Books: On the Eve
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Ivan Turgenev >> On the Eve
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They were giving an opera of Verdi's, which though, honestly speaking,
rather vulgar, has already succeeded in making the round of all the
European theatres, an opera, well-known among Russians, _La Traviata_.
The season in Venice was over, and none of the singers rose above the
level of mediocrity; every one shouted to the best of their abilities.
The part of Violetta was performed by an artist, of no renown, and
judging by the cool reception given her by the public, not a
favourite, but she was not destitute of talent. She was a young, and
not very pretty, black-eyed girl with an unequal and already
overstrained voice. Her dress was ill-chosen and naively gaudy; her
hair was hidden in a red net, her dress of faded blue satin was too
tight for her, and thick Swedish gloves reached up to her sharp
elbows. Indeed, how could she, the daughter of some Bergamese
shepherd, know how Parisian _dames aux camelias_ dress! And she did
not understand how to move on the stage; but there was much truth and
artless simplicity in her acting, and she sang with that passion of
expression and rhythm which is only vouchsafed to Italians. Elena and
Insarov were sitting alone together in a dark box close to the stage;
the mirthful mood which had come upon them in the academy _delle Belle
Arti_ had not yet passed off. When the father of the unhappy young man
who had fallen into the snares of the enchantress came on to the stage
in a yellow frock-coat and a dishevelled white wig, opened his mouth
awry, and losing his presence of mind before he had begun, only
brought out a faint bass _tremolo_, they almost burst into laughter.
. . . But Violetta's acting impressed them.
'They hardly clap that poor girl at all,' said Elena, 'but I like her
a thousand times better than some conceited second-rate celebrity who
would grimace and attitudinise all the while for effect. This girl
seems as though it were all in earnest; look, she pays no attention to
the public.'
Insarov bent over the edge of the box, and looked attentively at
Violetta.
'Yes,' he commented, 'she is in earnest; she's on the brink of the
grave herself.'
Elena was mute.
The third act began. The curtain rose--Elena shuddered at the sight
of the bed, the drawn curtains, the glass of medicine, the shaded
lamps. She recalled the near past. 'What of the future? What of the
present?' flashed across her mind. As though in response to her
thought, the artist's mimic cough on the stage was answered in the box
by the hoarse, terribly real cough of Insarov. Elena stole a glance at
him, and at once gave her features a calm and untroubled expression;
Insarov understood her, and he began himself to smile, and softly to
hum the tune of the song.
But he was soon quiet. Violetta's acting became steadily better, and
freer. She had thrown aside everything subsidiary, everything
superfluous, and _found herself_; a rare, a lofty delight for an
artist! She had suddenly crossed the limit, which it is impossible to
define, beyond which is the abiding place of beauty. The audience was
thrilled and astonished. The plain girl with the broken voice began to
get a hold on it, to master it. And the singer's voice even did not
sound broken now; it had gained mellowness and strength. Alfredo made
his entrance; Violetta's cry of happiness almost raised that storm in
the audience known as _fanatisme_, beside which all the applause of
our northern audiences is nothing. A brief interval passed--and again
the audience were in transports. The duet began, the best thing in the
opera, in which the composer has succeeded in expressing all the
pathos of the senseless waste of youth, the final struggle of
despairing, helpless love. Caught up and carried along by the general
sympathy, with tears of artistic delight and real suffering in her
eyes, the singer let herself be borne along on the wave of passion
within her; her face was transfigured, and in the presence of the
threatening signs of fast approaching death, the words: '_Lascia mi
vivero--morir si giovane_' (let me live--to die so young!) burst from
her in such a tempest of prayer rising to heaven, that the whole
theatre shook with frenzied applause and shouts of delight.
Elena felt cold all over. Softly her hand sought Insarov's, found it,
and clasped it tightly. He responded to its pressure; but she did not
look at him, nor he at her. Very different was the clasp of hands
with which they had greeted each other in the gondola a few hours
before.
Again they glided along the Canal Grande towards their hotel. Night
had set in now, a clear, soft night. The same palaces met them, but
they seemed different. Those that were lighted up by the moon shone
with pale gold, and in this pale light all details of ornaments and
lines of windows and balconies seemed lost; they stood out more
clearly in the buildings that were wrapped in a light veil of unbroken
shadow. The gondolas, with their little red lamps, seemed to flit past
more noiselessly and swiftly than ever; their steel beaks flashed
mysteriously, mysteriously their oars rose and fell over the ripples
stirred by little silvery fish; here and there was heard the brief,
subdued call of a gondolier (they never sing now); scarcely another
sound was to be heard. The hotel where Insarov and Elena were staying
was on the _Riva dei Schiavoni_; before they reached it they left the
gondola, and walked several times round the Square of St. Mark, under
the arches, where numbers of holiday makers were gathered before the
tiny cafes. There is a special sweetness in wandering alone with one
you love, in a strange city among strangers; everything seems
beautiful and full of meaning, you feel peace and goodwill to all men,
you wish all the same happiness that fills your heart. But Elena could
not now give herself up without a care to the sense of her happiness;
her heart could not regain its calm after the emotions that had so
lately shaken it; and Insarov, as he walked by the palace of the
Doges, pointed without speaking to the mouths of the Austrian cannons,
peeping out from the lower arches, and pulled his hat down over his
eyes. By now he felt tired, and, with a last glance at the church of
St. Mark, at its cupola, where on the bluish lead bright patches of
phosphorescent light shone in the rays of the moon, they turned slowly
homewards.
Their little room looked out on to the lagoon, which stretches from
the _Riva del Schiavoni_ to the Giudecca. Almost facing their hotel
rose the slender tower of S. George; high against the sky on the right
shone the golden ball of the Customs House; and, decked like a bride,
stood the loveliest of the churches, the _Redentore_ of Palladio;
on the left were the black masts and rigging of ships, the funnels of
steamers; a half-furled sail hung in one place like a great wing, and
the flags scarcely stirred. Insarov sat down at the window, but Elena
did not let him admire the view for long; he seemed suddenly
feverish, he was overcome by consuming weakness. She put him to bed,
and, waiting till he had fallen asleep, she returned to the window.
Oh, how still and kindly was the night, what dovelike softness
breathed in the deep-blue air! Every suffering, every sorrow surely
must be soothed to slumber under that clear sky, under that pure, holy
light! 'O God,' thought Elena, 'why must there be death, why is there
separation, and disease and tears? or else, why this beauty, this
sweet feeling of hope, this soothing sense of an abiding refuge, an
unchanging support, an everlasting protection? What is the meaning of
this smiling, blessing sky; this happy, sleeping earth? Can it be
that all that is only in us, and that outside us is eternal cold and
silence? Can it be that we are alone . . . alone . . . and there, on
all sides, in all those unattainable depths and abysses--nothing is
akin to us; all, all is strange and apart from us? Why, then, have we
this desire for, this delight in prayer?' (_Morir si giovane_ was
echoing in her heart.) . . . 'Is it impossible, then, to propitiate,
to avert, to save . . . O God! is it impossible to believe in
miracle?' She dropped her head on to her clasped hands. 'Enough,' she
whispered. 'Indeed enough! I have been happy not for moments only,
not for hours, not for whole days even, but for whole weeks together.
And what right had I to happiness?' She felt terror at the thought of
her happiness. 'What, if that cannot be?' she thought. 'What, if it is
not granted for nothing? Why, it has been heaven . . . and we are
mortals, poor sinful mortals. . . . _Morir si giovane_. Oh, dark
omen, away! It's not only for me his life is needed!
'But what, if it is a punishment,' she thought again; 'what, if we
must now pay the penalty of our guilt in full? My conscience was
silent, it is silent now, but is that a proof of innocence? O God, can
we be so guilty! Canst Thou who hast created this night, this sky,
wish to punish us for having loved each other? If it be so, if he has
sinned, if I have sinned,' she added with involuntary force, 'grant
that he, O God, grant that we both, may die at least a noble, glorious
death--there, on the plains of his country, not here in this dark
room.
'And the grief of my poor, lonely mother?' she asked herself, and was
bewildered, and could find no answer to her question. Elena did not
know that every man's happiness is built on the unhappiness of
another, that even his advantage, his comfort, like a statue needs a
pedestal, the disadvantage, the discomfort of others.
'Renditch!' muttered Insarov in his sleep.
Elena went up to him on tiptoe, bent over him, and wiped the
perspiration from his face. He tossed a little on his pillow, and was
still again.
She went back again to the window, and again her thoughts took
possession of her. She began to argue with herself, to assure herself
that there was no reason to be afraid. She even began to feel ashamed
of her weakness. 'Is there any danger? isn't he better?' she
murmured. 'Why, if we had not been at the theatre to-day, all this
would never have entered my head.'
At that instant she saw high above the water a white sea-gull; some
fisherman had scared it, it seemed, for it flew noiselessly with
uncertain course, as though seeking a spot where it could alight.
'Come, if it flies here,' thought Elena, 'it will be a good omen.'
. . . The sea-gull flew round in a circle, folded its wings, and, as
though it had been shot, dropped with a plaintive cry in the distance
behind a dark ship. Elena shuddered; then she was ashamed of having
shuddered, and, without undressing, she lay down on the bed beside
Insarov, who was breathing quickly and heavily.
XXXIV
Insarov waked late with a dull pain in his head, and a feeling, as he
expressed it, of disgusting weakness all over. He got up however.
'Renditch has not come?' was his first question.
'Not yet,' answered Elena, and she handed him the latest number of the
_Osservatore Triestino_, in which there was much upon the war, the Slav
Provinces, and the Principalities. Insarov began reading it; she
busied herself in getting some coffee ready for him. Some one knocked
at the door.
'Renditch,' both thought at once, but a voice said in Russian, 'May I
come in?' Elena and Insarov looked at each other in astonishment; and
without waiting for an answer, an elegantly dressed young man entered
the room, with a small sharp-featured face, and bright little eyes. He
was beaming all over, as though he had just won a fortune or heard a
most delightful piece of news.
Insarov got up from his seat
'You don't recognise me,' began the stranger, going up to him with an
easy air, and bowing politely to Elena, 'Lupoyarov, do you remember,
we met at Moscow at the E----'s.'
'Yes, at the E----'s,' replied Insarov.
'To be sure, to be sure! I beg you to present me to your wife. Madam,
I have always had the profoundest respect for Dmitri Vassilyevitch'
(he corrected himself)--'for Nikanor Vassilyevitch, and am very happy
to have the pleasure at last of making your acquaintance. Fancy,' he
continued, turning to Insarov, 'I only heard yesterday evening that
you were here. I am staying at this hotel too. What a city! Venice is
poetry--that's the only word for it! But one thing's really awful:
the cursed Austrians meeting one at every turn! ah, these Austrians!
By the way, have you heard, there's been a decisive battle on the
Danube: three hundred Turkish officers killed, Silistria taken;
Servia has declared its independence. You, as a patriot, ought to be
in transports, oughtn't you? Even my Slavonic blood's positively on
fire! I advise you to be more careful, though; I'm convinced
there's a watch kept on you. The spies here are something awful! A
suspicious-looking man came up to me yesterday and asked: "Are you a
Russian?" I told him I was a Dane. But you seem unwell, dear Nikanor
Vassilyevitch. You ought to see a doctor; madam, you ought to make
your husband see a doctor. Yesterday I ran through the palaces and
churches, as though I were crazy. I suppose you've been in the palace
of the Doges? What magnificence everywhere! Especially that great hall
and Marino Faliero's place: there's an inscription: _decapitati pro
criminibus_. I've been in the famous prisons too; that threw me into
indignation, you may fancy. I've always, you remember perhaps, taken
an interest in social questions, and taken sides against
aristocracy--well, that's where I should like to send the champions of
aristocracy--to those dungeons. How well Byron said: _I stood in Venice
on the Bridge of Sighs_; though he was an aristocrat too. I was always
for progress--the younger generation are all for progress. And what do
you say to the Anglo-French business? We shall see whether they can do
much, Boustrapa and Palmerston. You know Palmerston has been made
Prime Minister. No, say what you like, the Russian fist is not to be
despised. He's awfully deep that Boustrapa! If you like I will lend
you _Les Chatiments de Victor Hugo_--it's marvellous--_L'avenir, le
gendarme de Dieu_--rather boldly written, but what force in it, what
force! That was a fine saying, too, of Prince Vyazemsky's: "Europe
repeats: Bash-Kadik-Lar keeping an eye on Sinope." I adore poetry. I
have Proudhon's last work, too--I have everything. I don't know how
you feel, but I'm glad of the war; only as I'm not required at home,
I'm going from here to Florence, and to Rome. France I can't go to--so
I'm thinking of Spain--the women there, I'm told, are marvellous! only
such poverty, and so many insects. I would be off to California--we
Russians are ready to do anything--but I promised an editor to study
the question of the commerce of the Mediterranean in detail. You will
say that's an uninteresting, special subject, but that's just what we
need, specialists; we have philosophised enough, now we need the
practical, the practical. But you are very unwell, Nikanor
Vassilyevitch, I am tiring you, perhaps, but still I must stay a
little longer.'
And for a long time Lupoyarov still babbled on in the same way, and,
as he went away, he promised to come again.
Worn out by the unexpected visit, Insarov lay down on the sofa. 'So
this,' he said, mournfully looking at Elena, 'is your younger
generation! There are plenty who show off, and give themselves airs,
while at heart they are as empty chatterboxes as that worthy.'
Elena made no reply to her husband; at that instant she was far more
concerned at Insarov's weakness than at the character of the whole
younger generation in Russia. She sat down near him, and took up some
work. He closed his eyes, and lay without moving, white and thin.
Elena glanced at his sharp profile, at his emaciated hands, and felt a
sudden pang of terror.
'Dmitri,' she began.
He started. 'Eh? Has Renditch come?'
'Not yet--but what do you think--you are in a fever, you are really
not quite well, shouldn't we send for a doctor?'
'That wretched gossip has frightened you. There's no necessity. I will
rest a little, and it will pass off. After dinner we will go out
again--somewhere.'
Two hours passed. Insarov still lay on the sofa, but he could not
sleep, though he did not open his eyes. Elena did not leave his side;
she had dropped her work upon her knee, and did not stir.
'Why don't you go to sleep?' she asked at last.
'Wait a little.' He took her hand, and placed it under his head.
'There--that is nice. Wake me at once directly Renditch comes. If he
says the ship is ready, we will start at once. We ought to pack
everything.'
'Packing won't take long,' answered Elena.
'That fellow babbled something about a battle, about Servia,' said
Insarov, after a short interval. 'I suppose he made it all up. But we
must, we must start. We can't lose time. Be ready.'
He fell asleep, and everything was still in the room.
Elena let her head rest against the back of her chair, and gazed a
long while out of the window. The weather had changed for the worse;
the wind had risen. Great white clouds were scudding over the sky, a
slender mast was swaying in the distance, a long streamer, with a red
cross on it, kept fluttering, falling, and fluttering again. The
pendulum of the old-fashioned clock ticked drearily, with a kind of
melancholy whirr. Elena shut her eyes. She had slept badly all night;
gradually she, too, fell asleep.
She had a strange dream. She thought sha was floating in a boat on the
Tsaritsino lake with some unknown people. They did not speak, but sat
motionless, no one was rowing; the boat was moving by itself. Elena
was not afraid, but she felt dreary; she wanted to know who were these
people, and why she was with them? She looked and the lake grew
broader, the banks vanished--now it was not a lake but a stormy sea:
immense blue silent waves rocked the boat majestically; something
menacing, roaring was rising from the depths; her unknown companions
jumped up, shrieking, wringing their hands . . . Elena recognised
their faces; her father was among them. But a kind of white whirlwind
came flying over the waves--everything was turning round, everything
was confounded together.
Elena looked about her; as before, all around was white; but it was
snow, snow, boundless plains of snow. And she was not now in a boat,
but travelling, as she had come from Moscow, in a sledge; she was not
alone; by her side was sitting a little creature muffled in an old
cloak; Elena looked closely; it was Katya, her poor little friend.
Elena was seized with terror. 'Why, isn't she dead?' she thought.
'Katya, where are we going together?' Katya did not answer, and
nestled herself closer in her little cloak; she was freezing. Elena
too was cold; she looked along the road into the distance; far away a
town could be seen through the fine drifting snow. High white towers
with silvery cupolas . . . 'Katya, Katya, is it Moscow? No,' thought
Elena, 'it is Solovetsky Monastery; it's full of little narrow
cells like a beehive; it's stifling, cramping there--and Dmitri's
shut up there. I must rescue him.' . . . Suddenly a grey, yawning
abyss opened before her. The sledge was falling, Katya was laughing.
'Elena, Elena!' came a voice from the abyss.
'Elena!' sounded distinctly in her ears. She raised her head quickly,
turned round, and was stupefied: Insarov, white as snow, the snow of
her dream, had half risen from the sofa, and was staring at her with
large, bright, dreadful eyes. His hair hung in disorder on his
forehead and his lips parted strangely. Horror, mingled with an
anguish of tenderness, was expressed on his suddenly transfigured
face.
'Elena!' he articulated, 'I am dying.'
She fell with a scream on her knees, and clung to his breast.
'It's all over,' repeated Insarov: 'I'm dying . . . Good-bye, my poor
girl! good-bye, my country!' and he fell backwards on to the sofa.
Elena rushed out of the room, began calling for help; a waiter ran
for a doctor. Elena clung to Insarov.
At that instant in the doorway appeared a broad-shouldered, sunburnt
man, in a stout frieze coat and a low oil-skin hat. He stood still in
bewilderment.
'Renditch!' cried Elena, 'it's you! Look, for God's sake, he's ill!
What's wrong? Good God! He went out yesterday, he was talking to
me just now.'
Renditch said nothing and only moved on one side. There slipped
quickly past him a little figure in a wig and spectacles; it was a
doctor living in the same hotel. He went up to Insarov.
'Signora,' he said, after the lapse of a few minutes, 'the foreign
gentleman is dead--_il Signore forestiere e morte_--of aneurism in
combination with disease of the lungs.'
XXXV
The next day, in the same room, Renditch was standing at the window;
before him, wrapped in a shawl, sat Elena. In the next room, Insarov
lay in his coffin. Elena's face was both scared and lifeless; two
lines could be seen on her forehead between her eyebrows; they gave a
strained expression to her fixed eyes. In the window lay an open
letter from Anna Vassilyevna. She begged her daughter to come to
Moscow if only for a month, complained of her loneliness, and of
Nikolai Artemyevitch, sent greetings to Insarov, inquired after his
health, and begged him to spare his wife.
Renditch was a Dalmatian, a sailor, with whom Insarov had become
acquainted during his wanderings in his own country, and whom he had
sought out in Venice. He was a dry, gruff man, full of daring and
devoted to the Slavonic cause. He despised the Turks and hated the
Austrians.
'How long must you remain at Venice?' Elena asked him in Italian. And
her voice was as lifeless as her face.
'One day for freighting and not to rouse suspicions, and then straight
to Zara. I shall have sad news for our countrymen. They have long been
expecting him; they rested their hopes on him.'
'They rested their hopes on him,' Elena repeated mechanically.
'When will you bury him?' asked Renditch.
Elena not at once replied, 'To-morrow.'
'To-morrow? I will stop; I should like to throw a handful of earth
into his grave. And you will want help. But it would have been better
for him to lie in Slavonic earth.'
Elena looked at Renditch.
'Captain,' she said, 'take me and him and carry us across to the
other side of the sea, away from here. Isn't that possible?'
Renditch considered: 'Possible certainly, but difficult. We shall
have to come into collision with the damned authorities here. But
supposing we arrange all that and bury him there, how am I to bring
you back?'
'You need not bring me back.'
'What? where will you stop?'
'I shall find some place for myself; only take us, take me.'
Renditch scratched the back of his head.
'You know best; but it's all very difficult. I will, I will try; and
you expect me here in two hours' time.'
He went away. Elena passed into the next room, leaned against the
wall, and for a long time stood there as though turned to stone. Then
she dropped on her knees, but she could not pray. There was no
reproach in her heart; she did not dare to question God's will, to
ask why He had not spared, pitied, saved, why He had punished her
beyond her guilt, if she were guilty. Each of us is guilty by the fact
that he lives; and there is no one so great a thinker, so great a
benefactor of mankind that he might hope to have a right to live for
the service he has done. . . . Still Elena could not pray; she was a
stone.
The same night a broad-bottomed boat put off from the hotel where the
Insarovs lived. In the boat sat Elena with Renditch and beside them
stood a long box covered with a black cloth. They rowed for about an
hour, and at last reached a small two-masted ship, which was riding at
anchor at the very entrance of the harbour. Elena and Renditch got
into the ship; the sailors carried in the box. At midnight a storm
had arisen, but early in the morning the ship had passed out of the
Lido. During the day the storm raged with fearful violence, and
experienced seamen in Lloyd's offices shook their heads and prophesied
no good. The Adriatic Sea between Venice, Trieste, and the Dalmatian
coast is particularly dangerous.
Three weeks after Elena's departure from Vienna, Anna Vassilyevna
received the following letter in Moscow:--
'My DEAR PARENTS.--I am saying goodbye to you for ever. You will never
see me again. Dmitri died yesterday. Everything is over for me. To-day
I am setting off with his body to Zara. I will bury him, and what will
become of me, I don't know. But now I have no country but Dmitri's
country. There, they are preparing for revolution, they are getting
ready for war. I will join the Sisters of Mercy; I will tend the sick
and the wounded. I don't know what will become of me, but even after
Dmitri's death, I will be faithful to his memory, to the work of his
whole life. I have learnt Bulgarian and Servian. Very likely, I shall
not have strength to live through it all for long--so much the better.
I have been brought to the edge of the precipice and I must fall over.
Fate did not bring us together for nothing; who knows?--perhaps I
killed him; now it is his turn to draw me after him. I sought
happiness, and I shall find--perhaps death. It seems it was to be
thus: it seems it was a sin. . . . But death covers all and reconciles
all; does it not? Forgive me all the suffering I have caused you; it
was not under my control. But how could I return to Russia; What have
I to do in Russia?
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