Virgin Soil Part 7

"Where is it to be published?

"In the 'Russian Messenger', of course. It is our 'Revue des Deux Mondes'. I see you take it, by the way."

"Yes, but I think it rather dull of late."

"Perhaps, perhaps it is. 'The Russian Messenger', too, has also gone off a bit," using a colloquial expression.

Kollomietzev laughed. It amused him to have said "gone off a bit." "Mais c'est un journal qui se respecte," he continued, "and that is the main thing. I am sorry to say that I interest myself very little in Russian literature nowadays. It has grown so horribly vulgar. A cook is now made the heroine of a novel. A mere cook, parole d'honneur! Of course, I shall read Ladislas' novel. Il y aura le pet.i.t mot pour rire, and he writes with a purpose! He will completely crush the nihilists, and I quite agree with him. His ideas sont tres correctes."

"That is more than can be said of his past," Valentina Mihailovna remarked.

"Ah! jeton une voile sur les erreurs de sa jeunesse!" Kollomietzev exclaimed, pulling off his other glove.

Valentina Mihailovna half-closed her exquisite eyes and looked at him coquettishly.

"Simion Petrovitch!" she exclaimed, "why do you use so many French words when speaking Russian? It seems to me rather old-fashioned, if you will excuse my saying so."

"But, my dear lady, not everyone is such a master of our native tongue as you are, for instance. I have a very great respect for the Russian language. There is nothing like it for giving commands or for governmental purposes. I like to keep it pure and uncorrupted by other languages and bow before Karamzin; but as for an everyday language, how can one use Russian? For instance, how would you say, in Russian, de tout a l'heure, c'est un mot? You could not possibly say 'this is a word,' could you?"

"You might say 'a happy expression.'"

Kollomietzev laughed.

"A happy expression! My dear Valentina Mihailovna. Don't you feel that it savours of the schoolroom; that all the salt has gone out of it?

"I am afraid you will not convince me. I wonder where Mariana is?" She rang the bell and a servant entered.

"I asked to have Mariana Vikentievna sent here. Has she not been told?"

The servant had scarcely time to reply when a young girl appeared behind him in the doorway. She had on a loose dark blouse, and her hair was cut short. It was Mariana Vikentievna Sinitska, Sipiagin's niece on the mother's side.

VI

"I am sorry, Valentina Mihailovna," Mariana said, drawing near to her, "I was busy and could not get away."

She bowed to Kollomietzev and withdrew into a corner, where she sat down on a little stool near the parrot, who began flapping its wings as soon as it caught sight of her.

"Why so far away, Mariana?" Valentina Mihailovna asked, looking after her. "Do you want to be near your little friend? Just think, Simion Petrovitch," she said, turning to Kollomietzev, "our parrot has simply fallen in love with Mariana!"

"I don't wonder at it!"

"But he simply can't bear me!"

"How extraordinary! Perhaps you tease him."

"Oh, no, I never tease him. On the contrary, I feed him with sugar.

But he won't take anything out of my hand. It is a case of sympathy and antipathy."

Mariana looked sternly at Valentina Mihailovna and Valentina Mihailovna looked at her. These two women did not love one another.

Compared to her aunt Mariana seemed plain. She had a round face, a large aquiline nose, big bright grey eyes, fine eyebrows, and thin lips.

Her thick brown hair was cut short; she seemed retiring, but there was something strong and daring, impetuous and pa.s.sionate, in the whole of her personality. She had tiny little hands and feet, and her healthy, lithesome little figure reminded one of a Florentine statuette of the sixteenth century. Her movements were free and graceful.

Mariana's position in the Sipiagin's house was a very difficult one. Her father, a brilliant man of Polish extraction, who had attained the rank of general, was discovered to have embezzled large state funds. He was tried and convicted, deprived of his rank, n.o.bility, and exiled to Siberia. After some time he was pardoned and returned, but was too utterly crushed to begin life anew, and died in extreme poverty. His wife, Sipiagin's sister, did not survive the shock of the disgrace and her husband's death, and died soon after. Uncle Sipiagin gave a home to their only child, Mariana. She loathed her life of dependence and longed for freedom with all the force of her upright soul. There was a constant inner battle between her and her aunt. Valentina Mihailovna looked upon her as a nihilist and freethinker, and Mariana detested her aunt as an unconscious tyrant. She held aloof from her uncle and, indeed, from everyone else in the house. She held aloof, but was not afraid of them.

She was not timid by nature.

"Antipathy is a strange thing," Kollomietzev repeated. "Everybody knows that I am a deeply religious man, orthodox in the fullest sense of the word, but the sight of a priest's flowing locks drives me nearly mad. It makes me boil over with rage."

"I believe hair in general has an irritating effect upon you, Simion Petrovitch," Mariana remarked. "I feel sure you can't bear to see it cut short like mine."

Valentina Mihailovna lifted her eyebrows slowly, then dropped her head, as if astonished at the freedom with which modern young girls entered into conversation. Kollomietzev smiled condescendingly.

"Of course," he said, "I can't help feeling sorry for beautiful curls such as yours, Mariana Vikentievna, falling under the merciless snip of a pair of scissors, but it doesn't arouse antipathy in me. In any case, your example might even... even ... convert me!"

Kollomietzev could not think of a Russian word, and did not like using a French one, after what his hostess had said.

"Thank heaven," Valentina Mihailovna remarked, "Mariana does not wear gla.s.ses and has not yet discarded collars and cuffs; but, unfortunately, she studies natural history, and is even interested in the woman question. Isn't that so, Mariana?"

This was evidently said to make Mariana feel uncomfortable, but Mariana, however, did not feel uncomfortable.

"Yes, auntie," she replied, "I read everything I can get hold of on the subject. I am trying to understand the woman question."

"There is youth for you!" Valentina Mihailovna exclaimed, turning to Kollomietzev. "Now you and I are not at all interested in that sort of thing, are we?"

Kollomietzev smiled good-naturedly; he could not help entering into the playful mood of his amiable hostess.

"Mariana Vikentievna," he began, "is still full of the ideals.. . the romanticism of youth... which... in time--"

"Heaven, I was unjust to myself," Valentina Mihailovna interrupted him; "I am also interested in these questions. I am not quite an old lady yet."

"Of course. So am I in a way," Kollomietzev put in hastily. "Only I would forbid such things being talked about!"

"Forbid them being talked about?" Mariana asked in astonishment.

"Yes! I would say to the public, 'Interest yourselves in these things as much as you like, but talk about them... shhh...'" He layed his finger on his lips.

"I would, at any rate, forbid speaking through the press under any conditions!"

Valentina Mihailovna laughed.

"What? Would you have a commission appointed by the ministers for settling these questions?

"Why not? Don't you think we could do it better than these ignorant, hungry loafers who know nothing and imagine themselves to be men of genius? We could appoint Boris Andraevitch as president."

Valentina Mihailovna laughed louder still.