A House of Gentlefolk Read online

  Panshin was indeed very smart, not less so than his father; but he was also very talented. He did everything well; he sang charmingly, sketched with spirit, wrote verses, and was a very fair actor. He was only twenty-eight, and he was already a kammer-yunker, and had a very good position. Panshin had complete confidence in himself, in his own intelligence, and his own penetration; he made his way with light-hearted assurance, everything went smoothly with him. He was used to being liked by every one, old and young, and imagined that he understood people, especially women: he certainly understood their ordinary weaknesses. As a man of artistic leanings, he was conscious of a capacity for passion, for being carried away, even for enthusiasm, and consequently, he permitted himself various irregularities; he was dissipated, associated with persons not belonging to good society, and, in general, conducted himself in a free and easy manner; but at heart he was cold and false, and at the moment of the most boisterous revelry his sharp brown eye was always alert, taking everything in. This bold, independent young man could never forget himself and be completely carried away. To his credit it must be said, that he never boasted of his conquests. He had found his way into Marya Dmitrievna's house immediately he arrived in O——, and was soon perfectly at home there. Marya Dmitrievna absolutely adored him. Panshin exchanged cordial greetings with every one in the room; he shook hands with Marya Dmitrievna and Lisaveta Mihalovna, clapped Gedeonovsky lightly on the shoulder, and turning round on his heels, put his hand on Lenotchka's head and kissed her on the forehead.

  "Aren't you afraid to ride such a vicious horse?" Marya Dmitrievna questioned him.

  "I assure you he's very quiet, but I will tell you what I am afraid of: I'm afraid to play preference with Sergei Petrovitch; yesterday he cleaned me out of everything at Madame Byelenitsin's."

  Gedeonovsky gave a thin, sympathetic little laugh; he was anxious to be in favour with the brilliant young official from Petersburg—the governor's favourite. In conversation with Marya Dmitrievna, he often alluded to Panshin's remarkable abilities. Indeed, he used to argue, how can one help admiring him? The young man is making his way in the highest spheres, he is an exemplary official, and not a bit of pride about him. And, in fact, even in Petersburg Panshin was reckoned a capable official; he got through a great deal of work; he spoke of it lightly as befits a man of the world who does not attach any special importance to his labours, but he never hesitated in carrying out orders. The authorities like such subordinates; he himself had no doubt, that if he chose, he could be a minister in time.

  "You are pleased to say that I cleaned you out," replied Gedeonovsky; "but who was it won twelve roubles of me last week and more?"...

  "You're a malicious fellow," Panshin interrupted, with genial but somewhat contemptuous carelessness, and, paying him no further attention, he went up to Lisa.

  "I cannot get the overture of Oberon here," he began. "Madame Byelenitsin was boasting when she said she had all the classical music: in reality she has nothing but polkas and waltzes, but I have already written to Moscow, and within a week you will have the overture. By the way," he went on, "I wrote a new song yesterday, the words too are mine, would you care for me to sing it? I don't know how far it is successful. Madame Byelenitsin thought it very pretty, but her words mean nothing. I should like to know what you think of it. But, I think, though, that had better be later on."

  "Why later on?" interposed Marya Dmitrievna, "why not now?"

  "I obey," replied Panshin, with a peculiar bright and sweet smile, which came and went suddenly on his face. He drew up a chair with his knee, sat down to the piano, and striking a few chords began to sing, articulating the words clearly, the following song—

  Above the earth the moon floats high

  Amid pale clouds;

  Its magic light in that far sky

  Yet stirs the floods.

  My heart has found a moon to rule

  Its stormy sea;

  To joy and sorrow it is moved

  Only by thee.

  My soul is full of love's cruel smart,

  And longing vain;

  But thou art calm, as that cold moon,

  That knows not pain.

  The second couplet was sung by Panshin with special power and expression, the sound of waves was heard in the stormy accompaniment. After the words "and longing vain," he sighed softly, dropped his eyes and let his voice gradually die away, morendo. When he had finished, Lisa praised the motive, Marya Dmitrievna cried, "Charming!" but Gedeonovsky went so far as to exclaim, "Ravishing poetry, and music equally ravishing!" Lenotchka looked with childish reverence at the singer. In short, every one present was delighted with the young dilettante's composition; but at the door leading into the drawing-room from the hall stood an old man, who had only just come in, and who, to judge by the expression of his downcast face and the shrug of his shoulders, was by no means pleased with Panshin's song, pretty though it was. After waiting a moment and flicking the dust off his boots with a coarse pocket-handkerchief, this man suddenly raised his eyes, compressed his lips with a morose expression, and his stooping figure bent forward, he entered the drawing-room.

  "Ah! Christopher Fedoritch, how are you?" exclaimed Panshin before any of the others could speak, and he jumped up quickly from his seat. "I had no suspicion that you were here—nothing would have induced me to sing my song before you. I know you are no lover of light music."

  "I did not hear it," declared the new-comer, in very bad Russian, and exchanging greetings with every one, he stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.

  "Have you come, Monsieur Lemm," said Marya Dmitrievna, "to give Lisa her music lesson?"

  "No, not Lisaveta Mihalovna, but Elena Mihalovna."

  "Oh! very well. Lenotchka, go up-stairs with Mr. Lemm."

  The old man was about to follow the little girl, but Panshin stopped him.

  "Don't go after the lesson, Christopher Fedoritch," he said. "Lisa Mihalovna and I are going to play a duet of Beethoven's sonata."

  The old man muttered some reply, and Panshin continued in German, mispronouncing the words—

  "Lisaveta Mihalovna showed me the religious cantata you dedicated to her—a beautiful thing! Pray, do not suppose that I cannot appreciate serious music—quite the contrary: it is tedious sometimes, but then it is very elevating."

  The old man crimsoned to his ears, and with a sidelong look at Lisa, he hurriedly went out of the room.

  Marya Dmitrievna asked Panshin to sing his song again; but he protested that he did not wish to torture the ears of the musical German, and suggested to Lisa that they should attack Beethoven's sonata. Then Marya Dmitrievna heaved a sigh, and in her turn suggested to Gedeonovsky a walk in the garden. "I should like," she said, "to have a little more talk, and to consult you about our poor Fedya." Gedeonovsky bowed with a smirk, and with two fingers picked up his hat, on the brim of which his gloves had been tidily laid, and went away with Marya Dmitrievna. Panshin and Lisa remained alone in the room; she fetched the sonata, and opened it; both seated themselves at the piano in silence. Overhead were heard the faint sounds of scales, played by the uncertain fingers of Lenotchka.

  Chapter V

  Christopher Theodor Gottlieb Lemm was born in 1786 in the town of Chemnitz in Saxony. His parents were poor musicians. His father played the French horn, his mother the harp; he himself was practising on three different instruments by the time he was five. At eight years old he was left an orphan, and from his tenth year he began to earn his bread by his art. He led a wandering life for many years, and performed everywhere in restaurants, at fairs, at peasants' weddings, and at balls. At last he got into an orchestra and constantly rising in it, he obtained the position of director. He was rather a poor performer; but he understood music thoroughly. At twenty-eight he migrated into Russia, on the invitation of a great nobleman, who did not care for music himself, but kept an orchestra for show. Lemm lived with him seven years in the capacity of orchestra conductor, and left him empty-handed.
The nobleman was ruined, he intended to give him a promissory note, but in the sequel refused him even that—in short, did not pay him a farthing. He was advised to go away; but he was unwilling to return home in poverty from Russia, that great Russia which is a mine of gold for artists; he decided to remain and try his luck. For twenty years the poor German had been trying his luck; he had lived in various gentlemen's houses, had suffered and put up with much, had faced privation, had struggled like a fish on the ice; but the idea of returning to his own country never left him among all the hardships he endured; it was this dream alone that sustained him. But fate did not see fit to grant him this last and first happiness: at fifty, broken-down in health and prematurely aged, he drifted to the town of O——, and remained there for good, having now lost once for all every hope of leaving Russia, which he detested. He gained his poor livelihood somehow by lessons. Lemm's exterior was not prepossessing. He was short and bent, with crooked shoulders, and contracted chest, with large flat feet, and bluish white nails on the gnarled bony fingers of his sinewy red hands. He had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, and compressed lips, which he was for ever twitching and biting; and this, together with his habitual taciturnity, produced an impression almost sinister. His grey hair hung in tufts on his low brow; like smouldering embers, his little set eyes glowed with dull fire. He moved painfully, at every step swinging his ungainly body forward. Some of his movements recalled the clumsy actions of an owl in a cage when it feels that it is being looked at, but itself can hardly see out of its great yellow eyes timorously and drowsily blinking. Pitiless, prolonged sorrow had laid its indelible stamp on the poor musician; it had disfigured and deformed his person, by no means attractive to begin with. But any one who was able to get over the first impression would have discerned something good, and honest, and out of the common in this half-shattered creature. A devoted admirer of Bach and Handel, a master of his art, gifted with a lively imagination and that boldness of conception which is only vouchsafed to the German race, Lemm might, in time—who knows?—have taken rank with the great composers of his fatherland, had his life been different; but he was born under an unlucky star! He had written much in his life, and it had not been granted to him to see one of his compositions produced; he did not know how to set about things in the right way, to gain favour in the right place, and to make a push at the right moment. A long, long time ago, his one friend and admirer, also a German and also poor, had published two of Lemm's sonatas at his own expense—the whole edition remained on the shelves of the music-shops; they disappeared without a trace, as though they had been thrown into a river by night. At last Lemm had renounced everything; the years too did their work; his mind had grown hard and stiff, as his fingers had stiffened. He lived alone in a little cottage not far from the Kalitin's house, with an old cook he had taken out of the poorhouse (he had never married). He took long walks, and read the Bible and the Protestant version of the Psalms, and Shakespeare in Schlegel's translation. He had composed nothing for a long time; but apparently, Lisa, his best pupil, had been able to inspire him; he had written for her the cantata to which Panshin had! made allusion. The words of this cantata he had borrowed from his collection of hymns. He had added a few verses of his own. It was sung by two choruses—a chorus of the happy and a chorus of the unhappy. The two were brought into harmony at the end, and sang together, "Merciful God, have pity on us sinners, and deliver us from all evil thoughts and earthly hopes." On the title-page was the inscription, most carefully written and even illuminated, "Only the righteous are justified. A religious cantata. Composed and dedicated to Miss Elisaveta Kalitin, his dear pupil, by her teacher, C. T. G. Lemm." The words, "Only the righteous are justified" and "Elisaveta Kalitin," were encircled by rays. Below was written: "For you alone, fur Sie allein." This was why Lemm had grown red, and looked reproachfully at Lisa; he was deeply wounded when Panshin spoke of his cantata before him.

  Chapter VI

  Panshin, who was playing bass, struck the first chords of the sonata loudly and decisively, but Lisa did not begin her part. He stopped and looked at her. Lisa's eyes were fixed directly on him, and expressed displeasure. There was no smile on her lips, her whole face looked stern and even mournful.

  "What's the matter?" he asked.

  "Why did you not keep your word?" she said. "I showed you Christopher Fedoritch's cantata on the express condition that you said nothing about it to him?"

  "I beg your pardon, Lisaveta Mihalovna, the words slipped out unawares."

  "You have hurt his feelings and mine too. Now he will not trust even me."

  "How could I help it, Lisaveta Mihalovna? Ever since I was a little boy I could never see a German without wanting to teaze him."

  "How can you say that, Vladimir Nikolaitch? This German is poor, lonely, and broken-down—have you no pity for him? Can you wish to teaze him?"

  Panshin was a little taken aback.

  "You are right, Lisaveta Mihalovna," he declared. "It's my everlasting thoughtlessness that's to blame. No, don't contradict me; I know myself. So much harm has come to me from my want of thought. It's owing to that failing that I am thought to be an egoist."

  Panshin paused. With whatever subject he began a conversation, he generally ended by talking of himself, and the subject was changed by him so easily, so smoothly and genially, that it seemed unconscious.

  "In your own household, for instance," he went on, "your mother certainly wishes me well, she is so kind; you—well, I don't know your opinion of me; but on the other hand your aunt simply can't bear me. I must have offended her too by some thoughtless, stupid speech. You know I'm not a favourite of hers, am I?"

  "No," Lisa admitted with some reluctance, "she doesn't like you."

  Panshin ran his fingers quickly over the keys, and a scarcely perceptible smile glided over his lips.

  "Well, and you?" he said, "do you too think me an egoist?"

  "I know you very little," replied Lisa, "but I don't consider you an egoist; on the contrary, I can't help feeling grateful to you."

  "I know, I know what you mean to say," Panshin interrupted, and again he ran his fingers over the keys: "for the music and the books I bring you, for the wretched sketches with which I adorn your album, and so forth. I might do all that—and be an egoist all the same. I venture to think that you don't find me a bore, and don't think me a bad fellow, but still you suppose that I—what's the saying?—would sacrifice friend or father for the sake of a witticism."

  "You are careless and forgetful, like all men of the world," observed Lisa, "that is all."

  Panshin frowned a little.

  "Come," he said, "don't let us discuss me any more; let us play our sonata. There's only one thing I must beg of you," he added, smoothing out the leaves of the book on the music stand, "think what you like of me, call me an egoist even—so be it! but don't call me a man of the world; that name's insufferable to me.... Anch 'io sono pittore. I too am an artist, though a poor one—and that—I mean that I'm a poor artist, I shall show directly. Let us begin."

  "Very well, let us begin," said Lisa.

  The first adagio went fairly successfully though Panshin made more than one false note. His own compositions and what he had practised thoroughly he played very nicely, but he played at sight badly. So the second part of the sonata—a rather quick allegro—broke down completely; at the twentieth bar, Panshin, who was two bars behind, gave in, and pushed his chair back with a laugh.

  "No!" he cried, "I can't play to-day; it's a good thing Lemm did not hear us; he would have had a fit."

  Lisa got up, shut the piano, and turned round to Panshin.

  "What are we going to do?" she asked.

  "That's just like you, that question! You can never sit with your hands idle. Well, if you like let us sketch, since it's not quite dark. Perhaps the other muse, the muse of painting—what was her name? I have forgotten... will be more propitious to me. Where's your album? I remember, my landscape there is not finished."

/>   Lisa went into the other room to fetch the album, and Panshin, left alone, drew a cambric handkerchief out of his pocket, and rubbed his nails and looked as it were critically at his hands. He had beautiful white hands; on the second finger of his left hand he wore a spiral gold ring. Lisa came back; Panshin sat down at the window, and opened the album.

  "Ah!" he exclaimed: "I see that you have begun to copy my landscape—and capitally too. Excellent! only just here—give me a pencil—the shadows are not put in strongly enough. Look."

  And Panshin with a flourish added a few long strokes. He was for ever drawing the same landscape: in the foreground large disheveled trees, a stretch of meadow in the background, and jagged mountains on the horizon. Lisa looked over his shoulders at his work.

  "In drawing, just as in life generally," observed Panshin, holding his head to right and to left, "lightness and boldness—are the great things."

  At that instant Lemm came into the room, and with a stiff bow was about to leave it; but Panshin, throwing aside album and pencils, placed himself in his way.

  "Where are you doing, dear Christopher Fedoritch? Aren't you going to stay and have tea with us?"

  "I go home," answered Lemm in a surly voice; "my head aches."

  "Oh, what nonsense!—do stop. We'll have an argument about Shakespeare."

  "My head aches," repeated the old man.

  "We set to work on the sonata of Beethoven without you," continued Panshin, taking hold of him affectionately and smiling brightly, "but we couldn't get on at all. Fancy, I couldn't play two notes together correctly."

  "You'd better have sung your song again," replied Lemm, removing Panshin's hands, and he walked away.

  Lisa ran after him. She overtook him on the stairs.