“You’re joking!”
“I’ve tried it, I tell you,” returned Shubin, suddenly grinning and brightening up, “and it tastes horrible, my friend – won’t go down your throat and makes your head beat like a drum afterwards. The great Lushikhin himself – Kharlampy Lushchikhin, the biggest guzzler in Moscow and, some say, in the whole of Russia – declared that I’ll get nowhere with it. In his words, the bottle had nothing to say to me.”
Bersenev was about to knock the group over, but Shubin stopped him:
“No, my friend, don’t: it’ll serve as a lesson, as a scarecrow.”
Bersenev laughed.
“In that case, perhaps I’ll spare your scarecrow,” he said. “Long live pure, eternal art!”
“Yes, long may it live!” Shubin said in turn. “With it, the Good is better and the Bad is no disaster!”
The two friends shook hands warmly and parted.
21
When she woke up, Yelena’s first sensation was one of joyful trepidation. “Is it possible? Is it possible?” she kept asking herself, and her heart grew faint with happiness. Memories flooded in on her; she was engulfed by them. Then, once again, she was blessed with rapturous silence. But, in the course of the morning, anxiety gradually took hold of her, and in the following days she grew listless and bored. Admittedly, she now knew what she wanted, but things were no easier for her. The never-to-be-forgotten meeting had permanently wrenched her out of the rut she had been in; she was no longer in it, but far away, while everything around her went on as normal, in its usual way, as if nothing had changed. Her former life proceeded as before, relying, as before, on Yelena’s participation and cooperation. She tried to begin a letter to Insarov, but could not even manage that; the words which spilt out onto the paper were part lifeless, part mendacious. She put an end to her diary, drawing a line under the last entry. That was the past, and now all her thoughts, all her being, were on the future. Her heart was heavy. To sit with her unsuspecting mother, to listen to her every word, to answer her and speak to her, seemed somehow criminal to Yelena. She felt within herself the presence of some kind of falsehood; she felt a sense of self-loathing, although she had nothing to be ashamed of. More than once there arose within her an almost irresistible desire to tell all without concealment, whatever might happen subsequently. “Why is it,” she thought, “that Dmitry didn’t take me off wherever he wanted from that shrine? Did he not tell me I was his wife in the eyes of God? Why am I here?” She suddenly began to shun everyone, even Uvar Ivanovich, who was more puzzled and finger-wagging than ever. Her whole environment no longer seemed kind, affectionate or even dreamlike; it oppressed her like a nightmare, a dead, unmoving burden; it was as if it reproached her, were disgruntled with her, did not want to know her… “All the same, you’re one of us,” it said. Even her poor nurslings, the maltreated birds and animals, gave her – or at least she imagined they did – suspicious and hostile looks. She became embarrassed and ashamed about her own feelings. “After all it’s my home,” she thought, “my family, my parents…”
“No, it is no longer your country, no longer your family,” a second voice kept reiterating. She was seized by fear and annoyed at her faint-heartedness. Her trials and tribulations were only just beginning, and already she was losing patience… Was this what she had promised?
She did not regain her composure quickly. But a week passed, then another… Yelena grew somewhat calmer and became accustomed to her new situation. She wrote two short notes to Insarov and took them to the post herself – embarrassment and pride would not have allowed her to entrust them to her maid for anything. She was already beginning to expect Insarov’s arrival… But instead of him, one fine morning, there arrived Nikolai Artemyevich.
22
Never before had anyone in the house seen retired Guards Lieutenant Stakhov in such a foul and at the same time self-confident and pompous mood as on that day. He went into the drawing room in his coat and hat – slowly, taking large strides and clicking his heels; he went up to the mirror and spent a long time looking at himself, shaking his head and biting his lips with calm severity. Anna Vasilyevna greeted him with outward excitement and secret delight (she never greeted him any other way); he did not utter a word of greeting or even remove his hat, silently allowing Yelena to kiss his chamois glove. Anna Vasilyevna began to ask him about his health cure, but he gave no answer. Uvar Ivanovich appeared; Stakhov glanced at him and said: “Bah!” He generally treated Uvar Ivanovich coldly and condescendingly, although he did acknowledge that in him were “traces of true Stakhov blood”. It’s a well-known fact that almost all Russian noble families are convinced of the existence of exclusive marks of breeding that are peculiar to them alone; we have more than once heard talk “between ourselves” of “Podsalaskin noses” and “Perepreyev necks”. Zoya came in and sat down in front of Nikolai Artemyevich. He grunted, subsided into an armchair, ordered some coffee and only then removed his hat. He was brought some coffee; he drank a cup and, looking at everyone in turn, said through gritted teeth: “Sortez, s’il vous plaît,”* and, turning to his wife, added: “Et vous, madame, restez, je vous prie”.*
Everyone, except Anna Vasilyevna, left the room. Her head began to spin with excitement. The solemnity of Nikolai Artemyevich’s demeanour impressed her. She was expecting something out of the ordinary.
“What is this?” she exclaimed as soon as the door had closed.
Nikolai Artemyevich threw an indifferent glance at Anna Vasilyevna.
“Nothing in particular. Where did this habit of looking like some sort of victim come from?” he began, needlessly lowering the corners of his mouth with every word. “I merely wanted to warn you that you’ll have a new guest at dinner today.”
“Who?”
“Kurnatovsky, Yegor Andreyevich. You don’t know him. He’s a chief secretary* in the Senate.”
“He’ll be dining with us today?”
“Yes.”
“And you ordered everyone to leave, merely to tell me that?”
Nikolai Artemyevich again threw a glance at Anna Vasilyevna, this time an ironic glance.
“Does that surprise you? Don’t be premature with your surprise.”
He fell silent. Anna Vasilyevna also said nothing for the moment.
“I would like…” she began.
“I know you always considered me an ‘immoral’ man,” Nikolai Artemyevich suddenly began.
“Me?” muttered Anna Vasilyevna in amazement.
“You may even be right. I won’t deny I really have, on occasion, given you just cause for displeasure” – the words “my grey horses” flashed through Anna Vasilyevna’s mind – “though you yourself must agree that, given the current state of your constitution—”
“But I’m not blaming you at all, Nikolai Artemyevich.”
“C’est possible. In any case I don’t intend to justify myself. Time will justify me. But I consider it my duty to assure you that I’m conscious of my obligations and know how to look after the… the interests of the… of the family entrusted to my care.”
“What does all this mean?” thought Anna Vasilyevna. (She could not know that the previous evening, in the corner of the English Club* lounge, an argument had developed about Russians’ inability to “speechify”. “Which of you can talk? Can you name anyone?” cried one of the disputants. “Well, Stakhov, for example,” said another, pointing at Nikolai Artemyevich, who happened to be standing nearby and almost squealed with pleasure.)
“For example,” Nikolai Artemyevich went on, “there’s my daughter Yelena. Don’t you think it’s time for her to step firmly onto the path… of marriage, I mean? This philosophizing and philanthropy is all very well, up to a certain age. It’s time for her to stop being nebulous, to quit the society of artists of all sorts, of schoolboys and Montenegrins of some description, and to become like everyone else.”
“Be so good as to hear me out,” replied Nikolai Artemyevich, with the same lowering of the corners of his mouth. “I’ll tell you straight, without beating about the bush: I became acquainted with this young man – Mr Kurnatovsky – and got to know him well, in the hope of his becoming my son-in-law. I make so bold as to think that, having seen him, you will not accuse me of partiality or precipitate judgement.” (Nikolai Artemyevich admired his own eloquence even as he spoke.) “Highly educated, a law graduate, excellent manners, thirty-three years old, a chief secretary, a Collegiate Councillor,* has the Order of St Stanislaus.* I hope that, in fairness, you will concede that I am not one of those pères de comédie* who are obsessed with rank. But you yourself told me that Yelena Nikolayevna likes business-like, positive people: Yegor Andreyevich is at the top of his profession. On the other hand, at the moment my daughter has a weakness for magnanimous acts; well, you should know that Yegor Andreyevich, as soon as he had the possibility – you understand me, the possibility – of living comfortably on his salary, immediately declined, in favour of his brothers, the annual sum assigned to him by his father.”
“And who is his father?” asked Anna Vasilyevna.
“His father? His father is also well known in his own field, a man of the highest moral fibre, un vrai stoïcien.* I think he’s a retired major and runs all the estates of the Counts B…”
“Ah!” said Anna Vasilyevna.
“Ah? What do you mean ‘Ah’? Have you been infected by prejudice?”
“But I didn’t say anything,” Anna Vasilyevna began.
“Yes you did. You said ‘Ah’!… However that might be, I considered it necessary to alert you to my mode of thought, and I venture to think… I venture to hope that Mr Kurnatovsky will be received à bras ouverts.* This isn’t a Montenegrin of some sort.”
“Of course. I’ll just need to summon Vanka the cook and tell him to add a place setting.”
“You realize I’m not going into that,” said Nikolai Artemyevich. He stood up, put on his hat and, whistling (he’d heard from someone that one could only whistle at home in one’s dacha or in the Manège),* took himself off for a stroll in the garden. Shubin watched him from the window of his quarters and silently stuck his tongue out at him.
At ten minutes to four a stagecoach drew up at the front entrance of the Stakhov dacha, and a man, still in the prime of life and of pleasing appearance, simply and elegantly dressed, got out and gave instructions that he should be announced. This was Yegor Andreyevich Kurnatovsky.
Incidentally, this is what Yelena wrote to Insarov the following day:
Dear Dmitry, congratulate me: I have a fiancé. He dined with us yesterday. I think Papa got to know him at the English Club and invited him. Of course, he wasn’t my fiancé when he arrived yesterday. But my kind Mama, to whom Papa had conveyed his hopes, whispered in my ear what sort of a guest he was. His name is Yegor Andreyevich Kurnatovsky; he’s a chief secretary in the Senate. First, I’ll describe his appearance to you. He’s quite small, not as tall as you, and is well built; he has regular features, close-cropped hair and long side whiskers. He has small eyes (like you), which are brown and quick; his lips are flat and broad; there is a permanent smile in his eyes and on his lips; it’s a kind of official, as it were, dutiful smile. He conducts himself very straightforwardly and speaks precisely. Everything about him is precise. He walks, laughs and eats as though he were conducting business. “How she’s studied him,” you are possibly thinking at this moment. Yes – in order to describe him to you. And how could I not study my fiancé! There’s something of the iron man about him… and something at the same time obtuse, vacuous – and honest. They say he is indeed very honest. There’s something of the iron man about you too, but not like him. At table he sat beside me; Shubin sat opposite us. At first the conversation was about some commercial enterprises or other. They say he knows a lot about them and almost quit government service in order to take on a large factory. Not a wise decision! Then Shubin began talking about the theatre; Mr Kurnatovsky declared – and, I must admit, without false modesty – that he knew nothing about art. That reminded me of you… but then I thought, no, Dmitry and I don’t understand art in a quite different way. Kurnatovsky seemed to mean: I don’t understand art and it’s not even necessary, but in a well-ordered state it’s allowed. By the way, he’s fairly indifferent both to Petersburg and to comme il faut;* once he even called himself a proletarian. We are unskilled labourers, he said. I thought: if Dmitry had said that, I wouldn’t have liked it, but let this fellow say what he likes and boast! He was very polite with me, but it always felt as if a very, very condescending superior were speaking to me. When he wants to praise someone he says that they have principles – that’s his favourite word. I’ve no doubt he’s self-confident, hard-working and capable of sacrificing himself (you can see I’m being impartial) – that is, of sacrificing his own interests, but he’s a great despot. You wouldn’t want to fall into his hands! At table they began to talk about bribes…
“I realize,” he said, “that in many cases a man who takes bribes is not guilty: he could not act in any other way. But all the same, if he gets caught, he must be crushed.”
“Crush an innocent man!” I cried.
“Yes, for the sake of principle.”
“What principle?” asked Shubin.
Kurnatovsky, partly nonplussed and partly surprised, said:
“There’s no point in explaining that.”
Papa, who seems to revere him, put in that, of course, there was no point, and, to my irritation, the conversation ended. In the evening, Bersenev came and got into a frightful quarrel with him. I have never before seen our good Andrei Petrovich so agitated. Mr Kurnatovsky did not in any way deny the benefits of science, universities and so on… but at the same time I could understand Bersenev’s indignation. Kurnatovsky views all that as a kind of gymnastics. After dinner Shubin came up to me and said: “This fellow and someone else we know” (he can’t bring himself to say your name) “are both practical people – but look what a difference there is between them: the one has a genuine, living, life-given ideal; the other doesn’t even have a sense of duty, merely official honesty and pointless efficiency.” Shubin is clever, and I have remembered his words for your benefit, but to my mind you have nothing in common. You have faith, but he doesn’t, because you can’t have faith in yourself alone.
It was late when he left, but Mama managed to tell me that he liked me and that Papa was delighted… I wonder if he’d said of me that I had principles? I almost replied to Mama that I was very sorry but I already had a husband. Why does Papa dislike you so much? With Mama we could still somehow…
Oh, my dear. I’ve described this gentleman in such detail in order to suppress my longing. I can’t live without you; I see you and hear you all the time… I’m waiting for you, only not in this house, as you wanted – imagine how difficult and awkward that would be! – but, you know, where I told you when I wrote, in the wood… Oh, my dear! How I love you!
23
Some three weeks after Kurnatovsky’s visit, to Yelena’s great joy, Anna Vasilyevna moved to Moscow, to her large wooden house on Prechistenka,* a house with columns, white lyres and festoons above the windows, a mezzanine floor, outbuildings, a small enclosed front garden, a huge grassed-over courtyard with a well and, beside the well, a dog kennel. Anna Vasilyevna had never left her dacha so early, but this year the first autumn cold spells made her gumboils play up; Nikolai Artemyevich, for his part, having completed his course of treatment, had begun to miss his wife; furthermore, Avgustina Khristianovna had gone to stay with her cousin in Reval.* Some foreign family had come to Moscow showing flexible poses, des poses plastiques;* the description of these in the Moscow News* greatly aroused Anna Vasilyevna’s curiosity. In a word, to stay at the dacha any longer turned out to be i
nconvenient, and even, in the words of Nikolai Artemyevich, incompatible with the fulfilment of his “preordinations”. The last two weeks had seemed very long to Yelena. Kurnatovsky had come twice, on Sundays; he was busy on other days. He had really come to see Yelena, but spent more time talking to Zoya, who found him very attractive. “Das ist ein Mann!”* she thought to herself as she contemplated his swarthy, masculine face and listened to his self-confident, patronizing words. In her opinion, no one had such a wonderful voice, no one had such a superb way of saying: “I had the ho-n-our” or “I’m highly gratified”. Insarov was not at the Stakhovs’, but Yelena once met him secretly by arrangement in a little wood above the Moscow River. They scarcely had time to say a few words to one another. Shubin returned to Moscow with Anna Vasilyevna, followed by Bersenev a few days later.
Insarov was sitting in his room and for the third time re-reading letters delivered to him by hand from Bulgaria: it was too risky to send them by post. He was very alarmed by them. Events were developing quickly in south-eastern Europe: the occupation of the Principalities by Russian forces* was on everyone’s mind; the storm was brewing, and war, imminent and inevitable, was in the air. The conflagration was taking hold all round, and no one could foresee where it would spread to or where it would stop. Old grievances and long-held hopes – everything had surfaced. Insarov’s heart pounded; his hopes were also being realized. “But is it too early? Is it in vain?” he thought, clenching his fists. “We’re not yet ready. But so be it. I’ll have to go.”
Something stirred slightly behind the door; it quickly burst open – and into the room came Yelena.
Insarov, trembling from head to foot, rushed to her, fell on his knees before her, put his arms round her waist and pressed his head firmly to it.
“You weren’t expecting me?” she said, scarcely able to draw breath (she had run quickly up the staircase). “Darling! Darling!” She placed both her hands on his head and looked around. “So this is where you live? I soon found you. Your landlord’s daughter brought me here. We moved back to town the day before yesterday. I wanted to write to you but thought it better to come myself. I can only stay for a quarter of an hour. Stand up. Lock the door.”
On the Eve (Alma Classics) Page 12