“Well now!” said Nikolai Artemyevich, whose tears were fairly dripping down onto the beaver collar of his greatcoat. “We must see them off… and wish them…” He began to pour out the champagne; his hands were trembling and the bubbles spilt over the brim and fell into the snow. He took one glass and gave the two others to Yelena and Insarov, who had already taken his place beside his wife. “God grant you…” began Nikolai Artemyevich and, unable to finish, drank down the champagne. The others did likewise. “Now, gentleman, you must,” he added, turning to Shubin and Bersenev, but at that moment the coachman started the horses. Nikolai Artemyevich began to run alongside the sledge. “See you write to us,” he said, in a voice breaking with emotion. Yelena put her head out and said: “Goodbye, Papa, Andrei Petrovich, Pavel Yakovlevich! Goodbye everything! Goodbye Russia!” Then she withdrew into the sledge. The coachman flourished his whip and began to whistle; the sledge, its runners creaking, turned right out of the gate – and disappeared.
33
It was a bright April day. Over the broad lagoon which separates Venice from the narrow sandbar known as the Lido, there glided a sharp-prowed gondola, swaying rhythmically with each stroke of the gondolier’s long oar. Beneath its low roof, on soft leather cushions, sat Yelena and Insarov.
Yelena’s facial features had not changed much since the day of her departure from Moscow, but the expression on them was different: it was sterner and more considered, and her gaze was bolder. Her whole body had blossomed and it seemed her hair lay thicker and more luxuriant, framing her pale forehead and fresh cheeks. Only in her lips, when she was not smiling, did a scarcely perceptible crease betray the presence of a constant, secret anxiety. On the other hand, Insarov’s expression had remained the same, but his features were cruelly altered. He had grown thinner, paler, had aged and become stooped; he had developed an almost permanent dry cough and there was a strange gleam in his sunken eyes. On the way from Russia Insarov had been ill for almost two months in Vienna, and it was only at the end of March that he arrived in Venice with his wife: from there he hoped to make his way via Zara* to Serbia and then Bulgaria; other routes were barred to him. War was already raging along the Danube; England and France had declared war on Russia;* all the Slav countries were in turmoil and preparing for insurrection.
The gondola put in to the inner shore of the Lido. Yelena and Insarov set off along a narrow sandy path planted with sickly saplings (they are planted every year, and every year they die) to the outer, seaward shore of the Lido.
They set off along the shore. Before them rolled the opaque blue waves of the Adriatic; they foamed, swished, rushed in and rolled back, leaving small shells and bits of seaweed on the sand.
“What a dreary place,” remarked Yelena. “I’m afraid it’s too cold for you here, but I can guess why you wanted to come here.”
“Cold!” retorted Insarov with a quick but bitter smile. “A fine soldier I’ll be if I’m afraid of cold. But I came here… I’ll tell you why. I look at this sea and feel that I’m nearer to my homeland. It’s over there after all,” he added, stretching his hand towards the east. “That’s where the wind’s coming from.”
“Will this wind speed the ship you’re waiting for?” said Yelena. “Look, there’s a white sail.* Could that be it?”
Insarov gazed seaward into the distance, to where Yelena was pointing.
“Rendich promised to arrange everything for us within a week,” he said. “I think we can rely on him… Have you heard, Yelena?” he added with sudden animation. “They say the poor Dalmatian fishermen have sacrificed their lead sinkers – you know, those weights that send their nets to the bottom – to make bullets! They had no money; they rely on fishing for their living, but they happily gave away their last possessions and now they’re starving. What a people!”
“Aufgepasst!”* a haughty voice shouted behind them. The dull clatter of horses’ hooves rang out, and an Austrian officer in a short grey tunic and green cap galloped past them… They scarcely had time to move aside.
Insarov gazed after him darkly.
“He’s not to blame,” said Yelena. “You know they’ve no other place to exercise their horses.”
“He’s not to blame,” rejoined Insarov, “but he made my blood boil with his whole appearance: his shout, his moustache, his cap. Let’s go back.”
“Let’s go back, Dmitry. Besides, it really is blowy here. You didn’t take care of yourself after your illness in Moscow and you paid for it in Vienna. You must be more careful now.”
Insarov fell silent, but the same bitter smile as before slid across his face.
“Would you like to go for a ride along the Canal Grande?” Yelena continued. “After all, we haven’t had a good look at Venice since we’ve been here. And let’s go to the theatre in the evening; I’ve got two tickets for a box. They say there’s a new opera on. Let’s give today to each other and forget about politics, war, everything. Let’s remember just one thing: we’re alive, we’re breathing, we think alike. We’re united for ever… Is that what you’d like?”
“It’s what you’d like, Yelena,” replied Insarov, “so it’s what I’d like too.”
“I knew it,” said Yelena with a smile. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
They went back to the gondola, got in and asked to be taken, without hurrying, along the Canal Grande.
Anyone who has not seen Venice in April can scarcely appreciate the ineffable charm of that magical city. The gentleness and softness of spring are to Venice what bright summer sun is to majestic Genoa and the gold and purple of autumn are to that venerable patriarch Rome. Like spring, the beauty of Venice both touches us and arouses longings; she torments and tantalizes the inexperienced heart, like the promise of imminent happiness, not enigmatic but mysterious. Everything about her is clear, light, wreathed in a drowsy haze of enamoured stillness; everything in her keeps silent and everything is welcoming; everything, beginning with her very name, is feminine; not for nothing is she called the Serenissima. Huge palaces and churches rose, light and miraculous, like the harmonious dream of a young god. There is something of the fairy tale, something captivatingly strange in the grey-green lustre and silken shimmer of the canals’ mute waters, in the noiseless movement of the gondolas, in the absence of coarse urban din, of coarse clatter, crash and hubbub. “Venice is dying, Venice is deserted,” its inhabitants tell you; but maybe this was all she had lacked – this final charm, the charm of decay while her beauty was at its triumphant height. Whoever has not seen it does not know it. Neither Canaletto, nor Guardi* (to say nothing of the latest painters) were able to convey the silvery softness of the air, the vistas both fleeting and intimate, the wondrous harmony of exquisite lines and dissolving colours. There is no point in visiting Venice for the man who is jaded and tired of life; to him she will be as bitter as the memory of unrealized youthful dreams; but to the man in whom there is still strength, who is happy with his lot, she is sweet; let him bring his happiness under its enchanted skies and, however radiant that happiness may be, she will enrich it further with her imperishable radiance.
The gondola in which Insarov and Yelena were sitting slipped quietly past the Riva degli Schiavoni,* the Doge’s Palace, the Piazzetta, and entered the Grand Canal. On both sides lay marble palaces; they seemed to float quietly past, scarcely allowing the onlooker to embrace and comprehend all their elegance. Yelena felt profoundly happy; there was only one dark cloud in her azure sky – and it was receding: Insarov was much better that day. They took the gondola as far as the steep arch of the Rialto bridge and turned back. Yelena feared for Insarov in the cold of churches, but she remembered the Accademia di Belle Arti and told the gondolier to go there. They quickly went round all the rooms of this small museum. Being neither connoisseurs nor dilettantes, they did not pause before every painting, did not over-exert themselves. A certain light-hearted gaiety had come over them. Suddenly everything seemed
highly amusing to them. (Children know this feeling very well.) To the great horror of three English visitors, Yelena laughed herself to tears over Tintoretto’s painting of St Mark leaping from heaven, like a frog into water, to save a tortured slave.* Insarov was enraptured by the back and calves of the energetic man in the green chlamys* who stands in the foreground of Titian’s Assumption* and raises his arms after the Madonna. On the other hand, the Madonna herself – a strong and beautiful woman, calmly and majestically rising to the bosom of God the Father – amazed both Insarov and Yelena. They also liked a severe sacred painting by Cima da Conegliano the Elder.* On leaving the Accademia, they again looked round – and burst out laughing – at the three Englishmen who, with their long buck teeth and pendulous side whiskers, were following them. They saw their gondolier with his cut-off jacket and short trousers – and burst out laughing; they saw a woman street trader with a grey bun on the very top of her head – and burst out laughing even louder. Finally they looked one another in the face – and dissolved in laughter, and as soon as they got into the gondola they squeezed each other’s hands with great warmth. They arrived back at their hotel, ran up to their room and ordered dinner from room service. Even over the meal their high spirits did not leave them. They regaled one another, drank the health of their Moscow friends, congratulated the cameriere* on the delicious fish dish and kept asking him to bring live frutti di mare;* the cameriere made himself small, shuffled his feet and, as he went out, shook his head and even whispered with a sigh: “Poveretti!” (“Poor things!”) After dinner they went to the theatre.
The theatre was putting on a Verdi opera, a somewhat trite piece in all conscience, but one which had already made the rounds of every stage in Europe and is well known to us Russians: La traviata.* The Venice season was over and none of the singers rose above the mediocre; they all shouted as loud as they could. The role of Violetta was taken by a singer of no repute and, to judge by the cool reception from the public, not much liked, although she was not bereft of talent. She was a young, dark-eyed girl, not particularly beautiful, with a voice that was somewhat unsteady and already cracked. Her costume was colourful and naively tasteless; a red hairnet, a dress of faded blue satin, too tight round the bust, thick Swedish gloves which reached up to her sharp elbows. But how was she, the daughter of some Bergamo shepherd, to know how Parisian camellias* dress? She did not know how to comport herself on the stage, but there was much realism and artless simplicity in her playing and she sang with that particular passionateness of expression and rhythm which is granted only to Italians. Yelena and Insarov sat together in the dark box next to the stage. The playful mood which had descended on them in the Accademia had still not passed. When the father of the unhappy youth, who had fallen for the wiles of a temptress, appeared on stage in a pea-green tailcoat and a dishevelled white wig, opened his mouth crookedly and, in some embarrassment, emitted a mournful bass tremolo, they became almost helpless with laughter… But Violetta’s playing had an effect on them.
“The poor girl is getting practically no applause,” said Yelena, “but I prefer her a thousand times more than some self-assured second-rate celebrity who struts and frets and strives for effect. This girl seems to take it all very seriously; you can see she doesn’t notice the audience.”
Insarov leant against the edge of the box and looked intently at Violetta.
“Yes,” he said, “she’s serious; there’s a smell of death.”
Yelena fell silent.
The third act began. The curtain rose… Yelena shuddered at the sight of the bed, the drawn curtains, the bottles of medicine, the shaded lamp… She recalled the recent past… “But the future? The present?” flashed through her mind. As if on cue, in answer to the feigned cough of the actress, there came, from the box, Insarov’s dry, unfeigned cough… Yelena glanced at him surreptitiously and immediately composed her features in an expression of untroubled calm. Insarov understood her and began to smile and sing along quietly.
But he soon fell silent. Violetta’s playing was improving, was becoming more free. She discarded everything extraneous, everything non-essential and found herself. This is a rare and supreme joy for an artist. She had suddenly crossed that boundary, which is impossible to define, but beyond which lies beauty. The audience came to life, amazed. The plain-looking girl with the cracked voice was beginning to take it in hand, to possess it. Already the singer’s voice did not sound cracked: it had gained warmth and strengthened. Alfredo appeared; Violetta’s cry of joy almost raised that storm of applause which is known as fanatismo and beside which all our northern howls of approval are as nothing… A moment passed – and the audience was again hushed. The duet began, the best number in the opera, in which the composer has succeeded in expressing all the regrets of a senselessly misspent youth, the final struggle of hopeless and helpless love. Borne along and buoyed up by a wave of general sympathy, with tears of artist’s joy – and of real suffering – in her eyes, the singer gave herself up to the wave of support; her face was transformed and, confronted by the awesome spectre of suddenly approaching death, the words broke forth from her in a burst of prayer which rose to the heavens: “Lasciami vivere… morir sì giovine!” (“Let me live… to die so young!”).* The whole theatre shook with frantic clapping and rapturous cries.
Yelena had turned quite cold. She quietly sought Insarov’s hand with her hand, found it and squeezed it hard. He responded to her action but did not look at her, nor she at him. They had clasped hands differently in the gondola a few hours previously.
The gondola took them to their hotel, again by way of the Canal Grande. Night, a soft, bright night, had already fallen. The same palaces rose to meet them, but they seemed different. Those illuminated by the moon gleamed golden white, and in this very whiteness the ornamental details and the outlines of windows and balconies seemed to vanish. These were more clearly delineated on buildings that were now lightly and evenly bathed in hazy shadow. The gondolas with their little red lanterns seemed to be moving even more noiselessly and quickly; their steel prows gleamed mysteriously, their oars rose and fell mysteriously over the silvery fish beneath the broken surface of the water. From here and there could be heard the brief, subdued cries of the gondoliers (they never sing nowadays); almost no other sounds were audible. The hotel where Insarov and Yelena were staying was on the Riva degli Schiavoni. Before they reached it, they got out of the gondola and took several turns round St Mark’s Square, where, beneath the arches, in front of the tiny coffee shops, large numbers of people were taking their leisure. There is something particularly pleasant about walking alone with a loved one in a strange city: everything seems beautiful and significant and one wishes peace and goodwill to all, and the same happiness with which you are filled. But Yelena could no longer give herself up carelessly to her feeling of happiness; her heart, shaken by recent impressions, would not stop pounding. As they passed the Doge’s palace, however, Insarov indicated the muzzles of the Austrian cannon poking out from beneath its low vaults and pulled his hat down over his eyes. Besides, he was feeling tired – and, with a last glance at St Mark’s Cathedral and at its domes, where patches of phosphorescent light glowed in the moonlight on the blue-grey lead, they returned to their hotel.
Their room looked out onto the broad lagoon which stretched from the Riva degli Schiavoni to Giudecca. Almost opposite their hotel rose the pointed bell tower of San Giorgio. To the right, high in the air, was the golden ball on the top of the Dogana – and, decked out like bride, stood that most beautiful of churches, Palladio’s Redentore; to the left the masts and yards of sailing ships and the funnels of steamers showed black; here and there a half-furled sail hung like a large wing, with the pennants hardly stirring. Insarov sat down in front of the window, but Yelena did not allow him to admire the view for long. He had suddenly shown signs of fever and been seized by a kind of overpowering weakness. She put him to bed, waited until he fell asleep and returned to the w
indow. Oh, how quiet and tender was the night, how dove-like and gentle was the breath of the azure air; how must all suffering, all grief be stilled and fall asleep beneath this clear sky, beneath these sacred and innocent moonbeams! “Oh Lord,” thought Yelena, “why is there death, why separation, sickness and tears? And why is there this beauty, this sweet sense of hope, this soothing awareness of a sure refuge, unfailing defence and immortal protection? What is the meaning of this smiling, beneficent sky, this happy, easeful earth? Can it be that all this is merely within us, while outside us there is eternal cold and silence? Can it be we are alone, quite alone, whilst everywhere else, in all these fathomless gulfs and chasms, everything, absolutely everything, is alien to us? Why then this thirst for prayer and joy therein? (“Morir sì giovine” sounded in her heart). Can we really not supplicate, avert, save? Oh Lord, can we not believe in miracles?” She laid her head on her clasped hands. “Is it over?” she whispered. “Can it be over already? I have been happy, not for mere minutes, not for hours, not for whole days – no, for whole weeks on end. But by what right?” She began to feel afraid of her happiness. “But what if this is impossible?” she thought. “What if there is a price to pay? That was heaven after all… but we are human beings, poor, sinful human beings… Morir sì giovine… Oh dark spectre, be gone! It is not only I who need his life!”
“But what if this is punishment,” her thoughts ran on, “what if we have to make a full payment for our guilt? My conscience was clear, is clear now, but is that proof of innocence? Oh Lord, can it be we are such transgressors! Can it be that You, having created this night and this sky, want to punish us for our love? And if that’s so, if he’s guilty, if I’m guilty,” she added in an involuntary outburst, “then, O Lord, let him, let us both at least die a glorious, honourable death there, on his native fields, not here in this obscure room.”
On the Eve (Alma Classics) Page 17