“Spare me,” said Insarov. He tried to stand up, but immediately sank back on the sofa.
“What’s the matter?” asked Yelena anxiously.
“Nothing… I’m still a bit weak… This happiness taxes my strength.”
“Then sit quietly. Please don’t move or get excited,” she said, wagging an admonishing finger at him. “And why did you take your dressing gown off? It’s too soon to be playing the dandy! Just sit there and I’ll tell you some stories. Listen and don’t say anything. Doing a lot of talking is harmful after your illness.”
She began to tell him about Shubin, about Kurnatovsky, about what she’d been doing during the last two weeks, about how, to judge by the newspapers, war was inevitable and how, consequently, as soon as he was fully recovered, he would, without losing a single second, find the wherewithal to leave… She said all this sitting beside him and leaning on his shoulder.
He listened to her and, in listening, first paled, then coloured. Several times he tried to stop her – and suddenly sat up straight.
“Yelena,” he said in a strange and somehow biting tone, “leave me. Go away.”
“What?” she said in amazement. “Do you feel bad?” she added earnestly.
“No, I’m fine. But please, leave me.”
“I don’t understand you. Are you driving me away?… Why are you doing this?” she said suddenly; he bent down from the sofa almost to the floor and touched her feet with his lips. “Don’t do that, Dmitry… Dmitry…”
He sat up.
“So leave me, Yelena! You see, when I became ill, I didn’t lose consciousness immediately; I knew I was on the brink of destruction; even when I was feverish and delirious I understood, I dimly felt that this was death approaching me. I took my leave of life, of you, of everything. I abandoned hope. Then suddenly this rebirth, this light after darkness, you… you… beside me. I felt I loved you passionately; I heard you call yourself mine. I could not be answerable for anything… Leave!”
“Dmitry,” whispered Yelena, burying her head on his shoulder. Only now did she understand him.
“Yelena,” he went on, “I love you. You know that. I’m ready to give my life for you. Why did you come to me now, when I’m weak and not my own master, when my blood is all on fire… You say that you’re mine… that you love me…”
“Dmitry,” she whispered, her colour heightening as she pressed even closer to him.
“Yelena, have pity on me and leave. I feel I might die. I will not survive these outbursts… My heart longs for you… just think: death almost separated us… and now you’re here, in my arms… Yelena…”
She began trembling all over.
“Take me too,” she said in a scarcely audible whisper.
29
Nikolai Artemyevich was pacing up and down his room, a frown on his face. Shubin was sitting by the window, his legs crossed, and calmly smoking a cigar.
“Please stop criss-crossing the room,” he said, knocking the ash off his cigar. “I keep expecting you to say something. I get a crick in my neck by watching you. To add to that there’s something strained and melodramatic about the way you walk.”
“You just want to be flippant all the time,” replied Nikolai Artemyevich. “You don’t want to put yourself in my situation. You don’t want to see that I’ve grown accustomed to this woman, that, when all’s said and done, I’m attached to her and her absence is bound to distress me. Here we are in October; winter’s almost upon us… What can she be doing in Reval?”
“Knitting stockings, no doubt… for herself, herself, not you.”
“You may laugh all you like, but I’m telling you I don’t know any woman like her for honesty and selflessness…”
“Did she cash in the promissory note?” Shubin asked.
“Selflessness,” repeated Nikolai Artemyevich, raising his voice. “It’s really astonishing. They tell me there are a million other women in the world, but I say: show me that million. Show me that million, I say: ces femmes – qu’on me les montre!* And she doesn’t write – that’s what kills me!”
“You’re as eloquent as Pythagoras,”* Shubin observed, “but do you know what I would advise you to do?”
“What?”
“When Avgustina Khristianovna returns… you take my meaning?”
“Well yes. What then?”
“When you see her… Do you follow the drift of my thought?”
“Well yes, yes.”
“Try beating her. See what would come of that.”
Nikolai Artemyevich turned away in disgust.
“I thought he was really going to give me some sensible advice. But what could you expect from him? An artist, a man with no principles…”
“No principles! Yet they say your favourite, Mr Kurnatovsky, a man of principle, relieved you of a hundred silver roubles at cards yesterday. That was hardly delicate, you must agree.”
What of it? We were playing for proper money. Of course, I might have expected… But he is so little appreciated in this house…”
“That he should think: ‘What will be, will be!’” Shubin retorted. “‘Whether he becomes my father-in-law or not is in the lap of the Gods, but a hundred roubles is useful for a man who doesn’t take bribes.’”
“Father-in-law! Father-in-law be damned! Vous rêvez, mon cher.* Of course, any other girl would be delighted to have a fiancé like that. Judge for yourself: spirited, clever, a self-made man, did a stint in two provinces…”
“In one province he led the governor a merry dance,” Shubin remarked.
“Very possibly. Clearly, that was what was needed. He’s practical, businesslike…”
“And a good card player,” Shubin again remarked.
“Well yes, he’s also a good card player. But Yelena Nikolayevna… is it possible to understand her? I’d like to know where the person is who could begin to understand what it is she wants. One minute she’s cheerful, the next she finds life tedious; she suddenly gets so thin you wouldn’t want to look at her, then suddenly she recovers – and all this without any obvious cause…”
An unprepossessing footman came in bearing a tray with a cup of coffee, a cream jug and some sukhari biscuits.*
“The father likes the fiancé,” Nikolai Artemyevich continued, brandishing a biscuit, “but what does that matter to the daughter? That was all right in the old patriarchal days, but now we’ve changed everything. Nous avons changé tout ça.* Nowadays a young lady can talk to whomsoever she wants, read whatever she likes, wander round Moscow alone, without footman or maid, like they do in Paris. And all this is accepted. Recently I asked: where is Yelena Nikolayevna? They told me it had pleased Her Ladyship to go out. Where to? No one knows. Is that how things should be?”
“Take your cup and let the man go,” said Shubin. “You say yourself that one mustn’t devant les domestiques,” he added in an undertone.
The footman threw a sideways glance at Shubin, and Nikolai Artemyevich took the cup, poured himself some cream and helped himself to a dozen or so biscuits.
“I meant to say,” he began, as soon as the footman had left, “that I count for nothing in this house. That’s all. The reason is that today everyone goes by appearances: one person is vacuous and stupid, but behaves in the grand manner, so he is respected; another may perhaps possess talents which might… which might be of great use, but out of modesty…”
“Are you a statesman, Nikolenka?”* asked Shubin in a piping voice.
“Stop clowning!” Nikolai Artemyevich exclaimed heatedly. “You forget yourself! This is more proof that I count for nothing in this house, nothing at all.”
“Anna Vasilyevna is oppressing you… you poor thing!” said Shubin, stretching. “Oh, Nikolai Artemyevich. You and I are a pair of sinners! You’d do much better to get a little present ready for Anna Vasilyevna. It’s her birth
day in a few days and you know how she values the slightest mark of attention on your part.”
“Yes, yes,” Nikolai Artemyevich replied hastily, “I’m very grateful to you for reminding me. Quite so, quite so. Absolutely. I do have a little something: a necklace. I bought it recently at Rosenstrauch’s.* Only, to be honest, I don’t know whether it’s suitable.”
“You bought it for the lady in Reval, didn’t you?”
“That is… I… yes… I thought…”
“Well, in that case it’s certainly suitable.”
Shubin rose from his chair.
“Where shall we go this evening, Pavel Yakovlevich, eh?” Nikolai Artemyevich asked, looking him affably in the eyes.
“But you’ll go to the club, won’t you?”
“After the club… After the club.”
Shubin stretched again.
“No, Nikolai Artemyevich. I’ve got to work tomorrow. Another time.” With that, he left.
Nikolai Artemyevich frowned, paced the room two or three times, took a velvet-lined box containing the necklace from his bureau, subjected it to a long examination and then wiped it with a foulard. Then he sat down in front of the mirror and began to comb his thick black hair assiduously, inclining his head to left and right with a grave expression on his face, his tongue in his cheek and his eyes fixed on his parting. Someone coughed behind him; he looked round and saw the footman who had brought him coffee.
“What do you want?” he asked him.
“Nikolai Artemyevich!” said the footman, not without a certain solemnity. “You are our master!”
“I know. Is there anything else?”
“Nikolai Artemyevich, please don’t be angry with me; but I have been in the service of Your Honour since I was a child, so my zeal as your humble servant obliges me to inform Your Honour…”
“What is this?”
The footman stood dithering.
“You were pleased to say,” he began, “that you did not know where Yelena Nikolayevna had been so good as to go. I have become privy to that information.”
“What are you burbling about, you idiot?!”
“Your wish is my command, but three days ago I saw it pleased Her Ladyship to enter a certain building.”
“Where? What? Which building?”
“In —— Lane off Povarskaya Street. Not far from here. I even asked the concierge what lodgers they had there.”
Nikolai Artemyevich began to stamp his feet.
“Be quiet, you layabout! How dare you! Yelena Nikolayevna visits the poor out of the goodness of her heart and you… Get out, you idiot!”
The frightened footman made a dash for the door.
“Stop!” yelled Nikolai Artemyevich. “What did the concierge tell you?”
“N-nothing… He didn’t say nothing. He said a stu… a student.”
“Be quiet, you layabout! Listen, you wretch, if you let this slip to anyone, even in your sleep—”
“For pity’s sake, sir—”
“Be quiet! One squeak out of you… If anyone… If I find out… You’ll have no hiding place from me, even underground. Do you hear? Clear out!”
The footman disappeared.
“Good Lord, what does this mean?” thought Nikolai Artemyevich on being left alone. What did this blockhead tell me? Eh? However, I’ll have to find out what this building is like and who lives there. Have to go there myself. That’s what things have come to finally!… Un laquais! Quelle humiliation!”*
Repeating the words un laquais aloud, Nikolai Artemyevich locked the necklace in his bureau and set off to find Anna Vasilyevna. He found her lying in bed with a bandaged cheek, but the sight of her sufferings merely irritated him and he quickly reduced her to tears.
30
Meanwhile, the storm which had been gathering in south-eastern Europe finally broke. Turkey declared war on Russia; the deadline for the withdrawal of troops from the Principalities had already passed; the day of the Massacre of Sinope* was nigh. The latest letters received by Insarov were a relentless summons to his homeland. He was not yet restored to health; he was coughing, experienced weakness and slight bouts of fever, but hardly ever stayed at home. His soul was on fire; he was no longer thinking about illness. He was forever travelling around Moscow, having secret meetings with a variety of people, writing for nights on end and disappearing for days. He told his landlord he would be leaving soon and made him an advance present of his modest furniture. For her part Yelena was likewise preparing to leave. One inclement evening she sat in her room hemming kerchiefs and, with involuntary despondency, listening to the howling of the wind. Her maid came in and said that her papa was in Mama’s bedroom and wanted to see her there… “Mama is crying,” she whispered as Yelena went out, “and Papa is angry.”
Yelena gave a slight shrug of the shoulders and entered Anna Vasilyevna’s bedroom. The kindly spouse of Nikolai Artemyevich was half-lying, half-sitting in a reclining chair and sniffing a handkerchief soaked in eau de Cologne; he himself was standing by the fireplace, his frock coat buttoned up to the top, wearing a tall, stiff cravat and a well-starched collar. His demeanour was vaguely reminiscent of a parliamentary orator. With an oratorical gesture he pointed his daughter to a chair, and when she, failing to understand the gesture, looked at him questioningly, he said with dignity, but without turning his head: “I request you to be seated.” (Nikolai Artemyevich always used the formal form of address to his wife; to his daughter only in exceptional circumstances.)
Yelena sat down.
Anna Vasilyevna blew her nose tearfully. Nikolai Artemyevich placed his right hand inside his frock coat.
“I’ve asked to see you, Yelena Nikolayevna,” he began, after a prolonged silence, “in order to have an explanation with you, or rather, to demand an explanation from you. I am displeased with you. No, that’s putting it mildly: your behaviour distresses me and offends me – both me and your mother… your mother, whom you see here.”
Nikolai Artemyevich employed only the bass register of his voice. Yelena looked at him in silence, then looked at her mother, and paled.
“There was a time,” Nikolai Artemyevich began again, “when daughters did not permit themselves to look down on their parents, when parental authority made the disobedient tremble. That time has passed, unfortunately; such, at least, is the opinion of many. But believe me, there still exist laws which do not allow… which do not allow… in a word, there still exist laws. Pray take notice of that: laws exist.”
“But Papa,” Yelena began.
“Pray do not interrupt me. Let us cast our minds back to the past. Anna Vasilyevna and I have fulfilled our duty. Anna Vasilyevna and I spared nothing for your education – neither expense nor care. What benefit you have derived from all this care, from all this expense, is another matter. But I had the right to think – Anna Vasilyevna and I had the right to think – that you would at least adhere to those moral principles which… which we have inculcated in you, our only daughter… que nous vous avons inculqués. We had the right to think that no new ‘ideas’ would, so to speak, violate this sacred shrine. And what do we find? I’m not talking about the frivolity characteristic of your age and sex… but who could have expected that you would forget yourself to such an extent…”
“Papa,” said Yelena, “I know what you mean—”
“No, you don’t know what I mean!” Nikolai Artemyevich shrieked in a falsetto, suddenly abandoning his parliamentary demeanour, his fluent pomposity and bass register. “You don’t know, you insolent wench!”
“For Heaven’s sake, Nicolas,” Anna Vasilyevna mumbled, “vous me faites mourir.”*
“Don’t say that to me, que je vous fais mourir, Anna Vasilyevna! You can’t imagine what you’re about to hear. Be prepared for the worst, I warn you!”
Anna Vasilyevna was stunned.
“No,”
Nikolai Artemyevich went on, turning to Yelena, “you don’t know what I mean!”
“I’m guilty before you,” she began.
“Ah, at last!”
“I’m guilty before you,” Yelena continued, “in so far as I didn’t own up a long time ago—”
“But do you realize,” Nikolai Artemyevich interrupted, “that I can destroy you with a single word?”
Yelena looked up at him.
“Yes, madam, with a single word! It’s no use staring!” He folded his arms. “Allow me to enquire whether a certain building in —— Lane, off Povarskaya Street, is known to you. Did you visit this building?” He stamped his foot. “Answer me, you feckless girl, and don’t try to be clever! Servants saw you, servants, footmen, des vils laquais,* saw you going in there to your…”
Yelena blushed to the roots of her hair and her eyes flashed.
“I’ve no reason to try to be clever,” she said. “Yes, I visited that building.”
“Splendid! Did you hear that? Did you hear that, Anna Vasilyevna? And you no doubt know who lives there?”
“Yes, I do know. My husband…”
Nikolai Artemyevich goggled in disbelief.
“Your…”
“My husband,” Yelena repeated. “I’m married to Dmitry Nikanorovich Insarov.”
“You? Married?” said Anna Vasilyevna, barely audibly.
“Yes, Mama… Forgive me… We got married in secret two weeks ago.”
Anna Vasilyevna fell back into her chair; Nikolai Artemyevich stepped back a couple of paces.
“Married! To that scruffy Montenegrin! The daughter of a blue-blooded nobleman Nikolai Stakhov has married a vagabond, a plebeian intellectual! Without the blessing of her parents! And do you imagine I shall leave it at that? That I won’t complain? That I’ll allow you to… to… It’ll be a nunnery for you and hard labour in a penal battalion for him! Anna Vasilyevna, be so good as to tell her now that you are disinheriting her.”
On the Eve (Alma Classics) Page 15
