Smoke Part 27

He put on his cap, took up his bag. 'So you say,' he queried, stopping in the doorway, 'you have seen her?'

'Yes, I've seen her.'

'Well ... tell me about her.'

Potugin was silent a moment. 'She expected you yesterday ... and to-day she will expect you.'

'Ah! Well, tell her.... No, there's no need, no need of anything.

Good-bye.... Good-bye!'

'Good-bye, Grigory Mihalitch.... Let me say one word more to you. You still have time to listen to me; there's more than half an hour before the train starts. You are returning to Russia.... There you will ... in time ... get to work.... Allow an old chatterbox--for, alas, I am a chatterbox, and nothing more--to give you advice for your journey. Every time it is your lot to undertake any piece of work, ask yourself: Are you serving the cause of civilisation, in the true and strict sense of the word; are you promoting one of the ideals of civilisation; have your labours that educating, Europeanising character which alone is beneficial and profitable in our day among us? If it is so, go boldly forward, you are on the right path, and your work is a blessing! Thank G.o.d for it! You are not alone now. You will not be a "sower in the desert"; there are plenty of workers ... pioneers ... even among us now.... But you have no ears for this now. Good-bye, don't forget me!'

Litvinov descended the staircase at a run, flung himself into a carriage, and drove to the station, not once looking round at the town where so much of his personal life was left behind. He abandoned himself, as it were, to the tide; it s.n.a.t.c.hed him up and bore him along, and he firmly resolved not to struggle against it ... all other exercise of independent will he renounced.

He was just taking his seat in the railway carriage.

'Grigory Mihalitch ... Grigory....' he heard a supplicating whisper behind him.

He started.... Could it be Irina? Yes; it was she. Wrapped in her maid's shawl, a travelling hat on her dishevelled hair, she was standing on the platform, and gazing at him with worn and weary eyes.

'Come back, come back, I have come for you,' those eyes were saying. And what, what were they not promising? She did not move, she had not power to add a word; everything about her, even the disorder of her dress, everything seemed entreating forgiveness....

Litvinov was almost beaten, scarcely could he keep from rushing to her.... But the tide to which he had surrendered himself rea.s.serted itself.... He jumped into the carriage, and turning round, he motioned Irina to a place beside him. She understood him. There was still time.

One step, one movement, and two lives made one for ever would have been hurried away into the uncertain distance.... While she wavered, a loud whistle sounded and the train moved off.

Litvinov sank back, while Irina moved staggering to a seat, and fell on it, to the immense astonishment of a supernumerary diplomatic official who chanced to be lounging about the railway station. He was slightly acquainted with Irina, and greatly admired her, and seeing that she lay as though overcome by faintness, he imagined that she had '_une attaque de nerfs_,' and therefore deemed it his duty, the duty _d'un galant chevalier_, to go to her a.s.sistance. But his astonishment a.s.sumed far greater proportions when, at the first word addressed to her, she suddenly got up, repulsed his proffered arm, and hurrying out into the street, had in a few instants vanished in the milky vapour of fog, so characteristic of the climate of the Black Forest in the early days of autumn.

XXVI

We happened once to go into the hut of a peasant-woman who had just lost her only, pa.s.sionately loved son, and to our considerable astonishment we found her perfectly calm, almost cheerful. 'Let her be,' said her husband, to whom probably our astonishment was apparent, 'she is gone numb now.' And Litvinov had in the same way 'gone numb.' The same sort of calm came over him during the first few hours of the journey. Utterly crushed, hopelessly wretched as he was, still he was at rest, at rest after the agonies and sufferings of the last few weeks, after all the blows which had fallen one after another upon his head. They had been the more shattering for him that he was little fitted by nature for such tempests. Now he really hoped for nothing, and tried not to remember, above all not to remember. He was going to Russia ... he had to go somewhere; but he was making no kind of plans regarding his own personality. He did not recognise himself, he did not comprehend his own actions, he had positively lost his real ident.i.ty, and, in fact, he took very little interest in his own ident.i.ty. Sometimes it seemed to him that he was taking his own corpse home, and only the bitter spasms of irremediable spiritual pain pa.s.sing over him from time to time brought him back to a sense of still being alive. At times it struck him as incomprehensible that a man--a man!--could let a woman, let love, have such power over him ... 'Ignominious weakness!' he muttered, and shook back his cloak, and sat up more squarely; as though to say, the past is over, let's begin fresh ... a moment, and he could only smile bitterly and wonder at himself. He fell to looking out of the window. It was grey and damp; there was no rain, but the fog still hung about; and low clouds trailed across the sky. The wind blew facing the train; whitish clouds of steam, some singly, others mingled with other darker clouds of smoke, whirled in endless file past the window at which Litvinov was sitting. He began to watch this steam, this smoke.

Incessantly mounting, rising and falling, twisting and hooking on to the gra.s.s, to the bushes as though in sportive antics, lengthening out, and hiding away, clouds upon clouds flew by ... they were for ever changing and stayed still the same in their monotonous, hurrying, wearisome sport! Sometimes the wind changed, the line bent to right or left, and suddenly the whole ma.s.s vanished, and at once reappeared at the opposite window; then again the huge tail was flung out, and again it veiled Litvinov's view of the vast plain of the Rhine. He gazed and gazed, and a strange reverie came over him.... He was alone in the compartment; there was no one to disturb him. 'Smoke, smoke,' he repeated several times; and suddenly it all seemed as smoke to him, everything, his own life, Russian life--everything human, especially everything Russian. All smoke and steam, he thought; all seems for ever changing, on all sides new forms, phantoms flying after phantoms, while in reality it is all the same and the same again; everything hurrying, flying towards something, and everything vanishing without a trace, attaining to nothing; another wind blows, and all is dashing in the opposite direction, and there again the same untiring, restless--and useless gambols! He remembered much that had taken place with clamour and flourish before his eyes in the last few years ... 'Smoke,' he whispered, 'smoke'; he remembered the hot disputes, the wrangling, the clamour at Gubaryov's, and in other sets of men, of high and low degree, advanced and reactionist, old and young ... 'Smoke,' he repeated, 'smoke and steam'; he remembered, too, the fashionable picnic, and he remembered various opinions and speeches of other political personages--even all Potugin's sermonising ... 'Smoke, smoke, nothing but smoke.' And what of his own struggles and pa.s.sions and agonies and dreams? He could only reply with a gesture of despair.

And meanwhile the train dashed on and on; by now Rastadt, Carlsruhe, and Bruchsal had long been left far behind; the mountains on the right side of the line swerved aside, retreated into the distance, then moved up again, but not so high, and more thinly covered with trees.... The train made a sharp turn ... and there was Heidelberg. The carriage rolled in under the cover of the station; there was the shouting of newspaper-boys, selling papers of all sorts, even Russian; pa.s.sengers began bustling in their seats, getting out on to the platform, but Litvinov did not leave his corner, and still sat on with downcast head.

Suddenly some one called him by name; he raised his eyes; Bindasov's ugly phiz was thrust in at the window; and behind him--or was he dreaming, no, it was really so--all the familiar Baden faces; there was Madame Suhantchikov, there was Voroshilov, and Bambaev too; they all rushed up to him, while Bindasov bellowed:

'But where's Pishtchalkin? We were expecting him; but it's all the same, hop out, and we'll be off to Gubaryov's.'

'Yes, my boy, yes, Gubaryov's expecting us,' Bambaev confirmed, making way for him, 'hop out.'

Litvinov would have flown into a rage, but for a dead load lying on his heart. He glanced at Bindasov and turned away without speaking.

'I tell you Gubaryov's here,' shrieked Madame Suhantchikov, her eyes fairly starting out of her head.

Litvinov did not stir a muscle.

'Come, do listen, Litvinov,' Bambaev began at last, 'there's not only Gubaryov here, there's a whole phalanx here of the most splendid, most intellectual young fellows, Russians--and all studying the natural sciences, all of the n.o.blest convictions! Really you must stop here, if it's only for them. Here, for instance, there's a certain ... there, I've forgotten his surname, but he's a genius! simply!'

'Oh, let him be, let him be, Rostislav Ardalionovitch,' interposed Madame Suhantchikov, 'let him be! You see what sort of a fellow he is; and all his family are the same. He has an aunt; at first she struck me as a sensible woman, but the day before yesterday I went to see her here--she had only just before gone to Baden and was back here again before you could look round--well, I went to see her; began questioning her.... Would you believe me, I couldn't get a word out of the stuck-up thing. Horrid aristocrat!'

Poor Kapitolina Markovna an aristocrat! Could she ever have antic.i.p.ated such a humiliation?

But Litvinov still held his peace, turned away, and pulled his cap over his eyes. The train started at last.

'Well, say something at parting at least, you stonyhearted man!' shouted Bambaev, 'this is really too much!'

'Rotten milksop!' yelled Bindasov. The carriages were moving more and more rapidly, and he could vent his abuse with impunity. 'n.i.g.g.ardly stick-in-the-mud.'

Whether Bindasov invented this last appellation on the spot, or whether it had come to him second-hand, it apparently gave great satisfaction to two of the n.o.ble young fellows studying natural science, who happened to be standing by, for only a few days later it appeared in the Russian periodical sheet, published at that time at Heidelberg under the t.i.tle: _A tout venant je crache!_[2] or, 'We don't care a hang for anybody!'

Footnote 2: A historical fact.

But Litvinov repeated again, 'Smoke, smoke, smoke! Here,' he thought, 'in Heidelberg now are over a hundred Russian students; they're all studying chemistry, physics, physiology--they won't even hear of anything else ... but in five or six years' time there won't be fifteen at the lectures by the same celebrated professors; the wind will change, the smoke will be blowing ... in another quarter ... smoke ...

smoke...!'[3]

Footnote 3: Litvinov's presentiments came true. In 1866 there were in Heidelberg thirteen Russian students entered for the summer, and twelve for the winter session.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Heidelberg._]

Towards nightfall he pa.s.sed by Ca.s.sel. With the darkness intolerable anguish pounced like a hawk upon him, and he wept, burying himself in the corner of the carriage. For a long time his tears flowed, not easing his heart, but torturing him with a sort of gnawing bitterness; while at the same time, in one of the hotels of Ca.s.sel, Tatyana was lying in bed feverishly ill.

Kapitolina Markovna was sitting beside her. 'Tanya,' she was saying, 'for G.o.d's sake, let me send a telegram to Grigory Mihalitch, do let me, Tanya!'

'No, aunt,' she answered; 'you mustn't; don't be frightened, give me some water; it will soon pa.s.s.'

And a week later she did, in fact, recover, and the two friends continued their journey.

XXVII

Stopping neither at Petersburg nor at Moscow, Litvinov went back to his estate. He was dismayed when he saw his father; the latter was so weak and failing. The old man rejoiced to have his son, as far as a man can rejoice who is just at the close of life; he at once gave over to him the management of everything, which was in great disorder, and lingering on a few weeks longer, he departed from this earthly sphere. Litvinov was left alone in his ancient little manor-house, and with a heavy heart, without hope, without zeal, and without money, he began to work the land. Working the land is a cheerless business, as many know too well; we will not enlarge on how distasteful it seemed to Litvinov. As for reforms and innovations, there was, of course, no question even of them; the practical application of the information he had gathered abroad was put off for an indefinite period; poverty forced him to make shift from day to day, to consent to all sorts of compromises--both material and moral. The new had 'begun ill,' the old had lost all power; ignorance jostled up against dishonesty; the whole agrarian organisation was shaken and unstable as quagmire bog, and only one great word, 'freedom,' was wafted like the breath of G.o.d over the waters. Patience was needed before all things, and a patience not pa.s.sive, but active, persistent, not without tact and cunning at times.... For Litvinov, in his frame of mind, it was doubly hard. He had but little will to live left in him.... Where was he to get the will to labour and take trouble?

But a year pa.s.sed, after it another pa.s.sed, the third was beginning. The mighty idea was being realised by degrees, was pa.s.sing into flesh and blood, the young shoot had sprung up from the scattered seed, and its foes, both open and secret, could not stamp it out now. Litvinov himself, though he had ended by giving up the greater part of his land to the peasants on the half-profit system, that's to say, by returning to the wretched primitive methods, had yet succeeded in doing something; he had restored the factory, set up a tiny farm with five free hired labourers--he had had at different times fully forty--and had paid his princ.i.p.al private debts.... And his spirit had gained strength; he had begun to be like the old Litvinov again. It's true, a deeply buried melancholy never left him, and he was too quiet for his years; he shut himself up in a narrow circle and broke off all his old connections ...

but the deadly indifference had pa.s.sed, and among the living he moved and acted as a living man again. The last traces, too, had vanished of the enchantment in which he had been held; all that had pa.s.sed at Baden appeared to him dimly as in a dream.... And Irina? even she had paled and vanished too, and Litvinov only had a faint sense of something dangerous behind the mist that gradually enfolded her image. Of Tatyana news reached him from time to time; he knew that she was living with her aunt on her estate, a hundred and sixty miles from him, leading a quiet life, going out little, and scarcely receiving any guests--cheerful and well, however. It happened on one fine May day, that he was sitting in his study, listlessly turning over the last number of a Petersburg paper; a servant came to announce the arrival of an old uncle. This uncle happened to be a cousin of Kapitolina Markovna and had been recently staying with her. He had bought an estate in Litvinov's vicinity and was on his way thither. He stayed twenty-four hours with his nephew and told him a great deal about Tatyana's manner of life. The next day after his departure Litvinov sent her a letter, the first since their separation. He begged for permission to renew her acquaintance, at least by correspondence, and also desired to learn whether he must for ever give up all idea of some day seeing her again?

Not without emotion he awaited the answer ... the answer came at last.

Tatyana responded cordially to his overture. 'If you are disposed to pay us a visit,' she finished up, 'we hope you will come; you know the saying, "even the sick are easier together than apart."' Kapitolina Markovna joined in sending her regards. Litvinov was as happy as a child; it was long since his heart had beaten with such delight over anything. He felt suddenly light and bright.... Just as when the sun rises and drives away the darkness of night, a light breeze flutters with the sun's rays over the face of the reviving earth. All that day Litvinov kept smiling, even while he went about his farm and gave his orders. He at once began making arrangements for the journey, and a fortnight later he was on his way to Tatyana.

XXVIII