroked her; whether he was afraid
+for her, or jealous--God knows! She used to wake him in the morning,
+pulling at his coat; she used to take the reins in her mouth, and
+bring him up the old horse that carried the water, with whom she was
+on very friendly terms. With a face of great importance, she used to
+go with him to the river; she used to watch his brooms and spades,
+and never allowed any one to go into his garret. He cut a little hole
+in his door on purpose for her, and she seemed to feel that only in
+Gerasim's garret she was completely mistress and at home; and directly
+she went in, she used to jump with a satisfied air upon the bed.
+At night she did not sleep at all, but she never barked without
+sufficient cause, like some stupid house-dog, who, sitting on its
+hind-legs, blinking, with its nose in the air, barks simply from
+dulness, at the stars, usually three times in succession. No! Mumu's
+delicate little voice was never raised without good reason; either
+some stranger was passing close to the fence, or there was some
+suspicious sound or rustle somewhere.... In fact, she was an excellent
+watch-dog. It is true that there was another dog in the yard, a tawny
+old dog with brown spots, called Wolf, but he was never, even at
+night, let off the chain; and, indeed, he was so decrepit that he did
+not even wish for freedom. He used to lie curled up in his kennel,
+and only rarely uttered a sleepy, almost noiseless bark, which broke
+off at once, as though he were himself aware of its uselessness. Mumu
+never went into the mistress's house; and when Gerasim carried wood
+into the rooms, she always stayed behind, impatiently waiting for him
+at the steps, pricking up her ears and turning her head to right and
+to left at the slightest creak of the door....
+
+So passed another year. Gerasim went on performing his duties as
+house-porter, and was very well content with his lot, when suddenly
+an unexpected incident occurred.... One fine summer day the old lady
+was walking up and down the drawing-room with her dependants. She was
+in high spirits; she laughed and made jokes. Her servile companions
+laughed and joked too, but they did not feel particularly mirthful;
+the household did not much like it, when their mistress was in a
+lively mood, for, to begin with, she expected from every one prompt
+and complete participation in her merriment, and was furious if any
+one showed a face that did not beam with delight, and secondly, these
+outbursts never lasted long with her, and were usually followed by
+a sour and gloomy mood. That day she had got up in a lucky hour; at
+cards she took the four knaves, which means the fulfilment of one's
+wishes (she used to try her fortune on the cards every morning), and
+her tea struck her as particularly delicious, for which her maid was
+rewarded by words of praise, and by twopence in money. With a sweet
+smile on her wrinkled lips, the lady walked about the drawing-room and
+went up to the window. A flower-garden had been laid out before the
+window, and in the very middle bed, under a rose-bush, lay Mumu busily
+gnawing a bone. The lady caught sight of her.
+
+'Mercy on us!' she cried suddenly; 'what dog is that?'
+
+The companion, addressed by the old lady, hesitated, poor thing, in
+that wretched state of uneasiness which is common in any person in a
+dependent position who doesn't know very well what significance to
+give to the exclamation of a superior.
+
+'I d ... d ... don't know,' she faltered: 'I fancy it's the dumb man's
+dog.'
+
+'Mercy!' the lady cut her short: 'but it's a charming little dog!
+order it to be brought in. Has he had it long? How is it I've never
+seen it before?... Order it to be brought in.'
+
+The companion flew at once into the hall.
+
+'Boy, boy!' she shouted: 'bring Mumu in at once! She's in the
+flower-garden.'
+
+'Her name's Mumu then,' observed the lady: 'a very nice name.'
+
+'Oh, very, indeed!' chimed in the companion. 'Make haste, Stepan!'
+
+Stepan, a sturdily-built young fellow, whose duties were those of a
+footman, rushed headlong into the flower-garden, and tried to capture
+Mumu, but she cleverly slipped from his fingers, and with her tail in
+the air, fled full speed to Gerasim, who was at that instant in the
+kitchen, knocking out and cleaning a barrel, turning it upside down
+in his hands like a child's drum. Stepan ran after her, and tried to
+catch her just at her master's feet; but the sensible dog would not
+let a stranger touch her, and with a bound, she got away. Gerasim
+looked on with a smile at all this ado; at last, Stepan got up, much
+amazed, and hurriedly explained to him by signs that the mistress
+wanted the dog brought in to her. Gerasim was a little astonished;
+he called Mumu, however, picked her up, and handed her over to
+Stepan. Stepan carried her into the drawing-room, and put her down
+on the parquette floor. The old lady began calling the dog to her
+in a coaxing voice. Mumu, who had never in her life been in such
+magnificent apartments, was very much frightened, and made a rush for
+the door, but, being driven back by the obsequious Stepan, she began
+trembling, and huddled close up against the wall.
+
+'Mumu, Mumu, come to me, come to your mistress,' said the lady; 'come,
+silly thing ... don't be afraid.'
+
+'Come, Mumu, come to the mistress,' repeated the companions. 'Come
+along!'
+
+But Mumu looked round her uneasily, and did not stir.
+
+'Bring her something to eat,' said the old lady. 'How stupid she is!
+she won't come to her mistress. What's she afraid of?'
+
+'She's not used to your honour yet,' ventured one of the companions in
+a timid and conciliatory voice.
+
+Stepan brought in a saucer of milk, and set it down before Mumu, but
+Mumu would not even sniff at the milk, and still shivered, and looked
+round as before.
+
+'Ah, what a silly you are!' said the lady, and going up to her, she
+stooped down, and was about to stroke her, but Mumu turned her head
+abruptly, and showed her teeth. The lady hurriedly drew back her
+hand....
+
+A momentary silence followed. Mumu gave a faint whine, as though she
+would complain and apologise.... The old lady moved back, scowling.
+The dog's sudden movement had frightened her.
+
+'Ah!' shrieked all the companions at once, 'she's not bitten you, has
+she? Heaven forbid! (Mumu had never bitten any one in her life.) Ah!
+ah!'
+
+'Take her away,' said the old lady in a changed voice. 'Wretched
+little dog! What a spiteful creature!'
+
+And, turning round deliberately, she went towards her boudoir. Her
+companions looked timidly at one another, and were about to follow
+her, but she stopped, stared coldly at them, and said, 'What's that
+for, pray? I've not called you,' and went out.
+
+The companions waved their hands to Stepan in despair. He picked up
+Mumu, and flung her promptly outside the door, just at Gerasim's feet,
+and half-an-hour later a profound stillness reigned in the house, and
+the old lady sat on her sofa looking blacker than a thunder-cloud.
+
+What trifles, if you think of it, will sometimes disturb any one!
+
+Till evening the lady was out of humour; she did not talk to any
+one, did not play cards, and passed a bad night. She fancied the
+eau-de-Cologne they gave her was not the same as she usually had, and
+that her pillow smelt of soap, and she made the wardrobe-maid smell
+all the bed linen--in fact she was very upset and cross altogether.
+Next morning she ordered Gavrila to be summoned an hour earlier than
+usual.
+
+'Tell me, please,' she began, directly the latter, not without some
+inward trepidation, crossed the threshold of her boudoir, 'what dog
+was that barking all night in our yard? It wouldn't let me sleep!'
+
+'A dog, 'm ... what dog, 'm ... may be, the dumb man's dog, 'm,' he
+brought out in a rather unsteady voice.
+
+'I don't know whether it was the dumb man's or whose, but it wouldn't
+let me sleep. And I wonder what we have such a lot of dogs for! I wish
+to know. We have a yard dog, haven't we?'
+
+'Oh yes, 'm, we have, 'm. Wolf, 'm.'
+
+'Well, why more, what do we want more dogs for? It's simply
+introducing disorder. There's no one in control in the house--that's
+what it is. And what does the dumb man want with a dog? Who gave him
+leave to keep dogs in my yard? Yesterday I went to the window, and
+there it was lying in the flower--garden; it had dragged in some
+nastiness it was gnawing, and my roses are planted there....'
+
+The lady ceased.
+
+'Let her be gone from to-day ... do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, 'm.'
+
+'To-day. Now go. I will send for you later for the report.'
+
+Gavrila went away.
+
+As he went through the drawing-room, the steward by way of maintaining
+order moved a bell from one table to another; he stealthily blew his
+duck-like nose in the hall, and went into the outer-hall. In the
+outer-hall, on a locker was Stepan asleep in the attitude of a slain
+warrior in a battalion picture, his bare legs thrust out below the
+coat which served him for a blanket. The steward gave him a shove,
+and whispered some instructions to him, to which Stepan responded
+with something between a yawn and a laugh. The steward went away,
+and Stepan got up, put on his coat and his boots, went out and stood
+on the steps. Five minutes had not passed before Gerasim made his
+appearance with a huge bundle of hewn logs on his back, accompanied by
+the inseparable Mumu. (The lady had given orders that her bedroom and
+boudoir should be heated at times even in the summer.) Gerasim turned
+sideways before the door, shoved it open with his shoulder, and
+staggered into the house with his load. Mumu, as usual, stayed behind
+to wait for him. Then Stepan, seizing his chance, suddenly pounced on
+her, like a kite on a chicken, held her down to the ground, gathered
+her up in his arms, and without even putting on his cap, ran out of
+the yard with her, got into the first fly he met, and galloped off to
+a market-place. There he soon found a purchaser, to whom he sold her
+for a shilling, on condition that he would keep her for at least a
+week tied up; then he returned at once. But before he got home, he got
+off the fly, and going right round the yard, jumped over the fence
+into the yard from a back street. He was afraid to go in at the gate
+for fear of meeting Gerasim.
+
+His anxiety was unnecessary, however; Gerasim was no longer in the
+yard. On coming out of the house he had at once missed Mumu. He never
+remembered her failing to wait for his return, and began running up
+and down, looking for her, and calling her in his own way.... He
+rushed up to his garret, up to the hay-loft, ran out into the street,
+this way and that.... She was lost! He turned to the other serfs, with
+the most despairing signs, questioned them about her, pointing to her
+height from the ground, describing her with his hands.... Some of them
+really did not know what had become of Mumu, and merely shook their
+heads, others did know, and smiled to him for all response, while the
+steward assumed an important air, and began scolding the coachmen.
+Then Gerasim ran right away out of the yard.
+
+It was dark by the time he came back. From his worn-out look, his
+unsteady walk, and his dusty clothes, it might be surmised that he had
+been running over half Moscow. He stood still opposite the windows of
+the mistress' house, took a searching look at the steps where a group
+of house-serfs were crowded together, turned away, and uttered once
+more his inarticulate 'Mumu.' Mumu did not answer. He went away.
+Every one looked after him, but no one smiled or said a word, and the
+inquisitive postillion Antipka reported next morning in the kitchen
+that the dumb man had been groaning all night.
+
+All the next day Gerasim did not show himself, so that they were
+obliged to send the coachman Potap for water instead of him, at which
+the coachman Potap was anything but pleased. The lady asked Gavrila
+if her orders had been carried out. Gavrila replied that they had.
+The next morning Gerasim came out of his garret, and went about his
+work. He came in to his dinner, ate it, and went out again, without
+a greeting to any one. His face, which had always been lifeless, as
+with all deaf-mutes, seemed now to be turned to stone. After dinner he
+went out of the yard again, but not for long; he came back, and went
+straight up to the hay-loft. Night came on, a clear moonlight night.
+Gerasim lay breathing heavily, and incessantly turning from side to
+side. Suddenly he felt something pull at the skirt of his coat. He
+started, but did not raise his head, and even shut his eyes tighter.
+But again there was a pull, stronger than before; he jumped up ...
+before him, with an end of string round her neck, was Mumu, twisting
+and turning. A prolonged cry of delight broke from his speechless
+breast; he caught up Mumu, and hugged her tight in his arms, she
+licked his nose and eyes, and beard and moustache, all in one
+instant.... He stood a little, thought a minute, crept cautiously down
+from the hay-loft, looked round, and having satisfied himself that no
+one could see him, made his way successfully to his garret. Gerasim
+had guessed before that his dog had not got lost by her own doing,
+that she must have been taken away by the mistress' orders; the
+servants had explained to him by signs that his Mumu had snapped at
+her, and he determined to take his own measures. First he fed Mumu
+with a bit of bread, fondled her, and put her to bed, then he fell to
+meditating, and spent the whole night long in meditating how he could
+best conceal her. At last he decided to leave her all day in the
+garret, and only to come in now and then to see her, and to take her
+out at night. The hole in the door he stopped up effectually with his
+old overcoat, and almost before it was light he was already in the
+yard, as though nothing had happened, even--innocent guile!--the
+same expression of melancholy on his face. It did not even occur to
+the poor deaf man that Mumu would betray herself by her whining; in
+reality, every one in the house was soon aware that the dumb man's dog
+had come back, and was locked up in his garret, but from sympathy with
+him and with her, and partly, perhaps, from dread of him, they did not
+let him know that they had found out his secret. The steward scratched
+his hand, and gave a despairing wave of his hand, as much as to say,
+'Well, well, God have mercy on him! If only it doesn't come to the
+mistress' ears!'
+
+But the dumb man had never shown such energy as on that day; he
+cleaned and scraped the whole courtyard, pulled up every single
+weed with his own hand, tugged up every stake in the fence of the
+flower-garden, to satisfy himself that they were strong enough, and
+unaided drove them in again; in fact, he toiled and laboured so that
+even the old lady noticed his zeal. Twice in the course of the day
+Gerasim went stealthily in to see his prisoner when night came on, he
+lay down to sleep with her in the garret, not in the hay-loft, and
+only at two o'clock in the night he went out to take her a turn in the
+fresh air. After walking about the courtyard a good while with her,
+he was just turning back, when suddenly a rustle was heard behind
+the fence on the side of the back street. Mumu pricked up her ears,
+growled--went up to the fence, sniffed, and gave vent to a loud shrill
+bark. Some drunkard had thought fit to take refuge under the fence for
+the night. At that very time the old lady had just fallen asleep after
+a prolonged fit of 'nervous agitation'; these fits of agitation always
+overtook her after too hearty a supper. The sudden bark waked her up:
+her heart palpitated, and she felt faint. 'Girls, girls!' she moaned.
+'Girls!' The terrified maids ran into her bedroom. 'Oh, oh, I am
+dying!' she said, flinging her arms about in her agitation. 'Again,
+that dog again!... Oh, send for the doctor. They mean to be the death
+of me.... The dog, the dog again! Oh!' And she let her head fall back,
+which always signified a swoon. They rushed for the doctor, that
+is, for the household physician, Hariton. This doctor, whose whole
+qualification consisted in wearing soft-soled boots, knew how to
+feel the pulse delicately. He used to sleep fourteen hours out of
+the twenty-four, but the rest of the time he was always sighing, and
+continually dosing the old lady with cherrybay drops. This doctor ran
+up at once, fumigated the room with burnt feathers, and when the old
+lady opened her eyes, promptly offered her a wineglass of the hallowed
+drops on a silver tray. The old lady took them, but began again at
+once in a tearful voice complaining of the dog, of Gavrila, and of her
+fate, declaring that she was a poor old woman, and that every one had
+forsaken her, no one pitied her, every one wished her dead. Meanwhile
+the luckless Mumu had gone on barking, while Gerasim tried in vain to
+call her away from the fence. 'There ... there ... again,' groaned
+the old lady, and once more she turned up the whites of her eyes. The
+doctor whispered to a maid, she rushed into the outer-hall, and shook
+Stepan, he ran to wake Gavrila, Gavrila in a fury ordered the whole
+household to get up.
+
+Gerasim turned round, saw lights and shadows moving in the windows,
+and with an instinct of coming trouble in his heart, put Mumu under
+his arm, ran into his garret, and locked himself in. A few minutes
+later five men were banging at his door, but feeling the resistance
+of the bolt, they stopped. Gavrila ran up in a fearful state of mind,
+and ordered them all to wait there and watch till morning. Then he
+flew off himself to the maids' quarter, and through an old companion,
+Liubov Liubimovna, with whose assistance he used to steal tea, sugar,
+and other groceries and to falsify the accounts, sent word to the
+mistress that the dog had unhappily run back from somewhere, but that
+to-morrow she should be killed, and would the mistress be so gracious
+as not to be angry and to overlook it. The old lady would probably
+not have been so soon appeased, but the doctor had in his haste given
+her fully forty drops instead of twelve. The strong dose of narcotic
+acted; in a quarter of an hour the old lady was in a sound and
+peaceful sleep; while Gerasim was lying with a white face on his bed,
+holding Mumu's mouth tightly shut.
+
+Next morning the lady woke up rather late. Gavrila was waiting
+till she should be awake, to give the order for a final assault on
+Gerasim's stronghold, while he prepared himself to face a fearful
+storm. But the storm did not come off. The old lady lay in bed and
+sent for the eldest of her dependent companions.
+
+'Liubov Liubimovna,' she began in a subdued weak voice--she was fond
+of playing the part of an oppressed and forsaken victim; needless to
+say, every one in the house was made extremely uncomfortable at such
+times--'Liubov Liubimovna, you see my position; go, my love to Gavrila
+Andreitch, and talk to him a little Can he really prize some wretched
+cur above the repose--the very life--of his mistress? I could not bear
+to think so,' she added, with an expression of deep feeling. 'Go, my
+love; be so good as to go to Gavrila Andreitch for me.'
+
+Liubov Liubimovna went to Gavrila's room. What conversation passed
+between them is not known, but a short time after, a whole crowd
+of people was moving across the yard in the direction of Gerasim's
+garret. Gavrila walked in front, holding his cap on with his hand,
+though there was no wind. The footmen and cooks were close behind him;
+Uncle Tail was looking out of a window, giving instructions, that is
+to say, simply waving his hands. At the rear there was a crowd of
+small boys skipping and hopping along; half of them were outsiders
+who had run up. On the narrow staircase leading to the garret sat one
+guard; at the door were standing two more with sticks. They began to
+mount the stairs, which they entirely blocked up. Gavrila went up to
+the door, knocked with his fist, shouting, 'Open the door!'
+
+A stifled bark was audible, but there was no answer.
+
+'Open the door, I tell you,' he repeated.
+
+'But, Gavrila Andreitch,' Stepan observed from below, 'he's deaf, you
+know--he doesn't hear.'
+
+They all laughed.
+
+'What are we to do?' Gavrila rejoined from above.
+
+'Why, there's a hole there in the door,' answered Stepan, 'so you
+shake the stick in there.'
+
+Gavrila bent down.
+
+'He's stuffed it up with a coat or something.'
+
+'Well, you just push the coat in.'
+
+At this moment a smothered bark was heard again.
+
+'See, see--she speaks for herself,' was remarked in the crowd, and
+again they laughed.
+
+Gavrila scratched his ear.
+
+'No, mate,' he responded at last, 'you can poke the coat in yourself,
+if you like.'
+
+'All right, let me.'
+
+And Stepan scrambled up, took the stick, pushed in the coat, and began
+waving the stick about in the opening, saying, 'Come out, come out!'
+as he did so. He was still waving the stick, when suddenly the door
+of the garret was flung open; all the crowd flew pell-mell down the
+stairs instantly, Gavrila first of all. Uncle Tail locked the window.
+
+'Come, come, come,' shouted Gavrila from the yard, 'mind what you're
+about.'
+
+Gerasim stood without stirring in his doorway. The crowd gathered at
+the foot of the stairs. Gerasim, with his arms akimbo, looked down at
+all these poor creatures in German coats; in his red peasant's shirt
+he looked like a giant before them. Gavrila took a step forward.
+
+'Mind, mate,' said he, 'don't be insolent.'
+
+And he began to explain to him by signs that the mistress insists on
+having his dog; that he must hand it over at once, or it would be the
+worse for him.
+
+Gerasim looked at him, pointed to the dog, made a motion with his hand
+round his neck, as though he were pulling a noose tight, and glanced
+with a face of inquiry at the steward.
+
+'Yes, yes,' the latter assented, nodding; 'yes, just so.'
+
+Gerasim dropped his eyes, then all of a sudden roused himself and
+pointed to Mumu, who was all the while standing beside him, innocently
+wagging her tail and pricking up her ears inquisitively. Then he
+repeated the strangling action round his neck and significantly struck
+himself on the breast, as though announcing he would take upon himself
+the task of killing Mumu.
+
+'But you'll deceive us,' Gavrila waved back in response.
+
+Gerasim looked at him, smiled scornfully, struck himself again on the
+breast, and slammed-to the door.
+
+They all looked at one another in silence.
+
+'What does that mean?' Gavrila began. 'He's locked himself in.'
+
+'Let him be, Gavrila Andreitch,' Stepan advised; 'he'll do it if he's
+promised. He's like that, you know.... If he makes a promise, it's a
+certain thing. He's not like us others in that. The truth's the truth
+with him. Yes, indeed.'
+
+'Yes,' they all repeated, nodding their heads, 'yes--that's so--yes.'
+
+Uncle Tail opened his window, and he too said, 'Yes.'
+
+'Well, may be, we shall see,' responded Gavrila; 'any way, we won't
+take off the guard. Here you, Eroshka!' he added, addressing a poor
+fellow in a yellow nankeen coat, who considered himself to be a
+gardener, 'what have you to do? Take a stick and sit here, and if
+anything happens, run to me at once!'
+
+Eroshka took a stick, and sat down on the bottom stair. The crowd
+dispersed, all except a few inquisitive small boys, while Gavrila went
+home and sent word through Liubov Liubimovna to the mistress, that
+everything had been done, while he sent a postillion for a policeman
+in case of need. The old lady tied a knot in her handkerchief,
+sprinkled some eau-de-Cologne on it, sniffed at it, and rubbed her
+temples with it, drank some tea, and, being still under the influence
+of the cherrybay drops, fell asleep again.
+
+An hour after all this hubbub the garret door opened, and Gerasim
+showed himself. He had on his best coat; he was leading Mumu by a
+string. Eroshka moved aside and let him pass. Gerasim went to the
+gates. All the small boys in the yard stared at him in silence. He did
+not even turn round; he only put his cap on in the street. Gavrila
+sent the same Eroshka to follow him and keep watch on him as a spy.
+Eroshka, seeing from a distance that he had gone into a cookshop with
+his dog, waited for him to come out again.
+
+Gerasim was well known at the cookshop, and his signs were understood.
+He asked for cabbage soup with meat in it, and sat down with his arms
+on the table. Mumu stood beside his chair, looking calmly at him with
+her intelligent eyes. Her coat was glossy; one could see she had just
+been combed down. They brought Gerasim the soup. He crumbled some
+bread into it, cut the meat up small, and put the plate on the ground.
+Mumu began eating in her usual refined way, her little muzzle daintily
+held so as scarcely to touch her food. Gerasim gazed a long while at
+her; two big tears suddenly rolled from his eyes; one fell on the
+dog's brow, the other into the soup. He shaded his face with his hand.
+Mumu ate up half the plateful, and came away from it, licking her
+lips. Gerasim got up, paid for the soup, and went out, followed by the
+rather perplexed glances of the waiter. Eroshka, seeing Gerasim, hid
+round a corner, and letting him get in front, followed him again.
+
+Gerasim walked without haste, still holding Mumu by a string. When he
+got to the corner of the street, he stood still as though reflecting,
+and suddenly set off with rapid steps to the Crimean Ford. On the
+way he went into the yard of a house, where a lodge was being built,
+and carried away two bricks under his arm. At the Crimean Ford, he
+turned along the bank, went to a place where there were two little
+rowing-boats fastened to stakes (he had noticed them there before),
+and jumped into one of them with Mumu. A lame old man came out of a
+shed in the corner of a kitchen-garden and shouted after him; but
+Gerasim only nodded, and began rowing so vigorously, though against
+stream, that in an instant he had darted two hundred yards away. The
+old man stood for a while, scratched his back first with the left and
+then with the right hand, and went back hobbling to the shed.
+
+Gerasim rowed on and on. Moscow was soon left behind. Meadows
+stretched each side of the bank, market gardens, fields, and copses;
+peasants' huts began to make their appearance. There was the fragrance
+of the country. He threw down his oars, bent his head down to Mumu,
+who was sitting facing him on a dry cross seat--the bottom of the boat
+was full of water--and stayed motionless, his mighty hands clasped
+upon her back, while the boat was gradually carried back by the
+current towards the town. At last Gerasim drew himself up hurriedly,
+with a sort of sick anger in his face, he tied up the bricks he had
+taken with string, made a running noose, put it round Mumu's neck,
+lifted her up over the river, and for the last time looked at her....
+she watched him confidingly and without any fear, faintly wagging her
+tail. He turned away, frowned, and wrung his hands.... Gerasim heard
+nothing, neither the quick shrill whine of Mumu as she fell, nor the
+heavy splash of the water; for him the noisiest day was soundless and
+silent as even the stillest night is not silent to us. When he opened
+his eyes again, little wavelets were hurrying over the river, chasing
+one another; as before they broke against the boat's side, and only
+far away behind wide circles moved widening to the bank.
+
+Directly Gerasim had vanished from Eroshka's sight, the latter
+returned home and reported what he had seen.
+
+'Well, then,' observed Stepan, 'he'll drown her. Now we can feel easy
+about it. If he once promises a thing....'
+
+No one saw Gerasim during the day. He did not have dinner at home.
+Evening came on; they were all gathered together to supper, except
+him.
+
+'What a strange creature that Gerasim is!' piped a fat laundrymaid;
+'fancy, upsetting himself like that over a dog.... Upon my word!'
+
+'But Gerasim has been here,' Stepan cried all at once, scraping up his
+porridge with a spoon.
+
+'How? when?'
+
+'Why, a couple of hours ago. Yes, indeed! I ran against him at the
+gate; he was going out again from here; he was coming out of the
+yard. I tried to ask him about his dog, but he wasn't in the best of
+humours, I could see. Well, he gave me a shove; I suppose he only
+meant to put me out of his way, as if he'd say, "Let me go, do!" but
+he fetched me such a crack on my neck, so seriously, that--oh! oh!'
+And Stepan, who could not help laughing, shrugged up and rubbed the
+back of his head. 'Yes,' he added; 'he has got a fist; it's something
+like a fist, there's no denying that!'
+
+They all laughed at Stepan, and after supper they separated to go to
+bed.
+
+Meanwhile, at that very time, a gigantic figure with a bag on his
+shoulders and a stick in his hand, was eagerly and persistently
+stepping out along the T---- highroad. It was Gerasim. He was hurrying
+on without looking round; hurrying homewards, to his own village, to
+his own country. After drowning poor Mumu, he had run back to his
+garret, hurriedly packed a few things together in an old horsecloth,
+tied it up in a bundle, tossed it on his shoulder, and so was ready.
+He had noticed the road carefully when he was brought to Moscow; the
+village his mistress had taken him from lay only about twenty miles
+off the highroad. He walked along it with a sort of invincible
+purpose, a desperate and at the same time joyous determination. He
+walked, his shoulders thrown back and his chest expanded; his eyes
+were fixed greedily straight before him. He hastened as though his old
+mother were waiting for him at home, as though she were calling him
+to her after long wanderings in strange parts, among strangers. The
+summer night, that was just drawing in, was still and warm; on one
+side, where the sun had set, the horizon was still light and faintly
+flushed with the last glow of the vanished day; on the other side a
+blue-grey twilight had already risen up. The night was coming up from
+that quarter. Quails were in hundreds around; corncrakes were calling
+to one another in the thickets.... Gerasim could not hear them; he
+could not hear the delicate night-whispering of the trees, by which
+his strong legs carried him, but he smelt the familiar scent of the
+ripening rye, which was wafted from the dark fields; he felt the wind,
+flying to meet him--the wind from home--beat caressingly upon his
+face, and play with his hair and his beard. He saw before him the
+whitening road homewards, straight as an arrow. He saw in the sky
+stars innumerable, lighting up his way, and stepped out, strong and
+bold as a lion, so that when the rising sun shed its moist rosy light
+upon the still fresh and unwearied traveller, already thirty miles lay
+between him and Moscow.
+
+In a couple of days he was at home, in his little hut, to the great
+astonishment of the soldier's wife who had been put in there. After
+praying before the holy pictures, he set off at once to the village
+elder. The village elder was at first surprised; but the haycutting
+had just begun; Gerasim was a first-rate mower, and they put a scythe
+into his hand on the spot, and he went to mow in his old way, mowing
+so that the peasants were fairly astounded as they watched his wide
+sweeping strokes and the heaps he raked together....
+
+In Moscow the day after Gerasim's flight they missed him. They went
+to his garret, rummaged about in it, and spoke to Gavrila. He came,
+looked, shrugged his shoulders, and decided that the dumb man had
+either run away or had drowned himself with his stupid dog. They
+gave information to the police, and informed the lady. The old lady
+was furious, burst into tears, gave orders that he was to be found
+whatever happened, declared she had never ordered the dog to be
+destroyed, and, in fact, gave Gavrila such a rating that he could do
+nothing all day but shake his head and murmur, 'Well!' until Uncle
+Tail checked him at last, sympathetically echoing 'We-ell!' At last
+the news came from the country of Gerasim's being there. The old
+lady was somewhat pacified; at first she issued a mandate for him to
+be brought back without delay to Moscow; afterwards, however, she
+declared that such an ungrateful creature was absolutely of no use to
+her. Soon after this she died herself; and her heirs had no thought to
+spare for Gerasim; they let their mother's other servants redeem their
+freedom on payment of an annual rent.
+
+And Gerasim is living still, a lonely man in his lonely hut; he is
+strong and healthy as before, and does the work of four men as before,
+and as before is serious and steady. But his neighbours have observed
+that ever since his return from Moscow he has quite given up the
+society of women; he will not even look at them, and does not keep
+even a single dog. 'It's his good luck, though,' the peasants reason;
+'that he can get on without female folk; and as for a dog--what need
+has he of a dog? you wouldn't get a thief to go into his yard for any
+money!' Such is the fame of the dumb man's Titanic strength.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Torrents of Spring, by Ivan Turgenev
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TORRENTS OF SPRING ***
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