A brief silence followed.
“I am of opinion, my dear sir,” began Potugin again, “that we are not only indebted to civilization for science, art, and law, but that even the very feeling for beauty and poetry is developed and strengthened under the influence of the same civilization, and that the so - called popular, simple, unconscious creation is twaddling and rubbishy. Even in Homer there are traces of a refined and varied civilization; love itself is enriched by it. The Slavophils would cheerfully hang me for such a heresy, if they were not such chicken - hearted creatures; but I will stick up for my own ideas all the same; and however much they press Madame Kohanovsky and ‘The swarm of bees at rest’ upon me, - - I can’t stand the odor of that triple extrait de mougik Russe, as I don’t belong to the highest society, which finds it absolutely necessary to assure itself from time to time that it has not turned quite French, and for whose exclusive benefit this literature en cuir de Russie is manufactured. Try reading the raciest, most ‘popular’ passages from the ‘Bees’ to a common peasant - - a real one: he’ll think you’re repeating him a new spell against fever or drunkenness. I repeat, without civilization there’s not even poetry. If you want to get a clear idea of the poetic ideal of the uncivilized Russian, you should turn up our ballads, our legends. To say nothing of the fact that love is always presented as the result of witchcraft, of sorcery, and produced by some philtre, to say nothing of our so - called epic literature being the only one among all the European and Asiatic literatures - - the only one, observe, which does not present any typical pair of lovers - - unless you reckon Vanka - Tanka as such; and of the Holy Russian knight always beginning his acquaintance with his destined bride by beating her ‘most pitilessly’ on her white body, because ‘the race of women is puffed up’! all that I pass over; but I should like to call your attention to the artistic form of the young hero, the jeune premier, as he was depicted by the imagination of the primitive, uncivilized Slav. Just fancy him a minute; the jeune premier enters; a cloak he has worked himself of sable, back - stitched along every seam, a sash of seven - fold silk girt close about his armpits, his fingers hidden away under his hanging sleevelets, the collar of his coat raised high above his head, from before, his rosy face no man can see, nor, from behind, his little white neck; his cap is on one ear, while on his feet are boots of morocco, with points as sharp as a cobbler’s awl, and the heels peaked like nails. Round the points an egg can he rolled, and a sparrow can fly under the heels. And the young hero advances with that peculiar mincing gait by means of which our Alcibiades, Tchivilo Plenkovitch, produced such a striking, almost medical, effect on old women and young girls, the same gait which we see in our loose - limbed waiters, that cream, that flower of Russian dandyism, that ne plus ultra of Russian taste. This I maintain without joking; a sacklike gracefulness, that’s an artistic ideal. What do you think, is it a fine type? Does it present many materials for painting, for sculpture? And the beauty who fascinates the young hero, whose ‘face is as red as the blood of the hare’? . . . But I think you’re not listening to me?”
Litvinov started. He had not, in fact, heard what Potugin was saying; he kept thinking, persistently thinking of Irina, of his last interview with her. . . .
“I beg your pardon, Sozont Ivanitch,” he began, “but I’m going to attack you again with my former question about . . . about Madame Ratmirov.”
Potugin folded up his newspaper and put it in his pocket.
“You want to know again how I came to know her?” “No, not exactly. I should like to hear your opinion . . . on the part she played in Petersburg. What was that part, in reality?”
“I really don’t know what to say to you, Grigory Mihalitch: I was brought into rather intimate terms with Madame Ratmirov . . . but quite accidentally, and not for long. I never got an insight into her world, and what took place in it remained unknown to me. There was some gossip before me, but as you know, it’s not only in democratic circles that slander reigns supreme among us. Besides I was not inquisitive. I see, though,” he added, after a short silence, “she interests you.”
“Yes; we have twice talked together rather openly. I ask myself, though, is she sincere?”
Potugin looked down. “When she is carried away by feeling, she is sincere, like all women of strong passions. Pride too, sometimes prevents her from lying.”
“Is she proud? I should rather have supposed she was capricious.”
“Proud as the devil; but that’s no harm.”
“I fancy she sometimes exaggerates. . . .”
“That’s nothing either, she’s sincere all the same. Though after all, how can you expect truth? The best of those society women are rotten to the marrow of their bones.”
“But, Sozont Ivanitch, if you remember, you called yourself her friend. Didn’t you drag me almost by force to go and see her?”
“What of that? she asked me to get hold of you; and I thought, why not? And I really am her friend. She has her good qualities: she’s very kind, that is to say, generous, that’s to say she gives others what she has no sort of need of herself. But of course you must know her at least as well as I do.”
“I used to know Irina Pavlovna ten years ago; but since then - - “
“Ah, Grigory Mihalitch, why do you say that? Do you suppose any one’s character changes? Such as one is in one’s cradle, such one is still in one’s tomb. Or perhaps it is” (here Potugin bowed his head still lower) “perhaps, you’re afraid of falling into her clutches? that’s certainly . . . But of course one is bound to fall into some woman’s clutches.”
Litvinov gave a constrained laugh. “You think so?”
“There’s no escape. Man is weak, woman is strong, opportunity is all - powerful, to make up one’s mind to a joyless life is hard, to forget one’s self utterly is impossible . . . and on one side is beauty and sympathy and warmth and light, - - how is one to resist it? Why, one runs like a child to its nurse. Ah, well, afterwards to be sure comes cold and darkness and emptiness . . . in due course. And you end by being strange to everything, by losing comprehension of everything. At first you don’t understand how love is possible; afterwards one won’t understand how life is possible.”
Litvinov looked at Potugin, and it struck him that he had never yet met a man more lonely, more desolate . . . more unhappy. This time he was not shy, he was not stiff; downcast and pale, his head on his breast, and his hands on his knees, he sat without moving, merely smiling his dejected smile. Litvinov felt sorry for the poor, embittered, eccentric creature.
“Irina Pavlovna mentioned among other things,” he began in a low voice, “a very intimate friend of hers, whose name if I remember was Byelsky, or Dolsky. . . .”
Potugin raised his mournful eyes and looked at Litvinov.
“Ah!” he commented thickly. . . . “She mentioned well, what of it? It’s time, though,” he added with a rather artificial yawn, “for me to be getting home - - to dinner. Good - by.”
He jumped up from the seat and made off quickly before Litvinov had time to utter a word. . . . His compassion gave way to annoyance - - annoyance with himself, be it understood. Want of consideration of any kind was foreign to his nature; he had wished to express his sympathy for Potugin, and it had resulted in something like a clumsy insinuation. With secret dissatisfaction in his heart, he went back to his hotel.
“Rotten to the marrow of her bones,” he thought a little later. . . . “but proud as the devil! She, that woman who is almost on her knees to me, proud? proud and not capricious?”
Litvinov tried to drive Irina’s image out of his head, but he did not succeed. For this very reason he did not think of his betrothed; he felt to - day this haunting image would not give up its place. He made up his mind to await without further anxiety the solution of all this “strange business”; the solution could not be long in coming, and Litvinov had not the slightest doubt it would turn out to be most innocent and natural. So he fancied, but meanwhile he was not only haunted by Irin
a’s image - - every word she had uttered kept recurring in its turn to his memory.
The waiter brought him a note: it was from the same Irina:
“If you have nothing to do this evening, come to me; I shall not be alone; I shall have guests, and you will get a closer view of our set, our society. I want you very much to see something of them; I fancy they will show themselves in all their brilliance. You ought to know what sort of atmosphere I am breathing. Come; I shall be glad to see you, and you will not be bored. (Irina had spelled the Russian incorrectly here.) Prove to me that our explanation to - day has made any sort of misunderstanding between us impossible for ever. - - Yours devotedly, I.”
Litvinov put on a frock coat and a white tie, and set off to Irina’s. “All this is of no importance,” he repeated mentally on the way, “as for looking at them . . . why shouldn’t I have a look at them? It will be curious.” A few days before, these very people had aroused a different sensation in him; they had aroused his indignation.
He walked with quickened steps, his cap pulled down over his eyes, and a constrained smile on his lips, while Bambaev, sitting before Weber’s café, and pointing him out from a distance to Voroshilov and Pishtchalkin, cried excitedly: “Do you see that man? He’s a stone! he’s a rock! he’s a flint!!!”
XV
LITVINOV found rather many guests at Irina’s. In a corner at a card - table were sitting three of the generals of the picnic: the stout one, the irascible one, and the condescending one. They were playing whist with dummy, and there is no word in the language of man to express the solemnity with which they dealt, took tricks, led clubs and led diamonds . . . there was no doubt about their being statesmen now! These gallant generals left to mere commoners, aux bourgeois, the little turns and phrases commonly used during play, and uttered only the most indispensable syllables; the stout general however permitted himself to jerk off between two deals: “Ce satané as de pique!” Among the visitors Litvinov recognized ladies who had been present at the picnic; but there were others there also whom he had not seen before. There was one so ancient that it seemed every instant as though she would fall to pieces: she shrugged her bare, gruesome, dingy gray shoulders, and, covering her mouth with her fan, leered languishingly with her absolutely death - like eyes upon Ratmirov; he paid her much attention; she was held in great honor in the highest society, as the last of the Maids of Honor of the Empress Catherine. At the window, dressed like a shepherdess, sat Countess S., “the Queen of the Wasps,” surrounded by young men. Among them the celebrated millionaire and beau Finikov was conspicuous for his supercilious deportment, his absolutely flat skull, and his expression of soulless brutality, worthy of a Khan of Buchania, or a Roman Heliogabalus. Another lady, also a countess, known by the pet name of Lise, was talking to a long - haired, fair, and pale spiritualistic medium. Beside them was standing a gentleman, also pale and long - haired, who kept laughing in a meaning way. This gentleman also believed in spiritualism, but added to that an interest in prophecy, and, on the basis of the Apocalypse and the Talmud, was in the habit of foretelling all kinds of marvelous events. Not a single one of these events had come to pass; but he was in no wise disturbed by that fact, and went on prophesying as before. At the piano, the musical genius had installed himself, the rough diamond, who had stirred Potugin to such indignation; he was striking chords with a careless hand, d’une main distraite, and kept staring vaguely about him. Irina was sitting on a sofa between Prince Kokó and Madame H., once a celebrated beauty and wit, who had long ago become a repulsive old crone, with the odor of sanctity and evaporated sinfulness about her. On catching sight of Litvinov, Irina blushed and got up, and when he went up to her, she pressed his hand warmly. She was wearing a dress of black crépon, relieved by a few inconspicuous gold ornaments; her shoulders were a dead white, while her face, pale, too, under the momentary flood of crimson overspreading it, was breathing with the triumph of beauty, and not of beauty alone; a hidden, almost ironical happiness was shining in her half - closed eyes, and quivering about her lips and nostrils. . . . Ratmirov approached Litvinov and after exchanging with him his customary civilities, unaccompanied however by his customary playfulness, he presented him to two or three ladies: the ancient ruin, the Queen of the Wasps, Countess Liza . . . they gave him a rather gracious reception. Litvinov did not belong to their set; but he was good - looking, extremely so, indeed, and the expressive features of his youthful face awakened their interest. Only he did not know how to fasten that interest upon himself; he was unaccustomed to society and was conscious of some embarrassment, added to which the stout general stared at him persistently. “Aha! lubberly civilian! free - thinker!” that fixed heavy stare seemed to be saying: “down on your knees to us; crawl to kiss our hands!” Irina came to Litvinov’s aid. She managed so adroitly that he got into a corner near the door, a little behind her. As she addressed him, she had each time to turn round to him, and every time he admired the exquisite curve of her splendid neck, he drank in the subtle fragrance of her hair. An expression of gratitude, deep and calm, never left her face; he could not help seeing that gratitude and nothing else was what those smiles, those glances expressed, and he, too, was all aglow with the same emotion, and he felt shame, and delight and dread at once . . . and at the same time she seemed continually as though she would ask, “Well? what do you think of them?” With special clearness Litvinov heard this unspoken question whenever any one of the party was guilty of some vulgar phrase or act, and that occurred more than once during the evening. Once she did not even conceal her feelings, and laughed aloud.
Countess Liza, a lady of superstitious bent, with an inclination for everything extraordinary, after discoursing to her heart’s content with the spiritualist upon Home, turning tables, self - playing concertinas, and so on, wound up by asking him whether there were animals which could be influenced by mesmerism.
“There is one such animal, any way,” Prince Kokó declared from some way off. “You know Melvanovsky, don’t you? They put him to sleep before me, and didn’t he snore, he, he!”
“You are very naughty, mon prince; I am speaking of real animals, je parle des bêtes.”
“Mais moi aussi, madame, je parle d’une bête. . . .” “There are such,” put in the spiritualist; “for instance - - crabs; they are very nervous, and are easily thrown into a cataleptic state.”
The countess was astounded. “What? Crabs! Really? Oh, that’s awfully interesting! Now, that I should like to see, M’sieu Luzhin,” she added to a young man with a face as stony as a new doll’s, and a stony collar (he prided himself on the fact that he had bedewed the aforesaid face and collar with the sprays of Niagara and the Nubian Nile, though he remembered nothing of all his travels, and cared for nothing but Russian puns . . .). “M’sieu Luzhin, if you would be so good, do bring us a crab quick.”
M’sieu Luzhin smirked. “Quick must it be, or quickly?” he queried.
The countess did not understand him. “Mais oui, a crab,” she repeated, “une écrevisse.”
“Eh? what is it? a crab? a crab?” the Countess S. broke in harshly. The absence of M. Verdier irritated her; she could not imagine why Irina had not invited that most fascinating of Frenchmen. The ancient ruin, who had long since ceased understanding anything - - moreover she was completely deaf - - only shook her head.
“Oui, oui, vous allez voir. M’sieu Luzhin, please. . . .”
The young traveler bowed, went out, and returned quickly. A waiter walked behind him, and grinning from ear to ear, carried in a dish, on which a large black crab was to be seen. “Voici, madame,” cried Luzhin; “now we can proceed to the operation on cancer. Ha, ha, ha!” (Russians are always the first to laugh at their own witticisms.)
“He, he, he!” Count Kokó did his duty condescendingly as a good patriot, and patron of all national products. (We beg the reader not to be amazed and indignant; who can say confidently for himself that sitting in the stalls of the Alexander Theater, and infected by its
atmosphere, he has not applauded even worse puns?)
A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1 Page 87