On the Eve

XXV

'There's some one here looks like a locksmith or something of the sort,' Bersenyev was informed the following evening by his servant, who was distinguished by a severe deportment and sceptical turn of mind towards his master; 'he wants to see you.'

'Ask him in,' said Bersenyev.

The 'locksmith' entered. Bersenyev recognised in him the tailor, the landlord of Insarov's lodgings.

'What do you want?' he asked him.

'I came to your honour,' began the tailor, shifting from one foot to the other, and at times waving his right hand with his cuff clutched in his three last fingers. 'Our lodger, seemingly, is very ill.'

'Insarov?'

'Yes, our lodger, to be sure; yesterday morning he was still on his legs, in the evening he asked for nothing but drink; the missis took him some water, and at night he began talking away; we could hear him through the partition-wall; and this morning he lies without a word like a log, and the fever he's in, Lord have mercy on us! I thought, upon my word, he'll die for sure; I ought to send word to the police station, I thought. For he's so alone; but the missis said: "Go to that gentleman," she says, "at whose country place our lodger stayed; maybe he'll tell you what to do, or come himself." So I've come to your honour, for we can't, so to say——'

Bersenyev snatched up his cap, thrust a rouble into the tailor's hand, and at once set off with him post haste to Insarov's lodgings.

He found him lying on the sofa, unconscious and not undressed. His face was terribly changed. Bersenyev at once ordered the people of the house to undress him and put him to bed, while he rushed off himself and returned with a doctor. The doctor prescribed leeches, mustard-poultices, and calomel, and ordered him to be bled.

'Is he dangerously ill?' asked Bersenyev.

'Yes, very dangerously,' answered the doctor. 'Severe inflammation of the lungs; peripneumonia fully developed, and the brain perhaps affected, but the patient is young. His very strength is something against him now. I was sent for too late; still we will do all that science dictates.'

The doctor was young himself, and still believed in science.

Bersenyev stayed the night. The people of the house seemed kind, and even prompt directly there was some one to tell them what was to be done. An assistant arrived, and began to carry out the medical measures.

Towards morning Insarov revived for a few minutes, recognised Bersenyev, asked: 'Am I ill, then?' looked about him with the vague, listless bewilderment of a man dangerously ill, and again relapsed into unconsciousness. Bersenyev went home, changed his clothes, and, taking a few books along with him, he returned to Insarov's lodgings. He made up his mind to stay there, at least for a time. He shut in Insarov's bed with screens, and arranged a little place for himself by the sofa. The day passed slowly and drearily. Bersenyev did not leave the room except to get his dinner. The evening came. He lighted a candle with a shade, and settled down to a book. Everything was still around. Through the partition wall could be heard suppressed whispering in the landlord's room, then a yawn, and a sigh. Some one sneezed, and was scolded in a whisper; behind the screen was heard the patient's heavy, uneven breathing, sometimes broken by a short groan, and the uneasy tossing of his head on the pillow.... Strange fancies came over Bersenyev. He found himself in the room of a man whose life was hanging on a thread, the man whom, as he knew, Elena loved.... He remembered that night when Shubin had overtaken him and declared that she loved him, him, Bersenyev! And now.... 'What am I to do now?' he asked himself. 'Let Elena know of his illness? Wait a little? This would be worse news for her than what I told her once before; strange how fate makes me the go-between between them!' He made up his mind that it was better to wait a little. His eyes fell on the table covered with heaps of papers... 'Will he carry out his dreams?' thought Bersenyev. 'Can it be that all will come to nothing?' And he was filled with pity for the young life struck down, and he vowed to himself to save it.

The night was an uneasy one. The sick man was very delirious. Several times Bersenyev got up from his little sofa, approached the bed on tip-toe, and listened with a heavy heart to his disconnected muttering. Only once Insarov spoke with sudden distinctness: 'I won't, I won't, she mustn't....' Bersenyev started and looked at Insarov; his face, suffering and death-like at the same time, was immovable, and his hands lay powerless. 'I won't,' he repeated, scarcely audibly.

The doctor came in the morning, shook his head and wrote fresh prescriptions. 'The crisis is a long way off still,' he said, putting on his hat.

'And after the crisis?' asked Bersenyev.

'The crisis may end in two ways, aut Caesar aut nihil.

The doctor went away. Bersenyev walked a few times up and down the street; he felt in need of fresh air. He went back and took up a book again. Raumer he had finished long ago; he was now making a study of Grote.

Suddenly the door softly creaked, and the head of the landlord's daughter, covered as usual with a heavy kerchief, was cautiously thrust into the room.

'Here is the lady,' she whispered, 'who gave me a silver piece.'

The child's head vanished quickly, and in its place appeared Elena.

Bersenyev jumped up as if he had been stung; but Elena did not stir, nor cry out. It seemed as if she understood everything in a single instant. A terrible pallor overspread her face, she went up to the screen, looked behind it, threw up her arms, and seemed turned to stone.

A moment more and she would have flung herself on Insarov, but Bersenyev stopped her. 'What are you doing?' he said in a trembling whisper, 'you might be the death of him!'

She was reeling. He led her to the sofa, and made her sit down.

She looked into his face, then her eyes ran over him from head to foot, then stared at the floor.

'Will he die?' she asked so coldly and quietly that Bersenyev was frightened.

'For God's sake, Elena Nikolaevna,' he began, 'what are you saying? He is ill certainly—and rather seriously—but we will save him; I promise you that.'

'He is unconscious?' she asked in the same tone of voice as before.

'Yes, he is unconscious at present. That's always the case at the early stage of these illnesses, but it means nothing, nothing—I assure you. Drink some water.'

She raised her eyes to his, and he saw she had not heard his answer.

'If he dies,' she said in the same voice,' I will die too.'

At that instant Insarov uttered a slight moan; she trembled all over, clutched at her head, then began untying the strings of her hat.

'What are you doing?' Bersenyev asked her.

'I will stay here.'

'You will stay—for long?'

'I don't know, perhaps all day, the night, always—I don't know.'

'For God's sake, Elena Nikolaevna, control yourself. I could not of course have any expectation of seeing you here; but still I—assume you have come for a short time. Remember they may miss you at home.'

'What then?'

'They will look for you—find you——'

'What then?'

'Elena Nikolaevna! You see. He cannot now protect you.'

She dropped her head, seemed lost in thought, raised a handkerchief to her lips, and convulsive sobs, tearing her by their violence, were suddenly wrung from her breast. She threw herself, face downwards, on the sofa, trying to stifle them, but still her body heaved and throbbed like a captured bird.

'Elena Nikolaevna—for God's sake,' Bersenyev was repeating over her.

'Ah! What is it?' suddenly sounded the voice of Insarov.

Elena started up, and Bersenyev felt rooted to the spot. After waiting a little, he went up to the bed. Insarov's head lay on the pillow helpless as before; his eyes were closed.

'Is he delirious?' whispered Elena.

'It seems so,' answered Bersenyev, 'but that's nothing; it's always so, especially if——'

'When was he taken ill?' Elena broke in.

'The day before yesterday; I have been here since yesterday. Rely on me, Elena Nikolaevna. I will not leave him; everything shall be done. If necessary, we will have a consultation.'

'He will die without me,' she cried, wringing her hands.

'I give you my word I will let you hear every day how his illness goes on, and if there should be immediate danger——'

'Swear you will send for me at once whenever it may be, day or night, write a note straight to me—I care for nothing now. Do you hear? you promise you will do that?'

'I promise before God'

'Swear it.'

'I swear.'

She suddenly snatched his hand, and before he had time to pull it away, she had bent and pressed her lips to it.

'Elena Nikolaevna, what are you——' he stammered.

'No—no—I won't have it——' Insarov muttered indistinctly, and sighed painfully.

Elena went up to the screen, her handkerchief pressed between her teeth, and bent a long, long look on the sick man. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

'Elena Nikolaevna,' Bersenyev said to her, 'he might come to himself and recognise you; there's no knowing if that wouldn't do harm. Besides, from hour to hour I expect the doctor.'

Elena took her hat from the sofa, put it on and stood still. Her eyes strayed mournfully over the room. She seemed to be remembering....

'I cannot go away,' she whispered at last.

Bersenyev pressed her hand: 'Try to pull yourself together,' he said, 'calm yourself; you are leaving him in my care. I will come to you this very evening.'

Elena looked at him, said: 'Oh, my good, kind friend!' broke into sobs and rushed away.

Bersenyev leaned against the door. A feeling of sorrow and bitterness, not without a kind of strange consolation, overcame him. 'My good, kind friend!' he thought and shrugged his shoulders.

'Who is here?' he heard Insarov's voice.

Bersenyev went up to him. 'I am here, Dmitri Nikanorovitch. How are you? How do you feel?'

'Are you alone?' asked the sick man.

'Yes.'

'And she?'

'Whom do you mean?' Bersenyev asked almost in dismay.

Insarov was silent. 'Mignonette,' he murmured, and his eyes closed again.

XXVI

For eight whole days Insarov lay between life and death. The doctor was incessantly visiting him, interested as a young man in a difficult case. Shubin heard of Insarov's critical position, and made inquiries after him. His compatriots—Bulgarians—came; among them Bersenyev recognised the two strange figures, who had puzzled him by their unexpected visit to the cottage; they all showed genuine sympathy, some offered to take Bersenyev's place by the patient's bed-side; but he would not consent to that, remembering his promise to Elena. He saw her every day and secretly reported to her—sometimes by word of mouth, sometimes in a brief note—every detail of the illness. With what sinkings of the heart she awaited him, how she listened and questioned him! She was always on the point of hastening to Insarov herself; but Bersenyev begged her not to do this: Insarov was seldom alone. On the first day she knew of his illness she herself had almost fallen ill; directly she got home, she shut herself up in her room; but she was summoned to dinner, and appeared in the dining-room with such a face that Anna Vassilyevna was alarmed, and was anxious to put her to bed. Elena succeeded, however, in controlling herself. 'If he dies,' she repeated, 'it will be the end of me too.' This thought tranquillised her, and enabled her to seem indifferent. Besides no one troubled her much; Anna Vassilyevna was taken up with her swollen face; Shubin was working furiously; Zoya was given up to pensiveness, and disposed to read Werther; Nikolai Artemyevitch was much displeased at the frequent visits of 'the scholar,' especially as his 'cherished projects' in regard to Kurnatovsky were making no way; the practical chief secretary was puzzled and biding his time. Elena did not even thank Bersenyev; there are services for which thanks are cruel and shameful. Only once at her fourth interview with him—Insarov had passed a very bad night, the doctor had hinted at a consultation—only then she reminded him of his promise. 'Very well, then let us go,' he said to her. She got up and was going to get ready. 'No,' he decided, 'let us wait till to-morrow.' Towards evening Insarov was rather better.

For eight days this torture was prolonged. Elena appeared calm; but she could eat nothing, and did not sleep at night. There was a dull ache in all her limbs; her head seemed full of a sort of dry burning smoke. 'Our young lady's wasting like a candle,' her maid said of her.

At last by the ninth day the crisis was passing over. Elena was sitting in the drawing-room near Anna Vassilyevna, and, without knowing herself what she was doing, was reading her the Moscow Gazette; Bersenyev came in. Elena glanced at him—how rapid, and fearful, and penetrating, and tremulous, was the first glance she turned on him every time—and at once she guessed that he brought good news. He was smiling; he nodded slightly to her, she got up to go and meet him.

'He has regained consciousness, he is saved, he will be quite well again in a week,' he whispered to her.

Elena had stretched out her arm as though to ward off a blow, and she said nothing, only her lips trembled and a flush of crimson overspread her whole face. Bersenyev began to talk to Anna Vassilyevna, and Elena went off to her own room, dropped on her knees and fell to praying, to thanking God. Light, shining tears trickled down her cheeks. Suddenly she was conscious of intense weariness, laid her head down on the pillow, whispered 'poor Andrei Petrovitch!' and at once fell asleep with wet eheeks and eyelashes. It was long since she had slept or wept.

XXVII

Bersenyev's words turned out only partly true; the danger was over, but Insarov gained strength slowly, and the doctor talked of a complete undermining of the whole system. The patient left his bed for all that, and began to walk about the room; Bersenyev went home to his own lodging, but he came every day to his still feeble friend; and every day as before he informed Elena of the state of his health. Insarov did not dare to write to her, and only indirectly in his conversations with Bersenyev referred to her; but Bersenyev, with assumed carelessness, told him about his visits to the Stahovs, trying, however, to give him to understand that Elena had been deeply distressed, and that now she was calmer. Elena too did not write to Insarov; she had a plan in her head.

One day Bersenyev had just informed her with a cheerful face that the doctor had already allowed Insarov to eat a cutlet, and that he would probably soon go out; she seemed absorbed, dropped her eyes.

'Guess, what I want to say to you,' she said. Bersenyev was confused. He understood her.

'I suppose,' he answered, looking away, 'you want to say that you wish to see him.'

Elena crimsoned, and scarcely audibly, she breathed, 'Yes.'

'Well, what then? That, I imagine, you can easily do.'—'Ugh!' he thought, 'what a loath-some feeling there is in my heart!'

'You mean that I have already before...' said Elena. 'But I am afraid—now he is, you say, seldom alone.'

'That's not difficult to get over,' replied Bersenyev, still not looking at her. 'I, of course, cannot prepare him; but give me a note. Who can hinder your writing to him as a good friend, in whom you take an interest? There's no harm in that. Appoint—I mean, write to him when you will come.

'I am ashamed,' whispered Elena.

'Give me the note, I will take it.'

'There's no need of that, but I wanted to ask you—don't be angry with me, Andrei Petrovitch—don't go to him to-morrow!'

Bersenyev bit his lip.

'Ah! yes, I understand; very well, very well,' and, adding two or three words more, he quickly took leave.

'So much the better, so much the better,' he thought, as he hurried home. 'I have learnt nothing new, but so much the better. What possessed me to go hanging on to the edge of another man's happiness? I regret nothing; I have done what my conscience told me; but now it is over. Let them be! My father was right when he used to say to me: "You and I, my dear boy, are not Sybarites, we are not aristocrats, we're not the spoilt darlings of fortune and nature, we are not even martyrs—we are workmen and nothing more. Put on your leather apron, workman, and take your place at your workman's bench, in your dark workshop, and let the sun shine on other men! Even our dull life has its own pride, its own happiness!"'

The next morning Insarov got a brief note by the post. 'Expect me,' Elena wrote to him, 'and give orders for no one to see you. A. P. will not come.'

XXVIII

Insarov read Elena's note, and at once began to set his room to rights; asked his landlady to take away the medicine-glasses, took off his dressing-gown and put on his coat. His head was swimming and his heart throbbing from weakness and delight. His knees were shaking; he dropped on to the sofa, and began to look at his watch. 'It's now a quarter to twelve,' he said to himself. 'She can never come before twelve: I will think of something else for a quarter of an hour, or I shall break down altogether. Before twelve she cannot possibly come.'

The door was opened, and in a light silk gown, all pale, all fresh, young and joyful, Elena came in, and with a faint cry of delight she fell on his breast.

'You are alive, you are mine,' she repeated, embracing and stroking his head. He was almost swooning, breathless at such closeness, such caresses, such bliss.

She sat down near him, holding him fast, and began to gaze at him with that smiling, and caressing, and tender look, only to be seen shining in the eyes of a loving woman.

Her face suddenly clouded over.

'How thin you have grown, my poor Dmitri,' she said, passing her hand over his neck; 'what a beard you have.'

'And you have grown thin, my poor Elena,' he answered, catching her fingers with his lips.

She shook her curls gaily.

'That's nothing. You shall see how soon we'll be strong again! The storm has blown over, just as it blew over and passed away that day when we met in the chapel. Now we are going to live.'

He answered her with a smile only.

'Ah, what a time we have had, Dmitri, what a cruel time! How can people outlive those they love? I knew beforehand what Andrei Petrovitch would say to me every day, I did really; my life seemed to ebb and flow with yours. Welcome back, my Dmitri!'

He did not know what to say to her. He was longing to throw himself at her feet.

'Another thing I observed,' she went on, pushing back his hair—'I made so many observations all this time in my leisure—when any one is very, very miserable, with what stupid attention he follows everything that's going on about him! I really sometimes lost myself in gazing at a fly, and all the while such chill and terror in my heart! But that's all past, all past, isn't it? Everything's bright in the future, isn't it?'

'You are for me in the future,' answered Insarov, 'so it is bright for me.'

'And for me too! But do you remember, when I was here, not the last time—no, not the last time,' she repeated with an involuntary shudder, 'when we were talking, I spoke of death, I don't know why; I never suspected then that it was keeping watch on us. But you are well now, aren't you?'

'I'm much better, I'm nearly well.'

'You are well, you are not dead. Oh, how happy I am!'

A short silence followed.

'Elena?' said Insarov.

'Well, my dearest?'

'Tell me, did it never occur to you that this illness was sent us as a punishment?'

Elena looked seriously at him.

'That idea did come into my head, Dmitri. But I thought: what am I to be punished for? What duty have I transgressed, against whom have I sinned? Perhaps my conscience is not like other people's, but it was silent; or perhaps I am guilty towards you? I hinder you, I stop you.'

'You don't stop me, Elena; we will go together.'

'Yes, Dmitri, let us go together; I will follow you.... That is my duty. I love you.... I know no other duty.'

'O Elena!' said Insarov, 'what chains every word of yours fastens on me!'

'Why talk of chains?' she interposed. 'We are free people, you and I. Yes,' she went on, looking musingly on the floor, while with one hand she still stroked his hair, 'I experienced much lately of which I had never had any idea! If any one had told me beforehand that I, a young lady, well brought up, should go out from home alone on all sorts of made-up excuses, and to go where? to a young man's lodgings—how indignant I should have been! And that has all come about, and I feel no indignation whatever. Really!' she added, and turned to Insarov.

He looked at her with such an expression of adoration, that she softly dropped her hand from his hair over his eyes.

'Dmitri!' she began again, 'you don't know of course, I saw you there in that dreadful bed, I saw you in the clutches of death, unconscious.'

'You saw me?'

'Yes.'

He was silent for a little. 'And Bersenyev was here?'

She nodded.

Insarov bowed down before her. 'O Elena!' he whispered, 'I don't dare to look at you.'

'Why? Andrei Petrovitch is so good. I was not ashamed before him. And what have I to be ashamed of? I am ready to tell all the world that I am yours.... And Andrei Petrovitch I trust like a brother.'

'He saved me!' cried Insarov. 'He is the noblest, kindest of men!'

'Yes... And do you know I owe everything to him? Do you know that it was he who first told me that you loved me? And if I could tell you everything.... Yes, he is a noble man.'

Insarov looked steadily at Elena. 'He is in love with you, isn't he?'

Elena dropped her eyes. 'He did love me,' she said in an undertone.

Insarov pressed her hand warmly. 'Oh you Russians,' he said, 'you have hearts of pure gold! And he, he has been waiting on me, he has not slept at night. And you, you, my angel.... No reproaches, no hesitations... and all this for me, for me——'

'Yes, yes, all for you, because they love you, Ah, Dmitri! How strange it is! I think I have talked to you of it before, but it doesn't matter, I like to repeat it, and you will like to hear it. When I saw you the first time——'

'Why are there tears in your eyes?' Insarov interrupted her.

'Tears? Are there?' She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. 'Oh, what a silly boy! He doesn't know yet that people weep from happiness. I wanted to tell you: when I saw you the first time, I saw nothing special in you, really. I remember, Shubin struck me much more at first, though I never loved him, and as for Andrei Petrovitch—oh, there was a moment when I thought: isn't this he? And with you there was nothing of that sort; but afterwards—afterwards—you took my heart by storm!'

'Have pity on me,' began Insarov. He tried to get up, but dropped down on to the sofa again at once.

'What's the matter with you?' inquired Elena anxiously.

'Nothing.... I am still rather weak. I am not strong enough yet for such happiness.'

'Then sit quietly. Don't dare to move, don't get excited,' she added, threatening him with her finger. 'And why have you left off your dressing-gown? It's too soon to begin to be a dandy! Sit down and I will tell you stories. Listen and be quiet. To talk much is bad for you after your illness.'

She began to talk to him about Shubin, about Kurnatovsky, and what she had been doing for the last fortnight, of how war seemed, judging from the newspapers, inevitable, and so directly he was perfectly well again, he must, without losing a minute, make arrangements for them to start. All this she told him sitting beside him, leaning on his shoulder....

He listened to her, listened, turning pale and red. Sometimes he tried to stop her; suddenly he drew himself up.

'Elena,' he said to her in a strange, hard voice 'leave me, go away.'

'What?' she replied in bewilderment 'You feel ill?' she added quickly.

'No... I'm all right... but, please, leave me now.'

'I don't understand you. You drive me away?.. What are you doing?' she said suddenly; he had bent over from the sofa almost to the ground, and was pressing her feet to his lips. 'Don't do that, Dmitri.... Dmitri——'

He got up.

'Then leave me! You see, Elena, when I was taken ill, I did not lose consciousness at first; I knew I was on the edge of the abyss; even in the fever, in delirium I knew, I felt vaguely that it was death coming to me, I took leave of life, of you, of everything; I gave up hope.... And this return to life so suddenly; this light after the darkness, you—you—near me, with me—your voice, your breath.... It's more than I can stand! I feel I love you passionately, I hear you call yourself mine, I cannot answer for myself... You must go!'

'Dmitri,' whispered Elena, and she nestled her head on his shoulder. Only now she understood him.

'Elena,' he went on, 'I love you, you know that; I am ready to give my life for you.... Why have you come to me now, when I am weak, when I can't control myself, when all my blood's on fire... you are mine, you say... you love me———'

'Dmitri,' she repeated; she flushed all over, and pressed still closer to him.

'Elena, have pity on me; go away, I feel as if I should die.... I can't stand these violent emotions... my whole soul yearns for you ... think, death was almost parting us.. and now you are here, you are in my arms... Elena——'

She was trembling all over. 'Take me, then,' she whispered scarcely above her breath.

XXIX

Nikolai Artemyevitch was walking up and down in his study with a scowl on his face. Shubin was sitting at the window with his legs crossed, tranquilly smoking a cigar.

'Leave off tramping from corner to corner, please,' he observed, knocking the ash off his cigar. 'I keep expecting you to speak; there's a rick in my neck from watching you. Besides, there's something artificial, melodramatic in your striding.'

'You can never do anything but joke,' responded Nikolai Artemyevitch. 'You won't enter into my position, you refuse to realise that I am used to that woman, that I am attached to her in fact, that her absence is bound to distress me. Here it's October, winter is upon us. ... What can she be doing in Revel?'

'She must be knitting stockings—for herself; for herself—not for you.'

'You may laugh, you may laugh; but I tell you I know no woman like her. Such honesty; such disinterestedness.'

'Has she cashed that bill yet?' inquired Shubin.

'Such disinterestedness,' repeated Nikolai Artemyevitch; 'it's astonishing. They tell me there are a million other women in the world, but I say, show me the million; show me the million, I say; ces femmes, qu'on me les montre! And she doesn't write—that's what's killing me!'

'You're eloquent as Pythagoras,' remarked Shubin; 'but do you know what I would advise you?'

'What?'

'When Augustina Christianovna comes back—you take my meaning?'

'Yes, yes; well, what?'

'When you see her again—you follow the line of my thought?'

'Yes, yes, to be sure.'

'Try beating her; see what that would do.'

Nikolai Artemyevitch turned away exasperated.

'I thought he was really going to give me some practical advice. But what can one expect from him! An artist, a man of no principles——'

'No principles! By the way, I'm told your favourite Mr. Kurnatovsky, the man of principle, cleaned you out of a hundred roubles last night. That was hardly delicate, you must own now.'

'What of it? We were playing high. Of course, I might expect—but they understand so little how to appreciate him in this house——'

'That he thought: get what I can!' put in Shubin: 'whether he's to be my father-in-law or not, is still on the knees of the gods, but a hundred roubles is worth something to a man who doesn't take bribes.'

'Father-in-law! How the devil am I his father-in-law? Vous revez, mon cher. Of course, any other girl would be delighted with such a suitor. Only consider: a man of spirit and intellect, who has gained a position in the world, served in two provinces——'

'Led the governor in one of them by the nose,' remarked Shubin.

'Very likely. To be sure, that's how it should be. Practical, a business man——'

'And a capital hand at cards,' Shubin remarked again.

'To be sure, and a capital hand at cards. But Elena Nikolaevna.... Is there any understanding her? I should be glad to know if there is any one who would undertake to make out what it is she wants. One day she's cheerful, another she's dull; all of a sudden she's so thin there's no looking at her, and then suddenly she's well again, and all without any apparent reason——'

A disagreeable-looking man-servant came in with a cup of coffee, cream and sugar on a tray.

'The father is pleased with a suitor,' pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch, breaking off a lump of sugar; 'but what is that to the daughter! That was all very well in the old patriarchal days, but now we have changed all that. Nous avons change tout ca. Nowadays a young girl talks to any one she thinks fit, reads what she thinks fit; she goes about Moscow alone without a groom or a maid, just as in Paris; and all that is permitted. The other day I asked, "Where is Elena Nikolaevna?" I'm told she has gone out. Where? No one knows. Is that—the proper thing?'

'Take your coffee, and let the man go,' said Shubin. 'You say yourself that one ought not devant les domestiques' he added in an undertone.

The servant gave Shubin a dubious look, while Nikolai Artemyevitch took the cup of coffee, added some cream, and seized some ten lumps of sugar.

'I was just going to say when the servant came in,' he began, 'that I count for nothing in this house. That's the long and short of the matter. For nowadays every one judges from appearances; one man's an empty-headed fool, but gives himself airs of importance, and he's respected; while another, very likely, has talents which might—which might gain him great distinction, but through modesty——'

'Aren't you a born statesman?' asked Shubin in a jeering voice.

'Give over playing the fool!' Nikolai Artemyevitch cried with heat. 'You forget yourself! Here you have another proof that I count for nothing in this house, nothing!'

'Anna Vassilyevna ill-uses you... poor fellow!' said Shubin, stretching. 'Ah, Nikolai Artemyevitch, we're a pair of sinners! You had much better be getting a little present ready for Anna Vassilyevna, It's her birthday in a day or two, and you know how she appreciates the least attention on your part.'

'Yes, yes,' answered Nikolai Artemyevitch hastily. 'I'm much obliged to you for reminding me. Of course, of course; to be sure. I have a little thing, a dressing-case, I bought it the other day at Rosenstrauch's; but I don't know really if it will do.'

'I suppose you bought it for her, the lady at Revel?'

'Why, certainly.—I had some idea.'

'Well, in that case, it will be sure to do.' Shubin got up from his seat.

'Are we going out this evening, Pavel Yakovlitch, eh?' Nikolai Artemyevitch asked with an amicable leer.

'Why yes, you are going to your club.'

'After the club... after the club.'

Shubin stretched himself again.

'No, Nikolai Artemyevitch, I want to work to-morrow. Another time.' And he walked off.

Nikolai Artemyevitch scowled, walked twice up and down the room, took a velvet box with the dressing-case out of the bureau and looked at it a long while, rubbing it with a silk handkerchief. Then he sat down before a looking-glass and began carefully arranging his thick black hair, turning his head to right and to left with a dignified countenance, his tongue pressed into his cheek, never taking his eyes off his parting. Some one coughed behind his back; he looked round and saw the manservant who had brought him in his coffee.

'What do you want?' he asked him.

'Nikolai Artemyevitch,' said the man with a certain solemnity, 'you are our master?'

'I know that; what next!'

'Nikolai Artemyevitch, graciously do not be angry with me; but I, having been in your honour's service from a boy, am bound in dutiful devotion to bring you——'

'Well what is it?'

The man shifted uneasily as he stood.

'You condescended to say, your honour,' he began, 'that your honour did not know where Elena Nikolaevna was pleased to go. I have information about that.'

'What lies are you telling, idiot?'

'That's as your honour likes, but T saw our young lady three days ago, as she was pleased to go into a house!'

'Where? what? what house?'

'In a house, near Povarsky. Not far from here. I even asked the doorkeeper who were the people living there.'

Nikolai Artemyevitch stamped with his feet.

'Silence, scoundrel! How dare you?... Elena Nikolaevna, in the goodness of her heart, goes to visit the poor and you... Be off, fool!'

The terrified servant was rushing to the door.

'Stop!' cried Nikolai Artemyevitch. 'What did the doorkeeper say to you?'

'Oh no—nothing—he said nothing—He told me—a stu—student——'

'Silence, scoundrel! Listen, you dirty beast; if you ever breathe a word in your dreams even——'

'Mercy on us——'

'Silence! if you blab—if any one—if I find out—you shall find no hiding-place even underground! Do you hear? You can go!'

The man vanished.

'Good Heavens, merciful powers! what does it mean?' thought Nikolai Artemyevitch when he was left alone. 'What did that idiot tell me? Eh? I shall have to find out, though, what house it is, and who lives there. I must go myself. Has it come to this!... Un laquais! Quelle humiliation!'

And repeating aloud: 'Un laquais!' Nikolai Artemyevitch shut the dressing-case up in the bureau, and went up to Anna Vassilyevna. He found her in bed with her face tied up. But the sight of her sufferings only irritated him, and he very soon reduced her to tears.

XXX

Meanwhile the storm gathering in the East was breaking. Turkey had declared war on Russia; the time fixed for the evacuation of the Principalities had already expired, the day of the disaster of Sinope was not far off. The last letters received by Insarov summoned him urgently to his country. His health was not yet restored; he coughed, suffered from weakness and slight attacks of fever, but he was scarcely ever at home. His heart was fired, he no longer thought of his illness. He was for ever rushing about Moscow, having secret interviews with various persons, writing for whole nights, disappearing for whole days; he had informed his landlord that he was going away shortly, and had presented him already with his scanty furniture. Elena too on her side was getting ready for departure. One wet evening she was sitting in her room, and listening with involuntary depression to the sighing of the wind, while she hemmed handkerchiefs. Her maid came in and told her that her father was in her mother's room and sent for her there. 'Your mamma is crying,' she whispered after the retreating Elena, 'and your papa is angry.'

Elena gave a slight shrug and went into Anna Vassflyevna's room. Nikolai Artemyevitch's kind-hearted spouse was half lying on a reclining chair, sniffing a handkerchief steeped in eau de Cologne; he himself was standing at the hearth, every button buttoned up, in a high, hard cravat, with a stiffly starched collar; his deportment had a vague suggestion of some parliamentary orator. With an orator's wave of the arm he motioned his daughter to a chair, and when she, not understanding his gesture, looked inquiringly at him, he brought out with dignity, without turning his head: 'I beg you to be seated.' Nikolai Artemyevitch always used the formal plural in addressing his wife, but only on extraordinary occasions in addressing his daughter.

Elena sat down.

Anna Vassilyevna blew her nose tearfully. Nikolai Artemyevitch thrust his fingers between his coat-buttons.

'I sent for you, Elena Nikolaevna,' he began after a protracted silence, 'in order to have an explanation with you, or rather in order to ask you for an explanation. I am displeased with you—or no—that is too little to say: your behaviour is a pain and an outrage to me—to me and to your mother—your mother whom you see here.'

Nikolai Artemyevitch was giving vent only to the few bass notes in his voice. Elena gazed in silence at him, then at Anna Vassilyevna and turned pale.

'There was a time,' Nikolai Artemyevitch resumed, 'when daughters did not allow themselves to look down on their parents—when the parental authority forced the disobedient to tremble. That time has passed, unhappily: so at least many persons imagine; but let me tell you, there are still laws which do not permit—do not permit—in fact there are still laws. I beg you to mark that: there are still laws——'

'But, papa,' Elena was beginning.

'I beg you not to interrupt me. Let us turn in thought to the past. I and Anna Vassilyevna have performed our duty. I and Anna Vassilyevna have spared nothing in your education: neither care nor expense. What you have gained from our care—is a different question; but I had the right to expect—I and Anna Vassilyevna had the right to expect that you would at least hold sacred the principles of morality which we have—que nous avons inculques, which we have instilled into you, our only daughter. We had the right to expect that no new "ideas" could touch that, so to speak, holy shrine. And what do we find? I am not now speaking of frivolities characteristic of your sex, and age, but who could have anticipated that you could so far forget yourself——'

'Papa,' said Elena, 'I know what you are going to say———'

'No, you don't know what I am going to say!' cried Nikolai Artemyevitch in a falsetto shriek, suddenly losing the majesty of his oratorical pose, the smooth dignity of his speech, and his bass notes. 'You don't know, vile hussy!'

'For mercy's sake, Nicolas,' murmured Anna Vassilyevna, 'vous me faites mourir?'

'Don't tell me que je vous fais mourir, Anna Vassilyevna! You can't conceive what you will hear directly! Prepare yourself for the worst, I warn you!'

Anna Vassilyevna seemed stupefied.

'No,' resumed Nikolai Artemyevitch, turning to Elena, 'you don't know what I am going to say!'

'I am to blame towards you——' she began.

'Ah, at last!'

'I am to blame towards you,' pursued Elena, 'for not having long ago confessed——'

'But do you know,' Nikolai Artemyevitch interrupted, 'that I can crush you with one word?'

Elena raised her eyes to look at him.

'Yes, madam, with one word! It's useless to look at me!' (He crossed his arms on his breast.) 'Allow me to ask you, do you know a certain house near Povarsky? Have you visited that house?' (He stamped.) 'Answer me, worthless girl, and don't try to hide the truth. People, people, servants, madam, de vils laquais have seen you, as you went in there, to your——'

Elena was crimson, her eyes were blazing.

'I have no need to hide anything,' she declared. 'Yes, I have visited that house.'

'Exactly! Do you hear, do you hear, Anna Vassilyevna? And you know, I presume, who lives there?'

'Yes, I know; my husband.'

Nikolai Artemyevitch's eyes were starting out of his head.

'Your——'

'My husband,' repeated Elena; 'I am married to Dmitri Nikanorovitch Insarov.'

'You?—married?'—was all Anna Vassilyevna could articulate.

'Yes, mamma.... Forgive me. A fortnight ago, we were secretly married.'

Anna Vassilyevna fell back in her chair; Nikolai Artemyevitch stepped two paces back.

'Married! To that vagrant, that Montenegrin! the daughter of Nikolai Stahov of the higher nobility married to a vagrant, a nobody, without her parents' sanction! And you imagine I shall let the matter rest, that I shall not make a complaint, that I will allow you—that you—that——To the nunnery with you, and he shall go to prison, to hard labour! Anna Vassilyevna, inform her at once that you will cut off her inheritance!'

'Nikolai Artemyevitch, for God's sake,' moaned Anna Vassilyevna.

'And when and how was this done? Who married you? where? how? Good God! what will all our friends think, what will the world say! And you, shameless hypocrite, could go on living under your parents' roof after such an act! Had you no fear of—the wrath of heaven?'

'Papa' said Elena (she was trembling from head to foot but her voice was steady), 'you are at liberty to do with me as you please, but you need not accuse me of shamelessness, and hypocrisy. I did not want—to give you pain before, but I should have had to tell you all myself in a few days, because we are going away—my husband and I—from here next week.'

'Going away? Where to?'

'To his own country, to Bulgaria.'

'To the Turks!' cried Anna Vassilyevna and fell into a swoon.

Elena ran to her mother.

'Away!' clamoured Nikolai Artemyevitch, seizing his daughter by the arm, 'away, unworthy girl!'

But at that instant the door of the room opened, and a pale face with glittering eyes appeared: it was the face of Shubin.

'Nikolai Artemyevitch!' he shouted at the top of his voice, 'Augustina Christianovna is here and is asking for you!'

Nikolai Artemyevitch turned round infuriated, threatening Shubin with his fist; he stood still a minute and rapidly went out of the room.

Elena fell at her mother's feet and embraced her knees.

Uvar Ivanovitch was lying on his bed. A shirt without a collar, fastened with a heavy stud enfolded his thick neck and fell in full flowing folds over the almost feminine contours of his chest, leaving visible a large cypress-wood cross and an amulet. His ample limbs were covered with the lightest bedclothes. On the little table by the bedside a candle was burning dimly beside a jug of kvas, and on the bed at Uvar ivanovitch's feet was sitting Shubin in a dejected pose.

'Yes,' he was saying meditatively, 'she is married and getting ready to go away. Your nephew was bawling and shouting for the benefit of the whole house; he had shut himself up for greater privacy in his wife's bedroom, but not merely the maids and the footmen, the coachman even could hear it all! Now he's just tearing and raving round; he all but gave me a thrashing, he's bringing a father's curse on the scene now, as cross as a bear with a sore head; but that's of no importance. Anna Vassilyevna's crushed, but she's much more brokenhearted at her daughter leaving her than at her marriage.'

Uvar Ivanovitch flourished his fingers.

'A mother,' he commented, 'to be sure.'

'Your nephew,' resumed Shubin, 'threatens to lodge a complaint with the Metropolitan and the General-Governor and the Minister, but it will end by her going. A happy thought to ruin his own daughter! He'll crow a little and then lower his colours.'

'They'd no right,' observed Uvar Ivanovitch, and he drank out of the jug.

'To be sure. But what a storm of criticism, gossip, and comments will be raised in Moscow! She's not afraid of them.... Besides she's above them. She's going away... and it's awful to think where she's going—to such a distance, such a wilderness! What future awaits her there? I seem to see her setting off from a posting station in a snow-storm with thirty degrees of frost. She's leaving her country, and her people; but I understand her doing it. Whom is she leaving here behind her? What people has she seen? Kurnatovsky and Bersenyev and our humble selves; and these are the best she's seen. What is there to regret about it? One thing's bad; I'm told her husband—the devil, how that word sticks in my throat!—Insarov, I'm told, is spitting blood; that's a bad lookout. I saw him the other day: his face—you could model Brutus from it straight off. Do you know who Brutus was, Uvar Ivanovitch?'

'What is there to know? a man to be sure.'

'Precisely so: he was a "man." Yes he's a wonderful face, but unhealthy, very unhealthy.'

'For fighting... it makes no difference,' observed Uvar Ivanovitch.

'For fighting it makes no difference, certainly; you are pleased to express yourself with great justice to-day; but for living it makes all the difference. And you see she wants to live with him a little while.'

'A youthful affair,' responded Uvar Ivanovitch.

'Yes, a youthful, glorious, bold affair. Death, life, conflict, defeat, triumph, love, freedom, country.... Good God, grant as much to all of us! That's a very different thing from sitting up to one's neck in a bog, and pretending it's all the same to you, when in fact it really is all the same. While there—the strings are tuned to the highest pitch, to play to all the world or to break!'

Shubin's head sank on to his breast.

'Yes,' he resumed, after a prolonged silence, 'Insarov deserves her. What nonsense, though! No one deserves her... Insarov... Insarov ... What's the use of pretended modesty? We'll own he's a fine fellow, he stands on his own feet, though up to the present he has done no more than we poor sinners; and are we such absolutely worthless dirt? Am I such dirt, Uvar Ivanovitch? Has God been hard on me in every way? Has He given me no talents, no abilities? Who knows, perhaps, the name of Pavel Shubin will in time be a great name? You see that bronze farthing there lying on your table. Who knows; some day, perhaps in a century, that bronze will go to a statue of Pavel Shubin, raised in his honour by a grateful posterity!'

Uvar Ivanovitch leaned on his elbow and stared at the enthusiastic artist.

'That's a long way off,' he said at last with his usual gesture; 'we're speaking of other people, why bring in yourself?'

'O great philosopher of the Russian world!' cried Shubin, 'every word of yours is worth its weight in gold, and it's not to me but to you a statue ought to be raised, and I would undertake it. There, as you are lying now, in that pose; one doesn't know which is uppermost in it, sloth or strength! That's how I would cast you in bronze. You aimed a just reproach at my egoism and vanity! Yes! yes! it's useless talking of one's-self; it's useless bragging. We have no one yet, no men, look where you will. Everywhere—either small fry, nibblers, Hamlets on a small scale, self-absorbed, or darkness and subterranean chaos, or idle babblers and wooden sticks. Or else they are like this: they study themselves to the most shameful detail, and are for ever feeling the pulse of every sensation and reporting to themselves: "That's what I feel, that's what I think." A useful, rational occupation! No, if we only had some sensible men among us, that girl, that delicate soul, would not have run away from us, would not have slipped off like a fish to the water! What's the meaning of it, Uvar Ivanovitch? When will our time come? When will men be born among us?'

'Give us time,' answered Uvar Ivanovitch; 'they will be——'

'They will be? soil of our country! force of the black earth! thou hast said: they will be. Look, I will write down your words. But why are you putting out the candle?'

'I'm going to sleep; good-bye.'