A Nobleman's Nest Part 2

The sea of my soul hath acknowledged thee To be its moon, And 't is moved,--in joy and in sorrow,-- By thee alone.

With the anguish of love, the anguish of dumb aspirations, The soul is full; I suffer pain.... But thou from agitation art as free As that moon.

Panshin sang the second couplet with peculiar expression and force; the surging of the waves could be heard in the tempestuous accompaniment.

After the words: "I suffer pain...." he heaved a slight sigh, dropped his eyes, and lowered his voice,--_morendo_. When he had finished, Liza praised the motive, Marya Dmitrievna said: "It is charming;"--while Gedeonovsky even shouted: "Ravishing! both poetry and harmony are equally ravishing!..." Lyenotchka, with childish adoration, gazed at the singer. In a word, the composition of the youthful dilettante pleased all present extremely; but outside of the door of the drawing-room, in the anteroom, stood an elderly man, who had just arrived, to whom, judging by the expression of his downcast face and the movement of his shoulders, Panshin's romance, charming as it was, afforded no pleasure. After waiting a while, and whisking the dust from his boots with a coa.r.s.e handkerchief, this man suddenly screwed up his eyes, pressed his lips together grimly, bent his back, which was already sufficiently bowed without that, and slowly entered the drawing-room.

"Ah! Christofor Feodoritch, good afternoon!"--Panshin was the first of all to exclaim, and sprang hastily from his seat.--"I had no suspicion that you were here,--I could not, on any account, have made up my mind to sing my romance in your presence. I know that you do not care for frivolous music."

"I vas not listening," remarked the newcomer, in imperfect Russian, and having saluted all, he remained awkwardly standing in the middle of the room.

"Have you come, Monsieur Lemm,"--said Marya Dmitrievna,--"to give a music lesson to Liza?"

"No, not to Lisafeta Mikhailovna, but to Elena Mikhailovna."

"Ah! Well,--very good. Lyenotchka, go upstairs with Monsieur Lemm."

The old man was on the point of following the little girl, but Panshin stopped him.

"Do not go away after the lesson, Christofor Feodoritch,"--he said:--"Lizaveta Mikhailovna and I will play a Beethoven sonata for four hands."

The old man muttered something, but Panshin went on in German, p.r.o.nouncing his words badly:

"Lizaveta Mikhailovna has shown me the spiritual cantata which you presented to her--'tis a very fine thing! Please do not think that I am incapable of appreciating serious music,--quite the contrary: it is sometimes tiresome, but, on the other hand, it is very beneficial."

The old man crimsoned to his very ears, cast a sidelong glance at Liza, and hastily left the room.

Marya Dmitrievna requested Panshin to repeat the romance; but he declared, that he did not wish to wound the ears of the learned German, and proposed to Liza that they should occupy themselves with the Beethoven sonata. Then Marya Dmitrievna sighed, and in her turn, proposed to Gedeonovsky that he should take a stroll in the garden with her.--"I wish,"--she said, "to talk and take counsel with you still further, over our poor Fedya." Gedeonovsky grinned, bowed, took up--with two fingers, his hat, and his gloves neatly laid on its brim, and withdrew, in company with Marya Dmitrievna. Panshin and Liza were left alone in the room; she fetched the sonata, and opened it; both seated themselves, in silence, at the piano.--From above, the faint sounds of scales, played by Lyenotchka's uncertain little fingers, were wafted to them.

V

Christopher-Theodore-Gottlieb Lemm was born in the year 1786, in the kingdom of Saxony, in the town of Chemnitz, of poor musicians. His father played the French horn, his mother the harp; he himself, at the age of five, was already practising on three different instruments. At eight years of age he became an orphan, and at the age of ten he began to earn a bit of bread for himself by his art. For a long time he led a wandering life, played everywhere--in inns, at fairs, and at peasant weddings and at b.a.l.l.s; at last, he got into an orchestra, and rising ever higher and higher, he attained to the post of director. He was rather a poor executant; but he possessed a thorough knowledge of music. At the age of twenty-eight he removed to Russia. He was imported by a great gentleman, who himself could not endure music, but maintained an orchestra as a matter of pride. Lemm lived seven years with him, in the capacity of musical conductor, and left him with empty hands; the gentleman was ruined, and wished to give him a note of hand, but afterward refused him even this,--in a word, did not pay him a farthing. People advised him to leave the country: but he was not willing to return home in poverty from Russia, from great Russia, that gold-mine of artists; he decided to remain, and try his luck. For the s.p.a.ce of twenty years he did try his luck: he sojourned with various gentry, he lived in Moscow and in the capitals of various governments, he suffered and endured a great deal, he learned to know want, he floundered like a fish on the ice; but the idea of returning to his native land never abandoned him in the midst of all these calamities to which he was subjected; it alone upheld him. But it did not suit Fate to render him happy with this last and first joy: at the age of fifty, ill, prematurely infirm, he got stranded in the town of O * * * and there remained for good, having finally lost all hope of quitting the Russia which he detested, and managing, after a fashion, to support his scanty existence by giving lessons. Lemm's external appearance did not predispose one in his favour. He was small of stature, round-shouldered, with shoulder-blades which projected crookedly, and a hollow chest, with huge, flat feet, with pale-blue nails on the stiff, unbending fingers of his sinewy, red hands; he had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, and tightly-compressed lips, that he was incessantly moving as though chewing, which, added to his customary taciturnity, produced an almost malevolent impression; his grey hair hung in elf-locks over his low brow; his tiny, motionless eyes smouldered like coals which had just been extinguished; he walked heavily, swaying his clumsy body from side to side at every step. Some of his movements were suggestive of the awkward manner in which an owl in a cage plumes itself when it is conscious that it is being watched, though it itself hardly sees anything with its huge, yellow, timorously and dozily blinking eyes. Confirmed, inexorable grief had laid upon the poor musician its ineffaceable seal, had distorted and disfigured his already ill-favoured figure; but for any one who knew enough not to stop at first impressions, something unusual was visible in this half-wrecked being. A worshipper of Bach and Handel, an expert in his profession, gifted with a lively imagination, and with that audacity of thought which is accessible only to the German race, Lemm, in course of time--who knows?--might have entered the ranks of the great composers of his native land, if life had led him differently; but he had not been born under a fortunate star! He had written a great deal in his day--and he had not succeeded in seeing a single one of his compositions published; he had not understood how to set about the matter in the proper way, to cringe opportunely, to bustle at the right moment.

Once, long, long ago, one of his admirers and friends, also a German and also poor, had published two of his sonatas at his own expense,--and the whole edition remained in the cellars of the musical shops; they had vanished dully, without leaving a trace, as though some one had flung them into the river by night. At last Lemm gave up in despair; moreover, his years were making themselves felt: he had begun to grow rigid, to stiffen, as his fingers stiffened also. Alone, with an aged cook, whom he had taken from the almshouse (he had never been married), he lived on in O * * *, in a tiny house, not far from the Kalitin residence; he walked a great deal, read the Bible and collections of Protestant psalms, and Shakespeare in Schlegel's translation. It was long since he had composed anything; but, evidently, Liza, his best pupil, understood how to arouse him: he had written for her the cantata to which Panshin had alluded. He had taken the words for this cantata from the psalms; several verses he had composed himself; it was to be sung by two choruses,--the chorus of the happy, and the chorus of the unhappy; both became reconciled, in the end, and sang together: "O merciful G.o.d, have mercy upon us sinners, and purge out of us by fire all evil thoughts and earthly hopes!"--On the t.i.tle-page, very carefully written, and even drawn, stood the following: "Only the Just are Right. A Spiritual Cantata. Composed and dedicated to Miss Elizaveta Kalitin, my beloved pupil, by her teacher, C. T. G. Lemm." The words: "Only the Just are Right," and "Elizaveta Kalitin," were surrounded by rays. Below was added: "For you alone,"--"Fur Sie allein."--Therefore Lemm had crimsoned and had cast a sidelong glance at Liza; it pained him greatly when Panshin spoke of his cantata in his presence.

VI

Panshin struck the opening chords of the sonata loudly, and with decision (he was playing the second hand), but Liza did not begin her part. He stopped, and looked at her. Liza's eyes, fixed straight upon him, expressed displeasure; her lips were not smiling, her whole face was stern, almost sad.

"What is the matter with you?"--he inquired.

"Why did not you keep your word?" said she.--"I showed you Christofor Feodoritch's cantata on condition that you would not mention it to him."

"Pardon me, Lizaveta Mikhailovna, it was a slip of the tongue."

"You have wounded him--and me also. Now he will not trust me any more."

"What would you have me do, Lizaveta Mikhailovna! From my earliest childhood, I have never been able to endure the sight of a German: something simply impels me to stir him up."

"Why do you say that, Vladimir Nikolaitch! This German is a poor, solitary, broken man--and you feel no pity for him? You want to stir him up?"

Panshin was disconcerted.

"You are right, Lizaveta Mikhailovna,"--he said. "My eternal thoughtlessness is responsible for the whole thing. No, do not say a word; I know myself well. My thoughtlessness has done me many an ill turn. Thanks to it, I have won the reputation of an egoist."

Panshin paused for a moment. No matter how he began a conversation, he habitually wound up by speaking of himself, and he did it in a charming, soft, confidential, almost involuntary way.

"And here in your house,"--he went on:--"your mother likes me, of course,--she is so kind; you ... however, I do not know your opinion of me; but your aunt, on the contrary, cannot bear me. I must have offended her, also, by some thoughtless, stupid remark. For she does not like me, does she?"

"No," said Liza, with some hesitation:--"you do not please her."

Panshin swept his fingers swiftly over the keys; a barely perceptible smile flitted across his lips.

"Well, and you?"--he said:--"Do I seem an egoist to you also?"

"I know you very slightly,"--returned Liza:--"but I do not consider you an egoist; on the contrary, I ought to feel grateful to you...."

"I know, I know, what you mean to say,"--Panshin interrupted her, and again ran his fingers over the keys:--"for the music, for the books which I bring you, for the bad drawings with which I decorate your alb.u.m, and so forth and so on. I can do all that--and still be an egoist. I venture to think, that you are not bored in my company, and that you do not regard me as a bad man, but still you a.s.sume, that I--how in the world shall I express it?--would not spare my own father or friend for the sake of a jest."

"You are heedless and forgetful, like all worldly people,"--said Liza:--"that is all."

Panshin frowned slightly.

"Listen," he said:--"let us not talk any more about me; let us play our sonata. One thing only I will ask of you,"--he said, as with his hand he smoothed out the leaves of the bound volume which stood on the music-rack:--"think what you will of me, call me an egoist even,--so be it! but do not call me a worldly man: that appellation is intolerable to me.... _Anch'io son pittore._ I also am an artist,--and I will immediately prove it to you in action. Let us begin."

"We will begin, if you please,"--said Liza.

The first adagio went quite successfully, although Panshin made more than one mistake. He played his own compositions and those which he had practised very prettily, but he read music badly. On the other hand, the second part of the sonata--a rather brisk allegro--did not go at all: at the twentieth measure, Panshin, who had got two measures behind, could hold out no longer, and pushed back his chair with a laugh.

"No!"--he exclaimed:--"I cannot play to-day; it is well that Lemm does not hear us: he would fall down in a swoon."

Liza rose, shut the piano, and turned to Panshin.

"What shall we do now?"--she asked.

"I recognise you in that question! You cannot possibly sit with folded hands. Come, if you like, let us draw, before it has grown completely dark. Perhaps the other muse,--the muse of drawing ... what's her name?

I've forgotten ... will be more gracious to me. Where is your alb.u.m? Do you remember?--my landscape there is not finished."

Liza went into the next room for her alb.u.m, and Panshin, when he was left alone, pulled a batiste handkerchief from his pocket, polished his nails, and gazed somewhat askance at his hands. They were very handsome and white; on the thumb of the left hand he wore a spiral gold ring. Liza returned; Panshin seated himself near the window, and opened the alb.u.m.

"Aha!"--he exclaimed:--"I see that you have begun to copy my landscape--and that is fine. Very good! Only here--give me a pencil--the shadows are not put on thickly enough.... Look."

And Panshin, with a bold sweep, prolonged several long strokes. He constantly drew one and the same landscape: in the foreground were large, dishevelled trees, in the distance, a meadow, and saw-toothed mountains on the horizon. Liza looked over his shoulder at his work.