Virgin Soil Part 8

"You had better take care, Boris Andraevitch is sometimes such a Jacobin--"

"Jacko, jacko, jacko," the parrot screamed. Valentina Mihailovna waved her handkerchief at him. "Don't interrupt an intelligent conversation!

Mariana, do teach him manners!"

Mariana turned to the cage and began stroking the parrot's neck with her finger; the parrot stretched towards her.

"Yes," Valentina Mihailovna continued, "Boris Andraevitch astonishes me, too, sometimes. There is a certain strain in him... a certain strain...

of the tribune."

"C'est parce qu'il est orateur!" Kollomietzev exclaimed enthusiastically in French. "Your husband is a marvellous orator and is accustomed to success... ses propres paroles le grisent ... and then his desire for popularity. By the way, he is rather annoyed just now, is he not? Il boude? Eh?"

Valentina Mihailovna looked at Mariana.

"I haven't noticed it," she said after a pause. "Yes," Kollomietzev continued pensively, "he was rather overlooked at Easter."

Valentina Mihailovna indicated Mariana with her eyes. Kollomietzev smiled and screwed up his eyes, conveying to her that he understood.

"Mariana Vikentievna," he exclaimed suddenly, in an unnecessarily loud tone of voice, "do you intend teaching at the school again this year?"

Mariana turned round from the cage.

"Are you interested to know, Simion Petrovitch?"

"Certainly. I am very much interested."

"Would you forbid it?"

"I would forbid nihilists even so much as to think of schools. I would put all schools into the hands of the clergy, and with an eye on them I wouldn't mind running one myself!"

"Really! I haven't the slightest idea what I shall do this year. Last year things were not at all successful. Besides, how can you get a school together in the summer?"

Mariana blushed deeply all the time she was speaking, as if it cost her some effort. She was still very self-conscious.

"Are you not sufficiently prepared?" Valentina Mihailovna asked sarcastically.

"Perhaps not."

"Heavens!" Kollomietzev exclaimed. "What do I hear? Oh ye G.o.ds! Is preparation necessary to teach peasants the alphabet?"

At this moment Kolia ran into the drawing room shouting "Mamma! mamma!

Papa has come!" And after him, waddling on her stout little legs, appeared an old grey-haired lady in a cap and yellow shawl, and also announced that Boris had come.

This lady was Sipiagin's aunt, and was called Anna Zaharovna. Everyone in the drawing room rushed out into the hall, down the stairs, and on to the steps of the portico. A long avenue of chipped yews ran straight from these steps to the high road--a carriage and four was already rolling up the avenue straight towards them. Valentina Mihailovna, standing in front, waved her pocket handkerchief, Kolia shrieked with delight, the coachman adroitly pulled up the steaming horses, a footman came down headlong from the box and almost pulled the carriage door off its hinges in his effort to open it--and then, with a condescending smile on his lips, in his eyes, over the whole of his face, Boris Andraevitch, with one graceful gesture of the shoulders, dropped his cloak and sprang to the ground. Valentina Mihailovna gracefully threw her arms round his neck and they kissed three times. Kolia stamped his little feet and pulled at his father's coat from behind, but Boris Andraevitch first kissed Anna Zaharovna, quickly threw off his uncomfortable, ugly Scotch cap, greeted Mariana and Kollomietzev, who had also come out (he gave Kollomietzev a hearty shake of the hand in the English fashion), and then turned to his little son, lifted him under the arms, and kissed him.

During this scene Nejdanov half guiltily scrambled out of the carriage and, without removing his cap, stood quietly near the front wheel, looking out from under his eyebrows. Valentina Mihailovna, when embracing her husband, had cast a penetrating look over his shoulder at this new figure. Sipiagin had informed her that he was bringing a tutor.

Everyone continued exchanging greetings and shaking hands with the newly-arrived host as they all moved up the broad stairs, lined on either side with the princ.i.p.al men and maid servants. They did not come forward to kiss the master's hand (an Asiatic custom they had abandoned long ago), but bowed respectfully. Sipiagin responded to their salutations with a slight movement of the nose and eyebrows, rather than an inclination of the head.

Nejdanov followed the stream up the wide stairs. As soon as they reached the hall, Sipiagin, who had been searching for Nejdanov with his eyes, introduced him to his wife, Anna Zaharovna, and Mariana, and said to Kolia, "This is your tutor. Mind you do as he tells you. Give him your hand." Kolia extended his hand timidly, stared at him fixedly, but finding nothing particularly interesting about his tutor, turned to his "papa" again. Nejdanov felt uncomfortable, just as he had done at the theatre. He wore an old shabby coat, and his face and hands were covered with dust from the journey. Valentina Mihailovna said something kindly to him, but he did not quite catch what it was and did not reply.

He noticed that she was very bright, and clung to her husband affectionately. He did not like Kolia's befrizzled and pomaded head, and when his eye fell on Kollomietzev, thought, "What a sleek individual." He paid no attention to the others. Sipiagin turned his head once or twice in a dignified manner, as if looking round at his worldly belongings, a pose that set off to perfection his long drooping whiskers and somewhat small round neck. Then he shouted to one of the servants in a loud resonant voice, not at all husky from the journey, "Ivan! Take this gentleman to the green room and see to his luggage afterwards!" He then told Nejdanov that he could change and rest awhile, and that dinner would be served at five o'clock. Nejdanov bowed and followed Ivan to the "green" room, which was situated on the second floor.

The whole company went into the drawing room. The host was welcomed all over again. An old blind nurse appeared and made him a courtesy. Out of consideration for her years, Sipiagin gave her his hand to kiss. He then begged Kollomietzev to excuse him, and retired to his own room accompanied by his wife.

VII

The room into which the servant conducted Nejdanov was beautifully neat and s.p.a.cious, with wide-open windows looking on to the garden. A gentle breeze stirred the white curtains, blowing them out high like sails and letting them fall again. Golden reflections glided lightly over the ceiling; the whole room was filled with the moist freshness of spring.

Nejdanov dismissed the servant, unpacked his trunk, washed, and changed.

The journey had thoroughly exhausted him. The constant presence of a stranger during the last two days, the many fruitless discussions, had completely upset his nerves. A certain bitterness, which was neither boredom nor anger, acc.u.mulated mysteriously in the depths of his being.

He was annoyed with himself for his lack of courage, but his heart ached. He went up to the window and looked out into the garden. It was an old-fashioned garden, with rich dark soil, such as one rarely sees around Moscow, laid out on the slope of a hill into four separate parts.

In front of the house there was a flower garden, with straight gravel paths, groups of acacias and lilac, and round flower beds. To the left, past the stable yard, as far down as the barn, there was an orchard, thickly planted with apples, pears, plums, currants, and raspberries.

Beyond the flower garden, in front of the house, there was a large square walk, thickly interlaced with lime trees. To the right, the view was shut out by an avenue of silver poplars; a glimpse of an orangery could be seen through a group of weeping willows. The whole garden was clothed in its first green leaves; the loud buzz of summer insects was not yet heard; the leaves rustled gently, chaffinches twittered everywhere; two doves sat cooing on a tree; the note of a solitary cuckoo was heard first in one place, then in another; the friendly cawing of rooks was carried from the distance beyond the mill pond, sounding like the creaking of innumerable cart wheels. Light clouds floated dreamily over this gentle stillness, spreading themselves out like the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of some huge, lazy birds.

Nejdanov gazed and listened, drinking in the cool air through half-parted lips.

His depression left him and a wonderful calmness entered his soul.

Meanwhile he was being discussed in the bedroom below. Sipiagin was telling his wife how he had met him, what Prince G. had said of him, and the gist of their talks on the journey.

"A clever chap!" he repeated, "and well educated, too. It's true he's a revolutionist, but what does it matter? These people are ambitious, at any rate. As for Kolia, he is too young to be spoiled by any of this nonsense."

Valentina Mihailovna listened to her husband affectionately; an amused smile played on her lips, as if he were telling her of some naughty amusing prank. It was pleasant to her to think that her seigneur a maitre, such a respectable man, of important position, could be as mischievous as a boy of twenty. Standing before the looking-gla.s.s in a snow-white shirt and blue silk braces, Sipiagin was brushing his hair in the English fashion with two brushes, while Valentina Mihailovna, her feet tucked under her, was sitting on a narrow Turkish couch, telling him various news about the house, the paper mill, which, alas, was not going well, as was to be expected; about the possibilities of changing the cook, about the church, of which the plaster had come off; about Mariana, Kollomietzev...

Between husband and wife there existed the fullest confidence and good understanding; they certainly lived in "love and harmony," as people used to say in olden days. When Sipiagin, after finishing his toilet, asked chivalrously for his wife's hand and she gave him both, and watched him with an affectionate pride as he kissed them in turn, the feeling expressed in their faces was good and true, although in her it shone out of a pair of eyes worthy of Raphael, and in him out of the ordinary eyes of a mere official.

On the stroke of five Nejdanov went down to dinner, which was announced by a Chinese gong, not by a bell. The whole company was already a.s.sembled in the dining room. Sipiagin welcomed him again from behind his high cravat, and showed him to a place between Anna Zaharovna and Kolia. Anna Zaharovna was an old maid, a sister of Sipiagin's father; she exhaled a smell of camphor, like a garment that had been put away for a long time, and had a nervous, dejected look. She had acted as Kolia's nurse or governess, and her wrinkled face expressed displeasure when Nejdanov sat down between her and her charge. Kolia looked sideways at his new neighbour; the intelligent boy soon saw that his tutor was shy and uncomfortable, that he did not raise his eyes, and scarcely ate anything. This pleased Kolia, who had been afraid that his tutor would be cross and severe. Valentina Mihailovna also watched Nejdanov.

"He looks like a student," she thought to herself. "He's not accustomed to society, but has a very interesting face, and the colour of his hair is like that of the apostle whose hair the old Italian masters always painted red--and his hands are clean!" Indeed, everybody at the table stared at Nejdanov, but they had mercy on him, and left him in peace for the time being. He was conscious of this, and was pleased and angry about it at the same time.

Sipiagin and Kollomietzev carried on the conversation. They talked about the county council, the governor, the highway tax, the peasants buying out the land, about mutual Moscow and St. Petersburg acquaintances, Katkov's lyceum, which was just coming into fashion, about the difficulty of getting labour, penalties, and damage caused by cattle, even of Bismarck, the war of 1866, and Napoleon III., whom Kollomietzev called a hero. Kollomietzev gave vent to the most retrograde opinions, going so far as to propose, in jest it is true, a toast given by a certain friend of his on a names-day banquet, "I drink to the only principle I acknowledge, the whip and Roedeger!"

Valentina Mihailovna frowned, and remarked that it was de tres mauvais gout.

Sipiagin, on the contrary, expressed the most liberal views, refuted Kollomietzev's arguments politely, though with a certain amount of disdain, and even chaffed him a little.

"Your terror of emanc.i.p.ation, my dear Simion Petrovitch," he said, "puts me in mind of our much respected friend, Alexai Ivanovitch Tveritinov, and the pet.i.tion he sent in, in the year 1860. He insisted on reading it in every drawing room in St. Petersburg. There was one rather good sentence in it about our liberated serf, who was to march over the face of the fatherland bearing a torch in his hand. You should have seen our dear Alexai Ivanovitch, blowing out his cheeks and blinking his little eyes, p.r.o.nounce in his babyish voice, 'T-torch! t-torch! Will march with a t-torch!' Well, the emanc.i.p.ation is now an established fact, but where is the peasant with the torch?

"Tveritinov was only slightly wrong," Kollomietzev said solemnly. "Not the peasants will march with the torch, but others."

At the words, Nejdanov, who until then had scarcely noticed Mariana, who sat a little to one side, exchanged glances with her, and instantly felt that this solemn girl and he were of the same convictions, of the same stamp. She had made no impression on him whatever when Sipiagin had introduced them; then why did he exchange glances with her in particular? He wondered if it was not disgraceful to sit and listen to such views without protesting and by reason of his silence letting others think that he shared them. Nejdanov looked at Mariana a second time, and her eyes seemed to say, "Wait a while... the time is not ripe.

It isn't worth it... later on... there is plenty of time in store."

He was happy to think that she understood him, and began following the conversation again. Valentina Mihailovna supported her husband, and was, if anything, even more radical in her expressions than he. She could not understand, "simply could not un-der-stand, how an educated young man could hold such antiquated views."

"However," she added, "I am convinced that you only say these things for the sake of argument. And you, Alexai Dmitritch," she added to Nejdanov, with a smile (he wondered how she had learned his Christian name and his father's name), "I know, do not share Simion Petrovitch's fears; my husband told me about your talks on the journey."

Nejdanov blushed, bent over his plate, and mumbled something; he did not feel shy, but was simply unaccustomed to conversing with such brilliant personages. Madame Sipiagin continued smiling to him; her husband nodded his head patronisingly. Kollomietzev stuck his monocle between his eyebrow and nose and stared at the student who dared not to share his "fears." But it was difficult to embarra.s.s Nejdanov in this way; on the contrary, he instantly sat up straight, and in his turn fixed his gaze on the fashionable official. Just as instinctively as he had felt Mariana to be a comrade, so he felt Kollomietzev to be an enemy!

Kollomietzev felt it too; he removed his monocle, turned away, and tried to laugh carelessly--but it did not come off somehow. Only Anna Zaharovna, who secretly worshipped him, was on his side, and became even angrier than before with the unwelcome neighbour separating her from Kolia.