Yevpraksia could hold out no longer and burst into tears. Meanwhile the tea kept on boiling, so that Porfiry Vladimirych became seriously alarmed. So he suppressed his growing temper, seated himself beside Yevpraksia and patted her on her back.
"Well, well. All right. Pour the tea. What is all this crying for?"
Yevpraksia emitted a few more sobs, pouted and looked into space with her dull eyes. "You have just been speaking of young fellows," he went on, trying to lend his voice as caressing a ring as possible. "Well—after all, I'm not so old, am I?"
"The idea! Leave me alone."
"Come, come. I—do you know—when I served in St. Petersburg, our director wanted to give me his daughter in marriage?"
"Must have been an old maid—or a cripple."
"No, she was quite a presentable young lady. And how she sang, how she sang!"
"Maybe she sang well, but you accompanied her badly," she retorted.
"No, I——"
Porfiry Vladimirych was completely put out. He was ready to act against his conscience and show that he, too, was skilled in the art of love-making. So he began to rock his body rather clumsily and went so far as to make an attempt to embrace Yevpraksia round her waist. But she drew back firmly from his outstretched arms and cried out angrily:
"Do me a favor and leave me, you goblin! Else I'll scald you with this boiling water. And I don't want your tea. I don't want anything. The idea—to reproach me for the piece of bread I eat. I'll go away from here! By Jesus, I will!"
She banged the door and ran out, leaving Porfiry Vladimirych alone in the dining-room.
Yudushka was completely puzzled. He began to pour the tea himself, but his hands trembled so violently that he had to call a servant to his assistance.
"No, this is impossible. I must think up something, arrange matters," he whispered, pacing up and down the dining-room in excitement.
But he turned out to be quite unable "to think up something" or "to arrange matters." His mind was so accustomed to leaping unrestrainedly from one fantastic subject to another, that the simplest problem of workaday reality threw him off his balance. No sooner did he make an effort to concentrate than a swarm of futile trifles attacked him from all sides and shut actuality out from his consideration. A strange stupor, a kind of mental and moral anæmia possessed his being. He was constantly lured away from the hard realities of life to the pleasant softness of phantoms, which he could shift and rearrange at will and without any hindrance whatever.
He spent the entire day in solitude, for Yevpraksia did not make her appearance at dinner or at evening tea. She stayed at the priest's the entire time and returned late in the evening. Yudushka's distress was extreme. He could not apply himself to any task, he even lost his wonted interest in trifles. One irrepressible thought tormented him: "I must somehow arrange matters, I must." He could not engage in idle calculations, nor even say prayers. He felt that a strange ailment was about to attack him. Many a time he halted before the window in the hope of concentrating his wavering mind on something, or distracting his attention, but all in vain.
It was early spring. The trees stood naked and the new grass had not yet appeared. Black fields, spotted here and there with white cakes of snow, stretched far away. The road was black and boggy and glittered with puddles. Yudushka saw it all as through a mist. There was no one round the rain-soaked servants' buildings, though all the doors were ajar. Nor could he reach anyone in the manor-house, although he constantly heard sounds as of doors banging in the distance. "How fine it would be," he mused, "to turn invisible and overhear what the knaves are saying about me. Do the rascals appreciate my favors or do they return abuse for my kindness? You stuff their bellies from morning till night, and still they squeal for more. Only the other day we opened a barrel of pickled cucumbers, and——" But no sooner did his thoughts embark upon the exploration of some fantastic subject, no sooner did he began to calculate how many pickles the barrel held and how many pickles one man could consume, than the piercing thought of Yevpraksia brought him back to harsh reality and upset all his calculations.
"She went away without so much as saying a word to me," he reflected, while his eyes scanned the distance, endeavoring to sight the priest's house, in which Yevpraksia was in all probability chatting away at that moment.
Dinner was served. Yudushka sat at table alone slowly sipping thin soup (sheknew he hated thin soup and had had it cooked watery on purpose). "I imagine the Father must be distressed by Yevpraksia's unbidden visit," he reflected. "She's a hearty eater and an extra dish, perhaps a roast, will have to be served for the guest." His imagination began to run away with him once more, and his mind began to ponder over questions like these: How many spoonfuls of cabbage-soup will Yevpraksia swallow? How many spoonfuls of gruel? What would the Father say to his wife about Yevpraksia's visit? How do they abuse her when alone? All this, the food and the conversation, hovered before his eyes with corporeal vividness.
"I fancy they all guzzle the soup from the same dish. The idea! A fine place she found to hunt for knick-knacks. Outside it's wet and slushy—just the kind of weather that breeds disease. Soon she will return, her skirt all dripping with mud, the disgusting creature. Yes, I must, I must do something!" All his musings inevitably ended with this phrase.
After dinner, he lay down for his nap, as usual, but tossed from side to side, unable to fall asleep. Yevpraksia came back after dark and stole into her nook so quietly that he did not observe her entrance. He had ordered the servants to let him know when she returned, but none of them said a word, as if they had agreed among themselves. He made another attempt to penetrate into her room, but again found the door locked.
Next morning Yevpraksia made her appearance at tea, but now her words were even more alarming and threatening.
"Dear me, where is my little Volodya?" she began, speaking in a studiously tearful tone.
Porfiry Vladimirych shuddered.
"If I could have the tiniest glimpse of him, if I could see how the darling suffers away from his mother! But maybe he is dead already."
Yudushka's lips whispered a prayer.
"It isn't the same as at other people's here. When Palageyushka gave birth to a daughter, they dressed the baby in batiste and silks and made a pink little bed for her. The nurse received more sarafans and frontlets than I ever had. And here—oh, you!"
Yevpraksia abruptly turned her head toward the window and sighed noisily.
"It is true what they say, that all the gentry are an abomination," she went on. "They make children and then throw them in the swamp, like puppies. What does it matter to them? They owe no account to anybody. Is there no God in Heaven? Even a wolf would not act like that."
Porfiry Vladimirych felt like a man sitting on pins and needles. He restrained himself for a long time, but finally could stand it no longer and said through clenched teeth:
"This is the third day that I've been listening to your talk."
"Well, why shouldyoudo all the talking? Other people have a right to say a word, too. Yes, sir! You've had a child. What have you done with it? I bet you let him rot in the hands of a wretched peasant woman in a dirty hut. I suppose the baby is lying somewhere in filth, sucking at a bottle turned sour, with no one to take care of it, and feed and clothe it."
She shed tears and dried her eyes with the end of her neckerchief.
"The Pogorelka lady was right; she said it's horrible here with you. Itishorrible. No pleasures, no joy, nothing but mean, underhand ways. Prisoners in jail are better off. At least, if I had a baby now, there would be something to amuse me. But you have taken it away from me."
Porfiry Vladimirych sat shaking his head in torture. From time to time he groaned.
"Oh, how painful!" he finally said.
"Painful? Well, you have made the bed, lie on it. Upon my word, I shall go to Moscow and have a look at my dear little Volodya. Volodya, Volodya! Da-a-ar-ling! Master, shall I take a trip to Moscow?"
"It's no use," answered Porfiry Vladimirych in a hollow voice.
"Then I'll go without asking your permission, and no one can stop me. Because I am—a mother!"
"What sort of mother are you? You are a strumpet—that's what you are," Yudushka finally burst out. "Tell me plainly what you want of me."
Yevpraksia, apparently, was not prepared for this question. She stared at Yudushka and kept silence, as if wondering what she really wanted of him.
"So you call me a strumpet already?" she exclaimed, bursting into tears.
"Yes, a strumpet, a strumpet, a strumpet! Fie, fie, fie!"
Utterly enraged, Porfiry Vladimirych leapt to his feet and ran out of the room.
That was the last flicker of energy. Then he began rapidly to collapse, while Yevpraksia kept up her campaign. She had enormous power at her disposal, the stubbornness of stupidity, sometimes truly appalling because always trained upon the same point with the sole object of annoying, teasing, plaguing. Little by little the confines of the dining-room became too narrow for her. She invaded the study and attacked Yudushka within the precincts of that sanctuary, into which she would not even have thought of entering formerly when her master was "busy." She would come in, seat herself at the window, stare into space, scratch her shoulder blades on the post of the window, and begin to storm at him. She was especially fond of harping on the threat of leaving Golovliovo. As a matter of fact, she had never seriously thought of carrying out her threat, and she would have been astonished had anyone suggested to her that she return to her parental roof. But she suspected that Porfiry Vladimirych feared her desertion more than anything else, and she spared neither time nor energy in taking advantage of this. She approached the subject cautiously and in a roundabout way. She would sit a while, scratch her ear, and then remark, as if in a reminiscent frame of mind:
"To-day, I suppose, they are baking pancakes at father's."
At this prefatory remark Yudushka would grow green with rage. He was just getting ready to plunge into a complicated computation of how much he would get for his milk if all the cows of the neighborhood perished and none but his own, with God's help, remained unharmed and doubled their yield of milk.
"Why are they baking pancakes there?" he asked, trying to force a smile. "Goodness, to-day is Memorial Day! Isn't it stupid of me to have forgotten about it? And there's nothing in the house with which to honor the memory of my late mother. What a sin!"
"I should like to eat father's pancakes."
"Why not? Give orders to have them baked. Get hold of cook Marya or Ulita. Ulita cooks delicious pancakes."
"Maybe she has pleased you in some other way, too," remarked Yevpraksia acidly.
"No, but, oh, she's a witch at cooking pancakes, Ulita is. She cooks them light, soft—a sheer delight!"
Porfiry Vladimirych was evidently trying to mollify Yevpraksia, but to no avail.
"What I want is not yours, but father's pancakes," she answered, playing the spoiled darling.
"Well, that's not difficult. Get hold of the coachman, have him put a pair of horses to the carriage, and drive over to father's."
"No, sir, that won't do. If I've fallen in the trap, that's my own fault. Who has any use for one like me? You yourself called me a strumpet the other day. It's no use!"
"My, my! Isn't it a sin in you to accuse me falsely? Do you know how God punishes false accusations?"
"You did call me strumpet! You did! You did it in the presence of this ikon. How I hate your Golovliovo! I shall run away from here. I shall, by God!"
In the course of this spirited dialogue Yevpraksia behaved in a rather unconstrained manner. She swung about on the chair, picked her nose, and scratched her back. She was obviously playing comedy.
"Porfiry Vladimirych, I should like to tell you something," she went on mischievously. "I want to go home."
"Do you wish to pay a visit to your parents?"
"No, I mean to stay there altogether."
"What's the matter? Has anybody offended you?"
"No, but—I'm not going to stay here forever. Besides, it's too dull here—it's frightful. The house is like a deserted place. The servants poke themselves away in the kitchens and their own quarters, and I sit in the house all alone. Some of these days I shall be murdered. At night, when I go to bed, strange whispers come from every corner."
Days went by, but Yevpraksia never thought of carrying out her threat; which did not lessen its effect on Porfiry Vladimirych. It dawned upon him that in spite of his labors, so-called, he was utterly helpless, that if there were not someone to take care of his household affairs, he would have no dinner, no clean linen, no decent clothing. Hitherto he had not been aware of the fact that his surroundings had been artificially created. His day had passed in a manner established once and for all. Everything in the house centered around his person and existed for him; everything was done in its proper time, everything was in its proper place; in short, there reigned such mechanical precision everywhere that he gave no thought to it. Owing to this clock-work orderliness he could indulge in idle talk and thought without running against the sharp corners of reality. Of course, this artificial paradise held together only by a hair; but Yudushka, always centered in himself, did not know it. His life seemed to him to be built on a rock-bottom foundation, unchangeable, eternal. And suddenly the edifice was about to collapse because of Yevpraksia's foolish whim. Yudushka was completely taken aback. "What if she really leaves?" he reflected panic-stricken. And he began to frame all sorts of preposterous plans to keep her from going. He even decided on concessions to Yevpraksia's rebellious youth which would never before have entered his mind.
"Ugh, ugh, ugh!" he thought, and spat out in disgust when the possibility of having anything to do with the coachman Arkhip or the clerk Ignat presented itself to him in all its offensive nakedness.
Soon, however, he became convinced that his fears were groundless. Thereupon his existence entered a new and quite unexpected phase. Yevpraksia did not leave him, she even abated her attacks, but, to compensate, deserted him altogether. May set in, the weather was fair, and Yevpraksia scarcely ever put in appearance. She ran in for a moment and the next moment had disappeared. In the morning Yudushka did not find his clothing in its usual place, and he had to engage in lengthy negotiations with the servants before he got clean linen. His tea and meals were served either too early or too late, and he was waited upon by the tipsy lackey Prokhor, who came in a stained coat emanating a peculiarly disgusting odor of fish and vodka.
Nevertheless, Porfiry Vladimirych was glad that Yevpraksia left him in peace. He even reconciled himself to the disorder as long as he knew that there was someone to bear the responsibility for it. What frightened him was not so much the disorder as the thought that it might be necessary for him to interfere personally in the details of everyday life. He pictured with horror the minute he would have to administer, give orders and supervise. In anticipation of that awful moment, he endeavored to stifle the voice of protest that at times rose in him, tried to shut his eyes to the confusion reigning in the house, and keep in the background and hold his tongue.
In the meantime open debauchery made its nest in the manor-house. With the coming of fair weather a new life pervaded the estate, hitherto quiet and gloomy. In the evening all the servants, both young and old, went out in the village streets. The young people sang, played the accordion, laughed merrily, screamed and played tag.
The clerk Ignat appeared in a flaming red shirt and an astonishingly narrow jacket, that never closed over his chest, thrown out like a pouter-pigeon's, while the coachman Arkhip took possession of the silk shirt and plush sleeveless jacket worn on holidays, obviously vying with Ignat in the conquest of Yevpraksia's heart. The maiden herself ran from one to the other, bestowing her favors now on the clerk, now on the coachman. Porfiry Vladimirych dared not look out of the window for fear of witnessing a love scene; but he could not help hearing what was going on outside. At times he caught the resounding blow that Arkhip bestowed playfully upon Yevpraksia's back while playing tag. At other times he would catch fragments of conversation such as this:
"Yevpraksia Nikitishna! Yevpraksia Nikitishna! Madam!" the drunken Prokhor would call from the steps of the mansion.
"What do you want?"
"The key of the tea-chest, please. The master is asking for tea."
"Let him wait, the scarecrow!"
In a short time Porfiry had completely lost all habits of sociability. He no longer paid any attention to the confusion that had come into his existence. He demanded nothing better of life than to be left alone in his last refuge, his study. He had lost all his former ways of cavilling with and pestering those about him, and he was timorous and glumly meek. All ties between him and reality were cut. To hear nothing, to see nothing, that was his heart's desire. The behavior of Yevpraksia and the servants no longer concerned him. Formerly, had the clerk allowed himself the least inaccuracy in presenting his reports on the various branches of the household management, he would have talked him to death. Now at times the reports were weeks late, and he was unresentful except when he needed some data for his fantastic computations. But when alone in his study he felt himself absolute master, free to give himself over nonchalantly to inane musings. Both of his brothers had died from drink. He, too, fell into the clutches of drunkenness. But his intoxication was mental. Shut up in his study, he racked his brains from early morning till far into the night over fantastic problems. He elaborated various fabulous schemes, made speeches before imaginary audiences, and wove whole scenes about the first person that crossed his mind.
In this wild maze of fantastic acts and images a morbid passion for gain played the most important part.
Porfiry Vladimirych had always had a strong leaning toward the petty annoyance of people and litigation, but because of his lack of practicality he had derived no direct profit from it. Sometimes he was even the first to suffer. This proclivity of his was now transferred to a world of abstractions and phantoms, where there was no scope for resistance on the part of the oppressed and no need for self-justification. The dividing line between the weak and the powerful vanished. In that world there were no police or justices of the peace, or rather, there were, but they existed solely for the purpose of protecting his own interests. On this fantastic plane he could freely enmesh the whole universe in his net of intriguing, cavilling, and petty oppression.
He loved to torment people, ruin them, make them unhappy, suck their blood—at least, in his imagination. He would look over the various branches of his establishment and on each build up a fantastic structure of all manner of oppression and plunder—a veritable paradise, but the foulest ever conceived by a landed proprietor. And everything depended here on overpayments and underpayments assumed arbitrarily, each overpaid or underpaid kopek served as a pretext for remodelling the entire edifice, which thus passed through endless changes.
When his tired thoughts were no longer capable of following out all the details of the intricate computations on which his imaginary operations were based, he applied his imagination to a more plastic material. He recalled every conflict and altercation he had had not only in recent times, but far back in his youth, and he so manipulated his reminiscences as always to come out the victor. He took revenge on those of his former colleagues who had gone over his head in service and had so deeply wounded his self-love that he renounced his official career. He revenged himself on his schoolmates who had taken advantage of their physical strength to tease or persecute him; on the neighbors that had opposed his claims and stood up for their rights; on the servants who had offended him or simply had not treated him with sufficient respect; on "dearest mamma" Arina Petrovna for having wasted too much of the money that "by law" belonged to him on the repairs of Pogorelka; on his brother Simple Simon for having nicknamed him Yudushka; on aunt Varvara Mikhailovna for having unexpectedly given birth to children, with the result that the property of Gavryushkino was forever lost to the family. He revenged himself on the living and he revenged himself on the dead.
Gradually he worked himself into a state of actual intoxication. The ground vanished from under his feet, wings grew on his shoulders, his eyes shone, his lips trembled and foamed, his face grew ghastly pale, and took on a threatening air. The atmosphere around him swarmed with ghosts, and he fought them in imaginary battles.
His existence became so ample and independent that there was nothing left for him to desire. The whole universe was at his feet, that is, the universe of which his wretched mind could conceive. It was something in the nature of ecstatic clairvoyance, not unlike the phenomena that take place at the seances of mediums. His untrammeled imagination created an illusory reality, rendered concrete and almost tangible by his constant mental frenzy. It was not faith or conviction, but unrestrained mental debauchery, a sort of trance in which his tongue involuntarily uttered words and his body made automatic gestures.
Porfiry Vladimirych was happy. He locked up the windows and doors that he might not hear, he drew down the curtains that he might not see. He went through the customary functions and duties which had no connection with the world of his imagination, in haste, almost with disgust. When the ever-drunken Prokhor rapped at his door and announced that dinner was served, he ran into the dining-room impatiently, hurriedly swallowed his three courses and disappeared again into his study. Something new showed in his manners—a mixture of timidity and derision, as if he both feared and defied the few people whom he met. He rose very early and immediately set to work. He cut down the time devoted to worship, said his prayers indifferently, without thinking of their meaning, crossed himself and went through the other gestures of worship mechanically and carelessly. Apparently even the notion of a hell with its complicated system of punishments was no longer present in his mind.
Meanwhile Yevpraksia reveled in the satisfaction of carnal desires. Dancing between the clerk Ignat and the coachman Arkhip, and also casting glances at the red-faced carpenter Ilyusha, who was mending the cellars at the head of a gang of workmen, she did not notice what was going on in the manor-house. She thought the master was playing "a new comedy," and many a light remark about the master was passed in the jolly gatherings of the servants. But one day she happened to enter the dining-room when Yudushka was hurriedly despatching the remnants of roast goose, and suddenly a kind of dread fell upon her.
Porfiry Vladimirych wore a greasy dressing-gown, through the holes of which the cotton interlining peeped out. He was pale, unkempt, and his face bristled with a many days' growth.
"Dear master, what is it? What is the matter?" she turned to him in fright.
Porfiry Vladimirych only smiled half sheepishly, half derisively, and the meaning of his smile was: "I'd like to see how you could get at me now."
"Darling master, what is the matter? Tell me, what has happened to you?" repeated Yevpraksia.
He rose, fixed on her a gaze brimming over with hatred, and said, pausing after each word:
"If you, you hussy, ever dare—enter my study—I will kill you!"
As a result of this scene Yudushka's life outwardly changed for the better. Distracted by no material hindrances, he gave himself completely over to his solitude, so that he did not even notice how the summer passed away.
It was late in August, the days grew shorter; it drizzled ceaselessly and the soil became boggy. The trees looked mournful, with their yellow leaves bestrewing the ground. Absolute silence reigned in the court-yard and about the servants' quarters. The domestics sat quietly under cover, partly because of the weather, partly because they finally perceived that something was the matter with the master. Yevpraksia came completely to her senses, forgot the silk dresses and her lovers, and sat in the maids' room for hours on end, brooding and wondering what she could do. The drunken Prokhor teased her that she had designs on the master's life, that she had poisoned him and she could not escape the road to Siberia.
Meanwhile, Yudushka sat in his study, deep in reveries. The ceaseless patter of the rain on the window-panes lulled him half to sleep—the most favorable state for the play of his fancy. He imagined he was invisible and was inspecting his possessions, accompanied by old Ilya, who had served as bailiff under Yudushka's father, and whose bones had long since been rotting in the village churchyard.
"Ilya is a clever fellow," argued Porfiry Vladimirych with himself, glad that Ilya had arisen from the dead. "An old servant! Nowadays his kind is getting rare. Nowadays they know how to chat and fidget, but when it comes to business, they're good for nothing."
After saying an appropriate prayer, Yudushka and Ilya pick their way leisurely across meadows and ravines, dales and hills, and soon reach the Ukhovshchina waste. For a while they stand dazed, unable to believe their own eyes. Straight before them looms up a magnificent pine forest, their tops tossing in the wind. Some of the trees are so big in circumference that two or even three men could not embrace them. Their trunks are straight, naked, crowned with mighty, spreading tops—all signs of vigor and longevity.
"What a forest, brother!" exclaims Yudushka, enraptured.
"This wood has been protected from felling," explains Ilya. "Under your late grandfather Mikhail Vasilyevich, a procession with holy ikons went around it. And look how tall the trees have grown."
"How large do you think the forest is?"
"At that time it held just seventy desyatins, and the desyatin was then, as you know, one and a half times the present size."
"And how many trees, d'you think, are there on one desyatin?"
"I can't tell. Only God has counted them."
"I reckon there are no less than six or seven hundred trees to a desyatin. I mean the desyatin now used. Wait! If we take the number to be six hundred—or, let us say, six hundred and fifty trees, how many trees are there on one hundred and five desyatins?"
Porfiry Vladimirych takes a sheet of paper and multiplies 105 by 65 and gets 6,825 trees.
"Now, see here, if I were to sell all this timber, do you think I can get ten rubles a tree?"
Old Ilya shakes his head.
"Ten is little," he says. "Look at these trees. Each trunk will give two mill beams and some planks and boards and firewood. What do you think is the price of a mill-wheel beam?"
Porfiry Vladimirych makes believe he does not know, although he figured out everything to a kopek long ago.
"Here," continues the peasant, "a beam is worth ten rubles, but if we take it to Moscow it will be worth its weight in gold. It is a tremendous beam. You will hardly haul it on a three-horse team. And think of the second beam that can be made out of the stem, and the boards and laths and firewood, and branches. Twenty rubles, I should think, is the lowest price for a tree."
Porfiry Vladimirych listens and takes in his words greedily. A clever, faithful servant this Ilya. And how well he has picked out his help! Old Vavilo, Ilya's assistant—he too has been resting in the churchyard for a good many years—is quite worthy of his superior. The foresters, too, are all tried, stalwart men, and the hounds at the corn lofts are fierce. Both the men and the dogs are ready to grapple with the devil himself for the master's good.
"Let's figure out, brother. If we sell the whole forest, what will it come to?"
Porfiry Vladimirych again makes a mental calculation of the value of a large beam, a smaller beam, a plank, a lath, the firewood and the branches. He adds up, multiplies, now omitting fractions, now adding them. Columns of numbers fill the sheet.
"Here is the total, brother," says Yudushka, showing Ilya's phantom an altogether fabulous sum. The old servant is dazed.
"Is it not a little too large?" he says, pensively shrugging his shoulders.
But Porfiry Vladimirych has already cast off all doubts and giggles gleefully.
"You are a queer fellow, brother!" he exclaims. "It isn't I who say it, it's the number that says it. There is a science called arithmetic. It never tells a lie, brother! Well, this will do for Ukhovshchina. Now let's have a look at Lisy-Yamy, brother. It's a long time since I have been there. I have a strong suspicion the peasants have become thievish. There's Garanka, the guard—I know, I know. Garanka is a good, faithful guard, that's true enough. Still, you know. It seems to me he is not what he used to be either."
They plough noiselessly and unseen through a birch thicket, and stop suddenly, holding their breath. A peasant's cart lies sprawling across the road on its side, and the peasant is standing by, looking at the broken axle in perplexity. He has been standing there for some time, cursing the axle and himself and whipping the horse now and then. Finally he sees he cannot loaf there all day long. He looks around and pricks up his ears to make sure no one is coming along the road. Then he selects a suitable birch tree, and takes out an axe. Meanwhile Yudushka stands motionless and watches. The young birch shudders, sways and suddenly sinks to the ground like a sheaf of corn, reaped by the sickle. The thief is about to lop off the length of an axle from the trunk, but Yudushka has decided that the moment has come. He steals upon him and in a trice snatches the axe from his hand.
"Ah!" is all the thief, taken red-handed, has time to exclaim.
"Ah!" Yudushka mimics him. "Are you allowed to steal timber? 'Ah!' Is it your birch-tree you have just felled?"
"Forgive me, sir!"
"I forgave everyone long ago, brother. I am myself a sinner before the Lord and I dare not judge another. It is the law, not I, that condemns you. Take the tree you have felled to the manor-house and pay up a fine of one ruble. In the meantime, I shall keep your axe. Don't you worry, it is in good hands, brother."
Glad that he was able to prove to Ilya how well-grounded were his suspicions in regard to Garanka, Yudushka transports himself in imagination to the forester's cottage and reprimands him soundly. On his way back home he catches three hens belonging to peasants in the act of feeding on his oats.
Back in his study, he falls again to work, and a peculiar system of household management is suddenly born in his brain. The system is based on the assumption that all mankind suddenly has begun to steal his wood and damage his fields by letting cattle graze upon them. But this does not grieve Yudushka, on the contrary he rubs his hands in delight.
"Let your cattle graze on my fields, fell my trees. I shall be the better off for it," he repeats, hugely pleased. Then he takes a fresh sheet of paper and resumes his ciphering and reckoning. The problems to be solved are these: First, how much oats grows on one desyatin and what will the fines amount to if the peasants' hens scratch the oats up? And, second, how many birches grow in Lisy-Yamy and how much money can they bring in if the peasants fell them illegally and pay the fine? "A birch, though felled," reflects Yudushka gleefully, "will in the end get to the house and be used as firewood—firewood free of charge, mind you!"
Long rows of figures appear on the paper. Yudushka becomes so tired and excited that he rises from the table all perspiring and lies down on the sofa to rest. Here his imagination does not cease its work, it merely selects an easier theme.
"Mamma was a clever woman, mamma was," muses Porfiry Vladimirych. "She knew how to be exacting and how to set one at ease—that is why people served her so willingly. Still she was not without sins. Oh, yes, she had plenty of them."
No sooner does Yudushka think of Arina Petrovna than she appears before him in person, coming straight from the grave.
"I don't know, my friend, I don't know what fault you have to find with me," she says dejectedly, "it seems to me that I——"
"I know, I know," Yudushka cuts her short unceremoniously. "Let me be frank and thrash out the matter with you. For instance, why did you not stop Aunt Varvara Mikhailovna that time?"
"But how in the world could I stop her? She was of age, and she had the full right to dispose of herself."
"Oh, no, permit me, mother dear. What sort of a husband had she? An old drunkard, not much of a man, I should say. Nevertheless, they had four children. Where did they come from, I'm asking you?"
"But how strangely you speak, my friend. As if I were the cause of it all."
"Cause or no cause, you could have influenced her. You ought to have treated her kindly, she would have been shamed by you. But you did the contrary. You kept on scolding her and calling her shameless, and you suspected almost every man in the neighborhood of being her lover. Of course, she kicked up the dust. It's a pity. The Goryushkino estate would have been ours now."
"You cannot forget that Goryushkino," says Arina Petrovna, evidently brought to a standstill.
"What do I care for Goryushkino? I don't need anything. If I have enough to buy a church candle and some oil for the image lamp, I am satisfied. But what about justice, dear mamma, justice? Yes, mother dear, I would be glad to hold my tongue, but I cannot help being frank with you. There's a sin on your conscience, a great sin, indeed."
Arina Petrovna does not answer, and it is impossible to tell whether she is dejected or merely perplexed.
"Another thing," Yudushka goes on, evidently reveling in mother dear's embarrassment. "Why did you buy a house for brother Stepan?"
"I had to, my friend. I had to give him some share," says Arina Petrovna, trying to defend herself.
"And he squandered it away, of course. As if you did not know him! You knew he was a loafer, a disrespectful, foul-mouthed scamp. And to think that you wanted to give him the Vologda village, too. A neat little estate with a nice little forest and a tiny lake, lying like a shelled egg—Christ be with it! It is well that I happened to be around and kept you from taking that imprudent step. Ah, mamma dear, mamma dear, how could you?"
"But he was a son of mine, you understand? A son!"
"I know, I understand very well. And still, I repeat, you ought not to have done it. You paid twelve thousand for the house—where is the money? And Goryushkino is worth at least fifteen thousand. So the loss comes to quite a sum."
"Well, that will do, that will do. Don't be angry with me, please don't!"
"I am not angry, dearest mother, I am only upholding the cause of justice. What's true is true—and I loathe falsehood. I was born with truth, have lived with truth, and with truth I shall die. God loves truth and He would have us, too, love it. Take the case of Pogorelka, for instance. I shall always say you invested too much money in it."
"But I myself lived there."
Yudushka clearly reads "You silly Bloodsucker!" on his mother's face; but he makes believe he does not see.
"Well, yes, you lived there—still—the image-case is in Pogorelka. Whose is it, I'd like to know. And the pony and the tea-caddy. I saw that tea-caddy at Golovliovo with my own eyes, when papa was still alive. What a beautiful little box!"
"Well, but——"
"No, dearest mother, let me speak. Of course it looks like a trifling matter, but a ruble here, half a ruble there, come to quite a sum in the end. Let me use exact figures and make it clear to you. Figures are holy, they never lie."
Porfiry Vladimirych runs over to the table with the intention of finally determining the exact amount of loss that his mother dear had caused him to sustain. He manipulates the counting-board, covers sheets of paper with rows of figures, arms himself to convict Arina Petrovna. But fortunately for her his wavering thoughts cannot remain fixed on one subject for a long time. Unnoticed by himself a new thought enters his mind and, as if by magic, gives an entirely different trend to his ideas. The image of his mother, a minute ago so clear before his eyes, suddenly drops away. He forgets her, his notions become confused, other notions enter his mind.
Porfiry Vladimirych has long had the intention of figuring out what his crops could bring him in. The opportune moment is here. He knows the peasant is always in want, is always on the lookout to borrow provender and always pays his debts with interest. He knows also that the peasant is especially generous with his work, which "costs him nothing," and is not considered as possessing any value in settling accounts. There are many needy people in Russia, oh, how many! There are many people who do not know what the next day will bring them, who see nothing but despair and emptiness wherever they turn their weary eyes, and who hear everywhere only one clamor: "Pay your debt! Pay your debt!" It is around these shiftless, utterly destitute men that Yudushka weaves his net, with a delight passing sometimes into an orgy.
It is April, and the peasant as usual has nothing to eat. "You have gobbled up all your crops, my dear fellows," Porfiry Vladimirych muses. "All winter you feasted, and in spring your stomach is shrivelled from hunger." He has just settled the accounts of last year's crops. The threshing was completed in February, the grain was in the granaries in March, and the amount was recorded in the numerous books the other day. Yudushka stands at the window and waits. On the bridge afar off the peasant Foka appears in his cart. At the bend of the road leading to Golovliovo he shakes the reins rather hastily, and for want of a whip hits his battered jade with his fist.
"He's heading here," whispers Yudushka. "Look at the horse. A wonder it can drag its feet. But if you had fed it well a month or two, it would become quite a horse. You might get twenty-five rubles for it, or even as much as thirty."
Meanwhile Foka drives up to the servants' house. He ties the animal to the hedge, throws it a handful of hay, and a minute later stands in the maids' quarters, shifting from one foot to another. It is in the maids' quarters that Porfiry Vladimirych usually receives such visitors.
"Well, friend, how are things going?"
"Please sir, what I need is some corn."
"How's that? Are you through with your own? What a pity! If you drank less vodka, and worked more, and prayed to God, the soil would feel it. Where one grain grows now, two grains would grow. Then there would be no need for you to borrow."
Foka smiles vaguely, instead of replying.
"You think if God is far from us, He does not see?" Porfiry Vladimirych goes on moralizing. "God is here and there and everywhere, he is with us while we are talking here. He sees everything and hears everything, he only pretends not to see things. 'Let my creatures live after their own way, and we shall see whether they will remember me.' And we sinners take advantage of that, and instead of buying a candle for God from our meager means, we keep on going to the public-house. That's why God gives us no corn. Am I not right, friend?"
"You are quite right, sir. There's no denying it."
"Well, you see, you understand it now. And why is it that you understand it? Because the Lord withdrew His mercy from you. If you had had an abundant crop of corn, you would carry on again, but since God——"
"Right, sir, and if——"
"Wait a minute. Let me say a word. The Lord recalls Himself to those who forgot Him. That is always the case. And we must not grumble over it, but understand that God does it for our good. Were we to remember God, He would never forget us. He would grant us everything, corn and oats and potatoes—more than we need. And He would take care of our animals. Look at your horse. It is skin and bones. And if you have chickens, He would keep them in condition, too."
"You are quite right, sir."
"Man's first duty is to honor God, man's second duty is to honor his superiors, those who have been distinguished by the czars themselves—the gentry, for instance."
"It seems to me, sir, that I——"
"That's just it, 'it seems to me.' But give a little thought to the matter, and you will find out that it's all different. Now when you have come to borrow corn you are very respectful and bland. But two years ago, you remember, when I needed harvesters and came to you peasants to ask for help, what did you answer? 'We have to harvest ourselves,' you said. 'It is not the way it used to be,' you said, 'when we worked for the landlords. Now we are free!' Free, and no corn!"
Yudushka looks at Foka, but Foka does not stir.
"You are very proud, that's why you have no luck. Take me, for example. The Lord has blessed me, and the Czar has distinguished me. But I am not proud. How can I be? What am I but a worm, a moth, a nothing. God took and blessed me for my humility. He loaded me with favors, and put it into the Czar's mind to favor me, too."
"Porfiry Vladimirych, I think that under serfdom we were far better off," Foka remarks, playing the flatterer.
"Yes, brother, those were fine days for you peasants. You had plenty of everything, corn and hay and potatoes. But why recall the old times? I am not rancorous. I have long forgotten about the harvesters. I only mentioned them in passing. Let me see—did you say you needed corn?"
"Yes, I did, sir."
"You have come to buy some, have you?"
"How can I? I should like to borrow some until the new corn comes."
"My, my! Corn is not to be had for money nowadays. I really don't know what to do with you."
Porfiry Vladimirych ponders for a while, as if really perplexed.
"I can lend you some corn, my friend," he finally says. "I have none for sale, for I loathe to traffic in God's gifts. But I will gladly lend you some corn. To-day I'll lend to you, to-morrow you'll lend to me. To-day I have plenty. Take some, help yourself. You want a measure of corn? Take a measure. You want half a measure? Take half a measure. Tomorrow may find me knocking at your window saying, 'Dear Foka, lend me half a measure of corn, I have nothing to eat.'"
"Oh, sir, will you come to me?"
"I shall not. That was merely an example. The world has seen greater reverses. There was Napoleon, about whom the newspapers have written so much. That's how it is, brother. So how much corn do you want?"
"A measure, if you please."
"Well, I can let you have a measure. Only let me warn you, corn is tremendously dear nowadays. This is what we are going to do: I shall give you six chetveriks, and in eight months you will deliver a measure to me. I don't take any interest, but an additional chetverik or two——"
Yudushka's offer makes Foka gasp. For some time he says nothing, only shrugs his shoulders. "Won't that be a bit too much, sir?" he says at last, evidently alarmed.
"If it's too much, go to others. You see, my friend, I am not forcing you, I am only making you an offer in a friendly way. I didn't send for you, did I? You came here yourself. You came to ask for something and that's my answer. Isn't it so, friend?"
"Yes, quite so, but don't you think it's too much interest?"
"Ah, ah, ah! And I thought you were a just, respectable peasant. Well, you will say to me, what am I going to live on? How will I meet my expenses? Do you know what expenses I have? My dear man, there is no end to them. I've got to pay here, and meet my obligations there, and produce cash in a third place. I've got to satisfy every one. All are after Porfiry Vladimirych, all ask something of him, and I've got to get along with them as best I can. And then again, if I sold the corn to the dealer, I should get money at once. And money, my friend, is a sacred thing. With money I can buy securities, put them in a safe place, and draw interest. No worry, you know, of any kind, no trouble at all. Just clip the coupon and get your money. But with the corn you've got to go carefully about it, and look after it, and all that. A lot of it will dry up, and be wasted, and the mice will eat it up. No, brother, money is the best thing—nothing like it! It would be high time for me to become sensible and turn everything into money and leave you folks."
"Oh, Porfiry Vladimirych, stay with us."
"Well, my dear man, I should like to, but I can't stand it any longer. If I had the strength of my youth, of course I would stay with you and keep at it. But no, it's time to rest. I will go to the Trinity Monastery, I will find shelter under the wing of the saints, and not a soul will hear from me. And how good I'll feel! All will be peaceful and quiet and honest; no noise, no quarrels—like in Heaven."
In a word, in spite of all of Foka's protestations, Porfiry Vladimirych arranges the bargain to suit himself. But that is not enough. At the very moment that Foka consents to the terms of the loan, a thought flashes through Yudushka's mind. A certain Shelepikha meadow appears on the scene. It doesn't amount to much, hardly a desyatin to mow.
"You see, I am doing you a favor, so you do me one in turn," says Porfiry Vladimirych. "This is not interest, but just a favor. God does favors to us all, and we've got to do likewise to one another. You will mow this desyatin in no time, and I'll be much obliged to you. You see, brother, I am a plain man. You'll do me a ruble's worth of service, and I——"
Porfiry Vladimirych rises, faces the church, and makes the sign of the cross to show that the transaction is at an end. Foka also rises and makes the sign of the cross.
Foka has disappeared. Porfiry Vladimirych produces a sheet of paper, arms himself with the counting-board, and the beads begin jumping fast under his skilful fingers. Little by little an orgy of numbers commences. The whole world becomes enwrapped in mist. With feverish haste Yudushka passes from the paper to the counting-board and from the counting-board to the paper. The rows of figures keep growing larger and larger.
It is the middle of December. The country stretches still and benumbed, covered with a mantle of snow as far as the eye can reach. The horses, though pulling empty carts, wade with difficulty through the snow-drifts that the wind has driven during the night. There is not the trace of a path to the Golovliovo estate.
Porfiry Vladimirych had grown so unaccustomed to visits that in the beginning of autumn he barred the front entrance to the house and the main gateways leading to it, leaving only the servants' entrance and the side gates for the domestics to communicate with the outer world.
One morning as the clock was striking eleven, Yudushka in his dressing-gown was standing at the window staring aimlessly before him. Since early morning he had been walking to and fro in the room, deep in thought about a certain momentous matter, and ceaselessly counting imaginary profits. Finally, he became mixed in the ciphering and grew tired. Both the magnificent orchard in front of the manor and the village behind it were lost to view in the snow. After yesterday's blizzard the air was frosty, and the snow shimmered and sparkled in the sun, so that Porfiry Vladimirych had to blink. The court was silent and deserted. There was not the least movement, either in the servants' quarters or near the cattle yard. Even the village itself was so silent that it seemed as if death had suddenly stolen upon the people. The only thing that attracted Yudushka's attention was a curl of thin smoke floating upward from the priest's house.
"Eleven o'clock, and the parson's wife has not yet finished cooking," he thinks. "Those black coats are always gorging."
With this as a point of departure, his mind wandered on. Was it a weekday or a holiday, a fast day or not, and what can the parson's wife be cooking? But suddenly his attention was diverted. On the hill at the very beginning of the road from the village of Pogorelka a black dot appeared, approached gradually and grew larger and larger. Porfiry Vladimirych looked intently. "Who could be coming, a peasant or somebody else? Who could it be but a peasant? Yes, a peasant! What was he coming for? If for wood, why, then, the Naglovka forest was on the other side of the village. The knave must be intending to steal some wood. If he was making for the mill, why, then, he ought to have turned to the right. Perhaps he was coming to fetch the priest. Someone dying, or, perhaps, already dead? Or maybe a child had been born? Who could it be? In autumn Nenila walked about pregnant, but it was too early for her. If it should be a boy, he would get into the census. What was the population of Naglovka at the last census? But if a girl, she would not get into the census, and——Still, it is impossible to get along without the female sex. Fie!"
Yudushka spat and looked at the ikon in the corner, as if seeking its protection from the Evil One.
It is quite possible that he would have continued wandering in thought had the black speck been lost to view, but it kept on growing and at last turned toward the marsh road leading to the church. Then Yudushka saw quite clearly that it was a small wagon pulled by two horses, one behind the other. Next it went up the hill, and drove past the church. "Perhaps it is the bishop," passed through his mind. "That's why they have not yet finished cooking at the parson's house." Then the vehicle turned to the right and made straight for the manor-house. Porfiry Vladimirych instinctively drew his dressing-gown together and stepped away from the window, as if afraid of being seen by the traveller.
He had guessed correctly. The wagon drove up to the house and stopped at the side gate. A young woman jumped out of it quickly. She was dressed out of season in a large cotton-lined greatcoat trimmed with lamb's fur, more for show than for warmth. She was apparently frozen. No one appearing to receive her, the stranger hopped over to the maids' entrance. In a few seconds the outer door in the women's quarters banged shut, then another door, and another, until all the rooms adjacent to the maids' entrance were filled with a noise of hurried footsteps and banging doors.
Porfiry Vladimirych stood at his study door listening intently. It was so long since he had seen any strangers, and altogether he had become so unaccustomed to the company of human beings, that he was somewhat bewildered. Nearly a quarter of an hour passed, the running and the banging of the doors continued, and yet he was not told who had come. It was clear that the guest was a relative, who did not doubt her right to the host's hospitality. But what relatives had he? He tried to recall them, but his memory was dull. He had had two sons, Volodka and Petka; he had had a mother, Arina Petrovna—long, long ago! Last autumn Nadka Galkina, daughter of his late aunt Varvara Mikhailovna, had taken up her residence at Goryushkino. Could it be she? Why, no. She had already tried to make her way into the Golovliovo temple, but to no avail.
"She will not dare to, she will not dare to!" reiterated Yudushka, burning with indignation at the very thought of her intrusion. "But who else can it be?"
While he was busy guessing, Yevpraksia approached the door cautiously and announced:
"The young lady of Pogorelka, Anna Semyonovna, has arrived."
It was indeed Anninka, but changed beyond recognition. She was no longer the beautiful, lively, buoyant girl with rosy cheeks, full gray eyes, high breast and heavy, ash-colored tresses massed low on her head, who had come to Golovliovo shortly after the death of Arina Petrovna, but a weak, wasted creature with a sunken chest, hollow cheeks, a hectic face and languid movements—a bent creature, almost hunch-backed. Even her splendid braids looked miserable, and her eyes, blazing feverishly, seemed larger than ever in her emaciated face. Her eyes alone retained something of their former beauty. Yevpraksia stared long at her as at a stranger, then finally recognized her.
"You?" she cried out, clapping her hands.
"I. Well?"
Anninka laughed quietly, as if to add, "Yes, life has played me a dirty trick."
"Is uncle well?"
"Uncle? Nothing is the matter with him. He is alive, there is no doubt about that, but we hardly ever see him."
"What's the matter with him?"
"Just so—it's all because of lonesomeness."
"Don't tell me he has stopped haranguing?"
"He is real quiet now, miss. He used to talk and talk, but suddenly he became silent. Occasionally we hear him in his study talking to himself and sometimes even laughing, but as soon as he comes out of the room he is quiet. People say his late brother, Stepan Vladimirych, had the same trouble. At first he was gay, then suddenly he became quiet. And you, madam, are you well?"
Anninka only waved her hand in reply.
"And is your sister well?"
"She has been lying in her grave at the wayside at Krechetovo a month."
"Lord be merciful! At the wayside!"
"Of course, that's how they bury all suicides."
"Goodness! A lady—and to take her own life! How is that?"
"Yes, at first she was a 'lady,' and then she took poison, that's all. And I, I am a coward, I want to live, and here I have come to you. Not for long, oh, don't be afraid. I shall die soon, too."
Yevpraksia stared at her, as if she did not understand.
"Why are you looking at me? Am I such a fright? Well, never mind my looks. However, I'll tell you later—later. Now pay the coachman and announce me to uncle."
She produced an old pocketbook and took out two yellow bills.
"And here is all my property," she added, pointing to a small trunk. "Here's everything, both my inheritance and my own acquisitions. I am cold, Yevpraksia, very cold. I am quite sick, there's not a bone in my body that doesn't ache, and here as if to spite me, it is so cold. As I was riding, I thought of only one thing, to get to Golovliovo, and die there, at least in warmth. I'd like to have some vodka. Have you any?"
"You had better have some tea, madam. The samovar will soon be ready."
"No, I shall have tea later. Now I'd like to have some vodka. However, don't tell uncle about the vodka yet. It will all come out later."
While they set the table for tea in the dining-room Porfiry Vladimirych appeared. Now Anninka in her turn was completely surprised at her uncle's emaciation and wild, faded looks. Porfiry received Anninka in a strange manner, not coldly, but as if altogether indifferent. He spoke little, as if under compulsion, like an actor trying to recall sentences of parts acted in days gone by, and was absent-minded, as though his mind were absorbed in some grave, urgent business from which he had been torn away to attend to trifles.
"So you have arrived?" he said. "What will you have, tea, coffee? Order the servants to fetch it."
In former days, at family meetings, Yudushka always played the sentimental part. This time it was Anninka who was filled with emotions, genuine emotions. The claw of sorrow must have sunk deep into her being, for she threw herself on Porfiry Vladimirych's breast and embraced him ardently.
"Uncle, I have come to you!" she cried, and burst into tears.
"Well, you are welcome. I have enough rooms. Live here."
"I am sick, uncle, very, very sick."
"If you are sick, you must pray to God! Whenever I am not well, I always heal myself through prayer."
"I have come to you, uncle, to die."
Porfiry Vladimirych looked at her with questioning eyes, and an almost imperceptible smile stole over his lips.
"So that is where your acting has brought you?"
"Yes, that is where my acting has brought me. Lubinka is dead and I—I am alive,"
At the news of Lubinka's death Yudushka piously crossed himself and whispered a prayer. Anninka seated herself at table, her chin in her hands, looking toward the church and continuing to cry bitterly.
"See here, as for weeping and being in despair, it is surely a sin," remarked Porfiry Vladimirych sententiously. "And do you know what a Christian must do on such an occasion? Not cry, but submit and hope—that's how a Christian has to act."
But Anninka threw herself back on the chair and repeated, her arms drooping helplessly:
"Ah, I do not know, I do not know, I do not know!"
"If you are crying your eyes out on account of your sister," Yudushka continued to sermonize, "that is a sin, too. For although it is praiseworthy to love one's sisters and brothers, yet, if it be the will of God to take one or several of them to Himself——"
"Oh, no, no! Uncle, are you kind? Are you kind? Tell me!"
Anninka threw herself on him again and embraced him.
"Well, I am kind, kind. Tell me, do you wish anything? Will you have a bite, or tea, or coffee? Ask for what you want. Order it."
Anninka suddenly remembered how during her first visit her uncle used to ask her, "Will you have beef, pork, potatoes?" And she realized that she would find no other consolation.
"Thank you, uncle," she said, seating herself at the table again. "I do not want anything in particular. I am sure I shall be contented with anything you offer me."
"If so, well and good. Will you go to Pogorelka?"
"No, uncle, for the time being I shall stay with you. You have nothing against it, have you?"
"Christ be with you, of course I don't object. I asked about Pogorelka only because in case you do wish to go there, it would be necessary to arrange for a wagon and horses."
"No, later, later."
"Very well, then. You will go there later on. Meanwhile you can stay with us. You will help about the house, for I'm all alone, you see. This queen," said Yudushka, almost in hatred, pointing to Yevpraksia pouring the tea, "is all the time running about in the servants' quarters, so that sometimes you can never get any service, not a soul in the whole house. Well, good-by for the present. I shall go to my room. I shall pray, do some work and pray again. So, my friend. Is it long since Lubinka died?"
"About a month, uncle."
"Then tomorrow we shall go to church early and order a mass to be read for God's recently deceased servant Lubinka. So good-by for the present. Have some tea, and if you want a bit of luncheon, have the servant bring it to you. At dinner we shall meet again, have a talk, a chat. And if anything has to be done, we shall attend to it, if not—not."
Such was the first family meeting. When it was over, Anninka entered upon her new life in that disgusting Golovliovo, where she was stranded for the second time in her short life.
Anninka had gone downhill very fast. It was true that her first visit to Golovliovo had aroused the consciousness of being a "lady," of having her own nest and her own graves, of not being confined in her life to the squalor and uproar of hotels and inns, and of having a shelter where she would be safe from vile breaths infected with the odor of wine and the stable, from hoarse voices, bloodshot eyes, indecent gestures. But alas! No sooner did Golovliovo disappear from sight than this purifying consciousness vanished from her mind.
Anninka had gone from Golovliovo straight to Moscow, and solicited a position on the government stage both for herself and her sister. With this in view she turned for aid tomaman,that is, the directress of the boarding-school where she had been educated, and to several of her classmates.Mamanwas at first quite kind to her, but as soon as she discovered that her former pupil had acted on the provincial stage, her pleasant manner changed to one of haughtiness and sternness. As for Anninka's classmates, who were mostly married women, they eyed her with an impertinent astonishment that quite frightened her. Only one of them, better-natured than the rest, asked her, evidently wishing to show sympathy:
"Tell me, darling, is it true that when you actresses dress for the stage, officers lace your corsets?"
In a word, her attempts to gain a foothold in Moscow remained unsuccessful. The truth of the matter was, she did not possess the necessary qualifications for theatrical success in the capital. She and her sister Lubinka belonged to that class of lively, but not very talented actresses who play one part all their lives. Anninka had made a hit inPericola,Lubinka inPansiesandOld-time Colonels,and whatever new rôles they studied strangely resembled their successful parts, or, in the majority of cases, were a complete failure. Anninka often had to playFair Helenalso. She would wear a flaming red wig over her ash-colored hair, and cut her tunic down to her waist line, but she was mediocre and dull, not even cynical. FromFair Helenshe passed to theDuchess of Herolstein.In this her colorless acting was coupled with a completely preposterousmise en scène, and the outcome was altogether miserable. At last she undertook to play the role of Clairette inThe White Slave.But she overdid her part to such an extent that even the none too refined provincial public was shocked by her behavior on the stage, which she turned into a mire of corruption. Anninka gained the reputation of being a clever actress with a fairly good voice, and since she was pretty, she could get an audience in the provinces. But that was all. Lacking individuality, she could not attain permanent success. Even among the provincial public she was popular mainly with army officers, whose chief ambition was to obtain access behind the scenes. She could have got an engagement in the capital only if she had been forced upon some manager by a powerful patron, and even then the public would have given her the unenviable nickname of "a tavern singer."
Thus the two girls had to go back to the provinces. In Moscow Anninka received a letter from Lubinka, saying that their company had removed from Krechetov to the city of Samovarnov, which made Lubinka quite glad, because there she had become friendly with a certain zemstvo leader, who was so infatuated that he was almost, in his own words, "ready to steal the zemstvo funds, if that were necessary to gratify all her desires."
In fact, on her arrival in Samovarnov, Anninka found her sister quite luxuriously situated and planning to give up the stage. Lubinka's admirer, the zemstvo official Gavrilo Stepanych Lyulkin, was a retired captain of the Hussars, recently abel homme,but now somewhat corpulent. His appearance and manners and views taken separately were conspicuously noble, but taken together they gave one the strong impression that the man was altogether free from scruples. Lubinka received Anninka with open arms and told her a room had been prepared for her at the lodgings.
Anninka, still under the influence of her trip to Golovliovo, bridled up at the suggestion. The sisters exchanged tart words, and soon afterwards they separated. Involuntarily Anninka recalled the words of the Volpino parson, who had told her it was hard to safeguard a maiden's "honor" in the acting profession.
Anninka went to live at a hotel and broke off all relations with her sister. Easter passed. The next week the theatres opened, and Anninka found out that her sister's place was already filled by Nalimova, a girl from Kazan, a mediocre actress, but utterly unconstrained in the movements of her body. As usual, Anninka playedPericolaand enchanted the Samovarnov theatregoers. On her return to the hotel, she found an envelope in her room containing a hundred ruble bill and a laconic note which read: "Should anything happen, you get as much. Merchant Kukishev, dealer in fancy goods." Anninka was enraged and went to complain to the hotel-keeper. He told her Kukishev had this peculiar habit of greeting the newly arrived actresses, and otherwise was a harmless man and it did not pay to take offence. Anninka sealed up the letter and the money in an envelope, sent it back the very next day, and regained her composure.
But Kukishev was more persistent than the hotel-keeper had reported him to be. He was among Lyulkin's friends and was on good terms with Lubinka. He was quite well-to-do and, besides, as a member of the city administration was in a most convenient position with regard to the city treasury. And like Lyulkin, boldness was not his least virtue. According to the taste of market people he possessed a seductive appearance, reminding one of the beetle, which, as the song has it, Masha found in the fields instead of berries:
"A beetle black, and on his crownNice curly hair, with whiskers smart,His eyebrows colored a dark-brown,The picture of my own sweetheart."
Being the happy possessor of such looks he thought he had the right to be aggressive, all the more so as Lubinka explicitly promised him her cooperation.
Lubinka, apparently, had burned all her bridges, and her reputation was by no means a pleasant topic in her sister's ears. Every night, it was said, a merry band caroused in her rooms from midnight till morning, Lubinka presiding and appearing as a "gypsy," half naked (at this, Lyulkin, addressing his intoxicated friends, would cry out, "Look, there's a breast!") and with loosened hair. She would sing to the accompaniment of a guitar:
"How I did love it with my mash,Who had the darlingest mustache!"
Anninka listened to the stories about her sister and became greatly worried. What surprised her most was that Lubinka sang the ditty about the "mash who had the darlingest mustache" in a gypsy-like manner, just like the celebrated Matryusha of Moscow. Anninka always gave her sister due credit, and had she been told that Lubinka sang couplets fromOld-time Colonelswith unsurpassed excellence, she would have considered it quite natural and would have readily believed it. The theatergoers of Kursk, Tambov and Penza had not yet forgotten with what inimitable naïveté Lubinka sang the most atrocious ambiguities in her soft little voice. But that Lubinka could sing like a gypsy—pardon me! A lie! She, Anninka, could sing like that, no doubt of it. It was her genre, her business, and everyone in Kursk who had seen her in the play,Russian Romances Personified,would willingly testify to it.
Anninka would take the guitar, sling the striped sash over her shoulder, sit down on a chair, cross her legs and begin: "I-ekh! I-akh!" It was the very manner of Matryusha the gypsy.
However that may have been, one thing was certain, that Lubinka was extravagant. And Lyulkin, for fear of introducing a discordant note into the drunken bliss, had already resorted to borrowing from the zemstvo treasury. Not to speak of the tremendous amount of champagne which was both consumed and poured out on the floor in Lubinka's quarters, all sorts of things had to be provided to feed her growing capriciousness and extravagance. First it was dresses from Mme. Minangois of Moscow, then jewelry from Fuld. Lubinka was rather thrifty and did not scorn valuables. Her licentiousness by no means interfered with her love of gold, diamonds and especially lottery bonds. At any rate, it was a life not of gaiety, but of boisterous debauchery and continuous intoxication.
There was one thorn in the rose-bush. It was necessary for Lubinka to curry favor with the chief of police. Although a friend of Lyulkin's, he sometimes liked to make his power felt, and Lubinka always guessed when he was dissatisfied with her hospitality, for the next day the police warden would come to ask for her passport. And she yielded. In the morning she would treat the district chief of police to vodka and a light repast, while in the evening she would personally prepare a "Swedish" punch of which he was very fond.
Kukishev watched this ocean of luxury and burned with envy. He conceived a desire to lead a similar life and have just such a mistress. That would put an end to the monotony of provincial life. One night he would spend with Lyulkin's queen, the next night with his own queen. That was the dream of his life, the ambition of an imbecile, who is the more obstinate in his strivings the greater his stupidity. Anninka seemed to be the most suitable person for the realization of his hopes.