by Leo Tolstoy
Yet in spite of the mother’s vivacious character and the daughter’s indifferently vague demeanour, something told you that the first had never – not before and not now – ever loved anything that wasn’t pretty and gay, while Avdotya Vasilyevna was one of those natures that, once they fall in love, will sacrifice their whole lives for the ones they fall in love with.
THIRTY-FOUR
Father’s Marriage
My father was forty-eight when he took Avdotya Vasilyevna Yepifanova to be his second wife.
When he arrived in the country by himself with the girls that spring, Papa was, I imagine, in the special restlessly happy and sociable mood that usually visits gamblers who have sworn off after large winnings. He sensed that he still had a lot of unspent good luck, which, if he wasn’t going use it on cards, he could use for success in life. Then, too, it was spring and he had an unexpectedly large amount of money and was completely alone and bored. While discussing business with Yakov, and recalling the endless litigation with the Yepifanovs, as well as the beauty Avdotya Vasilyevna, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, he probably said, ‘You know, Yakov Kharlampych, rather than trouble ourselves over the lawsuit, I think I’ll just let them have the damned land. Eh? What do you think?’
I imagine Yakov’s fingers wriggling behind his back in dismay at such an idea and his proving that ‘once again, Pyotr Aleksandrovich, our cause is just’.
But Papa ordered the buggy to be harnessed, put on his fashionable olive fur-trimmed overcoat, combed what was left of his hair, sprinkled his handkerchief with scent and, in a mood made merry by the belief that he was acting nobly, but mainly by the hope of seeing a pretty woman, he set off for the neighbours’ estate.
I know only that Papa failed on that first visit to find Pyotr Vasilyevich at home, since he was out in the fields, and so spent two hours alone with the ladies. I imagine him showering them with compliments and charming them as he tapped his foot in its soft boot, lisped slightly and gazed at them with sweet little eyes. And I imagine the merry old woman suddenly taking a tender liking to him, and her cold, beautiful daughter cheering up as well.
When a housemaid ran up out of breath to tell Pyotr Vasilyevich that old Irtenyev himself had come, I imagine him angrily replying, ‘Well, so what if he has?’ and then returning to the house as quietly as possible, and perhaps after entering his study even putting on his filthiest coat and sending word to the cook that by no means should he dare, even if his mistress ordered it, to add anything for dinner.
I often saw Papa and Yepifanov together afterwards and therefore can vividly picture their first meeting. I imagine that despite Papa’s offer of an amicable end to the lawsuit, Pyotr Vasilyevich, who was surprised by nothing, was sullen and angry about having sacrificed his career for his mother, whereas Papa had done nothing of the sort, and that Papa, as if not noticing the sullenness, was playful and gay and treated him as if he were an astonishing wag, which sometimes offended Pyotr Vasilyevich, although he couldn’t help submitting to it. Papa, with his penchant for turning everything into a joke, for some reason called Pyotr Vasilyevich a colonel and, despite the latter’s pointing out once in my presence, while stuttering worse than usual and turning red in vexation, that he wasn’t a c-c-colonel but a l-l-lieutenant, Papa had within five minutes called him a colonel again.
Lyubochka told me that before our arrival in the country, they saw the Yepifanovs every day, and that it had been enormous fun. Papa, with his ability to arrange everything originally, humorously and yet simply and elegantly, had organized first coursing, then fishing, then fireworks of some kind, for all of which the Yepifanovs had been present. And it would, according to Lyubochka, have been even more fun, had it not been for the unbearable Pyotr Vasilyevich, who sulked and stuttered and tried to spoil everything.
After Volodya and I arrived, however, the Yepifanovs came to see us only twice, and we all went to see them only once. But after St Peter’s day, Papa’s name-day, for which they had come to celebrate along with a great many other guests, our relations with the Yepifanovs for some reason broke off completely, and only Papa continued to visit them.
In the short time that I saw Papa together with Dunyechka, as her mother called her, this is what I managed to observe. He was constantly in the same happy mood that had impressed me the day after our arrival. He was so merry, young, full of life and happy that beams of that happiness fell on everyone around him and infected others with the same mood, in spite of themselves. He was never more than a step away from Avdotya Vasilyevna when she was in the room, and would compliment her in such a saccharine way that I was embarrassed for him, or would gaze at her in silence, sometimes shrugging his shoulder and coughing in a sort of complacently ardent way, or would whisper to her with a smile, but all of it with the ‘just joking’ expression that was characteristic of him in the most serious matters.
Avdotya Vasilyevna seemed to have adopted from Papa the expression of happiness that at the time shone in her large blue eyes almost continuously, except in the moments when she would suddenly become so shy that for me, who knew the feeling, it was pitiful and painful to look at her. It was apparent then that she was intimidated by every glance and gesture, and felt that everyone was staring at her, thinking only about her, and finding everything about her indecent. She would glance around at everyone in dismay, the colour would come and go in her face, she would start to talk loudly and boldly, inanities for the most part, and then, sensing that they were inanities and that Papa and all the others had heard her, she would blush even harder. When that happened, however, Papa wouldn’t even notice the inanities but, with a cough, would continue to gaze at her with merry delight and no less ardently. I noticed that those attacks of shyness, although they could come upon her for no reason, often occurred immediately after some young and beautiful woman had been mentioned in Papa’s presence. The frequent shifts from pensiveness to the sort of strange, awkward gaiety that I’ve already mentioned, her repeating of Papa’s favourite words and expressions, the continuation with others of conversations started with Papa – all that would, if one of the dramatis personae hadn’t been my father and I had been a little older, have made his and Avdotya Vasilyevna’s relationship clear to me, but at the time I suspected nothing, not even when in my presence Papa received a letter from Pyotr Vasilyevich that upset him very much, and he stopped going to see the Yepifanovs for the rest of the summer.
But then at the end of August he started to see them again, and the day before Volodya and I were to leave for Moscow, Papa announced that he and Avdotya Vasilyevna Yepifanova were going to be married.
THIRTY-FIVE
How We Took the News
Everyone in the house knew about the situation the day before the official announcement and had made their various judgements. Mimi stayed in her room all day and wept, Katenka remained with her and came out only for dinner with a sort of offended expression that she had clearly adopted from her mother, while Lyubochka was very gay, and at dinner said that she knew a wonderful secret but couldn’t tell anyone.
‘There’s nothing wonderful about your secret,’ Volodya said, not sharing her pleasure. ‘If you were capable of thinking seriously about anything, you would realize that on the contrary it’s very bad.’
Lyubochka stared at him in amazement and said nothing.
Volodya wanted to take me by the arm after dinner, but very likely afraid that it would look like tender feeling, he merely touched my elbow and indicated the salon with his head.
‘You know the secret Lyubochka was talking about?’ he asked after making sure that we were alone.
Volodya and I rarely talked face to face or about anything serious, so when it did happen we felt a kind of mutual awkwardness and, as Volodya said, our pupils would begin to dance. But this time in response to the embarrassment apparent in my eyes, he continued to gaze at me with a sober expression that said, ‘There’s nothing to be embarrassed about;
we’re brothers, after all, and have an important family matter to discuss.’ I understood, and he continued.
‘You know that Papa’s marrying Yepifanova?’
I nodded, since I had heard about it.
‘Well, it’s very bad,’ Volodya went on.
‘How so?’
‘How so?’ he asked in vexation. ‘What a very pleasant thing to have a stuttering uncle of that ilk, the colonel, and all the rest of that family. She may seem kind enough now, but who knows what’s to come? It may not make any difference to us, perhaps, but Lyubochka will have to enter society soon. It won’t be so pleasant with that sort of belle-mère;67 why, even her French is bad, and what sort of manners could she teach Lyubochka? She’s a poissarde68 and nothing more, a decent one, I suppose, but a poissarde, nevertheless,’ Volodya concluded, evidently quite taken with the epithet poissarde.
Strange as it was to hear Volodya passing judgement on Papa’s choice so coolly, it seemed to me that he was right.
‘But why does Papa want to get married at all?’ I asked.
‘It isn’t really clear, so goodness only knows. All I can say is that Pyotr Vasilyevich had been trying to get him to and demanded it, and that Papa didn’t want to, but then got some maggot about chivalry – it isn’t really clear. I’m only beginning to understand our father now,’ Volodya continued (that he referred to him as ‘our’ father and not as ‘Papa’ stung me painfully) ‘– that he’s a fine man, kind and clever, but so thoughtless and fickle … It’s amazing! He can’t look at a woman calmly. You know, don’t you, that he’s never met a woman he hasn’t fallen in love with? Including Mimi.’
‘What?’
‘That’s right. I recently found out that he was in love with her when she was young, and wrote poems to her, and that there was something between them. Mimi suffers to this day,’ Volodya said, starting to laugh.
‘That’s impossible!’ I said in astonishment.
‘But the main thing’, Volodya went on, serious again and abruptly switching to French, ‘is how pleased such a marriage is going to make all our relatives! There will probably be children, too, you know.’
I was so struck by Volodya’s common sense and foresight that I didn’t know how to reply.
At that moment Lyubochka came over to us.
‘So you do know?’ she asked us with a joyful face.
‘Yes,’ Volodya said, ‘only I’m surprised, Lyubochka. After all, you’re no longer a little child, so how can you be glad that Papa’s marrying some trash?’
Lyubochka suddenly made a serious face and grew thoughtful.
‘Volodya! What do you mean “marrying trash”? How dare you talk that way about Avdotya Vasilyevna? If Papa’s marrying her, that means she isn’t trash.’
‘No, not trash, I didn’t mean that, but all the same –’
‘There isn’t any “all the same”,’ Lyubochka interrupted him, starting to get angry. ‘I didn’t call the young lady you’re in love with trash; how can you talk that way about Papa and a fine woman? Even if you are my older brother, don’t talk to me like that, you mustn’t talk like that.’
‘But why can’t I discuss –’
‘Because you may not,’ Lyubochka interrupted him again. ‘You may not discuss a father like ours that way. Mimi might do it, but not you, an older brother.’
‘No, you still don’t understand anything,’ Volodya said contemptuously. ‘But understand this. Is it a good thing that some “Dunyechka” Yepifanova is taking the place of your deceased maman?’
Lyubochka was silent for a moment and then her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
‘I knew you were proud, but I never thought you could be so mean,’ she said and walked away.
‘Cabbage,’ Volodya said with a comically solemn face and vacant look. ‘See what happens when you try to discuss something with them?’ he added, as if reproaching himself for having forgotten himself so badly as to condescend to a conversation with Lyubochka.
The weather the next day was poor, and neither Papa nor the ladies had yet come out for tea when I entered the drawing room. There had been a cold autumn rain the night before, and across the sky hurtled remnants of the cloud that had emptied itself, and through which the sun, already fairly high, shone as a faintly luminous disc. It was windy, damp and chilly. The door to the garden was open, and the puddles left by the rain on the moisture-darkened terrace floor were beginning to dry. The open door shook on its iron hook in the wind, the paths were wet and muddy, and the old birches with their bare white branches, the bushes, the grass, the nettles, the blackcurrant, and the elder with the pale side of its leaves turned up all shook in place, as if trying to break free of their roots, while round yellow leaves, swirling and overtaking each other, blew in from the linden avenue and fell on the wet road and the wet, dark-green rowen69 of the meadow. My thoughts were on my father’s impending marriage, regarded from Volodya’s point of view. The future of our sister, ourselves and Father himself didn’t seem to promise anything good. I was indignant at the thought that a woman who was an outsider and a stranger and above all young – a mere young lady – would in many ways, and without any right at all, suddenly assume the place of whom? Of my deceased mama! It saddened me, and Papa seemed more and more in the wrong to me. And then I heard his and Volodya’s voices in the waiters’ room. I didn’t want to see my father just then, and stepped away from the door, but Lyubochka came out to get me, saying that he was asking for me.
He was standing in the drawing room, leaning with his hand on the piano and looking impatiently and at the same time sombrely in my direction. His face no longer had the expression of youth and happiness that I had seen on it that whole time; rather, it was sad. Volodya was walking about the room with a pipe in his hand. I went over to Papa and greeted him.
‘Well, my friends,’ Father said resolutely, lifting his head and using that special abrupt tone in which things are said that are obviously unpleasant but already beyond judgement, ‘I think you know that I’m marrying Avdotya Vasilyevna.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘I never meant to marry again after your maman, but …,’ he paused for a moment again, ‘but … but it seems to be my fate. Dunyechka is a kind, sweet young woman who really isn’t so young; I hope, children, that you’ll come to love her, for she already loves you from her heart and is a good person. Now as for the two of you,’ he said, addressing Volodya and me, as if hurrying to speak before we could interrupt, ‘it’s time for you to be on your way, while I’ll stay here until the new year, and then come back to Moscow,’ again he paused, ‘with a new wife and Lyubochka.’ It hurt me to see Father as if losing heart and standing guilty before us, and I moved closer to him, but Volodya continued to smoke and walk around the room with his head bowed.
‘So then, my friends, that’s what your old fellow has come up with,’ Papa concluded, turning red, coughing and offering Volodya and me his hand. There were tears in his eyes when he said that, and I noticed that the hand he held out to Volodya, who at the moment was on the other side of the room, trembled a little. The sight of that trembling hand struck me painfully, and the strange thought came to me and struck me even harder that Papa had served in 181270 and was known to have been a courageous officer. I took his large, veiny hand and kissed it. He squeezed my own hard and, starting to sob, suddenly took Lyubochka’s dark head in his two hands and began kissing her eyes. Volodya pretended to drop his pipe and, as he bent over to pick it up, furtively rubbed his eyes with his fist before slipping out of the room.
THIRTY-SIX
The University
The wedding was to be in two weeks, but our lectures were about to start and Volodya and I returned to Moscow at the beginning of September. The Nekhlyudovs had also come back from the country. Dmitry immediately dropped by to see me (on parting we had promised to write to each other, but obviously hadn’t done so even once), and we decided that the next day he would take m
e to the university for my first lectures.
The day was sunny and bright.
No sooner had I entered the lecture hall than I felt my identity disappear in the throng of merry young people surging through all the doors and hallways in the bright sunshine that came through the large windows. The feeling of membership of that immense society was very pleasant. But of all those people only a few were known to me, and even with them the acquaintance was limited to a nod and the words, ‘Hello, Irtenyev!’ Yet everywhere around me they were shaking hands and jostling each other, and friendly words, smiles, goodwill and jokes rained down on every side. I felt all around me the bond linking that youthful society, although with sadness I sensed that it had somehow passed me by. But that was only a momentary impression. As a result of it and the vexation it produced, I quickly found it to be even a very good thing that I didn’t belong to that whole society, that I should instead have my own circle of respectable people, and I took a seat on the third bench, where Count B., Baron Z, Prince R., Ivin and some other gentlemen of that kind were sitting, and of whom I knew Ivin and Count B. But those gentlemen also looked at me in a way that made me feel that I didn’t entirely belong to their society, either. I started to observe everything taking place around me. Semyonov, with his tousled grey hair and white teeth and unbuttoned frock coat, was sitting not far from me, leaning on his elbows and chewing on his pen. His cheek still wrapped in a black cravat, the gymnasium student who had the highest score in the entrance examinations was sitting on the first bench and playing with a little silver watch key attached to his satin waistcoat. Ikonin, who had matriculated after all, was sitting on a balcony bench dressed in piped light-blue trousers that covered his entire boot, and laughing and shouting that he was on Parnassus.71 Ilenka, who to my amazement had bowed not only coolly but even with disdain, as if wishing to remind me that we were all equal there, was sitting in front of me with his skinny legs up on the bench in a particularly careless way (for my benefit, as it seemed to me) and talking to another student, while occasionally glancing back at me. Ivin’s party next to me was speaking French. Those gentlemen seemed terribly stupid to me. Every word of their conversation seemed not only pointless but wrong – simply not French (‘Ce n’est pas français,’72 I said to myself), and the postures, speech and actions of Semyonov, Ilenka and the others seemed ignoble to me, not respectable, not comme il faut.
