The main thing was their fear of telling my uncle. He was the sort of man who was hard to calm down once he got going. Besides, he loved Katya least of all, and his favorite daughter was the youngest, Olenka—it was to her he had promised the most.
My aunt thought and thought and saw that her mind alone could not think over this calamity—she invited her painter son-in-law to a council and revealed everything to him in detail, and then begged:
“Though you have no faith,” she says, “there may be some feeling in you—please take pity on Katya, help me to conceal her maidenly sin.”
The painter suddenly scowled and said sternly:
“Excuse me, please, but first of all, though you’re my wife’s mother, I resent being considered a man of no faith, and, second of all, I don’t understand what can be counted as Katya’s sin here, if Ivan Yakovlevich has been pleading so long for her. I have all a brother’s feelings for Katechka, and I’ll stand up for her, because she’s not to blame for anything here.”
My aunt bit her fingers and wept, saying:
“Well … how not for anything?”
“Of course, not for anything. It’s your wonderworker who made a mess of it, and he’s got to answer for it.”
“How can he answer for it? He’s a righteous man.”
“Well, if he’s righteous, then keep quiet. Send me Katya with three bottles of champagne.”
My aunt asked him to repeat himself:
“What’s that?”
And again he answers:
“With three bottles of champagne—one right now to me in my rooms, and two later, I’ll tell you where, but keep them ready here at home and on ice.”
My aunt looked at him and only shook her head.
“God help you,” she said. “I thought you only had no faith, though you paint holy images, but it turns out you have no feelings at all … That’s why I cannot venerate your icons.”
And he replied:
“No, leave off about faith: it seems it’s you who have doubts and keep thinking about nature, as if Katya had her own reasons here, but I firmly believe that Ivan Yakovlevich alone is the cause of it all; and you’ll see my feelings when you send Katya to my studio with champagne.”
V
My aunt thought and thought, and did send the wine to the painter with Katechka herself. She came in with the tray, all in tears, but he jumped up, seized her by the arms, and wept himself.
“My little dove,” he said, “I grieve at what’s happened to you, but there’s no time for nodding over it—quickly let me in on all your secrets.”
The girl confided her mischief to him, and he locked her in his studio with a key.
My aunt met her son-in-law with teary eyes and said nothing. But he embraced her and kissed her and said:
“Now, don’t be afraid, don’t weep. Maybe God will help.”
“Tell me,” my aunt whispered, “who’s to blame for it all?”
But the painter tenderly shook his finger at her and said:
“That’s not nice: you yourself constantly reproach me with having no faith, and now, when your faith is being tested, I see you haven’t any faith at all. Isn’t it clear to you that there’s no one to blame, and the wonderworker simply made a little mistake?”
“But where is my poor Katechka?”
“I charmed her with a fearsome painter’s charm and—poof!—she disappeared.”
And he showed his mother-in-law the key.
My aunt realized that he had hidden the girl from her father’s first wrath, and she embraced him.
She whispered:
“Forgive me—there are tender feelings in you.”
VI
My uncle came, had his tea as usual, and said:
“Well, shall we read the fifty-two-page prayer book?”
They sat down. And the family closed all the doors around them and went about on tiptoe. My aunt now moved away from the door, then went up to it again—listening and crossing herself.
Finally, something clanked in there … She ran off and hid.
“He’s revealed it,” she says, “he’s revealed the secret! Now there’ll be a hellish performance.”
And just so: all at once the door opened, and my uncle cried out:
“My overcoat and my big stick!”
The painter holds him back by the arm and says:
“What is it? Where are you going?”
My uncle says:
“I’m going to the madhouse to give the wonderworker a thrashing!”
My aunt moaned behind the other door.
“Quick,” she says, “run to the madhouse, have them hide our dear Ivan Yakovlevich!”
And indeed my uncle would have thrashed him for certain, but his painter son-in-law kept him from it by frightening him with his own faith.
VII
The son-in-law started reminding his father-in-law that he had one more daughter.
“Never mind,” my uncle says, “she’ll have her portion, but I want to thrash Koreisha. Let them take me to court afterwards.”
“But I’m not frightening you with court,” says the painter. “Look at what harm Ivan Yakovlevich can do Olga. No, it’s terrible, what you’re risking!”
My uncle stopped and pondered:
“Well,” he says, “what harm can he do?”
“Exactly the same harm he’s done to Katechka.”
My uncle glanced up and replied:
“Stop pouring out drivel! As if he could do that!”
The painter replies:
“Well, if, as I see, you’re an unbeliever, do as you know best, only don’t grieve afterwards and blame the poor girls.”
My uncle stopped at that. And his son-in-law dragged him back into the room and began persuading him.
“In my opinion,” he says, “it’s better to leave the wonderworker out of it and try to set this matter straight by domestic means.”
The old man agreed, only he did not know how to set it straight himself, but his son-in-law helped him here as well. He says:
“Good thoughts must be sought not in wrath, but in joy.”
“What joy can there be, brother, in a case like this?”
“Here’s what,” says the painter. “I’ve got two bottles of fizzy, and until you drink them with me, I won’t say a single word to you. Agree to it. You know my character.”
The old man looked at him and said:
“Go on, go on. What next?”
But all the same he agreed.
VIII
The painter marched off briskly and came back, followed by his assistant, a young artist, with a tray bearing two bottles and glasses.
As soon as they came in, the son-in-law locked the door behind him and put the key in his pocket. My uncle looked and understood everything, and the son-in-law nodded towards the assistant—the lad stood there in humble petition.
“I’m to blame—forgive me and give us your blessing.”
My uncle asks his son-in-law:
“Can I thrash him?”
The son-in-law says:
“You can, but you needn’t.”
“Well, then at least let him kneel before me.”
The son-in-law whispered:
“Well, kneel before the father for the sake of the girl you love.”
The lad knelt.
The old man began to weep.
“Do you love her very much?” he asked.
“I do.”
“Well, kiss me.”
So Ivan Yakovlevich’s little mistake was covered up. And it all remained safely hidden, and suitors began to pursue the youngest sister, because they saw that the girls were trustworthy.
The Pearl Necklace
I
In a certain cultivated family, some friends were sitting over tea and talking about literature—about invention, plot. They regretted that with us all this was getting poorer and paler. I remembered and recounted a characteristic observation of the late Pisemsky,1 who said that th
e perceived impoverishment of literature was connected first of all with the multiplication of railroads, which are very useful for commerce, but harmful for artistic literature.
“Today man travels a lot, but quickly and painlessly,” said Pisemsky, “and therefore he doesn’t accumulate any strong impressions, he has no time to observe anything—everything slips by. Hence the poverty. Once upon a time you went from Moscow to Kostroma ‘the slow way,’ in a public tarantass or a hired coach—and happened upon a scoundrelly coachman, and insolent companions, and the postmaster was a rogue, and his ‘cooky’ was a sloven—so much diversity for the eyes. And if your heart can’t bear it—you fish some sort of vileness from the cabbage soup and start cursing the ‘cooky’ and she answers back tenfold—then there’s simply no getting away from impressions. And they sit thick in you, like yesterday’s kasha stewing—well, naturally, it came out thick in the writing as well; but nowadays it’s all railroad-like—take your plate, don’t ask anything; eat—no time for chewing; ding-ding-ding and that’s it: you’re off again, and the only impression you’re left with is that the waiter cheated you on the change, and there’s no time to curse him to your heart’s content.”
To this, one guest observed that Pisemsky was original, but wrong, and he held up the example of Dickens, who wrote in a country where they traveled very fast, yet saw and observed a great deal, and the plots of his stories do not suffer from poverty of content.
“The only exception is perhaps his Christmas stories. They’re wonderful, too, of course, but they have a certain monotony; however, the author can’t be blamed for that, because this is a kind of literature in which the writer feels himself the prisoner of a much too narrow and strictly organized form. It is unfailingly demanded of a Christmas story that it be timed to the events of the evenings from Christmas Eve to Epiphany; that it be at least to some degree fantastic, that it have some sort of moral, if only such as disproving a harmful superstition, and finally—that it unfailingly have a happy ending. In life such events are few, and therefore the author forces himself to think up and compose a plot that fits the program. Which is why Christmas stories are notable for their great artificiality and uniformity.”
“Well, I don’t entirely agree with you,” replied a third guest, a respectable man, who was often able to put in an appropriate word. Therefore we all wanted to hear him.
“I think,” he went on, “that a Christmas story, while staying within all its limits, can still be modified and show an interesting variety, reflecting in itself both its time and morals.”
“But how can you prove your opinion? For it to be persuasive, you must show us one such event from the contemporary life of Russian society, in which the present age does stand, and the contemporary man,2 and which at the same time answers to the form and program of a Christmas story—that is, it should be slightly fantastic, and should eradicate some superstition, and should have not a sad, but a happy ending.”
“And why not? I can present you with such a story, if you like.”
“Please do! Only remember that it must be a real incident!”
“Oh, rest assured—I’ll tell you about the realest of incidents, and about persons who are very near and dear to me at that. It concerns my own brother, who, as you probably know, has a decent job and enjoys a good reputation, which he fully deserves.”
Everyone confirmed that it was so, and many added that the narrator’s brother was indeed a worthy and excellent man.
“Yes,” he said, “and so I shall speak of this, as you say, excellent man.”
II
Some three years ago, my brother came to me at Christmastime from the province where he was working then, and, as if some fly had bitten him, accosted me and my wife with a persistent request: “Get me married.”
At first we thought he was joking, but he badgered us seriously and in no few words: “Kindly get me married! Save me from the unbearable boredom of solitude! I hate bachelor life, I’m sick of provincial gossip and nonsense—I want to have my own hearth, I want to sit in the evening with my dear wife by my lamp. Get me married!”
“Now, wait a minute,” we say, “that’s all very fine, and let it be your way—God bless you—get married, but it takes time, you’ve got to have a nice girl in mind, a girl after your own heart, and one who also finds herself disposed towards you. That all takes time.”
And he replies:
“So what—there’s plenty of time: for the two weeks of Christmastime there’s no marrying—you find me a match during that time, and on Epiphany, in the evening, we’ll get married and leave.”
“My dear man,” I say, “you must have gone a bit out of your mind from boredom.” (The word “psychopath” was not yet in use among us.) “I have no time to play the fool with you, I’m going to work at the court right now, and you can stay here with my wife and fantasize.”
I thought, naturally, that it was all trifles, or, at least, that the undertaking was very far from fulfillment, and yet I come home for dinner and see that the matter has already ripened for them.
My wife tells me:
“Mashenka Vasilieva came by, asked me to go and help her choose a dress, and while I was changing, they”—that is, my brother and the girl—“sat over tea, and your brother says: ‘What a fine girl! Why look further—get me married to her!’ ”
I reply to my wife:
“Now I see my brother’s really gone foolish.”
“No, excuse me,” my wife replies, “what makes it necessarily ‘foolish’? Why deny what you yourself have always respected?”
“What is it that I’ve respected?”
“Unaccountable sympathies, inclinations of the heart.”
“Well, my dear wife,” I say, “you won’t hook me with that. That’s all very well in due time, very well when these inclinations proceed from some clear awareness, from recognition of obvious excellencies of soul and heart, but this—what is it … they see each other for a minute and they’re ready to get hitched for life?”
“Yes, and what do you have against Mashenka? She’s precisely as you say—a girl of clear mind, noble character, and a beautiful and faithful heart. Besides, she also liked him very much.”
“What!” I exclaimed. “So you’ve already managed to secure her acceptance as well?”
“Acceptance or not,” she replied, “isn’t it obvious? Love is in our women’s line—we notice it and see it in the bud.”
“You’re all disgusting matchmakers,” I say. “All you want is to get somebody married, and what comes of it doesn’t concern you. Beware the consequences of your light-mindedness.”
“I won’t beware anything,” she says, “because I know them both and know that your brother is an excellent man and Masha the dearest of girls, and since they’ve given their word to look after each other’s happiness, that’s what they’ll do.”
“What!” I cried, forgetting myself. “They’ve already given each other their word?”
“Yes,” my wife replies. “So far it’s just allegorical, but clear enough. Their tastes and aspirations are the same, and in the evening I’ll take your brother to them—the old parents are sure to like him, and then …”
“What, what then?”
“Then—let them do as they like; only don’t you interfere.”
“Very well,” I say, “very well, I’ll be glad not to interfere in such silliness.”
“There won’t be any silliness.”
“Splendid.”
“And everything will be fine; they’ll be happy!”
“Very glad! Only it won’t do any harm,” I say, “for my brother and you to know and remember that Mashenka’s rich father is a notorious wealthy skinflint.”
“What of it? I can’t dispute that, unfortunately, but it doesn’t keep Mashenka in the least from being a wonderful girl, who is going to make a wonderful wife. You’ve probably forgotten what we’ve lingered over more than once: remember that all the best women in Turgenev, as if
by design, had very unrespectable parents.”
“I’m not talking about that at all. Mashenka really is an excellent girl, but her father, in giving her two older sisters in marriage, deceived both sons-in-law and gave them nothing—and he’ll give Masha nothing.”
“Who knows? He loves her most of all.”
“Well, my dear wife, hope springs eternal: we know all about this ‘special’ love for daughters who are getting married. He’ll deceive everybody! And he can’t help deceiving them—he stands on that, and they say he laid the foundation of his fortune by lending money on pledges at high interest. You want love and magnanimity from such a man. But I’m telling you that his first two sons-in-law are both sly foxes themselves, and if he duped them and they’re now big enemies of his, then all the more will my brother, who from a young age has suffered from the most exaggerated delicacy, be left beanless.”
“How do you mean,” she says, “left beanless?”
“Well, my dear wife, there you’re playing the fool.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Do you really not know what it means to be ‘left beanless’? He won’t give Mashenka anything—that’s the long and short of it.”
“Ah, so that’s it!”
“Well, of course.”
“Of course, of course! That all may be,” she says, “only I never thought that, in your opinion, to get a sensible wife, even without a dowry, was what’s known as ‘being left beanless.’ ”
You know that sweet female habit and logic: she’s already wandered off, but you get a neighborly dig in the side …
“I’m not speaking of myself at all …”
“No, really? …”
“Well, that’s strange, ma chère!”
“Why strange?”
“Strange, because I wasn’t saying it on my own account.”
“Well, you were thinking it.”
“No, I was by no means thinking it.”
“Well, you were imagining it.”
“No, devil take it, I wasn’t imagining anything!”
“Why are you shouting?!”
“I’m not shouting.”
“And these ‘devils’ … ‘the devil’ … What’s that?”
The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories Page 54
