Rudin Part 3

'Ah! Konstantin Diomiditch! good-morning!' she replied. 'You have come from Darya Mihailovna?'

'Precisely so, precisely so,' rejoined the young man with a radiant face, 'from Darya Mihailovna. Darya Mihailovna sent me to you; I preferred to walk.... It's such a glorious morning, and the distance is only three miles. When I arrived, you were not at home. Your brother told me you had gone to s.e.m.e.novka; and he was just going out to the fields; so you see I walked with him to meet you. Yes, yes. How very delightful!'

The young man spoke Russian accurately and grammatically but with a foreign accent, though it was difficult to determine exactly what accent it was. In his features there was something Asiatic. His long hook nose, his large expressionless prominent eyes, his thick red lips, and retreating forehead, and his jet black hair,--everything about him suggested an Oriental extraction; but the young man gave his surname as Pandalevsky and spoke of Odessa as his birthplace, though he was brought up somewhere in White Russia at the expense of a rich and benevolent widow.

Another widow had obtained a government post for him. Middle-aged ladies were generally ready to befriend Konstantin Diomiditch; he knew well how to court them and was successful in coming across them. He was at this very time living with a rich lady, a landowner, Darya Mihailovna Lasunsky, in a position between that of a guest and of a dependant. He was very polite and obliging, full of sensibility and secretly given to sensuality, he had a pleasant voice, played well on the piano, and had the habit of gazing intently into the eyes of any one he was speaking to. He dressed very neatly, and wore his clothes a very long time, shaved his broad chin carefully, and arranged his hair curl by curl.

Alexandra Pavlovna heard his speech to the end and turned to her brother.

'I keep meeting people to-day; I have just been talking to Lezhnyov.'

'Oh, Lezhnyov! was he driving somewhere?'

'Yes, and fancy; he was in a racing droshky, and dressed in a kind of linen sack, all covered with dust.... What a queer creature he is!'

'Perhaps so; but he's a capital fellow.'

'Who? Mr. Lezhnyov?' inquired Pandalevsky, as though he were surprised.

'Yes, Mihailo Mihailitch Lezhnyov,' replied Volintsev. 'Well, good-bye; it's time I was off to the field; they are sowing your buckwheat. Mr.

Pandalevsky will escort you home.' And Volintsev rode off at a trot.

'With the greatest of pleasure!' cried Konstantin Diomiditch, offering Alexandra Pavlovna his arm.

She took it and they both turned along the path to her house.

Walking with Alexandra Pavlovna on his arm seemed to afford Konstantin Diomiditch great delight; he moved with little steps, smiling, and his Oriental eyes were even be-dimmed by a slight moisture, though this indeed was no rare occurrence with them; it did not mean much for Konstantin Diomiditch to be moved and dissolve into tears. And who would not have been pleased to have on his arm a pretty, young and graceful woman? Of Alexandra Pavlovna the whole of her district was unanimous in declaring that she was charming, and the district was not wrong. Her straight, ever so slightly tilted nose would have been enough alone to drive any man out of his senses, to say nothing of her velvety dark eyes, her golden brown hair, the dimples in her smoothly curved cheeks, and her other beauties. But best of all was the sweet expression of her face; confiding, good and gentle, it touched and attracted at the same time. Alexandra Pavlovna had the glance and the smile of a child; other ladies found her a little simple.... Could one wish for anything more?

'Darya Mihailovna sent you to me, did you say?' she asked Pandalevsky.

'Yes; she sent me,' he answered, p.r.o.nouncing the letter _s_ like the English _th_. 'She particularly wishes and told me to beg you very urgently to be so good as to dine with her to-day. She is expecting a new guest whom she particularly wishes you to meet.'

'Who is it?'

'A certain m.u.f.fel, a baron, a gentleman of the bed-chamber from Petersburg. Darya Mihailovna made his acquaintance lately at the Prince Garin's, and speaks of him in high terms as an agreeable and cultivated young man. His Excellency the baron is interested, too, in literature, or more strictly speaking----ah! what an exquisite b.u.t.terfly! pray look at it!----more strictly speaking, in political economy. He has written an essay on some very interesting question, and wants to submit it to Darya Mihailovna's criticism.'

'An article on political economy?'

'From the literary point of view, Alexandra Pavlovna, from the literary point of view. You are well aware, I suppose, that in that line Darya Mihailovna is an authority. Zhukovsky used to ask her advice, and my benefactor, who lives at Odessa, that benevolent old man, Roxolan Mediarovitch Ksandrika----No doubt you know the name of that eminent man?'

'No; I have never heard of him.'

'You never heard of such a man? surprising! I was going to say that Roxolan Mediarovitch always had the very highest opinion of Darya Mihailovna's knowledge of Russian!

'Is this baron a pedant then?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna.

'Not in the very least. Darya Mihailovna says, on the contrary, that you see that he belongs to the best society at once. He spoke of Beethoven with such eloquence that even the old prince was quite delighted by it.

That, I own, I should like to have heard; you know that is in my line.

Allow me to offer you this lovely wild-flower.'

Alexandra Pavlovna took the flower, and when she had walked a few steps farther, let it drop on the path. They were not more than two hundred paces from her house. It had been recently built and whitewashed, and looked out hospitably with its wide light windows from the thick foliage of the old limes and maples.

'So what message do you give me for Darya Mihailovna?' began Pandalevsky, slightly hurt at the fate of the flower he had given her.

'Will you come to dinner? She invites your brother too.'

'Yes; we will come, most certainly. And how is Natasha?'

'Natalya Alexyevna is well, I am glad to say. But we have already pa.s.sed the road that turns off to Darya Mihailovna's. Allow me to bid you good-bye.'

Alexandra Pavlovna stopped. 'But won't you come in?' she said in a hesitating voice.

'I should like to, indeed, but I am afraid it is late. Darya Mihailovna wishes to hear a new etude of Thalberg's, so I must practise and have it ready. Besides, I am doubtful, I must confess, whether my visit could afford you any pleasure.'

'Oh, no! why?'

Pandalevsky sighed and dropped his eyes expressively.

'Good-bye, Alexandra Pavlovna!' he said after a slight pause; then he bowed and turned back.

Alexandra Pavlovna turned round and went home.

Konstantin Diomiditch, too, walked homewards. All softness had vanished at once from his face; a self-confident, almost hard expression came into it. Even his walk was changed; his steps were longer and he trod more heavily. He had walked about two miles, carelessly swinging his cane, when all at once he began to smile again: he saw by the roadside a young, rather pretty peasant girl, who was driving some calves out of an oat-field. Konstantin Diomiditch approached the girl as warily as a cat, and began to speak to her. She said nothing at first, only blushed and laughed, but at last she hid her face in her sleeve, turned away, and muttered:

'Go away, sir; upon my word...'

Konstantin Diomiditch shook his finger at her and told her to bring him some cornflowers.

'What do you want with cornflowers?--to make a wreath?' replied the girl; 'come now, go along then.'

'Stop a minute, my pretty little dear,' Konstantin Diomiditch was beginning.

'There now, go along,' the girl interrupted him, 'there are the young gentlemen coming.'

Konstantin Diomiditch looked round. There really were Vanya and Petya, Darya Mihailovna's sons, running along the road; after them walked their tutor, Ba.s.sistoff, a young man of two-and-twenty, who had only just left college. Ba.s.sistoff was a well-grown youth, with a simple face, a large nose, thick lips, and small pig's eyes, plain and awkward, but kind, good, and upright. He dressed untidily and wore his hair long--not from affectation, but from laziness; he liked eating and he liked sleeping, but he also liked a good book, and an earnest conversation, and he hated Pandalevsky from the depths of his soul.

Darya Mihailovna's children worshipped Ba.s.sistoff, and yet were not in the least afraid of him; he was on a friendly footing with all the rest of the household, a fact which was not altogether pleasing to its mistress, though she was fond of declaring that for her social prejudices did not exist.

'Good-morning, my dears,' began Konstantin Diomiditch, 'how early you have come for your walk to-day! But I,' he added, turning to Ba.s.sistoff, 'have been out a long while already; it's my pa.s.sion--to enjoy nature.'

'We saw how you were enjoying nature,' muttered Ba.s.sistoff.

'You are a materialist, G.o.d knows what you are imagining! I know you.' When Pandalevsky spoke to Ba.s.sistoff or people like him, he grew slightly irritated, and p.r.o.nounced the letter _s_ quite clearly, even with a slight hiss.

'Why, were you asking your way of that girl, am I to suppose?' said Ba.s.sistoff, shifting his eyes to right and to left.

He felt that Pandalevsky was looking him straight in the face, and this fact was exceedingly unpleasant to him. 'I repeat, a materialist and nothing more.'

'You certainly prefer to see only the prosaic side in everything.'