Books: On the Eve
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Ivan Turgenev >> On the Eve
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'Why did you leave your old lodging?' Bersenyev asked him.
'This is cheaper, and nearer to the university.'
'But now it's vacation. . . . And what could induce you to stay in the
town in summer! You should have taken a country cottage if you were
determined to move.'
Insarov made no reply to this remark, and offered Bersenyev a pipe,
adding: 'Excuse me, I have no cigarettes or cigars.'
Bersenyev began smoking the pipe.
'Here have I,' he went on, 'taken a little house near Kuntsovo, very
cheap and very roomy. In fact there is a room to spare upstairs.'
Insarov again made no answer.
Bersenyev drew at the pipe: 'I have even been thinking,' he began
again, blowing out the smoke in a thin cloud, 'that if any one could
be found--you, for instance, I thought of--who would care, who would
consent to establish himself there upstairs, how nice it would be!
What do you think, Dmitri Nikanorovitch?'
Insarov turned his little eyes on him. 'You propose my staying in
your country house?'
'Yes; I have a room to spare there upstairs.'
'Thanks very much, Andrei Petrovitch; but I expect my means would not
allow of it.'
'How do you mean?'
'My means would not allow of my living in a country house. It's
impossible for me to keep two lodgings.'
'But of course I'--Bersenyev was beginning, but he stopped short.
'You would have no extra expense in that way,' he went on. 'Your
lodging here would remain for you, let us suppose; but then everything
there is very cheap; we could even arrange so as to dine, for
instance, together.'
Insarov said nothing. Bersenyev began to feel awkward.
'You might at least pay me a visit sometime,' he began, after a short
pause. 'A few steps from me there's a family living with whom I want
very much to make you acquainted. If only you knew, Insarov, what a
marvellous girl there is there! There is an intimate friend of mine
staying there too, a man of great talent; I am sure you would get on
with him. [The Russian loves to be hospitable--of his friends if he
can offer nothing else.] Really, you must come. And what would be
better still, come and stay with me, do. We could work and read
together. ... I am busy, as you know, with history and philosophy. All
that would interest you. I have a lot of books.'
Insarov got up and walked about the room. 'Let me know,' he said,
'how much do you pay for your cottage?'
'A hundred silver roubles.'
'And how many rooms are there?'
'Five.'
'Then one may reckon that one room costs twenty roubles?'
'Yes, one may reckon so. ... But really it's utterly unnecessary for
me. It simply stands empty.'
'Perhaps so; but listen,' added Insarov, with a decided, but at the
same time good-natured movement of his head: 'I can only take
advantage of your offer if you agree to take the sum we have reckoned.
Twenty roubles I am able to give, the more easily, since, as you say,
I shall be economising there in other things.'
'Of course; but really I am ashamed to take it.'
'Otherwise it's impossible, Andrei Petrovitch.'
'Well, as you like; but what an obstinate fellow you are!'
Insarov again made no reply.
The young men made arrangements as to the day on which Insarov was to
move. They called the landlord; at first he sent his daughter, a
little girl of seven, with a large striped kerchief on her head; she
listened attentively, almost with awe, to all Insarov said to her, and
went away without speaking; after her, her mother, a woman far gone
with child, made her appearance, also wearing a kerchief on her head,
but a very diminutive one. Insarov informed her that he was going to
stay at a cottage near Kuntsovo, but should keep on his lodging and
leave all his things in their keeping; the tailor's wife too seemed
scared and went away. At last the man himself came in: he seemed to
understand everything from the first, and only said gloomily: 'Near
Kuntsovo?' then all at once he opened the door and shouted: 'Are you
going to keep the lodgings then?' Insarov reassured him. 'Well, one
must know,' repeated the tailor morosely, as he disappeared.
Bersenyev returned home, well content with the success of his
proposal. Insarov escorted him to the door with cordial good manners,
not common in Russia; and, when he was left alone, carefully took off
his coat, and set to work upon sorting his papers.
VIII
On the evening of the same day, Anna Vassilyevna was sitting in her
drawing-room and was on the verge of weeping. There were also in the
room her husband and a certain Uvar Ivanovitch Stahov, a distant
cousin of Nikolai Artemyevitch, a retired cornet of sixty years old, a
man corpulent to the point of immobility, with sleepy yellowish eyes,
and colourless thick lips in a puffy yellow face. Ever since he had
retired, he had lived in Moscow on the interest of a small capital
left him by a wife who came of a shopkeeper's family. He did nothing,
and it is doubtful whether he thought of anything; if he did think, he
kept his thoughts to himself. Once only in his life he had been
thrown into a state of excitement and shown signs of animation, and
that was when he read in the newspapers of a new instrument at the
Universal Exhibition in London, the 'contro-bombardon,' and became
very anxious to order this instrument for himself, and even made
inquiries as to where to send the money and through what office. Uvar
Ivanovitch wore a loose snuff-coloured coat and a white neckcloth,
used to eat often and much, and in moments of great perplexity, that
is to say when it happened to him to express some opinion, he would
flourish the fingers of his right hand meditatively in the air, with a
convulsive spasm from the first finger to the little finger, and back
from the little finger to the first finger, while he articulated with
effort, 'to be sure . . . there ought to ... in some sort of a way.'
Uvar Ivanovitch was sitting in an easy chair by the window, breathing
heavily; Nikolai Artemyevitch was pacing with long strides up and
down the room, his hands thrust into his pockets; his face expressed
dissatisfaction.
He stood still at last and shook his head. 'Yes;' he began, 'in
our day young men were brought up differently. Young men did not
permit themselves to be lacking in respect to their elders. And
nowadays, I can only look on and wonder. Possibly, I am all wrong, and
they are quite right; possibly. But still I have my own views of
things; I was not born a fool. What do you think about it, Uvar
Ivanovitch?'
Uvar Ivanovitch could only look at him and work his fingers.
'Elena Nikolaevna, for instance,' pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch,
'Elena Nikolaevna I don't pretend to understand. I am not elevated
enough for her. Her heart is so large that it embraces all nature down
to the least spider or frog, everything in fact except her own father.
Well, that's all very well; I know it, and I don't trouble myself
about it. For that's nerves and education and lofty aspirations, and
all that is not in my line. But Mr. Shubin . . . admitting he's a
wonderful artist--quite exceptional--that, I don't dispute; to show
want of respect to his elder, a man to whom, at any rate, one may say
he is under great obligation; that I confess, _dans mon gros bon sens_,
I cannot pass over. I am not exacting by nature, no, but there is a
limit to everything.'
Anna Vassilyevna rang the bell in a tremor. A little page came in.
'Why is it Pavel Yakovlitch does not come?' she said, 'what does it
mean; I call him, and he doesn't come?'
Nikolai Artemyevitch shrugged his shoulders.
'And what is the object, may I ask, of your wanting to send for him?
I don't expect that at all, I don't wish it even!'
'What's the object, Nikolai Artemyevitch? He has disturbed you; very
likely he has checked the progress of your cure. I want to have an
explanation with him. I want to know how he has dared to annoy you.'
'I tell you again, that I do not ask that. And what can induce you
. . . _devant les domestiques_!'
Anna Vassilyevna flushed a little. 'You need not say that, Nikolai
Artemyevitch. I never . . . _devant les domestiques_ . . . Fedushka, go
and see you bring Pavel Yakovlitch here at once.'
The little page went off.
'And that's absolutely unnecessary,' muttered Nikolai Artemyevitch
between his teeth, and he began again pacing up and down the room. 'I
did not bring up the subject with that object.'
'Good Heavens, Paul must apologise to you.'
'Good Heavens, what are his apologies to me? And what do you mean by
apologies? That's all words.'
'Why, he must be corrected.'
'Well, you can correct him yourself. He will listen to you sooner
than to me. For my part I bear him no grudge.'
'No, Nikolai Artemyevitch, you've not been yourself ever since you
arrived. You have even to my eyes grown thinner lately. I am afraid
your treatment is doing you no good.'
'The treatment is quite indispensable,' observed Nikolai Artemyevitch,
'my liver is affected.'
At that instant Shubin came in. He looked tired. A slight almost
ironical smile played on his lips.
'You asked for me, Anna Vassilyevna?' he observed.
'Yes, certainly I asked for you. Really, Paul, this is dreadful. I am
very much displeased with you. How could you be wanting in respect to
Nikolai Artemyevitch?'
'Nikolai Artemyevitch has complained of me to you?' inquired Shubin,
and with the same smile on his lips he looked at Stahov. The latter
turned away, dropping his eyes.
'Yes, he complains of you. I don't know what you have done amiss, but
you ought to apologise at once, because his health is very much
deranged just now, and indeed we all ought when we are young to treat
our benefactors with respect.'
'Ah, what logic!' thought Shubin, and he turned to Stahov. 'I am
ready to apologise to you, Nikolai Artemyevitch,' he said with a
polite half-bow, 'if I have really offended you in any way.'
'I did not at all ... with that idea,' rejoined Nikolai Artemyevitch,
still as before avoiding Shubin's eyes. 'However, I will readily
forgive you, for, as you know, I am not an exacting person.'
'Oh, that admits of no doubt!' said Shubin. 'But allow me to be
inquisitive; is Anna Vassilyevna aware precisely what constituted my
offence?'
'No, I know nothing,' observed Anna Vassilyevna, craning forward her
head expectantly.
'O Good Lord!' exclaimed Nikolai Artemyevitch hurriedly, 'how often
have I prayed and besought, how often have I said how I hate these
scenes and explanations! When one's been away an age, and comes home
hoping for rest--talk of the family circle, _interieur_, being a family
man--and here one finds scenes and unpleasantnesses. There's not a
minute of peace. One's positively driven to the club ... or, or
elsewhere. A man is alive, he has a physical side, and it has its
claims, but here----'
And without concluding his sentence Nikolai Artemyevitch went quickly
out, slamming the door.
Anna Vassilyevna looked after him. 'To the club!' she muttered
bitterly: 'you are not going to the club, profligate? You've no one at
the club to give away my horses to--horses from my own stable--and the
grey ones too! My favourite colour. Yes, yes, fickle-hearted man,' she
went on raising her voice, 'you are not going to the club, As for you,
Paul,' she pursued, getting up, 'I wonder you're not ashamed. I should
have thought you would not be so childish. And now my head has begun
to ache. Where is Zoya, do you know?'
'I think she's upstairs in her room. The wise little fox always hides
in her hole when there's a storm in the air.'
'Come, please, please!' Anna Vassilyevna began searching about her.
'Haven't you seen my little glass of grated horse-radish? Paul, be so
good as not to make me angry for the future.'
'How make you angry, auntie? Give me your little hand to kiss. Your
horse-radish I saw on the little table in the boudoir.'
'Darya always leaves it about somewhere,' said Anna Vassilyevna, and
she walked away with a rustle of silk skirts.
Shubin was about to follow her, but he stopped on hearing Uvar
Ivanovitch's drawling voice behind him.
'I would . . . have given it you . . . young puppy,' the retired
cornet brought out in gasps.
Shubin went up to him. 'And what have I done, then, most venerable
Uvar Ivanovitch?'
'How! you are young, be respectful. Yes indeed.'
'Respectful to whom?'
'To whom? You know whom. Ay, grin away.'
Shubin crossed his arms on his breast.
'Ah, you type of the choice element in drama,' he exclaimed, 'you
primeval force of the black earth, cornerstone of the social fabric!'
Uvar Ivanovitch's fingers began to work. 'There, there, my boy, don't
provoke me.'
'Here,' pursued Shubin, 'is a gentleman, not young to judge by
appearances, but what blissful, child-like faith is still hidden in
him! Respect! And do you know, you primitive creature, what Nikolai
Artemyevitch was in a rage with me for? Why I spent the whole of this
morning with him at his German woman's; we were singing the three of
us--"Do not leave me." You should have heard us--that would have
moved you. We sang and sang, my dear sir--and well, I got bored; I
could see something was wrong, there was an alarming tenderness in the
air. And I began to tease them both. I was very successful. First she
was angry with me, then with him; and then he got angry with her, and
told her that he was never happy except at home, and he had a paradise
there; and she told him he had no morals; and I murmured "Ach!" to
her in German. He walked off and I stayed behind; he came here, to his
paradise that's to say, and he was soon sick of paradise, so he set
to grumbling. Well now, who do you consider was to blame?'
'You, of course,' replied Uvar Ivanovitch.
Shubin stared at him. 'May I venture to ask you, most reverend
knight-errant,' he began in an obsequious voice, 'these enigmatical
words you have deigned to utter as the result of some exercise of your
reflecting faculties, or under the influence of a momentary necessity
to start the vibration in the air known as sound?'
'Don't tempt me, I tell you,' groaned Uvar Ivanovitch.
Shubin laughed and ran away. 'Hi,' shouted Uvar Ivanovitch a quarter
of an hour later, 'you there ... a glass of spirits.'
A little page brought the glass of spirits and some salt fish on a
tray. Uvar Ivanovitch slowly took the glass from the tray and gazed a
long while with intense attention at it, as though he could not quite
understand what it was he had in his hand. Then he looked at the page
and asked him, 'Wasn't his name Vaska?' Then he assumed an air of
resignation, drank off the spirit, munched the herring and was slowly
proceeding to get his handkerchief out of his pocket. But the page had
long ago carried off and put away the tray and the decanter, eaten up
the remains of the herring and had time to go off to sleep, curled up
in a great-coat of his master's, while Uvar Ivanovitch still
continued to hold the handkerchief before him in his opened fingers,
and with the same intense attention gazed now at the window, now at
the floor and walls.
IX
Shubin went back to his room in the lodge and was just opening a book,
when Nikolai Artemyevitch's valet came cautiously into his room and
handed him a small triangular note, sealed with a thick heraldic
crest. 'I hope,' he found in the note, 'that you as a man of honour
will not allow yourself to hint by so much as a single word at a
certain promissory note which was talked of this morning. You are
acquainted with my position and my rules, the insignificance of the
sum in itself and the other circumstances; there are, in fine, family
secrets which must be respected, and family tranquillity is something
so sacred that only _etres sans cour_ (among whom I have no reason to
reckon you) would repudiate it! Give this note back to me.--N. S.'
Shubin scribbled below in pencil: 'Don't excite yourself, I'm not
quite a sneak yet,' and gave the note back to the man, and again began
upon the book. But it soon slipped out of his hands. He looked at the
reddening-sky, at the two mighty young pines standing apart from the
other trees, thought 'by day pines are bluish, but how magnificently
green they are in the evening,' and went out into the garden, in the
secret hope of meeting Elena there. He was not mistaken. Before him
on a path between the bushes he caught a glimpse of her dress. He went
after her, and when he was abreast with her, remarked:
'Don't look in my direction, I'm not worth it.'
She gave him a cursory glance, smiled cursorily, and walked on further
into the depths of the garden. Shubin went after her.
'I beg you not to look at me,' he began, 'and then I address you;
flagrant contradiction. But what of that? it's not the first time I've
contradicted myself. I have just recollected that I have never begged
your pardon as I ought for my stupid behaviour yesterday. You are not
angry with me, Elena Nikolaevna, are you?'
She stood still and did not answer him at once--not because she was
angry, but because her thoughts were far away.
'No,' she said at last, 'I am not in the least angry.' Shubin bit his
lip.
'What an absorbed . . . and what an indifferent face!' he muttered.
'Elena Nikolaevna,' he continued, raising his voice, 'allow me to
tell you a little anecdote. I had a friend, and this friend also had a
friend, who at first conducted himself as befits a gentleman but
afterwards took to drink. So one day early in the morning, my friend
meets him in the street (and by that time, note, the acquaintance has
been completely dropped) meets him and sees he is drunk. My friend
went and turned his back on him. But he ran up and said, "I would not
be angry," says he, "if you refused to recognise me, but why should
you turn your back on me? Perhaps I have been brought to this through
grief. Peace to my ashes!"'
Shubin paused.
'And is that all?' inquired Elena.
'Yes that's all.'
'I don't understand you. What are you hinting at? You told me just
now not to look your way.'
'Yes, and now I have told you that it's too bad to turn your back on
me.'
'But did I?' began Elena.
'Did you not?'
Elena flushed slightly and held out her hand to Shubin. He pressed it
warmly.
'Here you seem to have convicted me of a bad feeling,' said Elena,
'but your suspicion is unjust. I was not even thinking of Avoiding you.'
'Granted, granted. But you must acknowledge that at that minute you
had a thousand ideas in your head of which you would not confide one
to me. Eh? I've spoken the truth, I'm quite sure?'
'Perhaps so.'
'And why is it? why?'
'My ideas are not clear to myself,' said Elena.
'Then it's just the time for confiding them to some one else,' put in
Shubin. 'But I will tell you what it really is. You have a bad
opinion of me.'
'I?'
'Yes you; you imagine that everything in me is half-humbug because I
am an artist, that I am incapable not only of doing anything--in that
you are very likely right--but even of any genuine deep feeling; you
think that I am not capable even of weeping sincerely, that I'm a
gossip and a slanderer,--and all because I'm an artist. What luckless,
God-forsaken wretches we artists are after that! You, for instance, I
am ready to adore, and you don't believe in my repentance.'
'No, Pavel Yakovlitch, I believe in your repentance and I believe in
your tears. But it seems to me that even your repentance amuses
you--yes and your tears too.'
Shubin shuddered.
'Well, I see this is, as the doctors say, a hopeless case, _casus
incurabilis_. There is nothing left but to bow the head and submit.
And meanwhile, good Heavens, can it be true, can I possibly be
absorbed in my own egoism when there is a soul like this living at my
side? And to know that one will never penetrate into that soul, never
will know why it grieves and why it rejoices, what is working within
it, what it desires--whither it is going . . . Tell me,' he said after
a short silence, 'could you never under any circumstances love an
artist?'
Elena looked straight into his eyes.
'I don't think so, Pavel Yakovlitch; no.'
'Which was to be proved,' said Shubin with comical dejection. 'After
which I suppose it would be more seemly for me not to intrude on your
solitary walk. A professor would ask you on what data you founded your
answer no. I'm not a professor though, but a baby according to your
ideas; but one does not turn one's back on a baby, remember.
Good-bye! Peace to my ashes!'
Elena was on the point of stopping him, but after a moment's thought
she too said:
'Good-bye.'
Shubin went out of the courtyard. At a short distance from the
Stahov's house he was met by Bersenyev. He was walking with hurried
steps, his head bent and his hat pushed back on his neck.
'Andrei Petrovitch!' cried Shubin.
He stopped.
'Go on, go on,' continued Shubin, 'I only shouted, I won't detain
you--and you'd better slip straight into the garden--you'll find
Elena there, I fancy she's waiting for you . . . she's waiting for
some one anyway. . . . Do you understand the force of those words:
she is waiting! And do you know, my dear boy, an astonishing
circumstance? Imagine, it's two years now that I have been living in
the same house with her, I'm in love with her, and it's only just
now, this minute, that I've, not understood, but really seen her. I
have seen her and I lifted up my hands in amazement. Don't look at me,
please, with that sham sarcastic smile, which does not suit your sober
features. Well, now, I suppose you want to remind me of Annushka. What
of it? I don't deny it. Annushkas are on my poor level. And long life
to all Annushkas and Zoyas and even Augustina Christianovnas! You go
to Elena now, and I will make my way to--Annushka, you fancy? No, my
dear fellow, worse than that; to Prince Tchikurasov. He is a Maecenas
of a Kazan-Tartar stock, after the style of Volgin. Do you see this
note of invitation, these letters, R.S.V.P.? Even in the country
there's no peace for me. Addio!' Bersenyev listened to Shubin's tirade
in silence, looking as though he were just a little ashamed of him.
Then he went into the courtyard of the Stahovs' house. And Shubin did
really go to Prince Tchikurasov, to whom with the most cordial air he
began saying the most insulting things. The Maecenas of the Tartars of
Kazan chuckled; the Maecenas's guests laughed, but no one felt merry,
and every one was in a bad temper when the party broke up. So two
gentlemen slightly acquainted may be seen when they meet on the Nevsky
Prospect suddenly grinning at one another and pursing up their eyes
and noses and cheeks, and then, directly they have passed one another,
they resume their former indifferent, often cross, and generally
sickly, expression.
X
Elena met Bersenyev cordially, though not in the garden, but the
drawing-room, and at once, almost impatiently, renewed the
conversation of the previous day. She was alone; Nikolai Artemyevitch
had quietly slipped away. Anna Vassilyevna was lying down upstairs
with a wet bandage on her head. Zoya was sitting by her, the folds of
her skirt arranged precisely about her, and her little hands clasped
on her knees. Uvar Ivanovitch was reposing in the attic on a wide and
comfortable divan, known as a 'samo-son' or 'dozer.' Bersenyev
again mentioned his father; he held his memory sacred. Let us, too,
say a few words about him.
The owner of eighty-two serfs, whom he set free before his death, an
old Gottingen student, and disciple of the 'Illuminati,' the author
of a manuscript work on 'transformations or typifications of the
spirit in the world'--a work in which Schelling's philosophy,
Swedenborgianism and republicanism were mingled in the most original
fashion--Bersenyev's father brought him, while still a boy, to Moscow
immediately after his mother's death, and at once himself undertook
his education. He prepared himself for each lesson, exerted himself
with extraordinary conscientiousness and absolute lack of success: he
was a dreamer, a bookworm, and a mystic; he spoke in a dull,
hesitating voice, used obscure and roundabout expressions,
metaphorical by preference, and was shy even of his son, whom he loved
passionately. It was not surprising that his son was simply bewildered
at his lessons, and did not advance in the least. The old man (he was
almost fifty, he had married late in life) surmised at last that
things were not going quite right, and he placed his Andrei in a
school. Andrei began to learn, but he was not removed from his
father's supervision; his father visited him unceasingly, wearying the
schoolmaster to death with his instructions and conversation; the
teachers, too, were bored by his uninvited visits; he was for ever
bringing them some, as they said, far-fetched books on education.
Even the schoolboys were embarrassed at the sight of the old man's
swarthy, pockmarked face, his lank figure, invariably clothed in a
sort of scanty grey dresscoat. The boys did not suspect then that this
grim, unsmiling old gentleman, with his crane-like gait and his long
nose, was at heart troubling and yearning over each one of them almost
as over his own son. He once conceived the idea of talking to them
about Washington: 'My young nurslings,' he began, but at the first
sounds of his strange voice the young nurslings ran away. The good old
Gottingen student did not lie on a bed of roses; he was for ever
weighed down by the march of history, by questions and ideas of every
kind. When young Bersenyev entered the university, his father used to
drive with him to the lectures, but his health was already beginning
to break up. The events of the year 1848 shook him to the foundation
(it necessitated the re-writing of his whole book), and he died in the
winter of 1853, before his son's time at the university was over, but
he was able beforehand to congratulate him on his degree, and to
consecrate him to the service of science. 'I pass on the torch to
you,' he said to him two hours before his death. 'I held it while I
could; you, too, must not let the light grow dim before the end.'
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