by Maxim Gorky
He paused, arousing his mind, which had fallen into a sweet doze beneath the sounds of her voice. Then he began to talk about the origin of the world, as he understood it:
“Mighty, unknown powers are eternally moving, coming into conflict, and their vast movement gives rise to the world which we see, in which the life of thought and of the grass-blade are subjected to the same, identical laws. This movement had no beginning, and will have no end.…”
The young girl listened attentively to him, and frequently asked him to explain one point or another. He explained with pleasure, perceiving the tension of thought in her face. She was thinking, thinking! But when he had finished, she asked him ingenuously, after pausing for a minute:
“So it was not begun from the beginning! But in the beginning was God. How is that? There is simply no mention of Him there, and can that be what is meant by not believing in Him?”
He wanted to retort, but he understood, from the expression of her face, that that was useless at the moment. She was a believer—to that her eyes, which were blazing with mystical fire, bore witness. Softly, timidly, she told him something strange. He did not catch the beginning of her speech.
“When you look at people, and see how hateful everything about them is, and then remember God and the Last Judgment—your heart fairly contracts! Because, assuredly, He can demand an accounting at any time-to-day, to-morrow, an hour hence.… And, you know, it sometimes seems to me—that it will be soon! It will be by day…and first the sun will be extinguished…and then a new flame will flash up, and in it He will appear.”
Ippolít Sergyéevitch listened to her ravings, and said to himself:
“She possesses everything except the one thing which she ought to have.…”
Her remarks called forth pallor on her face, and there was terror in her eyes. In this low-spirited condition she walked on for a long time, so that the curiosity with which Ippolít Sergyéevitch had been listening to her, began to die out, and give place to weariness.
But her delirium suddenly vanished, when a loud laugh was wafted to their ears, as it rang out somewhere in the immediate vicinity.
“Do you hear that? It is Másha…We have arrived!”
She hastened her pace, and shouted:
“Másha, á-oo!”
“Why does she shout?” thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch compassionately.
They emerged upon the bank of the river; it sloped down to the water, and on it cheerful clumps of birch-trees and aspens were capriciously scattered. And on the opposite shore, at the very water’s edge, stood the lofty, silent pines, filling the air with their heavy, resinous fragrance. There everything was gloomy, motionless, monotonous, and permeated with stem dignity, but on this side—the graceful birch-trees rocked their supple branches to and fro, the silvery foliage of the aspens quivered; the wild snow-ball, and hazel bushes stood in luxuriant masses, reflected in the water; yonder the sand gleamed yellow, sprinkled with reddish pine-needles; here, under their feet, the second growth of grass, barely peeping forth from among the shorn stalks, showed green, and the scent of new-mown hay emanated from the haycocks which had been tossed up under the trees. The river, calm and cold, reflected like a mirror these two worlds, so unlike one to the other.
In the shade of a group of birches a gay-colored rug had been spread, on it stood the samovár, emitting clouds of steam and blue smoke, and beside it, squatting on her heels, Másha was busying herself, teapot in hand. Her face was red and happy, her hair was damp.
“Have you been in bathing?” Várenka asked her, “And where is Grigóry?”
“He has gone to take a bath also. He’ll soon be back.”
“Well, I don’t want him. I want to eat, drink, and…eat and drink! That I do! And how about you, Ippolít Sergyéevitch?”
“I shall not refuse, you know,—” he laughed.
“Be quick, Másha!”
“What do you command first? Chicken, the pasty.…”
“Serve everything at once, and you may disappear! Perhaps someone is waiting for you?”
“Just nobody at all,” smiled Másha softly, gazing at her with grateful eyes.
“Well, all right, go on pretending!”
* * * *
“How simply she says all that,” thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch, attacking the chicken.—“Can it be that she is acquainted with the sense and the details of such relations? Very likely, seeing that the country is so frank and coarse in that sphere.”
But Várenka, with a laugh, jested away to the confusion of Másha, who stood before her with downcast eyes, and with a smile of happiness on her face.
“Wait, he’ll take you in hand!”—she threatened.
“Of co-ourse! And I shall give myself to him!… I…you know…I put him.…” and covering her face with her apron, she rocked to and fro, in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.—“On the way, I pushed him into the water!”
“Did you! That’s a clever girl! And what did he do?”
“He swam after the boat.. and…and he kept beseeching me, to…let him…into the boat…but I…flung him…a rope, from the stern!”
The infectious laughter of the two women forced Ippolít Sergyéevitch to burst into laughter also. He laughed not because he imagined to himself Grigóry swimming after the boat, but because it did him good to laugh. A sensation of freedom from himself pervaded him, and, now and then, he seemed to be surprised at himself from somewhere in the distance, that he had never before been so simply joyous as at that moment. Then Másha vanished, and again they remained alone together.
Várenka half reclined on the rug, and drank tea, while Ippolít Sergyéevitch gazed at her, as through the mist of dreams. Around them reigned stillness, only the samovár hummed a pensive melody, and, from time to time, something rustled in the grass.
“What makes you so taciturn?” inquired Várenka, casting an anxious glance at him. “Perhaps you are bored?”
“No, I’m enjoying myself,” he said slowly, “but I don’t feel like talking.”
“That’s the way I feel, too,” and the girl grew animated,—“when it is still, I don’t like at all to chatter. For with words you cannot say much, because there are feelings for which there are no words at all. And when people say—‘silence,’ it is nonsense:—one cannot speak of silence without destroying it…can one?”
She paused, gazed at the pine forest, and pointing at it with her hand, she said, with a quiet smile:
“See, the pines seem to be listening to something. There, among them, it is still, so still. Sometimes it seems to me that the best way to live is like that, in silence. But it is fine, too, in a thunderstorm…akh, how fine! The sky is black, the lightning is vicious, it is dark, the wind roars.. at such times I feel like going out into the fields, and standing there, and singing—singing loudly, or running through the rain, against the wind. It’s the same in winter. Do you know, I once got lost in a snow-storm and came near freezing to death.”
“Tell me, how that happened,” he requested her. He found it pleasant to listen to her,—it seemed as though she were talking in a language which was new to him, although comprehensible.
“I was driving from the town, late at night,” she began, moving nearer to him, and fixing her softly-smiling eyes upon his face.—“The coachman was Yákoff, such a stem old peasant. And the snow-storm began, a snow-storm of terrible force, and blew straight in our faces. The wind came in gusts, and hurled a whole cloud of snow on us, so that the horses backed, and Yákoff reeled on the box. Everything around seethed as though in a kettle, and we were in a cold foam. We drove and drove, and then I saw Yákoff take his cap from his head and cross himself. ‘What’s the matter?’—‘Pray, my lady, to the Lord and to Varvára the Great Martyr, she will help against sudden death.’ He spoke simply, and without fear, so that I was not frightened: I asked—‘Have we lost our way?’�
��‘Yes,’ said he.—‘But perhaps we shall escape?’—‘How are we to escape, in such a blizzard! Now, I’m going to let go of the reins, and perhaps the horses will find the way themselves; but do you call God to mind, all the same!’ He is very devout, that Yákoff. The horses halted, and stood still, and the snow drifted over us. How cold it was! The snow cut our faces. Yákoff moved from the box, and sat beside me, so that both of us might be warmer, and we put the rug that was in the sledge over our heads. I sat there and thought: ‘Well, I am lost! And I shall not eat the bonbons I have brought from the town.…’ But I was not afraid, because Yákoff kept talking all the while. I remember that he said: ‘I’m sorry for you, my lady!71 ‘Why should you perish?—’ ‘Why, you will be frozen also?—’ ‘I’m of no consequence, I’ve lived my life, but here are you …‘ and he kept on about me. He is very fond of me, he even scolds sometimes, you know, growls at me, he’s so cross-grained:—‘akh, you impious creature, you mad-cap, you shameless weathercock!…”
She assumed a surly mien, and spoke in a deep bass voice, drawling out her words. The memory of Yákoff had diverted her from her story, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch was obliged to ask her:
“And how did you find the road?”
“Why, the horses got chilled, and started ahead of their own accord, and they went on, and on until they reached a village thirteen versts away from ours. You know, our village is near here, about four versts distant. If you were to go along the shore, and then by the footpath, through the forest, to the right, you would come upon a hollow, and our home-farm would be in sight. But by the highway, it is ten versts from here.”
Several saucy birds hovered around them, and perching upon the branches of the bushes, twittered valiantly, as though imparting to one another their impressions concerning these two persons, alone there in the heart of the forest. From afar laughter, talking and the splash of oars was wafted to them,—probably from Grigóry and Másha as they rowed on the river.
“Suppose we call them, and go in that direction, among the pines?”—suggested Várenka.
He assented, and placing her hand to her mouth like a trumpet, she began to shout:
“Row thi-is wa-ay!”
Her bosom strained with the cry, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch admired her in silence. He had to think of some-thing—of something very serious, he felt,—but he did not wish to think, and this faint appeal of his mind did not prevent his calmly and freely resigning himself to the more powerful command of his feelings.
The boat came in sight. Grigóry’s face was sly and rather guilty; Másha’s bore a fictitious expression of anger; but Várenka, as she took her seat in the boat, glanced at them, and laughed, and then they both began to laugh, confused and happy.
“Venus and her petted slaves,” said Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself.
In the pine forest it was solemn and still as in a temple, and the mighty, stately tree-trunks stood like columns, supporting a heavy vault of dark verdure. A warm, heavy odor of resin filled the air, and under their feet the dry pine-needles crackled softly. In front, behind, on every side, stood the reddish pines, and only here and there, at their roots, through a layer of needles, did a pallid green force its way. In the stillness and in silence the two people strolled slowly amid this dumb life, turning now to the right, now to the left, to avoid trees which barred their path.
“We shall not go astray?”—inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch.
“I go astray?” said Várenka in surprise.—“I can always, everywhere find the way I require…all one has to do is to look at the sun.”
He did not ask her how the sun pointed out the road to her, he did not, in the least, wish to speak, although he felt, at times, that he might say a very great deal to her. But these were internal impulses of desire, flashing up on the surface of his calm mood, and dying out again in a second, without agitating him. Várenka walked by his side, and on her face he beheld the reflection of quiet ecstasy.
“Is this nice?” she asked him, now and then, and a caressing smile caused her lips to quiver.
“Yes, very,” he replied briefly, and again they fell silent, as they roamed through the forest. It seemed to him that he was a young man, devoutly in love, a stranger to sinful intentions, and to all inward conflict with himself. But every time that his eyes fell upon the spots of mud on her gown, a disquieting shadow fell upon his soul. And he did not understand how this happened, that suddenly, all in a moment, when such a shadow enveloped his consciousness, with a deep sigh, as though casting off a weight, he said to her:
“What a beauty you are!”
She looked at him in amazement.
“What ails you? You have held your peace, held your peace—and then, suddenly, you say that!”
Ippolít Sergyéevitch smiled faintly, disarmed by her composure.
“It is so beautiful here.. you know! The forest is beautiful…and you are like a fairy in it…or, you are a goddess, and the forest is your temple.”
“No,” she replied, with a smile, “it is not my forest, it belongs to the Crown, but our forest is yonder, down the river.”
And she pointed with her hand somewhere to one side.
“Is she jesting, or…does not she understand?—” said Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself, and a persistent desire to talk to her about her beauty began to blaze up within him. But she was pensive, calm, and this restrained him during the entire time of their stroll.
They rambled on for a long time, but said little, for the soft, peaceful impressions of that day had breathed into their souls a sweet languor, in which all desires had sunk to rest, except the desire to meditate in silence upon something inexpressible in words.
On their return home, they learned that Elizavéta Sergyéevna had not yet arrived, and they began to drink tea, which Másha hastily prepared. Immediately after tea, Várenka rode off homeward, having exacted from him a promise to come to their manor with Elizavéta Sergyéevna. He saw her off, and as he reached the terrace, he surprised in himself a mournful sensation of having lost something which was indispensable to him. As he sat at the table, whereon still stood his glass of tea, which had grown cold, he sternly tried to bring himself up short, to suppress this whole play of emotions excited by the day, but pity for himself made its appearance, and he rejected all operations on himself.
“Why?” he said to himself—“can all this be serious? It is a frolic, nothing more. It will not hurt her, it cannot hurt her, even if I wished it. It somewhat interferes with my life…but there is so much that is young and beautiful about it.…”
Then, smiling condescendingly to himself, he recalled his firm resolve to develop her mind, and his unsuccessful efforts to do so.
“No, evidently, one must use different words with her. These unadulterated natures are more inclined to yield their directness to metaphysics…defending themselves against logic by the armor of blind, primitive feeling.… She is a strange girl!”
His sister found him engrossed in thoughts about her. She made her appearance in noisy, animated mood,—such as he had not beheld her hitherto. After ordering Másha to boil the samovár, she seated herself opposite her brother, and began to tell him about the Benkóvskys. “Forth from all the cracks of their ancient house peer the cruel eyes of poverty, which is celebrating its victory over that family. In the house, to all appearances, there is not a kopék of money, nor any provisions; they sent to the village to get eggs for dinner. There was no meat at dinner, and so old Benkóvsky talked a great deal about vegetarianism, and about the possibility of the moral regeneration of people on that basis. The whole place reeks of decay, and they are all bad-tempered—from hunger, probably.” She had gone to them with the proposition that they should sell her a small plot of land which cut into her estate.
“Why did you do that?” inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with interest.
“Well, you can hardly appreciate the
calculations which I am carrying out. Imagine—it is on account of my future children,—” she said, laughing. “Well, and how have you passed the time?”
“Agreeably.”
She said nothing, but eyed him askance.
“Excuse me for the question…aren’t you a little bit afraid of being captivated by Várenka?”
“What is there to fear?” he inquired, with an interest which was incomprehensible to himself.
“The possibility of being strongly carried away?”
“Well, I am hardly capable of that..” he replied sceptically, and he believed that he was speaking the truth.
“And if that is the case, it is very good indeed. A little—that is all well enough, but you are rather cold…too serious.. for your years. And really.… I shall be glad if she stirs you up a little.… Perhaps you would like to see her more frequently?…”
“She made me promise to go to their house, and begged you to do so.…” Ippolít Sergyéevitch informed her.
“When do you wish to go?”
“It makes no difference to me…Whenever you find it convenient. You are in good spirits to-day.…”
“Is that very noticeable?”—she laughed.—“What of it? I have passed the day pleasantly. On the whole…I am afraid it will seem cynical to you…but the truth is, that since the day of my husband’s funeral, I feel that I am reviving to new life…I am egotistical—of course! But it is the joyous egotism of a person who has been released from prison to freedom.… Condemn me…but be just.”
“How many accusations for such a short speech! You are glad and…go on being glad.…” laughed Ippolít Sergyéevitch amiably.
“And you are kind and charming to-day,” said she.—“You see—a little happiness—and a person immediately becomes better, kinder. But some over-wise people think that sufferings purify us…I should like to have life, by applying that theory to them, purify their minds from error.…”
