And so the poet appeared: a shy, rather awkward young man, his gloves not quite fresh. He entered with some feelings of timid pride into the well-lighted and enlightened drawing room where so many important persons, so many beautiful women, had gathered to hear him. But right now, they all had something else on their minds: Vera Vladimirovna’s nephew had unexpectedly brought her a traveler just arrived in Moscow, a Spanish count, terribly interesting, a swarthy proud Carlist with sparkling eyes. Naturally he became the object of general attention, the focus of all female glances, and the focus of the drawing room. All the ladies present were busy trying with fervent effort to please the new arrival, to ingratiate themselves with the foreign visitor by that well-known, incurable hospitality that is sometimes so fond and jealous that it becomes a bit indecent and often makes us appear comical and our foreign guests arrogant. The poor man of letters stood in a corner, completely unnoticed. But what is so surprising in the fact that no one so much as glanced at him in such an unforeseen event? For Moscow ladies, men of letters are nothing unusual, but a Spanish count is still something of a novelty.
But after a couple of hours, the count left, and then the hostess turned her attention to the poet. She went up to him and told him in a very nice way about her own and everyone else’s impatience for and expectation of the recital he had promised. Then she seated him by a table with the audience around him, herself magnanimously occupying the most prominent place nearest him, where it would be impossible either to whisper or to yawn. The poor young man was a bit troubled and began to turn the pages of his notebook, not knowing what to select from it. Everything he did made it clear that it was the first time that he was preparing to deal with this class of people, who are separated from the rest of humanity and compose that haughty fashionable “world,” as it is so naively called, for which no other world exists in the Lord’s universe.
Because Cecily and other young ladies were there, the recital had to be completely moral and blameless, and the timid poet, after some hesitation, finally decided to read his unpublished translation of Schiller’s “Bell.” He coughed and said in a modest voice, “The Song of the Bell.” A minute’s silence followed, a few graceful heads leaned forward, some rosy lips smiled sweetly, some lovely listeners fixed affable looks upon the young poet while making a mental note that this was a very long piece. Emboldened by such flattering attention, the young man began to read, at first in a soft voice, then in a louder and livelier one. He was so young and inexperienced that he read his verse before that aristocratic society with the same passion with which he spoke them alone to himself in his modest room. He was so tempered in the flame of poetry that he did not sense the worldly coldness of all these people. He placed before them a series of magically changing views: a peaceful childhood, a stormy youth and the ecstasy of love, quiet happiness, grief come from heaven, the flame of fire, the gloom of devastation and a mother’s death, and then, in the distance, meadows in the light of evening with the herds slowly returning, the night quietly falling, healing calm and sudden, terrible restlessness, the joys of life and the sorrows, ringing forth in the prayerful, fateful sound of the bell, and finally, from his burning lips, the last inspired words flew:
And henceforth may this be
Its destiny
Amid the heavens’ expanse
Carried high above Earth,
May it float, near to thunder
And approach the world of stars.
May its holy voice come from on high
Like all the constellation’s choir
May it praise the universe-creator
And bring along a generous year.
May it proclaim with bronze tongue
Only that which is sacred and omnipotent;
May the wing of time beat within it
Every hour as it goes by.
And may it be the word of fate,
Standing unconsciously above all,
May it herald from afar
The game of Earth’s reality,
And startling us from on high
With powerful sounds,
May it teach us that all is not eternal,
That all things earthly will pass.
The notebook fell from his hands. He fell silent.
“C’est délicieux! C’est charmant!” whispered a few voices.
Vera Vladimirovna repeated, with emotion, “C’est charmant!” and thanked the poet for the pleasure he had given them.
“How fine that was,” said Cecily into Olga’s ear.
“Very good,” Olga replied, looking intently at someone through her lorgnette.
A short silence ensued.
“Yes,” said a short, sweetly smiling little man of about fifty, “that thought about time is a very felicitous one, but a bit drawn out in the German manner. With what strength and compression Jean-Baptiste Rousseau managed to express it in two lines:
Le temps, cette image mobile
De l’immobile Eternité.”
One lady among the charming neighbors of the man of letters leaned close to him and asked sympathetically, “How long did this marvelous translation take you?”
“I don’t know,” answered the poor, confused young man.
She turned away with a barely perceptible smile.
“That is really good poetry,” said a lean, serious man, Prince Somebody, quietly sitting in a large armchair, “but it’s …” (he stopped for a moment, took a pinch of snuff, stretched his right leg over his left, and continued) “but it’s not very contemporary poetry. We are not content any more with empty dreaming; we demand action. In our century, a poet should labor alongside this hardworking generation; poetry should be useful; it should hold vice up to shame or set a crown on virtue.”
Vera Vladimirovna stood up for Schiller.
“Permit me, Prince,” she remarked, “it seems to me that you are not quite right about the poem; there is much that is morally edifying and truly useful in it.”
“Yes,” interrupted the prince, inflamed by his own eloquence, “but it is all somehow not alive enough, not expressive enough. We want to see the point of a poem clearly. Understand this,” he continued, turning to the poet, “your noble calling is more important now than ever, morally higher. Write poetry against cold-hearted egotists, against the debauches of flighty young people, stir the conscience of the evildoer, and then you will be a contemporary poet. We recognize only what is useful to mankind.”
The poor young poet thought for a moment, perhaps, that to feel and to reason, to love and to pray—this too might be somewhat useful for humanity; but he was silent.
Vera Vladimirovna wanted to ask him to read another poem, but looking around, she saw that everyone seemed a bit wearied by the delights of poetry. Besides, it was already pretty late, and her evening could end satisfactorily without the aid of any new artistic admixture. And indeed, this society of literary dilettantes gradually dispersed, looking quite content, and their praises were even heard on the stairway:
“A young man with talent.”
“And the Spaniard will be at my house tomorrow.”
“He’s very interesting.”
“Marvelous eyes.”
“What a pleasant evening!”
“Especially since it’s over,” a haughty youth added in passing, setting his hat to perch smartly on his brow.
An hour after the reading, the rich drawing room was empty, and Cecily was sitting at her dressing table, putting her heavy black hair up in curls for the night.
She felt somehow strange and awkward. Involuntarily, she remembered and repeated some of the lines she had heard. Sharply delineated visions flashed by her again, and all of this went quite beyond the customary bounds of her thoughts.
Cecily had been educated in the fear of God and society; the Lord’s Commandments and the laws of propriety carried equal weight with her. To destroy either, even in thought, seemed to her equally impossible and inconceivable. And although, as we have seen, Vera Vladimiro
vna greatly respected and loved poetry, she still considered it improper for a young girl to spend too much of her time on it. She quite justly feared any development of imagination and inspiration, those eternal enemies of propriety. She molded the spiritual gifts of her daughter so carefully that Cecily, instead of dreaming of the Marquis Poza, of Egmont, of Lara and the like, could only dream of a splendid ball, a new gown, and the outdoor fete on the first of May.
Vera Vladimirovna was, as we have seen, very proud of her daughter’s successful upbringing, especially perhaps because it had been accomplished not without difficulty, because it took time and skill to destroy in her soul its innate thirst for delight and enthusiasm. Be that as it may, Cecily, prepared for high society, having memorized all its requirements and statutes, could never commit the slightest peccadillo, the most barely noticeable fault against them, could never forget herself for a moment, raise her voice half a tone, jump from a chair, enjoy a conversation with a man to the point where she might talk to him ten minutes longer than was proper or look to the right when she was supposed to look to the left. Now, at eighteen, she was so used to wearing her mind in a corset that she felt it no more than she did the silk undergarment that she took off only at night. She had talents, of course, but measured ones, decorous ones, les talents de société, as the language of society so aptly calls them. She sang very nicely and sketched very nicely as well. Poetry, as we have said earlier, was known to her mostly by hearsay, as something wild and incompatible with a respectable life. She knew that there were even women poets, but this was always presented to her as the most pitiable, abnormal condition, as a disastrous and dangerous illness.
But now she was thinking involuntarily about that strange ability of the soul. Unconsciously, there awakened in her a new and obscure sympathy for that harmony of verse, for those melodious thoughts, those improper delights, and this unexpected sympathy almost frightened her. Her reason told her that after all, this was empty and unnecessary nonsense that shouldn’t occupy her for long. And thinking this, she laid her graceful head on the pillow and was alone in the silence of the night. But no, through her drowsiness, rhyme sounded in her again; she heard poetry and, half asleep, she suddenly thought that she too could speak in song … and drowsily smiled at the absurdity of it. But a persistent song hummed and sounded and lulled her. She heard it more clearly all the time, and its harmonies and inspired words appeared more and more real to her. It seemed as if waves were lifting her … she was in a small boat … carrying her far away … and then she glimpsed the shore; the moon came up …
The river flows and whispering goes
The river’s stream.
A boat is carried past, untiring
Down the river.
A melody slips through the silence
To meet a maiden
Like a far-off echo, like a musical
Chord a wave makes.
And powerful, along with the wave
Thoughts sing in her;
With a mighty sound there soars at night
The flight of dreams,
Of dreams despondent and tense,
Everything the mind has saved in vain.
Of the sad and godless loss
Of greatest happiness and strength.
Of false worldly barriers,
Of intrigues of worldly judges,
Of everything murdered without mercy,
Of everything that has perished without trace.
The river flows, and whispering goes
The river’s stream.
And with the maiden, untiring,
The boat slips past.
It floats far at the current’s will
And the choir of stars
Far-shining, with reproachful beam,
Meets her glance.
The Milky Way leads to an endless world
Far above her
And a heartfelt sigh flies sadly up
To that eternity.
“Perhaps with the passing years
A better age will come:
Mankind will not always be
A sacrifice to worldly sin!
Maybe days of hope
Of blessedness are near,
And holy yearnings once again
Will start up in the soul.
But why meet these reproaches,
Why perish vainly in the shadows,
Prophets without usefulness,
Whom God sends to Earth today?
You drink to the dregs in vain
The bitter cup of life;
Your faith is alien to men,
They do not need your song.”
And past, past untiring
The boat slips through;
The river flows and loudly goes
The river’s stream.
And all the waves sing, blending
Their sonorous voices;
And an alien distance, a mute region
Answers back.
The wind flying in the drowsing shade
Through the waters’ foam,
Through the roar, carries forth
A mighty answer.
And on they go amid upheavals
Hurling their loud verses to the world;
To them, song is more than human striving,
Dreams are more necessary than worldly gifts.
Their conviction has no answer,
Their inspiration no reward.
But, inaccessible to worldly power,
They sing. They do not create
For the empty joys of the masses—
For whom, in vain, life fills with miracles
The myriads of stars shine forth,
And the sun gleams in the heavens—
But so that people, sensing this mystery,
Will not be able to reject it;
So that the poet’s alleluia
Will rise above Earth’s murmur:
Because for the universe this is
An inexhaustible blessing,
For holy gifts are everywhere
Where there is someone to understand them.
For every creature of the world
Must, fulfilling its existence,
Contribute its own fragrance,
Shine with its own light through the darkness.
Not in vain in the distant desert
The sun for years has scorched the palm,
If one day, tortured by the heat,
Even one brow should find repose;
If, in the sterile scorching land,
A single traveler, deprived of strength,
Should find even an hour of peace,
And bless the palm tree’s shade.
Several days had passed since Vera Vladimirovna had moved into one of those nice pseudo-Gothic-Chinese buildings scattered around Petrovsky Park. Here too, everything corresponded to the demands and conditions of society. Surrounding the luxurious cottage was a luxurious garden, its greenery always an excellent, a choice, or one might say an aristocratic greenery. Nowhere was there a faded leaf, a dry twig, a superfluous blade of grass; banished was everything in God’s creation that was coarse, vulgar, plebeian. The very shrubbery around the house flaunted a kind of Parisian haughtiness—the very flowers planted in every available space took on a certain semblance of good form; nature made herself unnatural. In a word, everything was as it should be.
In the midst of this beautiful and artful decor, on a warm and clear June evening, some saddled horses were standing. Three of them had ladies’ saddles on them and fancy grooms alongside. Around them paced and fretted five or six young dandies, both Prince Victor and Dmitry Ivachinsky, who had only recently arrived, among them. A little farther away, a large carriage and two light carriages for men were waiting, harnessed and ready. The ladies were sitting in the drawing room waiting for those who were riding and who were still getting into their riding habits. They finally appeared, and the entire party went out onto the wide porch. Cecily and Olga, more slender than usual in long ridi
ng dresses of a dark color, even more graceful in black caps almost like those the men wore, under which their thick hair tumbled out and their lively eyes shone, stopped on the iron steps, whips in hand, brave and beautiful. The restless horses were brought to them. No sooner had they placed their narrow feet in the stirrups than off they flew. They flicked the reins and were carried far ahead of the men, with that violent female daring which is so far from manly valor.
The third horsewoman was one of those precious and useful friends with whom clever society women usually provide themselves. She belonged to the countless majority of ladies who have no money, no beauty, and not even attractive minds—futile and insufficient substitutes for these two more important possessions. On the other hand, Nadezhda Ivanovna was essential to Madame Valitskaia; Nadezhda Ivanovna shared in all the merriment of that brilliant circle and, poor thing, every day, without tiring, she set her thick figure, her thirty-year-old, ordinary face, her miserable dress alongside Olga’s graceful figure, fresh face, and marvelously artful clothes, and she probably did not understand herself how selfless she was being. Or maybe she did understand—how can we know? There are people who are ready to pay with the blood from their own veins in order to brush up against high society and, as it were, play a part in its amusements.
The destination of the ride was Ostankino.
The cavalcade, accompanied by the carriages, was already passing a cool, wide grove which the common folk, with their native good sense, chose for their amusements and made unquestionably their own, leaving the dusty Petrovsky Park and sandy Sokolniki to the more enlightened people. Cecily galloped forward. With childish joy, she gave herself over to the fun of riding horseback, to the attraction of this living force, this half-free will that carried her off and that she was guiding. Besides, the late afternoon was beautiful, the meadows wide, the air invigorating, the sky endlessly clear. She struck her horse with the whip and went forward at top speed. A sort of incomprehensible intoxication possessed her. She suddenly wanted to gallop away from life’s imprisonment, from all dependencies, from all obligations, all necessities. She rode with shining eyes, her hair flying loose. Suddenly someone caught up with her, and someone’s hand grabbed the reins of her horse and stopped it.
A Double Life Page 5