A House of Gentlefolk Read online

  Chapter XX

  The next day Lavretsky got up rather early, had a talk with the village bailiff, visited the threshing-floor, ordered the chain to be taken off the yard dog, who only barked a little but did not even come out of his kennel, and returning home, sank into a kind of peaceful torpor, which he did not shake off the whole day.

  "Here I am at the very bottom of the river," he said to himself more than once. He sat at the window without stirring, and, as it were, listened to the current of the quiet life surrounding him, to the few sounds of the country solitude. Something from behind the nettles chirps with a shrill, shrill little note; a gnat seems to answer it. Now it has ceased, but still the gnat keeps up its sharp whirr; across the pleasant, persistent, fretful buzz of the flies sounds the hum of a big bee, constantly knocking its head against the ceiling; a cock crows in the street, hoarsely prolonging the last note; there is the rattle of a cart; in the village a gate is creaking. Then the jarring voice of a peasant woman, "What?" "Hey, you are my little sweetheart," cries Anton to the little two-year-old girl he is dandling in his arms. "Fetch the kvas," repeats the same woman's voice, and all at once there follows a deathly silence; nothing rattles, nothing is moving; the wind is not stirring a leaf; without a sound the swallows fly one after another over the earth, and sadness weights on the heart from their noiseless flight. "Here I am at the very bottom of the river," thought Lavretsky again. "And always, at all times life here is quiet, unhasting," he thought; "whoever comes within its circle must submit; here there is nothing to agitate, nothing to harass; one can only get on here by making one's way slowly, as the ploughman cuts the furrow with his plough. And what vigour, what health abound in this inactive place! Here under the window the sturdy burdock creeps out of the thick grass; above it the lovage trails its juicy stalks and the Virgin's tears fling still higher their pink tendrils; and yonder further in the fields is the silky rye, and the oats are already in ear, and every leaf on every tree, every grass on its stalk is spread to its fullest width. In the love of a woman my best years have gone by," Lavretsky went on thinking, "let me be sobered by the sameness of life here, let me be soothed and made ready, so that I may learn to do my duty without haste." And again he fell to listening to the silence, expecting nothing—and at the same time constantly expecting something; the silence enfolded him on all sides, the sun moved calmly in the peaceful blue sky, and the clouds sailed calmly across it; they seemed to know why and whither they were sailing. At this same time in other places on the earth there is the seething, the bustle, the clash of life; life here slipped by noiseless, as water over marshy grass; and even till evening Lavretsky could not tear himself from the contemplation of this life as it passed and glided by; sorrow for the past was melting in his soul like snow in spring, and strange to say, never had the feeling of home been so deep and strong within him.

  Chapter XXI

  In the course of a fortnight, Fedor Ivanitch had brought Glafira Petrovna's little house into order and had cleared the court-yard and the garden. From Lavriky comfortable furniture was sent him; from the town, wine, books, and papers; horses made their appearance in the stable; in brief Fedor Ivanitch provided himself with everything necessary and began to live—not precisely after the manner of a country landowner, nor precisely after the manner of a hermit. His days passed monotonously; but he was not bored though he saw no one; he set diligently and attentively to work at farming his estate, rode about the neighbourhood and did some reading. He read little, however; he found it pleasanter to listen to the tales of old Anton. Lavretsky usually sat at the window with a pipe and a cup of cold tea. Anton stood at the door, his hands crossed behind him, and began upon his slow, deliberate stories of old times, of those fabulous times when oats and rye were not sold by measure, but in great sacks, at two or three farthings a sack; when there were impassable forests, virgin steppes stretching on every side, even close to the town. "And now," complained the old man, whose eightieth year had passed, "there has been so much clearing, so much ploughing everywhere, there's nowhere you may drive now." Anton used to tell many stories, too, of his mistress, Glafira Petrovna; how prudent and saving she was; how a certain gentleman, a young neighbour, had paid her court, and used to ride over to see her, and how she was even pleased to put on her best cap, with ribbons of salmon colour, and her yellow gown of tru-tru levantine for him; but how, later on, she had been angry with the gentleman neighbour for his unseemly inquiry, "What, madam, pray, might be your fortune?" and had bade them refuse him the house; and how it was then that she had given directions that, after her decease, everything to the last rag should pass to Fedor Ivanitch. And, indeed, Lavretsky found all his aunt's household goods intact, not excepting the best cap with ribbons of salmon colour, and the yellow gown of tru-tru levantine. Of old papers and interesting documents, upon which Lavretsky had reckoned, there seemed no trace, except one old book, in which his grandfather, Piotr Andreitch, had inscribed in one place, "Celebration in the city of Saint Petersburg of the peace, concluded with the Turkish empire by his Excellency Prince Alexander Alexandrovitch Prozorovsky;" in another place a recipe for a pectoral decoction with the comment, "This recipe was given to the general's lady, Prascovya Federovna Soltikov, by the chief priest of the Church of the Life-giving Trinity, Fedor Avksentyevitch:" in another, a piece of political news of this kind: "Somewhat less talk of the French tigers;" and next this entry: "In the Moscow Gazette an announcement of the death of Mr. Senior-Major Mihal Petrovitch Kolitchev. Is not this the son of Piotr Vassilyevitch Kolitchev? Lavretsky found also some old calendars and dream-books, and the mysterious work of Ambodik; many were the memories stirred by the well-known; but long-forgotten Symbols and Emblems. In Glafira Petrovna's little dressing-table, Lavretsky found a small packet, tied up with black ribbon, sealed with black sealing wax, and thrust away in the very farthest corner of the drawer. In the parcel there lay face to face a portrait, in pastel, of his father in his youth, with effeminate curls straying over his brow, with almond-shaped languid eyes and parted lips, and a portrait, almost effaced, of a pale woman in a white dress with a white rose in her hand—his mother. Of herself, Glafira Petrovna had never allowed a portrait to be taken. "I, myself, little father, Fedor Ivanitch," Anton used to tell Lavretsky, "though I did not then live in the master's house, still I can remember your great-grandfather, Andrey Afanasyevitch, seeing that I had come to my eighteenth year when he died. Once I met him in the garden and my knees! were knocking with fright indeed; however, he did nothing, only asked me my name, and sent me to his room for his pocket-handkerchief. He was a gentleman—how shall I tell you—he didn't look on any one as better than himself. For your great-grandfather had, I do assure you, a magic amulet; a monk from Mount Athos made him a present of this amulet. And he told him, this monk did, "It's for your kindness, Boyar, I give you this; wear it, and you need not fear judgment." Well, but there, little father, we know what those times were like; what the master fancied doing, that he did. Sometimes, if even some gentleman saw fit to cross him in anything, he would just stare at him and say, "You swim in shallow water;" that was his favourite saying. And he lived, your great-grandfather of blessed memory, in a small log-house; and what goods he left behind him, what silver, and stores of all kinds! All the storehouses were full and overflowing. He was a manager. That very decanter, that you were pleased to admire, was his; he used to drink brandy out of it. But there was your grandfather, Piotr Andreitch, built himself a palace of stone, but he never grew rich; everything with him went badly, and he lived worse than his father by far, and he got no pleasure from it for himself, but spent all his money, and now there is nothing to remember him by—not a silver spoon has come down from him, and we have Glafira Petrovna's management to thank for all that is saved.

  "But is it true," Lavretsky interrupted him, "they called her the old witch?"

  "What sort of people called her so, I should like to know!" replied Anton with an air of displeasure.

  "And
little father," the old man one day found courage to ask, "what about our mistress, where is she pleased to fix her residence?"

  "I am separated from my wife," Lavretsky answered with an effort, "please do not ask questions about her."

  "Yes, sir," replied the old man mournfully.

  After three weeks had passed by, Lavretsky rode into O——- to the Kalitins, and spent an evening with them. Lemm was there; Lavretsky took a great liking to him. Although thanks to his father, he played no instrument, he was passionately fond of music, real classical music. Panshin was not at the Kalitins' that evening. The governor had sent him off to some place out of the town. Lisa played alone and very correct; Lemm woke up, got excited, twisted a piece of paper into a roll, and conducted. Marya Dmitrievna laughed at first, as she looked at him, later on she went off to bed; in her own words, Beethoven was too agitating for her nerves. At midnight Lavretsky accompanied Lemm to his lodging and stopped there with him till three o'clock in the morning. Lemm talked a great deal; his bent figure grew erect, his eyes opened wide and flashed fire; his hair even stood up on his forehead. It was so long since any one had shown him any sympathy, and Lavretsky was obviously interested in him, he was plying him with sympathetic and attentive questions. This touched the old man; he ended by showing the visitor his music, played and even sang in a faded voice some extracts from his works, among others the whole of Schiller's ballad, Fridolin, set by him to music. Lavretsky admired it, made him repeat some passages, and at parting, invited him to stay a few days with him. Lemm, as he accompanied him as far as the street, agreed at once, and warmly pressed his hand; but when he was left standing alone in the fresh, damp air, in the just dawning sunrise, he looked round him, shuddered, shrank into himself, and crept up to his little room, with a guilty air. "Ich bin wohl nicht klug" (I must be out of my senses), he muttered, as he lay down in his hard short bed. He tried to say that he was ill, a few days later, when Lavretsky drove over to fetch him in an open carriage; but Fedor Ivanitch went up into his room and managed to persuade him. What produced the most powerful effect upon Lemm was the circumstance that Lavretsky had ordered a piano from town to be sent into the country expressly for him.

  They set off together to the Kalitins' and spent the evening with them, but not so pleasantly as on the last occasion. Panshin was there, he talked a great deal about his expedition, and very amusingly mimicked and described the country gentry he had seen; Lavretsky laughed, but Lemm would not come out of his corner, and sat silent, slightly tremulous all over like a spider, looking dull and sullen, and he only revived when Lavretsky began to take leave. Even when he was sitting in the carriage, the old man was still shy and constrained; but the warm soft air, the light breeze, and the light shadows, the scent of the grass and the birch-buds, the peaceful light of the starlit, moonless night, the pleasant tramp and snort of the horses—all the witchery of the roadside, the spring and the night, sank into the poor German's soul, and he was himself the first to begin a conversation with Lavretsky.

  Chapter XXII

  He began talking about music, about Lisa, then of music again. He seemed to enunciate his words more slowly when he spoke of Lisa. Lavretsky turned the conversation on his compositions, and half in jest, offered to write him a libretto.

  "H'm, a libretto!" replied Lemm; "no, that is not in my line; I have not now the liveliness, the play of the imagination, which is needed for an opera; I have lost too much of my power... But if I were still able to do something,—I should be content with a song; of course, I should like to have beautiful words..."

  He ceased speaking, and sat a long while motionless, his eyes lifted to the heavens.

  "For instance," he said at last, "something in this way: 'Ye stars, ye pure stars!'"

  Lavretsky turned his face slightly towards him and began to look at him.

  "'Ye stars, pure stars,'" repeated Lemm... "'You look down upon the righteous and guilty alike.. but only the pure in heart,'—or something of that kind—'comprehend you'—that is, no—'love you.' But I am not a poet. I'm not equal to it! Something for that kind, though, something lofty."

  Lemm pushed his hat on to the back of his head; in the dim twilight of the clear night his face looked paler and younger.

  "'And you too,'" he continued, his voice gradually sinking, "'ye know who loves, who can love, because, pure ones, ye alone can comfort'... No, that's not it at all! I am not a poet," he said, "but something of that sort."

  "I am sorry I am not a poet," observed Lavretsky.

  "Vain dreams!" replied Lemm, and he buried himself in the corner of the carriage. He closed his eyes as though he were disposing himself to sleep.

  A few instants passed... Lavretsky listened... "'Stars, pure stars, love,'" muttered the old man.

  "Love," Lavretsky repeated to himself. He sank into thought—and his heart grew heavy.

  "That is beautiful music you have set to Fridolin, Christopher Fedoritch," he said aloud, "but what do you suppose, did that Fridolin do, after the Count had presented him to his wife... became her lover, eh?"

  "You think so," replied Lemm, "probably because experience,"—he stopped suddenly and turned away in confusion. Lavretsky laughed constrainedly, and also turned away and began gazing at the road.

  The stars had begun to grow paler and the sky had turned grey when the carriage drove up to the steps of the little house in Vassilyevskoe. Lavretsky conducted his guest to the room prepared for him, returned to his study and sat down before the window. In the garden a nightingale was singing its last song before dawn, Lavretsky remember that a nightingale had sung in the garden at the Kalitins'; he remembered, too, the soft stir in Lisa's eyes, as at its first notes, they turned towards the dark window. He began to think of her, and his heart was calm again. "Pure maiden," he murmured half-aloud: "pure stars," he added with a smile, and went peacefully to bed.

  But Lemm sat a long while on his bed, a music-book on his knees. He felt as though sweet, unheard melody was haunting him; already he was all aglow and astir, already he felt the languor and sweetness of its presence.. but he could not reach it.

  "Neither poet nor musician!" he muttered at last... And his tired head sank wearily on to the pillows.

  Chapter XXIII

  The next morning the master of the house and his guest drank tea in the garden under an old time-tree.

  "Master!" said Lavretsky among other things, "you will soon have to compose a triumphal cantata."

  "On what occasion?"

  "For the nuptials of Mr. Panshin and Lisa. Did you notice what attention he paid her yesterday? It seems as though things were in a fair way with them already."

  "That will never be!" cried Lemm.

  "Why?"

  "Because it is impossible. Though, indeed," he added after a short pause, "everything is possible in this world. Especially here among you in Russia."

  "We will leave Russia out of the question for a time; but what do you find amiss in this match?"

  "Everything is amiss, everything. Lisaveta Mihalovna is a girl of high principles, serious, of lofty feelings, and he... he is a dilettante, in a word."

  "But suppose she loves him"

  Lemm got up from the bench.

  "No, she does not love him, that is to say, she is very pure in heart, and does not know herself what it means... love. Madame von Kalitin tells her that he is a fine young man, and she obeys Madame von Kalitin because she is still quite a child, though she is nineteen; she says her prayers in the morning and in the evening—and that is very well; but she does not love him. She can only love what is beautiful, and he is not, that is, his soul is not beautiful."