A House of Gentlefolk Part 15

Chapter x.x.xIII

One day Lavretsky, according to his habit, was at the Kalitins'. After an exhaustingly hot day, such a lovely evening had set in that Marya Dmitrievna, in spite of her aversion to a draught, ordered all the windows and doors into the garden to be thrown open, and declared that she would not play cards, that it was a sin to play cards in such weather, and one ought to enjoy nature. Panshin was the only guest. He was stimulated by the beauty of the evening, and conscious of a flood of artistic sensations, but he did not care to sing before Lavretsky, so he fell to reading poetry; he read aloud well, but too self-consciously and with unnecessary refinements, a few poems of Lermontov (Pushkin had not then come into fashion again). Then suddenly, as though ashamed of his enthusiasm, began, a propos of the well-known poem, "A Reverie," to attack and fall foul of the younger generation. While doing so he did not lose the opportunity of expounding how he would change everything!

after his own fashion, if the power were in his hands. "Russia," he said, "has fallen behind Europe; we must catch her up. It is maintained that we are young--that's nonsense. Moreover we have no inventiveness: Homakov himself admits that we have not even invented mouse-traps.

Consequently, whether we will or no, we must borrow from others. We are sick, Lermontov says--I agree with him. But we are sick from having only half become Europeans, we must take a hair of the dog that bit us ("le cadastre," thought Lavretsky). "The best head, les meilleures tetes,"

he continued, "among us have long been convinced of it. All peoples are essentially alike; only introduce among them good inst.i.tutions, and the thing is done. Of course there may be adaptation to the existing national life; that is our affair--the affair of the official (he almost said "governing") cla.s.s. But in case of need don't be uneasy.

The inst.i.tutions will transform the life itself." Marya Dmitrievna most feelingly a.s.sented to all Panshin said. "What a clever man," she thought, "is talking in my drawing-room!" Lisa sat in silence leaning back against the window; Lavretsky too was silent. Marfa Timofyevna, playing cards with her old friend in the corner, muttered something to herself. Panshin walked up and down the room, and spoke eloquently, but with secret exasperation. It seemed as if he were abusing not a whole generation but a few people known to him. In a great lilac bush in the Kalitins' garden a nightingale had built its nest; its first evening notes filled the pauses of the eloquent speech; the first stars were beginning to shine in the rosy sky over the motionless tops of the limes. Lavretsky got up and began to answer Panshin; an argument sprang up. Lavretsky championed the youth and the independence of Russia; he was ready to throw over himself and his generation, but he stood up for the new men, their convictions and desires. Panshin answered sharply and irritably. He maintained that the intelligent people ought to change everything, and was at last even brought to the point of forgetting his position as a kammer-yunker, and his career as an official, and calling Lavretsky an antiquated conservative, even hinting--very remotely it is true--at his dubious position in society. Lavretsky did not lose his temper. He did not raise his voice (he recollected that Mihalevitch too had called him antiquated but an antiquated Voltairean), and calmly proceeded to refute Panshin at all points. He proved to him the impracticability of sudden leaps and reforms from above, founded neither on knowledge of the mother-country, nor on any genuine faith in any ideal, even a negative one. He brought forward his own education as an example, and demanded before all things a recognition of the true spirit of the people and submission to it, without which even a courageous combat against error is impossible. Finally he admitted the reproach--well-deserved as he thought--of reckless waste of time and strength.

"That is all very fine!" cried Panshin at last, getting angry. "You now have just returned to Russia, what do you intend to do?"

"Cultivate the soil," answered Lavretsky, "and try to cultivate it as well as possible."

"That is very praiseworthy, no doubt," rejoined Panshin, "and I have been told that you have already had great success in that line; but you must allow that not every one is fit for pursuits of that kind."

"Une nature poetique," observed Marya Dmitrievna, "cannot, to be sure, cultivate... et puis, it is your vocation, Vladimir Nikolaich, to do everything en grand."

This was too much even for Panshin: he grew confused and changed the conversation. He tried to turn it upon the beauty of the starlit sky, the music of Schubert; nothing was successful. He ended by proposing to Marya Dmitrievna a game of picquet. "What! on such an evening?" she replied feebly. She ordered the cards to be brought in, however. Panshin tore open a new pack of cards with a loud crash, and Lisa and Lavretsky both got up as if by agreement, and went and placed themselves near Marfa Timofyevna. They both felt all at once so happy that they were even a little afraid of remaining alone together, and at the same time they both felt that the embarra.s.sment they had been conscious of for the last few days had vanished, and would return no more. The old lady stealthily patted Lavretsky on the cheek, slyly screwed up her eyes, and shook her head once or twice, adding in a whisper, "You have shut up our clever friend, many thanks." Everything was hushed in the room; the only sound was the faint crackling of the wax-candles, and sometimes the tap of a hand on the table, and an exclamation or reckoning of points; and the rich torrent of the nightingale's song, powerful piercingly sweet, poured in at the window, together with the dewy freshness of the night.

Chapter x.x.xIV

Lisa had not uttered a word in the course of the dispute between Lavretsky and Panshin, but she had followed it attentively and was completely on Lavretsky's side. Politics interested her very little; but the supercilious tone of the worldly official (he had never delivered himself in that way before) repelled her; his contempt for Russia wounded her. It had never occurred to Lisa that she was a patriot; but her heart was with the Russian people; the Russian turn of mind delighted her; she would talk for hours together without ceremony to the peasant-overseer of her mother's property when he came to the town, and she talked to him as to an equal, without any of the condescension of a superior. Lavretsky felt all this; he would not have troubled himself to answer Panshin by himself; he had spoken only for Lisa's sake. They had said nothing to one another, their eyes even had seldom met. But they both knew that they had grown closer that evening, they knew that they liked! and disliked the same things. On one point only were they divided; but Lisa secretly hoped to bring him to G.o.d. They sat near Marfa Timofyevna, and appeared to be following her play; indeed, they were really following it, but meanwhile their hearts were full, and nothing was lost on them; for them the nightingale sang, and the stars shone, and the trees gently murmured, lulled to sleep by the summer warmth and softness. Lavretsky was completely carried away, and surrendered himself wholly to his pa.s.sion--and rejoiced in it. But no word can express what was pa.s.sing in the pure heart of the young girl.

It was a mystery for herself. Let it remain a mystery for all. No one knows, no one has seen, nor will ever see, how the grain, destined to life and growth, swells and ripens in the bosom of the earth.

Ten o'clock struck. Marfa Timofyevna went off up-stairs to her own apartments with Nastasya Karpovna. Lavretsky and Lisa walked across the room, stopped at the open door into the garden, looked into the darkness in the distance and then at one another, and smiled. They could have taken each other's hands, it seemed, and talked to their hearts'

content. They returned to Marya Dmitrievna and Panshin, where a game of picquet was still dragging on. The last king was called at last, and the lady of the house rose, sighing and groaning from her well-cushioned easy chair. Panshin took his hat, kissed Marya Dmitrievna's hand, remarking that nothing hindered some happy people now from sleeping, but that he had to sit up over stupid papers till morning, and departed, bowing coldly to Lisa (he had not expected that she would ask him to wait so long for an answer to his offer, and he was cross with her for it). Lavretsky followed him. They parted at the gate. Panshin walked his! coachman by poking him in the neck with the end of his stick, took his seat in the carriage and rolled away. Lavretsky did not want to go home. He walked away from the town into the open country. The night was still and clear, though there was no moon. Lavretsky rambled a long time over the dewy gra.s.s. He came across a little narrow path; and went along it. It led him up to a long fence, and to a little gate; he tried, not knowing why, to push it open. With a faint creak the gate opened, as though it had been waiting the touch of his hand. Lavretsky went into the garden. After a few paces along a walk of lime-trees he stopped short in amazement; he recognised the Kalitins' garden.

He moved at once into a black patch of shade thrown by a thick clump of hazels, and stood a long while without moving, shrugging his shoulders in astonishment.

"This cannot be for nothing," he thought.

All was hushed around. From the direction of the house not a sound reached him. He went cautiously forward. At the bend of an avenue suddenly the whole house confronted him with its dark face; in two upstair-windows only a light was shining. In Lisa's room behind the white curtain a candle was burning, and in Marfa Timofyevna's bedroom a lamp shone with red-fire before the holy picture, and was reflected with equal brilliance on the gold frame. Below, the door on to the balcony gaped wide open. Lavretsky sat down on a wooden garden-seat, leaned on his elbow, and began to watch this door and Lisa's window. In the town it struck midnight; a little clock in the house shrilly clanged out twelve; the watchman beat it with jerky strokes upon his board.

Lavretsky had no thought, no expectation; it was sweet to him to feel himself near Lisa, to sit in her garden on the seat where she herself had sat more than once.

The light in Lisa's room vanished.

"Sleep well, my sweet girl," whispered Lavretsky, still sitting motionless, his eyes fixed on the darkened window.

Suddenly the light appeared in one of the windows of the ground-floor, then changed into another, and a third.... Some one was walking through the rooms with a candle. "Can it be Lisa? It cannot be." Lavretsky got up.... He caught a glimpse of a well-known face--Lisa came into the drawing-room. In a white gown, her plaits hanging loose on her shoulders, she went quietly up to the table, bent over it, put down the candle, and began looking for something. Then turning round facing the garden, she drew near the open door, and stood on the threshold, a light slender figure all in white. A shiver pa.s.sed over Lavretsky.

"Lisa!" broke hardly audibly from his lips.

She started and began to gaze into the darkness.

"Lisa!" Lavretsky repeated louder, and he came out of the shadow of the avenue.

Lisa raised her head in alarm, and shrank back. She had recognised him.

He called to her a third time, and stretched out his hands to her. She came away from the door and stepped into the garden.

"Is it you?" she said. "You here?"

"I--I--listen to me," whispered Lavretsky, and seizing her hand he led her to the seat.

She followed him without resistance, her pale face, her fixed eyes, and all her gestures expressed an unutterable bewilderment. Lavretsky made her sit down and stood before her.

"I did not mean to come here," he began. "Something brought me.... I--I love you," he uttered in involuntary terror.

Lisa slowly looked at him. It seemed as though she only at that instant knew where she was and what was happening. She tried to get up, she could no, and she covered her face with her hands.

"Lisa," murmured Lavretsky. "Lisa," he repeated, and fell at her feet.

Her shoulders began to heave slightly; the fingers of her pale hands were pressed more closely to her face.

"What is it?" Lavretsky urged, and he heard a subdued sob. His heart stood still.... He knew the meaning of those tears. "Can it be that you love me?" he whispered, and caressed her knees.

"Get up," he heard her voice, "get up, Fedor Ivanitch. What are we doing?"

He got up and sat beside her on the seat. She was not weeping now, and she looked at him steadfastly with her wet eyes.

"It frightens me: what are we doing?" she repeated.

"I love you," he said again. "I am ready to devote my whole life to you."

She shuddered again, as though something had stung her, and lifted her eyes towards heaven.

"All that is in G.o.d's hands," she said.

"But you love me, Lisa? We shall be happy." She dropped her eyes; he softly drew her to him, and her head sank on to his shoulder.... He bent his head a little and touched her pale lips.

Half an hour later Lavretsky was standing before the little garden gate.

He found it locked and was obliged to get over the fence. He returned to the town and walked along the slumbering streets. A sense of immense, unhoped-for happiness filled his soul; all his doubts had died away.

"Away, dark phantom of the past," he thought. "She loves me, she will be mine." Suddenly it seemed to him that in the air over his head were floating strains of divine triumphant music. He stood still. The music resounded in still greater magnificence; a mighty flood of melody--and all his bliss seemed speaking and singing in its strains. He looked about him; the music floated down from two upper windows of a small house.

"Lemm?" cried Lavretsky as he ran to the house. "Lemm! Lemm!" he repeated aloud.

The sounds died away and the figure of the old man in a dressing-gown, with his throat bare and his hair dishevelled, appeared at the window.

"Aha!" he said with dignity, "is it you?"

"Christopher Fedoritch, what marvellous music! for mercy's sake, let me in."

Without uttering a word, the old man with a majestic flourish of the arm dropped the key of the street door from the window.