The sisters entered a thicket. The path’s many turnings made them giddy. Suddenly the turrets of the old house vanished from sight. Everything around them assumed an unfamiliar look.
“We seem to have lost our way,” said Elena cheerfully.
“Never fear, we’ll find our way out,” replied Elisaveta. “We are bound to get somewhere.”
At that instant there came towards them from among the bushes the small, sunburnt, handsome Kirsha. His dark, closely grown eyebrows and black wavy hair, unspoiled by headgear, gave him the wild look of a wood-sprite.
“Dear boy, where do you come from?” asked Elisaveta.
Kirsha eyed the sisters with an attentive, direct, and innocent gaze. He said:
“I am Kirsha Trirodov. Follow this path, and you’ll find yourselves where you want to go. I’ll go ahead of you.”
He turned and walked on. The sisters followed him upon the narrow path between the tall trees. Here and there flowers were visible—small, white, odorous flowers. They emitted a strange, pungent smell. It made the sisters feel both gay and languid. Kirsha walked silently before them.
At the end of the road loomed a mound, overgrown by tangled, ugly grass. At the foot of the mound was a rusty door which looked as if it were meant to hide some treasure.
Kirsha felt in his pocket, took out a key, and opened the door. It creaked unpleasantly and breathed out cold, dampness, and fear. A long dark passage became discernible. Kirsha pressed a spot near the door. The dark passage became lit up as though by electric light, but the lights themselves were not visible.
The sisters entered the grotto. The light poured from everywhere. But the sources of light remained a mystery. The walls themselves seemed to radiate. The light fell evenly, and neither bright reflections nor shadowy places were to be seen.
The sisters went on. Now they were alone. The door closed behind them with a grating sound. Kirsha ran on ahead. The sisters no longer saw him. The corridor was sinuous. It was difficult to walk fast for some unknown reason. A kind of weight seemed to fetter their limbs. The passage inclined slightly downwards. They walked on like this a long time. It grew hotter and damper the farther they advanced. There was an aroma—strange, sad, and exotic. The fragrance increased, became more and more languorous. It made the head dizzy and the heart ready to faint with a sweetness not free from pain.
It seemed an incredibly long way. Their legs now moved more slowly. The stone floor was cruelly hard.
“It’s almost impossible to walk,” whispered Elisaveta.
Those few moments seemed like ages in that dank, sultry underground. There seemed to be no end to the narrow winding passage; the two sisters felt as though they were doomed to walk on and on, for ever and ever, without reaching any place.
The light gradually grew dimmer, a thin mist rose before their eyes. Still they walked on along the cruel, endless way.
Suddenly their journey was done. Before them was an open door, a shaft of white, exultant light came pouring in—freedom’s own ecstasy.
The door opened into an immense greenhouse. Strange, muscular, monstrously green plants grew here. The air was very humid, very oppressive. The glass walls intersected by iron bars let through much light. The light was painfully, pitilessly dazzling, so that everything appeared in a whirl before their eyes.
Elena glanced at her dress. It struck her as being grey, worn out. But the bright light diverted her glances elsewhere and made her forget herself. The blue-green glass sky of the greenhouse flung down sparks and heat. The cruel Dragon rejoiced at the earthly respirations confined in this prison of glass. He furiously kissed his beloved poisonous grasses.
“It is even more terrible here than in the passage,” said Elisaveta. “Let’s leave this place quickly.”
“No, it is pleasant here,” said Elena with a happy smile. She was enjoying the pink and purple flowers which bloomed in a round basin.
But Elisaveta walked rapidly towards the door leading to the garden. Elena overtook her, and grumbled:
“Why are you running? Here is a bench; let’s rest here.”
Trirodov met them in the garden just outside the greenhouse. His manner of addressing them was simple and direct.
“I believe,” he began, “that you are interested in this house and its owner. Well, if you like I’ll show you a part of my kingdom.”
Elena blushed. Elisaveta calmly bowed and said:
“Yes, we are an inquisitive pair. This house once belonged to a relative, but it was left abandoned. It is said that many changes have been made.”
“Yes, many changes have been made,” said Trirodov quietly, “but the greater part remains as it was.”
“Every one was astonished,” continued Elisaveta, “when you decided to settle here. The reputation of the house did not hinder you.”
Trirodov led the sisters through the house and the garden. The conversation ran on smoothly. The sisters’ embarrassment was soon gone. They felt quite natural with Trirodov. His calm, friendly voice put them wholly at ease. They continued to walk and to observe. But they felt conscious that another life, intimate yet remote, hovered round them all the while. Sounds of music came to them at intervals; sometimes it was the doleful tones of a violin, sometimes the quiet plaint of a flute; again it was the reed-like voice of some unseen singer which sang a tender and restful song.
Upon one small lawn, in the shade of old trees, whose foliage protected them from the hot glare of the Dragon, making it pleasantly cool and pleasantly dark there, a number of small boys and girls, dressed in white, had formed a ring and were dancing. As the sisters approached them the children dispersed. They scampered off so quietly that they barely made a sound even when they brushed against the twigs; they vanished as though they had not been there.
The sisters listened to Trirodov as they walked, pausing often to admire the beauties of the garden—its trees, lawns, ponds, islands, its quietly murmuring fountains, its picturesque arbours, its profusely gay flower-beds. They felt a keen elation at having penetrated this mysterious house—they were as happy as schoolgirls at the thought of having infringed the commonly accepted rules of good society in coming here.
As they entered one room of the house Elena exclaimed:
“What a strange room!”
“A magic room,” said Trirodov with a smile.
It was indeed a strange room—everything in it had an odd shape: the ceiling sloped, the floor was concave, the corners were round, upon the walls were incomprehensible pictures and unfamiliar hieroglyphics. In one corner was a dark, flat object in a carved frame of black wood.
“It’s a mirror in which it is interesting to take a look at oneself,” said Trirodov. “Only you have to stand in that triangle close to the wall, near the corner.”
The sisters went there and glanced in the mirror: two old wrinkled faces were reflected in it. Elena cried out in fright. Elisaveta, growing pale, turned towards her sister and smiled.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said, “it’s a trick of some sort.”
Elena looked at her and cried out in horror:
“You have become quite old—grey-haired! How awful!”
She ran from the mirror, crying out in her fright:
“What is it? What is it?”
Elisaveta followed her. She did not understand what had happened; she was agitated, and tried to hide her confusion. Trirodov looked at them in a self-possessed manner. He opened a cupboard, inset in the wall.
“Be calm,” he said to Elena. “I’ll give you some water in a moment.”
He gave her a glass containing a fluid as colourless as water. Elena quickly drank the sour-sweet water, and suddenly felt cheerful. Elisaveta also drank it. Elena threw herself towards the mirror.
“I’m young again,” she exclaimed in a high voice.
Then she ran forward, embraced Elisaveta, and said cheerfully:
“And you too, Elisaveta, have grown young.”
An impetuous joy seized both sisters. They caught each other by the hands and began to dance and to twirl round the room. Then they suddenly felt ashamed. They stopped, and did not know which way to look; they laughed in their confusion. Elisaveta said:
“What a stupid pair we are! You think us ridiculous, don’t you?”
Trirodov smiled in a friendly fashion:
“That is the nature of this place,” he observed. “Terror and joy live here together.”
The sisters were shown many interesting things in the house—objects of art and of worship; things which told of distant lands and of hoary antiquity; engravings of a strange and disturbing character; variegated stones, turquoise, pearls; ugly, amorphous, and grotesque idols; representations of the god-child—there were many of these, but only one face profoundly stirred Elisaveta....
Elena enjoyed the objects that resembled toys. There were many things there that one could play with, and thus indulge in a jumble of magic reflections of time and space.
The sisters had seen so much that it seemed as if an age had passed, but actually they had spent only two hours here. It is impossible to measure time. One hour is an age, another is an instant; but humanity makes no distinction, levels the hours down to an average.
“What, only two hours!” exclaimed Elena. “How long we’ve spent here. It’s time to go home for dinner.”
“Do you mind being a little late?” asked Trirodov.
“How can we?” said Elena.
Elisaveta explained:
“The hour of dinner is strictly kept in our house.”
“I’ll have a cart ready for you.”
The sisters thanked him. But they must start at once. They both suddenly felt sad and tired. They bade their host good-bye and left him. The boy in white went before them in the garden and showed them the way.
No sooner had they again entered the underground passage than they saw a soft couch, and a fatigue so poignant suddenly overcame them that they could not advance another step.
“Let’s sit down,” said Elena.
“Yes,” replied Elisaveta, “I too am tired. How strange! What a weariness!”
The sisters sat down. Elisaveta said quietly:
“The light that falls upon us here from an unknown source is not a living light, and it is terrifying—but the stern face of the monster, burning yet not consuming itself, is even more terrifying.”
“The lovely sun,” said Elena.
“It will become extinguished,” said Elisaveta, “extinguished—this unrighteous luminary, and in the depth of subterranean passages, freed from the scorching Dragon and from cold that kills, men will erect a new life full of wisdom.”
Elena whispered:
“When the earth grows cold, men will die.”
“The earth will not die,” answered Elisaveta no less quietly.
The sisters fell into a sleep. They did not sleep long, and when both awakened quite suddenly, everything that had just happened seemed like a dream. They made haste.
“We must hurry home,” said Elena in an anxious voice.
They ran quickly. The door of the underground passage was open. Just outside the door, in the road, stood a cart. Kirsha sat in it and held the reins. The sisters seated themselves. Elisaveta took the reins. Kirsha spoke a word now and then. They said little on the way, in odd, disjointed words.
Arrived at their destination, they got out of the cart. They were in a half-somnolent state. Kirsha was off before they realized that they had not thanked him. When they looked for him they could only see a cloud of dust and hear the clatter of hoofs and the rattle of wheels on the cobblestones.
The sisters had barely time to change for dinner. They entered the dining-room somewhat weary and distraught. They were awaited there by their father Rameyev, the two Matovs—the student Piotr Dmitrievitch and the schoolboy Misha, sons of Rameyev’s lately deceased cousin to whom Trirodov’s estate had previously belonged.
The sisters spoke little at the table, and they said nothing of their day’s adventure. Yet before this they used to be frank and loved to chat, to tell the things that had happened to them.
Piotr Matov, a tall, spare, pale youth with sparkling eyes, who looked like a man about to enter a prophetic school, seemed worried and irritated. His nervousness reflected itself, in embarrassed smiles and awkward movements, in Misha. The latter was a well-nourished, rosy-cheeked lad, with a quick, merry eye, but betraying his intense impressionableness. His smiling mouth trembled slightly around the corners, apparently without cause.
The old Rameyev, who was more robust than tall, and had the tranquil manners of a well-trained, well-balanced individual, did not betray his impatience at his daughters’ tardy appearance, but took his place at the partially extended table, which seemed small in the middle of the immense dining-room of dark, embellished oak. Miss Harrison, unembarrassed, began to ladle out the soup; she was a plump, calm, slightly grey-haired woman, the personification of a successful household.
Rameyev noticed that his daughters were tired. A vague alarm stirred within him. But he quickly extinguished this tiny spark of displeasure, smiled tenderly at his daughters, and said very quietly, as if cautiously hinting at something:
“You have walked a little too far, my dears.”
There was a short but awkward silence; then, in order to soften the hidden significance of his words and to ease his daughters’ embarrassment, he added:
“I see you don’t ride horseback as much as you used to.”
After this he turned to the eldest of the brothers:
“Well, Petya, have you brought any news from town?”
The sisters felt uneasy. They tried to take part in the conversation.
This was in those days when the red demon of murder was prowling in our native land, and his terrible deeds brought discord and hate into the bosom of peaceful families. The young people in this house, as elsewhere, often talked and wrangled about what had happened and what was yet to be. For all their wrangling, they could not reach any agreement. Friendship from childhood and good breeding mitigated to some extent this antagonism of ideas. But more than once their discussions ended in bitter words.
Piotr, in reply to Rameyev, began to tell about working-men’s disturbances and projected strikes. Irritation was evident in his voice. He was one of those who was intensely troubled by problems of a religious-philosophical character. He thought that the mystical existence of human unities might be achieved only under the brilliant and alluring sway of Caesars and Popes. He imagined that he loved freedom—Christian freedom—yet all the turbulent movements of newly awakened life aroused only hate in his heart.
“There’s terrible news,” said Piotr; “a general strike is talked of. It is reported that all the factories will shut down to-morrow.”
Misha burst into an unexpected laugh; it was loud, merry, and childlike; and there was almost rapture in his remark:
“But you ought to see the sort of face the Headmaster makes on all such occasions.”
His voice was tender and sonorous, and it rang so softly and sweetly that he might have been telling about the blessed and the innocent, about the chaste play on the threshold of paradisian abodes. The words “strike” and “obstruction” came from his lips like the names of rare, sweet morsels. He grew cheerful and had a sudden desire to make things lively in schoolboy fashion. He began to sing loudly:
“Awake, rise up....”
But he became confused, stopped sadly, grew quiet, and blushed. The sisters laughed. Piotr had a surly look. Rameyev smiled benignly. Miss Harrison, pretending not to have noticed the discordant incident, calmly pressed the button of the electric bell attached on a cord to the hanging light to bring on the next course.
The dinner proceeded slowly in the usual order. The discussion grew hotter, and went helter-skelter from subject to subject. Such is said to be the Russian manner in argument. Perhaps it is the universal manner of people when discussing something that touches them deeply.
Piotr exclaimed hotly:
“Why is the autocracy of the proletariat better than the one already in force? And what wild, barbarous watchwords they have! ‘Who is not with us, he is against us!’ ‘Who is master, let him get down from his place; it’s our banquet.’”
“It’s yet too early to speak of our banquet,” said Elena in a restrained voice.
“Do you know where we are drifting?” continued Piotr. “There will be a reign of terror, and a shaking up such as Russia has not yet experienced. The point at issue is not that there is talking or doing here or there by certain gentry who imagine that they are making history. The real issue is in the clash of two classes, two interests, two cultures, two conceptions of the world, two moral systems. Who is it that wishes to seize the crown of lordship? It is theKham,3it is he who threatens to devour our culture.”
Elisaveta said reproachfully:
“What a word—Kham!”
Piotr smiled in a nervous and aggrieved manner, and asked:
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t like it,” said Elisaveta calmly.
With her habitual subjection to the thoughts and moods of her elder sister, Elena said:
“It is a rude word. I feel a reminiscence of a once helpless serfdom in it.”
“Nevertheless this word is now sufficiently literary,” said Piotr, with a vague smile. “And why shouldn’t one use it? It’s not the word that matters. We have seen countless instances with our own eyes of the progress of the spiritual bossiak4who is savagely indifferent to everything, who is hopelessly wild, malicious, and drunken for generations to come. He will crush everything—science, art, everything! A good characteristic specimen of akhamis your Stchemilov, with whom, Elisaveta, you sympathize so strongly. He’s a familiar young fellow, a handsome flunkey.”
Piotr fixed his eyes on Elisaveta. She replied calmly:
“I think you very unjust to him. He is a good man.”
Every one was glad when dinner was ended. It was a provoking conversation. Even the imperturbable Miss Harrison rose from her place rather sooner than usual. Rameyev went to his own room to get his hour’s nap. The young people went into the garden. Misha and Elena ran downhill to the river. They had a keen desire to run one after the other and to laugh.
“Elisaveta!” called out Piotr.
His voice trembled nervously. Elisaveta paused. She now stood within the deep shadow of an old linden. She looked questioningly at Piotr, her graceful bare arms folded on her breast; suddenly her heart beat faster. What a power of bewitchment was in those most lovable arms—oh, why did not some sudden impulse of passion throw them upon his shoulders!
“May I speak a few words to you, Elisaveta?” asked Piotr.
Elisaveta flushed a little, lowered her head, and said quietly:
“Let’s sit down somewhere.”
She walked along the path towards the small summer-house which looked down the slope. Piotr followed her silently. In silence also they ascended the steep passage. Elisaveta seated herself and rested her arms upon the low rail of the open summer-house. The undulating distances lay before her in one broad panoramic sweep—a view intimate from childhood, and which never failed to awaken the same delightful emotion. She was looking no longer at the separate objects—Nature poured herself out like music before her, in an inexhaustible play of colour and of soothing sound. Piotr stood before her and looked at her handsome face. The setting Dragon caressed Elisaveta’s face with its warm light; the skin thus suffused exulted in its radiance and bloom.
They were silent. Both felt a painful awkwardness. Piotr was nervously breaking twigs from a birch near by. Elisaveta began:
“What is it you wish to tell me?”
A cold remoteness, almost enmity, sounded in her deeply agitated voice. She felt her own harshness, to soften which she smiled gently and timidly.
“What’s there to say,” began Piotr quietly and irresolutely, “but one and the same thing. Elisaveta, I love you!”
Elisaveta flushed. Her eyes gave a sudden flare, then grew dull. She rose from her seat and spoke in an agitated manner:
“Piotr, why do you again torment yourself and me needlessly? We have been so intimate from childhood—yet it seems that we must part! Our ways are different, we think differently, and believe differently.”
Piotr listened to her with an expression of intense impatience and vexation. Elisaveta wished to continue, but he interrupted:
“Ah, but what’s the good of saying that? Elisaveta, do, I beg you, forget our differences. They are so petty! Or let us admit that they are significant. What I wish to say is that politics and all that separates us is only a light scum, a momentary froth on the broad surface of our life. In love there is revelation, there is eternal truth. He who does not love, he who does not strive towards union with a beloved, he is dead.”
“I love the people, I love freedom,” said Elisaveta quietly. “My love is revolt.”
Piotr, ignoring her words, went on:
“You know that I love you. I have loved you a long time. My whole soul is absorbed as with light with my love for you. I am jealous—and I’m not ashamed to tell you I am jealous of your favour to any one; I am even jealous of this bloused workman, whose accomplice you would be if he had had the sufficient boldness and the brain to be a conspirator; I am jealous of the half-truths which have captivated you and screen your love of me.”
Again Elisaveta spoke quietly:
“You reproach me for what is dear to me, for my better part, you wish that I should become different. You do not love me, you are tempted by the beautiful Beast—my young body with its smiles and its caresses....”
And again ignoring what she said, Piotr asserted passionately:
“Elisaveta, dearest, love me! You surely do not love any one else! Isn’t that so? You do not love any one? You have had no time to fall in love, to fetter your soul to any one else’s. You are as free as man’s first bride, you are as superb as his last wife. You have grown ripe for love—for my love—you too are thirsty for kisses and embraces, even as I. O Elisaveta, love me, love me!”
“How can I?” said Elisaveta.
“Elisaveta, if you’d only will it!” exclaimed Piotr. “One must wish to love. If you only understood how I love you, you would love me also. My love should fire in you a responsive love.”
“My friend, you do not love anything that is mine,” answered Elisaveta. “You do not love me. I don’t believe you—forgive me—I don’t understand your love.”
Piotr frowned gloomily and said gruffly:
“You have been fascinated by that false, empty word freedom. You have never thought over its true meaning.”
“I’ve had little time to think over anything,” observed Elisaveta calmly, “but the feeling of freedom is the thing nearest to me. I cannot express it in words—I only know that we are fettered on this earth by iron bonds of necessity and of circumstance, but the nature of my soul is freedom; its fire is consuming the chains of my material dependence. I know that we human beings will always be frail, poor, lonely; but a time will surely come when we shall pass through the purifying flame of a great conflagration; then a new earth and a new heaven shall open up to us; through union we shall attain our final freedom. I know I am saying all this badly, incoherently—I cannot say clearly what I feel—but let us, please, say no more.”
Elisaveta strode out of the summer-house. Piotr slowly followed her. His face was sad and his eyes shone feverishly, but he could not utter a word—inertia gripped his mind. Quite suddenly he roused himself, raised his head, smiled, overtook Elisaveta.
“You love me, Elisaveta,” he said with joyous assurance. “You love me, though you won’t admit it. You are not speaking the truth when you say that you don’t understand my love. You do know my love, you do believe in it—tell me, is it possible to love so strongly and not be loved in return?”
Elisaveta stopped. Her eyes lit up with a strange joy.
“I tell you once more,” she said with calm resolution, “it is not me you love—you love the First Bride. I am going where I must.”
Piotr stood there and looked after her—helpless, pale, dejected. Between the bushes a sun-yellow dress fluttered against the now dull sky of a setting sun.
Piotr and Elisaveta descended towards the boat landing. Two rowing-boats seemed to rock on the water, though there was no breeze and the water was smooth like a mirror. A little farther, behind the bushes, the canvas roof of the bath-house stood revealed. Elena, Misha, and Miss Harrison were already there. They were sitting on a bench halfway down the slope, where the path to the landing was broken. The view from here, showing the bend of the river, was very restful. The water was growing darker, heavier, gradually assuming a leadlike dullness.
Misha and Elena, flushed with running, could not suppress their smiles. The Englishwoman looked calmly at the river, and nothing shocked her in the evening landscape and in the peaceful water. But now two persons came who brought with them their poignant unrest, their uneasiness, their confusion—and again an endless wrangle began.
They left this bench, from which one could look into such a great distance and see nothing but calm and peace everywhere. They descended below to the very bank. Even at this close range the water was still and smooth, and the agitated words of the restless people did not cause the broad sheet to stir. Misha picked up thin, flat stones and threw them underhand into the distance so that, touching the water, they skipped repeatedly on the surface. He did this habitually whenever the wrangling distressed him. His hands trembled, the little stones ricochetted badly sometimes; this annoyed him, but he tried to hide his annoyance and to look cheerful.
Elisaveta said:
“Misha, let’s see who can throw the better. Let’s try for pennies.”
They began to play. Misha was losing.
At the turn of the river, from the direction of the town, a rowing-boat appeared. Piotr looked searchingly into the distance, and said in a vexed voice:
“Mr. Stchemilov, our intelligent workman, the Social Democrat of the Russia Party, is again about to honour us.”
Elisaveta smiled. She asked with gentle reproof:
“Why do you dislike him so?”
“No, you tell me,” exclaimed Piotr, “why this party calls itself the Russia Party, and not the Russian Party? Why this high tone?”
Elisaveta answered with her usual calm:
“It is called the Russia and not the Russian Party because it includes not only the Russian, but also the Lithuanian, the Armenian, the Jew, and men of other races who happen to be citizens of Russia. It seems to me this is quite comprehensible.”
“No, I do not understand,” said Piotr obstinately. “I see in it only unnecessary pretence.”
In the meantime the boat drew nearer. Two men were sitting in it. Aleksei Makarovitch Stchemilov, a young working man, a locksmith by trade, sat at the oars. He was thin and of medium height; there was a suggestion of irony in the shape of his lips. Elisaveta had known Stchemilov since the past autumn, when she became acquainted with other labouring men and party workmen.
The boat touched the landing, and Stchemilov sprang out gracefully. Piotr remarked derisively as he bowed with exaggerated politeness:
“My homage to the proletariat of all lands.”
Stchemilov answered quietly:
“My most humble respects to the gentleman student.”
He exchanged greetings with all; then, turning with special deference towards Elisaveta, said:
“I’ve rowed back your property. It was almost taken from me. Our suburbanites have their own conceptions of the divine rights of ownership.”
Piotr boiled over with vexation—the very sight of this young blouse-wearer irritated him beyond bounds; he thought Stchemilov’s manners and speech arrogant. Piotr said sharply:
“As far as I understand your notion of things, it is not rights that are holy, but brute force.”
Stchemilov whistled and said:
“That is the origin of all ownership. You simply took a thing—and that’s all there was to it. ‘Blessed are the strong’ is a little adage among those who have conquered violently.”
“And how did you get hold of this?” asked Piotr with derision.
“Crumbs of wisdom fall from the tables of the rich even to us,” answered Stchemilov in a no less contemptuous tone; “we nourish ourselves on these small trifles.”
The other young man, clearly a workman also, remained in the boat. He looked rather timid, lean, and taciturn, and had gleaming eyes.
He sat holding on to the ropes of the rudder, and was looking cautiously towards the bank. Stchemilov looked at him with amused tenderness and called to him:
“Come here, Kiril, don’t be afraid; there are kindly people here—quite disposed to us, in fact.”
Piotr grumbled angrily under his breath. Misha smiled. He was eager to see the new-comer, though he hated violent discussions. Kiril got out of the boat awkwardly, and no less awkwardly stood up on the sand, his face averted; he smiled to hide his uneasiness. Piotr’s irritation grew.
“Please be seated,” he said, trying to assume a pleasant tone.
“I’ve done a lot of sitting,” answered Kiril in an artificial bass voice.
He continued to smile, but sat down on the edge of the bench, so that he nearly fell over; his arms shot up into the air, and one of his hands brushed against Elisaveta. He felt vexed with himself, and he flushed. As he moved away from the edge he remarked:
“I’ve sat two months in administrative order."5
Every one understood these strange words. Piotr asked:
“For what?”
Kiril seemed embarrassed. He answered with a morose uneasiness:
“It’s all a very simple affair with us—you do the slightest thing, and they try at once the most murderous measures.”
At this moment Stchemilov said very quietly to Elisaveta:
“Not a bad chap. He wants to become acquainted with you, comrade.”
Elisaveta silently inclined her head, smiled amiably at Kiril, and pressed his hand. His face brightened.
Rameyev came up to them. He greeted his visitors pleasantly but coldly, giving an impression of studied correctness. The conversation continued somewhat awkwardly. Elisaveta’s blue eyes looked gently and pensively at the irritated Piotr and at his deliberately inimical adversary Stchemilov.
Piotr asked:
“Mr. Stchemilov, would you care to explain to me this talk of an autocracy by the proletariat? You admit the need of an autocracy, but only wish to shift it to another centre? In what way is this an improvement?”
Stchemilov answered quite simply:
“You masters and possessors do not wish to give us anything—neither a fraction of an ounce of power nor of possessions; what’s left for us to do?”
“What’s your immediate object?” put in Rameyev.
“Immediate or ultimate—what’s that!” answered Stchemilov. “We have only one object: the public ownership of the machinery of production.”
“What of the land?” cried out Piotr rather shrilly.
“Yes, the land too we consider as machinery of production,” answered Stchemilov.
“You imagine that there is an infinite amount of land in Russia?” asked Piotr with bitter irony.
“Not an infinite amount, but certainly enough to go round—and plenty for every one,” was Stchemilov’s calm reply.
“Ten—or, say, a hundred—acres per soul? Is that what you mean?” continued Piotr in loud derision. “You’ve got that idea into the heads of the muzhiks, and now they’re in revolt.”
Stchemilov again whistled, and said with contemptuous calm:
“Fiddlesticks! The muzhik is not as stupid as all that. And in any case, let me ask you what hindered the opposing side from hammering the right ideas into the muzhik’s mind?”
Piotr got up angrily and strode away without saying another word. Rameyev looked quietly after him and said to Stchemilov:
“Piotr loves culture, or, more properly speaking, civilization, too well to appreciate freedom. You insist too strongly on your class interests, and therefore freedom is no such great lure to you. But we Russian constitutionalists are carrying on the struggle for freedom almost alone.”
Stchemilov listened to him and made an effort to suppress an ironic smile.
“It’s true,” he said, “we won’t join hands with you. You wish to fly about in the free air; while we are still ravenously hungry and want to eat.”
Rameyev said after a brief silence:
“I am appalled at this savagery. Murders every day, every day.”
“What’s there to do?” asked Stchemilov, persisting in his ironic tone. “I suppose you’d like to have freedom for domestic use, the sort you could fold up and put in your pocket.”
Rameyev, making no effort to disguise his desire of closing the conversation, rose, smiling, and stretched out his hand to Stchemilov.
“I must go now.”
Misha was about to follow him, but changed his mind and ran towards the river. He found his fishing-rod near the bath-house and entered the water up to his knees. He had long ago accustomed himself to go to the river when agitated by sadness or joy or when he had to think about something very seriously. He was a shy and self-sufficient boy and loved to be alone with his thoughts and his dreams. The coolness of the water running fast about his legs comforted him and banished evil moods. As he stood here, with his naked legs in the water, he became gentle and calm.
Elena soon came there also. She stood silently on the bank and looked at the water. For some reason she felt sad and wanted to cry.
The water glided past her tranquilly, almost noiselessly. Its surface was smooth—and thus it ran on.
Elisaveta looked at Stchemilov with mild displeasure.
“Why are you so sharp, Aleksei?” she asked.
“You don’t like it, comrade?” he asked in return.
“No, I don’t like it,” said Elisaveta in simple, unmistakable tones.
Stchemilov did not reply at once. He grew thoughtful, then said:
“The abyss that separates us from your cousin is too broad. And even between us and your father. It is hard to come together with them. Their chief concern, as you very well know, is to construct a pyramid out of people; ours to scatter this pyramid in an even stratum over the earth. That’s how it is, Elizaveta.”
Elisaveta showed her annoyance and corrected him:
“Elisaveta. How many times have I told you?”
Stchemilov smiled.
“A lordly caprice, comrade Elisaveta. Well, as you like, though it is a trifle hard to pronounce. Now we would say Lizaveta.”
Kiril complained of his failures, of the police, of the detectives, of the patriots. His complaints were pitiful and depressing. He had been arrested and had lost his job. It was easy to see that he had suffered. The gleam of hunger trembled in his eyes.
“The police treated me most horribly,” complained Kiril, “and then there’s my family....”
After an awkward silence he continued:
“Not a single thing escapes them at our factory, you get humiliated at every step. They actually search you.”
Again he lapsed into silence. Again he complained:
“They force their way into your soul. You can’t hold private conversations.... They stop at nothing.”
He told of hunger, he told of a sick old woman. All this was very touching, but it had lost its freshness by constant repetition—the pity of it had become, as it were, stamped out. Kiril, indeed, was a common type, whose state of mind made him valuable as material to be used up at an opportune moment in the interests of a political cause.
Stchemilov was saying:
“The Black Hundred are organizing. Zherbenev is very busy at this—he’s one of your genuine Russians.”
“Kerbakh is with him—another patriot for you,” observed Kiril.
“The most dangerous man in our town, this Zherbenev. Vermin of the most foul kind,” said Stchemilov contemptuously.
“I am going to kill him,” said Kiril hotly.
To this Elisaveta said:
“In order to kill a man you need to believe that one man is essentially better or worse than another, that he is distinct from the other not accidentally or socially, but in the mystic sense. That is to say, murder only confirms inequality.”
“By the way, Elisaveta,” remarked Stchemilov, “we have come to talk business with you.”
“Tell me what it is,” answered Elisaveta calmly.
“We are expecting some comrades from Rouban within the next few days. They are coming to talk things over,” said Stchemilov; “but of course you know all that.”
“Yes, I know,” said Elisaveta.
“We want to use the occasion,” went on Stchemilov, “to organize a mass meeting not far from here for our town factory folk. So here, at last, is your chance to appear as an orator.”
“How can I be of any use?” asked Elisaveta.
“You have the gift of expression, Elisaveta,” said Stchemilov. “You have a good voice, an easy flow of language, and you have a way of putting the case simply and clearly. It would be a sin for you not to speak.”
“We will bring down the Cadets6a peg or two,” said Kiril in his bass voice.
“You’ll forgive Kiril, comrade Elisaveta,” said Stchemilov. “I don’t think he knows that your father is a Cadet. Besides, he’s a rather simple, frank fellow.”
Kiril grew red.
“I know so little,” said Elisaveta timidly. “What shall I talk about, and how?”
“You know enough,” said the other confidently; “more than myself and Kiril put together. You do things remarkably well. Everything you say is so clear and accurate.”
“What shall I talk about?”
“You can draw a picture of the general condition of working men,” answered Stchemilov, “and how capital is forging a hammer against itself and compelling labour to organize.”
Elisaveta grew red and silently inclined her head.
“Then it’s all settled, comrade?” asked Stchemilov.
Elisaveta burst into a laugh.
“Yes, settled,” she exclaimed cheerfully.
It was good to hear this gravely and simply pronounced word “comrade.”