‘Art thou asleep? with the guitarWill I awaken thee …’
‘Art thou asleep? with the guitarWill I awaken thee …’
‘Art thou asleep? with the guitar
Will I awaken thee …’
I made haste to open the door to him.
‘Good-morning,’ said Gagin, coming in; ‘I’m disturbing you rather early, but only see what a morning it is. Fresh, dewy, larks singing.…’
With his curly, shining hair, his open neck and rosy cheeks, he was fresh as the morning himself.
I dressed; we went out into the garden, sat down on a bench, ordered coffee, and proceeded to talk. Gagin told me his plans for the future; he possessed a moderate fortune, was not dependent on any one, and wanted to devote himself to painting. He only regretted that he had not had more sense sooner, but had wasted so much time doing nothing. I too referred tomy projects, and incidentally confided to him the secret of my unhappy love. He listened to me amiably, but, so far as I could observe, I did not arouse in him any very strong sympathy with my passion. Sighing once or twice after me, for civility’s sake, Gagin suggested that I should go home with him and look at his sketches. I agreed at once.
We did not find Acia. She had, the landlady told us, gone to the ‘ruin.’ A mile and a half from L. were the remains of a feudal castle. Gagin showed me all his canvases. In his sketches there was a good deal of life and truth, a certain breadth and freedom; but not one of them was finished, and the drawing struck me as careless and incorrect. I gave candid expression to my opinion.
‘Yes, yes,’ he assented, with a sigh; ‘you’re right; it’s all very poor and crude; what’s to be done? I haven’t had the training I ought to have had; besides, one’s cursed Slavonic slackness gets the better of one. While one dreams of work, one soars away in eagle flight; one fancies one’s going to shake the earth out of its place—but when it comes to doing anything, one’s weak and weary directly.’
I began trying to cheer him up, but he waved me off, and bundling his sketches up together, threw them on the sofa.
‘If I’ve patience, something may be made of me,’ he muttered; ‘if I haven’t, I shall remain a half-baked noble amateur. Come, we’d better be looking for Acia.’
We went out.
The road to the ruin went twisting down the steep incline into a narrow wooded valley; at the bottom ran a stream, noisily threading its way through the pebbles, as though in haste to flow into the great river, peacefully shining beyond the dark ridge of the deep indented mountain crest. Gagin called my attention to some places where the light fell specially finely; one could see in his words that, even if not a painter, he was undoubtedly an artist. The ruin soon came into sight. On the very summit of the naked rock rose a square tower, black all over, still strong, but, as it were, cleft in two by a longitudinal crack. Mossy walls adjoined the tower; here and there ivy clung about it; wind-twisted bushes hung down from the grey battlements and crumbling arches. A stray path led up to the gates, still standing entire. We had just reached them, when suddenly a girl’s figure darted up in front of us, ran swiftly over a heap of debris, and stood on the projecting part of the wall, right over the precipice.
‘Why, it’s Acia!’ cried Gagin; ‘the madthing.’ We went through the gates and found ourselves in a small courtyard, half overgrown with crab-apple trees and nettles. On the projecting ledge, Acia actually was sitting. She turned and faced us, laughing, but did not move. Gagin shook his finger at her, while I loudly reproached her for her recklessness.
‘That’s enough,’ Gagin said to me in a whisper; ‘don’t tease her; you don’t know what she is; she’d very likely climb right up on to the tower. Look, you’d better be admiring the intelligence of the people of these parts!’
I looked round. In a corner, ensconced in a tiny, wooden hut, an old woman was knitting a stocking, and looking at us through her spectacles. She sold beer, gingerbread, and seltzer water to tourists. We seated ourselves on a bench, and began drinking some fairly cold beer out of heavy pewter pots. Acia still sat without moving, with her feet tucked under her, and a muslin scarf wrapped round her head; her graceful figure stood out distinctly and finely against the clear sky; but I looked at her with a feeling of hostility. The evening before I had detected something forced, something not quite natural about her.… ‘She’s trying to impress us,’ I thought; ‘whatever for? What a childish trick.’ As though guessing my thoughts, she suddenly turned a rapid, searching glance upon me, laughed again, leaped in two bounds from the wall, and goingup to the old woman, asked her for a glass of water.
‘Do you think I am thirsty?’ she said, addressing her brother; ‘no; there are some flowers on the walls, which must be watered.’
Gagin made her no reply; and with the glass in her hand, she began scrambling over the ruins, now and then stopping, bending down, and with comic solemnity pouring a few drops of water, which sparkled brightly in the sun. Her movements were very charming, but I felt, as before, angry with her, even while I could not help admiring her lightness and agility. At one dangerous place she purposely screamed, and then laughed.… I felt still more annoyed with her.
‘Why, she climbs like a goat,’ the old woman mumbled, turning for an instant from her stocking.
At last, Acia had emptied the glass, and with a saucy swing she walked back to us. A queer smile was faintly twitching at her eyebrows, nostrils, and lips; her dark eyes were screwed up with a half insolent, half merry look.
‘You consider my behaviour improper,’ her face seemed to say; ‘all the same, I know you’re admiring me.’
‘Well done, Acia, well done,’ Gagin said in a low voice.
She seemed all at once overcome with shame,she dropped her long eyelashes, and sat down beside us with a guilty air. At that moment I got for the first time a good look at her face, the most changeable face I had ever seen. A few instants later it had turned quite pale, and wore an intense, almost mournful expression, its very features seemed larger, sterner, simpler. She completely subsided. We walked round the ruins (Acia followed us), and admired the views. Meanwhile it was getting near dinner-time. As he paid the old woman, Gagin asked for another mug of beer, and turning to me, cried with a sly face—
‘To the health of the lady of your heart.’
‘Why, has he—have you such a lady?’ Acia asked suddenly.
‘Why, who hasn’t?’ retorted Gagin.
Acia seemed pensive for an instant; then her face changed, the challenging, almost insolent smile came back once more.
On the way home she kept laughing, and was more mischievous again. She broke off a long branch, put it on her shoulder, like a gun, and tied her scarf round her head. I remember we met a numerous family of light-haired affected English people; they all, as though at a word of command, looked Acia up and down with their glassy eyes in chilly amazement, while she started singing aloud, as though in defiance of them. When she reached home, she went straight to her own room, and onlyappeared when dinner was on the table. She was dressed in her best clothes, had carefully arranged her hair, laced herself in at the waist, and put on gloves. At dinner she behaved very decorously, almost affectedly, hardly tasting anything, and drinking water out of a wine-glass. She obviously wanted to show herself in a new character before me—the character of a well-bred, refined young lady. Gagin did not check her; one could see that it was his habit to humour her in everything. He merely glanced at me good-humouredly now and then, and slightly shrugged his shoulders, as though he would say—‘She’s a baby; don’t be hard on her.’ Directly dinner was over, Acia got up, made us a curtsey, and putting on her hat, asked Gagin if she might go to see Frau Luise.
‘Since when do you ask leave,’ he answered with his invariable smile, a rather embarrassed smile this time; ‘are you bored with us?’
‘No; but I promised Frau Luise yesterday to go and see her; besides, I thought you would like better being alone. Mr. N. (she indicated me) will tell you something more about himself.’
She went out.
‘Frau Luise,’ Gagin began, trying to avoid meeting my eyes, ‘is the widow of a former burgomaster here, a good-natured, but silly old woman. She has taken a great fancy to Acia. Acia has a passion for making friends withpeople of a lower class; I’ve noticed, it’s always pride that’s at the root of that. She’s pretty well spoilt with me, as you see,’ he went on after a brief pause: ‘but what would you have me do? I can’t be exacting with any one, and with her less than any one else. I amboundnot to be hard on her.’
I was silent. Gagin changed the conversation. The more I saw of him, the more strongly was I attracted by him. I soon understood him. His was a typically Russian nature, truthful, honest, simple; but, unhappily, without energy, lacking tenacity and inward fire. Youth was not boiling over within him, but shone with a subdued light. He was very sweet and clever, but I could not picture to myself what he would become in ripe manhood. An artist … without intense, incessant toil, there is no being an artist … and as for toil, I mused, watching his soft features, listening to his slow deliberate talk, ‘no, you’ll never toil, you don’t know how to put pressure on yourself.’ But not to love him was an impossibility; one’s heart was simply drawn to him. We spent four hours together, sometimes sitting on the sofa, sometimes walking slowly up and down before the house; and in those four hours we became intimate friends.
The sun was setting, and it was time for me to go home. Acia had not yet come back.
‘What a reckless thing she is,’ said Gagin.‘Shall I come along with you? We’ll turn in at Frau Luise’s on the way. I’ll ask whether she’s there. It’s not far out of the way.’
We went down into the town, and turning off into a narrow, crooked little by-street, stopped before a house four storeys high, and with two windows abreast in each storey. The second storey projected beyond the first, the third and fourth stood out still further than the second; the whole house, with its crumbling carving, its two stout columns below, its pointed brick roof, and the projecting piece on the attic poking out like a beak, looked like a huge, crouching bird.
‘Acia,’ shouted Gagin, ‘are you here?’
A window, with a light in it in the third storey, rattled and opened, and we saw Acia’s dark head. Behind her peered out the toothless and dim-sighted face of an old German woman.
‘I’m here,’ said Acia, leaning roguishly out with her elbows on the window-sill; ‘I’m quite contented here. Hullo there, catch,’ she added, flinging Gagin a twig of geranium; ‘imagine I’m the lady of your heart.’
Frau Luise laughed.
‘N. is going,’ said Gagin; ‘he wants to say good-bye to you.’
‘Really,’ said Acia; ‘in that case give him my geranium, and I’ll come back directly.’
She slammed-to the window and seemed tobe kissing Frau Luise. Gagin offered me the twig without a word. I put it in my pocket in silence, went on to the ferry, and crossed over to the other side of the river.
I remember I went home thinking of nothing in particular, but with a strange load at my heart, when I was suddenly struck by a strong familiar scent, rare in Germany. I stood still, and saw near the road a small bed of hemp. Its fragrance of the steppes instantaneously brought my own country to my mind, and stirred a passionate longing for it in my heart. I longed to breathe Russian air, to tread on Russian soil. ‘What am I doing here, why am I trailing about in foreign countries among strangers?’ I cried, and the dead weight I had felt at my heart suddenly passed into a bitter, stinging emotion. I reached home in quite a different frame of mind from the evening before. I felt almost enraged, and it was a long while before I could recover my equanimity. I was beset by a feeling of anger I could not explain. At last I sat down, and bethinking myself of my faithless widow (I wound up every day regularly by dreaming, as in duty bound, of this lady), I pulled out one of her letters. But I did not even open it; my thoughts promptly took another turn. I began dreaming—dreaming of Acia. I recollected that Gagin had, in the course of conversation, hinted at certain difficulties, obstacles in theway of his returning to Russia.… ‘Come, is she his sister?’ I said aloud.
I undressed, got into bed, and tried to get to sleep; but an hour later I was sitting up again in bed, propped up with my elbow on the pillow, and was once more thinking about this ‘whimsical chit of a girl with the affected laugh.…’ ‘She’s the figure of the little Galatea of Raphael in the Farnesino,’ I murmured: ‘yes; and she’s not his sister——’
The widow’s letter lay tranquil and undisturbed on the floor, a white patch in the moonlight.
Next morning I went again to L——. I persuaded myself I wanted to see Gagin, but secretly I was tempted to go and see what Acia would do, whether she would be as whimsical as on the previous day. I found them both in their sitting-room, and strange to say—possibly because I had been thinking so much that night and morning of Russia—Acia struck me as a typically Russian girl, and a girl of the humbler class, almost like a Russian servant-girl. She wore an old gown, she had combed her hair back behind her ears, and was sitting still as a mouse at the window, working at some embroidery in a frame, quietly, demurely, as though she had never done anything else all her life. She said scarcely anything, looked quietly at her work, and her features wore such an ordinary, commonplace expression, that I could not help thinking of our Katias and Mashas at home in Russia. To complete the resemblance she started singing in a low voice, ‘Little mother, little dove.’ I looked at herlittle face, which was rather yellow and listless, I thought of my dreams of the previous night, and I felt a pang of regret for something.
It was exquisite weather. Gagin announced that he was going to make a sketch to-day from nature; I asked him if he would let me go with him, whether I shouldn’t be in his way.
‘On the contrary,’ he assured me; ‘you may give me some good advice.’
He put on a hat à la Vandyck, and a blouse, took a canvas under his arm, and set out; I sauntered after him. Acia stayed at home. Gagin, as he went out, asked her to see that the soup wasn’t too thin; Acia promised to look into the kitchen. Gagin went as far as the valley I knew already, sat down on a stone, and began to sketch a hollow oak with spreading branches. I lay on the grass and took out a book; but I didn’t read two pages, and he simply spoiled a sheet of paper; we did little else but talk, and as far as I am competent to judge, we talked rather cleverly and subtly of the right method of working, of what we must avoid, and what one must cling to, and wherein lay the significance of the artist in our age. Gagin, at last, decided that he was not in the mood to-day, and lay down beside me on the grass. And then our youthful eloquence flowed freely; fervent, pensive, enthusiastic by turns, but consisting almost always of those vague generalities into which a Russian is soready to expand. When we had talked to our hearts’ content, and were full of a feeling of satisfaction as though we had got something done, achieved some sort of success, we returned home. I found Acia just as I had left her; however assiduously I watched her I could not detect a shade of coquetry, nor a sign of an intentionally assumed rôle in her; this time it was impossible to reproach her for artificiality.
‘Aha!’ said Gagin; ‘she has imposed fasting and penance on herself.’
Towards evening she yawned several times with obvious genuineness, and went early to her room. I myself soon said good-bye to Gagin, and as I went home, I had no dreams of any kind; that day was spent in sober sensations. I remember, however, as I lay down to sleep, I involuntarily exclaimed aloud—
‘What a chameleon the girl is!’ and after a moment’s thought I added; ‘anyway, she’s not his sister.’
A whole fortnight passed by. I visited the Gagins every day. Acia seemed to avoid me, but she did not permit herself one of the mischievous tricks which had so surprised me the first two days of our acquaintance. She seemed secretly wounded or embarrassed; she even laughed less than at first. I watched her with curiosity.
She spoke French and German fairly well; but one could easily see, in everything she did, that she had not from childhood been brought up under a woman’s care, and that she had had a curious, irregular education that had nothing in common with Gagin’s bringing up. He was, in spite of the Vandyck hat and the blouse, so thoroughly every inch of him the soft, half-effeminate Great Russian nobleman, while she was not like the young girl of the same class. In all her movements there was a certain restlessness. The wild stock had not long been grafted, the new wine was still fermenting. By nature modest and timid, she was exasperated by her own shyness, and inher exasperation tried to force herself to be bold and free and easy, in which she was not always successful. I sometimes began to talk to her about her life in Russia, about her past; she answered my questions reluctantly. I found out, however, that before going abroad she had lived a long while in the country. I came upon her once, intent on a book, alone. With her head on her hands and her fingers thrust into her hair, she was eagerly devouring the lines.
‘Bravo!’ I said, going up to her; ‘how studious you are!’ She raised her head, and looked gravely and severely at me. ‘You think I can do nothing but laugh,’ she said, and was about to go away.…
I glanced at the title of the book; it was some French novel.
‘I can’t commend your choice, though,’ I observed.
‘What am I to read then?’ she cried; and flinging the book on the table, she added—‘so I’d better go and play the fool,’ and ran out into the garden.
That same day, in the evening, I was reading GaginHermann und Dorothea. Acia at first kept fidgeting about us, then all at once she stopped, listened, softly sat down by me, and heard the reading through to the end. The next day I hardly knew her again, till I guessed it had suddenly occurred to her to beas domestic and discreet as Dorothea. In fact I saw her as a half-enigmatic creature. Vain, self-conscious to the last degree, she attracted me even when I was irritated by her. Of one thing only I felt more and more convinced; and that was, that she was not Gagin’s sister. His manner with her was not like a brother’s, it was too affectionate, too considerate, and at the same time a little constrained.
A curious incident apparently confirmed my suspicions.
One evening, when I reached the vineyard where the Gagins lived, I found the gate fastened. Without losing much time in deliberation, I made my way to a broken-down place I had noticed before in the hedge and jumped over it. Not far from this spot there was a little arbour of acacias on one side of the path. I got up to it and was just about to pass it.… Suddenly I was struck by Acia’s voice passionately and tearfully uttering the following words:
‘No, I’ll love no one but you, no, no, I will love you only, for ever!’
‘Come, Acia, calm yourself,’ said Gagin; ‘you know I believe you.’
Their voices came from the arbour. I could see them both through the thin net-work of leaves. They did not notice me.
‘You, you only,’ she repeated, and she flung herself on his neck, and with brokensobs began kissing him and clinging to his breast.
‘Come, come,’ he repeated, lightly passing his hand over her hair.
For a few instants I stood motionless.… Suddenly I started—should I go up to them?—‘On no consideration,’ flashed through my head. With rapid footsteps I turned back to the hedge, leaped over it into the road, and almost running, went home. I smiled, rubbed my hands, wondered at the chance which had so suddenly confirmed my surmises (I did not for one instant doubt their accuracy) and yet there was a great bitterness in my heart. What accomplished hypocrites they are, though, I thought. And what for? Why should he try to take me in? I shouldn’t have expected it of him.… And what a touching scene of reconciliation!
I slept badly, and next morning got up early, fastened a knapsack on my back, and telling my landlady not to expect me back for the night, set off walking to the mountains, along the upper part of the stream on which Z. is situated. These mountains, offsets of the ridge known as the Hundsrück, are very interesting from a geological point of view. They are especially remarkable for the purity and regularity of the strata of basalt; but I was in no mood for geological observations. I did not take stock of what was passing within me. One feeling was clear to me; a disinclination to see the Gagins. I assured myself that the sole reason of my sudden distaste for their society was anger at their duplicity. Who forced them to pass themselves off as brother and sister? However, I tried not to think about them; I sauntered in leisurely fashion about the mountains and valleys, sat in the village inns, talking peacefully to the innkeepers and people drinking in them, or lay on a flat stone warmed by the sun, and watched the clouds floating by.Luckily it was exquisite weather. In such pursuits I passed three days, and not without pleasure, though my heart did ache at times. My own mood was in perfect harmony with the peaceful nature of that quiet countryside.
I gave myself up entirely to the play of circumstances, of fleeting impressions; in slow succession they flowed through my soul, and left on it at last one general sensation, in which all I had seen, felt, and heard in those three days was mingled—all; the delicate fragrance of resin in the forest, the call and tap of the woodpeckers, the never-ceasing chatter of the clear brooks, with spotted trout lying in the sand at the bottom, the somewhat softened outlines of the mountains, the surly rocks, the little clean villages, with respectable old churches and trees, the storks in the meadows, the neat mills with swiftly turning wheels, the beaming faces of the villagers, their blue smocks and grey stockings, the creaking, deliberately-moving wagons, drawn by sleek horses, and sometimes cows, the long-haired young men, wandering on the clean roads, planted with apple and pear trees.…
Even now I like to recall my impressions of those days. Good luck go with thee, modest nook of Germany, with thy simple plenty, with traces everywhere of busy hands, of patient though leisurely toil.… Good luck and peace to thee!
I came home at the end of the third day: I forgot to say that in my anger with the Gagins I tried to revive the image of my cruel-hearted widow, but my efforts were fruitless. I remember when I applied myself to musing upon her, I saw a little peasant girl of five years old, with a round little face and innocently staring eyes. She gazed with such childish directness at me.… I felt ashamed before her innocent stare, I could not lie in her presence, and at once, and once for all, said a last good-bye to my former flame.
At home I found a note from Gagin. He wondered at the suddenness of my plan, reproached me, asked why I had not taken him with me, and pressed me to go and see him directly I was back. I read this note with dissatisfaction; but the next day I set off to the Gagins.
Gagin met me in friendly fashion, and overwhelmed me with affectionate reproaches; but Acia, as though intentionally, burst out laughing for no reason whatever, directly she saw me, and promptly ran away, as she so often did. Gagin was disconcerted; he muttered after her that she must be crazy, and begged me to excuse her. I confess I was very much annoyed with Acia; already, apart from that, I was not at my ease; and now again this unnatural laughter, these strange grimaces. I pretended, however, not to notice anything, and began telling Gagin some of the incidents of my short tour. He told me what he had been doing in my absence. But our talk did not flow easily; Acia came into the room and ran out again; I declared at last that I had urgent work to do, and must get back home. Gagin at first tried to keep me, then, looking intently at me, offered to see me on my way. In the passage, Acia suddenly came up to me and held out her hand; I shook her fingers very slightly, and barely bowed to her. Gaginand I crossed the Rhine together, and when we reached my favourite ash-tree with the statuette of the Madonna, we sat down on the bench to admire the view. A remarkable conversation took place between us.
At first we exchanged a few words, then we were silent, watching the clear river.
‘Tell me,’ began Gagin all at once, with his habitual smile, ‘what do you think of Acia? I suppose she must strike you as rather strange, doesn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ I answered, in some perplexity. I had not expected he would begin to speak of her.
‘One has to know her well to judge of her,‘ he observed; ’she has a very good heart, but she’s wilful. She’s difficult to get on with. But you couldn’t blame her if you knew her story.…’
‘Her story?’ I broke in.… ‘Why, isn’t she your——’ Gagin glanced at me.
‘Do you really think she isn’t my sister?… No,’ he went on, paying no attention to my confusion, ‘she really is my sister, she’s my father’s daughter. Let me tell you about her, I feel I can trust you, and I’ll tell you all about it.
‘My father was very kind, clever, cultivated, and unhappy. Fate treated him no worse than others; but he could not get over her first blow. He married early, for love; his wife, my mother, died very soon after; I was only six monthsold then. My father took me away with him to his country place, and for twelve years he never went out anywhere. He looked after my education himself, and would never have parted with me, if his brother, my uncle, had not come to see us in the country. This uncle always lived in Petersburg, where he held a very important post. He persuaded my father to put me in his charge, as my father would not on any consideration agree to leave the country. My uncle represented to him that it was bad for a boy of my age to live in complete solitude, that with such a constantly depressed and taciturn instructor as my father I should infallibly be much behind other boys of my age in education, and that my character even might very possibly suffer. My father resisted his brother’s counsels a long while, but he gave way at last. I cried at parting from my father; I loved him, though I had never seen a smile on his face … but when I got to Petersburg, I soon forgot our dark and cheerless home. I entered a cadet’s school, and from school passed on into a regiment of the Guards. Every year I used to go home to the country for a few weeks, and every year I found my father more and more low-spirited, absorbed in himself, depressed, and even timorous. He used to go to church every day, and had quite got out of the way of talking. On one of my visits—I was about twenty then—I saw for thefirst time in our house a thin, dark-eyed little girl of ten years old—Acia. My father told me she was an orphan whom he had kept out of charity—that was his very expression. I paid no particular attention to her; she was shy, quick in her movements, and silent as a little wild animal, and directly I went into my father’s favourite room—an immense gloomy apartment, where my mother had died, and where candles were kept burning even in the daytime—she would hide at once behind his big arm-chair, or behind the book-case. It so happened that for three or four years after that visit the duties of the service prevented my going home to the country. I used to get a short letter from my father every month; Acia he rarely mentioned, and only incidentally. He was over fifty, but he seemed still young. Imagine my horror; all of a sudden, suspecting nothing, I received a letter from the steward, in which he informed me my father was dangerously ill, and begged me to come as soon as possible if I wanted to take leave of him. I galloped off post-haste, and found my father still alive, but almost at his last gasp. He was greatly relieved to see me, clasped me in his wasted arms, and gazed at me with a long, half-scrutinising, half-imploring look, and making me promise I would carry out his last request, he told his old valet to bring Acia. The old man brought her in; she couldscarcely stand upright, and was shaking all over.
‘“Here,†said my father with an effort, “I confide to you my daughter—your sister. You will hear all about her from Yakov,†he added, pointing to the valet.
‘Acia sobbed, and fell with her face on the bed.… Half-an-hour later my father died.
‘This was what I learned. Acia was the daughter of my father by a former maidservant of my mother’s, Tatiana. I have a vivid recollection of this Tatiana, I remember her tall, slender figure, her handsome, stern, clever face, with big dark eyes. She had the character of being a proud, unapproachable girl. As far as I could find out from Yakov’s respectful, unfinished sentences, my father had become attached to her some years after my mother’s death. Tatiana was not living then in my father’s house, but in the hut of a married sister, who had charge of the cows. My father became exceedingly fond of her, and after my departure from the country he even wanted to marry her, but she herself would not consent to be his wife, in spite of his entreaties.
‘“The deceased Tatiana Vassilievna,†Yakov informed me, standing in the doorway with his hands behind him, “had good sense in everything, and she didn’t want to do harm to your father. ‘A poor wife I should be for you, a poor sort of lady I should make,’ so she was pleasedto say, she said so before me.†Tatiana would not even move into the house, and went on living at her sister’s with Acia. In my childhood I used to see Tatiana only on saints’ days in church. With her head tied up in a dark kerchief, and a yellow shawl on her shoulders, she used to stand in the crowd, near a window—her stern profile used to stand out sharply against the transparent window-pane—and she used to pray sedately and gravely, bowing low to the ground in the old-fashioned way. When my uncle carried me off, Acia was only two years old, and she lost her mother when she was nine.
‘Directly Tatiana died, my father took Acia into his house. He had before then expressed a wish to have her with him, but that too Tatiana had refused him. Imagine what must have passed in Acia’s mind when she was taken into the master’s house. To this day she cannot forget the moment when they first put her on a silk dress and kissed her hand. Her mother, as long as she lived, had brought her up very strictly; with my father she enjoyed absolute freedom. He was her tutor; she saw no one except him. He did not spoil her, that is to say, he didn’t fondle and pet her; but he loved her passionately, and never checked her in anything; in his heart he considered he had wronged her. Acia soon realised that she was the chief personage in the house; she knew the master washer father; but just as quickly she was aware of her false position; self-consciousness was strongly developed in her, mistrustfulness too; bad habits took root, simplicity was lost. She wanted (she confessed this to me once herself), to forcethe whole worldto forget her origin; she was ashamed of her mother, and at the same time ashamed of being ashamed, and was proud of her too. You see she knew and knows a lot that she oughtn’t to have known at her age.… But was it her fault? The forces of youth were at work in her, her heart was in a ferment, and not a guiding hand near her. Absolute independence in everything! And wasn’t it hard for her to put up with? She wanted to be as good as other young ladies; she flew to books. But what good could she get from that? Her life went on as irregularly as it had begun, but her heart was not spoiled, her intellect was uninjured.
‘And there was I left, a boy of twenty, with a girl of thirteen on my hands! For the first few days after my father’s death the very sound of my voice threw her into a fever, my caresses caused her anguish, and it was only slowly and gradually that she got used to me. It is true that later, when she fully realised that I really did acknowledge her as my sister, and cared for her, she became passionately attached to me; she can feel nothing by halves.
‘I took her to Petersburg. Painful as it wasto part with her, we could not live together. I sent her to one of the best boarding-schools. Acia knew our separation was inevitable, yet she began by fretting herself ill over it, and almost died. Later on she plucked up more spirit, and spent four years at school; but, contrary to my expectations, she was almost exactly the same as before. The headmistress of the school often made complaints of her, “And we can’t punish her,†she used to say to me, “and she’s not amenable to kindness.†Acia was exceedingly quick-witted, and did better at her lessons than any one; but she never would put herself on a level with the rest; she was perverse, and held herself aloof.… I could not blame her very much for it; in her position she had either to be subservient, or to hold herself aloof. Of all her school-fellows she only made friends with one, an ugly girl of poor family, who was sat upon by the rest. The other girls with whom she was brought up, mostly of good family, did not like her, teased her and taunted her as far as they could. Acia would not give way to them an inch. One day at their lesson on the law of God, the teacher was talking of the vices. ‘Servility and cowardice are the worst vices,’ Acia said aloud. She would still go her own way, in fact; only her manners were improved, though even in that respect I think she did not gain a great deal.
‘At last she reached her seventeenth year. I could not keep her any longer at school. I found myself in a rather serious difficulty. Suddenly a blessed idea came to me—to resign my commission and go abroad for a year or two, taking Acia with me. No sooner thought than done; and here we are on the banks of the Rhine, where I am trying to take up painting, and she … is as naughty and troublesome as ever. But now I hope you will not judge her too harshly; for though she pretends she doesn’t care, she values the good opinion of every one, and yours particularly.’
And Gagin smiled again his gentle smile. I pressed his hand warmly.
‘That’s how it is,’ Gagin began again; ‘but I have a trying time with her. She’s like gun-powder, always ready to go off. So far, she has never taken a fancy to any one, but woe betide us, if she falls in love! I sometimes don’t know what to do with her. The other day she took some notion into her head, and suddenly began declaring I was colder to her than I used to be, that she loved me and no one else, and never would love any one else.… And she cried so, as she said it—’
‘So that was it,’—I was beginning, but I bit my tongue.
‘Tell me,’ I questioned Gagin, ‘we have talked so frankly about everything, is it possible really, she has never cared for any one yet?Didn’t she see any young men in Petersburg?’
‘She didn’t like them at all. No, Acia wants a hero—an exceptional individual—or a picturesque shepherd on a mountain pass. But I’ve been chattering away, and keeping you,’ he added, getting up.
‘Do you know——,’ I began; ‘let’s go back to your place, I don’t want to go home.’
‘What about your work?’
I made no reply. Gagin smiled good-humouredly, and we went back to L. As I caught sight of the familiar vineyard and little white house, I felt a certain sweetness—yes, sweetness in my heart, as though honey was stealthily dropping thence for me. My heart was light after what Gagin had told me.
Acia met us in the very doorway of the house. I expected a laugh again; but she came to meet us, pale and silent, with downcast eyes.
‘Here he is again,’ Gagin began, ‘and he wanted to come back of his own accord, observe.’
Acia looked at me inquiringly. It was my turn now to hold out my hand, and this time I pressed her chilly fingers warmly. I felt very sorry for her. I understood now a great deal in her that had puzzled me before; her inward restlessness, her want of breeding, her desire to be striking—all became clear to me. I had had a peep into that soul; a secret scourge was always tormenting her, her ignorant self-consciousness struggled in confused alarm, but her whole nature strove towards truth. I understood why this strange little girl attracted me; it was not only by the half-wild charm of her slender body that she attracted me; I liked her soul.
Gagin began rummaging among his canvases. I suggested to Acia that she should take aturn with me in the vineyard. She agreed at once, with cheerful and almost humble readiness. We went half-way down the mountain, and sat down on a broad stone.
‘And you weren’t dull without us?’ Acia began.
‘And were you dull without me?’ I queried.
Acia gave me a sidelong look.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Was it nice in the mountains?’ she went on at once. ‘Were they high ones? Higher than the clouds? Tell me what you saw. You were telling my brother, but I didn’t hear anything.’
‘It was of your own accord you went away,’ I remarked.
‘I went away … because …—I’m not going away now,’ she added with a confiding caress in her voice. ‘You were angry to-day.’
‘I?’
‘Yes, you.’
‘Upon my word, whatever for?’
‘I don’t know, but you were angry, and you went away angry. I was very much vexed that you went away like that, and I’m so glad you came back.’
‘And I’m glad I came back,’ I observed.
Acia gave herself a little shrug, as children often do when they are very pleased.
‘Oh, I’m good at guessing!’ she went on.‘Sometimes, simply from the way papa coughed, I could tell in the next room whether he was pleased with me or not.’
Till that day Acia had never once spoken to me of her father. I was struck by it.
‘Were you fond of your father?’ I said, and suddenly, to my intense annoyance, I felt I was reddening.
She made no answer, and blushed too. We were both silent. In the distance a smoking steamer was scudding along on the Rhine. We began watching it.
‘Why don’t you tell me about your tour?’ Acia murmured.
‘Why did you laugh to-day directly you saw me?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know really. Sometimes I want to cry, but I laugh. You mustn’t judge me—by what I do. Oh, by-the-bye, what a story that is about the Lorelei! Is thatherrock we can see? They say she used to drown every one, but as soon as she fell in love she threw herself in the water. I like that story. Frau Luise tells me all sorts of stories. Frau Luise has a black cat with yellow eyes.…’
Acia raised her head and shook her curls.
‘Ah, I am happy,’ she said.
At that instant there floated across to us broken, monotonous sounds. Hundreds of voices in unison and at regular intervals were repeating a chanted litany. The crowd of pilgrimsmoved slowly along the road below with crosses and banners.…
‘I should like to go with them,’ said Acia, listening to the sounds of the voices gradually growing fainter.
‘Are you so religious?’
‘I should like to go far away on a pilgrimage, on some great exploit,’ she went on. ‘As it is, the days pass by, life passes by, and what have we done?’
‘You are ambitious,’ I observed. ‘You want to live to some purpose, to leave some trace behind you.…’
‘Is that impossible, then?’
‘Impossible,’ I was on the point of repeating.… But I glanced at her bright eyes, and only said:
‘You can try.’
‘Tell me,’ began Acia, after a brief silence during which shadows passed over her face, which had already turned pale, ‘did you care much for that lady?… You remember my brother drank her health at the ruins the day after we first knew you.’
I laughed.
‘Your brother was joking. I never cared for any lady; at any rate, I don’t care for one now.’
‘And what do you like in women?’ she asked, throwing back her head with innocent curiosity.
‘What a strange question!’ I cried.
Acia was a little disconcerted.
‘I ought not to ask you such a question, ought I? Forgive me, I’m used to chattering away about anything that comes into my head. That’s why I’m afraid to speak.’
‘Speak, for God’s sake, don’t be afraid,’ I hastened to intervene; ‘I’m so glad you’re leaving off being shy at last.’
Acia looked down, and laughed a soft light-hearted laugh; I had never heard such a laugh from her.
‘Well, tell me about something,’ she went on, stroking out the skirt of her dress, and arranging the folds over her legs, as though she were settling herself for a long while; ‘tell me or read me something, just as you read us, do you remember, fromOniegin.…’
She suddenly grew pensive—