‘To tell the truth, Irina Pavlovna, such rumours very seldom reached me. I have led a very solitary life.’
‘How so? why, you were in the Crimea, in the militia?’
‘You know that too?’
‘As you see. I tell you, you have been watched.’
Again Litvinov felt puzzled.
‘Why am I to tell you what you know without me?’ said Litvinov in an undertone.
‘Why ... to do what I ask you. You see I ask you, Grigory Mihalitch.’
Litvinov bowed his head and began ... began in rather a confused fashion to recountin rough outline to Irina his uninteresting adventures. He often stopped and looked inquiringly at Irina, as though to ask whether he had told enough. But she insistently demanded the continuation of his narrative and pushing her hair back behind her ears, her elbows on the arm of her chair, she seemed to be catching every word with strained attention. Looking at her from one side and following the expression on her face, any one might perhaps have imagined she did not hear what Litvinov was saying at all, but was only deep in meditation.... But it was not of Litvinov she was meditating, though he grew confused and red under her persistent gaze. A whole life was rising up before her, a very different one, not his life, but her own.
Litvinov did not finish his story, but stopped short under the influence of an unpleasant sense of growing inner discomfort. This time Irina said nothing to him, and did not urge him to go on, but pressing her open hand to her eyes, as though she were tired, she leaned slowly back in her chair, and remained motionless. Litvinov waited for a little; then, reflecting that his visit had already lasted more than two hours, he was stretching out his hand for his hat, when suddenly in an adjoining room there was the sound of the rapid creak of thin kid boots, andpreceded by the same exquisite aristocratic perfume, there entered Valerian Vladimirovitch Ratmirov.
Litvinov rose and interchanged bows with the good-looking general, while Irina, with no sign of haste, took her hand from her face, and looking coldly at her husband, remarked in French, ‘Ah! so you’ve come back! But what time is it?’
‘Nearly four,ma chère amie, and you not dressed yet—the princess will be expecting us,’ answered the general; and with an elegant bend of his tightly-laced figure in Litvinov’s direction, he added with the almost effeminate playfulness of intonation characteristic of him, ‘It’s clear an agreeable visitor has made you forgetful of time.’
The reader will permit us at this point to give him some information about General Ratmirov. His father was the natural ... what do you suppose? You are not wrong—but we didn’t mean to say that ... the natural son of an illustrious personage of the reign of AlexanderI.and of a pretty little French actress. The illustrious personage brought his son forward in the world, but left him no fortune, and the son himself (the father of our hero) had not time to grow rich; he died before he had risen above the rank of a colonel in the police. A year beforehis death he had married a handsome young widow who had happened to put herself under his protection. His son by the widow, Valerian Alexandrovitch, having got into the Corps of Pages by favour, attracted the notice of the authorities, not so much by his success in the sciences, as by his fine bearing, his fine manners, and his good behaviour (though he had been exposed to all that pupils in the government military schools were inevitably exposed to in former days) and went into the Guards. His career was a brilliant one, thanks to the discreet gaiety of his disposition, his skill in dancing, his excellent seat on horseback when an orderly at reviews, and lastly, by a kind of special trick of deferential familiarity with his superiors, of tender, attentive almost clinging subservience, with a flavour of vague liberalism, light as air.... This liberalism had not, however, prevented him from flogging fifty peasants in a White Russian village, where he had been sent to put down a riot. His personal appearance was most prepossessing and singularly youthful-looking; smooth-faced and rosy-checked, pliant and persistent, he made the most of his amazing success with women; ladies of the highest rank and mature age simply went out of their senses over him. Cautious from habit, silent from motives of prudence, General Ratmirov moved constantlyin the highest society, like the busy bee gathering honey even from the least attractive flowers—and without morals, without information of any kind, but with the reputation of being good at business; with an insight into men, and a ready comprehension of the exigencies of the moment, and above all, a never-swerving desire for his own advantage, he saw at last all paths lying open before him....
Litvinov smiled constrainedly, while Irina merely shrugged her shoulders.
‘Well,’ she said in the same cold tone, ‘did you see the Count?’
‘To be sure I saw him. He told me to remember him to you.’
‘Ah! is he as imbecile as ever, that patron of yours?’
General Ratmirov made no reply. He only smiled to himself, as though lenient to the over-hastiness of a woman’s judgment. With just such a smile kindly-disposed grown-up people respond to the nonsensical whims of children.
‘Yes,’ Irina went on, ‘the stupidity of your friend the Count is too striking, even when one has seen a good deal of the world.’
‘You sent me to him yourself,’ muttered the general, and turning to Litvinov he asked him in Russian, ‘Was he getting any benefit from the Baden waters?’
‘I am in perfect health, I’m thankful to say,’ answered Litvinov.
‘That’s the greatest of blessings,’ pursued the general, with an affable grimace; ‘and indeed one doesn’t, as a rule, come to Baden for the waters; but the waters here are very effectual,je veux dire, efficaces;and any one who suffers, as I do for instance, from a nervous cough——’
Irina rose quickly. ‘We will see each other again, Grigory Mihalitch, and I hope soon,’ she said in French, contemptuously cutting short her husband’s speech, ‘but now I must go and dress. That old princess is insufferable with her everlastingparties de plaisir, of which nothing comes but boredom.’
‘You’re hard on every one to-day,’ muttered her husband, and he slipped away into the next room.
Litvinov was turning towards the door.... Irina stopped him.
‘You have told me everything,’ she said, ‘but the chief thing you concealed.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You are going to be married, I’m told?’
Litvinov blushed up to his ears.... As a fact, he had intentionally not referred to Tanya; but he felt horribly vexed, first, that Irina knew about his marriage, and, secondly, that she had, as it were, convicted him of a desire toconceal it from her. He was completely at a loss what to say, while Irina did not take her eyes off him.
‘Yes, I am going to be married,’ he said at last, and at once withdrew.
Ratmirov came back into the room.
‘Well, why aren’t you dressed?’ he asked.
‘You can go alone; my head aches.’
‘But the princess....’
Irina scanned her husband from head to foot in one look, turned her back upon him, and went away to her boudoir.
Litvinov felt much annoyed with himself, as though he had lost money at roulette, or failed to keep his word. An inward voice told him that he—on the eve of marriage, a man of sober sense, not a boy—ought not to have given way to the promptings of curiosity, nor the allurements of recollection. ‘Much need there was to go!’ he reflected. ‘On her side simply flirtation, whim, caprice.... She’s bored, she’s sick of everything, she clutched at me ... as some one pampered with dainties will suddenly long for black bread ... well, that’s natural enough.... But why did I go? Can I feel anything but contempt for her?’ This last phrase he could not utter even in thought without an effort.... ‘Of course, there’s no kind of danger, and never could be,’ he pursued his reflections. ‘I know whom I have to deal with. But still one ought not to play with fire.... I’ll never set my foot in her place again.’ Litvinov dared not, or could notas yet, confess to himself how beautiful Irina had seemed to him, how powerfully she had worked upon his feelings.
Again the day passed dully and drearily. At dinner, Litvinov chanced to sit beside a majesticbelhomme, with dyed moustaches, who said nothing, and only panted and rolled his eyes ... but, being suddenly taken with a hiccup, proved himself to be a fellow-countryman, by at once exclaiming, with feeling, in Russian, ‘There, I said I ought not to eat melons!’ In the evening, too, nothing happened to compensate for a lost day; Bindasov, before Litvinov’s very eyes, won a sum four times what he had borrowed from him, but, far from repaying his debt, he positively glared in his face with a menacing air, as though he were prepared to borrow more from him just because he had been a witness of his winnings. The next morning he was again invaded by a host of his compatriots; Litvinov got rid of them with difficulty, and setting off to the mountains, he first came across Irina—he pretended not to recognise her, and passed quickly by—and then Potugin. He was about to begin a conversation with Potugin, but the latter did not respond to him readily. He was leading by the hand a smartly dressed little girl, with fluffy, almost white curls, large black eyes, and a pale, sicklylittle face, with that peculiar peremptory and impatient expression characteristic of spoiled children. Litvinov spent two hours in the mountains, and then went back homewards along the Lichtenthaler Allee.... A lady, sitting on a bench, with a blue veil over her face, got up quickly, and came up to him.... He recognised Irina.
‘Why do you avoid me, Grigory Mihalitch?’ she said, in the unsteady voice of one who is boiling over within.
Litvinov was taken aback. ‘I avoid you, Irina Pavlovna?’
‘Yes, you ... you——’
Irina seemed excited, almost angry.
‘You are mistaken, I assure you.’
‘No, I am not mistaken. Do you suppose this morning—when we met, I mean—do you suppose I didn’t see that you knew me? Do you mean to say you did not know me? Tell me.’
‘I really ... Irina Pavlovna——’
‘Grigory Mihalitch, you’re a straightforward man, you have always told the truth; tell me, tell me, you knew me, didn’t you? you turned away on purpose?’
Litvinov glanced at Irina. Her eyes shone with a strange light, while her cheeks and lips were of a deathly pallor under the thick net ofher veil. In the expression of her face, in the very sound of her abruptly jerked-out whisper, there was something so irresistibly mournful, beseeching ... Litvinov could not pretend any longer.
‘Yes ... I knew you,’ he uttered not without effort.
Irina slowly shuddered, and slowly dropped her hands.
‘Why did you not come up to me?’ she whispered.
‘Why ... why!’ Litvinov moved on one side, away from the path, Irina followed him in silence. ‘Why?’ he repeated once more, and suddenly his face was aflame, and he felt his chest and throat choking with a passion akin to hatred. ‘You ... you ask such a question, after all that has passed between us? Not now, of course, not now; but there ... there ... in Moscow.’
‘But, you know, we decided; you know, you promised——’ Irina was beginning.
‘I have promised nothing! Pardon the harshness of my expressions, but you ask for the truth—so think for yourself: to what but a caprice—incomprehensible, I confess, to me—to what but a desire to try how much power you still have over me, can I attribute your ... I don’t know what to call it ... yourpersistence? Our paths have lain so far apart! I have forgotten it all, I’ve lived through all that suffering long ago, I’ve become a different man completely; you are married—happy, at least, in appearance—you fill an envied position in the world; what’s the object, what’s the use of our meeting? What am I to you? what are you to me? We cannot even understand each other now; there is absolutely nothing in common between us now, neither in the past nor in the present! Especially ... especially in the past!’
Litvinov uttered all this speech hurriedly, jerkily, without turning his head. Irina did not stir, except from time to time she faintly stretched her hands out to him. It seemed as though she were beseeching him to stop and listen to her, while, at his last words, she slightly bit her lower lip, as though to master the pain of a sharp, rapid wound.
‘Grigory Mihalitch,’ she began at last, in a calmer voice; and she moved still further away from the path, along which people from time to time passed.
Litvinov in his turn followed her.
‘Grigory Mihalitch, believe me, if I could imagine I had one hair’s-breadth of power over you left, I would be the first to avoid you. If I have not done so, if I made up my mind, inspite of my ... of the wrong I did you in the past, to renew my acquaintance with you, it was because ... because——’
‘Because what?’ asked Litvinov, almost rudely.
‘Because,’ Irina declared with sudden force—‘it’s too insufferable, too unbearably stifling for me in society, in the envied position you talk about; because meeting you, a live man, after all these dead puppets—you have seen samples of them three days ago, thereau Vieux Château,—I rejoice over you as an oasis in the desert, while you suspect me of flirting, and despise me and repulse me on the ground that I wronged you—as indeed I did—but far more myself!’
‘You chose your lot yourself, Irina Pavlovna,’ Litvinov rejoined sullenly, as before not turning his head.
‘I chose it myself, yes ... and I don’t complain, I have no right to complain,’ said Irina hurriedly; she seemed to derive a secret consolation from Litvinov’s very harshness. ‘I know that you must think ill of me, and I won’t justify myself; I only want to explain my feeling to you, I want to convince you I am in no flirting humour now.... Me flirting with you! Why, there is no sense in it.... When I saw you, all that was good, that was young inme, revived ... that time when I had not yet chosen my lot, everything that lies behind in that streak of brightness behind those ten years....’
‘Come, really, Irina Pavlovna! So far as I am aware, the brightness in your life began precisely with the time we separated....’
Irina put her handkerchief to her lips.
‘That’s very cruel, what you say, Grigory Mihalitch; but I can’t feel angry with you. Oh, no, that was not a bright time, it was not for happiness I left Moscow; I have known not one moment, not one instant of happiness ... believe me, whatever you have been told. If I were happy, could I talk to you as I am talking now.... I repeat to you, you don’t know what these people are.... Why, they understand nothing, feel for nothing; they’ve no intelligence even,ni esprit ni intelligence, nothing but tact and cunning; why, in reality, music and poetry and art are all equally remote from them.... You will say that I was rather indifferent to all that myself; but not to the same degree, Grigory Mihalitch ... not to the same degree! It’s not a woman of the world before you now, you need only look at me—not a society queen.... That’s what they call us, I believe ... but a poor, poor creature, really deserving of pity. Don’t wonder at my words....I am beyond feeling pride now! I hold out my hand to you as a beggar, will you understand, just as a beggar.... I ask for charity,’ she added suddenly, in an involuntary, irrepressible outburst, ‘I ask for charity, and you——’
Her voice broke. Litvinov raised his head and looked at Irina; her breathing came quickly, her lips were quivering. Suddenly his heart beat fast, and the feeling of hatred vanished.
‘You say that our paths have lain apart,’ Irina went on. ‘I know you are about to marry from inclination, you have a plan laid out for your whole life; yes, that’s all so, but we have not become strangers to one another, Grigory Mihalitch; we can still understand each other. Or do you imagine I have grown altogether dull—altogether debased in the mire? Ah, no, don’t think that, please! Let me open my heart, I beseech you—there—even for the sake of those old days, if you are not willing to forget them. Do so, that our meeting may not have come to pass in vain; that would be too bitter; it would not last long in any case.... I don’t know how to say it properly, but you will understand me, because I ask for little, so little ... only a little sympathy, only that you should not repulse me, that you should let me open my heart——’
Irina ceased speaking, there were tears in her voice. She sighed, and timidly, with a kind of furtive, searching look, gazed at Litvinov, held out her hand to him....
Litvinov slowly took the hand and faintly pressed it.
‘Let us be friends,’ whispered Irina.
‘Friends,’ repeated Litvinov dreamily.
‘Yes, friends ... or if that is too much to ask, then let us at least be friendly.... Let us be simply as though nothing had happened.’
‘As though nothing had happened,...’ repeated Litvinov again. ‘You said just now, Irina Pavlovna, that I was unwilling to forget the old days.... But what if I can’t forget them?’
A blissful smile flashed over Irina’s face, and at once disappeared, to be replaced by a harassed, almost scared expression.
‘Be like me, Grigory Mihalitch, remember only what was good in them; and most of all, give me your word.... Your word of honour....’
‘Well?’
‘Not to avoid me ... not to hurt me for nothing. You promise? tell me!’
‘Yes.’
‘And you will dismiss all evil thoughts of me from your mind.’
‘Yes ... but as for understanding you—I give it up.’
‘There’s no need of that ... wait a little, though, you will understand. But you will promise?’
‘I have said yes already.’
‘Thanks. You see I am used to believe you. I shall expect you to-day, to-morrow, I will not go out of the house. And now I must leave you. The Grand Duchess is coming along the avenue.... She’s caught sight of me, and I can’t avoid going up to speak to her.... Good-bye till we meet.... Give me your hand,vite, vite. Till we meet.’
And warmly pressing Litvinov’s hand, Irina walked towards a middle-aged person of dignified appearance, who was coming slowly along the gravel path, escorted by two other ladies, and a strikingly handsome groom in livery.
‘Eh bonjour, chère Madame,’ said the personage, while Irina curtseyed respectfully to her. ‘Comment allez-vous aujourd’hui? Venez un peu avec moi.’
‘Votre Altesse a trop de bonté,’ Irina’s insinuating voice was heard in reply.
Litvinov let the Grand Duchess and all her suite get out of sight, and then he too went along the avenue. He could not make up his mind clearly what he was feeling; he was conscious both of shame and dread, while his vanity was flattered.... The unexpected explanation with Irina had taken him utterly by surprise; her rapid burning words had passed over him like a thunder-storm. ‘Queer creatures these society women,’ he thought; ‘there’s no consistency in them ... and how perverted they are by the surroundings in which they go on living, while they’re conscious of its hideousness themselves!’... In reality he was not thinking this at all, but only mechanically repeating these hackneyed phrases, as though he were trying to ward off other more painful thoughts. He felt that he must not think seriously just now, that he would probably have to blame himself, and he moved with lagging steps, almost forcing himself to pay attention toeverything that happened to meet him.... He suddenly found himself before a seat, caught sight of some one’s legs in front of it, and looked upwards from them.... The legs belonged to a man, sitting on the seat, and reading a newspaper; this man turned out to be Potugin. Litvinov uttered a faint exclamation. Potugin laid the paper down on his knees, and looked attentively, without a smile, at Litvinov; and Litvinov also attentively, and also without a smile, looked at Potugin.
‘May I sit by you?’ he asked at last.
‘By all means, I shall be delighted. Only I warn you, if you want to have a talk with me, you mustn’t be offended with me—I’m in a most misanthropic humour just now, and I see everything in an exaggeratedly repulsive light.’
‘That’s no matter, Sozont Ivanitch,’ responded Litvinov, sinking down on the seat, ‘indeed it’s particularly appropriate.... But why has such a mood come over you?’
‘I ought not by rights to be ill-humoured,’ began Potugin. ‘I’ve just read in the paper a project for judicial reforms in Russia, and I see with genuine pleasure that we’ve got some sense at last, and they’re not as usual on the pretext of independence, nationalism, or originality, proposing to tack a little home-made tag of our own on to the clearstraightforward logic of Europe; but are taking what’s good from abroad intact. A single adaptation in its application to the peasants’ sphere is enough.... There’s no doing away with communal ownership!... Certainly, certainly, I ought not to be ill-humoured; but to my misfortune I chanced upon a Russian “rough diamond,” and had a talk with him, and these rough diamonds, these self-educated geniuses, would make me turn in my grave!’
‘What do you mean by a rough diamond?’ asked Litvinov.
‘Why, there’s a gentleman disporting himself here, who imagines he’s a musical genius. “I have done nothing, of course,” he’ll tell you. “I’m a cipher, because I’ve had no training, but I’ve incomparably more melody and more ideas in me than in Meyerbeer.” In the first place, I say: why have you had no training? and secondly, that, not to talk of Meyerbeer, the humblest German flute-player, modestly blowing his part in the humblest German orchestra, has twenty times as many ideas as all our untaught geniuses; only the flute-player keeps his ideas to himself, and doesn’t trot them out with a flourish in the land of Mozarts and Haydns; while our friend the rough diamond has only to strum some little waltz or song, and at once you see him with his handsin his trouser pocket and a sneer of contempt on his lips: I’m a genius, he says. And in painting it’s just the same, and in everything else. Oh, these natural geniuses, how I hate them! As if every one didn’t know that it’s only where there’s no real science fully assimilated, and no real art, that there’s this flaunting affectation of them. Surely it’s time to have done with this flaunting, this vulgar twaddle, together with all hackneyed phrases such as “no one ever dies of hunger in Russia,” “nowhere is there such fast travelling as in Russia,” “we Russians could bury all our enemies under our hats.” I’m for ever hearing of the richness of the Russian nature, their unerring instinct, and of Kulibin.... But what is this richness, after all, gentlemen? Half-awakened mutterings or else half-animal sagacity. Instinct, indeed! A fine boast. Take an ant in a forest and set it down a mile from its ant-hill, it will find its way home; man can do nothing like it; but what of it? do you suppose he’s inferior to the ant? Instinct, be it ever so unerring, is unworthy of man; sense, simple, straightforward, common sense—that’s our heritage, our pride; sense won’t perform any such tricks, but it’s that that everything rests upon. As for Kulibin, who without any knowledge of mechanics succeeded in making some very badwatches, why, I’d have those watches set up in the pillory, and say: see, good people, this is the waynotto do it. Kulibin’s not to blame for it, but his work’s rubbish. To admire Telushkin’s boldness and cleverness because he climbed on to the Admiralty spire is well enough; why not admire him? But there’s no need to shout that he’s made the German architects look foolish, that they’re no good, except at making money.... He’s not made them look foolish in the least; they had to put a scaffolding round the spire afterwards, and repair it in the usual way. For mercy’s sake, never encourage the idea in Russia that anything can be done without training. No; you may have the brain of a Solomon, but you must study, study from the A B C. Or else hold your tongue, and sit still, and be humble! Phoo! it makes one hot all over!’
Potugin took off his hat and began fanning himself with his handkerchief.
‘Russian art,’ he began again. ‘Russian art, indeed!... Russian impudence and conceit, I know, and Russian feebleness too, but Russian art, begging your pardon, I’ve never come across. For twenty years on end they’ve been doing homage to that bloated nonentity Bryullov, and fancying that we have founded a school of our own, and even that it will bebetter than all others.... Russian art, ha, ha, ha! ho, ho!’
‘Excuse me, though, Sozont Ivanitch,’ remarked Litvinov, ‘would you refuse to recognise Glinka too, then?’
Potugin scratched his head.
‘The exception, you know, only proves the rule, but even in that instance we could not dispense with bragging. If we’d said, for example, that Glinka was really a remarkable musician, who was only prevented by circumstances—outer and inner—from becoming the founder of the Russian opera, none would have disputed it; but no, that was too much to expect! They must at once raise him to the dignity of commander-in-chief, of grand-marshal, in the musical world, and disparage other nations while they were about it; they have nothing to compare with him, they declare, then quote you some marvellous home-bred genius whose compositions are nothing but a poor imitation of second-rate foreign composers, yes, second-rate ones, for they’re the easiest to imitate. Nothing to compare with him? Oh, poor benighted barbarians, for whom standards in art are non-existent, and artists are something of the same species as the strong man Rappo: there’s a foreign prodigy, they say, can lift fifteen stone in one hand, but our mancan lift thirty! Nothing to compare with us, indeed! I will venture to tell you some thing I remember, and can’t get out of my head. Last spring I visited the Crystal Palace near London; in that Palace, as you’re aware, there’s a sort of exhibition of everything that has been devised by the ingenuity of man—an encyclopædia of humanity one might call it. Well, I walked to and fro among the machines and implements and statues of great men; and all the while I thought, if it were decreed that some nation or other should disappear from the face of the earth, and with it everything that nation had invented, should disappear from the Crystal Palace, our dear mother, Holy Russia, could go and hide herself in the lower regions, without disarranging a single nail in the place: everything might remain undisturbed where it is; for even thesamovar, the woven bast shoes, the yoke-bridle, and the knout—these are our famous products—were not invented by us. One could not carry out the same experiment on the Sandwich islanders; those islanders have made some peculiar canoes and javelins of their own; their absence would be noticed by visitors. It’s a libel! it’s too severe, you say perhaps.... But I say, first, I don’t know how to roar like any sucking dove; and secondly, it’s plain that it’s not only the devil no one dares to lookstraight in the face, for no one dares to look straight at himself, and it’s not only children who like being soothed to sleep. Our older inventions came to us from the East, our later ones we’ve borrowed, and half spoiled, from the West, while we still persist in talking about the independence of Russian art! Some bold spirits have even discovered an original Russian science; twice two makes four with us as elsewhere, but the result’s obtained more ingeniously, it appears.’
‘But wait a minute, Sozont Ivanitch,’ cried Litvinov. ‘Do wait a minute! You know we send something to the universal exhibitions, and doesn’t Europe import something from us.’
‘Yes, raw material, raw products. And note, my dear sir: this raw produce of ours is generally only good by virtue of other exceedingly bad conditions; our bristles, for instance, are large and strong, because our pigs are poor; our hides are stout and thick because our cows are thin; our tallow’s rich because it’s boiled down with half the flesh.... But why am I enlarging on that to you, though; you are a student of technology, to be sure, you must know all that better than I do. They talk to me of our inventive faculty! The inventive faculty of the Russians! Why our worthy farmers complain bitterly and suffer loss becausethere’s no satisfactory machine for drying grain in existence, to save them from the necessity of putting their sheaves in ovens, as they did in the days of Rurik; these ovens are fearfully wasteful—just as our bast shoes and our Russian mats are,—and they are constantly getting on fire. The farmers complain, but still there’s no sign of a drying-machine. And why is there none? Because the German farmer doesn’t need them; he can thrash his wheat as it is, so he doesn’t bother to invent one, and we ... are not capable of doing it! Not capable—and that’s all about it! Try as we may! From this day forward I declare whenever I come across one of those rough diamonds, these self-taught geniuses, I shall say: “Stop a minute, my worthy friend! Where’s that drying-machine? let’s have it!” But that’s beyond them! Picking up some old cast-off shoe, dropped ages ago by St. Simon or Fourier, and sticking it on our heads and treating it as a sacred relic—that’s what we’re capable of; or scribbling an article on the historical and contemporary significance of the proletariat in the principal towns of France—that we can do too; but I tried once, asking a writer and political economist of that sort—rather like your friend, Mr. Voroshilov—to mention twenty towns in France, and what doyou think came of that? Why the economist in despair at last mentioned Mont-Fermeuil as one of the French towns, remembering it probably from some novel of Paul de Kock’s. And that reminds me of the following anecdote. I was one day strolling through a wood with a dog and a gun——’
‘Are you a sportsman then?’ asked Litvinov.
‘I shoot a little. I was making my way to a swamp in search of snipe; I’d been told of the swamp by other sportsmen. I saw sitting in a clearing before a hut a timber merchant’s clerk, as fresh and smooth as a peeled nut, he was sitting there, smiling away—what at, I can’t say. So I asked him: “Whereabouts was the swamp, and were there many snipe in it?” “To be sure, to be sure,” he sang out promptly, and with an expression of face as though I’d given him a rouble; “the swamp’s first-rate, I’m thankful to say; and as for all kinds of wild fowl,—my goodness, they’re to be found there in wonderful plenty.” I set off, but not only found no wild fowl, the swamp itself had been dry for a long time. Now tell me, please, why is the Russian a liar? Why does the political economist lie, and why the lie about the wild fowl too?’
Litvinov made no answer, but only sighed sympathetically.
‘But turn the conversation with the same political economist,’ pursued Potugin, ‘on the most abstruse problems of social science, keeping to theory, without facts...!—he takes flight like a bird, a perfect eagle. I did once succeed, though, in catching one of those birds. I used a pretty snare, though an obvious one, as you shall see if you please. I was talking with one of our latter-day “new young men” about various questions, as they call them. Well, he got very hot, as they always do. Marriage among other things he attacked with really childish exasperation. I brought forward one argument after another.... I might as well have talked to a stone wall! I saw I should never get round him like that. And then I had a happy thought! “Allow me to submit to you,” I began,—one must always talk very respectfully to these “new young men”—“I am really surprised at you, my dear sir; you are studying natural science, and your attention has never up till now been caught by the fact that all carnivorous and predatory animals—wild beasts and birds—all who have to go out in search of prey, and to exert themselves to obtain animal food for themselves and their young ... and I suppose you would include man in the category of such animals?” “Of course, I should,” said the “new young man,” “man is nothing but a carnivorous animal.” “And predatory?” I added. “And predatory,” he declared. “Well said,” I observed. “Well, then I am surprised you’ve never noticed that such animals live in monogamy.” The “new young man” started. “How so?” “Why, it is so. Think of the lion, the wolf, the fox, the vulture, the kite; and, indeed, would you condescend to suggest how they could do otherwise. It’s hard work enough for the two together to get a living for their offspring.” My “new young man” grew thoughtful. “Well,” says he, “in that case the animal is not a rule for man.” Thereupon I called him an idealist, and wasn’t he hurt at that! He almost cried. I had to comfort him by promising not to tell of him to his friends. To deserve to be called an idealist is no laughing matter! The main point in which our latter-day young people are out in their reckoning is this. They fancy that the time for the old, obscure, underground work is over, that it was all very well for their old-fashioned fathers to burrow like moles, but that’s too humiliating a part for us, we will take action in the light of day, we will take action.... Poor darlings! why your children even won’t take action; and don’t you care to go back to burrowing, burrowing underground again in the old tracks?’
A brief silence followed.
‘I am of opinion, my dear sir,’ began Potugin again, ‘that we are not only indebted to civilisation for science, art, and law, but that even the very feeling for beauty and poetry is developed and strengthened under the influence of the same civilisation, and that the so-called popular, simple, unconscious creation is twaddling and rubbishy. Even in Homer there are traces of a refined and varied civilisation; love itself is enriched by it. The Slavophils would cheerfully hang me for such a heresy, if they were not such chicken-hearted creatures; but I will stick up for my own ideas all the same; and however much they press Madame Kohanovsky and “The swarm of bees at rest” upon me,—I can’t stand the odour of thattriple extrait de mougik Russe, as I don’t belong to the highest society, which finds it absolutely necessary to assure itself from time to time that it has not turned quite French, and for whose exclusive benefit this literatureen cuir de Russieis manufactured. Try reading the raciest, most “popular” passages from the “Bees” to a common peasant—a real one; he’ll think you’re repeating him a new spell against fever or drunkenness. I repeat, without civilisation there’s not even poetry. If you want to get a clear idea of the poetic ideal of the uncivilisedRussian, you should turn up our ballads, our legends. To say nothing of the fact that love is always presented as the result of witchcraft, of sorcery, and produced by some philtre, to say nothing of our so-called epic literature being the only one among all the European and Asiatic literatures—the only one, observe, which does not present any typical pair of lovers—unless you reckon Vanka-Tanka as such; and of the Holy Russian knight always beginning his acquaintance with his destined bride by beating her “most pitilessly” on her white body, because “the race of women is puffed up”! all that I pass over; but I should like to call your attention to the artistic form of the young hero, thejeune premier, as he was depicted by the imagination of the primitive, uncivilised Slav. Just fancy him a minute; thejeune premierenters; a cloak he has worked himself of sable, back-stitched along every seam, a sash of seven-fold silk girt close about his armpits, his fingers hidden away under his hanging sleevelets, the collar of his coat raised high above his head, from before, his rosy face no man can see, nor, from behind, his little white neck; his cap is on one ear, while on his feet are boots of morocco, with points as sharp as a cobbler’s awl, and the heels peaked like nails. Round the points an egg can be rolled, and a sparrowcan fly under the heels. And the young hero advances with that peculiar mincing gait by means of which our Alcibiades, Tchivilo Plenkovitch, produced such a striking, almost medical, effect on old women and young girls, the same gait which we see in our loose-limbed waiters, that cream, that flower of Russian dandyism, thatne plus ultraof Russian taste. This I maintain without joking; a sack-like gracefulness, that’s an artistic ideal. What do you think, is it a fine type? Does it present many materials for painting, for sculpture? And the beauty who fascinates the young hero, whose “face is as red as the blood of the hare”?... But I think you’re not listening to me?’
Litvinov started. He had not, in fact, heard what Potugin was saying; he kept thinking, persistently thinking of Irina, of his last interview with her....
‘I beg your pardon, Sozont Ivanitch,’ he began, ‘but I’m going to attack you again with my former question about ... about Madame Ratmirov.’
Potugin folded up his newspaper and put it in his pocket.
‘You want to know again how I came to know her?’
‘No, not exactly. I should like to hear youropinion ... on the part she played in Petersburg. What was that part, in reality?’
‘I really don’t know what to say to you, Grigory Mihalitch; I was brought into rather intimate terms with Madame Ratmirov ... but quite accidentally, and not for long. I never got an insight into her world, and what took place in it remained unknown to me. There was some gossip before me, but as you know, it’s not only in democratic circles that slander reigns supreme among us. Besides I was not inquisitive. I see though,’ he added, after a short silence, ‘she interests you.’
‘Yes; we have twice talked together rather openly. I ask myself, though, is she sincere?’
Potugin looked down. ‘When she is carried away by feeling, she is sincere, like all women of strong passions. Pride too, sometimes prevents her from lying.’
‘Is she proud? I should rather have supposed she was capricious.’
‘Proud as the devil; but that’s no harm.’
‘I fancy she sometimes exaggerates....’
‘That’s nothing either, she’s sincere all the same. Though after all, how can you expect truth? The best of those society women are rotten to the marrow of their bones.’
‘But, Sozont Ivanitch, if you remember, youcalled yourself her friend. Didn’t you drag me almost by force to go and see her?’
‘What of that? she asked me to get hold of you; and I thought, why not? And I really am her friend. She has her good qualities: she’s very kind, that is to say, generous, that’s to say she gives others what she has no sort of need of herself. But of course you must know her at least as well as I do.’
‘I used to know Irina Pavlovna ten years ago; but since then——’
‘Ah, Grigory Mihalitch, why do you say that? Do you suppose any one’s character changes? Such as one is in one’s cradle, such one is still in one’s tomb. Or perhaps it is’ (here Potugin bowed his head still lower) ‘perhaps, you’re afraid of falling into her clutches? that’s certainly ... But of course one is bound to fall into some woman’s clutches.’
Litvinov gave a constrained laugh. ‘You think so?’
‘There’s no escape. Man is weak, woman is strong, opportunity is all-powerful, to make up one’s mind to a joyless life is hard, to forget oneself utterly is impossible ... and on one side is beauty and sympathy and warmth and light,—how is one to resist it? Why, one runs like a child to its nurse. Ah, well, afterwards to be sure comes cold and darkness and emptiness ...in due course. And you end by being strange to everything, by losing comprehension of everything. At first you don’t understand how love is possible; afterwards one won’t understand how life is possible.’
Litvinov looked at Potugin, and it struck him that he had never yet met a man more lonely, more desolate ... more unhappy. This time he was not shy, he was not stiff; downcast and pale, his head on his breast, and his hands on his knees, he sat without moving, merely smiling his dejected smile. Litvinov felt sorry for the poor, embittered, eccentric creature.
‘Irina Pavlovna mentioned among other things,’ he began in a low voice, ‘a very intimate friend of hers, whose name if I remember was Byelsky, or Dolsky....’
Potugin raised his mournful eyes and looked at Litvinov.
‘Ah!’ he commented thickly.... ‘She mentioned ... well, what of it? It’s time, though,’ he added with a rather artificial yawn, ‘for me to be getting home—to dinner. Good-bye.’
He jumped up from the seat and made off quickly before Litvinov had time to utter a word.... His compassion gave way to annoyance—annoyance with himself, be it understood. Want of consideration of any kind was foreign to his nature; he had wished to express hissympathy for Potugin, and it had resulted in something like a clumsy insinuation. With secret dissatisfaction in his heart, he went back to his hotel.
‘Rotten to the marrow of her bones,’ he thought a little later ... ‘but proud as the devil! She, that woman who is almost on her knees to me, proud? proud and not capricious?’
Litvinov tried to drive Irina’s image out of his head, but he did not succeed. For this very reason he did not think of his betrothed; he felt to-day this haunting image would not give up its place. He made up his mind to await without further anxiety the solution of all this ‘strange business’; the solution could not be long in coming, and Litvinov had not the slightest doubt it would turn out to be most innocent and natural. So he fancied, but meanwhile he was not only haunted by Lina’s image—every word she had uttered kept recurring in its turn to his memory.
The waiter brought him a note: it was from the same Irina:
‘If you have nothing to do this evening, come to me; I shall not be alone; I shall have guests, and you will get a closer view of our set, our society. I want you very much to see something of them; I fancy they will show themselves in all their brilliance. Youought to know what sort of atmosphere I am breathing. Come; I shall be glad to see you, and you will not be bored. (Irina had spelt the Russian incorrectly here.) Prove to me that our explanation to-day has made any sort of misunderstanding between us impossible for ever.—Yours devotedly,I.
Litvinov put on a frock coat and a white tie, and set off to Irina’s. ‘All this is of no importance,’ he repeated mentally on the way, ‘as for looking atthem... why shouldn’t I have a look at them? It will be curious.’ A few days before, these very people had aroused a different sensation in him; they had aroused his indignation.
He walked with quickened steps, his cap pulled down over his eyes, and a constrained smile on his lips, while Bambaev, sitting before Weber’s café, and pointing him out from a distance to Voroshilov and Pishtchalkin, cried excitedly: ‘Do you see that man? He’s a stone! he’s a rock! he’s a flint!!!’
Litvinov found rather many guests at Irina’s. In a corner at a card-table were sitting three of the generals of the picnic: the stout one, the irascible one, and the condescending one. They were playing whist with dummy, and there is no word in the language of man to express the solemnity with which they dealt, took tricks, led clubs and led diamonds ... there was no doubt about their being statesmen now! These gallant generals left to mere commoners,aux bourgeois, the little turns and phrases commonly used during play, and uttered only the most indispensable syllables; the stout general however permitted himself to jerk off between two deals: ‘Ce satané as de pique!’ Among the visitors Litvinov recognised ladies who had been present at the picnic; but there were others there also whom he had not seen before. There was one so ancient that it seemed every instant as though she would fall to pieces: she shrugged her bare, gruesome, dingy greyshoulders, and, covering her mouth with her fan, leered languishingly with her absolutely death-like eyes upon Ratmirov; he paid her much attention; she was held in great honour in the highest society, as the last of the Maids of Honour of the Empress Catherine. At the window, dressed like a shepherdess, sat Countess S., ‘the Queen of the Wasps,’ surrounded by young men. Among them the celebrated millionaire and beau Finikov was conspicuous for his supercilious deportment, his absolutely flat skull, and his expression of soulless brutality, worthy of a Khan of Bucharia, or a Roman Heliogabalus. Another lady, also a countess, known by the pet name ofLise, was talking to a long-haired, fair, and pale spiritualistic medium. Beside them was standing a gentleman, also pale and long-haired, who kept laughing in a meaning way. This gentleman also believed in spiritualism, but added to that an interest in prophecy, and, on the basis of the Apocalypse and the Talmud, was in the habit of foretelling all kinds of marvellous events. Not a single one of these events had come to pass; but he was in no wise disturbed by that fact, and went on prophesying as before. At the piano, the musical genius had installed himself, the rough diamond, who had stirred Potugin to such indignation; he was striking chordswith a careless hand,d’une main distraite, and kept staring vaguely about him. Irina was sitting on a sofa between Prince Kokó and Madame H., once a celebrated beauty and wit, who had long ago become a repulsive old crone, with the odour of sanctity and evaporated sinfulness about her. On catching sight of Litvinov, Irina blushed and got up, and when he went up to her, she pressed his hand warmly. She was wearing a dress of black crépon, relieved by a few inconspicuous gold ornaments; her shoulders were a dead white, while her face, pale too, under the momentary flood of crimson overspreading it, was breathing with the triumph of beauty, and not of beauty alone; a hidden, almost ironical happiness was shining in her half-closed eyes, and quivering about her lips and nostrils....
Ratmirov approached Litvinov and after exchanging with him his customary civilities, unaccompanied however by his customary playfulness, he presented him to two or three ladies: the ancient ruin, the Queen of the Wasps, Countess Liza ... they gave him a rather gracious reception. Litvinov did not belong to their set; but he was good-looking, extremely so, indeed, and the expressive features of his youthful face awakened their interest. Only he did not know how to fasten that interest upon himself;he was unaccustomed to society and was conscious of some embarrassment, added to which the stout general stared at him persistently. ‘Aha! lubberly civilian! free-thinker!’ that fixed heavy stare seemed to be saying: ‘down on your knees to us; crawl to kiss our hands!’ Irina came to Litvinov’s aid. She managed so adroitly that he got into a corner near the door, a little behind her. As she addressed him, she had each time to turn round to him, and every time he admired the exquisite curve of her splendid neck, he drank in the subtle fragrance of her hair. An expression of gratitude, deep and calm, never left her face; he could not help seeing that gratitude and nothing else was what those smiles, those glances expressed, and he too was all aglow with the same emotion, and he felt shame, and delight and dread at once ... and at the same time she seemed continually as though she would ask, ‘Well? what do you think of them?’ With special clearness Litvinov heard this unspoken question whenever any one of the party was guilty of some vulgar phrase or act, and that occurred more than once during the evening. Once she did not even conceal her feelings, and laughed aloud.
Countess Liza, a lady of superstitious bent, with an inclination for everything extraordinary,after discoursing to her heart’s content with the spiritualist upon Home, turning tables, self-playing concertinas, and so on, wound up by asking him whether there were animals which could be influenced by mesmerism.
‘There is one such animal any way,’ Prince Kokó declared from some way off. ‘You know Melvanovsky, don’t you? They put him to sleep before me, and didn’t he snore, he, he!’
‘You are very naughty,mon prince;I am speaking of real animals,je parle des bêtes.’
‘Mais moi aussi, madame, je parle d’une bête....’
‘There are such,’ put in the spiritualist; ‘for instance—crabs; they are very nervous, and are easily thrown into a cataleptic state.’
The countess was astounded. ‘What? Crabs! Really? Oh, that’s awfully interesting! Now, that I should like to see, M’sieu Luzhin,’ she added to a young man with a face as stony as a new doll’s, and a stony collar (he prided himself on the fact that he had bedewed the aforesaid face and collar with the sprays of Niagara and the Nubian Nile, though he remembered nothing of all his travels, and cared for nothing but Russian puns...). ‘M’sieu Luzhin, if you would be so good, do bring us a crab quick.’
M’sieu Luzhin smirked. ‘Quick must it be, or quickly?’ he queried.
The countess did not understand him. ‘Mais oui, a crab,’ she repeated, ‘une écrevisse.’
‘Eh? what is it? a crab? a crab?’ the Countess S. broke in harshly. The absence of M. Verdier irritated her; she could not imagine why Irina had not invited that most fascinating of Frenchmen. The ancient ruin, who had long since ceased understanding anything—moreover she was completely deaf—only shook her head.
‘Oui, oui, vous allez voir.M’sieu Luzhin, please....’
The young traveller bowed, went out, and returned quickly. A waiter walked behind him, and grinning from ear to ear, carried in a dish, on which a large black crab was to be seen.
‘Voici, madame,’ cried Luzhin; ‘now we can proceed to the operation on cancer. Ha, ha, ha!’ (Russians are always the first to laugh at their own witticisms.)
‘He, he, he!’ Count Kokó did his duty condescendingly as a good patriot, and patron of all national products.
(We beg the reader not to be amazed and indignant; who can say confidently for himself that sitting in the stalls of the Alexander Theatre, and infected by its atmosphere, he has not applauded even worse puns?)
‘Merci, merci,’ said the countess. ‘Allons, allons, Monsieur Fox, montrez nous ça.’
The waiter put the dish down on a little round table. There was a slight movement among the guests; several heads were craned forward; only the generals at the card-table preserved the serene solemnity of their pose. The spiritualist ruffled up his hair, frowned, and, approaching the table, began waving his hands in the air; the crab stretched itself, backed, and raised its claws. The spiritualist repeated and quickened his movements; the crab stretched itself as before.
‘Mais que doit-elle donc faire?’ inquired the countess.
‘Elle doâ rester immobile et se dresser sur sa quiou,’ replied Mr. Fox, with a strong American accent, and he brandished his fingers with convulsive energy over the dish; but the mesmerism had no effect, the crab continued to move. The spiritualist declared that he was not himself, and retired with an air of displeasure from the table. The countess began to console him, by assuring him that similar failures occurred sometimes even with Mr. Home.... Prince Kokó confirmed her words. The authority on the Apocalypse and the Talmud stealthily went up to the table, and making rapid but vigorous thrusts with his fingers in the direction of thecrab, he too tried his luck, but without success; no symptom of catalepsy showed itself. Then the waiter was called, and told to take away the crab, which he accordingly did, grinning from ear to ear, as before; he could be heard exploding outside the door.... There was much laughter afterwards in the kitchenüber diese Russen. The self-taught genius, who had gone on striking notes during the experiments with the crab, dwelling on melancholy chords, on the ground that there was no knowing what influence music might have—the self-taught genius played his invariable waltz, and, of course, was deemed worthy of the most flattering applause. Pricked on by rivalry, Count H., our incomparable dilettante (see ChapterI.), gave a little song of his own composition, cribbed wholesale from Offenbach. Its playful refrain to the words: ‘Quel œuf? quel bœuf?’ set almost all the ladies’ heads swinging to right and to left; one went so far as to hum the tune lightly, and the irrepressible, inevitable word, ‘Charmant! charmant!’ was fluttering on every one’s lips. Irina exchanged a glance with Litvinov, and again the same secret, ironical expression quivered about her lips.... But a little later it was still more strongly marked, there was even a shade of malice in it, when Prince Kokó, that representative and champion of the interests of thenobility, thought fit to propound his views to the spiritualist, and, of course, gave utterance before long to his famous phrase about the shock to the principle of property, accompanied naturally by an attack on democrats. The spiritualist’s American blood was stirred; he began to argue. The prince, as his habit was, at once fell to shouting at the top of his voice; instead of any kind of argument he repeated incessantly: ‘C’est absurde! cela n’a pas le sens commun!’ The millionaire Finikov began saying insulting things, without much heed to whom they referred; the Talmudist’s piping notes and even the Countess S.’s jarring voice could be heard.... In fact, almost the same incongruous uproar arose as at Gubaryov’s; the only difference was that here there was no beer nor tobacco-smoke, and every one was better dressed. Ratmirov tried to restore tranquillity (the generals manifested their displeasure, Boris’s exclamation could be heard, ‘Encore cette satanée politique!’), but his efforts were not successful, and at that point, a high official of the stealthily inquisitorial type, who was present, and undertook to presentle résumé en peu de mots, sustained a defeat: in fact he so hummed and hawed, so repeated himself, and was so obviously incapable of listening to or taking in the answers he received, and so unmistakablyfailed to perceive himself what precisely constitutedla questionthat no other result could possibly have been anticipated. And then too Irina was slily provoking the disputants and setting them against one another, constantly exchanging glances and slight signs with Litvinov as she did so.... But he was sitting like one spell-bound, he was hearing nothing, and waiting for nothing but for those splendid eyes to sparkle again, that pale, tender, mischievous, exquisite face to flash upon him again.... It ended by the ladies growing restive, and requesting that the dispute should cease.... Ratmirov entreated the dilettante to sing his song again, and the self-taught genius once more played his waltz....
Litvinov stayed till after midnight, and went away later than all the rest. The conversation had in the course of the evening touched upon a number of subjects, studiously avoiding anything of the faintest interest; the generals, after finishing their solemn game, solemnly joined in it: the influence of these statesmen was at once apparent. The conversation turned upon notorieties of the Parisian demi-monde, with whose names and talents every one seemed intimately acquainted, on Sardou’s latest play, on a novel of About’s, on Patti in theTraviata. Some one proposed a game of ‘secretary,’ausecrétaire;but it was not a success. The answers given were pointless, and often not free from grammatical mistakes; the stout general related that he had once in answer to the question:Qu’est-ce que l’amour?replied,Une colique remontée au cœur, and promptly went off into his wooden guffaw; the ancient ruin with a mighty effort struck him with her fan on the arm; a flake of plaster was shaken off her forehead by this rash action. The old crone was beginning a reference to the Slavonic principalities and the necessity of orthodox propaganda on the Danube, but, meeting with no response, she subsided with a hiss. In reality they talked more about Home than anything else; even the ‘Queen of the Wasps’ described how hands had once crept about her, and how she had seen them, and put her own ring on one of them. It was certainly a triumph for Irina: even if Litvinov had paid more attention to what was being said around him, he still could not have gleaned one single sincere saying, one single clever thought, one single new fact from all their disconnected and lifeless babble. Even in their cries and exclamations, there was no note of real feeling, in their slander no real heat. Only at rare intervals under the mask of assumed patriotic indignation, or of assumed contempt and indifference, the dread of possible lossescould be heard in a plaintive whimper, and a few names, which will not be forgotten by posterity, were pronounced with gnashing of teeth ... And not a drop of living water under all this noise and wrangle! What stale, what unprofitable nonsense, what wretched trivialities were absorbing all these heads and hearts, and not for that one evening, not in society only, but at home too, every hour and every day, in all the depth and breadth of their existence! And what ignorance, when all is said! What lack of understanding of all on which human life is built, all by which life is made beautiful!
On parting from Litvinov, Irina again pressed his hand and whispered significantly, ‘Well? Are you pleased? Have you seen enough? Do you like it?’ He made her no reply, but merely bowed low in silence.
Left alone with her husband, Irina was just going to her bedroom.... He stopped her.
‘Je vous ai beaucoup admirée ce soir, madame,’ he observed, smoking a cigarette, and leaning against the mantelpiece, ‘vous vous êtes parfaitement moquée de nous tous.’
‘Pas plus cette fois-ci que les autres,’ she answered indifferently.
‘How do you mean me to understand you?’ asked Ratmirov.
‘As you like.’
‘Hm.C’est clair.’ Ratmirov warily, like a cat, knocked off the ash of the cigarette with the tip of the long nail of his little finger. ‘Oh, by the way! This new friend of yours—what the dickens is his name?—Mr. Litvinov—doubtless enjoys the reputation of a very clever man.’
At the name of Litvinov, Irina turned quickly round.
‘What do you mean to say?’
The general smiled.
‘He keeps very quiet ... one can see he’s afraid of compromising himself.’
Irina too smiled; it was a very different smile from her husband’s.
‘Better keep quiet than talk ... as some people talk.’
‘Attrapé!’ answered Ratmirov with feigned submissiveness. ‘Joking apart, he has a very interesting face. Such a ... concentrated expression ... and his whole bearing.... Yes....’ The general straightened his cravat, and bending his head stared at his own moustache. ‘He’s a republican, I imagine, of the same sort as your other friend, Mr. Potugin; that’s another of your clever fellows who are dumb.’
Irina’s brows were slowly raised above her wide open clear eyes, while her lips were tightly pressed together and faintly curved.
‘What’s your object in saying that, ValerianVladimiritch,’ she remarked, as though sympathetically. ‘You are wasting your arrows on the empty air.... We are not in Russia, and there is no one to hear you.’
Ratmirov was stung.
‘That’s not merely my opinion, Irina Pavlovna,’ he began in a voice suddenly guttural; ‘other people too notice that that gentleman has the air of a conspirator.’
‘Really? who are these other people?’
‘Well, Boris for instance——’
‘What? was it necessary for him too to express his opinion?’
Irina shrugged her shoulders as though shrinking from the cold, and slowly passed the tips of her fingers over them.
‘Him ... yes, him. Allow me to remark, Irina Pavlovna, that you seem angry; and you know if one is angry——’
‘Am I angry? Oh, what for?’
‘I don’t know; possibly you have been disagreeably affected by the observation I permitted myself to make in reference to——’
Ratmirov stammered.
‘In reference to?’ Irina repeated interrogatively. ‘Ah, if you please, no irony, and make haste. I’m tired and sleepy.’
She took a candle from the table. ‘In reference to——?’
‘Well, in reference to this same Mr. Litvinov; since there’s no doubt now that you take a great interest in him.’
Irina lifted the hand in which she was holding the candlestick, till the flame was brought on a level with her husband’s face, and attentively, almost with curiosity, looking him straight in the face, she suddenly burst into laughter.
‘What is it?’ asked Ratmirov scowling.
Irina went on laughing.
‘Well, what is it?’ he repeated, and he stamped his foot.
He felt insulted, wounded, and at the same time against his will he was impressed by the beauty of this woman, standing so lightly and boldly before him ... she was tormenting him. He saw everything, all her charms—even the pink reflection of the delicate nails on her slender finger-tips, as they tightly clasped the dark bronze of the heavy candlestick—even that did not escape him ... while the insult cut deeper and deeper into his heart. And still Irina laughed.
‘What? you? you jealous?’ she brought out at last, and turning her back on her husband she went out of the room. ‘He’s jealous!’ he heard outside the door, and again came the sound of her laugh.
Ratmirov looked moodily after his wife; hecould not even then help noticing the bewitching grace of her figure, her movements, and with a violent blow, crushing the cigarette on the marble slab of the mantelpiece, he flung it to a distance. His cheeks had suddenly turned white, a spasm passed over the lower half of his face, and with a dull animal stare his eyes strayed about the floor, as though in search of something.... Every semblance of refinement had vanished from his face. Such an expression it must have worn when he was flogging the White Russian peasants.
Litvinov had gone home to his rooms, and sitting down to the table he had buried his head in both hands, and remained a long while without stirring. He got up at last, opened a box, and taking out a pocket-book, he drew out of an inner pocket a photograph of Tatyana. Her face gazed out mournfully at him, looking ugly and old, as photographs usually do. Litvinov’s betrothed was a girl of Great Russian blood, a blonde, rather plump, and with the features of her face rather heavy, but with a wonderful expression of kindness and goodness in her intelligent, clear brown eyes, with a serene, white brow, on which it seemed as though a sunbeam always rested. For a long time Litvinov did not take his eyes from the photograph, then he pushed it gently awayand again clutched his head in both hands. ‘All is at an end!’ he whispered at last, ‘Irina! Irina!’
Only now, only at that instant, he realised that he was irrevocably, senselessly, in love with her, that he had loved her since the very day of that first meeting with her at the Old Castle, that he had never ceased to love her. And yet how astounded, how incredulous, how scornful, he would have been, had he been told so a few hours back!
‘But Tanya, Tanya, my God! Tanya! Tanya!’ he repeated in contrition; while Irina’s shape fairly rose before his eyes in her black almost funereal garb, with the radiant calm of victory on her marble white face.