Books: On the Eve
I >>
Ivan Turgenev >> On the Eve
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14
'I worked it myself,' observed the priest's wife.
Elena came away from the window.
Insarov did not stay more than a quarter of an hour at the Stahovs'.
Elena watched him secretly. He was restless and ill at ease. As
before, he did not know where to look, and he went away strangely and
suddenly; he seemed to vanish.
Slowly passed that day for Elena; still more slowly dragged on the
long, long night. Elena sat on her bed, her arms clasping her knees,
and her head laid on them; then she walked to the window, pressed her
burning forehead against the cold glass, and thought and thought,
going over and over the same thoughts till she was exhausted. Her
heart seemed turned to stone, she did not feel it, but the veins in
her head throbbed painfully, her hair stifled her, and her lips were
dry. 'He will come . . . he did not say good-bye to mamma ... he will
not deceive me. . . Can Andrei Petrovitch have been right? It cannot
be. . . He didn't promise to come in words. . . Can I have parted
from him for ever----?' Those were the thoughts that never left her,
literally never left her; they did not come and come again; they
were for ever turning like a mist moving about in her brain. 'He loves
me!' suddenly flashed through her, setting her whole nature on fire,
and she gazed fixedly into the darkness; a secret smile parted her
lips, seen by none, but she quickly shook her head, and clasped her
hands behind her neck, and again her former thought hung like a mist
about her. Before morning she undressed and went to bed, but she could
not sleep. The first fiery ray of sunlight fell upon her room. . .
'Oh, if he loves me!' she cried suddenly, and unabashed by the light
shining on her, she opened wide her arms . . . She got up, dressed,
and went down. No one in the house was awake yet. She went into the
garden, but in the garden it was peaceful, green, and fresh; the birds
chirped so confidingly, and the flowers peeped out so gaily that she
could not bear it. 'Oh!' she thought, 'if it is true, no blade of
grass is happy as I. But is it true?' She went back to her room and,
to kill time, she began changing her dress. But everything slipped
out of her hands, and she was still sitting half-dressed before her
looking-glass when she was summoned to morning tea. She went down; her
mother noticed her pallor, but only said: 'How interesting you are
to-day,' and taking her in in a glance, she added: 'How well that
dress suits you; you should always put it on when you want to make an
impression on any one.' Elena made no reply, and sat down in a corner.
Meanwhile it struck nine o'clock; there were only two haurs now till
eleven. Elena tried to read, then to sew, then to read again, then she
vowed to herself to walk a hundred times up and down one alley, and
paced it a hundred times; then for a long time she watched Anna
Vassilyevna laying out the cards for patience . . . and looked at the
clock; it was not yet ten. Shubin came into the drawing-room. She
tried to talk to him, and begged his pardon, what for she did not know
herself. . . . Every word she uttered did not cost her effort exactly,
but roused a kind of amazement in herself. Shubin bent over her. She
expected ridicule, raised her eyes, and saw before her a sorrowful and
sympathetic face. . . . She smiled at this face. Shubin, too, smiled
at her without speaking, and gently left her. She tried to keep him,
but could not at once remember what to call him. At last it struck
eleven. Then she began to wait, to wait, and to listen. She could do
nothing now; she ceased even to think. Her heart was stirred into
life again, and began beating louder and louder, and strange, to say,
the time seemed flying by. A quarter of an hour passed, then half an
hour; a few minutes more, as Elena thought, had passed, when suddenly
she started; the clock had struck not twelve, but one. 'He is not
coming; he is going away without saying good-bye.' . . . The blood
rushed to her head with this thought. She felt that she was gasping
for breath, that she was on the point of sobbing. . . . She ran to her
own room, and fell with her face in her clasped hands on to the bed.
For half an hour she lay motionless; the tears flowed through her
fingers on to the pillow. Suddenly she raised herself and sat up,
something strange was passing in her, her face changed, her wet eyes
grew dry and shining, her brows were bent and her lips compressed.
Another half-hour passed. Elena, for the last time, strained her ears
to listen: was not that the familiar voice floating up to her? She
got up, put on her hat and gloves, threw a cape over her shoulders,
and, slipping unnoticed out of the house, she went with swift steps
along the road leading to Bersenyev's lodging.
XVIII
Elena walked with her head bent and her eyes fixed straight before
her. She feared nothing, she considered nothing; she wanted to see
Insarov once more. She went on, not noticing that the sun had long ago
disappeared behind heavy black clouds, that the wind was roaring by
gusts in the trees and blowing her dress about her, that the dust had
suddenly risen and was flying in a cloud along the road. . . . Large
drops of rain were falling, she did not even notice it; but it fell
faster and heavier, there were flashes of lightning and peals of
thunder. Elena stood still looking round. . . . Fortunately for her,
there was a little old broken-down chapel that had been built over a
disused well not far from the place where she was overtaken by the
storm. She ran to it and got under the low roof. The rain fell in
torrents; the sky was completely overcast. In dumb despair Elena
stared at the thick network of fast-falling drops. Her last hope of
getting a sight of Insarov was vanishing. A little old beggar-woman
came into the chapel, shook herself, said with a curtsy: 'Out of the
rain, good lady,' and with many sighs and groans sat down on a ledge
near the well. Elena put her hand into her pocket; the old woman
noticed this action and a light came into her face, yellow and
wrinkled now, though once handsome. 'Thank you, dear gracious lady,'
she was beginning. There happened to be no purse in Elena's pocket,
but the old woman was still holding out her hand.
'I have no money, grannie,' said Elena, 'but here, take this, it will
be of use for something.'
She gave her her handkerchief.
'O-oh, my pretty lady,' said the beggar, 'what do you give your
handkerchief to me for? For a wedding-present to my grandchild when
she's married? God reward you for your goodness!'
A peal of thunder was heard.
'Lord Jesus Christ,' muttered the beggar-woman, and she crossed
herself three times. 'Why, haven't I seen you before,' she added after
a brief pause. 'Didn't you give me alms in Christ's name?'
Elena looked more attentively at the old woman and recognised her.
'Yes, grannie,' she answered, 'wasn't it you asked me why I was so
sorrowful?'
'Yes, darling, yes. I fancied I knew you. And I think you've a
heart-ache still. You seem in trouble now. Here's your handkerchief,
too, wet from tears to be sure. Oh, you young people, you all have the
same sorrow, a terrible woe it is!'
'What sorrow, grannie?'
'Ah, my good young lady, you can't deceive an old woman like me. I
know what your heart is heavy over; your sorrow's not an uncommon
one. Sure, I have been young too, darling. I have been through that
trouble too. Yes. And I'll tell you something, for your goodness to
me; you've won a good man, not a light of love, you cling to him
alone; cling to him stronger than death. If it comes off, it comes
off,--if not, it's in God's hands. Yes. Why are you wondering at me?
I'm a fortune-teller. There, I'll carry away your sorrow with your
handkerchief. I'll carry it away, and it's over. See the rain's
less; you wait a little longer. It's not the first time I've been wet.
Remember, darling; you had a sorrow, the sorrow has flown, and
there's no memory of it. Good Lord, have mercy on us!'
The beggar-woman got up from the edge of the well, went out of the
chapel, and stole off on her way. Elena stared after her in
bewilderment. 'What does this mean?' she murmured involuntarily.
The rain grew less and less, the sun peeped out for an instant. Elena
was just preparing to leave her shelter. . . . Suddenly, ten paces
from the chapel, she saw Insarov. Wrapt in a cloak he was walking
along the very road by which Elena had come; he seemed to be hurrying
home.
She clasped the old rail of the steps for support, and tried to call
to him, but her voice failed her. . . Insarov had already passed by
without raising his head.
'Dmitri Nikanorovitch!' she said at last.
Insarov stopped abruptly, looked round. . . . For the first minute he
did not know Elena, but he went up to her at once. 'You! you here!'
he cried.
She walked back in silence into the chapel. Insarov followed Elena.
'You here?' he repeated.
She was still silent, and only gazed upon him with a strange, slow,
tender look. He dropped his eyes.
'You have come from our house?' she asked.
'No ... not from your house.'
'No?' repeated Elena, and she tried to smile. 'Is that how you keep
your promises? I have been expecting you ever since the morning.'
'I made no promise yesterday, if you remember, Elena Nikolaevna.'
Again Elena faintly smiled, and she passed her hand over her face.
Both face and hands were very white.
'You meant, then, to go away without saying good-bye to us?'
'Yes,' replied Insarov in a surly, thick voice.
'What? After our friendship, after the talks, after everything. . . .
Then if I had not met you here by chance.' (Elena's voice began to
break, and she paused an instant) . . . 'you would have gone away
like that, without even shaking hands for the last time, and you would
not have cared?'
Insarov turned away. 'Elena Nikolaevnas don't talk like that, please.
I'm not over happy as it is. Believe me, my decision has cost me
great effort. If you knew----'
'I don't want to know,' Elena interposed with dismay, 'why you are
going. ... It seems it's necessary. It seems we must part. You would
not wound your friends without good reason. But, can friends part like
this? And we are friends, aren't we?'
'No,' said Insarov.
'What?' murmured Elena. Her cheeks were overspread with a faint
flush.
'That's just why I am going away--because we are not friends. Don't
force me into saying what I don't want to say, and what I won't say.'
'You used to be so open with me,' said Elena rather reproachfully.
'Do you remember?'
'I used to be able to be open, then I had nothing to conceal; but
now----'
'But now?' queried Elena.
'But now . . . now I must go away. Goodbye.'
If, at that instant, Insarov had lifted his eyes to Elena, he would
have seen that her face grew brighter and brighter as he frowned and
looked gloomy; but he kept his eyes obstinately fixed on the ground.
'Well, good-bye, Dmitri Nikanorovitch,' she began. 'But at least,
since we have met, give me your hand now.'
Insarov was stretching out his hand. 'No, I can't even do that,' he
said, and turned away again.
'You can't?'
'No, I can't. Good-bye.' And he moved away to the entrance of the
chapel.
'Wait a little longer,' said Elena. 'You seem afraid of me. But I am
braver than you,' she added, a faint tremor passing suddenly over her
whole body. 'I can tell you . . . shall I? ... how it was you found me
here? Do you know where I was going?'
Insarov looked in bewilderment at Elena,
'I was going to you.'
'To me?'
Elena hid her face. 'You mean to force me to say that I love you,'
she whispered. 'There, I have said it.'
'Elena!' cried Insarov.
She took his hands, looked at him, and fell on his breast.
He held her close to him, and said nothing. There was no need for him
to tell her he loved her. From that cry alone, from the instant
transformation of the whole man, from the heaving of the breast to
which she clung so confidingly, from the touch of his finger tips in
her hair, Elena could feel that she was loved. He did not speak, and
she needed no words. 'He is here, he loves me . . . what need of more?'
The peace of perfect bliss, the peace of the harbour reached after
storm, of the end attained, that heavenly peace which gives
significance and beauty even to death, filled her with its divine
flood. She desired nothing, for she had gained all. 'O my brother,
my friend, my dear one!' her lips were whispering, while she did not
know whose was this heart, his or her own, which beat so blissfully,
and melted against her bosom.
He stood motionless, folding in his strong embrace the young life
surrendered to him; he felt against his heart this new, infinitely
precious burden; a passion of tenderness, of gratitude unutterable,
was crumbling his hard will to dust, and tears unknown till now stood
in his eyes.
She did not weep; she could only repeat, 'O my friend, my brother!'
'So you will follow me everywhere?' he said to her, a quarter of an
hour later, still enfolding her and keeping her close to him in his
arms.
'Everywhere, to the ends of the earth. Where you are, I will be.'
'And you are not deceiving yourself, you know your parents will never
consent to our marriage?'
'I don't deceive myself; I know that.'
'You know that I'm poor--almost a beggar.'
'I know.'
'That I'm not a Russian, that it won't be my fate to live in Russia,
that you will have to break all your ties with your country, with your
people.'
'I know, I know.'
'Do you know, too, that I have given myself up to a difficult,
thankless cause, that I ... that we shall have to expose ourselves not
to dangers only, but to privation, humiliation, perhaps----'
'I know, I know all--I love you----'
'That you will have to give up all you are accustomed to, that out
there alone among strangers, you will be forced perhaps to work----'
She laid her hand on his lips. 'I love you, my dear one.'
He began hotly kissing her slender, rosy hand. Elena did not draw it
away from his lips, and with a kind of childish delight, with smiling
curiosity, watched how he covered with kisses, first the palm, then
the fingers. . . .
All at once she blushed and hid her face upon his breast.
He lifted her head tenderly and looked steadily into her eyes.
'Welcome, then, my wife, before God and men!'
XIX
An hour later, Elena, with her hat in one hand, her cape in the other,
walked slowly into the drawing-room of the villa. Her hair was in
slight disorder; on each cheek was to be seen a small bright spot of
colour, the smile would not leave her lips, her eyes were nearly
shutting and half hidden under the lids; they, too, were smiling.
She could scarcely move for weariness, and this weariness was pleasant
to her; everything, indeed, was pleasant to her. Everything seemed
sweet and friendly to her. Uvar Ivanovitch was sitting at the window;
she went up to him, laid her hand on his shoulder, stretched a little,
and involuntarily, as it seemed, she laughed.
'What is it?' he inquired, astonished.
She did not know what to say. She felt inclined to kiss Uvar
Ivanovitch.
'How he splashed!' she explained at last.
But Uvar Ivanovitch did not stir a muscle, and continued to look with
amazement at Elena. She dropped her hat and cape on to him.
'Dear Uvar Ivanovitch,' she said, 'I am sleepy and tired,' and again
she laughed and sank into a low chair near him.
'H'm,' grunted Uvar Ivanovitch, flourishing his fingers, 'then you
ought--yes----'
Elena was looking round her and thinking, 'From all this I soon must
part . . . and strange--I have no dread, no doubt, no regret. . . .
No, I am sorry for mamma.' Then the little chapel rose again before
her mind, again her voice was echoing in it, and she felt his arms
about her. Joyously, though faintly, her heart fluttered; weighed
down by the languor of happiness. The old beggar-woman recurred to her
mind. 'She did really bear away my sorrow,' she thought. 'Oh, how
happy I am! how undeservedly! how soon!' If she had let herself go
in the least she would have melted into sweet, endless tears. She
could only restrain them by laughing. Whatever attitude she fell into
seemed to her the easiest, most comfortable possible; she felt as if
she were being rocked to sleep. All her movements were slow and soft;
what had become of her awkwardness, her haste? Zoya came in; Elena
decided that she had never seen a more charming little face; Anna
Vassilyevna came in; Elena felt a pang--but with what tenderness she
embraced her mother and kissed her on the forehead near the hair,
already slightly grey! Then she went away to her own room; how
everything smiled upon her there! With what a sense of shamefaced
triumph and tranquillity she sat down on her bed--the very bed on
which, only three hours ago, she had spent such bitter moments! 'And
yet, even then, I knew he loved me,' she thought, 'even before . . .
Ah, no! it's a sin. You are my wife,' she whispered, hiding her face
in her hands and falling on her knees.
Towards the evening, she grew more thoughtful. Sadness came upon her
at the thought that she would not soon see Insarov. He could not
without awakening suspicion remain at Bersenyev's, and so this was
what he and Elena had resolved on. Insarov was to return to Moscow and
to come over to visit them twice before the autumn; on her side she
promised to write him letters, and, if it were possible, to arrange a
meeting with him somewhere near Kuntsov. She went down to the
drawing-room to tea, and found there all the household and Shubin, who
looked at her sharply directly she came in; she tried to talk to him
in a friendly way as of old, but she dreaded his penetration, she was
afraid of herself. She felt sure that there was good reason for his
having left her alone for more than a fortnight. Soon Bersenyev
arrived, and gave Insarov's respects to Anna Vassilyevna with an
apology for having gone back to Moscow without calling to take leave
of her. Insarov's name was for the first time during the day
pronounced before Elena. She felt that she reddened; she realised at
the same time that she ought to express regret at the sudden departure
of such a pleasant acquaintance; but she could not force herself to
hypocrisy, and continued to sit without stirring or speaking, while
Anna Vassilyevna sighed and lamented. Elena tried to keep near
Bersenyev; she was not afraid of him, though he even knew part of her
secret; she was safe under his wing from Shubin, who still persisted
in staring at her--not mockingly but attentively. Bersenyev, too, was
thrown into perplexity during the evening: he had expected to see
Elena more gloomy. Happily for her, an argument sprang up about art
between him and Shubin; she moved apart and heard their voices as it
were through a dream. By degrees, not only they, but the whole room,
everything surrounding her, seemed like a dream--everything: the
samovar on the table, and Uvar Ivanovitch's short waistcoat, and
Zoya's polished finger-nails, and the portrait in oils of the Grand
Duke Constantine Pavlovitch on the wall; everything retreated,
everything was wrapped in mist, everything ceased to exist. Only she
felt sorry for them all. 'What are they living for?' she thought.
'Are you sleepy, Lenotchka?' her mother asked her. She did not hear
the question.
'A half untrue insinuation, do you say?' These words, sharply
uttered by Shubin, suddenly awakened Elena's attention. 'Why,' he
continued, 'the whole sting lies in that. A true insinuation makes one
wretched--that's unchristian--and to an untrue insinuation a man is
indifferent--that's stupid, but at a half true one he feels vexed and
impatient. For instance, if I say that Elena Nikolaevna is in love
with one of us, what sort of insinuation would that be, eh?'
'Ah, Monsieur Paul,' said Elena, 'I should like to show myself vexed,
but really I can't. I am so tired.'
'Why don't you go to bed?' observed Anna Vassilyevna, who was always
drowsy in the evening herself, and consequently always eager to send
the others to bed. 'Say good-night to me, and go in God's name;
Andrei Petrovitch will excuse you.'
Elena kissed her mother, bowed to all and went away. Shubin
accompanied her to the door. 'Elena Nikolaevna,' he whispered to her
in the doorway, 'you trample on Monsieur Paul, you mercilessly walk
over him, but Monsieur Paul blesses you and your little feet, and the
slippers on your little feet, and the soles of your little slippers.'
Elena shrugged her shoulders, reluctantly held out her hand to
him--not the one Insarov had kissed--and going up to her room, at
once undressed, got into bed, and fell asleep. She slept a deep,
unstirring sleep, as even children rarely sleep--the sleep of a child
convalescent after sickness, when its mother sits near its cradle and
watches it, and listens to its breathing.
XX
'Come to my room for a minute,' Shubin said to Bersenyev, directly the
latter had taken leave of Anna Vassilyevna: 'I have something to
show you.'
Bersenyev followed him to his attic. He was surprised to see a number
of studies, statuettes, and busts, covered with damp cloths, set about
in all the corners of the room.
'Well I see you have been at work in earnest,' he observed to Shubin.
'One must do something,' he answered. 'If one thing doesn't do, one
must try another. However, like a true Corsican, I am more concerned
with revenge than with pure art. _Trema, Bisanzia!_'
'I don't understand you,' said Bersenyev.
'Well, wait a minute. Deign to look this way, gracious friend and
benefactor, my vengeance number one.'
Shubin uncovered one figure, and Bersenyev saw a capital bust of
Insarov, an excellent likeness. The features of the face had been
correctly caught by Shubin to the minutest detail, and he had given
him a fine expression, honest, generous, and bold.
Bersenyev went into raptures over it.
'That's simply exquisite!' he cried. 'I congratulate you. You must
send it to the exhibition! Why do you call that magnificent work your
vengeance?'
'Because, sir, I intended to offer this magnificent work as you call
it to Elena Nikolaevna on her name day. Do you see the allegory? We
are not blind, we see what goes on about us, but we are gentlemen, my
dear sir, and we take our revenge like gentlemen. . . . But here,'
added Shubin, uncovering another figure, 'as the artist according to
modern aesthetic principles enjoys the enviable privilege of embodying
in himself every sort of baseness which he can turn into a gem of
creative art, we in the production of this gem, number two, have taken
vengeance not as gentlemen, but simply en canaille'
He deftly drew off the cloth, and displayed to Bersenyev's eyes a
statuette in Dantan's style, also of Insarov. Anything cleverer and
more spiteful could not be imagined. The young Bulgarian was
represented as a ram standing on his hind-legs, butting forward with
his horns. Dull solemnity and aggressiveness, obstinacy, clumsiness
and narrowness were simply printed on the visage of the 'sire of the
woolly flock,' and yet the likeness to Insarov was so striking that
Bersenyev could not help laughing.
'Eh? is it amusing?' said Shubin. 'Do you recognise the hero? Do
you advise me to send it too to the exhibition? That, my dear fellow,
I intend as a present for myself on my own name day. . . . Your honour
will permit me to play the fool.'
And Shubin gave three little leaps, kicking himself behind with his
heels.
Bersenyev picked up the cloth off the floor--and threw it over the
statuette.
'Ah, you, magnanimous'--began Shubin. 'Who the devil was it in
history was so particularly magnanimous? Well, never mind! And now,'
he continued, with melancholy triumph, uncovering a third rather large
mass of clay, 'you shall behold something which will show you the
humility and discernment of your friend. You will realise that he,
like a true artist again, feels the need and the use of
self-castigation. Behold!'
The cloth was lifted and Bersenyev saw two heads, modelled side by
side and close as though growing together. . . . He did not at
once know what was the subject, but looking closer, he recognised in
one of them Annushka, in the other Shubin himself. They were, however,
rather caricatures than portraits. Annushka was represented as a
handsome fat girl with a low forehead, eyes lost in layers of fat, and
a saucily turned-up nose. Her thick lips had an insolent curve; her
whole face expressed sensuality, carelessness, and boldness, not
without goodnature. Himself Shubin had modelled as a lean emaciated
rake, with sunken cheeks, his thin hair hanging in weak wisps about
his face, a meaningless expression in his dim eyes, and his nose sharp
and thin as a dead man's.
Bersenyev turned away with disgust. 'A nice pair, aren't they, my dear
fellow?' said Shubin; 'won't you graciously compose a suitable
title? For the first two I have already thought of titles. On the
bust shall be inscribed: "A hero resolving to liberate his country."
On the statuette: "Look out, sausage-eating Germans!" And for this
work what do you think of "The future of the artist Pavel Yakovlitch
Shubin?" Will that do?'
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14