u No, my dear, it's not about potato-starch, but something concerning the factory.''
CHAPTER IX
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Wednesday arrived. Twelve or fifteen guests were gathered together in Julia Paylovnaj s drawing-room. Four young ladies, two bearded foreigners, who had made the hostess' acquaintance abroad, and an officer, formed one group.
Apart from them in an easy-chair was sitting an old man, obviously a retired military officer, with two tufts of grizzled hair under his nose and a number of decorations in his button-hole. He was arguing with an elderly man about some impending contracts.
In the other room an old lady and two men were playing cards. At the piano was seated a very young girl, another was talking to a student.
The Adouevs made their appearance. Few men knew how to enter a drawing-room with such ease and dignity as Piotr Ivanitch. After him, with a certain air of indecision, walked Alexandr.
What a contrast there was between them ! One a whole head taller, well-built, stout, a man of robust temperament with self-confidence in his eyes and manners. But not by a single glance T nor_gesture^ jaflauxgrd could one puess ffife tnought or character oF Piotr IvanitcK—all'was s o veiled by his polished manners and powjer of controllin g s h imsel f. It sefcmed as if even his gestures and glances were the result of calculation.
In Alexandr, on the contrary, there was every sign of a weak and soft temperament, and in the changing expression of his face and a certain indolence or slowness and uneven-ness in his movement, and his Lack-lustre eyes, which at once revealed what emotion was agitating his heart, or what thought was stirring in his head. He was of medium height, but thin and pale—pale not by nature, like Piotr Ivanitch, but from the continual agitation of his feelings. His hair did not grow like his uncle's, in bushy thickness on his head and cheeks, but hung down over his temples and on his neck in thin, weak, but exceedingly soft and silky locks of a light-coloured bright hue.
The uncle presented his nephew,
" But is not my friend SurkofF here ? " asked Piotr Ivan-itch, looking round with surprise; "he has forgotten you."
" Oh, no ! " replied their hostess ; " he often comes to see me. You know, except my late husband's intimate friends, I scarcely see any one."
" Where is he then ? »
" He will be here directly. Only imagine, he has promised my cousin and me to get us a box without fail for to-morrow's performance, though they say there's not a chance of getting one, and he has gone about it."
" And he has got it, I will answer for him ; he is a genius at that. He will always get one for me, when no influence or favour are of use. How he manages it, and with what money, is his secret."
Surkoff came in. His clothes were new, and in every fold of his linen, in every detail, was clearly discernible the pretension to be a dandy, to excel in every fashion, and even to excel the fashion itself.
" Well, have you got it ? " sounded from all sides.
Surkoff was just going to answer, but catching sight of Adouev and his nephew he suddenly paused and looked at them with surprise.
"He suspects!" said Piotr Ivanitch, sotto voce^ to his nephew.
He pointed out of window at the house opposite.
" Remember that the vases are yours, and be bold," he added. s cp "Have you tickets for the performance to-morrow?" ^ ^ Surko ff asked Madame T aphaev, going up to her with an air ^.:■•< of triumph.
"No."
" Permit me to hand them to you ! " he continued, and repeated the whole speech of Zagoryetsky from "Sorrow from Wisdom." -
The officer's lips were slightly relaxed in a smile. Piotr Ivanitch looked meaningly at his nephew, and Julia Pavlovna blushed. She began to invite Piotr Ivanitch to her box.
" I am very grateful," he said, " but I shall be in attendance on my wife at the theatre to-morrow; but let me present a young man as a substitute."
He indicated Alexandr.
u I should have liked to ask him too; we are only three, my cousin and I."
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" He will make a good substitute for me as well," said Piotr Ivanitch, " and for this scapegrace too, if necessary."
He pointed to Surkoff, and began to say something in an undertone to her. She twice stole a look at Alexandr and smiled while she did so.
" Thank you," replied Surkoff, " only it would have been as well to have proposed such an exchange a little sooner, before the tickets were taken ; I would have considered then how I should be replaced."
" Ah, I thank you very much for your kindness ! " said the hostess quickly to Surkoff, " but I did not invite you to the box because you have a stall. You certainly prefer to be just opposite the stage .... especially at a ballet."
" No, no, you are making fun of me; you did not think that; give up a place by you—not for anything !"
" But it is already promised."
"How? To whom?"
" M. Rene.
She indicated one of the bearded foreigners.
" Oui, madame, m'a fait cet honneur," the latter promptly murmured.
Surkoff gazed open-mouthed at him and then at Madame Taphaev.
" I will change with him; I will offer him my stall," he said.
" You can try."
The bearded one gesticulated the negative in every limb.
" Allow me to thank you !" said Surkoff to Piotr Ivanitch, with a sidelong look at Alexandr; u I am indebted to you for this."
" Don't mention it. But won't you care to use my box ? there are only two of us, my wife and I; you have seen nothing of her for a long while; you may pay your court to her."
Surkoff turned his back on him in vexation. Piotr Ivanitch quietly took his leave. Julia made Alexandr sit by her and talked to him for a whole hour. Surkoff broke in on the conversation several times, but always in some infelicitous manner. He began to make some remark about the ballet and received the answer " yes " when it ought to have been " no " and vice versd; it was clear that she was not attending to him.
Then he made a sudden transition to oysters, expressing the conviction he had eaten in the morning a hundred and seventy, and did not even receive a glance. He uttered a few commonplaces more and, as nothing came of them, seized his hat and stood about close to Julia, so that she might observe that he was not pleased and was preparing to take his leave. But she did not notice it.
"I am just off!" He said at last expressively, " Good-bye!"
His ill-concealed annoyance was perceptible in his voice.
" So soon ? " she replied. " Let us see you to-morrow in the box, if only for one minute"."
" What treachery ! One minute, when you know that I would not give up a place by you for a place in Paradise."
" If it were a place in a theatre, I believe you."
Now he did not want to go. His vexation vanished at the friendly words Julia had uttered at leave-taking. But every one had seen him make his bow; he had to go, however unw&lingly.
T ulia Pay jognajyas^twenty-three or twenty : four years old. Piotr Ivanitch's surmise had been correct; she was, in fact, dn a nervous temperament, but this did not prevent her from being a very pretty, clever, and graceful woman. But she was timid, dreamy, sensitive, like most nervous women. Her features were soft and refined, her glance mild, and always thoughtful, often sad without reason, or, if you like, by reason of her nerves.
Her views on life and the world were not at all optimistic; she reflected on the problem of her existence, and arrived at the conclusion that she was not needed here. The bright side of life quite escaped her notice. At the theatre she always chose to see a tragedy, seldom a comedy, never a farce; she was deaf to the strains of any lively song which chanced to reach her, she never smiled at a joke. At times her face expressed exhaustion, not the exhaustion of suffering, or of illness, but rather a luxurious exhaustion. One could see she had been through an inward conflict with some seductive dream, and had been too weak for it. After such a conflict she was a long while silent, mournful, and then all at
once would fall into an unaccountable liveliness of spirits, always preserving her characteristic temperament however. What made her lively would not have made any one else lively. All her nerves 1
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" How well you have divined me," said Madame Taphaev to Alexandr at parting. " No man, not even my husband^ has been able to understand my character fully."
The fact was that Alexandr was not far from being of the same type himself. No wonder he felt in his element with /her.
" Au revoir."
She gave him her hand.
" I hope now you will find the way here without your uncle ? " she added.
The winter came. It had been AlexanoVs habit to dine with his uncle every Friday. But four Fridays had now gone by without his making his appearance, nor did he come any other day instead. Lizaveta Alexandrovna grew vexed; Piotr Ivanitch grumbled at his keeping them waiting half an hour beyond dinner-time for him for nothing.
(Meanwhile Alexandr was not without occupation; he was carrying out his uncle's commission. Surkoff had long ago given up going to Madame Taphaev's, and declared everywhere that all was over between them. In a stormy interview with Piotr Ivanitch he complained bitterly of AlexanoVs treachery and informed the uncle that his nephew was head over ears in love with Madame Taphaev and spent his whole time with her.
S Surkoff had not spoken fdsely; Alexandr loved Julia. Almost with dread he had felt the first symptoms of this passion, as though they were the symptoms of some plague. He was tortured both by fear and by shame—fear of being again at the mercy of all the caprices of his own and of another's heart; shame before other people, above all before his uncle. He would have given a great deal to be able to hide it from him. Was it long—only three months back—since he had so proudly, so decisively forsworn love, had even written in verse an epitaph on this disturbing passion which his uncle had read, and had above all shown openly his contempt for women, and all at once he was again at a woman's feet
He would gladly have run away to avoid his new passion. But how could he run away ? What a contrast between his love for Nadinka and his love for Julia. His first love was nothing more than an unfortunate mistake of a heart which craved for food, and at that age the heart has so little
discrimination; it takes what comes first. But Julia ! she was not a capricious girl, who did not understand him, or herself, or love. She was a woman in full maturity, weak in body, but ardent in spirit—for love; she was all love ! She recognised no other conditions as needful for happiness and life. People say love is a pastime; no, it is a gift; and Julia had a genius for it. This was the love he had dreamed of—a love conscious, intelligent, but still overmastering, heeding nothing outside its own sphere. Like a rightful sovereign he had stepped proudly into possession of the wealth that was his heritage, and had been recognised with submissive loyalty. What consolation, what bliss, thought Alexandr to know that there is a being in the world, who, wherever she may be, whatever she may be doing, is remembering me, is bending all her thoughts, all her occupations, all her actions to one end and one idea—that of her beloved one ! It is like a second self. Whatever he hears or sees, whatever he comes near, or comes near him, every impression is confided to the other, his second self; the impression is shared by both, both teach each other, and then the impression confided in this way is received and imprinted on the soul in indelible characters. The second self would renounce her own sensations if they could not be shared or adopted by the other. She likes what the other likes, and hates what the other hates. They exist inseparably in one thought, one feeling; they have one spiritual sight, one hearing, one mind, one soul.
Julia loved Alexandr still more fervently than he did her.^ She was not even conscious of the full force of her passion, and did not meditate upon it. She was in love for the first time—that would have been nothing, for there is no real falling in love a second time—but the misfortune was that her heart had been over-developed to an impossible degree, cultivated by romances, and prepared not so much for first love as for that romantic passion which exists only . in some novels, not in nature, and which therefore is bound ■ always to be unhappy because it is not possible in fact. I She could never imagine a calm simple love without tempestuous demonstrations and excesses of tenderness.
Hence arose the romanticism, in which she created a world of her own. Directly anything in the real world was done not in accordance with the canons of her world, her
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heart rose in revolt and she was wretched. Her feminine organisation, weak enough without this strain, endured a shock, often a very violent one. Repeated emotions shook her nerves, and at last reduced them to a state of complete derangement. This is the reason of the pensiveness and melancholy without cause, the pessimistic view of life in so many women; this is why the order of human existence, marvellously and harmoniously framed and carried on according to immutable laws, seems to them a heavy bondage ; in a word, this is why they are frightened by reality. ! She had been educated on French novels, music, and theatre going. At eighteen she had first tasted the sweet-i ness of Russian poetry and her imagination was in quest ^ i now of an Onegin, now of some hero of a masterpiece of I the new school—pale, melancholy, disillusioned.
When she had been displayed to the world in the drawing-rooms, with a constantly melancholy gaze, an interesting pallor, an ethereal shape, and slender foot, she attracted the notice of Taphaev, a man with every qualification of a suitor; that is to say, of respectable rank, good circumstances, with a decoration on his breast—in fact, with a career and a fortune.
The pale, melancholy girl, through some strange inconsistency in his robust temperament, made a strong impression on him. He retreated from the cards at evening parties and fell into unwonted reverie gazing at the half-ethereal shape that flitted before him. When her languid glance fell, of course accidentally, upon him, tried fencer in drawing-room conversation as he was, he grew abashed before the timid girl, attempted to say something to her sometimes and could not. This annoyed him and he resolved to act with more decision through the medium of several aunts.
His inquiries concerning her dowry seemed fairly satisfactory. " Why, we are well matched!" he argued with himself. " I am only forty-five, she is eighteen; with our fortunes more than two can live comfortably. As to externals she is rather pretty, and I am what is called presentable. Yes, we are a suitable match."
And so, directly Julia had emerged from childhood, there met her at the very first step a most grievous actuality—an ordinary husband ! How far removed he was from those heroes created for her by her fancy and the poets !
She had passed five years in this weary dream, as she called marriage without love, and suddenly freedom and love had appeared. She smiled and stretched out her arms to fold it in feverish embraces, and abandoned herself to her passion as a rider at a fast gallop abandons himself to his horse. He is borne along by the powerful beast, heedless of distance. Breathless, with all things racing past, with the wind blowing fresh in the face, the heart is almost overmastered by the voluptuous sensation. The romantic moment of life had come at last for her; she began to love that bitter-sweet shudder of the soul, to seek emotion for its own sake, to devise both torture and bliss for herself. She had become a slave to her passion, as men become the slaves of opium, and eagerly drank the sweet poison.
One evening Julia was already agitated by expectation. She stood at the window, and her impatience grew greater every minute. She was pulling a China rose to pieces and throwing the petals on to the ground in her vexation, but her heart failed her; it was one of her moments of torture. She played a mental game of question and answer; would he come or would he not, all the power of her mind was bent on solving that hard problem. If it gave an affirmative answer, she smiled, when it did not, she grew pale.
When Alexandr arrived, she had sunk pale and exhausted into an armchair, so powerfully her nerves wrought upon her. When he came up to her .... impossible to describe the look with which she met
him, the rapture which lighted up every feature in an instant, as though they had not met for a year; though they had seen each other the evening before. Without speaking, she pointed to the clock on the wall; but he had hardly opened his lips to explain, before she accepted his words without listening to them and forgave him and, forgetting all the agony of suspense, gave him her hand, and they sat long talking and silently gazing at one another. Had not the servant reminded them, they would infallibly have forgotten to have dinner.
What blissfulness! Alexandr had never dreamed of such full perfection of " sincere outpourings of the heart." In the summer they took walks alone together out of the town; if people were thronging together anywhere attracted by music, or fireworks, they hovered afar off among the trees, walking hand in hand. In the winter Alexandr arrived at
A COMMON STORY
dinner-time and afterwards they sat side by side by the fire till midnight. Sometimes they ordered a sledge to be brought round, and after flying through the dark streets they hastened back to continue their unfinished conversation by the samovar. Everything that presented itself, every passing stir of thought or feeling—all was felt and done in common.
Alexandr feared meeting with his uncle above all things. He sometimes went to see Lizaveta Alexandrovna, but she never succeeded in moving him to confidences. He was always uneasy lest his uncle should appear and should make him figure in some scene of comedy again and so he always cut his visits short.
/ Was he happy ? Of other men in the like case one may answer yes and no at once, but of him one can only say no. With him love began with suffering. At moments when he succeeded in forgetting the past, he believed in the possibility of happiness, in Julia and in her love. At another time he would grow troubled in the midst of the fire of the most sincere outpourings, and would listen with apprehension to her passionate enthusiastic rhapsodies. He fancied that she must certainly change to him, or some other blow from destiny would lay waste his glorious world of bliss. Even while he was enjoying the moment of happiness, he knew that it must be bought with suffering, and melancholy took hold of him again.
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