The Precipice Part 4

"When I leave the University, I intend to enter the Academy."

"What's the matter with you, Borushka? Make the sign of the cross! Do you want to be a teacher!"

"All artists are not teachers. Among artists there are great geniuses, who are famous and receive large sums for pictures or music."

"And do you intend to sell your pictures for money, or to play the piano for money in the evenings? What a disgrace!"

"No, Grandmother, an artist...."

"No, Borushka, don't anger your Grandmother; let her have the joy of seeing you in your Guard's uniform."

"Uncle says I ought to go into the Civil Service."

"A clerk! Good heavens! To stoop over a desk all day, bathed in ink, run in and out of the courts! Who would marry you then? No, no; come home to me as an officer, and marry a rich woman!"

Although Boris shared neither his uncle's nor his aunt's views, yet for a moment there shimmered before his eyes a vision of his own figure in a hussar's or a court uniform. He saw how well he sat his horse, how well he danced. That day he made a sketch of himself, negligently seated in the saddle, with a cloak over his shoulders.

CHAPTER V

In Moscow Raisky spent his time partly in the University, partly in the Kremlin gardens. In the evening he sat in the club with his friends, hot-headed, good-hearted individuals. Every one of them made a great to-do, and confidently expected a great future.

At the University, as at school, Raisky paid little attention to the rules of grammar, but observed intently the professor and the students.

But as soon as the lecture touched actual life and brought living men, Romans, Germans or Russians on the scene, whether in history or literature, he involuntarily gave the lecturer his attention, and the personages and their doings became real to him.

In his second year he made friends with a poor student named Koslov, the son of a deacon, who had been sent first of all to a seminary, but had taught himself Latin and Greek at home, and thus gained admission to the Gymnasium. He zealously studied the life of antiquity, but understood nothing of the life going on around him. Raisky felt himself drawn to this young man, at first because of his loneliness, his reserve, simplicity and kindness; later he discovered in him pa.s.sion, the sacred fire, profundity of comprehension and austerity of thought and delicacy of perception--in all that pertained to antiquity. Koslov on his side was devoted to Raisky, whose vivacious temperament could not be permanently bound by anything. The outcome was the great gift of an intimate friendship.

In summer Raisky liked to explore the neighbourhood of Moscow. He explored old convents, examined their dark recesses, the blackened pictures of the saints and martyrs; his imagination interpreted old Russia for him better than the lectures of his professors.

The tsars, monks, warriors and statesmen of the past filed before him as they lived and moved. Moscow seemed to him to be a miniature tsardom.

Here was conflict, here the death punishment was carried out; he saw Tatars, Cossacks of the Don. The varied life attracted him.

In spite of obstacles he pa.s.sed from one course to another at the University. He was helped by the reputation for talent he had won by certain poems and essays, the subjects of which were drawn from Russian history.

"Which service do you mean to enter?" the Dean asked him one day. "In a week's time you will be leaving the University. What are you going to do?"

Raisky was silent.

"What profession have you selected?"

Raisky almost answered that he meant to be an artist, but he remembered in time the reception that this proposition had received from his guardian and his aunt. "I shall write verses," he answered in a low tone.

"But that is not a profession. You may write verses and yet...."

"Stories too."

"Naturally, you can write stories as well. You have talent and means to develop it. But what profession--profession, I asked."

"For the moment I shall enter the Guards, later on the Civil Service--I mean to be a barrister, a governor...."

The Dean smiled. "You begin by being an ensign, that is comprehensible.

You and Leonid Koslov are exceptions; every other man has made his decision."

When Koslov was asked his intentions he replied that he would like to be a schoolmaster somewhere in the interior, and from this intention he refused to be turned aside.

Raisky moved among the golden youth of St. Petersburg society, first as young officer, then as bureaucrat, fulfilled his duties in devotion to the beauty of many an Armide, suffering to some degree, and gaining some experience in the process. After a time his dreams and his artistic consciousness revived. He seemed to see the Volga flowing between its steep banks, the shady garden, and the wooded precipice. He abandoned the Civil Service in its turn to enter the Academy of Arts. His education would never be finished, but he was determined to be a creative artist. His aunt scolded him by letter for having left the Guards; his guardian advised him to seek a position in the Senate, and sent him letters of recommendation.

But Raisky did not enter the Senate, but indolently pursued his artistic studies, read a great deal, wrote poems and prose, danced, went into society and to the theatre, indulged in wild dissipation, and at the same time did some musical composition, and drew a portrait of a lady.

He would spend one week in dissipation and the next in diligent study at the Academy. Life knocked at the door and tore him from his artist's dreams to a dissolute existence of alternating pleasure and boredom.

The universal summer exodus from the capital had driven him abroad. But one day when he came home he found two letters awaiting him, one from Tatiana Markovna, the other from his comrade at the University, Leonid Koslov, who had been installed in Raisky's native place as a master in the Gymnasium.

During all these years his aunt had often written to him, and sent him statements of accounts. His answers were short but affectionate; the accounts he tore up without having even looked at them.

"Is it not a sin," she wrote, "to forget an old woman like me, when I am all the family you have? But in these days it seems that old people have, in the judgment of youth, become superfluous. But I have not even leisure to die; I have two grown-up nieces, and until their future is settled to my satisfaction, I shall pray G.o.d to spare my life--and then His will be done. I do not complain that you forget me. But if I were not here my little girls, your sisters, would be alone. You are their next of kin and their natural protector. Think, too, of the estate. I am old, and can no longer be your bailiff. To whom do you intend to entrust the estate? The place will be ruined and the estate dissipated. It breaks my heart to think that your family silver, bronzes, pictures, diamonds, lace, china and gla.s.s will come into the hands of the servants, or the Jews, or the usurers. So long as your Grandmother lives, you may be sure that not a thread goes astray, but after that I can give no guarantee. And my two nieces, what is to become of them? Vera is a good, sensible, but retiring girl, and does not concern herself with domestic matters at all. Marfinka will be a splendid manager, but she is still young; although she ought to have been married before now, she is still such a child in her ideas, thank G.o.d! She will mature with experience, and meantime I shelter her. She appreciates this and does nothing against her Grandmother's will, for which may G.o.d reward her. In the house she is a great help, but I do not let her do anything on the estate; that is no work for a young girl.

"Do not defer your coming, but gladden your Grandmother's heart. She is devoted to you, not merely because of the relationship, but from her heart. You were conscious of the sympathy between us when you were a child. I don't know what you are in manhood, but you were then a good nephew. Come, if only to see your sisters, and perhaps happiness will reward your coming. If G.o.d grants me the joy of seeing you married and laying the estate in your hands I shall die happy. Marry, Borushka; you are long since of an age to do so. Then my little girls will still have a home. So long as you remain unmarried they cannot live in your house.

Marry, please your Grandmother, and G.o.d will not forsake you. I wait your coming; let me know when to expect you.

"Tiet Nikonich desires to be remembered to you. He has aged, but is still hale and hearty, he has the same smile, still talks well and has such pleasant manners that none of the young dandies can hold a candle to him. Bring him, please, a vest and hose of Samian leather; it is worn now, I hear, as a specific against rheumatism. It will be a surprise for him. I enclose the account for the last two years. Accept my blessing."

CHAPTER VI

In a _kibitka_ covered with bast, drawn by three lean and sleepy nags, Raisky drove slowly to his estate. It was not without agitation that he saw the smoke curling up from the chimneys of his own roof, the fresh, delicate green of the birches and the limes which overshadowed this place of refuge, the gables of the old house and the pale line of the Volga now gleaming between the trees and now hidden from view. He approached nearer and nearer; now he could see the shimmer of the flowers in the garden, the avenues of lime and acacia became visible, the old elm emerged, and there, more to the left, lay the orchard. There were dogs in the yard, cats sunning themselves, on the roof of the new house flocked the pigeon and the swallows flitted around the eaves.

Behind the house, on the side towards the village, linen lay out to bleach. One woman was rolling a cask, the coachman was chopping wood, a peasant got into the _telega_ and gathered up the reins--Boris saw only unfamiliar faces. But Yakob was there and looked sleepily round.

One familiar face, but how aged!

Raisky observed the scene intently. He alighted from the _kibitka_, and walked along the fence which divided house, yard, garden and park from the road, feasting his eyes on the well-remembered prospect, when suddenly his eye was caught by an unexpected apparition.

On the verandah, which led down to the garden and was decorated by lemon and pomegranate trees in tubs, and with cactus and aloe and flowering plants, stood a young girl of about twenty, scattering millet from two plates held by a barefooted child of twelve. At her feet were a.s.sembled hens, turkeys, ducks, pigeons, sparrows and daws. She called to the birds to come to breakfast, and c.o.c.ks, hens and pigeons fell to, looking round every moment as if they feared treason, and then again falling to.

As the morning sun shed a fierce light on the busy group of birds and on the young girl herself, Raisky saw her large, dark grey eyes, her round, healthy cheeks, her narrow white teeth, her long light-brown tresses wound twice round her head, and the strong young b.r.e.a.s.t.s rising and sinking underneath her white blouse. Her white, slightly tanned neck was innocent of collar or scarf. A hasty movement loosened one plait of hair over her head and back, but she took no notice, but continued to scatter the corn, taking care that all received their share and that sparrows and daws did not obtrude too much, and looking as fresh and happy as the morning itself.

"Didn't you see the goose?" she asked the little girl in a loud clear voice.

"No," answered the child, "it is the cat's fault. Afimua says it will die."

"I shall look after it myself. Afimua has no pity."

Motionless, Raisky watched the scene without his presence being suspected. This must be his cousin, and how charming! But which one, Veroshka or Marfinka? Without waiting for the _kibitka_ to turn in through the gate, he ran forward, and stood before the young girl.

"Cousin," he cried, extending his arms.