"Then leave everything as it is."
Tatiana Markovna looked at the portrait of Raisky's mother, for a long
time she looked at the languishing eyes, the melancholy smile.
"Yes," she whispered. "I honour the memory of the departed, but hers is
the fault. She kept you by her side, talked to you, played the piano,
read out of books and wept as she did so. And this is the result.
Singing and painting. Now tell me, Borushka," she went on in her
ordinary tone, "what is to become of the house, of the linen, the silver,
the diamonds? Shall you order them to be given to the peasants?"
"Do I possess diamonds and silver?"
"How often have I told you so? From your mother you have inherited all
these things; what is to be done with them. I will show you the
inventory of them."
"Don't do that, for Heaven's sake. I can believe they are mine. And so I
can dispose of them as I please?"
"Of course; you are the proprietor. We live here as your guests, though
we do not eat your bread. See here are my receipts and expenditure," she
said, thrusting towards another big ledger which he waved away.
"But I believe all you say, Granny," he said. "Send for a clerk and tell
him to make out a deed, by which I give the house, the land, and all
that belongs to it to my dear cousins, Veroshka and Marfinka, as dowry."
The old lady wrinkled her brow, and waited impatiently till he should
finish speaking. "So long as you live, dear Granny," he continued, "the
estate naturally remains under your control; the peasants must have
their freedom...."
"Never," interrupted his aunt, "Veroshka and Marfinka are not
beggars--each of them has her fifty thousand roubles--and after my death
three times that sum, perhaps more. All I have is for my little girls,
and, thank God, I am not a pauper. I have a corner of my own, a bit of
land, and a roof to cover them. One would think you were a millionaire.
You make gifts; you will have this, and you won't have that. Here,
Marfinka! where have you hidden yourself?"
"Directly!" cried Marfinka's clear voice from a neighbouring room. Happy,
gay, smiling and frank, she fluttered into the room, looked hesitatingly,
first at Raisky, then at her aunt, who was nearly beside herself.
"Your cousin, Marfinka, is pleased to present you with a house, silver,
and lace. You are, he thinks, a beggared, dowerless girl. Make a curtsey,
thank your benefactor, kiss his hand--Well?"
Marfinka, who did not know what to say, squeezed herself flat against
the stove and looked at her two relatives. Her aunt pushed papers and
books on one side, crossed her hands over her breast, and looked out of
the window, while Raisky sat down beside Marfinka, and took her hand.
"Would you like to go away from here, Marfinka, into a strange house,
perhaps in an altogether different district?"
"God forbid! How could such a thing happen. Who ever imagined such
nonsense?"
"Granny," laughed Raisky.
Happily "Granny" had not heard the words. Marfinka was embarrassed, and
looked out of the window.
"Here I have everything I want, the lovely flowers in the garden, the
birds. Who would look after the birds? I will never go away from here,
never!"
"But Granny wants to go and take you with her."
"Granny! Where? Why?" she asked her aunt in her caressing, coaxing way.
"Don't tease me," said Tatiana Markovna.
"Marfinka, you don't want to leave home?" asked Boris.
"Not for anything in the world. How could such a thing be?"
"What would Veroshka say about it?"
"She would never be separated from the old house."
"She loves the old house?"
"Yes. She is only happy when she is here. If she were taken away from it
she would die. We both should."
"That matter is settled then, little sister. You two, Veroshka and you,
will accept the gift from me, won't you?"
"I will if Veroshka agrees."
"Agreed, dear sister. You are not so proud as Granny," he said, as he
kissed her forehead.
"What is agreed?" suddenly grumbled Tatiana Markovna. "You have accepted?
Who told you you might accept? Grandmother will never permit you to live
at a stranger's expense. Be so kind, Boris Pavlovich, as to take over
books, accounts, inventories and sales. I am not your paid servant." She
pushed papers and books towards him.
"Granny!"
"Granny! My name is Tatiana Markovna Berezhkov." She stood up, and
opened the door into the servants' room. "Send Savili here."
A quarter of an hour later, a peasant of almost forty-five years of age
opened the door with a casual greeting. He was strongly-built, big boned,
and was robust, without being fat. His eyes with their overhanging brows
and wide heavy lids, wasted no idle glances; he neither spoke an
unnecessary word, nor made a superfluous gesture.
"The proprietor is here," said Tatiana Markovna, indicating Raisky. "You
must now make your reports to him. He intends to administer the estate
himself."
Savili looked askance at Raisky.
"At your orders," he said stiffly, slowly raising his eyes. "What orders
are you pleased to give?" he asked, lowering his eyes again.
Raisky thought for a moment before he replied:
"Do you know an official who could draw up a document for the transfer
of the estate?"
"Gavril Ivanov Meshetshnikov draws up the papers we require," he said.
"Send for him."
As Savili bowed, and slowly retired, Raisky followed him with his eyes.
"An anxious rascal," was his comment.
"How should he be other than anxious," said his aunt, "when he is tied
to a wife like Marina Antipovna? Do you remember Antip? Well, she is his
daughter. But for his marriage he is a treasure. He does my important
business, sells the corn, and collects the money. He is honest and
practical, but fate deals her blows where she will, and every man must
bear his own burden. But what idea have you in your head now? Are you
beside yourself?"
"Something must be done. I am going away, and you will not administer
the estate, so some arrangement must be made."
"And is that your reason for going? I thought you were now going to take
over the management of your estate. You have done enough gadding about.
Why not marry and settle here?"
She was visibly struggling with herself. It had never entered her head
to give up the administration; she would not have known what to do with
herself. Her idea had been to alarm Raisky, and he was taking her
seriously.
"What is to be done?" she said. "I will see after the estate as long as
I have the strength to do so. How else should you live, you strange
creature?"
"I receive two thousand roubles from my other estate, and that is a
sufficient income. I want to work, to draw, to write, to travel for a
little; and for that purpose I might mortgage or sell the other estate."
"God bless you, Borushka, what next? Are you so near beggary? You talk
of drawing, writing, alienating your land; next it will be giving
lessons or school teaching. Instead of arriving with four horses and a
travelling carriage you sneak in, without a servant, in a miserable
_kibitka_, you, a Raisky. Look at the old house, at the portraits
of your ancestors, and take shame to yourself. Shame, Borushka! How
splendid it would have been if you had come epauletted like Sergei
Ivanovich, and had married a wife with a dowry of three thousand souls."
Raisky burst out laughing.
"Why laugh? I am speaking seriously when I tell you what a joy it would
have been for your Grandmother. Then you would have wanted the lace and
the silver, and not be flinging it away."
"But as I am not marrying, I don't need these things. Therefore it is
settled that Veroshka and Marfinka shall have them."
"Your decision is final?"
"It is final. And it is further settled that if you do not like this
arrangement, everything passes into the hands of strangers. You have my
word for it."
"Your word for it," cried his aunt. "You are a lost man. Where have you
lived, and what have you done. Tell me, for Heaven's sake, what your
purpose in life is, and what you really are?"
"What I am, Grandmother? The unhappiest of men!" He leaned his head back
on the cushion as he spoke.
"Never say such a thing," she interrupted. "Fate hears and exacts the
penalty, and you will one day be unhappy. Either be content or feign
content."
She looked anxiously round, as if Fate were already standing at her
shoulder.
Raisky rose from the divan.
"Let us be reconciled," he said. "Agree to keep this little corner of
God's earth under your protection."
"It is an estate, not a 'corner.'"
"Resign yourself to my gift of this old stuff to the dear girls. A
lonely man like me has no use for it, but they will be mistresses of a
house. If you don't agree, I will present it to the school...."
"The school-children! Those rascals who steal our apples, shall not have
it."
"Come to the point, Granny! You don't really want to leave this nest in
your old age."
"We'll see, we'll see. Give them the lace on their wedding-day. I can do
nothing with you; talk to Tiet Nikonich who is coming to dinner." And
she wondered what would come of such strangeness.
Raisky took his cap to go out, and Marfinka went with him. She showed
him the park, her own garden, the vegetable and flower gardens, and the
arbours. When they came to the precipice she looked anxiously over the
edge, and drew back with a shudder. Raisky looked down on the Volga,
which was in flood, and had overflowed into the meadows. In the distance
were ships which appeared to be motionless, and above hung heaped banks
of cloud. Marfinka drew closer to Raisky, and looked down indifferently
on the familiar picture.
"Come down!" he said suddenly, and seized her hand.
"No, I am afraid," she answered trembling, and drew back.
"I won't let you fall. Do you think I can't take care of you?"
"Not at all, but I am afraid. Veroshka has no fear, but goes down alone,
even in the dusk. Although a murderer lies buried there, she is not
afraid."
"Try, shut your eyes, and give me your hand. You will see how carefully
I take you down."
Marfinka half closed her eyes, but she had hardly taken his hand and
made one step, when she found herself standing on the edge of the
precipice. Shuddering she withdrew her hand.
"I would not go down for anything in the world," she cried as she ran
back. "Where are you going to!"
No answer reached her. She approached the edge and looked timidly over.
She saw how the bushes were bent noisily aside, as Raisky sprang down,
step by step. How horrible! she thought as she returned to the house.
CHAPTER VII
Raisky went nearly all round the town, and when he climbed the cliffs
once more, he was on the extreme boundary of his estate. A steep path
led down to the suburbs, and the town lay before him as in the palm of a
hand. Stirred with the passion aroused by his memories of childhood, he
looked at the rows of houses, cottages and huts. It was not a town, but,
like other towns, a cemetery. Going from street to street, Raisky saw
through the windows, how in one house the family sat at dinner, and in
another the amovar had already been brought in. In the empty streets,
every conversation could be heard a _verst_ away; voices and
footsteps re-echoed on the wooden pavement. It seemed to Raisky a
picture of dreamy peace, the tranquillity of the grave. What a frame for
a novel, if only he knew what to put in the novel. The houses fell into
their places in the picture that filled his mind, he drew in the faces
of the towns-people, grouped the servants with his aunt, the whole
composition centring in Marfinka. The figures stood sharply outlined in
his mind; they lived and breathed. If the image of passion should float
over this motionless sleeping little world, the picture would glow with
the enchanting colour of life. Where was he to find the passion, the
colour?
"Passion!" he repeated to himself. If her burning fire could but be
poured out upon him, and engulf the artist in her destroying waves.
As he moved forward he remembered that his stroll had an aim. He
wondered how Leonid Koslov was, whether he had changed, or whether he
had remained what he had been before, a child for all his learning. He
too was a good subject for an artist. Raisky thought of Leonti's
beautiful wife, whose acquaintance he had made during his student days
in Moscow, when she was a young girl. She used to call Leonti her fiance,
without any denial on his part, and five years after he had left the
University he made the journey to Moscow, and married her. He loved his
wife as a man loves air and warmth; absorbed in the life and art of the
ancients, his lover's eyes saw in her the antique ideal of beauty. The
lines of her neck and bosom charmed him, and her head recalled to him
Roman heads seen on bas-reliefs and cameos.
Leonti did not recognise Raisky, when his friend suddenly entered his
study.
"I have not the honour," he began.
But when Boris Pavlovich opened his lips he embraced him.
"Wife! Ulinka!" he cried into the garden. "Come quickly, and see who has
come to see us."
She came hastily, and kissed Raisky.
"What a man you have grown, and how much more handsome you are!" she
said, her eyes flashing.
Her eyes, her mien, her whole figure betrayed audacity. Just over thirty
years old, she gave the impression of a splendidly developed specimen of
blooming womanhood.
"Have you forgotten me?" she asked.
"How should he forget you?" broke in Leonti. "But Ulinka is right. You
have altered, and are hardly recognisable with your beard. How delighted
your Aunt must have been to see you."
"Ah! his Aunt!" remarked Juliana Andreevna in a tone of displeasure. "I
don't like her."
"Why not?"
"She is despotic and censorious."
"Yes, she is a despot," answered Raisky. "That comes from intercourse
with serfs. Old customs!"
"According to Tatiana Markovna," continued Juliana Andreevna, "everybody
should stay on one spot, turn his head neither to right nor left, and
never exchange a word with his neighbours. She is a past mistress in
fault-finding; nevertheless she and Tiet Nikonich are inseparable, he
spends his days and nights with her."
Raisky laughed and said, "She is a saint nevertheless, whatever you may
find to say about her."
"A saint perhaps, but nothing is right for her. Her world is in her two
nieces, and who knows how they will turn out? Marfinka plays with her
canaries and her flowers, and the other sits in the corner like the
family ghost, and not a word can be got from her. We shall see what will
become of her."
"Veroshka? I haven't seen her yet. She is away on a visit on the other
side of the Volga."
"And who knows what her business is there?"
"I love my Aunt as if she were my Mother," said Raisky emphatically.
"She is wise, honourable, just! She has strength and individuality, and
there is nothing commonplace about her."
"You will believe everything she says?" asked Juliana Andreevna, drawing
him away to the window, while Leonti collected the scattered papers,
laid them in cupboards and put the books on the shelves.
"Yes, everything," she said.
"Don't believe her. I know she will tell you all sorts of
nonsense--about Monsieur Charles."
"Who is he?"
"A Frenchman, a teacher, and a colleague of my husband's. They sit there
reading till all hours. How can I help it? Yet God knows what they make
out of it in the town, as if I.... Don't believe it," she went on, as she
saw Raisky was silent. "It is idle talk, there is nothing," she
concluded, with a false smile intended to be allowing.
"What business is it of mine?" returned Raisky, turning away from her.
"Shall we go into the garden?"
"Yes, we will have dinner outside," said Leonti. "Serve what there is,
Ulinka. Come, Boris, now we can talk." Then as an idea struck him, he
added, "What shall you have to say to me about the library?"
"About what library? You wrote to me about it, but I did not understand
what you were talking about. I think you said some person called Mark,
had been tearing the books."
"You cannot imagine, Boris, how vexed I was about it," he said as he
took down some books with torn backs from the shelves.
Raisky pushed the books away. "What does it matter to me?" he said. "You
are like my grandmother; she bothers me about accounts, you about
books."
"But Boris, I don't know what accounts she bothered you about, but these
books are your most precious possession. Look!" he said, pointing with
pride to the rows of books which filled the study to the ceiling.
"Only on this shelf nearly everything is ruined by that accursed Mark!
The other books are all right. See, I drew up a catalogue, which took
a whole year to do," and he pointed self-consciously to a thick bound
volume of manuscript. "I wrote it all with my own hand," he continued.
"Sit down, Boris, and read out the names. I will get on the ladder, and
show you the books; they are arranged according to their numbers."
"What an idea!"
"Or better wait till after dinner; we shall not be able to finish
before."
"Listen, should you like to have a library like that?" asked Raisky.
"I!--a library like that?"
Sunshine blazed from Leonti's eyes, he smiled so broadly that even the
hair on his brow stirred with the dislocation caused. "A library like
that?" He shook his head. "You must be mad."
"Tell me, do you love me as you used to do?"
"Why do you ask? Of course."
"Then the books shall be yours for good and all, under one condition."
"I--take these books!"
Leonti looked now at the books, now at Raisky, then made a gesture of
refusal, and sighed.
"Do not laugh at me, Boris! Don't tempt me."
"I am not joking."
Here Juliana Andreevna, who had heard the last words, chimed in with,
"Take what is given you."
"She is always like that," sighed Leonti. "On feast days the tradesmen
come with presents, and on the eve of the examinations the parents. I
send them away, but my wife receives them at the side door. She looks
like Lucretia, but she has a sweet tooth, a dainty one."
Raisky laughed, but Juliana Andreevna was annoyed.
"Go to your Lucretia," she said indifferently. "He compares me with
everybody. One day I am Cleopatra, then Lavinia, then Cornelia. Better
take the books when they are offered you. Boris Pavlovich will give them
to me."
"Don't take it on yourself to ask him for gifts," commanded Leonti. "And
what can we give him? Shall I hand you over to him, for instance?" he
added as he embraced her.
"Splendid! Take me, Boris Pavlovich," she cried, throwing a sparkling
glance at him.
"If you don't take the books, Leonti," said Raisky, "I will make them
over to the Gymnasium. Give me the catalogue, and I'll send it to the
Director to-morrow."
He put his hand out for the catalogue, of which Leonti kept a tight hold.
"The Gymnasium shall never get one of them," he cried. "You don't know
the Director, who cares for books just about as much as I do for perfume
and pomade. They will be destroyed, torn, and worse handled than by
Mark."
"Then take them."
"To give away such treasures all in a minute. It would be comprehensible
if you were selling them to responsible hands. I have never wanted so
much to be rich. I would give five thousand. I cannot accept, I cannot.
You are a spendthrift, or rather a blind, ignorant child--"
"Many thanks."
"I didn't mean that," cried Leonti in confusion. "You are an artist; you
need pictures, statues, music; and books are nothing to you. Besides,
you don't know what treasures you possess; after dinner I will show
you."
"Well, in the afternoon, instead of drinking coffee, you will go over
with the books to the Gymnasium for me."
"Wait, Boris, what was the condition on which you would give me the
books. Will you take instalments from my salary for them? I would sell
all I have, pledge myself and my wife."
"No, thank you," broke in Juliana Andreevna, "I can pledge or sell
myself if I want to."
Leonti and Raisky looked at one another.
"She does not think before she speaks," said Leonti. "But tell me what
the condition is."
"That you never mention these books to me again, even if Mark tears them
to pieces."
"Do you mean I am not to let him have access to them?"
"He is not likely to ask you," put in Juliana Andreevna. "As if that
monster cared for what you may say."
"How Ulinka loves me," said Leonti to Raisky. "Would that every woman
loved her husband like that."
He embraced her. She dropped her eyes, and the smile died from her face.
"But for her you would not see a single button on my clothes," continued
Leonti. "I eat and sleep comfortably, and our household goes on evenly
and placidly. However small my means are she knows how to make them
provide for everything." She raised her eyes, and looked at them, for
the last statement was true. "It's a pity," continued Leonti, "that she
does not care about books. She can chatter French fast enough, but if
you give her a book, she does not understand half of it. She still
writes Russian incorrectly. If she sees Greek characters, she says they
would make a good pattern for cotton printing, and sets the book upside
down. And she cannot even read a Latin title."
"That will do. Not another word about the books. Only on that condition,
I don't send them to the Gymnasium. Now let us sit down to table, or I
shall go to my Grandmother's, for I am famished."
"Do you intend to spend your whole life like this?" asked Raisky as he
was sitting after dinner alone with Leonti in the study.
"Yes, what more do I need?"
"Have you no desires, does nothing call you away from this place, have
you no longings for freedom and space, and don't you feel cramped in
this narrow frame of hedge, church spire and house, under your very
nose?"
"Have I so little to look at under my nose?" asked Leonti, pointing to
the books. "I have books, pupils, and in addition a wife and peace of
heart, isn't that enough?"
"Are books life? This old trash has a great deal to answer for. Men
strive forwards, seek to improve themselves, to cleanse their
conceptions, to drive away the mist, to meet the problems of society by
justice, civilisation, orderly administration, while you instead of
looking at life, study books."
"What is not to be found in books is not to be found in life either, or
if there is anything it is of no importance," said Leonti firmly. "The
whole programme of public and private life lies behind us; we can find
an example for everything."
"You are still the same old student, Leonti, always worrying about what
has been experienced in the past, and never thinking of what you
yourself are."
"What I am! I am a teacher of the classics. I am as deeply concerned
with the life of the past, as you with ideals and figures. You are an
artist. Why should you wonder that certain figures are dear to me? Since
when have artists ceased to draw water from the wells of the ancients?"
"Yes, an artist," said Raisky, with a sigh. He pointed to his head and
breast. "Here are figures, notes, forms, enthusiasm, the creative
passion, and as yet I have done almost nothing."
"What restrains you? You are now painting, you wrote me, a great picture,
which you mean to exhibit."
"The devil take the great pictures. I shall hardly be able to devote my
whole energy to painting now. One must put one's whole being into a
great picture, and then to give effect to one hundredth part of what one
has put in a representation of a fleeting, irrecoverable impression.
Sometimes I paint portraits...."
"What art are you following now?"
"There is but one Art that can satisfy the artist of to-day, the art of
words, of poetry, which is limitless in its possibilities."
"You write verses then?"
"Verses are children's food. In verse you celebrate a love affair, a
festival, flowers, a nightingale."
"And satire. Remember the use made of it by the Romans."
With these words he would have gone to the bookshelf, but Raisky held
him back. "You may," he said, "be able now and then to hit a diseased
spot with satire. Satire is a rod, whose stroke stings but has no
further consequences; but she does not show you figures brimming with
life, she does not reveal the depths of life with its secret mainsprings
of action, she holds no mirror before your eyes. It is only the novel
that comprehends and mirrors the life of man."
"So you are writing a novel? On what subject?"
"I have not yet quite decided."
"Don't at all events describe this pettifogging, miserable existence
which stares us in the face without the medium of art. Our contemporary
literature squeezes every worm, every peasant-girl, and I don't know
what else, into the novel. Choose a historical subject, worthy of your
vivacious imagination and your clean-cut style. Do you remember how you
used to write of old Russia? Now it is the fashion to choose material
from the ant-heap, the talking shop of everyday life. This is to be the
stuff of which literature is made. Bah! it is the merest journalism."
"There we are again on the old controversy. If you once mount that horse,
there will be no calling you back. Let us leave this question for the
moment, and go back to my question. Are you satisfied to spend your life
here, as you are now doing, with no desires for anything further?"
Leonti looked at him in astonishment, with wide opened eyes.
"You do nothing for your generation," Raisky went on, "but creep
backwards like a crab. Why are you for ever talking of the Greeks and
Romans? Their work is done, and ours is to bring life into these
cemeteries, to shake the slumbering ghosts out of their twilight
dreams."
"And how is the task to be begun?"
"I mean to draw a picture of this existence, to reflect it as in a
mirror. And you...."
"I too accomplish something. I have prepared several boys for the
University," remarked Leonti with hesitation, for he was not sure
whether this was meritorious or not. "You imagine that I go into my
class, then home, and forget about everything. That is not the case.
Young people gather round me, attach themselves to me, and I show them
drawings of old buildings, utensils, make sketches and give explanations,
as I once did for you. What I know myself I communicate to others,
explain the ancient ideals of virtue, expound classical life, just as
our own classics are explained. Is that no longer essential?"
"Certainly it has its advantage. But it has nothing to do with real life.
One cannot live like that to-day. So much has disappeared, so many
things have arisen that the Greeks and Romans never knew. But we need
models from contemporary life, we must educate ourselves and others to
be men. That is our task."
"No, I do not take that upon my shoulders; it is sufficient for one to
take the models of ancient virtue from books. I myself live for and
through myself. You see I live quietly and modestly, eat my vermicelli
soup...."
"Life for and through yourself is not life at all, it is a passive
condition, and man is a fighting animal."
"I have already told you that I do my duty and do not interfere in
anybody else's business; and no one interferes with mine."
"Life's arm is long, and will not spare even you. And how will you meet
her blows--unprepared."
"What has Life to do with a humble man like me? I shall pass unnoticed.
I have books, although they are not mine," he said glancing hesitatingly
at Raisky, "but you give me free use of them. My needs are small, I feel
no boredom. I have a wife who loves me...."
Raisky looked away.
"And," he added in a whisper, "I love her."
It was plain that as his mind nourished itself on the books, so his
heart had found a warm refuge; he himself did not even know what bound
him to life and books, and did not guess that he might keep his books
and lose his life, and that his life would be maimed if his "Roman head"
was stolen from him.
Happy child, thought Raisky. In his learned sleep he does not notice the
darkness that is hidden in that dear Roman head, nor how empty the
woman's heart is. He is helpless as far as she is concerned, and will
never convince her of the virtues of the ancient ideals.
CHAPTER VIII
The sun was setting when Raisky returned home, and was received at the
door by Marfinka.
"Where did you get lost, Cousin?" she asked him. "Grandmother is very
angry, and is grumbling...."
"I was with Leonti," returned Raisky indifferently.
"I thought so, and told Grandmother so, but she won't listen and will
hardly speak even to Tiet Nikonich. He is with her now and Paulina
Karpovna too. Go to Grandmother, and it will be all right. Are you
afraid. Does your heart beat fast?"
Raisky had to laugh.
"She is very angry. We had prepared so many dishes."
"We will eat them up for supper."
"Will you? Grandmother, Grandmother," she cried happily, "Cousin has
come and wants his supper."
His aunt sat severely there, and did not look up when Raisky entered.
Tiet Nikonich embraced him. He received an elegant bow from Paulina
Karpovna, an elaborately got-up person of forty-five in a low cut muslin
gown, with a fine lace handkerchief and a fan, which she kept constantly
in motion although there was no heat.
"What a man you have grown! I should hardly have known you," said Tiet
Nikonich, beaming with kindness and pleasure.
"He has grown very, very handsome," said Paulina Karpovna Kritzki.
"You have not altered, Tiet Nikonich," remarked Raisky. "You have hardly
aged at all, and are as gay, as fresh, as kind and amiable...."
"Thank God! there is nothing worse than rheumatism the matter with me,
and my digestion is no longer quite as good as it was. That is age, age.
But how glad I am that you, our guest, have arrived in such good spirits.
Tatiana Markovna was anxious about you. You will be staying here for
some time?"
"Of course you will spend the summer with us," said Paulina Karpovna.
"Here is nature, and fine air, and so many people are interested in
you."
He looked at her askance, and said nothing.
"Do you remember me?" she asked. Boris's aunt noticed with displeasure
that Paulina Karpovna was ogling her nephew.
"No, I must confess I forgot."
"Yes, impressions are quickly forgotten in the capital," she said in
a languishing tone. She looked him up and down and then added, "What an
admirable travelling suit."
"That reminds me I am still in my travelling clothes. Egor must be sent
for and must take my clothes and linen out of the trunk. For you, Granny,
and for you, my dear sisters, I have brought some small things for
remembrance."
Marfinka grew crimson with pleasure.
"Granny, where are you going to put me up?"
"The house belongs to you. Where you will," she returned coldly.
"Don't be angry, Granny," he laughed. "It won't happen twice."
"You may laugh, you may laugh, Boris Pavlovich. Here, in the presence of
our guests, I tell you you have behaved badly. You have hardly put your
nose inside the house, and straightway vanish. That is an insult to your
Grandmother."
"Surely, Granny, we shall be together every day. I have been visiting an
old friend, and we forgot ourselves in talking."
"Cousin Boris did not do it on purpose, Granny," said Marfinka. "Leonti
Ivanovich is so good."
"Please be silent when you are not addressed. You are too young to
contradict your Grandmother, who knows what she is saying."
Smilingly Marfinka drew back into her corner.
"No doubt Juliana Andreevna was able to entertain you better, and knows
better than I how to entertain a Petersburger. What friccassee did she
give you?" asked his aunt, not without a little real curiosity.
"Vermicelli soup, pastry with cabbage, then beef and potatoes."
Tatiana Markovna laughed ironically, "Vermicelli soup and beef!"
"And groats in the pan...."
"It's a long time since you tasted such delicacies."
"Excellent dishes," said Tiet Nikonich kindly, "but heavy for the
digestion."
"To-morrow, Marfinka," said the old lady, "we will entertain our guest
with a gosling, pickled pork, carrots, and perhaps with a goose."
"A goose, stuffed with groats, would be acceptable," put in Raisky.
"Indigestible!" protested Tiet Nikonich. "The best is a light soup, with
pearl barley, a cutlet, pastries and jelly; that is the proper midday
meal."
"But I should like groats."
"Do you like mushrooms too, Cousin?" asked Marfinka. "Because we have so
many."
"Rather! Can't we have them for supper tonight?"
In spite of Tiet Nikonich's caution against this heavy food, Tatiana
Markovna sent Marfinka to Peter and to the cook to order mushrooms for
supper.
"If there is any champagne in the cellar, Granny, let us have a bottle
up. Tiet Nikonich and I would like to drink your health. Isn't that so,
Tiet Nikonich?"
"Yes, to celebrate your arrival, though mushrooms and champagne are
indigestible."
"Tell the cook to bring champagne on ice, Marfinka," said the old lady.
_"Ce que femme veut,"_ said Tiet Nikonich amiably, with a slight
bow.
"Supper is a special occasion, but one ought to dine at home too. You
have vexed your Grandmother by going out on the very day of your
return."
"Ah, Tatiana Markovna," sighed Paulina Karpovna, "our ways here are so
bourgeois, but in the capital...."
The old lady's eyes blazed, as she pointed to the wall where hung the
portraits of Raisky's and the young girls' parents, and exclaimed:
"There was nothing bourgeois about those, Paulina Karpovna."
"Granny," said Raisky, "let us allow one another absolute freedom. I am
now making up for my absence at midday, and shall be here all night. But
I can't tell where I shall dine to-morrow, or where I shall sleep."
Paulina Karpovna could not refrain from applauding, but his aunt looked
at him with amazement, and inquired if he were really a gipsy.
"Monsieur Raisky is a poet, and poets are as free as air," remarked
Paulina Karpovna. Again she made play with her eyes, shifted the pointed
toes of her shoes in an effort to arouse Raisky's attention. The more
she twisted and turned, the more icy was his indifference, for her presence made an uncomfortable impression on him. Marfinka observed the by-play and smiled to herself. |
|
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기