Virgin Soil Part 37

"He gave it to me."

"When?"

Nejdanov told her when and under what circ.u.mstances. While he was speaking Mariana glanced from him to the portrait. The same thought flashed across both their minds. "If HE were in this room, then HE would have the right to demand..." But neither Mariana nor Nejdanov gave expression to this thought in words, perhaps because each was conscious what was in the other's mind.

Mariana quietly wrapped the portrait up again in its paper and put it on the table.

"What a good man he is!" she murmured. "I wonder where he is now?"

"Why, at home of course. Tomorrow or the day after I must go and see him about some books and pamphlets. He promised to give me some, but evidently forgot to do so before I left."

"And do you think, Aliosha, that when he gave you this portrait he renounced everything... absolutely everything?"

"I think so."

"Do you think you will find him at home?"

"Of course."

"Ah!" Mariana lowered her eyes and dropped her hands at her sides. "But here comes Tatiana with our dinner," she exclaimed suddenly. "Isn't she a dear!"

Tatiana appeared with the knives and forks, serviettes, plates and dishes. While laying the table she related all the news about the factory. "The master came from Moscow by rail and started running from floor to floor like a madman. Of course he doesn't understand anything and does it only for show--to set an example so to speak. Va.s.sily Fedot.i.tch treats him like a child. The master wanted to make some unpleasantness, but Va.s.sily Fedot.i.tch soon shut him up. 'I'll throw it up this minute,' he said, so he soon began to sing small. They are having dinner now. The master brought someone with him. A Moscow swell who does nothing but admire everything. He must be very rich, I think, by the way he holds his tongue and shakes his head. And so stout, very stout! A real swell! No wonder there's a saying that 'Moscow lies at the foot of Russia and everything rolls down to her.'"

"How you notice everything!" Mariana exclaimed.

"Yes, I do rather," Tatiana observed. "Well, here is your dinner. Come and have it and I'll sit and look at you for a little while."

Mariana and Nejdanov sat down to table, whilst Tatiana sat down on the window-sill and rested her cheek in her hand.

"I watch you..." she observed. "And what dear, young, tender creatures you are. You're so nice to look at that it quite makes my heart ache.

Ah, my dear! You are taking a heavier burden on your shoulders than you can bear. It's people like you that the tsar's folk are ready to put into prison."

"Nothing of the kind. Don't frighten us," Nejdanov remarked. "You know the old saying, 'As you make your bed so you must lie on it.'"

"Yes, I know. But the beds are so narrow nowadays that you can't get out of them!"

"Have you any children?" Mariana asked to change the subject.

"Yes, I have a boy. He goes to school now. I had a girl too, but she's gone, the little bird! An accident happened to her. She fell under a wheel. If only it had killed her at once! But no, she suffered a long while. Since then I've become more tender-hearted. Before I was as wild and hard as a tree!"

"Why, did you not love your Pavel?"

"But that's not the same. Only a girl's feelings. And you--do you love HIM?"

"Of course I do."

Very much?

"Ever so much."

"Really?..." Tatiana looked from one to the other, but said nothing more.

"I'll tell you what I would like. Could you get me some coa.r.s.e, strong wool? I want to knit some stockings...plain ones."

Tatiana promised to have everything done, and clearing the table, went out of the room with her firm, quiet step.

"Well, what shall we do now?" Mariana asked, turning to Nejdanov, and without, waiting for a reply, continued, "Since our real work does not begin until tomorrow, let us devote this evening to literature. Would you like to? We can read your poems. I will be a severe critic, I promise you."

It took Nejdanov a long time before he consented, but he gave in at last and began reading aloud out of his copybook. Mariana sat close to him and gazed into his face as he read. She had been right; she turned out to be a very severe critic. Very few of the verses pleased her. She preferred the purely lyrical, short ones, to the didactic, as she expressed it. Nejdanov did not read well. He had not the courage to attempt any style, and at the same time wanted to avoid a dry tone. It turned out neither the one thing nor the other. Mariana interrupted him suddenly by asking if he knew Dobrolubov's beautiful poem, which begins, "To die for me no terror holds." She read it to him--also not very well--in a somewhat childish manner.

[To die for me no terror holds, Yet one fear presses on my mind, That death should on me helpless play A satire of the bitter kind. For much I fear that o'er my corpse The scalding tears of friends shall flow, And that, too late, they should with zeal Fresh flowers upon my body throw.

That fate sardonic should recall The ones I loved to my cold side, And make me lying in the ground, The object of love once denied. That all my aching heart's desires, So vainly sought for from my birth, Should crowd unbidden, smiling kind Above my body's mound of earth.]

Nejdanov thought that it was too sad and too bitter. He could not have written a poem like that, he added, as he had no fears of any one weeping over his grave... there would be no tears.

"There will be if I outlive you," Mariana observed slowly, and lifting her eyes to the ceiling she asked, in a whisper, as if speaking to herself:

"How did he do the portrait of me? From memory?"

Nejdanov turned to her quickly.

"Yes, from memory."

Mariana was surprised at his reply. It seemed to her that she merely thought the question. "It is really wonderful..." she continued in the same tone of voice. "Why, he can't draw at all. What was I talking about?" she added aloud. "Oh yes, it was about Dobrolubov's poems. One ought to write poems like Pushkin's, or even like Dobrolubov's. It is not poetry exactly, but something nearly as good."

"And poems like mine one should not write at all. Isn't that so?"

Nejdanov asked.

"Poems like yours please your friends, not because they are good, but because you are a good man and they are like you."

Nejdanov smiled.

"You have completely buried them and me with them!" Mariana slapped his hand and called him naughty. Soon after she announced that she was tired and wanted to go to bed.

"By the way," she added, shaking back her short thick curls, "do you know that I have a hundred and thirty roubles? And how much have you?"

"Ninety-eight."

"Oh, then we are rich... for simplified folk. Well, good night, until tomorrow."

She went out, but in a minute or two her door opened slightly and he heard her say, "Goodnight!" then more softly another "Goodnight!" and the key turned in the lock.

Nejdanov sank on to the sofa and covered his face with his hands. Then he got up quickly, went to her door and knocked.

"What is it?" was heard from within.

"Not till tomorrow, Mariana... not till tomorrow!"