Liza; Or, "A Nest of Nobles" Part 14

"--And it ought to give way. Because you looked for support there, where it is impossible to find it; because you built your house on the quicksands--"

"Speak plainer, without metaphor, _because_ I do not understand you."

"--Because--laugh away if you like--because there is no faith in you, no hearty warmth--and only a poor farthingsworth of intellect;[A]

you are simply a pitiable creature, a behind--your--age disciple of Voltaire. That's what you are."

[Footnote A: Literally, "intellect, in all merely a copeck intellect."]

"Who? I a disciple of Voltaire?"

"Yes, just such a one as your father was; and you have never so much as suspected it."

"After that," exclaimed Lavretsky, "I have a right to say that you are a fanatic."

"Alas!" sorrowfully replied Mikhalevich, "unfortunately, I have not yet in any way deserved so grand a name--"

"I have found out now what to call you!" cried the self-same Mikhalevich at three o'clock in the morning.

"You are not a sceptic, nor are you a _blase_, nor a disciple of Voltaire; you are a marmot,[A] and a culpable marmot; a marmot with a conscience, not a nave marmot. Nave marmots lie on the stove[B]

and do nothing, because they can do nothing. They do not even think anything. But you are a thinking man, and yet you lie idly there. You could do something, and you do nothing. You lie on the top with full paunch and say, 'To lie idle--so must it be; because all that people ever do--is all vanity, mere nonsense that conduces to nothing.'"

[Footnote A: A _baibak_, a sort of marmot or "prairie dog."]

[Footnote B: The top of the stove forms the sleeping place in a Russian peasant's hut.]

"But what has shown you that I lie idle?" insisted Lavretsky. "Why do you suppose I have such ideas?"

"--And, besides this, all you people, all your brotherhood," continued Mikhalevich without stopping, "are deeply read marmots. You all know where the German's shoe pinches him; you all know what faults Englishmen and Frenchmen have; and your miserable knowledge only serves to help you to justify your shameful laziness, your abominable idleness. There are some who even pride themselves on this, that 'I, forsooth, am a learned man. I lie idle, and they are fools to give themselves trouble.' Yes! even such persons as these do exist among us; not that I say this with reference to you; such persons as will spend all their life in a certain languor of ennui, and get accustomed to it, and exist in it like--like a mushroom in sour cream"

(Mikhalevich could not help laughing at his own comparison). "Oh, that languor of ennui! it is the ruin of the Russian people. Throughout all time the wretched marmot is making up its mind to work--"

"But, after all, what are you scolding about?" cried Lavretsky in his turn. "To work, to do. You had better say what one should do, instead of scolding, O Demosthenes of Poltava."[A]

[Footnote A: Poltava is a town of Little Russia. It will be remembered that Mikhalovich is a Little Russian.]

"Ah, yes, that's what you want! No, brother, I will not tell you that.

Every one must teach himself that," replied Demosthenes in an ironical tone. "A proprietor, a n.o.ble, and not know what to do! You have no faith, or you would have known. No faith and no divination."[A]

[Footnote A: _Otkrovenie_, discovery or revelation.]

"At all events, let me draw breath for a moment, you fiend," prayed Lavretsky. "Let me take a look round me!"

"Not a minute's breathing-time, not a second's," replied Mikhalevich, with a commanding gesture of the hand. "Not a single second. Death does not tarry, and life also ought not to tarry."

"And when and where have people taken it into their heads to make marmots of themselves?" he cried at four in the morning, in a voice that was now somewhat hoa.r.s.e, "Why, here! Why, now! In Russia! When on every separate individual there lies a duty, a great responsibility, before G.o.d, before the nation, before himself! We sleep, but time goes by. We sleep--"

"Allow me to point, out to you," observed Lavretsky, "that we do not at all sleep at present, but rather prevent other persons from sleeping. We stretch our throats like barn-door c.o.c.ks. Listen, that one is crowing for the third time."

This sally made Mikhalevich laugh, and sobered him down. "Good night,"

he said with a smile, and put away his pipe in its bag. "Good night,"

said Lavretsky also. However, the friends still went on talking for more than an hour. But their voices did not rise high any longer, and their talk was quiet, sad, kindly talk.

Mikhalevich went away next day, in spite of all his host could do to detain him. Lavretsky did not succeed in persuading him to stay, but he got as much talk as he wanted out of him.

It turned out that Mikhalevich was utterly impecunious. Lavretsky had already been sorry to see in him, on the preceding evening, all the characteristics of a poverty of long standing. His shoes were trodden down, his coat wanted a b.u.t.ton behind, his hands were strangers to gloves, one or two bits of feather were sticking in his hair. When he arrived, he did not think of asking for a wash; and at supper he ate like a shark, tearing the meat to pieces with his fingers, and noisily gnawing the bones with his firm, discolored teeth.

It turned out, also, that he had not thriven in the civil service, and that he had pinned all his hopes on the brandy-farmer, who had given him employment simply that he might have an "educated man" in his counting-house. In spite of all this, however, Mikhalevich had not lost courage, but kept on his way leading the life of a cynic, an idealist, and a poet; fervently caring for, and troubling himself about, the destinies of humanity and his special vocation in life--and giving very little heed to the question whether or no he would die of starvation.

Mikhalevich had never married; but he had fallen in love countless times, and he always wrote poetry about all his loves: with especial fervor did he sing about a mysterious, raven-haired "lady." It was rumored, indeed, that this "lady" was nothing more than a Jewess, and one who had numerous friends among cavalry officers; but, after all, if one thinks the matter over, it is not one of much importance.

With Lemm, Mikhalevich did not get on well. His extremely loud way of talking, his rough manners, frightened the German, to whom they were entirely novel. One unfortunate man immediately and from afar recognizes another, but in old age he is seldom willing to a.s.sociate with him. Nor is that to be wondered at. He has nothing to share with him--not even hopes.

Before he left, Mikhalevich had another long talk with Lavretsky, to whom he predicted utter ruin if he did not rouse himself, and whom he entreated to occupy himself seriously with the question of the position of his serfs. He set himself up as a pattern for imitation, saying that he had been purified in the furnace of misfortune; and then he several times styled himself a happy man, comparing himself to a bird of the air, a lily of the valley.

"A dusky lily, at all events," remarked Lavretsky.

"Ah, brother, don't come the aristocrat," answered Mikhalevich good-humoredly; "but rather thank G.o.d that in your veins also there flows simple plebeian blood. But I see you are now in need of some pure, unearthly being, who might rouse you from your apathy."

"Thanks, brother," said Lavretsky; "I have had quite enough of those unearthly beings."

"Silence, cyneec!"[A] exclaimed Mikhalevich.

[Footnote A: He says _Tsuinnik_ instead of _Tsinik_.]

"Cynic," said Lavretsky, correcting him.

"Just so, cyneec," repeated the undisconcerted Mikhalevich.

Even when he had taken his seat in the taranta.s.s, in which his flat and marvellously light portmanteau had been stowed away, he still went on talking. Enveloped in a kind of Spanish cloak, with a collar reddened by long use, and with lion's claws instead of hooks, he continued to pour forth his opinions on the destinies of Russia, waving his swarthy hand the while in the air, as if he were sowing the seeds of future prosperity. At last the horses set off.

"Remember my last three words!" he exclaimed, leaning almost entirely out of the carriage, and scarcely able to keep his balance. "Religion, Progress, Humanity! Farewell!" His head, on which his forage cap was pressed down to his eyes, disappeared from sight. Lavretsky was left alone at the door, where he remained gazing attentively along the road, until the carriage was out of sight. "And perhaps he is right,"

he thought, as he went back into the house. "Perhaps I am a marmot."

Much of what Mikhalevich had said had succeeded in winning its way into his heart, although at the time he had contradicted him and disagreed with him. Let a man only be perfectly honest--no one can utterly gainsay him.

XXV.

Two days later, Maria Dmitrievna arrived at Vasilievskoe, according to her promise, and all her young people with her. The little girls immediately ran into the garden, but Maria Dmitrievna languidly walked through the house, and languidly praised all she saw. She looked upon her visit to Lavretsky as a mark of great condescension, almost a benevolent action. She smiled affably when Anton and Apraxia came to kiss her hand, according to the old custom of household serfs, and in feeble accents she asked for tea.

To the great vexation of Anton, who had donned a pair of knitted white gloves, it was not he who handed the tea to the lady visitor, but Lavretsky's hired lackey, a fellow who, in the old man's opinion, had not a notion of etiquette. However, Anton had it all his own way at dinner. With firm step, he took up his position behind Madame Kalitine's chair, and he refused to give up his post to any one. The apparition of visitors at Vasilievskoe--a sight for so many years unknown there--both troubled and cheered the old man. It was a pleasure for him to see that his master was acquainted with persons of some standing in society.

Anton was not the only person who was agitated that day. Lemm was excited too. He had put on a shortish snuff-colored coat with pointed tails, and had tied his cravat tight, he coughed incessantly, and made way for every one with kindly and affable mien. As for Lavretsky, he remarked with satisfaction that he remained on the same friendly footing with Liza as before. As soon as she arrived she cordially held out her hand to him.

After dinner, Lemm took a small roll of music-paper out of the tail-pocket of his coat, into which he had been constantly putting his hand, and silently, with compressed lips, placed it upon the piano.

It contained a romance, which he had written the day before to some old-fashioned German words, in which mention was made of the stars.

Liza immediately sat down to the piano, and interpreted the romance.