Liza; Or, "A Nest of Nobles" Part 6

Fedor Ivanovich Lavretsky (we must ask our reader's permission to break off the thread of the story for a time) sprang from a n.o.ble family of long descent. The founder of the race migrated from Prussia during the reign of Basil the Blind,[A] and was favored with a grant of two hundred _chetverts_[B] of land in the district of Biejetsk.

Many of his descendants filled various official positions, and were appointed to governorships in distant places, under princes and influential personages, but none of them obtained any great amount of property, or arrived at a higher dignity, than that of inspector of the Czar's table.

[Footnote A: In the fifteenth century.]

[Footnote B: An old measure of land, variously estimated at from two to six acres.]

The richest and most influential of all the Lavretskys was Fedor Ivanovich's paternal great-grandfather Andrei, a man who was harsh, insolent, shrewd, and crafty. Even up to the present day men have never ceased to talk about his despotic manners, his furious temper, his senseless prodigality, and his insatiable avarice. He was very tall and stout, his complexion was swarthy, and he wore no beard. He lisped, and he generally seemed half asleep. But the more quietly he spoke, the more did all around him tremble. He had found a wife not unlike himself. She had a round face, a yellow complexion, prominent eyes, and the nose of a hawk. A gypsy by descent, pa.s.sionate and vindictive in temper, she refused to yield in any thing to her husband, who all but brought her to her grave, and whom, although she had been eternally squabbling with him, she could net bear long to survive.

Andrei's son, Peter, our Fedor's grandfather, did not take after his father. He was a simple country gentleman; rather odd, noisy in voice and slow in action, rough but not malicious, hospitable, and devoted to coursing. He was more than thirty years old when he inherited from his father two thousand souls,[A] all in excellent condition; but he soon began to squander his property, a part of which he disposed of by sale, and he spoilt his household. His large, warm, and dirty rooms were full of people of small degree, known and unknown, who swarmed in from all sides like c.o.c.kroaches. All these visitors gorged themselves with whatever came in their way, drank their fill to intoxication, and carried off what they could, extolling and glorifying their affable host. As for their host, when he was out of humor with them, he called them scamps and parasites; but when deprived of their company, he soon found himself bored.

[Footnote A: Male serfs.]

The wife of Peter Andreich was a quiet creature whom he had taken from a neighboring family in acquiescence with his father's choice and command. Her name was Anna Pavlovna. She never interfered in any thing, received her guests cordially, and went out into society herself with pleasure--although "it was death" to her, to use her own phrase, to have to powder herself. "They put a felt cap on your head,"

she used to say in her old age; "they combed all your hair straight up on end, they smeared it with grease, they strewed it with flour, they stuck it full of iron pins; you couldn't wash it away afterwards. But to pay a visit without powdering was impossible. People would have taken offence. What a torment it was!" She liked to drive fast, and was ready to play at cards from morning until evening. When her husband approached the card-table, she was always in the habit of covering with her hand the trumpery losses scored up against her; but she had made over to him, without reserve, all her dowry, all the money she had. She brought him two children--a son named Ivan, our Fedor's father, and a daughter, Glafira.[A]

[Footnote A: The accent should be on the second syllable of this name.]

Ivan was not brought up at home, but in the house of an old and wealthy maiden aunt, Princess Kubensky. She styled him her heir (if it had not been for that, his father would not have let him go), dressed him like a doll, gave him teachers of every kind, and placed him under the care of a French tutor--an ex-abbe, a pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau--a certain M. Courtin de Vaucelles an adroit and subtle intriguer--"the very _fine fleur_ of the emigration," as she expressed herself; and she ended by marrying this _fine fleur_ when she was almost seventy years old. She transferred all her property to his name, and soon afterwards, rouged, perfumed with amber _a la Richelieu_, surrounded by negro boys, Italian grey-hounds, and noisy parrots, she died, stretched on a crooked silken couch of the style of Louis the Fifteenth, with an enamelled snuff-box of Pet.i.tot's work in her hands--and died deserted by her husband. The insinuating M.

Courtin had preferred to take himself and her money off to Paris.

Ivan was in his twentieth year when this unexpected blow struck him.

We speak of the Princess's marriage, not her death. In his aunt's house, in which he had suddenly pa.s.sed from the position of a wealthy heir to that of a hanger-on, he would not slay any longer. In Petersburg, the society in which he had grown up closed its doors upon him. For the lower ranks of the public service, and the laborious and obscure life they involved, he felt a strong repugnance. All this, it must be remembered, took place in the earliest part of the reign of the Emperor Alexander I[A]. He was obliged, greatly against his will, to return to his father's country house. Dirty, poor, and miserable did the paternal nest seem to him. The solitude and the dullness of a retired country life offended him at every step. He was devoured by ennui; besides, every one in the house, except his mother, regarded him with unloving eyes. His father disliked his metropolitan habits, his dress-coats and shirt-frills, his books, his flute, his cleanliness--from which he justly argued that his son regarded him with a feeling of aversion. He was always grumbling at his son, and complaining of his conduct.

[Footnote A: When corruption was the rule in the public service.]

"Nothing we have here pleases him," he used to say. "He is so fastidious at table, he eats nothing. He cannot bear the air and the smell of the room. The sight of drunken people upsets him; and as to beating anyone before him, you musn't dare to do it. Then he won't enter the service; his health is delicate, forsooth! Bah! What an effeminate creature!--and all because his head is full of Voltaire!"

The old man particularly disliked Voltaire, and also the "infidel"

Diderot, although he had never read a word of their works. Reading was not in his line.

Peter Andreich was not mistaken. Both Diderot and Voltaire really were in his son's head; and not they alone. Rousseau and Raynal and Helvetius also, and many other similar writers, were in his head; but in his head only. Ivan Petrovich's former tutor, the retired Abbe and encyclopaedist, had satisfied himself with pouring all the collective wisdom of the eighteenth century over his pupil; and so the pupil existed, saturated with it. It held its own in him without mixing with his blood, without sinking into his mind, without resolving into fixed convictions. And would it be reasonable to ask for convictions from a youngster half a century ago, when we have not even yet acquired any?

Ivan Petrovich disconcerted the visitors also in his father's house.

He was too proud to have anything to do with them; they feared him.

With his sister Glafira, too, who was twelve years his senior, he did not at all agree. This Glafira was a strange being. Plain, deformed, meagre--with staring and severe eyes, and with thin, compressed lips--she, in her face and her voice, and in her angular and quick movements, resembled her grandmother, the gipsy Andrei's wife.

Obstinate, and fond of power, she would not even hear of marriage.

Ivan Petrovich's return home was by no means to her taste. So long as the Princess Kubensky kept him with her, Glafira had hoped to obtain at least half of her father's property; and in her avarice, as well as in other points, she resembled her grandmother. Besides this, Glafira was jealous of her brother. He had been educated so well; he spoke French so correctly, with a Parisian accent; and she scarcely knew how to say "_Bonjour_" and "_Comment vous portez vous_?" It is true that her parents were entirely ignorant of French, but that did not make things any better for her.

As to Ivan Petrovich, he did not know what to do with himself for vexation and ennui; he had not spent quite a year in the country, but even this time seemed to him like ten years. It was only with his mother that he was at ease in spirit; and for whole hours he used to sit in her low suite of rooms listening to the good lady's simple, unconnected talk, and stuffing himself with preserves. It happened that among Anna Pavlovna's maids there was a very pretty girl named Malania. Intelligent and modest, with calm, sweet eyes, and finely-cut features, she pleased Ivan Petrovich from the very first, and he soon fell in love with her. He loved her timid gait, her modest replies, her gentle voice, her quiet smile. Every day she seemed to him more attractive than before. And she attached herself to Ivan Petrovich with the whole strength of her soul--as only Russian girls know how to devote themselves--and gave herself to him. In a country house no secret can be preserved long; in a short time almost every one knew of the young master's fondness for Malania. At last the news reached Peter Andreich himself. At another time it is probable that he would have paid very little attention to so unimportant an affair; but he had long nursed a grudge against his son, and he was delighted to have an opportunity of disgracing the philosophical exquisite from St.

Petersburg. There ensued a storm, attended by noise and outcry.

Malania was locked up in the store-room.[A] Ivan Petrovich was summoned into his father's presence. Anna Pavlovna also came running to the scene of confusion, and tried to appease her husband; but he would not listen to a word she said. Like a hawk, he pounced upon his son charging him with immorality, atheism, and hypocrisy. He eagerly availed himself of so good an opportunity of discharging on him all his long-gathered spite against the Princess Kubensky, and overwhelmed him with insulting expressions.

[Footnote A: A sort of closet under the stairs.]

At first Ivan Petrovich kept silence, and maintained his hold over himself; but when his father thought fit to threaten him with a disgraceful punishment, he could bear it no longer. "Ah!" he thought, "the infidel Diderot is going to be brought forward again. Well, then, I will put his teaching in action." And so with a quiet and even voice, although with a secret shuddering in all his limbs, he told his father that it was a mistake to accuse him of immorality; that he had no intention of justifying his fault, but that he was ready to make amends for it, and that all the more willingly, inasmuch as he felt himself superior to all prejudices; and, in fact--that he was ready to marry Malania. In uttering these words Ivan Petrovich undoubtedly attained the end he had in view. Peter Andreich was so confounded that he opened his eyes wide, and for a moment was struck dumb; but he immediately recovered his senses, and then and there, just as he was, wrapped in a dressing-gown trimmed with squirrels' fur, and with slippers on his bare feet, he rushed with clenched fists at his son, who, as if on purpose, had dressed his hair that day _a la t.i.tus_, and had put on a blue dress-coat, quite new and made in the English fashion, ta.s.selled boots, and dandified, tight-fitting buckskin pantaloons. Anna Pavlovna uttered a loud shriek, and hid her face in her hands; meanwhile her son ran right through the house, jumped into the court-yard, threw himself first into the kitchen garden and then into the flower garden, flew across the park into the road, and ran and ran, without once looking back, until at last he ceased to hear behind him the sound of his father's heavy feet, the loud and broken cries with which his father sobbed out, "Stop, villain! Stop, or I will curse you!"

Ivan Petrovich took refuge in the house of a neighbor,[A] and his father returned home utterly exhausted, and bathed in perspiration.

There he announced, almost before he had given himself time to recover breath, that he withdrew his blessing and his property from his son, whose stupid books he condemned to be burnt; and he gave orders to have the girl Malania sent, with out delay, to a distant village.

Some good people found out where Ivan Petrovich was, and told him everything. Full of shame and rage, he swore vengeance upon his father; and that very night, having lain in wait for the peasant's cart on which Malania was being sent away, he carried her off by force, galloped with her to the nearest town, and there married her. He was supplied with the necessary means by a neighbor, a hard-drinking, retired sailor, who was exceedingly good-natured, and a very great lover of all "n.o.ble histories," as he called them.

[Footnote A: Literally, "of a neighboring _Odnodvorets_." That word signifies one who belongs by descent to the cla.s.s of n.o.bles and proprietors, but who has no serfs belonging to him, and is really a moujik, or peasant. Some villages are composed of inhabitants of this cla.s.s, who are often intelligent, though uneducated.]

The next day Ivan Petrovich sent his father a letter, which was frigidly and ironically polite, and then betook himself to the estate of two of his second cousins,--Dmitry Pestof, and his sister Marfa Timofeevna, with the latter of whom the reader is already acquainted.

He told them everything that had happened, announced his intention of going to St. Petersburg to seek an appointment, and begged them to give shelter to his wife, even if only for a time. At the word "wife"

he sobbed bitterly; and, in spite of his metropolitan education, and his philosophy, he humbly, like a thorough Russian peasant, knelt down at the feet of his relations, and even touched the floor with his forehead.

The Pestofs, who were kind and compa.s.sionate people, willingly consented to his request. With them he spent three weeks, secretly expecting an answer from his father. But no answer came; no answer could come. Peter Andreich, when he received the news of the marriage, took to his bed, and gave orders that his son's name should never again be mentioned to him; but Ivan's mother, without her husband's knowledge, borrowed five hundred paper roubles from a neighboring priest,[A] and sent them to her son, with a little sacred picture for his wife. She was afraid of writing, but she told her messenger, a spare little peasant who could walk sixty versts in a day, to say to Ivan that he was not to fret too much; that please G.o.d, all would yet go right, and his father's wrath would turn to kindness--that she, too, would have preferred a different daughter-in-law; but that evidently G.o.d had willed it as it was, and that she sent her paternal benediction to Malania Sergievna. The spare little peasant had a rouble given him, asked leave to see the new mistress, whose gossip[B]

he was, kissed her hand, and returned home.

[Footnote A: Literally, "from the _Blagochinny_" an ecclesiastic who exercises supervision over a number of churches or parishes, a sort of Rural Dean.]

[Footnote A: The word is used in its old meaning of fellow-sponsor.]

So Ivan Petrovich betook himself to St. Petersburg with a light heart.

An unknown future lay before him. Poverty might menace him; but he had broken with the hateful life in the country, and, above all, he had not fallen short of his instructors; he had really "put into action,"

and indeed done justice to, the doctrines of Rousseau, Diderot, and the "Declaration of the Rights of Man." The conviction of having accomplished a duty, a sense of pride and of triumph, filled his soul; and the fact of having to separate from his wife did not greatly alarm him; he would far sooner have been troubled by the necessity of having constantly to live with her. He had now to think of other affairs. One task was finished.

In St. Petersburg, contrary to his own expectations, he was successful. The Princess Kubensky--whom M. Courtin had already flung aside, but who had not yet contrived to die--in order that she might at least to some extent, make amends for her conduct towards her nephew, recommended him to all her friends, and gave him five thousand roubles--almost all the money she had left--and a watch, with his crest wrought on its back surrounded by a wreath of Cupids.

Three months had not gone by before he received an appointment on the staff of the Russian emba.s.sy in London, whither he set sail (steamers were not even talked about then) in the first homeward bound English vessel he could find. A few months later he received a letter from Pestof. The kind-hearted gentleman congratulated him on the birth of a son, who had come into the world at the village of Pokrovskoe, on the 20th of August, 1807, and had been named Fedor, in honor of the holy martyr Fedor Stratilates. On account of her extreme weakness, Malania Sergievna could add only a few lines. But even those few astonished Ivan Petrovich; he was not aware that Marfa Timofeevna had taught his wife to read and write.

It must not be supposed that Ivan Petrovich gave himself up for any length of time to the sweet emotion caused by paternal feeling. He was just then paying court to one of the celebrated Phrynes or Laises of the day--cla.s.sical names were still in vogue at that time. The peace of Tilset was only just concluded,[A] and every one was hastening to enjoy himself, every one was being swept round by a giddy whirlwind.

The black eyes of a bold beauty had helped to turn his head also. He had very little money, but he played cards luckily, made friends, joined in all possible diversions--in a word, he sailed with all sail set.

[Footnote A: In consequence of which the Russian emba.s.sy was withdrawn from London, and Ivan Petrovich probably went to Paris.]

IX.

For a long time the old Lavretsky could not forgive his son for his marriage. If, at the end of six months, Ivan Petrovich had appeared before him with contrite mien, and had fallen at his feet, the old man would, perhaps, have pardoned the offender--after having soundly abused him, and given him a tap with his crutch by way of frightening him. But Ivan Petrovich went on living abroad, and, apparently, troubled himself but little about his father. "Silence! don't dare to say another word!" exclaimed Peter Andreich to his wife, every time she tried to mollify him. "That puppy ought to be always praying to G.o.d for me, since I have not laid my curse upon him, the good-for-nothing fellow! Why, my late father would have killed him with his own hands, and he would have done well." All that Anna Pavlovna could do was to cross herself stealthily when she heard such terrible words as these. As to his son's wife, Peter Andreich would not so much as hear of her at first; and even when he had to answer a letter in which his daughter-in-law was mentioned by Pestof, he ordered a message to be sent to him to say that he did not know of any one who could be his daughter-in-law, and that it was contrary to the law to shelter runaway female serfs, a fact of which he considered it a duty to warn him. But afterwards, on learning the birth of his grandson, his heart softened a little; he gave orders that inquiries should be secretly made on his behalf about the mother's health, and he sent her--but still, not as if it came from himself--a small sum of money.

Before Fedor was a year old, his grandmother, Anna Pavlovna, was struck down by a mortal complaint. A few days before her death, when she could no longer rise from her bed, she told her husband in the presence of the priest, while her dying eyes swam with timid tears, that she wished to see her daughter-in-law, and to bid her farewell, and to bless her grandson. The old man, who was greatly moved, bade her set her mind at rest, and immediately sent his own carriage for his daughter-in-law, calling her, for the first time, Malania Sergievna.[A] Malania arrived with her boy, and with Marfa Timofeevna, whom nothing would have induced to allow her to go alone, and who was determined not to allow her to meet with any harm. Half dead with fright, Malania Sergievna entered her father-in-law's study, a nurse carrying Fedia behind her. Peter Andreich looked at her in silence.

She drew near and took his hand, on which her quivering lips could scarcely press a silent kiss.

[Footnote A: That is to say, no longer speaking of her as if she were still a servant.]

"Well, n.o.ble lady,"[A] he said at last,--"Good-day to you; let's go to my wife's room."

[Footnote A: Literally "thrashed-while-damp n.o.blewoman," _i.e._, hastily enn.o.bled. Much corn is thrashed in Russia before it has had time to get dry.]

He rose and bent over Fedia; the babe smiled and stretched out its tiny white hands towards him. The old man was touched.

"Ah, my orphaned one!" he said. "You have successfully pleaded your father's cause. I will not desert you, little bird."

As soon as Malania Sergievna entered Anna Pavlovna's bed-room, she fell on her knees near the door. Anna Pavlovna, having made her a sign to come to her bedside, embraced her, and blessed her child. Then, turning towards her husband a face worn by cruel suffering, she would have spoken to him, but he prevented her.