Anninka was taken aback. First of all she was amazed to find that both
the Volpino priest and Lubinka employed the same word "treasure" for
maidenly honor. Only the priest had regarded it as the "foundation of
life," while Lubinka looked upon it as a mere trifle over which the
"rascally males" go mad.
Then she involuntarily questioned herself, What is this "treasure,"
anyhow? Is it really a treasure and is it really worth hoarding? Alas,
she could find no satisfactory answer to her questions. On one hand, it
is rather shameful to remain without honor, and on the other----Ah, the
devil take it! And could it be that the whole purpose, the whole merit
of her existence consisted in struggling every moment of her life to
maintain this treasure?
"In only six months I have succeeded in getting thirty bonds," Lubinka
continued, "and lots of things. Look what a dress I have on!"
Lubinka turned about, pulled at the front, then at the sides, letting
herself be examined. The dress was really an expensive one and
unusually well made. It came straight from Minangois in Moscow.
"Kukishev is a kind sort," Lubinka resumed. "He will dress you up like
a doll, and he will give you money. You'll be able to send the theatre
to the devil. You have had enough of it."
"Never!" cried Anninka heatedly. She had not as yet forgotten the
phrase, "sacred art."
"You may remain if you wish to. You will get your former salary again
and outstrip Nalimova."
Anninka was silent.
"Well, good-by. They are waiting for me downstairs. Kukishev is there,
too. Will you come?"
But Anninka maintained her silence.
"Well, think it over, if there is anything to think about. And when you
have done thinking, come to see me. Good-by."
On the seventeenth of September, Lubinka's birthday, the posters of
the Samovarnov theatre announced a gala performance. Anninka appeared
as _Fair Helen_ again, and the same evening the part of Orestes was
performed by Pogorelskaya II, Lubinka. To complete the triumph of the
sisters, Nalimova was given the part of Cleon, the blacksmith. She
appeared on the stage dressed in tights and a short coat, her face
touched with soot, and a sheet of iron in her hands. The audience
was elated. Hardly did Anninka appear on the stage when the audience
raised such a clamor that, already unaccustomed to ovations, she nearly
broke into tears. And when, in the third act, in the scene where she
is awakened at night, she stood up on the sofa almost naked, the house
was one groaning mass of humanity. One man in the audience was so
thoroughly worked up that he shouted to Menelaus, who was entering
the stage, "Get out, damn you!" Anninka understood that the public
had pardoned her. As for Kukishev, he was in full dress, white tie
and white gloves. In the entr'actes he generously treated friends and
strangers alike to champagne and spoke of his triumph with dignity.
At last the manager of the theatre, brimming over with jubilation,
appeared in Anninka's room and, kneeling before her, said, "Now, madam,
you are a good girl and you will get your previous salary with the
corresponding number of benefits."
Everybody praised her and congratulated her and protested their
sympathy, so that she, who at first was timid, restless, and haunted
with a feeling of oppressive melancholy, grew suddenly convinced that
she had fulfilled her mission.
After the theatre the whole company went to Lubinka's birthday
celebration, and there the congratulations were reiterated. So large
a crowd gathered in Lubinka's quarters that the tobacco smoke made it
hard to breathe. They sat down to supper, and champagne began to flow
freely. Kukishev kept close to Anninka. This made her somewhat shy, but
she was no longer oppressed by his attentions. It seemed rather funny,
but also flattering, that she had so easily gotten hold of this big,
powerful man, who could bend and straighten out a horseshoe without
effort, and whom she could order about and do with as she wished.
The supper was crowned by that drunken, disorderly gaiety in which
neither the head nor the heart takes a part, and which results only in
headaches and nausea. The tragedian Miloslavsky X was the only one who
looked gloomy and declined champagne, preferring plain vodka, which he
gulped down glass after glass. As to Anninka, she abstained from drink
for some time, but Kukishev was insistent. He went down on his knees
and implored her:
"Anna Semyonovna, it is your turn. I beseech you. For your happiness,
for friendship and love. Do us a favor."
She was annoyed by his foolish figure and foolish talk, yet she could
not refuse, and before she had time to collect her thoughts, she was
already dizzy. Lubinka, for her part, was so magnanimous that she
herself asked her sister to sing, "How I did love it with my mash."
Anninka performed it so well that everybody exclaimed, "Ah, that was
just like Matryusha the gypsy." Then Lubinka sang an obscene song of
a different kind, and at once convinced everybody that that kind of
singing was her real genre, in which she had no rivals, just as Anninka
had none in the gypsy songs. In conclusion, Miloslavsky X and Nalimova
presented a "masquerade scene" in which the tragedian recited parts
from _Ugolino_ (a tragedy in five acts, by Polevoy), and Nalimova
followed with a scene from an unpublished tragedy of Barkov. The result
was so unexpected that Nalimova nearly eclipsed the two sisters and
almost became the heroine of the evening.
It was already dawn when Kukishev, leaving the charming hostess, helped
Anninka into her carriage. Pious townspeople were coming from matins.
At the sight of Anninka, elaborately attired and somewhat unsteady on
her feet, they muttered darkly, "People are coming out of church, and
they are gulping wine. A curse on them!"
On leaving her sister's, Anninka went not to the hotel but to her own
quarters, small but snug and nicely furnished. She was followed by
Kukishev.
The whole winter passed in an indescribable hurly-burly. Anninka was
completely in the swing, and if she ever reminded herself of her
"treasure," it was only in order to laugh it off with "How foolish I
was!" Kukishev, very proud of the fact that his "idea" of securing a
mistress like Lubinka had materialized, made ducks and drakes of his
money. Instigated by emulation, he ordered two gowns to Lyulkin's one,
and two dozen bottles of champagne to his one dozen. Lubinka herself
began to envy her sister, because she succeeded in laying by forty
lottery bonds during the winter in addition to a considerable amount of
jewelry. However, they became friendly again and decided to pool their
hoardings.
Anninka always hoped for something, and during an intimate talk with
her sister, said:
"When all this will be over, we will go back to Pogorelka. We will have
money and establish a home for ourselves."
"And you think this will ever end? Fool!" Lubinka retorted cynically.
To Anninka's misfortune, Kukishev soon came upon a new "idea," which
he began to pursue with his usual obstinacy. A vulgar and eminently
shallow-pated man, he imagined he would reach the pinnacle of bliss if
his queen would "accompany" him, that is, if she would drink vodka with
him.
Anninka for some time declined, referring to the fact that Lyulkin
never compelled Lubinka to drink vodka.
"And yet she drinks out of love for Lyulkin," Kukishev retorted. "And
may I ask you, darling, do you take the Lyulkins as an example? They
are Lyulkins, while you and I, we are Kukishevs. Therefore we will
drink in our own Kukishev way."
Kukishev had his way. Once Anninka took a small glass of green liquid
from the hands of her "beloved" and gulped it down. Of course she saw
stars, choked, coughed, became dizzy, thereby putting Kukishev in
transports of delight.
"Permit me to remark, darling, that you do not drink well! You did
it too fast," he instructed her, as she quieted down somewhat. "The
wineglass should be held in the tiny hands, so! Then you bring it over
to the lips, slowly--one, two, three--the Lord bless us!"
And he calmly and gravely gulped down the contents of the glass, as if
he were pouring vodka into a barrel. He did not even frown, but only
took a bit of black bread, dipped it in the salt cellar, and chewed it.
And so Kukishev succeeded in realizing his second "idea" and even began
to plan another one, which would beat the Lyulkins hollow. Of course he
succeeded in inventing one.
"You know," he suddenly announced, "as soon as summer comes we will go
to my mill with the Lyulkins, take along some provisions and bathe in
the river."
"Never!" Anninka objected indignantly.
"Why not? We will bathe, then have a cocktail, rest a little, and bathe
again. That would be delightful."
It is not known whether Kukishev's third idea materialized or not, but
it is certain that this drunken debauchery lasted a whole year, during
which time neither the zemstvo nor the city administration exhibited
the slightest anxiety concerning Messrs. Kukishev and Lyulkin. For
appearance's sake Lyulkin visited Moscow twice, and on his return
declared he had sold one of his forests. On being reminded that he had
sold the same forest four years before when living with Domashka the
gypsy, he answered it was another forest that he had sold that time,
and, to give his tale the appearance of veracity, he added detailed
information concerning the name of his newly sold forest-estate. As for
Kukishev, he gave currency to the story that he had smuggled in a large
stock of embroidery from abroad, thereby earning a great deal of money.
In September of the next year the chief of police asked Kukishev for a
"loan" of a thousand rubles and, Kukishev was foolish enough to refuse.
Then the police superintendent began to confer secretly with the
assistant attorney. ("Both of them guzzled champagne in my house every
evening," Kukishev testified later at the trial.) On September 17th,
at the anniversary of Kukishev's _liaison,_ when he and the others
celebrated Lubinka's birthday again, a member of the city council came
running in and announced to Kukishev that a warrant was being made out
at the City Board for his arrest.
"They must have found out something!" Kukishev exclaimed rather
pluckily, and without further comment followed the messenger to the
council-hall, and from there to prison.
The next day the zemstvo council also took fright. The members
assembled and ordered the money in the treasury counted and recounted,
and at last came to the conclusion that their treasury, too, had been
drained by somebody. Lyulkin was present at the examination, pale,
gloomy, but "noble"! When the loss had been discovered, and when it
became apparent to Lyulkin that he had no hope of escaping, he walked
to the window, drew a revolver from his pocket, and fired a bullet into
his temple.
The event created quite a turmoil in the town. The people pitied
Lyulkin, saying, "At least he ended nobly!" But the general opinion
about Kukishev was, "He was born a shopkeeper, and a shopkeeper he
will die!" Concerning Anninka and Lubinka they simply said that "they
were the cause of it all," and that it would not do any harm to put
them behind the bars, too, so that in future matters might not be very
inviting for such wretches.
The prosecutors, however, did not arrest them, but terrorized them so
mercilessly that they were completely dismayed. Of course there were
some kind people who advised them to conceal all their valuables, but
they listened and understood nothing. Owing to this, the attorney
for the plaintiffs (both councils hired the same attorney), a daring
fellow, wishing to satisfy his clients, came to the sisters one day,
accompanied by the process server, to take an inventory. He seized
and sealed everything except their dresses and such gold and silver
things as bore inscriptions showing they had been the gifts of the
appreciative public. Lubinka, however, succeeded in hiding a roll of
bank-notes, presented to her the previous evening, in her corset. It
was a thousand rubles, on which the sisters would have to exist for an
indefinite time.
In expectation of Kukishev's trial, they were kept in the town
about four months. Then the trial began, and the sisters, Anninka
particularly, had to undergo a ruthless ordeal. Kukishev was cynical
in the extreme. He revelled in the disclosure of details, for which
there was really no need, but apparently he was desirous of striking
a pose before the ladies of Samovarnov and exposed everything
indiscreetly. The attorney and the private prosecutor, young and
anxious to afford pleasure to the ladies, took advantage of this and
endeavored to lend the proceeding a frivolous character, in which
they succeeded, of course. Anninka fainted a number of times, but
the private prosecutor paid no attention to this and bombarded her
with questions. At last the investigation ended, and both sides had
their say. Late at night the jurors announced that Kukishev was
guilty, but that there were alleviating circumstances. In view of
this he was sentenced to be deported to Western Siberia. When the
trial was over, the sisters obtained permission to leave Samovarnov.
And it was high time, for the thousand rubles were nearly exhausted.
Besides, the manager of the Kretchetov theatre, with whom they had
made arrangements, demanded that they appear in Kretchetov at once,
threatening to discontinue negotiations if they delayed. Nothing was
seen or heard of the valuables and documents sealed at the demand of
the private prosecutor.
Such were the consequences of their disregard for their "treasure."
Tormented, crushed, despised by everybody, the sisters lost all faith
in their own strength and all hope for a brighter future. They became
emaciated, slovenly, cowardly. And Anninka, to boot, having been in
Kukishev's school, had learned to drink.
Matters grew worse. No sooner did they alight from the train at
Kretchetov than they at once found "protectors." Lubinka was taken
by Captain Popkov, Anninka by the merchant Zabvenny. But the jolly
times were no more. Both Popkov and Zabvenny were coarse, quarrelsome,
and rather close-fisted. After three or four months they became
considerably colder. The sisters were even less successful on the
stage than in love affairs. The manager who had accepted the sisters
on the strength of the scandal they had caused at Samovarnov quite
unexpectedly found himself out of his reckoning. At the very first
performance somebody in the gallery shouted when the two girls made
their appearance on the stage, "You convicts!" And the name stuck. It
decided Anninka's and Lubinka's theatrical fate.
They now lived a dull, drowsy life, devoid of all intellectual
interest. The public was cold, the managers scowled at them, the
"protectors" would not intercede. Zabvenny dreamed, as once Kukishev
had, of how he would "compel" his queen to have a cocktail with him,
how she would at first affect horror, and gradually submit. But he was
very angry when he found out that she was already past mistress in the
art of drinking. The only satisfaction left him was to show his friends
how Anninka "guzzled vodka." Popkov, too, was dissatisfied and declared
Lubinka had grown thin.
"You once had flesh on your bones," he would say, "tell me, where did
you lose it?"
On account of this, he was not only unceremonious with her, but often
even beat her when he was drunk.
Toward the end of the winter the sisters had neither "real" admirers
nor a "permanent position." They still stuck to the theatre, but
there could be no question now either of _Pericola_ or the _Old-time
Colonels._ Lubinka was more cheerful, but Anninka, being more
high-strung, broke down completely. She seemed to have forgotten the
past and was not aware of the present. In addition, she began to cough
suspiciously, apparently on her way toward an enigmatic malady.
Next summer was terrible. Gradually the sisters were taken to hotels
and were given to travelling gentlemen for a moderate fixed price.
Scandals and beatings followed one another, but the sisters clung to
life desperately, with the tenacity of cats. They reminded one of those
wretched dogs who, in spite of being crippled by a beating, crawl back
to their favorite place, whining as they go. It was not proper to keep
women like that on the stage.
In those dark days only once did a ray of light find its way into
Anninka's existence. Miloslavsky X, the tragedian, sent her a letter
from Samovarnov in which he persistently offered her his hand and
heart. Anninka read the letter and cried. The night long she tossed
about in bed, and in the morning she sent a curt reply, "Why? Only that
we may drink together?" Then darkness closed down upon her intenser
than ever, and endless, base debauchery began again.
Lubinka was the first to wake up, or if not to wake up, at least to
feel instinctively that she had lived long enough. There was no work in
sight. Her youth, her beauty, and her embryonic talent, all had somehow
vanished. That they had a shelter in Pogorelka, she never remembered.
It was something distant, vague, long-forgotten. They never did have
much of a liking for Pogorelka, and now their hatred toward the place
was only intensified. Even when they were almost starving the place
attracted her less than ever. And what sort of a figure would she cut
there? A figure which all sorts of drunken, lustful breaths had branded
as a "creature." Those accursed breaths saturated her entire body.
She felt them everywhere, in every place. And what is more horrible,
she grew so accustomed to those disgusting breaths that they became
a part of her very being. So with Anninka, too. Neither the stench
of eating-houses, nor the din of the inns, nor the obscene language
of the drunkards seemed abominable to them, so that had they gone to
Pogorelka, they would surely have missed the "life." Besides, even in
Pogorelka they must have something to live on. All these many years
that they had wandered about the world they had heard nothing of the
revenue that Pogorelka brought. Perhaps the estate was a myth. Perhaps
the folks had all died, all those witnesses of the distant and yet
ever-present years, when they had been brought up by their grandmother,
Arina Petrovna, on sour milk and stale cured meat.
It was clear that it was best for Lubinka to die. Once this thought
dawns on one's consciousness, it becomes an obsession. The sisters not
infrequently had moments of awakening, but in the case of Anninka they
were accompanied by hysterics, sobs, tears, and so passed away faster.
Lubinka was colder by nature. She did not cry or curse, but the thought
that she was a "hussy" constantly preyed on her mind. And Lubinka was
more reasonable and saw quite clearly that there was not even any
profit in their mode of living. For the future she expected nothing but
shame, poverty and the street. Shame is a matter of habit, it can be
tolerated, but poverty--never! It is better to end it all at once.
"We must die," she once said to Anninka in that same cool and
deliberate tone in which two years ago she had asked her for whom she
was saving her "treasure."
"Why?" Anninka objected, somewhat frightened.
"I mean it seriously. We must die," Lubinka repeated. "Understand, wake
up, think!"
"Well--let us die," Anninka assented, hardly realizing the dismal
meaning of her decision.
That same day Lubinka cut off the tips of some matches and prepared two
glasses of the mixture. One of these she drank herself, the other she
offered her sister. But Anninka immediately lost courage and refused to
drink.
"Drink, you slut," Lubinka cried out. "Sister, dearest, darling, drink!"
Anninka, almost insane with fear, ran about the room, instinctively
clutching at her throat as if trying to choke herself.
"Drink, drink--you street-walker!"
The artistic career of the two sisters was ended. That same evening
Lubinka's corpse was taken into the field and buried. Anninka remained
alive.
CHAPTER III
Anninka soon introduced an atmosphere of Bohemian life into Yudushka's
nest. She rose late and would roam about the house until dinner-time,
undressed, uncombed, with an aching head, and coughing in such agony
that each time it would send a shudder through Porfiry Vladimirych
in his study and quite frighten him. Her room was always untidy, the
bedding in disorder, and her clothes lying about on the chairs and
floor. At first she saw her uncle only at dinner and evening tea.
The master of Golovliovo came out of his room all dressed in black,
spoke little, and ate with his old-time exasperating slowness. He
was apparently observing her. After dinner came the early December
twilight. Anninka loved to watch the glimmer of the gray winter day
gradually die out and the fields grow dim; she loved to see the
shadows flood the rooms until finally the whole house was plunged in
impenetrable darkness. In the darkness she always felt at ease and
hardly ever lit the candles. The only one she allowed to burn was at
one end of the sitting-room. It was of cheap palm wax, and sputtered
and dripped, its feeble flame formed a tiny circle of light. For some
time the house would be astir with the usual after-dinner noises.
Plates would rattle in the hands of the dish-washers, and drawers open
and close with a clatter; but soon the sound of receding steps would
be heard and a dead silence begin to reign. Porfiry Vladimirych would
take his after-dinner nap and Yevpraksia bury herself in the bedding in
her room. Prokhor would go into the servants' room, and Anninka would
remain entirely alone.
She would pace from room to room, humming, trying to tire herself out,
but chiefly endeavoring to drive her thoughts away. In walking toward
the sitting-room she would fix her eyes upon the circle of light about
the candle, and walking away from it, she would try to single out some
point in the darkness and keep her eyes fixed on it. But in spite of
her efforts reminiscences surged up in her mind irresistibly. She saw
the dressing-room with its cheap wall paper, the inevitable pier-glass
and the equally inevitable bouquet from Lieutenant Pankov II; the stage
with the stage-properties, sooty, slippery from the damp; the hall with
its pieces of furniture picked up at random and its boxes upholstered
in threadbare purple plush,--the hall which, seen from the stage,
looked trim and even splendid, but in reality was dark and miserable.
And finally--officers, officers, officers without end. Then she saw the
hotel with the vile-smelling corridor, dimly lit by the smoky kerosene
lamp; the room she would dart into in order to change her dress for
further triumphs, the room with the bed in disorder from the morning;
the wash-stand full of dirty water, the bed-sheet lying on the floor,
her cast-off underwear forgotten on a chair. Next she saw herself in
the general dining-room, filled with kitchen odors, the tables set for
supper, with its tobacco smoke, noise, crowds, drinking, debauchery.
And again officers, officers, officers without end.
Such were her memories of the time she had once called the years of
her successes, triumphs, prosperity.
These reminiscences were followed by others, the prominent part in
which was played by the inn, filled with a foul stench, with walls on
which the vapor froze in the winter time, insecure flooring, and board
partitions, the glossy bellies of bed-bugs showing in the crevices.
Nights of drinking and brawls, travelling squires hastily taking
greenbacks out of their meager pocket-books, merchants encouraging the
"actresses" almost with a whip in hand. And in the morning--headaches,
nausea, and utter dejection. At last--Golovliovo.
Golovliovowas death itself, relentless, hollow-wombed death,
constantly lying in wait for new victims. Two uncles had died there,
two cousins had received mortal wounds. And Lubinka! Although Lubinka,
to be sure, had died somewhere in Kretchetov because of her "own
affairs," yet the origin of her wounds went back to her life at
Golovliovo. All the deaths, all the poisonings, all the pestilence,
came from there. There the orphans had been fed on rotten cured
meats, there they heard the first words of hatred and contempt for
human dignity. Not the slightest childish misdeed had passed without
punishment. Nothing could be hidden from the stony-hearted, eccentric
old woman, not an extra bite of bread, not a broken clay doll, not a
torn rag, not a worn shoe. Each breach of law and order was instantly
punished either with a reproach or a slap. And then, when they had
been permitted to dispose of themselves, when they had understood that
they might run away from the disgusting place, they ran--there! And
nobody kept them from running away, nor could they have been kept
from running away, because they could imagine nothing worse or more
repulsive than Golovliovo.
Ah, if all that could only be forgotten, if one could create a
different existence in one's dreams, a magic world that would supplant
both the past and the present! But alas, the reality Anninka had lived
through had so powerful a hold, that the clutch of it suppressed the
feeble efforts of her imagination. In vain did fancy endeavor to
imagine angels with silvery wings. From behind those angels peeped
inexorably the legions of Kukishevs, Lyulkins, Zabvennys, Popkovs.
Lord! Was all lost? Even the ability to deceive and beguile herself?
Had that been lost forever in the night revels, in wine, and in
debauchery? Yet that past had to be killed somehow, so as not to poison
her blood and rend her heart. It had to be crushed, utterly annihilated.
How strange and ruthless was that which had happened! It was impossible
even to conceive of some future, of some door by which to escape from
the situation, of anything at all that might occur to change things.
Nothing could occur. And what was even more unbearable was the fact
that to all intents and purposes she was already dead, with the outward
signs of life yet present. She should have ended it then, along with
Lubinka. Somehow she had remained alive. How was it that the mass of
shame which had come upon her then from all sides had not crushed her?
And what an insignificant worm she must have been to have crept out
from underneath that heap of heavy stones piled up on top of her!
She groaned in agony, and ran about the sitting-room, trying to kill
the burning memories. Before her eyes swam familiar images, the
Duchess of Herolstein shaking a pelisse, Clairette Angot in her wedding
gown with a slit in front up to her waist-line, Fair Helen with slits
in front, behind and at the sides. Nothing but obscenity and nakedness.
That was what her life had consisted of. Could all that possibly have
occurred?
About seven o'clock the house came to life again. The sounds of the
preparations for tea were heard, and at last came the voice of Porfiry
Vladimirych. Uncle and niece sat down at the tea table and exchanged
remarks about the day just ended; but the daily happenings were scanty
and so the conversation was brief. Having taken tea and kissed Anninka
on the forehead, Yudushka crept back into his den, while Anninka went
into Yevpraksia's room to play cards.
At eleven o'clock the debauchery began. Having ascertained that Porfiry
Vladimirych was fast asleep, Yevpraksia set the table with various
country corned meats and a bottle of vodka. Now came meaningless and
obscene songs, strumming on the guitar, and Anninka drinking between
the songs and the shameless talk. At first she drank after Kukishev's
manner, coolly, with a "Lord bless us" to each glass, but then she
gradually sank into gloom and began to moan and curse. Yevpraksia
looked at her and pitied her:
"As I look at you, lady," she said, "I am so sorry for you, so sorry."
"Drink with me and you won't be sorry," Anninka retorted.
"No, how can I? They nearly chased me out of the clergy estate because
of your uncle, and now if I become----"
"Well, then it can't be helped. Let me sing you _The Mustache._"
She strummed the guitar again, and again came the cry, "I-akh! I-okh!"
Late at night sleep would suddenly overtake her, obliterating her past
and allaying her sufferings for a few hours. The next day, broken down,
half-insane, she would again creep out from beneath the deadening load
of sleep and live anew.
One of those vile nights when Anninka was singing her filthy songs to
Yevpraksia, Yudushka's pale face, ghastly and harassed, appeared in the
doorway. His lips were quivering, his sunken eyes looked like sightless
cavities by the light of the candle. His hands were folded for prayer.
For a few seconds he stood in front of the dumfounded women, and then
slowly faced round and passed out.
CHAPTER IV
There are families that are weighed down by an inevitable fate. They
are frequent among that portion of the nobility which once lived idle,
useless, and uninfluential, under the wing of serfdom in all parts of
Russia and is now passing its last days helpless and unprotected in
dilapidated manor-houses. In the life of these wretched families both
success and failure come unexpectedly and as if by sheer accident.
Sometimes it happens that a shower of good luck, as it were, suddenly
comes streaming down on such a family. The ruined cornet and his wife,
peacefully fading away in an out-of-the-way village, will suddenly be
blessed with a brood of young people, strong, clean, alert, pushing,
adaptable to the new conditions of life--the boys as well as the
girls--in a word, "knowing ones." The boys pass examinations with
flying colors and even establish connections and procure patrons
while still at school. In the nick of time they exhibit their modesty
(_"j'aime cette modestie"_ their superiors say about them), and in the
nick of time they show that they can be independent (_"j'aime cette
independance!"_) They quickly scent the direction from which the wind
blows, but they never burn their bridges, so that retreat is free
and easy. These successful makers of our modern history begin with
obsequious cringing, and almost invariably end with perfidy. As to
the girls, they, too, in their line, contribute to the regeneration of
the family, that is, they all marry successfully and then exhibit so
much tact in the art of dressing that they experience no difficulty in
gaining prominent places in so-called society.
From this combination of circumstances, success fairly pours down upon
the impoverished family. The first successful members who struggle
through courageously, bring up another clean generation, which is still
better off because the main paths have not only been broken but also
well trodden. Other generations succeed until at last a family comes
that has no preliminary struggles and deems it has an inborn right to
lifelong rejoicing.
Lately, on account of a modern demand for so-called "new men" resulting
from the gradual degeneration of the old men, there have been frequent
instances of successful families. Even in earlier days a comet would
now and then make its appearance on the horizon, but it was a rare
occurrence, the reason being that, first, there were no cracks in the
wall surrounding that blissful region over the gateway to which is
inscribed: "Here pies are eaten daily," and, secondly, because in order
to penetrate into that region, one had to have genuine ability. But now
quite a number of cracks have appeared and the matter of penetration is
considerably simplified, since great merits are no longer demanded of
the newcomer, but only "newness" and nothing else.
Besides these lucky families there is a great multitude of families
upon whose members the household gods bestow nothing but misfortune
and despair. Like a baleful blight, vice and ill-luck beset them and
devour their substance. The malignant influences attack the whole
stock, eating their way into the very heart and laying waste generation
after generation. There is born a race of weaklings, drunkards, petty
rakes, idlers and shiftless ne'er-do-wells. As time goes on the race
degenerates more and more, until finally there appear miserable
weaklings, like Yudushka's two sons, who perish at the first onslaught
of life.
Such a sinister fate pursued the Golovliovo family. For several
generations, their history was marked by three characteristics,
idleness, utter uselessness, and habitual hard drinking, the last
coming as the sorry crown to a chaotic life. The Golovliovo family
would have run to seed completely but for the fact that Arina Petrovna
flashed like a casual meteor through this drunken confusion. By her
personal energy alone this woman brought the family to an unprecedented
height of prosperity. Nevertheless her labors were in vain. Not only
did she not transmit any of her qualities to her children, but she
herself died ensnared by idleness, empty talk and mental vacuity.
Until now Porfiry Vladimirych had held out against the temptation of
drink. It may be that he had been frightened off by the fate of his
brothers and had consciously abstained from drink, or that he had
been satisfied by the intoxication of his frenzied day dreams. But it
was not for nothing that he had the reputation of a drunkard among
his neighbors. At times he himself felt something was lacking in his
existence. Idle musings gave him much, but not all. They did not supply
that sharp, stupefying sensation which would completely do away with
his sense of reality and plunge him headlong into the void forever.
And now the long-wished-for opportunity presented itself. Ever since
Anninka's arrival, Yudushka had been aware of a vague noise at night
coming from the other end of the house. For a long time he had puzzled
his head over the significance of the mysterious sounds. At last he
discovered what they were.
Anninka expected a reprimand the next day. None came. Porfiry
Vladimirych spent the morning locked up in his study as usual, but when
he appeared at the midday meal, he poured out two wineglasses of vodka
instead of only one for himself, and pointed to one with a sheepish
smile. Anninka accepted the silent invitation.
"So you say Lubinka is dead?" said Yudushka when the dinner was well
under way, as if recalling something.
"Yes, uncle, she is dead."
"Well, God rest her soul! To grumble is a sin, but to honor her memory
is quite fitting. Shall we?"
"Yes, uncle, let's honor her memory."
They emptied one more glass, and then Yudushka grew silent. He was
evidently still unaccustomed to the society of human beings. When the
meal was over, Anninka, performing a family rite, kissed uncle's cheek,
and in response he patted her on her cheek and said:
"So that's the kind you are."
The evening of the same day, at tea, which lasted longer this time
than usual, Porfiry Vladimirych looked at his niece for a while with a
quizzical smile, and finally said:
"Shall we have some corned meats served?"
"Well, if you wish."
"Yes. It's better you should do it in uncle's sight than on the sly. At
least, uncle will----"
Yudushka did not finish the sentence. Perhaps he had wanted to say that
uncle would keep her from drinking, but something prevented him from
saying it.
From that time on cold cuts were served in the dining-room every
evening. The outer window shutters were closed, the servants retired,
and uncle and niece remained all alone. In the beginning Yudushka did
not keep pace with Anninka, but with a little practice he came up to
her. They sat slowly sipping their vodka and talking. The conversation,
at first dull and indifferent, became more and more animated as their
heads grew hotter, and invariably passed into a chaotic quarrel, at
the bottom of which were always reminiscences about the victims of
Golovliovo.
Anninka started the quarrels. She dug up the family archives with
ruthless persistence and delighted in teasing Yudushka by arguing that
he along with Arina Petrovna had been the chief cause of the Golovliovo
tragedies. Every word breathed such cynicism and such burning hatred
that it was difficult to understand how so much vitality could still
exist in that worn-out, shattered body. Anninka's attacks galled
Yudushka immensely, but he defended himself feebly, angrily sputtering
ejaculations of discomfiture. At times, when Anninka went too far in
her insolence, he shouted and cursed.
Such scenes repeated themselves day in, day out, without change. Every
detail of the pitiful family chronicle was speedily exhausted, but it
still held the minds of the two riveted. Every episode of the past
lacerated some wound in their hearts, and they felt a bitter delight
in constantly evoking, scrutinizing and exaggerating painful memories.
Neither the past nor the present contained any moral mainstay on which
Anninka could lean. Nothing but sordid stinginess on one side, and
mental vacuity on the other. Her youthful heart had thirsted for warmth
and love, but had received a stone instead of bread, blows instead of
instruction. By the irony of fate, the cruel school in which she had
been taught implanted in her not an austere attitude toward life, but a
passionate yearning to partake of its sweet poisons. Youth had wrought
the miracle of oblivion, it kept her heart from hardening and the germs
of hatred from developing. Youth had made her drunk with the thirst for
life. That was why a turbulent, furtive debauchery had held her in its
sway for several years, and had pushed Golovliovo into the background.
Now, when the end was drawing close, her heart began to ache. Now for
the first time did Anninka grasp the significance of her past and begin
to hate it truly.
The drinking lasted far into the night, and had it not been for the
drunken confusion of both thoughts and words, it might have resulted in
something frightful. But if alcohol opened the well-springs of pain in
these shattered hearts, it also appeased them. The further the night
advanced, the more incoherent became their talk and the more impotent
their hatred. Toward the end of the debauch, the aching disappeared and
their surroundings vanished from their eyes, supplanted by a shining
void. They faltered, their eyes closed, they grew muscle-bound. Uncle
and niece would then rise from their places and retire to their rooms
with tottering steps.
Of course, these night adventures could not remain a secret. Before
long the notion of crime became associated with them in the minds of
the servants. Life abandoned the vast Golovliovo manor-house. Nothing
stirred even in the morning. Uncle and niece rose late and till the
midday meal Anninka's racking cough, accompanied by curses, rang from
one end of the house to the other. Yudushka listened to the harrowing
sounds in terror and a vague presentiment of his own impending doom
stirred in him.
It seemed that all the Golovliovo victims were now creeping from out of
the nooks and crannies of the deserted house. Gray apparitions stirred
everywhere. Here was old Vladimir Mikhailovich, in his white nightcap,
making wry faces and citing Barkov; here was Simple Simon and Pavel
the Sneak; here were Lubinka and the last offshoots of the Golovliovo
stock, Volodya and Petka. All were drunk, lustful, weary and bleeding.
And over all these ghosts there brooded a living phantom, Porfiry
Vladimirych Golovliov, the last representative of the decadent family.
CHAPTER V
The continual reverting to the past and its victims was bound to have
its effect on Yudushka. The natural outcome--was it fear?--No, rather
the awakening of conscience. He discovered he had a conscience, and
oblivion and contempt, although blunting its sensitiveness, could not
destroy it.
The awakening of a torpid conscience is usually fraught with pain. It
brings no peace, holds no promise of a new life, but merely tortures,
endlessly and fruitlessly. Man sees himself immured in a narrow prison,
a helpless victim of the agonies of repentance, with no hope of ever
returning to life. And he perceives no other way of allaying his
gnawing pain than to break his head against the stony walls of the
prison cell.
Never in the course of his long, useless life had it occurred to
Yudushka that dire tragedies were interwoven with his existence. He had
lived peacefully and calmly, with a constant prayer on his lips, and
the thought had been far from him that this manner of life had caused
so much sorrow. Least of all could he imagine that he himself had been
the source of these tragedies. Suddenly the terrible truth was revealed
to his conscience, but all too late--too late for him to make amends
for the crimes of his life. He was unsociable, old, with one foot
in the grave, and there was not a single human being who approached
him with loving pity. Why was he alone? Why did he see nothing but
indifference and hatred around him? Why was it that everything he
touched had perished? This estate of Golovliovo was once so full, a
human nest. How had it happened that now there was not a trace, not a
feather left? Of the fledgelings nursed there his niece was the only
one that remained alive, and she had come back only to sneer at him and
deal him his deathblow. Even Yevpraksia, simple as she was, hated him.
She lived at Golovliovo because Porfiry sent her father, the sacristan,
provisions every month, but undoubtedly she hated him. He had made her
unhappy, too, by robbing her of her child. What was the outcome of his
existence? Wherefore had he lied, babbled, persecuted, hoarded? Who
would inherit his wealth? Who was to enjoy the fruits of his life? Who?
I repeat, his conscience had awakened. Yudushka waited for the evening
with feverish impatience not only in order to get bestially drunk,
but also to drown his conscience. He hated the "dissolute wench," who
lacerated his wounds with such cold cynicism, yet he was drawn to
her irresistibly, as if there was still something to be said between
them and some wounds to be torn open. Every evening he made Anninka
retell the story of Lubinka's death, and every evening the idea of
self-destruction became riper in his mind. At first, the idea occurred
to him casually. But as his iniquities became more apparent to him, it
sank deeper and deeper into his being and soon was the sole shining
spot in all the gloom he saw ahead of him.
And his health began to decline rapidly. He coughed violently and at
times had spells of asthma that in themselves were sufficient to make
life intolerable, let alone the moral pangs from which he suffered.
All the symptoms of the malady that had sent his brothers to their
graves were present. He heard the groans of his brother Pavel, as he
choked in the entresol of the Dubrovino manor-house. Still Yudushka
was doggedly tenacious of life. His sunken, emaciated chest held out
against the pain that grew from hour to hour. It was as if his body too
were resisting with unexpected vigor so as to take revenge on him for
his crimes.
"Is this the end?" he would wonder hopefully, whenever he felt the
approach of a paroxysm. But death was slow in coming. Evidently it
would be necessary to use violence to hasten the end. All his accounts
with life were settled--it was both painful and useless to him. What he
needed was death, but, to his sorrow, death was slow in coming. There
is something mean and treacherous in the teasing hesitancy of death
when it is called upon with all the strength of one's soul. |
|
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기