A Nobleman's Nest Part 16

She started, and began to stare into the darkness.

"Liza!"--repeated Lavretzky more loudly, and emerged from the shadow of the avenue.

Liza, in alarm, stretched forth her head, and staggered backward. He called her for the third time, and held out his arms toward her. She left the door, and advanced into the garden.

"Is it you?"--she said.--"Are you here?"

"It is I ... I ... listen to me,"--whispered Lavretzky, and, grasping her hand, he led her to the bench.

She followed him without resistance; her pale face, her impa.s.sive eyes, all her movements, were expressive of unutterable amazement. Lavretzky seated her on the bench, and himself took up his stand in front of her.

"I had no thought of coming hither,"--he began:--"I came hither by chance.... I ... I ... I love you,"--he said, with involuntary terror.

Liza slowly glanced at him; apparently, she had only that moment comprehended where she was, and that she was with him. She tried to rise, but could not, and covered her face with her hands.

"Liza,"--said Lavretzky:--"Liza,"--he repeated, and bowed down at her feet....

Her shoulders began to quiver slightly, the fingers of her pale hands were pressed more tightly to her face.

"What is the matter with you?"--Lavretzky uttered, and caught the sound of soft sobbing. His heart turned cold.... He understood the meaning of those tears. "Can it be that you love me?"--he whispered, and touched her knee.

"Rise," he heard her voice:--"rise, Feodor Ivanitch. What is this that you and I are doing?"

He rose, and seated himself by her side on the bench. She was no longer weeping, but was gazing attentively at him with her wet eyes.

"I am frightened: what are we doing?"--she repeated.

"I love you,"--he said again:--"I am ready to give the whole of my life to you."

Again she shuddered, as though something had stung her, and raised her gaze heavenward.

"All this is in G.o.d's power,"--she said.

"But do you love me, Liza? Shall we be happy?"

She dropped her eyes; he softly drew her to him, and her head sank upon his shoulder.... He turned her head a little to one side, and touched her pale lips.

Half an hour later, Lavretzky was standing before the wicket. He found it locked, and was obliged to leap across the fence. He returned to the town, and walked through the sleeping streets. A sensation of great, of unexpected happiness filled his soul; all doubts had died within him.

"Vanish, past, dark spectre," he thought: "she loves me, she will be mine." All at once, it seemed to him that in the air, over his head, wondrous, triumphant sounds rang out; the sounds rolled on still more magnificently; in a chanting, mighty flood they streamed on,--and in them, so it seemed, all his happiness was speaking and singing. He glanced around him: the sounds were floating from two upper windows of a tiny house.

"Lemm!"--cried Lavretzky, and ran to the house.--"Lemm! Lemm!"--he repeated loudly.

The sounds died away, and the figure of the old man in his dressing-gown, with breast bare, and hair dishevelled, made its appearance at the window.

"Aha!"--he said, with dignity:--"is that you?"

"Christofor Feodoritch! what splendid music! For G.o.d's sake, let me in."

The old man, without uttering a word, with a majestic movement of the arm flung the door-key out of the window into the street. Lavretzky briskly ran up-stairs, entered the room, and was on the point of rushing at Lemm, but the latter imperiously motioned him to a chair; he said, abruptly, in Russian: "Sit down and listen!" seated himself at the piano, gazed proudly and sternly about him, and began to play. It was long since Lavretzky had heard anything of the sort: a sweet, pa.s.sionate melody, which gripped the heart from its very first notes; it was all beaming and languishing with inspiration, with happiness, with beauty; it swelled and melted away; it touched everything which exists on earth of precious, mysterious, holy; it breathed forth deathless sadness, and floated away to die in heaven. Lavretzky straightened himself up and stood there, cold and pale with rapture. Those sounds fairly sank into his soul, which had only just been shaken with the bliss of love; they themselves were flaming with love. "Repeat it,"--he whispered, as soon as the last chord resounded. The old man cast upon him an eagle glance, struck his breast with his hand, and saying deliberately, in his native language:--"I made that, for I am a great musician,"--he again played his wonderful composition. There was no candle in the room; the light of the rising moon fell aslant through the window; the sensitive air trembled resonantly; the pale, little room seemed a sanctuary, and the head of the old man rose high and inspired in the silvery semi-darkness. Lavretzky approached and embraced him. At first, Lemm did not respond to his embrace, he even repulsed it with his elbow; for a long time, without moving a single limb, he continued to gaze forth, as before, sternly, almost roughly, and only bellowed a couple of times: "Aha!" At last his transfigured face grew calm, relaxed, and, in reply to Lavretzky's warm congratulations, he first smiled a little, then fell to weeping, feebly sobbing like a child.

"This is marvellous,"--he said:--"that precisely you should now have come; but I know--I know all."

"You know all?"--e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lavretzky, in confusion.

"You have heard me,"--returned Lemm:--"have not you understood that I know all?"

Lavretzky could not get to sleep until the morning: all night long, he sat on his bed. And Liza did not sleep: she prayed.

x.x.xV

The reader knows how Lavretzky had grown up and developed; let us say a few words about Liza's bringing up. She was ten years old when her father died; but he had paid little heed to her. Overwhelmed with business, constantly absorbed in increasing his property, splenetic, harsh, impatient, he furnished money unsparingly for teachers, tutors, clothing, and the other wants of the children; but he could not endure, as he expressed it, "to dandle the squalling brats,"--and he had no time to dandle them: he worked, toiled over his business, slept little, occasionally played cards, worked again; he compared himself to a horse harnessed to a threshing-machine. "My life has rushed by fast," he said on his deathbed, with a proud smile on his parched lips. Marya Dmitrievna, in reality, troubled herself about Liza hardly more than did the father, although she had boasted to Lavretzky that she alone had reared her children; she had dressed Liza like a doll, in the presence of visitors had patted her on the head, and called her, to her face, a clever child and a darling--and that was all: any regular care wearied the lazy gentlewoman. During her father's lifetime, Liza had been in the hands of a governess, Mlle. Moreau, from Paris, and after his death she had pa.s.sed into the charge of Marfa Timofeevna. The reader is acquainted with Marfa Timofeevna; but Mlle. Moreau was a tiny, wrinkled creature, with birdlike ways and a tiny, birdlike mind. In her youth she had led a very dissipated life, and in her riper years she had but two pa.s.sions left--for dainties and for cards. When she was gorged, was not playing cards, and not chattering, her face instantly a.s.sumed an almost deathlike expression: she would sit, and gaze, and breathe, and it was evident that no thought was pa.s.sing through her head. It was not even possible to call her good-natured: there are also birds which are not good-natured. Whether it was in consequence of her frivolously-spent youth, or of the Paris air, which she had breathed since her childhood,--she harboured within her a certain cheap, general scepticism, which is usually expressed by the words: "_tout ca c'est des betises_."

She talked an irregular, but purely Parisian jargon, did not gossip, was not capricious,--and what more could be desired in a governess? On Liza she had little influence; all the more powerful upon her was the influence of her nurse, Agafya Vlasievna.

The lot of this woman was remarkable. She sprang from a peasant family; at the age of sixteen, they married her to a peasant; but there was a sharp distinction between her and her sister-peasant women. For twenty years her father had been the village elder, had acc.u.mulated a good deal of money, and had petted her. She was a wonderful beauty, the most dashingly-elegant peasant maid in all the country round about, clever, a good talker, daring. Her master, Dmitry Pestoff, the father of Marya Dmitrievna, a modest, quiet man, caught sight of her one day at the threshing, talked with her, and fell pa.s.sionately in love with her.

Soon afterward, she became a widow; Pestoff, although he was a married man, took her into his house, and clothed her in the style of a house-servant. Agafya immediately accommodated herself to her new position, exactly as though she had never lived in any other way. Her skin became white, she grew plump; her arms, under their muslin sleeves, became "like fine wheat flour," like those of a cook; the samovar stood constantly on her table; she would wear nothing but velvet and silk, she slept on a feather-bed of down. This blissful life lasted for the s.p.a.ce of five years; but Dmitry Pestoff died: his widow, a good-natured gentlewoman, desirous of sparing her husband's memory, was not willing to behave dishonourably toward her rival, the more so, as Agafya had never forgotten herself before her; but she married her to the cow-herd, and sent her out of her sight. Three years pa.s.sed. Once, on a hot summer day, the lady of the manor went to her dairy. Agafya treated her to such splendid cold cream, bore herself so modestly, and was so neat in person, and so cheerful and satisfied with everything, that her mistress announced to her her pardon, and permitted her to come to the manor-house; and six months later, she had become so attached to her, that she promoted her to the post of housekeeper, and entrusted the entire management to her. Again Agafya came into power, again she grew plump and white-skinned; her mistress had complete confidence in her. In this manner, five more years elapsed. Again misfortune fell upon Agafya.

Her husband, whom she had had raised to the post of footman, took to drink, began to disappear from the house, and wound up by stealing six of the family's silver spoons, and hiding them--until a convenient opportunity--in his wife's chest. This was discovered. He was again degraded to the rank of cow-herd, and a sentence of disgrace was p.r.o.nounced upon Agafya; she was not banished from the house, but she was reduced from the place of housekeeper to that of seamstress, and ordered to wear a kerchief on her head, instead of a cap. To the amazement of all, Agafya accepted the blow which had overtaken her with humble submission. She was then over thirty years of age, all her children had died, and her husband did not long survive. The time had arrived for her to come to a sense of her position; she did so. She became very taciturn and devout, never missed a single Matins service, nor a single Liturgy, and gave away all her fine clothes. Fifteen years she spent quietly, peacefully, with dignity, quarrelling with no one, yielding to every one.

If any one spoke rudely to her,--she merely bowed, and returned thanks for the lesson. Her mistress had forgiven her long since, had removed the ban from her, and had given her a cap from her own head; but she herself refused to remove her kerchief, and always went about in a dark-hued gown; and after the death of her mistress, she became still more quiet and humble. A Russian easily conceives fear and affection; but it is difficult to win his respect: it is not soon given, nor to every one.

Every one in the house respected Agafya; no one even recalled her former sins, as though they had been buried in the earth, along with the old master.

When Kalitin became the husband of Marya Dmitrievna, he wished to entrust the housekeeping to Agafya; but she declined, "because of the temptation"; he roared at her, she made him a lowly reverence, and left the room. The clever Kalitin understood people; and he also understood Agafya, and did not forget her. On removing his residence to the town, he appointed her, with her own consent, as nurse to Liza, who had just entered her fifth year.

At first, Liza was frightened by the serious and stern face of her new nurse; but she speedily became accustomed to her, and conceived a strong affection for her. She herself was a serious child; her features recalled the clear-cut, regular face of Kalitin; only, she had not her father's eyes; hers beamed with a tranquil attention and kindness which are rare in children. She did not like to play with dolls, her laughter was neither loud nor long, she bore herself with decorum. She was not often thoughtful, and was never so without cause; after remaining silent for a time, she almost always ended by turning to some one of her elders, with a question which showed that her brain was working over a new impression.

She very early ceased to lisp, and already in her fourth year she spoke with perfect distinctness. She was afraid of her father; her feeling toward her mother was undefined,--she did not fear her, neither did she fondle her; but she did not fondle Agafya either, although she loved only her alone. Agafya and she were never separated. It was strange to see them together. Agafya, all in black, with a dark kerchief on her head, with a face thin and transparent as wax, yet still beautiful and expressive, would sit upright, engaged in knitting a stocking; at her feet, in a little arm-chair, sat Liza, also toiling over some sort of work, or, with her bright eyes uplifted gravely, listening to what Agafya was relating to her, and Agafya did not tell her fairy-stories; in a measured, even voice, she would narrate the life of the Most-pure Virgin, the lives of the hermits, the saints of G.o.d, of the holy martyrs; she would tell Liza how the holy men lived in the deserts, how they worked out their salvation, endured hunger and want,--and, fearing not kings, confessed Christ; how the birds of heaven brought them food, and the wild beasts obeyed them; how on those spots where their blood fell, flowers sprang up.--"Yellow violets?"--one day asked Liza, who was very fond of flowers.... Agafya talked gravely and meekly to Liza, as though she felt that it was not for her to utter such lofty and sacred words.

Liza listened to her--and the image of the Omnipresent, Omniscient G.o.d penetrated into her soul with a certain sweet power, filled her with pure, devout awe, and Christ became for her a person close to her, almost a relative: and Agafya taught her to pray. Sometimes she woke Liza early, at daybreak, hastily dressed her, and surrept.i.tiously took her to Matins: Liza followed her on tiptoe, hardly breathing; the chill and semi-obscurity of the dawn, the freshness and emptiness of the streets, the very mysteriousness of these unexpected absences, the cautious return to the house, to bed,--all this mingling of the forbidden, the strange, the holy, agitated the little girl, penetrated into the very depths of her being. Agafya never condemned anybody, and did not scold Liza for her pranks. When she was displeased over anything, she simply held her peace; and Liza understood that silence; with the swift perspicacity of a child, she also understood very well when Agafya was displeased with other people--with Marya Dmitrievna herself, or with Kalitin. Agafya took care of Liza for a little more than three years; she was replaced by Mlle. Moreau; but the frivolous Frenchwoman, with her harsh manners and her exclamation: "_tout ca c'est des betises_,"--could not erase from Liza's heart her beloved nurse: the seeds which had been sown had struck down roots too deep. Moreover, Agafya, although she had ceased to have charge of Liza, remained in the house, and often saw her nursling, who confided in her as before.

But Agafya could not get along with Marfa Timofeevna, when the latter came to live in the Kalitin house. The stern dignity of the former "peasant woman" did not please the impatient and self-willed old woman.

Agafya begged permission to go on a pilgrimage, and did not return. Dark rumours circulated, to the effect that she had withdrawn to a convent of Old Ritualists. But the traces left by her in Liza's soul were not effaced. As before, the latter went to the Liturgy as to a festival, prayed with delight, with a certain repressed and bashful enthusiasm, which secretly amazed Marya Dmitrievna not a little, although she put no constraint upon Liza, but merely endeavoured to moderate her zeal, and did not permit her to make an excessive number of prostrations: that was not lady-like manners, she said. Liza studied well,--that is to say, a.s.siduously; G.o.d had not endowed her with particularly brilliant capacities, with a great mind; she acquired nothing without labour. She played well on the piano; but Lemm alone knew what it cost her. She read little; she had no "words of her own," but she had thoughts of her own, and she went her own way. It was not for nothing that she resembled her father: he, also, had not been wont to ask others what he should do. Thus she grew up--quietly, at leisure; thus she attained her nineteenth year.

She was very pretty, without herself being aware of the fact. An unconscious, rather awkward grace revealed itself in her every movement; her voice rang with the silvery sound of unaffected youth, the slightest sensation of pleasure evoked a winning smile on her lips, imparted a deep gleam and a certain mysterious caress to her sparkling eyes. Thoroughly imbued with the sense of duty, with the fear of wounding any one whatsoever, with a kind and gentle heart, she loved every one in general, and no one in particular; G.o.d alone she loved with rapture, timidly, tenderly. Lavretzky was the first to break in upon her tranquil inner life.

Such was Liza.

x.x.xVI

At twelve o'clock on the following day, Lavretzky set out for the Kalitins'. On the way thither, he met Panshin, who galloped past him on horseback, with his hat pulled down to his very eyebrows. At the Kalitins', Lavretzky was not admitted,--for the first time since he had known them. Marya Dmitrievna was "lying down,"--so the lackey announced; "they" had a headache. Neither Marfa Timofeevna nor Lizaveta Mikhailovna was at home. Lavretzky strolled along the garden, in anxious hope of meeting Liza, but saw no one. He returned a couple of hours later, and received the same answer, in connection with which the lackey bestowed a sidelong glance upon him. It seemed to Lavretzky impolite to intrude himself upon them for a third time that day--and he decided to drive out to Vasilievskoe, where, without reference to this, he had business to attend to. On the way he constructed various plans, each more beautiful than the other; but in his aunt's hamlet, sadness fell upon him; he entered into conversation with Anton; the old man, as though expressly, had nothing but cheerless thoughts in his mind. He narrated to Lavretzky, how Glafira Petrovna, before her death, had bitten her own hand,--and, after a short pause, he added: "Every man, master--dear little father, is given to devouring himself." It was already late when Lavretzky set out on the return journey. The sounds of the preceding day took possession of him, the image of Liza arose in his soul in all its gentle transparency; he melted at the thought that she loved him,--and drove up to his little town-house in a composed and happy frame of mind.

The first thing which struck him on entering the anteroom was the scent of patchouli, which was very repulsive to him; several tall trunks and coffers were standing there. The face of the valet who ran forth to receive him seemed to him strange. Without accounting to himself for his impressions, he crossed the threshold of the drawing-room.... From the couch there rose to greet him a lady in a black gown with flounces, and raising a batiste handkerchief to her pale face, she advanced several paces, bent her carefully-dressed head,--and fell at his feet.... Then only did he recognise her: the lady was--his wife.