"Cela passe toute permission 1" thought Antigone, growing hot with anger.
" I beg your pardon !" said (Edipus to Alexandr; " we have disturbed you perhaps ? "
" No!" answered Adouev; "lam tired."
" Have you had any bites ?" the old man inquired of Kostyakoff.
"What bites can one expect when people shout close by," replied the latterwrathfully. "Some damned fool came up and went bawling close at hand, and not a bite since then. You live near these parts, I suppose ?" he inquired of (Edipus.
" Over there is our country-house with the balcony," he replied.
" You pay a big rent, I daresay ? "
" Five hundred roubles a year."
" It looks a good house, well arranged, and a lot of buildings in the court Thirty thousand, I daresay, it cost the owner to build."
" Yes, nearly that."
"Ah, and is. that your daughter?"
" Yes, she's my daughter."
" Ah, a fine young lady! You are out for a walk ? "
" Yes, we are taking a walk. If one lives in the country, one must take walks."
"To be sure, to be sure, why not, indeed? it's the best time for walking : not at all like last week ; what weather it was, oh, oh ! God preserve us ! It's done for the winter-corn, I expect."
" It will get over it, please God."
God grant it may! "
So you have caught nothing so far !"
" I've nothing, but pray look what he has/'
He showed the perch.
" I assure you," he went on, u it's singular how lucky he is ! It's a pity he doesn't give his mind to it; with his luck I should never have gone away empty-handed. To let such a pike slip!"
He sighed.
Antigone had begun to listen more eagerly, but Kostyakoff said no more.
The visits of the old man and his daughter were repeated more and more frequently. Even Adouev deigned to pay them some attention. He sometimes exchanged a word or two with the old man, and never a word with the daughter. At first she was piqued, then offended, at last depressed by it. Had Adouev talked a little to her, or even paid her ordinary attention—she would have forgotten him; but now it was quite otherwise. The human heart seems to live on contradictions.
Antigone constantly deliberated on some awful plan of vengeance, but later on she gradually gave it up.
One day when the old man and his daughter had drawn near our friends, Alexandr, after a brief interval, had laid his rod on the bushes and gone, according to his habit, to sit in his usual place, and was mechanically gazing now at the father, now at the daughter.
They stood with profile turned to him. In the father he did not discover anything out of the ordinary. A white blouse, nankeen trousers, and a low wide-brimmed hat, trimmed with green plush. But the daughter now! how gracefully she hung on her father's arm ! The wind would now and then lift a curl from her face as though on purpose to show Alexandr her lovely profile and white neck, and then raise her silk mantle and give a glimpse of her slender figure, or would playfully stir her dress and reveal a tiny ankle. She was gazing dreamily at the water.
For a long while Alexandr could not take his eyes off her, and he felt a feverish shiver run through him, He turned away from temptation and began to knock off the heads of the flowers with a switch.
" Ah ! I know what it means," he thought, " let it have its way and it would pass off! There's love ready-made!— imbecility! My uncle is right. But mere animal instinct shall not carry me away—no, I am not fallen so low as that!"
" Can I fish a little !" the young girl asked Kostyakoff timidly.
" Oh yes, miss; why not ? " he replied, giving her Adouev's rod.
" There now, you have a partner in the business ! " said her father to Kostyakoff and, leaving his daughter, he began to wander off further along the bank.
" Liza, mind you catch some fish for supper," he added.
The silence lasted a few minutes.
"Why is your partner so cross?" Liza inquired of Kostyakoff in a low voice.
" He's been passed over for the third time in his office, miss."
"What?" she asked, slightly frowning, u y It's the third time they haven't promoted him."
She shook her head.
" No ; it can't be!" she thought, " that's not it!"
" Don't you believe me, miss ? on my oath ! That pike too, you remember, he let slip through it."
" It's not so, not so," she thought now with conviction, " I know why he let the pike go."
" Ah ! ah !" she cried suddenly, " look, it's stirring, it's stirring."
She pulled it out and had caught nothing.
" It has got away !" said Kostyakoff, looking at the hook. x^*"See how it has torn off the worm; it must have been a big 1 pike. But you haven't learnt the art, miss; yo u didn't let
him bite prop erly." " ~^-
yi> "^Why, is there an art to learn in that ?"
^^ " Ye s7 as in everything," s aid A lexandr mechanically.
She started and quickly Turned roundj TrTher tuil~tetting the rod slip into the water. But Alexandr was now looking in a different direction.
"How is one to arrive at learning it?" she said with a slight tremor in her voice.
" By practising oftener," replied Alexandr.
o
"Oh, is that it!" she thought, with a flutter of delight; " that means I am to come here oftener. I understand! Very well, I will come, but I shall pay you out, sir misanthrope, for all your impertinence."
This was how the spirit of coquetry interpreted Alexandras reply to her, but on that day he said nothing more.
" She's fancying, God knows what all, I daresay! " he said to himself; " she is going to put on airs and flirt .... how imbecile!"
From that day the visits of the old man and the young girl were repeated every day. Sometimes Liza came with her nurse, without the old man. She brought work and books with her and sat down under a tree, with an appearance of complete unconsciousness of Alexandra existence.
She thought in this way to pique his vanity and, as she expressed it, " to pay him out." She talked aloud to her nurse about her home and household affairs, to show that she did not even see Adouev. And he sometimes actually did not see her, and when he saw her, bowed coolly without a word.
Seeing that this ordinary method availed her nothing, she changed her plan of attack, and on two occasions volunteered a remark herself; sometimes she took a rod from him.
Alexandr, by degrees, became more talkative with her, but was thoroughly on his guard, and did not give vent to any kind of "sincere outburst;" whether through prudence on his part or that his old wounds were still not healed, as he expressed it, he was rather chilly even in conversation with her.
One day the old man had a samovar sent down to the river-bank. Liza poured out tea. Alexandr at once refused any tea, saying that he did not drink it in the evening.
" All this tea-drinking leads up to acquaintance with them —intimacy—no, thank you !" he thought.
" What's the matter with you ? why, yesterday you drank four glasses," said Kostyakoff.
" I never drink out of doors," Alexandr added hastily.
w What a mistake !" said Kostyakoff, " most capital tea, prime, cost fifteen roubles, I should say. If you please, a little more, miss, and how good it would be with rum."
Rum, too, was brought.
The old man invited Alexandr to go and see him, but he flatly declined. Liza bit her lip when she heard his refusal. She began to try to discover from him the reason of his unsociability. However artfully she turned the conversation to this topic, Alexandr still more artfully got out of it.
This mystery only^excited curiosity and possibly some other emotion in (^izaj) Her face, hitherto as clear as a summer sky, began to wear an expression of anxiety and thoughtfulness. She often turned a melancholy glance on Alexandr, removed her eyes from him with a sigh, and bent them on the ground, and seemed to be thinking to herself, " You are unhappy,
perhaps deceived. Oh, how well I should have known how to make you happy; how I would have cherished you and loved you. I would have guarded you from fate itself—and so on."
This is how most women think, and most of them deceive those who trust in this siren's song. Alexandr apparently noticed nothing. He talked to her as he would have talked to a friend, or to his uncle, without a shade of that tenderness which involuntarily enters into the friendship of a man and a woman, and makes these relations unlike ^^fri^ndship. This is why it is said that friendship between a man and woman is impossible, because what is called friendship between them is either the beginning or the end of love, or else indeed is love itself. But seeing Adouev's attitude to Liza, one might almost believe that such a friendship did exist.
Once only he partly revealed or wanted to reveal his way
of thinking to her. He took up from the bench the book
she had brought with her and turned over the pages. It was
V--"" Childe Harold " in the French translation. Alexandr shook
his head, sighed and put the book- down without speaking.
"Don't you like Byron ? Have you an antipathy to Byron?" she said. "Byron was such a great poet—and you don't like him !"
" I have said nothing and you attack me," he replied.
" Why did you shake your head ? "
" Oh, I'm sorry that book has fallen into your hands."
" Who are you sorry for—the book or me ? "
Alexandr did not answer.
" Why should I not read Byron ? " she asked.
" For two reasons," said Alexandr, after a short pause.
He laid his hand on hers, to emphasise his words perhaps, or perhaps because her little hand was very white and soft, and he began to speak in soft and measured tones, fixing his eyes first on Liza's curls, then on her neck, then on her waist As he progressed through these stages his voice gradually rose.
" In the first place," he said, " because you are reading Byron in French and consequently the beauty and force of the poet's language is lost for you. Only see how pale and colourless and poor the language is in this! This is the mere ashes of a great poet; his ideas seemed to have been melted into a solution. In the second place, I should not have advised you to read Byron at all, because he will perhaps stir chords in your heart which might else have been for ever silent"
Here he squeezed her hand warmly and expressively, as though he wished to add weight to his words.
" Why should you read Byron ? " he went on ; " it may be that your life is flowing as smoothly as this stream; you see how small, how tiny it is; it does not reflect the whole sky nor clouds on its surface; there are no rocks or steep places on its banks, it trickles playfully; scarcely does the slightest ripple stir its surface; it reflects only the green of its banks, patches of sky and tiny cloudlets. So no doubt your life might run its course, but you are bringing on yourself storms and agitations for no object; you want to look at life and man through a gloomy medium. Give it up, don't read it! look on everything with a smiling face, don't gaze into the distance, live day by day, don't dwell on the dark sides of life and men, or else "
" Else what ? "
" Nothing!" said Alexandr, as though recollecting himself.
" No, tell me; you have no doubt had an experience of some kind ? "
" Where is my rod ? Exquse me, it's time I took it."
He seemed disturbed at having spoken out so unguardedly.
" No, one word more," said Liza, " of course a poet must arouse one's interest. Byron was a great poet; why don't you want me to be interested in him? Am I so stupid, so frivolous that I can't understand ? "
She was wounded.
" Not that at all: take an interest in what is fitting for your womanly heart; seek what is in harmony with it, or perhaps there may be a fearful discordance between head and heart." At this point he shook his head to suggest that he himself was a victim of this discordance.
" One will show you," he said, " the flower and teach you to enjoy its beauty and its sweet perfume, but another will only present to you the poisonous sap in its calyx, then beauty and fragrance too will be all over for you ? He will make you grieve that the sap is there and you will forget that there is fragrance there too. There is a difference between these two kinds of men and between one's interest in them. Don't seek the poison, don't try to trace to its origin everything that happens to us and about us ; don't seek needless experience; it is not that that leads to happiness."
She paused. She was listening to him with dreamy attention.
"Speak, speak," she said with childlike submissiveness. 11 1 am ready to listen to you for whole days, to obey you in everything."
" Me ?" said Alexandr coldly, " excuse me, what right have I to dictate to your wishes ? I beg your pardon for having allowed myself to make a remark on them. Read what you like—Childe Harold is a very fine work. Byron is a great poet!"
" No, don't dissemble 1 don't speak so. Tell me, what am I to read ? "
With pedantic solemnity he began to propose to her several historical works and travels, but she said she had been bored by those already at school. Then he selected for her Walter Scott, Cowper, a few French and English authors and authoresses, and two or three Russian writers, trying as he did so to show incidentally his literary taste and judgment. There was no similar conversation between them after this one.
Alexandr still meant to make his escape.
"What are women to me?" he said; " I cannot love; I have done with them."
" All right, all right," KostyakofFobserved to this. "You will get married, you will see. I myself at one time only
wanted to amuse myself with the girls and women, but when the time had corneal was driven on and shoved somehow into matrimony."
And Alexandr did not make his escape. All his old dreams had begun to stir within him. His heart began to beat faster. Liza's shape, her ankle, her curls hovered before his eyes, and life began to grow a little brighter again. For three days now Kostyakoff had not called for him, but he had himself fetched Kostyakoff to go fishing. " Again ! again as of old!" said Alexandr, " but I am firm !" and meanwhile he was hurriedly making his way to the stream.
Every time Liza was awaiting the arrival of her friends with impatience. Every evening she prepared a cup of fragrant tea with rum for Kostyakoff—and perhaps it was partly to this device that Liza was indebted for their not missing a single evening. If they were late, Liza went with her father to meet them. If bad weather kept them at home, next day there was no end to the reproaches heaped on them and on the weather.
Alexandr deliberated and deliberated and decided— Heaven only knows—he did not know himself—with what object, to cut short his walks in time, and he did not go to fish for a whole week. Kostyakoff too did not go. At last they went.
While still a mile from the place where they used to fish, they met Liza with her old nurse. She uttered a cry when she saw them, then suddenly smiled and blushed. Adouev bowed stiffly, Kostyakoff began to chatter away.
" Here we are," he said, " you didn't expect us ? he! he! he ! I see you didn't expect us and no samovar ! It's ages, miss, ages since we've seen each other. Have the fish been biting ? I tried to come all the time, but I could not persuade Alexandr Fedoritch ; he kept sitting indoors—no, I should say lying indoors."
She looked reproachfully at Adouev.
" What does it mean ? " she asked.
"What?"
" You have not been for a whole week ? "
" Yes, I believe I haven't been for a whole week ? "
" Why ? "
" Oh, I didn't feel inclined."
" Not feel inclined !" she said, surprised.
" Yes, what of it ? "
She did not speak, but seemed to be thinking; " then is it possible you did not feel inclined to come here ? "
"I wanted to send papa into town to you," she said, " only I did not know where you live:"
" Into town ? to me ? what for ? "<
br />
" That's a nice question ! " she said in an offended tone. " What for ? To see whether anything had happened to you, whether you were well ? "
" But what is it to you ? "
" What is it to me ? Good Heavens!"
" Why good Heavens ? "
"Why! why you know, I have some books of yours.'' She grew confused. " Not been for a week! " she added.
" Am I absolutely bound to be here every day ? "
" Absolutely!"
" Why ? "
" Why, why !" She looked mournfully at him and repeated " why, why ! "
He looked at her. What was it? tears, agitation, and delight and reproaches ? She had grown pale and a little thinner, her eyes were brilliant
" So that's what it is ! already ! " thought Alexandr, " I had not expected it so soon !" Then he laughed aloud.
" Why do you ask ? Listen," she continued, the flash of some resolution in her eyes. She had apparently braced herself to say something important, but at that instant her father came up to him.
" To-morrow," she said, " to-morrow I must have some
words with you; to-day I cannot; my heart is too full
You will come to-morrow ? eh ? you are listening ? you will not forget us ? you will not forsake ? . . . .
She ran away without waiting for a reply.
Her father looked steadily at her, then at Alexandr, and shook his head. Alexandr stared after her without speaking. He felt something like compunction, and was vexed with himself for having inadvertently brought her into this position; the blood rushed not to his heart but to his head. ^
" She loves me," thought Alexandr, as he went home. " Good Heavens, what a bore ! how awkward it is ; now it's
impossible to come here again, and the fish bite splendidly at that place—it's amazing ! "
Yet inwardly it seemed he was not ill-content with this ; he grew lively and chatted away every instant with Kosty-akoff.
Imagination, ever busy, sketched him, as though with some design, a full-length portrait of Liza, with her splendid shoulders, her slim figure, not omitting even her ankle. A strange sensation was kindled in him, again a shiver ran through him, but did not touch his heart, and died away again. He analysed this sensation from its source to its end.
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