Tales of the Wilderness Part 23

Dimly, somewhere far away in the dark recesses of his memory, lurked a glimmering, wavering image of his son; at first he saw him as an infant, then as a boy, finally a youth. He recollected that now already he too was almost an old man. It came to him that once, long ago, this image was necessary and very dear to him, that afterwards he had lost sight of it, and that now it had become meaningless to him.

Dully, through inertia, the old man inquired: "He has come, you say?"

"Yes, came in the night, alone. He is resting now."

"Eh? He has come to have a look at me before I die."

Vasena promptly answered: "Lord! you are not so young as to...."

They were silent. The old man lay back on the sofa and slept.

"Ippolyte Ippolytovich, you must take your walk!"

"Eh?"

It was a "St. Martin's Summer." Over the scattered blood-red vine leaves on the terrace, which was deluged in mellow autumnal sunshine, the bent-up old man walked, leaning heavily on a bamboo cane, and supported by the st.u.r.dy Vasena. He had a skull-cap pulled down low over his forehead, and wore a long, black overcoat.

IV

Sometimes the old man relapsed into a state of coma, lasting several hours. Then life seemed to have ebbed from him entirely. A clay-like pallor over-spread his face, he had the lips and open, gla.s.sy eyes of a corpse, and he scarcely breathed. Then they sent post-haste for the doctor, who sprinkled him with camphor, gave him oxygen and produced artificial respiration. The old man slowly came to, rolling his eyes.

"Another minute and it would have been death," the doctor would say in a deep, grave voice.

When the old man had at length recovered, Vasena used to say to him: "Lord! We were so frightened, we were so frightened! ... We thought you were quite gone. Yes, we did. For you know, you are not so young as to...."

Ippolyte Ippolytovich was silent and indifferent, only at moments, half-closing and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his eyes, and straightening out his lips, he laughed:

"He-he! He-he!" Then added, slyly: "I am dying, you say? He-he! He- he!"

V

Ilya Ippolytovich walked through the empty rooms of the dying house.

How dusty and mouldy it seemed! The sun came through the tarnished window-panes and the specks of dust looked golden in its radiant light. He entered the room where he had pa.s.sed his childhood. Dust lay everywhere, on the window-sills, on the floor, and on the furniture. Here and there fresh boot-prints were visible. A thin portmanteau--not belonging to the house and pasted over with many labels--lay on a table. A hard, icy stillness pervaded the entire place.

Ilya Ippolytovich was stout like his father, but he still walked erect. His hair was already thinning and growing grey over the temples, but his face was clean-shaven, like a youth's. His lips were wrinkled and he had large, grey, weary eyes.

He felt gloomy and unhappy, because his father's days were numbered; and he brooded miserably over the awkwardness of approaching death, wondering how one should behave towards a man who was definitely doomed. To and fro, from corner to corner, he walked, with restless, springy steps.

He met his father on the terrace.

"Hallo, father!" he said briskly, with an intentional show of carelessness.

The old man looked at him blindly, not recognising his son at first.

But afterwards he smiled, went up the steps, and gave his cheek to be kissed. It smelt of wax.

"Eh?" said the old man.

Ilya kissed him, laughed hilariously, and slapped him lightly on the shoulder: "It is a long time since we met, father. How are you?"

His father looked at him from beneath his cap, gave a feeble smile, then said after a pause: "Eh?"

Vasena answered for him: "You may well ask how he is doing, Ilya Ippolytovich! Why, we are fearing the worst every day."

Ilya threw her a reproachful glance and said loudly: "It is nonsense, father! You have still a hundred years to live! You are tired, let us sit down here and have a talk together."

They sat down on the marble steps of the terrace. Silence. No words came to Ilya. Try as he might, he could not think what to say.

"Well, I am still painting pictures," he tried at last; "I am preparing to go abroad."

The old man did not hear him; he looked at his son without seeing or understanding, plunged in his own reflections.

"You have come to look at me? You think I shall die soon?" he asked suddenly.

Ilya Ippolytovich grew very pale and muttered confusedly: "What are you saying, father? What do you mean?"

But his father no longer heard. He had fallen back in his chair, his eyes half-closed and gla.s.sy, his face utterly expressionless. He was asleep.

VI

The sun was shining, the sky was blue; in the limpid s.p.a.ces above the earth there was a flood of crystal light.

Ilya Ippolytovich strolled through the park and thought of his father. The old man had lived a full, rich, and magnificent life. It had possessed so much that was good, bright and necessary. Now-- death! Nothing would remain. Nothing! And this nothing was terrible to Ilya Ippolytovitch.

Does not living man recognize life, the world, the sun, all that is around and within him, through himself? he reflected. A man dies, and the world dies for him. Thenceforward he feels and recognises nothing. Nothing! Then what is the use of living, developing, working, when in the end there will be--nothing?... Was there no great wisdom in his father's hundred years? Nor in his fatherhood?

A crane was crying somewhere overhead. The sound came from a scarcely visible dark arrow in the cloudless sky, which flew south. Red, frost-covered leaves were rustling underfoot. Ilya's face was pale, the wrinkles round his lips made him seem tired and feeble. He had spent his whole life alone, in the solitude of a cold studio, living arduously among pictures, for the sake of pictures. To what end?

VII

Ippolyte Ippolytovich sat in the large, bare dining-room eating chicken cutlets and broth. A napkin was tied round his neck as if he were a child. Vasena fed him from a tea-spoon, and afterwards led him into his study. The old man lay down on a sofa, put his hand behind his head and fell asleep, his eyes half-open.

Ilya went to him in the study. He again made a pretence of being cheerful, but his tired eyes betrayed grief, and behind his clean- shaven face, his grey English coat, and yellow boots, somehow one felt there was a great shaken and puzzled soul suffering, yet seeking to conceal its anguish.

He sat down at his father's feet.

For a long time the old man searched his face with his eyes, then in a sc.r.a.ping, worn-out piping voice, said: "Eh?"

"It is so long since we met, father, I am longing to have a chat with you! Somehow I have no one dearer to me than you! Absolutely no one!

How are you, sir?"

The old man gazed before him with bleary eyes. He did not seem to have heard. But suddenly s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his eyes, straightening out his lips and opening his empty jaws, he laughed:

"He-he! he-he!" he laughed, and said jovially: "I am dying soon. He- he! he-he!"

However, Ilya no longer felt as embarra.s.sed as on that first occasion on the terrace. In a hasty undertone, almost under his breath, he asked:

"But aren't you afraid?"