by Maxim Gorky
Várenka came frequently. They rowed on the river, together, or in company with his sister, but never with Benkóvsky; they strolled in the forest, and once they drove to a monastery, twenty versts away. The young girl continued to please him, and to upset him with her odd remarks, but he always found her society agreeable. Her ingenuousness perplexed him, and restrained the man within him; the integrity of her nature aroused his amazement, but the simple-hearted straightforwardness with which she put aside everything wherewith he attempted to unsettle the peace of her soul, wounded his self-love.
And more and more frequently did he ask himself:
“But is it possible that I have not sufficient energy to drive out of her head all these errors and stupidities?”
When he did not see her, he clearly felt the indispensable necessity of liberating her mind from abnormal paths, he imposed this necessity upon himself as an obligation, but when Várenka made her appearance—he did not exactly forget his resolve, but he never placed it in the foremost rank in his relations toward her. Sometimes he caught himself listening to her, exactly as though he were desirous of learning something from her, and he admitted that there was something about her which hampered the freedom of his mind. It happened, on occasion, that when he had ready prepared a retort which, by stunning her with its dearness and force, would have convinced her of the obviousness of her error,—he locked this retort up within him, as though afraid to utter it. When he caught himself at this, he thought:
“Can this proceed from lack of confidence in my truth?”
And, of course, he convinced himself of the contrary. Another reason why he found it difficult to talk to her was, that she hardly knew even the alphabet of the generally accepted views. It was necessary to begin at the foundations, and her persistent questions: “why?” and “what for?” constantly led him off into the thickets of abstractions, where she understood absolutely nothing. One day, worn out with his contradictions, she set forth her philosophy to him in these words:
“God created me, like other people, in His own image and likeness…which signifies, that everything I do, I do according to His will, and I live—as He wants me to.… Surely, He knows how I live? Well, and that is all there is to be said, and it is useless for you to try to pick a quarrel with me!”
More and more frequently did she irritate in him the glowing sensation of the male, but he kept watch on himself, and with swift efforts, which demanded from him constantly increasing consciousness, he extinguished in himself these flashes of sensuality, he even endeavored to conceal them from himself, and when he could no longer conceal them, he said to himself, with a guilty laugh:
“What of it?—That’s natural…considering her beauty.… But I am a man, and every day my organism is growing stronger under the influence of this sun and air.. It is natural, but her oddities completely guarantee me against being carried away by her.…”
Season becomes incredibly active and pliable, when man’s feeling requires a mask, behind which to hide the crude truth of his questions. Feeling, like every other power, straightforward and upright, when it is shattered by life, or broken by excessive efforts to restrain its outbursts with the cold bridle of reason, loses both uprightness and straightforwardness, and remains merely crude. And then, being in need of a screen for its weakness and coarseness, it betakes itself for aid to the great capacity which reason possesses of imparting to a lie the physiognomy of the truth. This capacity was well developed in Ippolít Sergyéevitch, and with its aid, he successfully imparted to his attraction toward Várenka the character of interest in her, pure and free from all impulses. He would not have had the strength to love her,—he knew that, but in the depths of his mind there flashed up the hope of possessing her; without himself being aware of it, he expected that she would be captivated by him. And as he argued with himself about everything which did not lower him in his own eyes, he succeeded in concealing within himself everything which might have evoked in him a doubt as to his good breeding.…
One day, at evening tea, his sister announced to him:
“Do you know—to-morrow is Várenka Ólesoff’s birthday. We must drive over there. I want to have a drive.… And it will be good for the horses, too.”
“Do drive over…and congratulate her on my behalf,—” he said, feeling that he, also, would like to go.
“But will not you drive with me?—” she inquired, glancing at him, with curiosity.
“I? I don’t know whether I care to.… I think I don’t. But I may go, all the same.”
“It is not obligatory!—” remarked Elizavéta Sergyéevna, and dropped her eyelids, to conceal the smile which gleamed in her eyes.
“I know that,—” said he, displeased.
A long pause ensued, during which Ippolít Sergyéevitch remarked to himself, with severity, that he was conducting himself toward that young girl exactly as though he were afraid that his self-control would not resist her charms.
“She told me—that Várenka—that they have a very beautiful site there,—” he said, and turned scarlet, knowing that his sister understood him. But she did not betray this in any way—on the contrary, she began to persuade him.
“Let us go, do, please! You will see, it really is magnificent at their place. And it will be less awkward for me if you are there.… We will not stay long, is that right?”
He assented, but his mood was spoiled.
“Why did I find it necessary to lie? What is there disgraceful or unnatural in my wanting to see a pretty young girl once more?—” he asked himself angrily. And he made no reply to these questions.
On the following morning, he awoke early, and the first sounds of the day which his ear caught, were his sister’s words:
.… “Ippolít will be astonished!”
They were accompanied by a loud laugh—only Várenka could laugh like that. Ippolít Sergyéevitch, sitting up in bed, threw off the sheet, and listened, smiling the while. That which instantaneously invaded him and filled his soul could hardly be called joy, rather was it a foreboding of joy near at hand, which pleasantly titillated the nerves. And springing from his bed, he began to dress himself with a swiftness which confused and perplexed him. What had happened? Could it be that she, on her birthday, had come to invite him and his sister to her house? What a darling girl!
When he entered the dining-room, Várenka dropped her eyes before him with a penitently-comical manner, and without taking the hand which he offered her, she began, in a timid voice:
“I am afraid, that you.…”
“Just imagine!—” exclaimed Elizavéta Sergyéevna,—“she has run away from home!”
“What do you mean by that?”—her brother asked her.
“On the sly—” explained Várenka.
“Ha, ha, ha!—” laughed Elizavéta Sergyéevna.
“But…why?”—persisted Ippolít.
“I have run away from my suitors.…” the young girl confessed, and began to laugh also.—“Imagine, what frightful faces they will make! Aunt Lutchítzky is awfully anxious to drive me into marriage!—she sent them solemn invitations, and cooked and baked as much for them as though I’d had a hundred wooers! And I helped her do it…but to-day I woke up, and jumped on my horse—and march! hither. I left them a note to say that I had gone to the Shtcherbákoffs…you understand? twenty-three versts away, in exactly the opposite direction!”
He looked at her, and laughed, with a laugh which evoked a pleasing warmth in his breast. Again she was clad in a full, white gown, whose folds fell in tender streams from her shoulders to her feet, enveloping her body in a cloud, as it were. Clear laughter quivered in her eyes, and on her face played an animated flush.
“You do not like it?”—she asked him.
“What?”—he inquired briefly.
“What I have done? It was impolite, I understand that,—” she said, becoming serious, and i
mmediately burst out laughing again.…
“I can imagine them! All dressed up, scented…they’ll get drunk with grief—heavens, how drunk!”
“Are there many of them?—” asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch.
“Four.…”
“The tea is poured!” announced Elizavéta Sergyéevna.
“You will have to pay for this prank, Várya.… Have you thought of that?”
“No…and I don’t want to!—” she replied with decision, as she seated herself at the table.—“That will take place—when I return to them…that is to say, this evening, for I’m going to spend the day with you. Why should I think from morning on about what will not happen until the evening? And who can do anything to me, and what can they do? Papa? He will growl, but I can go away and not listen to, him.… Aunty?—she loves me passionately! They, do you think? Why, I can make them crawl round me on all fours…ha, ha, ha! That would be…ridiculous! I will try…Tchernonéboff can’t, because he has a big belly!”
“Várya! You are losing your wits!“—Elizavéta Sergyéevna endeavored to stop her.
“No, I shall not!—” promised the girl through her laughter, but she did not stop soon, and kept on depicting her suitors, and captivating the brother and sister by the genuineness of her animation.
Laughter resounded during the whole time they were drinking tea. Elizavéta Sergyéevna laughed with a tinge of condescension toward Várya. Ippolít Sergyéevitch tried to restrain himself, but could not. After tea, they began to discuss how they should fill up the day which had begun so merrily. Várenka suggested that they should row in the boat, to the forest, and drink tea there, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch immediately agreed with her. But his sister assumed a troubled expression, and announced:
“I cannot take part in that—I must drive to Sánino to-day, and cannot defer it. I had intended to drive to your house, Várya, and turn off there on the way…but now it is necessary that I should make the trip expressly.…”
Ippolít Sergyéevitch cast a suspicious glance at her—it struck him that she had that moment invented this, for the purpose of leaving Várya alone with him. But her face expressed nothing except dissatisfaction and anxiety.
Várenka was grieved by her words, but soon recovered her animation:
“Well, what of that? So much the worse for you…and we’ll go, all the same! Won’t we? To-day I want to go far.… Only, see here—can Grigóry and Másha go with us?”
“Grigóry can, of course! But Másha…who will serve dinner?”
“And who will eat the dinner? You are going to the Benkóvskys, we shall not return until evening.”
“Very well, take Másha also.”
Várenka hurried off somewhere or other. Ippolít Sergyéevitch lighted a cigarette, went out on the terrace, and began to pace up and down it. This expedition charmed him, but Grigóry and Másha seemed to him superfluous. They would embarrass him—there was no doubt about that, and he would not be able to talk freely in their presence.
Half an hour had not elapsed before Ippolít Sergyéevitch and Várya were standing by the boat, while around it bustled Grigóry—a red-haired, blue-eyed young fellow, with freckles on his face, and an aquiline nose. Másha, as she packed the samovár and the various bundles in the boat, said to him:
“Move quicker, you red-head; don’t you see, the quality are waiting.”
“Everything will be ready in a minute,” replied the young fellow, in a high tenor voice, as he fastened the row-locks, and winked at Másha.
Ippolít Sergyéevitch saw it, and divined who it was that had been flitting past his windows by night.
“Do you know,—” said Várya, as she seated herself in the boat, and indicated Grigóry by a nod,—“he also has the reputation of being a learned man, with us.… He’s a lawyer.”
“You’re just talking, Varvára Vasílievna,—” laughed Grigóry, showing his strong white teeth.—“A lawyer!”
“Seriously, Ippolít Sergyéevitch, he knows all the Russian laws.…”
“Do you, really, Grigóry?” asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with interest.
“The lady is joking…the idea! Nobody knows them all, Varvára Vasílievna.”
“And how about the person who wrote them?”
“Mr. Speránsky? He died long, long ago.…”68
“Why, do you read?”—inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, attentively scanning the intelligent, eagle-like face of the young man, who was lightly tossing the oars into the boat.
“And as for the laws, as she say,”—and Grigóry indicated Várya with his bold eyes.—“The tenth volume of them fell into my hands by accident…I looked through it, and saw that it was interesting and necessary. I began to read.… And now I have the first volume.… The first article in it is so straight, and says: ‘no one,’ it says, ‘can excuse himself through ignorance of the laws,’ Well, so I thought to myself, that nobody does know them, and it isn’t necessary for everybody to know them all.… And the teacher is soon going to get me the statutes about the peasants;—it’s very interesting to read—and see what they are like.…”
“You see what he is?”—inquired Várenka.
“And do you read much?—” Ippolít Sergyéevitch pursued his inquiry, as he recalled Gógol’s Petrúshka.
“I read, when I have time. There are a great many little books here.… Elizavéta Sergyéevna alone must have as many as a thousand. Only, hers are all romances, and various stories.…”
The boat floated smoothly against the current, the shores moved to meet it, and all around was intoxicatingly beautiful: bright, still, fragrant. Ippolít Sergyéevitch gazed at Várenka’s face, which was turned with curiosity toward the broad-chested rower, while the latter, cutting the mirror-like surface of the river in measured strokes, chatted about his literary tastes, content that the learned gentleman so gladly listened to him. Love and pride beamed in the eyes of Másha, who was watching them from beneath her drooping lashes.
“I don’t like to read about how the sun sets and rises…and, in general, about nature. I have seen those sunrises more than a thousand times, I think.… I know all about the woods and the rivers, also; why should I read about them? But that sort of thing is in every book…and, in my opinion, it’s entirely superfluous.… Everybody understands the sunset after his own fashion.… And everybody has his own eyes for that purpose. But about the life of people—that’s interesting. You read, and you say to yourself:—’ and what would you do yourself, if you were placed on that line?’ Although you know that the whole of it is false.”
“What is false?”—asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch.
“Why, the little books. They’re invented. About the peasant, for example.… Are they the sort of folks they appear in books? Everybody writes about them compassionately, and makes them out to be such petty fools…it isn’t well! Folks read, and think and, as a matter of fact, they can’t understand the peasant…because in the books he’s…terribly stupid, and bad.…”
Várenka must have found these remarks tiresome, for she began to sing, in a low tone, as she gazed at the shores with dimming eyes.
“See here—Ippolít Sergyéevitch, let’s get out and go on foot through the forest. But here we are, sitting and baking in the sun—is that the way to take a pleasure trip? Grigóry and Másha can row on to Savyóloff dell, land there, and prepare tea for us, and meet us.… Grigóry, bring the boat to the shore. I’m awfully fond of eating and drinking in the forest, in the air, in the sunshine.… One, somehow, feels like a free vagabond.…”
“There, you see,” she said, with animation, as she sprang from the boat upon the sandy shore,—“you touch earth, and immediately there is something which…raises the soul in revolt. Here I’ve got my boots full of sand…and have wet one foot in the water.… That’s unpleasant and pleasant, that means—it is good, because it makes one feel oneself.… Lo
ok, how swiftly the boat has moved on!”
The river lay at their feet, and disturbed by the boat, it plashed softly against the shore. The boat flew, like an arrow, in the direction of the forest, leaving behind it a long wake, which glittered like silver in the sunlight. They could see that Grigóry was laughing, as he looked at Másha, while she was threatening him with her fist.
“That’s a pair of lovers,”—remarked Várenka, with a smile;—“Másha has already asked Elizavéta Sergyéevna’s permission to marry Grigóry. But Elizavéta Sergyéevna will not allow it, for the present; she does not like married servants. But Grigóry’s term of service ends in the autumn, and then he’ll take Másha away from you…They’re both splendid people. Grigóry is begging me to sell him a small plot of ground to be paid for in instalments…or to let him have it on a long lease…he wants ten desyatinas. But I cannot, as long as papa is alive, and it’s a pity…I know that he would pay me all, and very punctually…he’s a good hand at everything…a locksmith, and a blacksmith, and he’s serving at your place as under-coachman.… Kokóvitch—the county chief, and my suitor—says this to me about him: 6 that’s a dangerous beast, do you know—he doesn’t respect his superiors!’”
“Who is that Kokóvitch? A Pole?”69—inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, admiring her grimaces.
“A Mordvinian, a Tchuvásh—I don’t know! He has a frightfully long and thick tongue, there isn’t room for it in his mouth, and it interferes with his speech.… Ugh! What mud!”
Their path was blocked by a puddle of water covered with green scum, and surrounded by a border of greasy mud. Ippolít Sergyéevitch inspected his feet, remarking:
