A House of Gentlefolk Read online

  "Where are you going?" he asked her.

  "To service. It is Sunday."

  "Why do you go to church?"

  Lisa looked at him in silent amazement.

  "I beg your pardon," said Lavretsky; "I—I did not mean to say that; I have come to say good-bye to you, I am starting for my village in an hour."

  "Is it far from here?" asked Lisa.

  "Twenty miles."

  Lenotchka made her appearance in the doorway, escorted by a maid.

  "Mind you don't forget us," observed Lisa, and went down the steps.

  "And don't you forget me. And listen," he added, "you are going to church; while you are there, pray for me, too."

  Lisa stopped short and turned round to him: "Certainly," she said, looking him straight in the face, "I will pray for you too. Come, Lenotchka."

  In the drawing-room Lavretsky found Marya Dmitrievna alone. She was redolent of eau de Cologne and mint. She had, as she said, a headache, and had passed a restless night. She received him with her usual languid graciousness and gradually fell into conversation.

  "Vladimir Nikolaitch is really a delightful young man, don't you think so?" she asked him.

  "What Vladimir Nikolaitch?"

  "Panshin to be sure, who was here yesterday. He took a tremendous fancy to you; I will tell you a secret, mon cher cousin, he is simply crazy about my Lisa. Well, he is of good family, has a capital position in the service, and a clever fellow, a kammer-yunker, and if it is God's will, I for my part, as a mother, shall be well pleased. My responsibility of course is immense; the happiness of children depends, no doubt, on parts; still I may say, up till now, for better or for worse I have done everything, I alone have been everywhere with them, that is to say, I have educated my children and taught them everything myself. Now, indeed, I have written for a French governess from Madame Boluce."

  Marya Dmitrievna launched into a description of her cares and anxieties and maternal sentiments. Lavretsky listened in silence, turning his hat in his hands. His cold, weary glance embarrassed the gossiping lady.

  "And do you like Lisa?" she asked.

  "Lisaveta Mihalovna is an excellent girl," replied Lavretsky, and he got up, took his leave, and went off to Marfa Timofyevna. Marya Dmitrievna looked after him in high displeasure, and thought, "What a dolt, a regular peasant! Well, now I understand why his wife could not remain faithful to him."

  Marfa Timofyevna was sitting in her room, surrounded by her little court. It consisted of five creatures almost equally near to her heart; a big-cropped, learned bullfinch, which she had taken a fancy to because he had lost his accomplishments of whistling and drawing water; a very timid and peaceable little dog, Roska; an ill-tempered cat, Matross; a dark-faced, agile little girl nine years old, with big eyes and a sharp nose, call Shurotchka; and an elderly woman of fifty-five, in a white cap and a cinnamon-coloured abbreviated jacket, over a dark skirt, by name, Nastasya Karpovna Ogarkov. Shurotchka was an orphan of the tradesman class. Marfa Timofyevna had taken her to her heart like Roska, from compassion; she had found the little dog and the little girl too in the street; both were thin and hungry, both were being drenched by the autumn rain; no one came in search of Roska, and Shurotchka was given up to Marfa Timofyevna with positive eagerness by her uncle, a drunken shoemaker, who did not get enough to eat himself, and did not feed his niece, but beat her over the head with his last. With Nastasya Karpovna, Marfa Timofyevna had made acquaintance on a pilgrimage at a monastery; she had gone up to her at the church (Marfa Timofyevna took a fancy to her because in her own words she said her prayers so prettily) and had addressed her and invited her to a cup of tea. From that day she never parted from her.

  Nastasya Karpovna was a woman of the most cheerful and gentle disposition, a widow without children, of a poor noble family; she had a round grey head, soft white hands, a soft face with large mild features, and a rather absurd turned-up nose; she stood in awe of Marfa Timofyevna, and the latter was very fond of her, though she laughed at her susceptibility. She had a soft place in her heart for every young man, and could not help blushing like a girl at the most innocent joke. Her whole fortune consisted of only 1200 roubles; she lived at Marfa Timofyevna's expense, but on an equal footing with her: Marfa Timofyevna would not have put up with any servility.

  "Ah! Fedya," she began, directly she saw him, "last night you did not see my family, you must admire them, we are all here together for tea; this is our second, holiday tea. You can make friends with them all; only Shurotchka won't let you, and the cat will scratch. Are you starting to-day?"

  "Yes." Lavretsky sat down on a low seat, "I have just said good-bye to Marya Dmitrievna. I saw Lisaveta Mihalovna too."

  "Call her Lisa, my dear fellow. Mihalovna indeed to you! But sit still, or you will break Shurotchka's little chair."

  "She has gone to church," continued Lavretsky. "Is she religious?"

  "Yes, Fedya, very much so. More than you and I, Fedya."

  "Aren't you religious then?" lisped Nastasya Karpovna. "To-day, you have not been to the early service, but you are going to the late."

  "No, not at all; you will go alone; I have grown too lazy, my dear," relied Marfa Timofyevna. "Already I am indulging myself with tea." She addressed Nastasya Karpovna in the singular, though she treated her as an equal. She was not a Pestov for nothing: three Pestovs had been on the death-list of Ivan the Terrible, Marfa Timofyevna was well aware of the fact.

  "Tell me please," began Lavretsky again, "Marya Dmitrievna has just been talking to me about this—what's his name? Panshin. What sort of a man is he?"

  "What a chatterbox she is, Lord save us!" muttered Marfa Timofyevna. "She told you, I suppose, as a secret that he has turned up as a suitor. She might have whispered it to her priest's son; no, he's not good enough for her, it seems. And so far there's nothing to tell, thank God, but already she's gossiping about it."

  "Why thank God?" asked Lavretsky.

  "Because I don't like the fine young gentleman; and so what is there to be glad of in it?"

  "You don't like him?"

  "No, he can't fascinate every one. He must be satisfied with Nastasya Karpovna's being in love with him."

  The poor widow was utterly dismayed.

  "How can you, Marfa Timofyevna? you've no conscience!" she cried, and a crimson flush instantly overspread her face and neck.

  "And he knows, to be sure, the rogue," Marfa Timofyevna interrupted her, "he knows how to captivate her; he made her a present of a snuff-box. Fedya, ask her for a pinch of snuff; you will see what a splendid snuff-box it is; on the lid a hussar on horseback. You'd better not try to defend yourself, my dear."

  Nastasya Karpovna could only fling up her hands.

  "Well, but Lisa," inquired Lavretsky, "is she indifferent to him?"

  "She seems to like him, but there, God knows! The heart of another, you know, is a dark forest, and a girl's more than any. Shurotchka's heart, for instance—I defy you to understand it! What makes her hide herself and not come out ever since you came in?"

  Shurotchka choked with suppressed laughter and skipped out of the room. Lavretsky rose from his place.

  "Yes," he said in an uncertain voice, "there is no deciphering a girl's heart."

  He began to say good-bye.

  "Well, shall we see you again soon?" inquired Marfa Timofyevna.

  "Very likely, aunt: it's not far off, you know."

  "Yes, to be sure you are going to Vassilyevskoe. You don't care to stay at Lavriky: well, that's your own affair, only mind you go and say a prayer at our mother's grave, and our grandmother's too while you are there. Out there in foreign parts you have picked up all kinds of ideas, but who knows? Perhaps even in their graves they will feel that you have come to them. And, Fedya, don't forget to have a service sung too for Glafira Petrovna; here's a silver rouble for you. Take it, take it, I want to pay for a service for her. I had no love for her in her lifetime, but all the same there's no denying she was a girl of character. S
he was a clever creature; and a good friend to you. And now go and God be with you, before I weary you."

  And Marfa Timofyevna embraced her nephew.

  "And Lisa's not going to marry Panshin; don't you trouble yourself; that's not the sort of husband she deserves."

  "Oh, I'm not troubling myself," answered Lavretsky, and went away.

  Chapter XVIII

  Four days later, he set off for home. His coach rolled quickly along the soft cross-road. There had been no rain for a fortnight; a fine milk mist was diffused in the air and hung over the distant woods; a smell of burning came from it. A multitude of darkish clouds with blurred edges were creeping across the pale blue sky; a fairly strong breeze blew a dry and steady gale, without dispelling the heat. Leaning back with his head on the cushion and his arms crossed on his breast, Lavretsky watched the furrowed fields unfolding like a fan before him, the willow bushes as they slowly came into sight, and the dull ravens and rooks, who looked sidelong with stupid suspicion at the approaching carriage, the long ditches, overgrown with mugwort, wormwood, and mountain ash; and as he watched the fresh fertile wilderness and solitude of this steppe country, the greenness, the long slopes, and valleys with stunted oak bushes, the grey villages, and scant birch trees,—the whole Russian landscape, so long unseen by him, stirred emotion at once pleasant, sweet and almost painful in his heart, and he felt weighed down by a kind of pleasant oppression. Slowly his thoughts wandered; their outlines were as vague and indistinct as the outlines of the clouds which seemed to be wandering at random overhead. He remembered his childhood, his mother; he remembered her death, how they had carried him in to her, and how, clasping his head to her bosom, she had begun to wail over him, then had glanced at Glafira Petrovna—and checked herself. He remembered his father, at first vigorous, discontented with everything, with strident voice; and later, blind, tearful, with unkempt grey beard; he remembered how one day after drinking a glass too much at dinner, and spilling the gravy over his napkin, he began to relate his conquests, growing red in the face, and winking with his sightless eyes; he remember Varvara Pavlovna,—and involuntarily shuddered, as a man shudders from a sudden internal pain, and shook his head. Then his! thoughts came to a stop at Lisa.

  "There," he thought, "Is a new creature, only just entering on life. A nice girl, what will become of her? She is good-looking too. A pale, fresh face, mouth and eyes so serious, and an honest innocent expression. It is a pity she seems a little enthusiastic. A good figure, and she moves so lightly, and a soft voice. I like the way she stops suddenly, listens attentively, without a smile, then grows thoughtful and shakes back her hair. I fancy, too, that Panshin is not good enough for her. What's amiss with him, though? And besides, what business have I to wonder about it? She will go along the same road as all the rest. I had better go to sleep." And Lavretsky closed his eyes.

  He could not sleep, but he sank into the drowsy numbness of a journey. Images of the past rose slowly as before, floated in his soul, mixed and tangled up with other fancies. Lavretsky, for some unknown reason, began to think about Robert Peel,... about French history—of how he would gain a battle, if he were a general; he fancied the shots and the cries .... His head slipped on one side, he opened his eyes. The same fields, the same steppe scenery; the polished shoes of the trace-horses flashed alternately through the driving dust; the coachman's shirt, yellow with red gussets, was puffed out by the wind.... "A nice home-coming!" glanced through Lavretsky's brain; and he cried, "Get on!" wrapped himself in his cloak and pressed close into the cushion. The carriage jolted; Lavretsky sat up and opened his eyes wide. On the slope before him stretched a small hamlet; a little to the right could be seen an ancient manor house of small size, with closed shutters! and a winding flight of steps; nettles, green and thick as hemp, grew over the wide courtyard from the very gates; in it stood a storehouse built of oak, still strong. This was Vassilyevskoe.

  The coachman drove to the gates and drew up; Lavretsky's groom stood up on the box and as though in preparation for jumping down, shouted, "Hey!" There was a sleepy, muffled sound of barking, but not even a dog made its appearance; the groom again made ready for a jump, and again shouted "Hey!" The feeble barking was repeated, and an instant after a man from some unseen quarter ran into the courtyard, dressed in a nankeen coat, his head as white as snow; he stared at the coach, shading his eyes from the sun; all at once he slapped his thighs with both hands, ran to and fro a little, then rushed to open the gates. The coach drove into the yard, crushing the nettles with the wheels, and drew up at the steps. The white-headed man, who seemed very alert, was already standing on the bottom step, his legs bent and wide apart, he unfastened the apron of the carriage, holding back the strap with a jerk and aiding his master to alight; he kissed his hand.

  "How do you do, how do you do, brother?" began Lavretsky. "Your name's Anton, I think? You are still alive, then?" The old man bowed without speaking, and ran off for the keys. While he went, the coachman sat motionless, sitting sideways and staring at the closed door, but Lavretsky's groom stood as he had leaped down in a picturesque pose with one arm thrown back on the box. The old man brought the keys, and, quite needlessly, twisting about like a snake, with his elbows raised high, he opened the door, stood on one side, and again bowed to the earth.

  "So here I am at home, here I am back again," thought Lavretsky, as he walked into the diminutive passage, while one after another the shutters were being opened with much creaking and knocking, and the light of day poured into the deserted rooms.

  Chapter XIX

  The small manor-house to which Lavretsky had come and in which two years before Glafira Petrovna had breathed her last, had been built in the preceding century of solid pine-wood; it looked ancient, but it was still strong enough to stand another fifty years or more. Lavretsky made the tour of all the rooms, and to the great discomfiture of the aged languid flies, settled under the lintels and covered with white dust, he ordered the windows to be opened everywhere; they had not been opened ever since the death of Glafira Petrovna. Everything in the house had remained as it was; the thin-legged white miniature couches in the drawing-room, covered with glossy grey stuff, threadbare and rickety, vividly suggested the days of Catherine; in the drawing-room, too, stood the mistress's favourite arm-chair, with high straight back, against which she never leaned even in her old age. On the principal wall hung a very old portrait of Fedor's great-grandfather, Andrey Lavretsky; the dark yellow face was scarcely distinguishable from the warped and blackened background; the small cruel eyes looked grimly out from beneath the eyelids, which dropped as if they were swollen; his black unpowdered hair rose bristling above his heavy indented brow. In the corner of the portrait hung a wreath of dusty immortelles. "Glafira Petrovna herself was pleased to make it," Anton announced. In the bedroom stood a narrow bedstead, under a canopy of old-fashioned and very good striped material; a heap of faded cushions and a thin quilted counterpane lay on the bed, and at the head hung a picture of the Presentation in the Temple of the Holy Mother of God; it was the very picture which the old maid, dying alone and forgotten by every one, had for the last time pressed to her chilling lips. A little toilet table of inlaid wood, with brass fittings and a warped looking-glass in a tarnished frame stood in the window. Next to the bedroom was the little ikon room with bare walls and a heavy case of holy images in the corner; on the floor lay a threadbare rug spotted with wax; Glafira Petrovna used to pray bowing to the ground upon it. Anton went away with Lavretsky's groom to unlock the stable and coach-house; to replace him appeared an old woman of about the same age, with a handkerchief tied round to her very eyebrows; her head shook, and her eyes were dim, but they expressed zeal, the habit of years of submissive service, and at the same time a kind of respectful commiseration. She kissed Lavretsky's hand and stood still in the doorway awaiting his orders. He positively could not recollect her name and did not even remember whether he had ever seen her. Her name, it appeared, was Apraxya; forty years before, Gl
afira Petrovna had put her out of the master's house and ordered that she should be a poultry woman. She said little, however; she seemed to have lost her senses from old age, and could only gaze at him obsequiously. Besides these two old creatures and three pot-bellied children in long smocks, Anton's great-grandchildren, there was also living in the manor-house a one-armed peasant, who was exempted from servitude; he muttered like a woodcock and was of no use for anything. Not much more useful was the decrepit dog who had saluted Lavretsky's return by its barking; he had been for ten years fastened up by a heavy chain, purchased at Glafira Petrovna's command, and was scarcely able to move and drag the weight of it. Having looked over the house, Lavretsky went into the garden and was very much pleased with it. It was all overgrown with high grass, and burdock, and gooseberry and raspberry bushes, but there was plenty of shade, and many old lime-trees, which were remarkable for their immense size and the peculiar growth of their branches; they had been planted too close and at some time or other—a hundred years before—they had been lopped. At the end of the garden was a small clear pool bordered with high reddish rushes. The traces of human life very quickly! pass away; Glafira Petrovna's estate had not had time to become quite wild, but already it seemed plunged in that quiet slumber in which everything reposes on earth where there is not the infection of man's restlessness. Fedor Ivanitch walked also through the village; the peasant-women stared at him from the doorways of their huts, their cheeks resting on their hands; the peasants saluted him from a distance, the children ran out, and the dogs barked indifferently. At last he began to feel hungry; but he did not expect his servants and his cook till the evening; the waggons of provisions from Lavriky had not come yet, and he had to have recourse to Anton. Anton arranged matters at once; he caught, killed, and plucked an old hen; Apraxya gave it a long rubbing and cleaning, and washed it like linen before putting it into the stew-pan; when, at last, it was cooked Anton laid the cloth and set the table, placing beside the knife and fork a three-legged salt-cellar of tarnished plate and a cut decanter with a round glass stopper and a narrow neck; then he announced to Lavretsky in a sing-song voice that the meal was ready, and took his stand behind his chair, with a napkin twisted round his right fights, and diffusing about him a peculiar strong ancient odour, like the scent of a cypress-tree. Lavretsky tried the soup, and took out the hen; its skin was all covered with large blisters; a tough tendon ran up each leg; the meat had a flavour of wood and soda. When he had finished dinner, Lavretsky said that he would drink a cup of tea, if—"I will bring it this minute," the old man interrupted. And he kept his word. A pinch of tea was hunted up, twisted in a screw of red paper; a small but very fiery and loudly-hissing samovar was found, and sugar too in small lumps, which looked as if they were thawing. Lavretsky drank tea out of a large cup; he remembered this cup from childhood; there were playing-cards depicted upon it, only visitors used to drink out of it—and here was he drinking out if like a visitor. In the evening his servants came; Lavretsky did not care to sleep in his aunt's bed; he directed them put him up a bed in the dining-room. After extinguishing his candle he stared for a long time about him and feel into cheerless reflection; he experienced that feeling which every man knows whose lot it is to pass the night in a place long uninhabited; it seemed to him that the darkness surrounding him on all sides could not be accustomed to the new inhabitant, the very walls of the house seemed amazed. At last he sighed, drew up the counterpane round him and fell asleep. Anton remained up after all the rest of the household; he was whispering a long while with Apraxya, he sighed in an undertone, and twice he crossed himself; they had neither of them expected that their master would settle among them at Vassilyevskoe when he had not far off such a splendid estate with such a capitally built house; they did not suspect that the very house was hateful to Lavretsky; it stirred painful memories within him. Having gossiped to his heart's content, Anton took a stick and struck the night watchman's board, which had hung silent for so many years, and laid down to sleep in the courtyard with no covering on his white head. The May night was mild and soft, and the old man slept sweetly.